Lead persists in US schools despite attempts to fix the problem

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A legion of American public schools don’t have safe water for students to drink.

Over the last few years, despite a lot of testing, policy changes and the replacement of water infrastructure, many children are exposed to lead at school, authors of a new report called “Get the Lead Out,” published Thursday, say.

Lead exposure, including from school water fountains and taps, can harm health, even in small amounts, with effects on the brain and nervous system. Studies tie elevated lead levels to a lower IQ, decreased focus and even violent crime and delinquency. The persistent threat is affecting students at the same time many are trying to recover from pandemic-related school closures, as well as created and natural disasters.

“We have known for some time that high levels of lead can cause severe health impacts – including anemia, kidney disease, abnormal brain function and even death,” the report says. “Even tiny amounts of this toxic substance can harm our children.”

The report’s authors, John Rumpler and Matt Casale from the Environment America Research & Policy Center and the U.S PIRG Education Fund, are urging state and federal policymakers to address lead exposure at school, to which kids are especially vulnerable. It’s the third report of its kind since 2017 that has found such problem persist.

There have been improvements, Rumpler said, but there is still a long way to go.

Lingering lead:Biden plan to eliminate old pipes highlights longstanding contamination in communities of color

What does the report say?

The authors of the report found that current policies on lead in water at school are still “too weak” to protect children’s health.

Although several states in the last few years “have gone from utter failure” to making some improvements in getting kids safe drinking water, “in nearly every case, even these new policies only require remediation of taps where testing confirms lead concentrations in water above a certain threshold. Unfortunately, lead concentrations in water are highly variable, and so even proper sampling can miss lead contamination or fail to capture its full extent.”

Rumpler said the launch of Get the Lead Out, in 2017, was prompted in part by the water contamination scandal in Flint, Michigan, and a previous USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data that showed “about 350 schools and day-care centers failed lead tests a total of about 470 times from 2012 through 2015.”

Lead, lead everywhere:Lead taints drinking water in hundreds of schools, day cares across USA

What is the path forward? Jackson, Mississippi, water crisis closed school campuses (again).

How do state policies to address lead in schools rate?

The report grades states and jurisdictions based on policies and regulations in place to address lead in schools. The grade each state received depends on how frequently sites are tested, the type of fixes that are required and how information about testing and fixes is shared with the public, Rumpler said.

Washington D.C. scored the top grade with a B+, followed by New Hampshire and New Jersey each with a B-; Colorado, Nevada, Vermont and Washington state were each graded C+; California, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Oregon earned Cs; Delaware, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Utah were marked C-; and Arizona, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Tennessee and Virginia earned Ds.

Everywhere else ended up with a failing grade.

Beyond Flint:Excessive lead levels found in almost 2,000 water systems across all 50 states

Rumpler said if legislation proposed in Michigan and Massachusetts to filter drinking water in schools pass, it would launch those states up to A grades.

How should the problem be addressed?

The report recommends several ways states and districts can tackle the problem. It says they should:

“Replace fountains with water stations that have filters certified to remove lead”;

“Install, test, and maintain filters certified to remove lead on all taps used for drinking or cooking”;

“Set policies to ensure that schools are no longer using plumbing and fixtures that leach lead into water”;

“Require testing at all water outlets used for drinking or cooking at all schools. with frequency and protocols most likely to detect lead”; and

“Allocate funding to implement these solutions.”

The authors want policymakers to reject the “test-and-fix paradigm,” and enact long-term solutions.

They also suggest an update to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Lead and Copper Rule, to require intervention when even very low levels of lead are detected.

The report also urges the federal government provide additional funding to schools and states to address the problem, but Rumpler noted schools don’t have to wait for policy change and can use federal COVID-relief dollars to “get the lead out.”

Will federal grants help? Millions of homes have lead paint, harming kids of color most.

Contributing: Nada Hassanein, USA TODAY

Contact Kayla Jimenez at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter at @kaylajjimenez.

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