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Schools rarely test water for lead
The dangerous metal can leach from plumbing.
With no requirement, problems can be missed, experts say.
By Kristen A. Graham, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 20,
2002
For more articles visit
www.bridges4kids.org.
Aging plumbing in older schools and corroding pipes in newer
buildings may be causing lead poisoning in students, whose
young bodies are most susceptible to its developmental and
physical dangers.
Yet there is no federal law or New Jersey or Pennsylvania law
to ensure that schools that draw from a public water supply
test for lead. Many districts test only when there are
complaints about the water's appearance or taste.
That worries one of the nation's leading experts on childhood
lead exposure, because research has found that any presence of
lead in water may be cause for concern.
"There is emerging evidence that there is no detectable
threshold for the adverse consequences of lead levels," said
Bruce Lanphear, a professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati
Children's Hospital Medical Center. "Schools may be
inadvertently exposing kids to a neurotoxin."
Alarm bells went off in Cherry Hill Superintendent Morton
Sherman's head when high concentrations of lead were found in
drinking water in Camden schools this year.
Though Cherry Hill's buildings are newer than most of Camden's,
uncertainties bothered Sherman.
"We couldn't tell the board or our parents that our schools
were absolutely without lead," he said. "We simply didn't know
that."
District officials quietly arranged to have two of Cherry
Hill's 19 schools tested as a precaution. The results,
released this month, were eye-opening: Unacceptably high
levels of lead were found in a handful of sinks and fountains
at both buildings.
No Cherry Hill children have shown signs of being affected by
the water, district officials said. But the symptoms of lead
poisoning can take years to surface, experts say.
The school system mobilized, notifying parents, supplying
bottled water, and testing every faucet, sink and fountain in
the district. It paid extra - $80 per test, as opposed to the
$25 it normally costs - to receive the results in 24 hours.
A few trouble spots were found. Those pieces of equipment were
taken out of service and will be replaced, district
spokeswoman Susan Bastnagel said.
In the William Penn School District in Delaware County,
Superintendent Jim O'Toole said, lead levels were last checked
in January. The district, whose oldest building dates to 1927,
found no problems but decided to test every year as a
precaution.
William Penn and Cherry Hill seem to be ahead of the curve.
More common is Bucks County's Neshaminy School District,
where, spokeswoman Sandra Costanzo said, the district last
checked for lead a few years ago.
Levels were monitored in the high school after students
complained about foul-smelling water. Samples were sent out,
and no problems were found.
Neshaminy has not tested since.
And in Paulsboro, Gloucester County, where the high school was
built in 1917, Superintendent Frank Scambia said lead was not
an issue because no one had presented it as one.
"It hasn't really been a problem," he said, "and we haven't
delved into it."
Tara Lauer, director of environmental regulation for AET
Environmental Inc., the testing firm used by Cherry Hill, said
it rarely was called by a district without obvious problems.
"Usually, schools wait for someone to complain, or for a
regulation to be enforced to do this," Lauer said. "Schools
are worried about their budget, so they don't test."
Scores of districts, especially those with older schools, may
be supplying their children with water that contains too much
lead, experts say.
"I would be surprised if this problem wasn't common in school
systems all over," said David Pringle, campaign director for
the New Jersey Environmental Federation, a water-protection
activist group. "They don't have to test, so they don't test."
Mark Johnson, who heads the Water Supply Management Program
for Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection,
used to get regular calls from suburban districts asking about
testing protocols.
That was in 2000, when Philadelphia schools were forced to
test for lead. About 20 percent of 12,000 drinking-water
outlets in 170 schools had high lead levels, causing districts
around the region to wonder about the state of their pipes.
The calls are far less frequent now, said Johnson, who added
that the federal Environmental Protection Agency, unlike state
agencies, has limited power to make schools test if a problem
is suspected.
"We were under the impression that EPA was going to make some
more concerted efforts to see if this was a widespread
problem, but to my knowledge nothing has happened," he said.
Stephanie Sessoms, an environmental scientist for the EPA's
regional office in New York, said schools that draw their
water from wells must test monthly or quarterly.
But those with public water supplies have no such mandate.
The utilities that provide districts with water must test for
lead and other chemicals, but the problem is often the
plumbing inside older schools, not the water flowing into
them.
Many communities have plumbing that was made when it was
common to solder pipes with lead, or they use solid lead
pipes. As those pipes and solder corrode, lead can leach into
the water. Sometimes the answer to an elevated reading is as
simple as running a tap for 30 seconds before children drink
water. The EPA has said that thoroughly flushing their systems
may bring schools' lead levels down to acceptable levels.
If schools find lead levels above 20 parts per billion, they
are required to take action based on EPA guidelines. But the
agency simply doesn't have the teeth to make schools check,
Sessoms said.
"We have a guidance manual," she said.
Rich Cahill, a spokesman for the regional EPA office, said
lead from solder used before the federal agency set new rules
in 1991 is more of an issue these days.
"The problems of delivery systems are becoming more and more
well known," he said. "We recommend testing, but it's not
backed up by penalties."
Even in small doses, lead ingestion can cause liver and kidney
damage, affect physical and mental development, cause mental
retardation, lower IQ levels, and increase behavioral problems
in children.
In large amounts, it can be fatal.
Lanphear, the doctor who studies childhood lead exposure,
believes that schools should be required to test their water
regularly.
So does Richard Lynch, a professor at the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's School of Public
Health.
"I think it's important that schools manage all of their risks
in a routine way, and water testing should be part of that,"
said Lynch, a consultant to many New Jersey school districts.
"They need to manage it like they manage attendance or
anything else."
Pringle, of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, said the
current state of lead regulation just doesn't make sense.
"Given how serious a problem it is and how it targets kids,
you would think it should be a no-brainer that there is
mandatory testing in school," he said. "If schools as
well-endowed as Cherry Hill and as struggling as Camden are
having problems, you have to wonder who else is."
Contact Kristen Graham at 856-779-3927 or
kgraham@phillynews.com.
Inquirer staff writer Terry Bitman contributed to this
article.
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