Booker left Newark years before lead levels in the water increased, but what happened under his watch?

The water crisis in Newark drew unwanted attention to the mandate of mayor Cory Booker, a candidate for the Democratic presidency, and the management of the city's water supply system long before lead climb into drinking water.

The problems in the city reached new heights last week when officials launched a massive distribution of more than 70,000 cases of bottled water.

Booker, who headed Newark as mayor from 2006 to 2013, left the country before high levels of lead were discovered in the water supply in 2017. Tests conducted throughout the city in 2015, two years after his election to the US Senate, revealed no problem. The campaign rejected all assertions that he was responsible for it.

In a letter sent last week to the US Environmental Protection Agency, Booker called for "immediate assistance" and assistance for the supply of bottled water to Newark residents.

"Newark's urgency for water demands the immediate attention of our federal government," Booker tweeted Wednesday. "Everyone deserves clean, safe water and it is shameful that our national crisis of lead-contaminated water disproportionately hits poor black and brown communities like mine."

Nevertheless, opponents took the opportunity to criticize his monitoring of the city's water supply, as former Vice President Joe Biden said of the Department of Justice's Departmental Inquiry. of Newark police under Booker.

"As mayor of Newark, Cory Booker was either aware of the water quality issues and had not acted, or completely incompetent," said Chris Martin, spokesman for the Republican research group America Rising.

Booker had to face his own water scandal, which remains one of the biggest black marks of his local reign shortly after his accession to the US Senate.

A state audit report in 2014 revealed a widespread abuse of public funds and no significant oversight by the semi-public agency responsible for processing and supplying water to the north of Jersey, the water company. conservation and development of the Newark Watershed Basin.

The charges quickly followed.

Criminal charges have engulfed at least nine people, including consultants, subcontractors and an ally of Booker who ran the agency, Linda Watkins-Brashear. Watkins-Brashear was head of the water department from 2007 to 2013 and is currently serving an eight-year jail term for soliciting bribes in exchange for non-work contracts or exaggerated contracts. The watershed society receives $ 10 million a year from the city.

The $ 1 million corruption system eventually sunk the agency.

Booker was ex officio chairman of the watershed board, but never attended a meeting. He has never been the subject of an investigation or a crime charge and his name has also been struck out of a lawsuit alleging that he was not charged. 39; had not supervised the agency.

Dan O'Flaherty, an economist at Columbia University who briefly served as Booker's chief financial officer, said Booker had left a water service in worse shape than his mayor.

"The quality of professional engineering was less than optimal," said O'Flaherty, who helped uncover corruption at the turn, said: "The likelihood that someone is committing an error was greater when he left than when he entered. "

The Watershed Corporation, which was in charge of the management of the Pequannock treatment facility, at the center of the current water crisis in Newark, was finally dissolved in 2013 as its functions were absorbed by the city.

The Pequannock treatment plant was back in the spotlight in 2017 when the facility's water treatment, known as corrosion control, failed to protect the lead from the 18,000 old pipes lead city leaching into the drinking water supply.

It is unclear when corrosion control has become ineffective, but a municipal water consultant estimated that the treatment had stopped working just before the increase in lead levels almost three years ago.

A review by NJ Advance Media of the consultant's study revealed a key reason for the likely failure of water treatment: Around 2012 – when Booker was still mayor – Newark changed the acidity levels of the water , or pH, to avoid violating another federal standard, one that limits the levels of possibly carcinogenic chemicals that may form during the disinfection of water. Experts say the modified pH probably made the water more corrosive – and more likely to lodge at the pipelines, causing lead spall in the source. In other words, the control of the city's corrosion has not just stopped working. Newark changed the chemical composition of the water, which probably made the lead treatment less effective over time.

The consulting firm, CDM Smith, said that a misunderstanding about how the city's corrosion control works meant that officials could not know that adjustments to its pH would have these consequences.

"A decisive series of decisions has been made to reduce pH levels," said O'Flaherty. "We do not know who succeeded, how they did it, what their reasoning was. In retrospect, it does not seem necessary to be an extremely sophisticated chemist to know when we make water more acidic, it will corrode more. "

Newark schools also showed high levels of lead in 2016, pushing more than 30 schools to close their fountains. However, city officials said the school's lead problems were caused by the old lead plumbing, not the water treatment. The plumbing has been replaced and the water filters installed.

Alarming sampling last week showed that water filters in two of the three homes tested did not remove lead to the expected levels. The filters are nationally certified and used throughout the country, including Flint, Michigan. The results shocked officials in the state and federal government, causing the immediate distribution of bottled water.

The filters, 39,000 of which were distributed, were designed as a short-term solution, while city officials introduced a new corrosion control treatment, lasting six months to a year. Newark, with the help of the state, has also launched a $ 75 million program to replace the city's 18,000 service lines, but that will take eight years.

Booker cosponsored a bill that would give states more flexibility to access funding and allow faster replacement of thousands of service lines in the older cities. The bill was introduced this spring.

"Every American deserves to drink clean, safe water," said Sabrina Singh, a spokeswoman for the Booker campaign. More than 3,000 communities across the country have children whose blood lead levels are twice as high as Flint's. This national crisis disproportionately affects poor black and brown communities – and will continue until we repair our decaying infrastructure. "

O'Flaherty said one of his long-term concerns was restoring public confidence in the waters of the city.

"Say that Pequannock water will go well, how to convince people to drink it? I do not think the city has much credibility on this, because it is often said that the water is good. "

Read more about NJ.comThe cover of The water problems of New Jersey here.

Karen Yi can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi Or on Facebook.

Jonathan D. Salant can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant Or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

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