High Lead Levels Found In More Than 160 Massachusetts School Buildings

The issue of lead contamination continues to plague not only cities around the country, but aging school buildings as well. Late last month, water tests  facilitated at around 300 public school buildings in Boston revealed that more than half of the schools contained at least one sample with lead levels above normal.

The Boston Globe reported that pipes are being flushed and the schools are “shutting off drinking fountains or taps, and making long-term plumbing repairs.”

“When schools identify problem fixtures, they are quickly taking steps to fix the problem and providing timely updates to their students, families, staff and community,” Martin Suuberg, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, said in a statement obtained by The Globe.

Part of a continuing water analysis in public school buildings, the tests “were conducted primarily on drinking water and water used in the preparation of food. A small number of samples may have been taken from taps used for hand washing,”

The state has also been testing copper levels in school water. A majority of the approximately 300 buildings tested had significant levels of either copper or lead. There was just 73 that did not have elevated levels of either chemical.

The water sampling was done through a $2 million program that Massachusetts launched this past spring, coupled with concerns raised by the crisis in Flint, MI. Several other school districts around the country are taking similar steps.

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District recently uncovered high levels of lead in samples that were taken from drinking fountains and other water sources in 60 school buildings. This past summer the district turned off drinking-water sources in 69 of its buildings in order to conduct voluntary testing for lead. The district completed testing for more than 1,700 drinking-water outlets, with 9 percent being found to have high lead levels.

A clean-water advocate in Massachusetts told The Boston Globe that she is worried about the high lead levels in school buildings, but added that she “is confident school districts are taking appropriate steps to keep children safe.”

“By the time parents are hearing of these results, the schools have eliminated the exposure,” Becky Smith, the Massachusetts campaign director for Clean Water Action, a nonprofit advocacy group told The Globe. “Parents should feel the water is safe to drink.”

According to Telegram.com, “results for some other districts that participated in the state testing program have yet to come in, including those from the region’s largest public system, the Worcester schools.”

For many schools, the tests were the first extensive assessment “of their entire inventory of drinking water outlets.” However, some officials stated that they were not surprised “to see some fixtures, especially underused ones or ones in older buildings, have unsafe levels of lead and copper.”

“We believe (the risk) to be minimal,” Judy Paolucci, superintendent of the Leicester schools, told Telegram.com.

Paolucci added that “local officials have determined replacing those faucets, at an estimated cost of $6,000 to $10,000, will solve the problem.”

For similar stories visit Water Online’s Drinking Water Contaminant Removal Solutions Center.