Lead In Brick's Water? Here's What DEP Records Show

BRICK, NJ — Does Brick Township have dangerous levels of lead in its water supply? It's a question that raises eyebrows and has been on the minds of many people since the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, exploded into the nation's consciousness.

While the attention on Flint has faded despite the fact the drinking water remains unusable without filters, the issue of lead in drinking water continues to be raised elsewhere. The crisis in Flint led to testing of water in some of New Jersey's inner-city schools; results from 30 schools in Newark found lead levels as high as 35 times above the federal action limit of 15 parts per billion, according to a report in NJ.com.

Last May, Gov. Chris Christie announced that all of the state's 3,000 schools would be tested for lead exposure, and the state appropriated $10 million to help cover the costs. In the Brick Township School District, that process has been underway since October. It is a complex process, described in detail by William Kolibas, the Brick schools' facilities director, in an interview with the Patch in early December, and also spelled out in a document where the school district details its testing plans.

Brick Township school officials have released results on the testing as they have become available, notifying parents via letters that have been posted on the district's website. And while those results have resulted in actions from shutting off faucets to replacing old drinking fountains and removing others completely.

At Tuesday's Brick Township Council meeting, Anthony Matthews stepped to the microphone and questioned Mayor John Ducey and the council about water quality and lead in the water being produced by the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority on the basis of test results in the school district.

"There are rumors," Matthews said, and challenged reporters in the room to "look into" issues of water quality in the township, which he said were getting worse over the last five years.

Matthews is the former acting executive director of the Brick Township Housing Authority; in 2014, he was ousted from his position as acting executive director; Vera Fozman, wife of Democratic Councilman Jim Fozman, who was chair of the housing authority's board at the time, said in a letter to her fellow board members that the state Department of Community Affairs said Matthews did not have the required qualifications to become the executive director.

Ducey, responding to Matthews, said questions about water quality should be directed to the MUA, and Fozman, an MUA commissioner, invited Matthews to attend the MUA meeting that is scheduled for Thursday night at the MUA's offices at 1551 Route 88, not far from Ocean Medical Center.

So just what are the facts about the lead levels in the water in Brick Township and in the school district?

Kolibas, the schools' facilities director, provided an update Thursday, saying that all of the district's schools have been tested; at this time the district is awaiting results of the testing conducted at Brick Township and Brick Memorial high schools. Results for Warren H. Wolf Elementary School have not yet been posted on the district's website. There have been 440 sites tested in the schools, Kolibas said, including those at the high schools; not including the high schools, 322 sites have been tested. Of the 322 where the district has posted results, 35 exceeded the 15 ppb for lead, which is the action level set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as the maximum allowable level, as lead in drinking water can have serious health impacts, especially for children.

The testing, Kolibas has said, includes sampling at the sites where the water supply comes into the school buildings. The only point-of-entry test that exceeded the 15ppb was the point-of-entry bib in the boiler room at Emma Havens Young Elementary School, where the initial sample had a level of 19.7ppb and the flushed sample — taken after the water ran for 30 seconds — was below 0.29ppb, according to the district's published results.

Only one school had a significant number of classroom bubblers — the water fountains in the classrooms — affected; Drum Point Elementary School had to shut down nine bubblers, the district said. In the remainder of the buildings, the sites where samples showed lead levels exceeding 15ppb were diverse. Two buildings had no samples exceeding 15ppb, and two others had just one sample each: one hallway fountain at Veterans Memorial Middle School, and an annex sink at Herbertsville School that is not used for drinking water.

The disparity of sources and the fact that none of the schools had building-wide contamination points to the conclusion that there is no widespread lead contamination of the drinking water in Brick's schools. You can see the letters sent home to parents so far at the following links:

• Drum Point Elementary School
• Emma Havens Young Elementary School
• Herbertsville Elementary School
• Lake Riviera Middle School
• Lanes Mill Elementary School
• Midstreams Elementary School
• Osbornville Elementary School
• Veterans Memorial Elementary School
• Veterans Memorial Middle School
• Board of Education administrative building

The water in five Brick schools showed elevated lead levels in 2012; a Patch report at the time said the district shut off all sources of drinking water and distributed bottled water while issues were addressed. The district had drinking water sources in each building tested due to the age of the buildings and Garden State Environmental, Inc. (GSE), a New Jersey environmental consulting firm with extensive experience in drinking water and related environmental issues, "conducted preliminary and limited testing of 4 sources of potable water" (i.e. water fountains, sinks, etc.) in each school. There was no implication at that time that water provided by the MUA was at fault.

Matthews, in his comments Tuesday night, urged reporters to "look at the last five years" of water quality reports for the MUA.

Those reports are required to be filed with the state Department of Environmental Protection, which publishes the information on its Drinking Water Watch webpage.

There is information for every water supply organization the DEP monitors in the state; click here for the Brick Township MUA page. That page includes information on sampling schedules for everything from coliform (the bacteria that's measured at the beaches) to volatile organic compounds like trichloroethylene, as well as results on those tests.

According to the current schedule, the Brick MUA is required to intensively test lead and copper levels in the water every six months. That requirement has been in place since the start of 2016, according to the DEP page. Prior to that, Brick's water had been tested for lead and copper triennially — every three years. That changed to seminannually following testing in 2014 where the township's 90th percentile figure was 100.8ppb for lead. Bob Considine, spokesman for the DEP, said that no more than 10 percent of a system's water samples can exceed the EPA action level standard of 15ppb. In the 2014 testing submitted to the DEP in October of that year (those results can be found here), 16 of the 34 samples exceeded 15ppb, including four samples that exceeded 100ppb.

Those results triggered community notification in 2014 that sparked controversy in the town, as residents pummeled the MUA switchboard with calls expressing concerns about the safety of the water.

Joe Maggio, director of water quality for the MUA, in late 2014 said the test results were from water samples from 30 homes built between 1982 and 1987. For the tests, the customers were required to allow water to accumulate in their pipes undisturbed for six hours before collecting a sample, Maggio said.

Homes built between 1982 and 1987 are targeted for the testing because during that time, lead-based solder was used to connect water piping in homes -- a practice banned in 1986 under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. “These tests were geared to a worst-case scenario,” he said at the time of the notification.

Since then, the MUA has tested twice a year. Test results from the Jan. 1, 2016-June 30, 2016 showed just one sample exceeding 100ppb and five overall out of 61 samples exceeding 15ppb and a 90th percentile figure of 11.92ppb. From July 1, 2016-Dec. 31, 2016, the results of 60 samples showed just two exceeding 15ppb and none exceeding 100ppb and a 90th percentile figure of 4.72ppb. The results for 48 samples tested for Jan. 1, 2017-June 30, 2017 (the testing was conducted in April) had just one sample exceeding 15ppb and a 90th percentile figure of 5.1ppb.

In addition to the notification, the MUA in 2014 began using a corrosion inhibitor to reduce the action of water causing lead to leach from solder used to connect and seal copper pipes.

In addition to the testing results, the DEP's Drinking Water Watch website includes a record of violations by water suppliers. The DEP record lists 13 individual Brick MUA violations going back to 1985; the 2014 lead violation is included. The township also received a lead violation in 1997. There are three group violations issued for testing results being submitted late.

Lead in drinking water can cause serious health problems, especially for pregnant women and children 6 years or younger. It can cause damage to the brain and kidneys, and can interfere with the production of red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of your body. Scientists have linked the effects of lead on the brain with lowered IQ in children. Adults with kidney problems and high blood pressure can be affected by low levels of lead more than healthy adults. Lead is stored in the bones and it can be released later in life. During pregnancy, the child receives lead from the mother’s bones, which may affect brain development.

The MUA suggests these steps to reduce your exposure to lead in your water:

• Run water for 15-30 seconds to flush lead from interior plumbing or until it becomes cold or reaches a steady temperature before using it for drinking or cooking, if it hasn’t been used for several hours.
• Use cold water for cooking and preparing baby formula.
• Do not boil water to remove lead. Boiling water will not reduce lead.
• Look for alternative drinking water sources or treatment of water. You may want to consider purchasing bottled water or a water filter.
• Test your water for lead. Call 732-458-7000 ext. 4255 to find out how to get your water tested for lead.
• Get your child’s blood tested. Contact your local health department or healthcare provider to find out how you can get your child tested for lead if you are concerned about exposure.
• Identify and replace plumbing fixtures containing lead.

Residents with questions can Brick Utilities at 732-458-7000 ext. 4255 or visit Brick Utilities’ Web site at www.BrickUtilities.com to find out how to get your water tested for lead or for more information on steps Brick Utilities is taking to address the lead action level exceedance.

"When we do have issues with public water supplies or private wells, we have the safeguards in place by virtue of EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule that requires these wells and utilities to address those concerns and also publicly notify people who use those sources of those lead issues," Considine has said previously. "I think from that standpoint, New Jersey has a very good record of private well owners and public utilities addressing lead concerns so they’re not long-term."

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