Lead in drinking water in US schools

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated that each year more than 250,000 children are exposed to concentrations of lead in drinking water high enough to impair their intellectual and physical development. Children spend most of their waking hours in school buildings. Although it is widely assumed that federal water safety regulations mandate detection and remediation of lead in school drinking water, testing water for lead at school fountains and coolers is voluntary. Moreover, there is no enforceable national, state, or local lead-in-water standard for schools. Lead in water plagues many school districts nationwide, yet the contamination is often hidden or ignored, and children are needlessly exposed to hazardous concentrations of lead in school water. In the last four years alone, lead-in-water problems in the Seattle, WA; Baltimore, MD; Los Angeles, CA; Washington, DC; Davidson County, NC; and Medford, OR school systems were uncovered not by school officials, but by parents, teachers, independent scientists, and investigative reporters. Many schools are unaware that they are responsible for detecting and remediating lead-in-water hazards, and as a result testing is often done haphazardly and incorrectly, if at all. Remediation measures can be non-existent, public outreach is rarely sufficient, and information provided about health risks is often wrong. Based on a case study of lead in drinking water at Washington, DC schools, this presentation will outline the beginnings of a pilot program that could serve as a model to address lead-at-the-tap hazards at schools nationwide.