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Baraka Denounces Comparisons of Newark To Flint Michigan

Alexandra Hill
/
News

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka is pushing back against reports of elevated levels of lead and other toxins in the city’s water supply amid comparisons to the crisis in Flint, Michigan, by the Natural Resources Defense Council. 

Baraka says Flint's water crisis, which was caused by the city's failure to apply corrosion control treatment is incomparable to that of Newark, adding that they became aware of the issue in October after a self-commissioned report.

“Our corrosion control inhibitor stopped working we didn’t purposefully take it out of the water, so to make a comparison is not only disingenuous, and to me its almost insulting, because we didn’t do that. Ours stopped working and we immediately began to put another corrosion control inhibitor in the water, plus we advocated with the state before the report came out, to change people’s lead service lines.”

Baraka says when it comes to lead, it is the older lead service lines that are to blame, and says less than twenty thousand residents out of a population of more than three hundred thousand are affected.

Alexandra Hill began her work with WBGO in June of 2012 in the news department. A graduate of the Rutgers Newark journalism program, Alexandra was also a student of WBGO News Director Doug Doyle. Alexandra has since become the lead general assignment reporter, afternoon news anchor, and producer of the award winning live call in show Newark Today. Since working for WBGO Alexandra has covered politics in and around Newark including the 2014 mayoral campaign of Mayor Ras Baraka as well as the senate campaigns of former Newark Mayor and now U.S. Senator Cory Booker in both 2013 and 2014. Alexandra also covers a host of human-interest stories, and has been recognized by the New York Association Of Black Journalists for her piece entitled Sheltering Newark’s Homeless.