It was a big day for Newark as the Brick City took its first step in an effort to provide citizens with safer, cleaner drinking water.

The city’s Water and Sewer Department broke ground on the first phase of the lead service line replacement project, which will replace 1,500 water service lines in residential areas of the city.

“This is a final opportunity for us to minimize the kind of access to lead that our residents have in their drinking water by changing these lead service lines,” said Mayor Ras Baraka. “This is the ultimate place where we want to be, actually changing the water infrastructure, which is very, very old, in this city."

Phase one of the project is expected to take about a year to complete, but the total replacement of the city’s water infrastructure should take eight years. The city will be replacing 15,000 lead service lines on private property.

The project will cost the city about $75 million to complete.