Newark residents who have old lead pipes pumping water to their homes will be eligible for free bottled water starting Monday after recent testing results questioned the effectiveness of the 38,000 filters distributed by the city to address its ongoing lead problem.

On Sunday, Gov. Phil Murphy and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka announced eligible residents can pick up water at four locations beginning at 3 p.m. The action comes days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency urged the city to provide bottled water to affected residents and told officials it was “essential” to warn people not to rely on filters until more sampling was done.

New testing results revealed two of three homes using nationally-certified filters were not removing lead as expected. It’s unclear whether the problem is an anomaly with those two filters or reflective of a wider problem.
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