Mr. Baraka said bottled water distribution would continue while city, state and federal agencies continue to test the filters and the tap water to determine how widespread the problem is.

City and county officials are expected to approve the financing plan in the coming days, enabling contractors to begin presenting bids to the city.

A water line replacement project the size and scale of Newark’s would be a first for New Jersey, and among the first projects of its kind in the nation given the compressed time frame.

“I don’t know of any other city of this size that has tried to replace all their lead service lines in this kind of time frame,” said Erik Olson, a senior director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group that has sued the city over the lead levels.

The city has thousands more lead service lines — garden-hose size pipes that connect its water mains to individual properties — to replace than did Flint, Mich., which has been grappling with its lead-tainted water since 2014.

Since the pipes are laid mostly under private property, the city cannot act unilaterally to excavate them; residents need to request a replacement and then grant access to the city’s contractors. In Newark, where 70 percent of residents are renters, it can be difficult to track down landlords.