To help residents of Newark with elevated lead levels in their home water systems, Assemblywoman Shanique Speight (D-Essex) joined leaders from Brondell home products company to distribute certified water filters the company donated to residents in need on Thursday.
Brondell Inc,, a San Francisco-based home products manufacturer specializing in high-tech air and water filtration mechanisms, donated 2,000 Coral carbon block home water filters to Newark residents in partnership with the local nonprofit Happy Hands and the Illinois-based LaSaint Logistics. Speight and Brondell President Steven Scheer handed out water filters at the new Newark Central Ward Community Center on Thursday alongside community leaders, clergy members and local families.
“Serving on the Assembly Health Committee, it’s extremely important for me to continue to work with the residents in my community,” said Speight. “I am appreciative of Brondell Inc who reached out to my office to contribute 2,000 lead certified home water filter systems here in Newark and the New Jersey vicinity.”
“We firmly believe access to safe, clean drinking water is a right, not a privilege,” said Scheer. “As healthy home innovators and advocates, we not only felt for the community affected by this crisis, but considered it our duty to help in any way that we could. We knew it was our responsibility to pitch in and help, both for residents’ safety and for the sake of their environment.”
“It’s this kind of collaboration, the coming together of businesses, local organizations and lawmakers, that will truly help Newark residents while additional steps are being taken to address water infrastructure and lead concerns,” said Speaker Craig Coughlin (D-Middlesex). “I applaud Assemblywoman Speight and the Brondell Corporation for working together to implement a plan that will enable hundreds of residents to protect their families and homes.”
“Aging water infrastructure is not merely a Newark problem, it is a national problem,” said Governor Phil Murphy. “This is a time for all of us – local, state, and federal government, advocates, and community partners, and the business community – to come together to find solutions that can not only help our residents here in Newark, but across the country. I applaud Assemblywoman Speight and Brondell for their collaboration and leadership on this issue.”
Brondell’s Coral Undercounter Water Filtration Systems are designed to integrate easily into existing sinks and waterlines of any home so that residents with unsafe water systems will be able to filter heavy metals like lead and mercury, as well as source contaminants like chlorine, MTBE, herbicides, industrial chemicals, and volatile organic compounds. In donating the filters, the company’s goal is to eliminate the need for water bottles in many homes so that resources are available in the case of other emergencies or natural disasters.