80,000 People at Risk From Contaminated Colorado Drinking Water

Toxic chemicals are contaminating drinking water for 80,000 people south of Colorado Springs.

originally posted on June 16,2016

 

According to a report by the Denver Post, 80,000 people south of Colorado Springs are at risk due to contaminated drinking water with chemical levels that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems dangerous.

Highly concentrated levels of Perfluorinated Chemicals (PFCs) were discovered in the Colorado cities of Security, Widefield and Fountain.

According to data published on Wednesday by the Denver post, the water in all 32 of the Security Water and Sanitation District’s municipal wells is contaminated with PFCs at levels exceeding an EPA health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion.

At one well, PFCs have hit 1,370 ppt, federal data show — nearly 20 times higher than the limit. EPA officials recommended that pregnant women and small children should not drink local water.

“We didn’t see this coming,” Security Water and Sanitation District manager Roy Heald told the Denver Post.

PFCs, which are not regulated under Colorado state law, are considered the worst in an growing list of unregulated chemicals that federal scientists are detecting in city water supplies, including pesticides, antibiotics and anti-depressants.

“This is devastating for us … If you want bottled water, you can go buy it any day. There’s no indication, for the man on the street, that health is a concern. Now, for pregnant women and infants, yeah, it may be a concern,” Heald said.

Colorado health officials are reportedly working with the Air Force to find out where PFCs are entering water.

However, military officials are not considering providing bottled water for residents, Peterson Air Force Base spokesman Steve Brady told the the Denver Post.

Meanwhile, in response to the findings, utility crews are desperately trying to blend well water as much as possible with cleaner water piped 45 miles from the neighboring Pueblo Reservoir.

Prolonged exposure to PFCs is linked to serious health issues including damage to fetuses during pregnancy, low birth weight, accelerated puberty and distorted bones.

 

Crescent Park water issues

Boil water advisory, water restricitions still in effect

-by Erika Norton, originally publish on June 16, 2016

 

WEST MILFORD – When residents of the Crescent Park housing development woke up on June 5, they discovered they had no running water. Residents of the 206-home development have been dealing with little to no water since that day, and a boil water advisory has been in effect since June 7.

“I’m a household of six,” said Gina Vincenti, a lifelong resident of Crescent Park. “It’s such an inconvenience to go to people’s houses and shower. I don’t think members of the MUA are thinking about us at all. My oldest daughter has had two dance competitions during this time and having to get her ready with bottled water is extremely difficult. I’ve had to throw numerous cups away for my one-year-old because everything is getting moldy sitting in the dishwasher. We cannot cook because I will not use the little water when or if we have it to cook with and consume. It’s a real burden.”

According to a June 12 statement from the West Milford Municipal Utilities Authority (MUA), the water tank in Crescent Park was not holding water due to a potential break in the underground water main. The MUA has been shutting the system off at around 9 p.m. to allow the tank a chance to fill overnight.

In a post on their website the following day, the MUA said that by isolating the tank in the evening, the system was continuing to make headway in the tank overnight, but slowly. Over the next two days, they said they would follow the same procedure to try and maximize the holding tank.

“Several repairs have been made,” MUA commissioner David Ofshinsky said on June 13, “but the MUA is still working on the final solution.”

In an update on their website on June 15 at 11 a.m., the MUA said that for the last 24 hours, the system had been running normally off the tank and confirmed there were no longer any water main leaks in the system at that time, however due to the high demand of water in this development a water restriction remained in effect. The MUA sited the community being built on sand as a reason for why making repairs has been difficult, causing the water to be absorbed rather than flowing and breaking to the surface.

Due to these water issues, all Crescent Park residents have been under a boil water notice since June 7. A mandatory water restriction is also still in place until further notice, which the MUA said means no washing cars or homes, filling pools, using irrigation systems or sprinklers, or running hoses.

The residents who live at the higher elevations of the community have been hit the hardest, experiencing sporadic low water pressure and outages, according to Ofshinsky. Brianne Darragh Bauer lives at one of the houses higher up in the development on Sussex Drive, and said her husband had noticed a bit of a drop in water pressure a couple days before June 5, as did Vincenti, also on Sussex Drive, and some other residents who had contacted the MUA regarding the change.

For the last two weeks, Bauer said she has been driving to her in-laws’ house in Wayne, when she can, to bathe herself and her three sons, and to do laundry. Her husband has also been coming with them, but due to his work schedule, it hasn’t always been possible.

As of June 14, Bauer said she did have water, but they are still under mandatory water restrictions and the boil water advisory.

“I’m only showering my family in it when I absolutely have to,” she said. “We’ve all gone without showers or baths for a few days at a time and then if we can’t get down to Wayne due to our schedules, then I will shower them. I do have a three-month-old who I will not bathe in this.”

In their statement, the MUA said that they are working with an independent company to try and locate leaks, and that a leak detection system, including sensors, is also being installed. To help fill the tank and remediate the current hardship, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection granted the MUA use of supplementary water trucks.

To try and help struggling Crescent Park customers, a potable water truck is available at 50 Morris Avenue until the boil water advisory is lifted. The West Milford Office of Emergency Management also opened a shelter at Hillcrest Community Center from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the use of showers, bathrooms and bottled water, but was closed on June 15.

Both Vincenti and Bauer said they felt the MUA could have done more.

“The MUA is less than responsive,” Vincenti said on June 14. “Their voice mailbox on Monday stated that if you are a Crescent Park resident, we will not be returning your calls. They do not answer their phone during business hours and their updated messages are lacking at best. We have no ETA on a fix. At this point we haven’t even seen workers out working during the day for four days now.”

Bauer said that residents contacted the NJDEP, their state Senator, their U.S. Representatives and their state assembly members and “no one has answers for us.”

Vincenti said that water pressure has been low for for the past few years at her house, “to the point where sprinklers for the kids don’t squirt out too high and washing shampoo out of your hair takes forever.”

In February 2015, some residents of Crescent Park lost water service due to a water main break, however this issue was resolved within 24 hours. The age of the systems are typically the cause of water main breaks, Ofshinsky said, also a Crescent Park resident for 24 years.

He said the Crescent Park system is about 50 years old and that it is difficult to prevent these type of issues.

Left Behind

For some Native American communities facing water problems, hope circles the drain.

-by Tom Risen, originally posted on June 16, 2016

 

Becky Norton and the seven other people living with her empty their waste into sewage pots outside their house “at least twice a day to keep it from stinking,” and take it to a landfill every chance they get because their Alaskan Native village of Kivalina has no septic system.

Norton is not alone. Many homes on rural Native American reservations and in Alaskan Native villages lack access to clean water or sanitation, and the 65-year-old Norton lives in one of the only 10 homes in Kivalina with running water.

“We have a very high rate of strep throat, bad colds and other illnesses that come with poor sanitation and lack of access to clean water,” she says. “We need more funding. Every time we ask for funding it is never enough.”

Nearly 30 percent of Native Americans and Alaska Natives lived in poverty in 2014 – approximately double the nation’s overall poverty rate. And about 7.5 percent of Native American and Alaska Native homes did not have safe drinking water or basic sanitation as of 2013, according to the government’s Indian Health Service.

Tribes have spent years lobbying the government for adequate funds to improve impoverished living conditions and to recover from crises such as exposure to water poisoned by uranium and arsenic, but they often have difficulty competing for aid compared with places like Flint, Michigan, which has received extensive media coverage and subsequent aid to solve its lead crisis.

President Barack Obama’s 2017 budget proposal does include money to improve the water supply – notably, a $157 million boost to a state infrastructure fund that traditionally includes a 2 percent earmark for tribal projects. The National Congress of American Indians, a tribal advocacy group, has called for that 2 percent allocation for tribes from the EPA-administered Drinking Water State Revolving Fund to be increased to 5 percent.

Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye says the national attention and resources given to the 100,000 Flint residents marks a “day-and-night difference” compared with the response to mining pollution that in August contaminated water in the San Juan River used by his tribe.

“It indicates to us that we are not a priority,” Begaye says. “Maybe it is because we don’t have the voting influence that Michigan has. Whatever the factor is, we definitely have been ignored.”

Begaye says crops and livestock the Navajo depend on were endangered by acid mine runoff that turned the Animas River bright yellow and flowed into the San Juan River, and his tribe has threatened legal action against the Environmental Protection Agency for its role in contaminating the water.

The EPA’s emergency response aid to the Navajo has included $1.1 million in funds to provide hay and water to affected Navajo farmers, and the agency reportedly is making $2 million available for use by the Navajo and Ute tribes – as well as by the states of Utah, New Mexico and Colorado – for long-term monitoring related to the mine pollution. The EPA additionally committed to reimbursing expenses related to the spill, including $116,000 to the Southern Ute tribe in Colorado and $157,000 to the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and had been reviewing additional possibilities for reimbursement.

But Begaye says the Navajo have a “legacy of distrust” with federal agencies, in part because of improper efforts by companies to seal uranium mines on tribal land. The majority of America’s uranium mines opened during the early 20th century were dug on tribal land in the Southwest, and the resulting water and soil contamination from those mines is so pervasive it’s believed to have contributed to the rise of a unique radiation-related disease among nearby residents called Navajo neuropathy. The disease causes symptoms such as muscle weakness, liver problems and birth defects. It can also be fatal.

Double water samples show E. coli in ‘natural spring’ in Coalton

by Jeremiah Shaver, originally posted on June 15, 2016

 

A pair of water samples has crippled a natural water supply that some residents in the Village of Coalton use as their source of water.

Folks call out lawmakers on PFOA problems at the Capitol

by Samantha DiMascio, originally posted on June 15, 2016

 

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – On Wednesday people affected by PFOA will head to the Capitol; blood results in hand. They’re urging lawmakers to have hearings in hopes of holding officials responsible.

The average level of those sampled is 23 parts per billion. That’s five times higher than the national average.

One little boy we told you about is just six years old with levels 70 times higher than the national average. So now people from Hoosick Falls and Petersbugh are calling on the senate to hold hearings to find out who knew what and when.

They claim that just last week the Senate’s Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon said he wasn’t aware of the severity of the crisis.

Another main target for this group will be Majority Leader John Flanagan. If you remember, that resilient group of students from the Hoosick Falls High School that put together a panel calling on the governor for action a few months back.

Those students and others are scheduled to arrive at the Capitol around 11 a.m.

Lead is discovered in the drinking water at a number of Victoria schools

16 schools show elevated lead levels after systems are flushed

-by Mary Griffin, originally posted on June 14, 2016

 

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education asked all schools in the province to test their drinking water.

The request followed news from the Prince Rupert school district.

That’s where four schools tested positive for elevated lead levels.

In Victoria, 16 schools tested for elevated lead levels “after” the waters lines were flushed.

Mary Griffin visited one school to see how they are dealing with the issue.

Turning on the tap.

Letting the water run.

For Braefoot Elementary’s custodian Darren Murdoch, flushing the water lines is part of his daily routine, now three times a day.

“What I’m doing three times a day, once in the morning, once at lunch, and once around two o’clock, I will open up one of the systems here and let the water run for 15 to 20 minutes.”

Braefoot is one of 16 schools in the Victoria school district with elevated lead levels in its drinking water.

The results were not expected says Mark Walsh, the secretary-treasurer for the school district.

“I was surprised by the results.

Our expectation was that the flushing program that we had in place for many, many years would be sufficient to take care of the concerns.

But it turns out we need to do some more work.”

That means replacing the five fountains at Braefoot with new ones that filter the water.

Each drinking fountain is 12 hundred dollars, one that refills bottles is three thousand dollars.

That won’t happen until the fall, but PAC president Sarah Hannay, who also works at the school is not worried.

“I’m not overly concerned.

I mean, my son is going into grade three so he’s been drinking this water since kindergarten.

He seems OK to me.”

Most students in this grade one class keep a water bottle on their desk.

Clean drinking water is a priority according to principal Tarj Mann.

“Children’s health is our priority at all times.

What we can do now is put our faith in the system, that we’re doing everything that we can.”

The district hasn’t released the numbers indicating the amount of lead in the water, but say it’s not a health risk.

“Parents would have an expectation that when they get back in September, they are going to be able to look around and be fully confident with flush or no flush.

That the water is completely safe at schools.”

The district is going to have the water re-tested with an outside company.

So in the future, grade one student old Hudson Peters, will have access to clean, safe, drinking water.

 

Oakey residents ‘at wits’ end’

originally posted on June 14, 2016

 

Residents of a Queensland town impacted by defence base pollutants have demanded fair compensation after some lost their life savings.

Toxic firefighting foams used within bases at several sites including the Oakey Army Aviation base, northwest of Toowoomba, and RAAF Williamtown facility in NSW have leeched into ground water systems.

The federal government committed $55 million from the current defence budget to cleaning and managing the toxic chemicals.

It will also fund blood tests as well as health and counselling services.

A group of about 30 Oakey residents, whose properties were impacted, marched to the gates of the town’s base on Tuesday and delivered a letter to Defence Minister, Senator Marise Payne.

“This community opened its heart to army aviation and a happy, symbiotic co-operation existed for many years,” the letter read.

“It is therefore a cruel irony that a section of the community should suffer from the contamination leeched from the aviation centre.”

Residents demanded immediate negotiations towards just compensation for residents who had suffered “demonstrable financial loss”.

But Oakey local and aviation specialist Dr Eric Donaldson, 80, said to label the entire town as “toxic” was nonsense.

“We’re drinking the same water here as the water in Toowoomba,” he told AAP.

“It’s a tragedy that it’s being portrayed as some toxic cesspit. It isn’t.”

Dr Donaldson, who has lived in the town since 1970, said a “comparatively small” group of residents were impacted, but those who were suffered significantly.

“You can see that it’s a tremendous concern for people who’ve put their life savings, and suddenly they say you’re in the `plume of contamination’ – your place is not worth a bumper,” he said.

“That’s the reality of some of these people.

“There are some very tragic stories, I can tell you.”

Dr Donaldson also doubted whether residents would accept mental health counselling.

Defence firemen practised extensively with firefighting foam, which was used throughout the world from the 1970s though to the mid-2000s.

Labor last week committed $20 million to a national task force and 10,000 blood tests for those in affected areas, which also include Fiskville in Victoria and Darwin and Tindal RAAF bases in the Northern Territory.

Hoosick Falls Residents, and ALL New Yorkers, Deserve Water Contamination Hearings

by Liz Moran, originally posted on June 14, 2016

 

Just imagine knowing that the water you are drinking is quietly making you sick. That it gave you or someone you love kidney cancer. That it took years to get your government to listen, then when you got its attention, your concerns were downplayed.

The bond between clean water and our health has been broken as we’ve heard stories state- and nation-wide about contamination. And like Flint, Michigan, there is a great disconnect between the suffering of Hoosick Falls, New York residents and the actions (or in this case, inaction) of their own elected officials. Hoosick Falls residents are just 30 miles from the steps of the state Capitol in Albany, but that may as well be a million miles given the response from the people elected and hired to protect them.

State lawmakers should hold hearings on what has happened in Hoosick Falls and the flawed state reaction to the water crisis there. Governor Cuomo and his top officials should welcome hearings as a chance to show New Yorkers that they want to get to the bottom of the issue, protect constituents across the state, and that they will not make the same mistakes again. There are some who disagree, but they are wrong, and here’s why:

Hoosick Falls residents deserve to know what happened, and who knew what and when. Further, lawmakers cannot ignore that what has happened in Hoosick Falls is not limited to just that village. Grossly inadequate chemical regulations on the books in New York, coupled with an increased hunger by state Senators to “cut the red tape” (which translates into cutting resources and powers for enforcement of our laws) means that it is only a matter of time before another community is fighting another unregulated chemical which has fouled their water.

Hoosick Falls is like many New York communities, particularly upstate, with an extensive manufacturing history.

For decades, industries were allowed to operate virtually unchecked as their operations endangered residents. For many years, contaminations of this kind were seen as affecting other communities home to larger companies. General Electric, for instance, spent decades dumping PCBs into the Hudson River, up until the late 1970s. Meanwhile, outside Syracuse, Onondaga Lake became known as the most polluted lake in America after a century of pollution from predecessors of the very same company associated with Hoosick Falls contamination: Honeywell.

A lack of regulations and enforcement created a false sense of security for many communities – after all, if a chemical isn’t regulated, it’s not tested. And if it’s not tested, then how does anyone know if it’s in their water and affecting their health?

In May, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued new safety levels for PFOA and PFOS, many localities suddenly found themselves with unsafe drinking water. Of course, the water had been unsafe for many years – but if no one knew to test for it no one knew there was a problem.

Since the crisis in Hoosick Falls became public, PFOA has been found in the drinking water of nearby Petersburgh, a community also now home to a Superfund site. PFOS has also been found in the City of Newburgh’s water; water in Suffolk County also exceeds safety levels.

Which brings us to the realities of today, and the unique role that state legislators have in holding hearings – public reckonings that help clarify what can and should be done to help people. Currently, there are more than 80,000 untested and unregulated chemicals on the market. The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has introduced emergency rules regulating PFOA and PFOS, but there are still tens of thousands of chemicals unaccounted for.

Resistance to legislative hearings is a head-scratcher. We’re pleased to hear that the Assembly has reopened the door to hearings; they should have occurred as originally planned following passage of the 2016-17 budget, which occurred April 1. This summer is now the time to follow through – no further delay is acceptable. These hearings should not be scuttled, the issues facing the people of Hoosick Falls and other municipalities must be seen in the light of day. It is legislators’ responsibility.

Hearings are a part of governmental checks and balances. Witness how rapidly the Senate rushed to hold a hearing on how to keep communities from imposing a fee to curb costly plastic bag waste. A public health crisis certainly deserves more proactivity than we have seen. Instead, the Senate is advancing a package of bills toward a vote that would exacerbate the very problems resulting from poor oversight and enforcement. In fact, one proposal forces agencies to enact a “one-in, one-out” practice when imposing new rules. In other words, when the DEC finalizes its PFOA rule, they would have to cut a regulation for the benefit of Honeywell International and Saint-Gobain, the companies responsible for the Hoosick Falls contamination.

The action that legislators take now will have enormous consequences for years to come. They must use their expertise in local affairs toward addressing their constituent concerns and public health hazards. The goal should be to consider contamination issues from across the state to connect the dots and create a game plan that modernizes our regulations and enforces our laws. New Yorkers must have confidence in both their drinking water and their elected officials.

Residents of Hoosick Falls and many other locales would be glad to hear that their elected officials are working throughout the summer to protect our water and our health. It’s an opportunity lawmakers should not pass up.

Family Threatens to Sue Navy Over Water Contamination at Local Military Bases

by Karen Araiza, originally published on June 14, 2016

 

A Philadelphia law firm is threatening to sue the Navy if it doesn’t act quickly to take responsibility for water contamination on and around local military bases. That includes coming up with an abatement plan as well as testing and then monitoring the health of 70,000 residents in affected communities.

The intent to sue notice was sent Friday on behalf of the Giovanni’s, a family of 5 living within 300 feet of the now defunct Grove Naval Air Station.

In 2003, the Giovanni family moved into their Poplar Road home and used their private well water for 11 years. When they learned it contained high levels of PFCs — more than 40 times times the EPA’s health advisory level — through EPA testing in 2014, they were given bottled water for six months and then hooked up to Warrington’s public water supply, only to find out last month that too had toxic levels of the same chemicals.

“The drinking water and health of almost 70,000 current residents, and untold numbers of past residents, to say nothing of workers at the facilities themselves, has been jeopardized” said environmental attorney Mark Cuker. “Some have been exposed to PFCs from both private and public water supplies.”

According to the EPA, “PFOA and PFOS pose potential adverse effects for the environment and human health” including but not limited to kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, pregnancy induced hypertension, high cholesterol, and other diseases.

The notice of intent does not say if any Giovanni family members — three adults and two children under the age of 18 — have suffered illnesses they believe are connected to water contaminants. But it does say for all those years the Giovanni’s, like many other people in the community and certainly on the bases, drank, bathed and brushed their teeth with water they thought was safe and blames the U.S. government for improperly disposing of solid waste or hazardous waste for decades.

PFCs (perfluoochemical compounds), specifically PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid), are found in firefighting foam used on Willow Grove Naval Air Station and Naval Air Warfare Center Warminster, as well as more than 660 other U.S. military facilities.

People who worked on local bases have organized through a private Facebook group over the last four years. They’ve tracked well over 100 cancers cases they believe are connected to chemicals on the base. Workers there, both enlisted and civilians, consider themselves the ground zero victims, drinking water from what’s been a Superfund site since 1995.

“It’s almost ignorant to believe that the military did not know of this,” said Paul Lutz who at 43 suffers from multiple myeloma. Lutz served at Willow Grove as a Flight Engineer from 2000 and officially retired in 2014. “Somebody had to order the chemical. Somebody had to review the hazards. Somebody had to say, ‘How does it work, what does it do, how do we store it?'”

The Giovanni’s notice of intent says waste from the two facilities got into the groundwater, polluting public and private wells in Warminster, Warrington and Horsham townships.

“Despite the facilities’ presence on the National Priorities List (NPL) for more than two decades, direct EPA oversight has failed to prevent ongoing PFC use and disposal at the Facilities, failed to prevent or abate contamination or migration of these toxic contaminants to local public and private drinking water sources, failed to prevent or abate drinking water contamination by PFC’s, and failed to prevent ingestion and bioaccumulation of PFCs by the local population, including sensitive subpopulations of infants and children. These failures for more than two decades have left the Resident family, their neighbors and workers at the facilities exposed to toxic hazards from solid or hazardous waste.

The intent to sue is a 60 day notice to the Navy, asking them to agree on a plan of abatement and health monitoring. If that doesn’t happen within the time frame, Cuker says his law firm plans to file lawsuits in federal and state courts on behalf of the Giovanni’s and residents of the other townships.

“People continue to be exposed to high levels of PFCs in surrounding groundwater” says Cuker, “from the chemicals migrating downstream from the Willow Grove site to Park Creek, Neshaminy Creek, and other waterways.”

Just last week, an investigation by The Intelligencer showed water contaminated with PFCs was still being released from the Horsham Air Guard Station (former Willow Grove NAS), into Park Creek which connects to Little Neshaminy Creek.

Paul Lutz, married father of three, has endured radiation therapy, is on his third round of chemotherapy and trying to get healthy enough for a stem cell transplant. He wants anyone who worked on the bases from the time PFCs were introduced to be notified about exposure and included in any testing and health monitoring. Not only should all people — on and off the bases — be tested for chemical exposure, he said, but also for cancer.

“This is technically friendly fire,” Lutz said in an interview Friday about the water contamination.

Another law firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, which works with consumer advocate Erin Brockovich, is talking with people both on and off the bases about filing suit as well. They announced an investigation into the water contamination last week and expect to send a team down in the next two weeks to talk in person with members of the community.

Cuker’s environmental law firm, Williams, Cuker, Berezofsky, represented families in the Toms River children cancer cluster case and negotiated a multi-million dollar settlement that was divided among 69 families. The case became the subject of Dan Fagin’s Pulitzer prize-winning book, Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation.

Earlier this month, Cuker’s firm reached a settlement with the chemical company Solvay over allegations of PFC water contamination for residents of Paulsboro, New Jersey. Preliminary testing among a small group of children under 12 showed elevated cholesterol levels, according to Cuker. Part of the settlement allows for blood testing of up to 5,000 Paulsboro residents this summer.

We are awaiting response from the Navy on the intent to sue notification.

Westchester Schools Testing Positive For Lead Contamination in Water

by Joyce Newman, originally posted on June 13, 2016

 

The New York League of Conservation Voters (NYLCV) has been tracking test results from schools that voluntarily are testing their water for lead contamination. According to the NYLCV, the following school districts in Westchester have tested positive for lead-contaminated water: Blind Brook-Rye Central School District, Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District, New Rochelle City School District, Tarrytown Union Free School District, and Yonkers City School District. ( See our previous coverage.)

Many other districts have not voluntarily tested yet. So the NYLCV is urging passage of the Safe School Drinking Water Act, which is before the NY State legislature.

With just a few days left in session, the effort to pass the Safe School Drinking Water Act may be stalled. The Act includes provisions for New York State to require that school drinking water supplies are tested and safe for our children. At present schools using municipal water are not required to test for lead. Only schools using wells are required.

NYLCV and other advocates want general EPA guidelines to be enforced including testing for lead at the tap, at the drinking water fountain, and at faucets in the kitchen and food preparation areas.