Error loading player: No playable sources found Now Playing: Officials with the East Bay Municipal Utility District on Thursday will start testing the water at all 86 schools in the Oakland Unified School District, after lead was found in some of the schools’ drinking fountains.
The Oakland Unified School District and the East Bay Municipal Utility District are evaluating the quality of “high-use water sources” such as faucets and fountainheads.
“We’re doing this as kind of a back stop if you will,” Sasaki said of the partnership.
“They’re doing this in support of us to reassure the public our water is good.” Several school districts in the state had signed up for a voluntary testing program in January in which local water utilities performed tests, but the Oakland Unified School District opted to conduct tests independently back then.
Since testing began in August, Oakland school officials found 10 schools had at least one source on campus with elevated levels of lead, Sasaki said.
The Chronicle reviewed the water tests, finding one of the poorest quality results in a kitchen tap at the temporary Glenview school on 54th Street, where 430 children are attending classes while the Glenview campus in the Oakland hills is renovated.
The amount of lead in the tap totaled 60 parts per billion, four times the federally recommended maximum of 15 parts per billion, according to tests done by the school district.
Sasaki said every case involved lead in a fixture, which meant that the high levels were only present the first few seconds after turning on a water source that had been dormant overnight.
In San Francisco, district officials announced in late October that some water samples from West Portal and Malcolm X elementary schools and San Francisco International High School exceeded approved federal levels of lead.
Jenna Lyons is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.