DOJ alleges fraud in Newark’s lead pipe replacement program

By Miranda Willson | 10/03/2024 01:28 PM EDT

New Jersey’s largest city had been hailed as a model for combating the drinking water hazard, but the FBI found some pipes had been “intentionally” left in situ.

A utility crew places a toxic lead water pipe onto the road after extracting it from an apartment building.

A utility crew places a toxic lead water pipe onto the road after extracting it from an apartment building and under the street in Newark, New Jersey, on Oct. 21, 2021. The Department of Justice alleges that a contractor hired to replace the lead pipes kept some in place. Ted Shaffrey/AP

A contractor hired to replace lead pipes in New Jersey’s largest city “intentionally” left some of the pipes in place, prolonging the city’s water contamination crisis, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

Newark, New Jersey, has been hailed as a model for removing lead pipes, which can leach toxic heavy metals into drinking water. After facing high lead levels in water and under intense pressure from community activists, city officials began replacing the pipes and said they had removed all “known” lead lines in 2022.

But Newark’s efforts were thwarted by JAS Group Enterprise, a construction company hired in 2020 to identify, remove and replace some of the water lines made of lead, according to the federal complaint released Thursday.

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The Burlington, New Jersey-based company submitted misleading photographs and false information to the city indicating that they replaced lead pipes, but JAS employees knowingly left them in the ground, the DOJ complaint alleges. The company also reported to the city that it “replaced” lead pipes with copper ones in locations where copper was already in use, the complaint says.

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