The city is now facing a lawsuit from a non-profit on behalf of residents.
Extremely upset," Newark resident Yvette Jordan said.
Everything is fine,’" Jordan recounted.
But the city is now telling residents in some areas their tap water is not fine: it contains lead above federal guidelines.
Mayor Ras Baraka said the problem comes from old water pipes found in some neighborhoods that leach lead into the drinking water.
The study report came back last month and found a problem at one of the city’s two water treatment plants: the methods used to stop lead from leaching into drinking water from those old pipes?
"The city has really been in denial and shrugged their shoulders and said our water is safe, people should drink it, until just a couple of weeks ago until we sued them and asked for an injunction on behalf of the citizens in Newark to clean up the water," Olson said.
The group is suing the city for violating the federal drinking water law, saying the lead levels are "some of the highest" of "any large city" nationally, a problem they compare to that of Flint, Michigan.
"But from this, from the water."
"No," Baraka said.

Across the country, families are exposed to dangerous chemicals in their water—and the families most at risk are those living on or near military bases.
Their ability to repel oil and water and persist at high temperatures makes them attractive for use in everyday items like nonstick cookware and food packaging, in water-repellent gear, and in firefighting foam used primarily by the US military.
UCS recently released a factsheet that investigated PFAS contamination at US military bases, and the results were unsettling.
A new report from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) says that the threshold for danger from PFAS starts much lower than previously suspected—and that sites across the country are at risk.
Unfortunately, this does not come as a surprise to me.
Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), UCS obtained email correspondence between the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Department of Defense (DoD).
These emails suggested that the administration was interfering with the release of the ATSDR report on PFAS.
Fortunately, the administration’s attempt to bury the PFAS report has backfired, drawing more attention to the issue.
If we’re not listening to science and basing our decisions on the best available information, public health and safety can be compromised and the public’s ability to engage meaningfully suffers.
Members of the military and their families deserve better than having the risks they face concealed.

NEAR NORTH BEND, Wash. — Eighty-two Sallal Water Association customers near North Bend were told not to drink their tap water for several more days after a break-in at one of the association’s water towers.
The FBI has joined the King County Sheriff’s Office’s investigation because of the significance of what happened, a KCSO spokesman said Thursday.
"Literally, the first thing that I did after grabbing some bottled water is putting everything out here."
The warnings went out to 82 homes, including hers, after someone broke into a 158,0000 gallon water tower near North Bend and vandalized the property.
Small white balls, which are now believed to be bio-degradable air-soft gun pellets, were found on the property, he added.
An employee noticed the damage on Wednesday after getting a report that someone was seen coming out of the water tower property, a KCSO spokesman said.
Several samples of the water will be tested to make sure it’s safe, Abbott said.
It could take up to two days to get the test results back, so affected customers were asked not to drink their tap water until at least Saturday morning, he said.
"It kind of makes your preparedness plan a little more real," Pyle told KOMO News.
The Sallal Water Association will post an update on its website when the water test results are back, Abbott said.

The lock that person cut off was to the hatch that accesses the drinking water inside.
“The worker noticed a lot of little white pellets in the area and got suspicious and took some for evidence,” said Ryan Abbott, with the King County Sheriff’s Office.
“Seems like you ought to be able to lock an entrance to the tower, access to the tower, and secure it in a way you can pretty much guarantee no one is getting in there,” said Andrew Heintz, who lives in North Bend.
The Office of Drinking Water with the DOH is helping Sallal with testing to make sure the water is clean.
“A number of years ago, there was a requirement that all systems that serve 3,300 people and more were required to do a vulnerability analysis,” James said.
James said that requirement was put in after 9-11.
The level of security found at the vandalized North Bend tower had a barb-wire fence that was locked, plus a lock on the access hatch at the top.
KIRO7 reached out to Sallal Thursday afternoon to ask if it would tighten its security after the incident but they did not respond by the publication of this story.
Some residents in North Bend are being warned not to drink their tap water on Wednesday after someone broke into the water tower and vandalized it Tuesday, contaminating the water supply, deputies said.
Ryan Abbott told KIRO 7 several locks were cut inside of the tower on Mt.

FLINT, MI — Results from new sampling for PFAS in Flint show four additional locations at the former Buick City factory are contaminated, and one residence near a second closed General Motors facility has the chemicals in its well.
"We have some … preliminary results and they’re pretty high," said Grant Trigger, Michigan cleanup manager for RACER Trust, about Buick City.
There’s no indication the contamination is reaching drinking water supplies in the city, Trigger said.
Results are still being reviewed, Trigger said, even as RACER plans a pair of community meetings in November to discuss PFAS on its sites and answer questions.
The Buick City property had been a factory site for a century before it moved into RACER’s control for cleanup and redevelopment after the GM bankruptcy.
Cleanup is ongoing, and parcels have been sold to new industrial users.
The new locations at Buick City with PFOS are: The old GM wastewater treatment plant on Stewart Avenue, at 4,800 ppt.
RACER is collecting more samples near the storm sewer, with results expected back in the first week of November.
Four additional monitoring wells will be added to the property starting this week, allowing more groundwater tests.
Homes on Stanley Road near the long-closed landfill on the property were tested for PFAS, with one reaching a combined 69 ppt for both PFOS and PFOA.

Austin Water, the city’s public water utility, will undergo a comprehensive review of its operations and actions leading up to last week’s unprecedented citywide boil water notice, according to Austin’s city manager Spencer Cronk.
Following weeks of extended rainfall and flooding in the Central Texas region, Austin Water’s water treatment plants became clogged by the extraordinary amounts of sediment that flushed into the Colorado River, Austin’s sole source of water.
The subsequent inefficiency of the city’s water treatment process led to contaminants remaining in the water and forced officials to issue Austin’s first citywide boil water notice between Oct. 22 and 28.
In a memo issued to the mayor and city council on Sunday, Cronk said on top of continued maintenance, clean up and operational checks, Austin Water will complete a pair of comprehensive reviews that look at necessary next steps and reflect on steps that need to be corrected before another similar emergency occurs.
Cronk said all city and county departments, hospitals, schools and non-profits would participate in the review.
“This is a comprehensive review that will include internal communications, decision-making, resource deployment, emergency procurement, staff coordination and other areas,” he said.
According to the memo, similar reviews were issued following destructive floods in 2013 and 2015.
However, Austin Water will conduct its own review, with help from the Lower Colorado River Authority and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality of its handling of the water emergency.
“[Austin Water] will report out its findings and provide recommendations to improve drinking water treatment systems resiliency,” Cronk said in the memo.
“Special emphasis will be placed on identifying action steps that can be taken in the very short term to strengthen the drinking water treatment systems response to raw water upset events of this nature.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Environmental groups are challenging an EPA rule they say will gut coal ash disposal regulations aimed at protecting Indiana citizens living near toxic coal ash waste sites.
The courts have already agreed the risks posed by coal ash can no longer be ignored, and that’s why we’re fighting this most-recent Wheeler roll back."
“The courts are telling EPA that the coal ash rule is not strong enough, and meanwhile EPA is trying to weaken the rule.
It’s absurd.
The American people deserve better.” "It’s clear the Trump administration doesn’t value protecting human health, especially if corporate special interests could be slightly inconvenienced," said Jennifer Peters, National Water Programs Director for Clean Water Action.
"This outrageous scheme would let coal plants put communities, families, and water at risk with impunity.
As RTV6 reported in April, the Hoosier Environmental Council’s Environmental Health Director testified to the federal Environmental Protection Agency about the dangers of coal ash pollution generated by coal-fired power plants.
“Fifteen Indiana power plants released groundwater monitoring reports last month, and all of them show contamination of the groundwater so that it exceeds either a drinking water standard, health advisory, or tap water screening level,” testified Dr. Indra Frank, the Hoosier Environmental Council’s Environmental Health Director in April.
The Hoosier Environmental Council pointed to a new report showing dangerous levels of coal ash contamination around the state.
IPL’s Harding Street plant burned coal up until February 2016, and the byproducts are stored in unlined coal ash lagoons.

ALLEGAN, MI – Four homes with chromium-contaminated private well water in Allegan Township will soon be connected to Allegan’s municipal water supply.
The EPA sampled 21 wells in Allegan, a U.S. EPA spokesperson said.
The properties that will be switched to the municipal system draw water from two wells that tested high for chromium contamination.
Allegan’s municipal drinking water is not affected by chromium contamination, according to the news release.
Because it is too early in the EPA’s water quality testing process to determine the source of contamination, the EPA will cover the cost of the transfer, according to the spokesperson.
Property owners with private wells where chromium contamination was not found or found in low levels can also request a connection to the municipal water system at their own expense, according the news release.
An estimated 2 million gallons of water, used to extinguish the fire, permeated into the groundwater, according to the website.
In June 2017, test results from a second residential well showed chromium levels again exceeding the EPA’s maximum contamination level.
Chromium compounds are used for chrome plating, dyes and leather and wood preservation.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is working with the U.S. EPA, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, Allegan County Health Department, Allegan Township and the city of Allegan to ensure public health and safety is maintained, according to the website.

GRAND HAVEN, Mich. – The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality says that the drinking water at a Grand Haven elementary school has tested positive for elevated levels of PFAS contamination.
Students and staff at Robinson Elementary are now being provided with bottled water, after the school and district was notified of the increased levels Monday.
No other schools in the Grand Haven Area Public Schools district tested positive for PFAS.
Principal Jeff Markus tells FOX 17 that he is unaware if neighboring homes or businesses have been tested.
The Ottawa County Health Department says that the combined PFAS and PFOS levels for the school was measured at 110 parts per trillion (ppt).
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Health Advisory Level for combined levels is 70 ppt.
Total levels were recorded at 144 ppt.
The MEDQ has been testing drinking water at all schools that use wells and community water supplies for PFAS since contamination began showing up in wells around the state, including in the Rockford and Belmont areas and in Parchment, Michigan.
PFAS are part of a group of chemicals previously used in manufacturing and firefighting products.
We’ll have more from the school on later editions of FOX 17 News.

GUWAHATI: Contaminated water has made Assam the second highest State in the country in reporting deaths due to acute diarrhoeal diseases and enteric fever (typhoid).
Both acute diarrhoeal diseases and enteric fever are caused by contaminated water.
In 2017, the state had reported 1, 65,377 cases of acute diarrhoeal diseases with 239 deaths.
Uttar Pradesh reported the maximum number of deaths, 302, of the 12, 19,071 cases of acute diarrhoeal diseases reported.
Out 15,137 enteric (typhoid) cases reported in Assam in 2017, there were 122 deaths.
Bihar and Karnataka reported more cases than Assam but deaths reported in the two States two and four respectively.
There were 248 deaths in Uttar Pradesh out of 6, 40,678 reported cases.
Such poor health scenario has come to light after the latest publication of National Health Profile 2018 by the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence.
“Flood ravaged people tend to stay together in camps set up by the administration in different districts and this close proximity gives rise to infection.
Dhubri district, one of the worst hit by floods last year, had reported more than 700 cases of enteric fever since the onset of heavy floods in June 2017.