DETROIT (AP) — Some 50,000 Detroit public school students will start the school year Tuesday by drinking water from coolers, not fountains, after the discovery of elevated levels of lead or copper — the latest setback in a state already dealing with the consequences of contaminated tap water in Flint and other communities.
Detroit Public Schools Superintendent Nikolai Vitti expects the closure of water fountains and other drinking fixtures in all 106 schools to go smoothly because the district — Michigan’s largest — had previously turned off the tap in 18 schools.
"With the water coming from the water coolers, they just trust it more and are drinking it more."
"I’ve been sending water to school every day with his name on it — five bottles of water in a cooling pack," said Hardison, 39.
Now, look at the water here.
They should have known it was going to be a problem with this old infrastructure."
Vitti, who took over in Detroit in 2017 after the district had been under state management for years, said it is "preposterous" that schools are not forced to test for lead and that Detroit’s problems are reflective of inequities in urban America and a lack of spending on infrastructure.
"You can test the water coming into a building," he said.
It was a more expansive sampling than was conducted in 2016 — testing that came in the wake of the crisis in Flint, where the water source was switched under state management and not treated to prevent corrosion, enabling lead to leach from aging service lines and household fixtures.
Only eight states require lead-in-water testing in schools and Michigan is not among them.