A New Flint? Another City Hands Out Bottled Water Because of Lead Concerns

Following testing by the EPA of household water in Newark, New Jersey that showed high lead levels, city officials have begun handing out bottled water to residents. The city has known about potentially hazardous lead levels for the past two years, and at the end of 2018, officials discovered that their treatment facilities were not adequately processing out lead, leading them to hand out 40,000 water filters. Now, the EPA has issued a warning to Newark residents, saying “We are unable at this time to assure Newark residents that their health is fully protected when drinking tap water filtered through these devices.” Gov. Phil Murphy toured a bottled water distribution center this week, and said that the state and city are working on understanding why homes with filters distributed by the city still failed lead tests. “We are acting in an abundance of caution to make sure that we’re getting out ahead of this. Clean water is a right, not a privilege,” he said. Murphy then emphasized that “the EPA and the federal government are going to have to punch their weight” because this is “well beyond any challenges Newark might be facing. This is a national challenge.” But Mayor Ras Baraka said he was skeptical of the EPA’s findings, because they only tested three houses. “We absolutely do not have enough information to determine whether the filters are working or not. Three data sets is absolutely too small,” he said. Residents are not pleased with Baraka’s explanation though, especially given the possible parallels between Newark’s situation and the one in Flint, Michigan, which has been ongoing since 2014. “We are now in panic mode in this city because the feds had to come in to tell us to stop drinking the water,” said one resident. Erik Olson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which is suing Newark for violating federal safe drinking water standards, said that “the parallels to Flint are fairly clear,” alleging that city officials have long known about the scope of the crisis and did not make their findings public. Senator Cory Booker, who was once mayor of Newark, called attention to another parallel—that both cities have majority non-white populations. "Newark's water emergency demands our federal government's immediate attention. Everyone deserves clean, safe water - it's shameful that our national crisis of lead-contaminated water disproportionately hits poor black and brown communities like my own," he tweeted. [NJ.com; NY Post; ABC 7]

PHILADELPHIA STANDOFF | An eight-hour standoff in Philadelphia ended late Wednesday night after six officers were shot and injured. Police were there to serve an arrest warrant when a gunman open fired, trapping several officers in the building before they were rescued by a SWAT team. "It's nothing short of a miracle that we don’t have multiple officers killed today," Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross Jr. said. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said the suspect "was able to get these weapons, and a large magazine, a large amount of bullets,” because of a lack of gun control legislation in his state, and nationally. "So whether it’s our six officers that were shot or it's some 15-, 17-, 20-year-old kid on the streets of Philadelphia who gets shot with guns that shouldn’t be in people’s hands — it's aggravating, it's saddening, and it's just something we need to do something about. Our officers deserve to be protected, and they don't deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and an unlimited supply of bullets,” he said. None of the officers shot suffered serious injuries, and all have been released from the hospital. The day after the shooting, U.S. Attorney William McSwain, whose district includes Philadelphia, slammed District Attorney Larry Krasner in relation to the incident, saying the DA had promoted a disrespect of law enforcement and his office needed "adult supervision." Krasner, who is considered to be a leading progressive prosecutor, shot back that McSwain. "I’m surprised that William McSwain would seek to detract from the great collaborative work of law enforcement last night―for which bipartisan leaders in City Hall just minutes ago had nothing but praise, and rightly so―for his own political agenda and personal gain,” he said. [Philadelphia Inquirer; NBC News; HuffPost]

PLASTIC BAGS | In Texas, ranchers are raising concerns over plastic bags that end up in their grazing pastures as a result of litter, causing cows and horses to choke when they swallow them. Though several municipalities had plastic bag bans in place, last year the Texas Supreme Court struck down the city of Laredo’s ban, ending the policies throughout the state. One justice, in a concurring opinion, said that the state legislature should take up the issue instead of municipalities. Democratic lawmakers proposed legislation this session that would have allowed municipalities to regulate plastic bags, but these bills did not come up for a vote. Arturo Rodriguez, the city of Brownsville's public health and wellness director, said that lawmakers "don't want the federal government to tell them what to do, but they turn around and want the state to have control over the communities. It’s a bit ironic because municipalities need to be able to exercise their due diligence within their domains." Jose Aliseda, a former Republican state representative who is also a rancher, said that plastic and chemical lobbyists have too much power for the legislature to act. “The honest truth is there's not enough [ranchers advocating for this]. Yes, we're a big part of the economy, but as far as the number of people, there's not that many ranchers and farmers in the whole country.” Chemical companies spent up to $1.4 million lobbying during the 2019 session. [Texas Tribune; Houston Chronicle]

BORDER WAR | The governors of Kansas and Missouri signed an agreement this week to end the “economic border war” between their two states, in which each would offer incentives to businesses of the other to move across state lines. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, said that incentivizing companies to move the few miles into his state did not result in new jobs.“I think there’s a much better use for taxpayer money that we can be utilizing. And the incentives that we were doing before it seemed to me to be a waste,” he said. Estimates on the impact of the border war have found that 10,000 jobs moved between Missouri and Kansas in the past ten years, at a cost of $330 million in incentives. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, noted that both states have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on incentives. “We (Kansas) have really been through a world of hurt in the past eight years and we’ve got an economy to grow, jobs to grow, population to grow,” Kelly said. [Missourinet; Brookings Institution]

NEW YORK THEORIES  | New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested in an interview this week that he believes Jeffrey Epstein, an alleged child rapist and trafficker, may have been murdered, rather than committing suicide in a federal jail in his city. “This is way too convenient. This makes no sense. He’s one of the most prominent prisoners in America, at that point...He needed to be watched 24 hours a day. It’s one of the premier federal facilities in the country. It belongs to the Justice Department...come on, how on Earth do they miss this?” de Blasio said. De Blasio then said that he is “not a conspiracy theorist by nature” but that the situation demands a “full investigation.” De Blasio is not the only one to question the circumstances of Epstein’s death. Two jail staffers in Epstein’s unit were asleep during the hours they were supposed to do wellness checks on him, but both then falsified their reports, which has fueled further debate. U.S. Attorney General William Barr has vowed to investigate. “We will get to the bottom of what happened,” he said. On Thursday, the Washington Post, citing sources, reported that that an autopsy finding that Epstein had several bone breaks in his neck deepened “the mystery about the circumstances around his death.” [Newsweek; New York Times]