States and cities with unsafe drinking water can look to New York City to find one solution for cutting lead exposure in children — testing and replacing problem fountains in schools.
As part of a program that began in 2016 to assess and reduce lead in drinking water in public schools, workers tested every drinking water fixture, fountain, and bottle filling station for lead. Problem fixtures with elevated levels of lead were immediately removed, fixtures more than five years old were replaced and some pipes were flushed after the weekend and holiday breaks.
An analysis of the NYC Department of Education results by Princeton University researchers found that the average student in the 2018-2019 academic year attended a school where 5.3% of water fountains, faucets, and bottle filling stations had dangerous lead levels, down from 8% two years earlier.
Black students had the biggest decrease in lead exposure because they attend schools with the greatest number of problem fixtures. The average Black student in New York City attended a school where almost 10% of fixtures had elevated lead levels from cold water sources during the 2016-2017 academic year. That fell to 6.1% in the 2018-2019 school year, based on the district’s re-testing a sample of the fixtures. Still, the results show that, even after the fixes were in place, Black students still had greater exposure to lead than the average White, Hispanic or Asian student.
“The continued presence of lead in school drinking water and persistent racial disparities in exposure demonstrate the ongoing challenges to eradicating lead exposure in schools,” Jennifer Jennings and Scott Latham wrote in their study published in Environmental Research.
Similar school testing and remediation programs were successful in Los Angeles and Seattle, according to a 2014 study of those districts cited by Jennings and Latham, illustrating that targeted efforts in educational settings can reduce children’s exposure to lead. That’s critical since the toxin is found in half of the young children in the U.S., with the problem more prevalent in Black, Hispanic and poor communities.
New York City’s efforts focused on finding and fixing sources that dispense drinking water at or above the 15 parts of lead per billion the Environmental Protection Agency calls an “action level” because even low levels of exposure to the toxin can hurt cognitive development and behavior. New York City also conducted initial testing of lead levels in charter and non-public schools
An urgency to address unsafe drinking water swept across the U.S. after crises in Flint, Michigan in 2014 and Newark, New Jersey in 2016 raised awareness about the dangers of this often undetected hazard and the extent of the problem. Efforts kicked in on the local, state and federal level.
This sign in Flint, Michigan, in 2016 warned residents that boiling water doesn't remove lead.Photographer: Sarah Rice/Getty Images
New York, in 2016, became the first state to mandate a lead remediation program. And a bill passed by the state’s legislature in June, if signed into law, could cut the time between testing and reduce the action level to 5 parts per billion, which is closer to the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that levels in school water fountains be no higher than 1 ppb.
At least six other states and the District of Columbia require schools to test for lead in drinking water, and the EPA is reviewing the Lead and Copper Rule, including requirements for lead testing frequency in schools and daycare centers.
Lead exposure at the school level typically comes from drinking fixtures compared to the full lines and pipes that can affect older homes and cities. Given the number of problem systems, the disproportionate impact on communities of color and a cost of up to $12,300 to replace just one water line, President Joe Biden proposed $45 billion in his infrastructure plan to replace lead pipes and service lines in drinking water systems nationwide.
Jennings and Latham said action at schools is a critical part of the solution because they have an aging infrastructure and face climate risks that will increase kids’ exposure. “Rising water temperatures, greater seasonal variability in precipitation, and more extreme weather events across the country due to climate change all have the potential to worsen lead levels in drinking water,” they wrote.
