Schools as Partners in Lead Safety

Lead in School News

• Jan. 06, 2025​. SYRACUSE.COM Drinking water in Syracuse schools fails lead tests over and over. There’s a better way to keep kids safe​. "In the latest round of testing, lead levels exceeded the state’s safety limit in fixtures at nearly every Syracuse school, a Syracuse.com investigation has found.​ Across 33 buildings, water in 138 sinks and 36 water fountains tested too high for lead.​ One of every 10 fixtures failed the lead test, according to the Syracuse.com analysis.​ Schools in New York state are required to test building water for lead every three years.​ The district has managed to bring the lead levels down to a safe amount in every building. Staff replaced different parts of fixtures or installed new ones. After replacing the bubblers on some of the fountains at Delaware, January tests found almost no lead in the water.​ Often, though, it’s unclear where the lead is coming from or what change will fix it. Some fixtures are repaired and retested two or three times before they reach a safe level​. The patchwork response leaves kids vulnerable in the years between required testing.​ When did a fountain become dangerous in the three years between tests? How many kids drank that water while the district waited for the next round of testing?​ The district appears to be following state recommendations and requirements to fix the problem, but experts say it’s only the bare minimum. Tests may be unreliable, they say, and students could be left drinking lead-contaminated water even after fixtures are updated.​ Best practices in other states show the solution is simple and affordable.​ Instead of Syracuse’s “test and tell” practice, experts say the district should install centralized bottle filling stations and fountains with “point of use” filters – 1 for every 100 students. For the school population in Syracuse, that would cost about $500,000, according to equipment estimates from the Natural Resources Defense Council.​" A well researched story with no clear answers. Read more on Lead in Schools

• Lead and Water: Drinking Water Safety and Filtration. "Milwaukee Water Works monitors, treats, and purifies the city's water, but some older homes may still have old lead pipes which can contaminate the water source. Follow these simple steps to check for lead pipes in your home, reduce potential water risks, and choose a filter to keep your home's drinking water safe." 

• Aug. 20, 2024. NBC News. Oakland school district says it failed to properly warn parents about lead in water "The California school district admits that 'we did not communicate effectively to the members of each school community as the testing launched.' A major Northern California school district disclosed Monday that nearly 200 of its drinking fountains and water faucets have elevated lead levels and that parents were wrongly kept in the dark. The Oakland Unified School District, the state’s 11th-largest system, with more than 45,000 students, recently tested 1,083 of its campus faucets and fountains, looking for lead concentrations of more than 5 parts per billion (ppb)." Here's more: A concerned parent’s guide to lead contamination in Oakland schools

• August 22, 2024. LAist. Lead in South LA water "Danielle Hauge, a doctoral student at UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the study’s lead researcher, said the project was prompted by community members. “A lot of people were seeing brown water come out of their faucets,” she said. Lead is tasteless and colorless, she added. At the start, community members just wanted to know what was in their water supply." More here: Study finds lead in tap water of Watts homes, including public housing units

• Aug 22, 2024. CNHI news. Pa. shares in $26M of lead abatement dollars announced by The White House. "The White House announced $26 million in grant funding for schools and child care facilities to test water lines for lead, with Pennsylvania tabbed to receive $958,000. Delivered through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, all 50 states plus five territories and Washington, D.C. Money from the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act is intended to identify and confirm the presence of lead in drinking water supplies. Another $15 billion is available under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help institutions replace lead pipes. The EPA will provide technical assistance to help communities take on such projects." More here: Biden administration allots $26 million to fight lead contamination in schools

• Aug. 15, 024. OaklandSides. Elevated lead levels found in water at a ‘significant number’ of OUSD schoolsTests at Frick United Academy of Language showed levels more than three times higher than the EPA’s recommended threshold, teachers say. "Tests conducted by the district’s risk management team over the last few months showed levels in water fixtures above 5 parts per billion, the threshold set by OUSD’s clean drinking water policy. Affected schools included Hillcrest K-8, Edna Brewer Middle School and Frick United Academy of Language–more than a dozen schools in all, according to one parent who addressed Wednesday’s school board meeting. 

• MAY 23, 2024. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Editorial: PPS eliminated lead in school drinking water. Every other school must follow suit. "Pittsburgh Public Schools facilities stopped testing for lead in students’ drinking water in 2016. They already knew the results would come back positive – so instead of sampling, they just began fixing. Last week and over 900 lead filters later, all PPS students are drinking water that is guaranteed to be lead free. It’s a stellar voluntary effort from the district, and a massive endorsement that even cash-strapped schools can protect their students by enforcing proper policy. The entire project cost $5.5 million over roughly eight years — barely a drop in the bucket for a school district with over $700 million in its operating budget." Will CMSD make a commitment to take a filters first approach to lead safe drinking water? Thanks to Yvonka for sharing.

• JULY 26, 2022. Lead in schools’ water. "Test results now show that lead is even contaminating drinking water in schools and preschools — flowing from thousands of fountains and faucets where our kids drink water every day. 

• October 27, 2020. Government Accounting Office. Protecting Children from Lead Exposure in Schools and Child Care Facilities. "Children attending K-12 public schools may also be at risk of lead exposure from drinking water. Lead in school drinking water is a concern because it is a daily source of water for more than 50 million children enrolled in public schools. Similar to child care centers, the pattern of schools’ schedules—including time off during weekends, holidays, and extended breaks—can contribute to standing water in the schools’ plumbing systems, possibly allowing lead to leach into the water. In our 2018 report, we found that an estimated 41% of school districts—serving 12 million students—had not tested school water for lead in 2016 or 2017. Similarly, another 16% of school districts didn’t know whether they had tested for lead at all. Of the school districts that did test for lead (43% of those we surveyed—representing some 35 million students), about 37% found elevated lead levels in their water."