by Sandy Hamm, Steve Edlund and Steven Schmuki, originally posted on March 12, 2016

Test for cities, rural subdivisions and even schools and day cares serving water to 6 million people have found excessive and harmful levels of lead.

-by Alison Young and Mark Nichols

While a harsh national spotlight focuses on the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich., a USA TODAY NETWORK investigation has identified almost 2,000 additional water systems spanning all 50 states where testing has shown excessive levels of lead contamination over the past four years.

The water systems, which reported lead levels exceeding Environmental Protection Agency standards, collectively supply water to 6 million people. About 350 of those systems provide drinking water to schools or day cares. The USA TODAY NETWORK investigation also found at least 180 of the water systems failed to notify consumers about the high lead levels as federal rules require.

Many of the highest reported lead levels were found at schools and day cares. A water sample at a Maine elementary school was 42 times higher than the EPA limit of 15 parts per billion, while a Pennsylvania preschool was 14 times higher, records show. At an elementary school in Ithaca, N.Y., one sample tested this year at a stunning 5,000 ppb of lead, the EPA’s threshold for “hazardous waste.”

“This is most definitely a problem that needs emergent care,” Melissa Hoffman, a parent in Ithaca, forcefully pleaded with officials at a public hearing packed with upset parents demanding answers.

In all, the USA TODAY NETWORK analysis of EPA enforcement data identified 600 water systems in which tests at some taps showed lead levels topping 40 parts per billion (ppb), which is more than double the EPA’s action level limit. While experts caution Flint is an extreme case of pervasive contamination, those lead levels rival the 400-plus of the worst samples in far more extensive testing of around 15,000 taps across Flint. The 40 ppb mark also stands as a threshold that the EPA once labeled on its website an “imminent” health threat for pregnant women and young children.

Even at small doses, lead poses a health threat, especially for pregnant women and young children. Lead can damage growing brains and cause reduced IQs, attention disorders and other problem behaviors. Infants fed formula made with contaminated tap water face significant risk. Adults are not immune, with evidence linking lead exposure to kidney problems, high blood pressure and increased risks of cardiovascular deaths. The EPA stresses there is no safe level of lead exposure.

Most Americans get their drinking water from a fragmented network of about 155,000 different water systems serving everything from big cities to individual businesses and school buildings. The EPA determines that a system has exceeded the lead standard when more than 10% of samples taken show lead levels above 15 parts per billion. It’s called an “action level” because, at that level, water systems are required to take action to reduce contamination. But enforcement, which is implemented state by state, can be inconsistent and spotty. Some 373 systems have failed repeatedly, with tests continuing to find excessive lead in tests months or even years later, the EPA data shows. What’s more, the systems have widely varying levels of financial resources and staff training.

Amid cotton fields in Lamesa, Texas, for example, tests last year showed lead contamination more than seven times the EPA limit at Klondike Independent School District, which serves 260 students in a single K-12 building. “Some things just slip by,” said the school superintendent Steve McLaren when pressed about skipping a round of testing in 2014. In a tiny school system, McLaren said leaders “wear a lot of hats.” At times he’s served as principal and bus driver, in addition to being superintendent and in charge of the drinking water system. The school replaced drinking fountains, and plans to replace its entire water system next fall. McLaren said he’s concerned about how high lead levels might affect students and understands the need for action. But he said, “Our kids are strapping and healthy, and they’ve been drinking this water all their lives.”

The testing required by the government can include samples from as few as five or 10 taps in a year, or even over multiple years. The system is designed only to give an indication of whether homes or buildings with lead pipes and plumbing may be at higher risk of lead leaching into water. Even the biggest water systems in cities are required to test just 50 to 100 taps.

The limited and inconsistent testing means the full scope of the lead contamination problem could be even more widespread. People in thousands more communities served by water systems that have been deemed in compliance with the EPA’s lead rules have no assurance their drinking water is safe from the brain-damaging toxin.

“This is just a case where we have a rule that’s not been adequately protective,” said Lynn Goldman, a former EPA official and dean of George Washington University’s school of public health. “The entire design of the regulation doesn’t tell you about your own water.”

Drinking water typically isn’t contaminated with lead when it leaves the treatment plant. It becomes contaminated as it travels through lead service lines on individual properties and lead plumbing fixtures inside homes. At best, the EPA’s rules and testing are a sentinel system, alerting officials of the need to treat their water with anti-corrosion chemicals. Doing so reduces, but does not eliminate, the lead in water reaching the tap.

There are about 75 million homes across the country built before 1980, meaning they’re most likely to contain some lead plumbing. That’s more than half of the country’s housing units, according to the Census Bureau. The heaviest concentrations are in New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

“You would hope that the cities and the counties and the state and the federal government would be holding people’s feet to the fire when it comes to providing quality water to the consumer if there is an issue,” said Terry Heckman, a board member at the Arizona Water Quality Association, a group that represents water systems. “That’s what the government is supposed to do, is look over the general welfare of the populace.”

Experts say what happened in Flint is an extreme case and helps show how the limited testing required by the EPA provides only a crude indicator of systems where harmful levels of lead may be in water at homes with lead pipes.

The struggling city of about 100,000 people passed the government’s required lead tests. But one resident’s vocal complaints spurred extra tests at her home, revealing shocking levels of lead contamination: 104 to 13,200 ppb. The crisis worsened as independent researchers tested 300 samples across the city, revealing homes with high lead levels that the government-mandated tests missed. More than 10% contained at least 27 ppb of lead. Since then, regulators conducted another 15,000 tests. More than 1,000 samples show lead above the 15 ppb limit, and more than 400 show dangerous levels above 40 ppb.

One unique factor in Flint: the water department changed to a corrosive river water source, then failed to treat it with anti-corrosion chemicals. The result: a pervasive contamination problem as the insides of old lead pipes broke down and released a torrent of poison.

Yet the fundamental risk factor in Flint – old lead service lines that deliver water to homes, plus interior plumbing containing lead – is a common problem for tens of millions of homes mostly built before 1986. Unlike other contaminants that can be filtered out at the water plant, lead usually gets into drinking water at the end of the system, as it comes onto individual properties and into homes.

At greatest risk, experts say, are an estimated 7.3 million homes connected to their utility’s water mains by individual lead service lines — the pipe carrying water from the main under the street onto your property and into your home. The water passes through what amounts to “a pure lead straw,” said Marc Edwards, a Virginia Tech environmental engineering professor who has studied water contamination in Flint and a similar, earlier crisis in Washington, D.C.

Lead service lines were mostly installed before the 1930s, although some communities continued to lay lead pipes for decades longer.

The way tap water becomes contaminated — at or even inside individual homes — poses a vexing problem for regulators, utilities and consumers. A home with a lead service line and older internal plumbing may have high levels of lead in its tap water. But a nearby, newly constructed home may have no lead contamination. The only way to know if your house is at risk is to find out about its water line and plumbing.

“People are legitimately concerned about what they’re hearing in the wake of Flint,” said Lynn Thorp, of the advocacy group Clean Water Action, who recently served on a federal work-group on lead in drinking water. “As long as we have lead in contact with drinking water, we can have exposure at the tap.”

Thorp said consumers need to become educated about any risks at their individual homes.

Under the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule, implemented in 1991, the government’s approach for protecting people from lead in drinking water has relied heavily on water systems monitoring for indications that their water has become more corrosive. The more corrosive the water, the more lead will be drawn out of pipes. Treatment of water with anti-corrosion chemicals can only reduce, not eliminate, lead from leaching into tap water in invisible and tasteless doses.

That’s why the EPA’s National Drinking Water Advisory Council wrote agency leaders in December calling for removing lead service lines “to the greatest degree possible.” It’s a daunting recommendation since in most cases, the water utility owns part of the line and the rest belongs to the homeowner. A credit ratings firm warned this month that replacing lead service lines could cost tens of billions of dollars.

“We’re now dealing with a legacy issue on private property distributed throughout many communities,” said Tracy Mehan, the American Water Works Association’s executive director of government affairs. The cost to replace each service line can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars.

Meanwhile, the EPA advisory council, whose members include experts from water utilities and state agencies, recommended that EPA take numerous steps to strengthen the existing regulation. They include developing a “household action level” that would trigger public health actions when lead contamination reaches certain levels and ensuring the public receives more information about the risks they face.

In addition, state water regulators say, federal officials need to tell water utilities what level of lead contamination indicates an acute health risk that should trigger a “do not drink” alert to all of the systems’ customers. The EPA is evaluating the recommendations and expects to propose revisions to its lead contamination regulations in 2017.

“We really recognize there’s a need to strengthen the rule,” Joel Beauvais, deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Water, said in an interview.

While he characterized Flint as an outlier, he said, “There’s no question we have challenges with lead in drinking water across the country. Millions of lead service lines in thousands of systems.”

Changing the rules could take at least a year. Beauvais said the EPA is working now to make sure states fully enforce existing rules. The agency last month sent letters to governors and state regulators calling for greater attention to drinking water oversight. While federal rules are made by the EPA, they’re enforced by the states.

Because of Flint, some utilities and state water regulators said they were already taking a closer look at water systems where testing identified excessive lead.

“It has caused a sort of shock wave through the drinking water industry generally,” said Jim Taft, executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators. States are looking at water systems’ performance and oversight, he said, “to make sure we’re not missing something.”

At a trailer home at the Maple Ridge Mobile Home Park in Corinna, Maine, Christi Woodruff recalls the notice hung on her door last year alerting her to potential lead contamination in the neighborhood.

A mom with an 8-year-old daughter, Woodruff initially planned to get her water tested. But, she shrugged it off after the park’s landlord told her testing was unnecessary. “The manager said not to worry because it was only certain trailers … He didn’t think my trailer was one of them,” she said.

Property manager Randy Dixon blamed tap water from a single old trailer with lead-soldered copper pipes for causing the park’s water to fail the EPA’s testing. He then told a USA TODAY NETWORK reporter to stop interviewing residents.

The analysis of EPA’s data show the Maine park is among almost 2,000 water systems flagged for having an “action level exceedance” for lead during 2012 through 2015. That generally means more than 10% of tap water samples taken during a testing period showed lead contamination above 15 ppb.

If you’re living in a home with a lead service line and received a notice about possible lead contamination, “it’s a good idea to get your water tested,” said Beauvais, the EPA water office official.

Most of the water systems that failed the EPA’s lead standard serve anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand people each, often running their lines to homes in rural communities, or managing water for individual schools or businesses in remote areas.

In Lake Mills, Wisc., about 50 miles west of Milwaukee, EPA records show the utility serving water to 5,300 people failed lead tests in 2013, 2014 and again in 2015 with some readings several times the federal limit.

Paul Hermanson, director of Public Works, said Lake Mills sent fliers with water bills since 2010 urging residents in older homes to run their water 15 to 30 seconds before using it. The idea behind not using the first water out of the tap is to avoid drinking water that’s been touching the old pipes and has the greatest risk of containing lead. “I don’t know that there’s a good solution to it other than running the water,” he said.

Some of the older homes in the growing bedroom community of Firestone, Colo., about 30 miles north of Denver, tested for excessive lead four times since 2014, records show. Town officials said they have repeatedly notified their 9,500 water customers of potentially harmful lead levels and distributed information explaining how to reduce risk. “The fact that they haven’t fixed this, that’s annoying,” said resident Heath Gaston.

The USA TODAY NETWORK analysis showed three of every four water systems that exceeded the lead standard from 2012 to 2015 served 500 people or less. They often lack the resources and staff expertise of larger systems. “Some of these small systems don’t even have a full-time operator,” said Taft, of the state water regulators association. They may rely on one person, responsible for several systems, he said. In the case of schools, the same staff that does building maintenance may be managing the water system.

But nearly 70 of the systems with excessive lead findings during the past four years each provide water to at least 10,000 people. They include:

Passaic Valley Water Commission, New Jersey: More than 315,000 people are served by the water system in the industrialized area of northern New Jersey with a history of other pollution crises. It failed to meet EPA’s lead standards during two testing periods last year and one in 2012. Commission officials said a $135 million construction project is underway to improve corrosion control. The utility officials also are publicly encouraging more people to participate in its lead-testing program.

New Bedford, Mass.: This municipal water system, which serves about 95,000 in a seaport city about an hour south of Boston, has been cited for excessive lead in 2014 and early 2015, EPA data show. Ron Labelle, the city’s public infrastructure commissioner, said the area’s housing is among the oldest in the Northeast and some still have lead service lines. A consultant has helped improve the system’s anti-corrosion treatments, he said, and the city passed its most recent testing in December. Additional testing will be done this spring.

Bangor Water District, Maine: More than 28,000 people receive water from this system, which exceeded EPA’s lead standards three times in 2012 and 2013. Operators tweaked chemicals used in its corrosion control program, and have been in compliance since.

When testing does reveal high lead levels, the USA TODAY NETWORK found many people were not warned as required. Of the 180 cited for failing to notify the public, almost half were cited more than once, records show.

In Ohio, in the past year, seven water systems serving a combined 8,800 customers failed to notify residents of potential lead contamination within 60 days as required.

Tests found excessive lead last summer at homes in the village of Sebring. The water system didn’t alert customers until January, after Flint started making national headlines. The Ohio EPA placed two employees on leave while investigating. State records show six other Ohio water systems also did not provide timely warnings to residents after failing lead tests. The systems supply water to mobile home parks, a subdivision, an arboretum and a church and its day care.

In Arizona, several water systems that found unsafe amounts of lead in drinking water samples taken several years ago failed to act until February, after the USA TODAY NETWORK began requesting data about lead levels in drinking water.

The principal at a boarding school near the Navajo Reservation was unaware until February that water from a faucet in a church at the property tested high for lead in 2013. Operators of a small water utility near the Mexico border and a small community system in eastern Arizona both had high lead test results in 2013. One said he didn’t know any action was needed. The other conceded the lack of action was an oversight.

Misael Cabrera, director Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, acknowledged lapses in following up with some water systems. Cabrera said he’s since asked all water providers for high lead levels to notify their customers. His department also is creating a system to better track compliance.

Without strong action by regulators, problems can fester, especially in small systems with limited resources.

In southeastern Oklahoma’s Latimer County, a rural water system serving about 1,500 people has had excessive lead levels during seven testing periods since 2013, EPA data show. The Latimer County Rural Water District #2 failed more tests in the past three years than any water system in the country.

Little has been done to fix the problem. The Latimer #2 district points its finger at its water supplier, and the supplier blames homeowners for not replacing bad plumbing.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Linda Petty, office manager for the Latimer #2 district, which doesn’t treat its own water. Latimer buys its water from the nearby Sardis Lake Water Authority. “We’re at their mercy,” she said.

“The water that we have coming out of the lake does not have lead in it,” said Willie Williams, the Sardis Lake system’s operator. “They have some houses in their system that have horrendous plumbing. There’s not a single thing Latimer #2 can do about it and not a single thing I can do about it.”

Customers received notices of the lead issue in their bills, the water system and residents said. County officials say they have not gotten calls from concerned residents.

“I haven’t heard anybody saying anything about it,” said John Medders, a county commissioner whose home is on the system. He recalled getting a notice in the fall. “Most of the time I just throw mine in the trash. I don’t pay much mind to it.”

Water regulators at the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality said they now plan to meet with both water systems and send state engineers to Latimer and 18 other water systems that don’t comply with lead-contamination limits.

“The Flint, Michigan, situation has really opened our eyes to what’s going on,” said Patty Thompson, engineering manager for the department’s public water supply group.

by Marc Santora and David W. Chen, originally posted on March 11, 2016

In August 2014, as 35,000 students prepared to return to Newark’s public schools, Keith Barton, the managing director of operations for the district, sent a memo with an urgent message to all principals, custodians and building managers: Before anyone drank from the water fountains, they should run the water for at least 30 seconds.

Mr. Barton directed custodians to run and flush every water fountain for two minutes before school started each day, and to tell cafeteria workers to run and flush cold water faucets in kitchens for two minutes before preparing food.

The memo, he wrote, was part of an effort “to reduce the risk of possible lead contamination.”

That effort failed.

The potential danger of lead exposure was something school officials in Newark had been aware of for years, and the district had installed lead-reduction filters on water fountains and kitchen prep sinks, particularly in schools built before 2006, according to Mr. Barton’s memo.

But it took a crisis in Flint, Mich., to focus attention on the issue of lead contamination in Newark, New Jersey’s largest city.

In Flint, the revelation that a series of political decisions and cost-cutting measures had exposed tens of thousands of children to dangerously high lead levels, thrust the dangers of childhood lead poisoning to the center of a national conversation.

While health experts said that the situation in Flint was much worse than the one facing Newark, the sudden closing of school district taps was a stark reminder that lead remains a continuing problem in many communities.

In 2002, for example, tests showed dangerously high lead levels in schools in Camden, N.J. Fourteen years later, the city’s schools are still relying on bottled water, at an annual cost to the state of $75,000.

Like many other Newark parents, Vanessa Gentleman-Cheatham, 35, said she was both terrified and confused by the lead findings in the city’s schools.

She has three children — ages 7, 6 and 4 — who attend Ivy Hill Elementary School, where the taps were turned off. There, and at the other 29 affected schools, children and employees have been given bottled water to drink instead.

“It’s scary; we trust the school system with our kids every day,” Ms. Gentleman-Cheatham said outside the school on Friday. “How long,” she asked, had her children “been drinking this water before they found out?”

Her question is one of several that officials have yet to answer. While the water at Newark school buildings is tested annually, the New York public radio station WNYC reported on Thursday that district officials were unsure whether samples gathered in previous years had been checked for lead.

In a statement on Friday, the school district and the state Environmental Protection Department said that the state agency had obtained lead-test data from the school system going back to the 2012-13 school year and would begin to analyze it. The results of that analysis are expected next week.

New testing of the water in all of the district’s schools would also begin next week, the statement said, starting with the 30 affected schools and including “every faucet or fountain in a school building where people can take a drink of water and every food preparation sink.” The federal Environmental Protection Agency is also being consulted.

The statement also said lead had not been found in the Newark Water Department’s source water, meaning the broader public was not at risk.

“In the vast majority of cases where lead is found in drinking water, it enters through the water delivery system itself when it leaches from either lead pipes, household fixtures containing lead, or lead solder,” said the statement, which was released by the state environmental department, which performs the testing.

But Ms. Gentleman-Cheatham had been so unsettled by the news that she told her children not to drink the tap water at the family’s house in Newark. She was afraid it was all contaminated. She said she had chosen to buy bottled water, an unexpected cost that ate into her family budget.

An annual report on lead poisoning issued in 2014 by the state’s Health Department found that Newark led every other large municipality in the number of children under the age of 6 with elevated levels of lead in their blood, as well as the greatest increase in lead poisoning reported from 2013 to 2014.

Even before the water was turned off in the 30 city schools, state lawmakers held hearings about the dangers facing children in the state because of exposure to the contaminant in their homes, where lead-based paint may still remain.

“You can spend money now, or you can spend later,” Staci Berger, president and chief executive officer for the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey, told lawmakers according to the online publication New Jersey Spotlight. “We can absolutely fix this if we put the resources into it.”

Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of the Children’s Health Fund and a professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, said that lead in drinking water was a problem with immediate health consequences, especially for children, but that the recent revelations about contamination offered another ominous warning about the general state of the country’s infrastructure.

“Lead exposure is most dangerous in terms of long-term consequences when it occurs during the most critical phases of brain growth, that is in the earlier years,” he said. “My question is: In addition to schools, are localities testing water systems going to day care centers — official and otherwise — and preschools?”

State officials did not reply to requests for more information about whether they were testing at other sites.

Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, which obtained a copy of the 2014 school memo written by Mr. Barton, said it was evidence that the school leadership had failed.

“We now know that the Newark school leadership, just like in Flint, knew that there was a problem with lead in the water,” Mr. Tittel said. “A year and a half ago, they sent out this memo to everyone in the school system with protocols on lead in drinking water and fountains.”

It should have been “a wake-up call for action,” he said.

by Rastriya Samachar Samiti, originally posted on March 9, 2016

JAJARKOT: Without access to safe drinking water, more than 5,000 households in Jajarkot district headquarters Khalanga are forced to consume contaminated water from local rivers.

The Drinking Water and Sanitation Coordination Committee said that the total 5,292 households in the district are forced to drink polluted water.

As a result, locals often suffer from various water-borne diseases.

According to the District Public Health Office, local people suffer from various water-related diseases like scabies, diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid and fever among others.

Out of around 27,000 families, only around 3,000 have access to water facility, while the rest are forced to take an average of one-hour walk to fetch water from nearby water sources, said Chief at the District Drinking Water and Sanitation Sub Division Office Maheshi Mahato.

He blamed difficult terrain and sparse settlements for difficulties to provide safe drinking water facility to the villages.

by Lahiru Fernando, originally posted on March 8, 2016

Tuesday, March 8, the Gammedda teams, continued for the fourteenth day,  a journey to bring the common problems and hardships of the rural villages to the attention of the relevant authorities.

Today the News 1st team came across a remote village where many of its inhabitants are suffering from cancer – a group of persons living in between two national parks and several villages – with simply one request from the authorities, access to drinking water.

One sub-team visited the villages of Uvarahena, Sudugalhena, Aluthhena and Kaluwalaketiya. The primary concern raised at all these villages was access to clean drinking water.

The village of Ellewela is home to 226 families whose main occupation is cinnamon production. However, a majority of the villagers are battling various forms of cancer  – including oral cancer and breast cancer.

Late resident of the village H.A. Podi Mahattaya was a father of three young children. He died of cancer eight months ago. Although he was pleased to hear that his daughter gained  admission to university, he did not survive to see her take the first step towards higher education.

News 1st also came across a village where three members of a single family are suffering from cancer.

North Central Province

One team that is touring the North Central Province visited the Rotawewa village located right between the Kawudulla and Minneriya National Parks. The main issue of the people living here was the access to clean drinking water as well as transportation. What is  most astounding is that these people have to walk 50 kilometres simply to reach a hospital.

The other team in the North Central Province visited traditional farmers in the Hatharaskotuwa Village. Even though they obtain the water from the Halmillawa and Makula villages for paddy cultivation, it is only enough for one season. Life is made even more difficult, with one tube well for the use of 250 families.

Northern Province

The News 1st team based in the North commenced their journey from the Alankulam village in Vavuniya where over 50 war torn families live. The main issue that they face is the the constant threat of wild elephants, lack of a proper road system and poverty. These 13 little children who we came across receive their education under very harsh and hard conditions.

The News 1st Gammedda Door-to-Door Campaign supported by the University of Peradeniya,  will take place until March 18.

by Jennifer Chambers and Jim Lynch, originally posted on April 14, 2016

Detroit Public Schools water test results released Thursday show that 15 buildings have tested positive for high lead levels, including one where a drinking fountain recorded 100 times the allowable limit.

The disclosure late Wednesday that 19 of 62 schools exceeded acceptable amounts of lead or copper was followed by a detailed release Thursday of the levels found in tap water at those schools.

Reacting to the results, the city’s health department director said Thursday that all DPS students under the age of 6 should have a lead screening, regardless of whether they attend one of the schools with elevated lead or copper.

“The test is free. It’s really important,” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, executive director of the Detroit Department of Health & Wellness Promotion. “We know that lead can have serious consequences later on in life. We want to give every child the best opportunities in life. That means a life free of lead.”

The testing comes in the wake of lead contamination in Flint’s water after that city switched its supply to the Flint River in April 2014.

Michelle Zdrodowski, a DPS spokeswoman, said the district is testing the water in its schools as a precautionary measure. “With everything going on in the state of Michigan and across the United States, the time was right and it was the right thing for us to do,” she said.

Lead testing was last completed in DPS in the 2006-07 school year, Zdrodowski said.

Lead and copper exposure can lead to health problems ranging from stomach pain to brain damage, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The district began collecting water samples during the week of March 28 at 62 district elementary and elementary-middle schools. More than 20 of the district’s middle and high schools are expected to be screened in the next two weeks.

Results released by the district Thursday show lead exceeding the 15 parts per billion action level in samples from 15 schools out of the 62 tested. A pair of samples — one drawn immediately from taps and a second drawn after a period of flushing — were taken at three locations per school, including the student drinking fountain and food prep sink in kitchens.

First-draw sampling, when water is taken immediately from a source after it has been inactive for a time, usually includes particulate lead that has settled in the plumbing, leading to higher readings. Flushed samples are taken after a fountain or tap has been allowed to run first, often clearing particulate contaminants and producing lower readings.

The highest number recorded came from Ronald Brown Academy, where one unflushed sample produced 1,500 parts per billion. A flushed sample from the same location produced 200 ppb.

Another high lead reading came from Moses Field School, where an unflushed sample returned 280 ppb, and a flushed sample showed 52 ppb.

The remaining high lead readings from around the city were in double digits.

Copper, with an action level of 1,300 ppb, was identified as a problem at eight Detroit schools. Priest Elementary-Middle School produced the highest reading, with an unflushed sample producing 3,400 ppb at one location.

The second-highest copper reading came from Burton International Academy, at 2,700 ppb. Moses Field had a single copper sample at 2,100 ppb.

El-Sayed said city health officials have told DPS they want a full mitigation plan in 15 days for water and cleanliness at the district, including a 90-day action plan going forward.

“We value all the children and want to make sure they are in a completely safe place,” El-Sayed said.

The likelihood is low that a child was exposed to serious amounts of lead at school, El-Sayed said, because DPS has been providing bottled water for students well in advance of the tests. DPS said bottled water has been provided three times a day along with three meals since 2012.

“As far as we know, most of the schools were elevated, but not extremely so,” he said.

Parents concerned about lead exposure during hand-washing can send hand wipes or hand sanitizer to school, El-Sayed said.

“We are working with DPS to make sure alternatives to water use are available,” he said.

Schools with elevated levels of lead or copper are:

Beard Early Childhood, Bow Elementary, Ronald Brown Academy, Bunche Preparatory Academy, Burton International Academy, Carstens Elementary-Middle, Carver STEM Academy, JE Clark Preparatory Academy, Detroit Lions Academy, Edison Elementary, JR King Elementary-Middle, Ludington Magnet Middle, Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle, Moses Field Elementary-Middle, Priest Elementary, Sampson Webber Leadership Academy, Spain Elementary-Middle, Turning Point Academy and Vernor Elementary.

Outside Spain Elementary-Middle School after classes Thursday, parent Regina Slaughter lowered and shook her head when she learned her sons’ school was on the list of buildings with elevated levels of contaminants. One tap at the school showed a copper level of 1,300 ppb before being flushed.

“Wow. I didn’t think it was this school,” she said as she sat in her car waiting for her two sons, third- and fifth-graders.

After the district initially tested the school in February, Slaughter said she thought the water was safe. Now she said the only thing she could think of was Flint and its water contamination issues. She said she’s not confident the district will fix the issue quickly.

“It’s terrible,” she said. “By the time my fifth-grader gets to eighth grade, they probably still wouldn’t have done anything.”

Sonya Lewis, mother of a kindergartner and second-grader at Spain, said not only is she worried about her daughters’ education, now she’s concerned about the water. Lewis said she’s going to have her daughters bring bottled water to school.

“I tell them don’t drink the water out the water fountain,” she said. “I was just never really fond of my kids drinking out of the water fountain, period. The school is so old and they ain’t fixing it. Who knows what’s coming out of the water fountain.”

DPS students in grades K-8 receive bottled water three times a day with each free meal the district provides. This week, the district received additional supplies of bottled water in sealed cups and plastic bottles that it distributed to all the affected schools, Zdrodowski said.

During testing at Edison Elementary School, water was collected from a prep sink in the kitchen and two drinking fountains used by students and staff.

In a letter, parents were informed of the test, the location of the water sample taken for testing and the presence of irregular test results.

School officials said water to the prep sink has been shut off and meal service that does not require extra water or water for cleanup will be provided. All of the drinking fountains at Edison have been turned off until further notice “as a precautionary measure,” and DPS will provide extra bottled water to the students and staff of the school, the letter says.

The district has 97 schools in the system housed in 93 buildings.

Last week, the district reported that results for nine of the schools tested by that point showed elevated copper levels at Burton and higher lead levels at the former Beard Elementary, which is more than 100 years old.

The tests by ATC Group, a licensed environmental consulting firm, cost $50,000. Half was paid for by a foundation grant and the other half was paid by the district.

“Moving forward, the district is considering making this annual testing,” Zdrodowski said.

Detroit Federation of Teachers Interim President Ivy Bailey said Thursday all students, school employees and educators deserve to know that water in their school buildings is safe to drink.

“No parent should have to worry about a child being poisoned while at school from unsafe drinking water,” Bailey said in a statement.

Lead in schools has become a hot-button issue in the last six months as Flint’s water problems have played out on a national stage. The detection of contamination in the city’s water last summer quickly led to the discovery of elevated lead levels in the blood of Flint children.

In the investigations that followed, local and state officials learned some things about the federal Lead and Copper Rule that governs drinking water. Among the most critical — the fact the law does not require schools to test what comes out of their water fountains and faucets.

Without being required to do so, most schools simply don’t test for lead. They often rely on reports from their water suppliers that indicate only the safety of the water when it leaves the treatment plant.

That fails to take into account the contamination from the water distribution system — mains and pipelines, as well as plumbing fixtures on a school’s property. An informal survey conducted by The Detroit News in October showed taps and fountains were not regularly tested in the urban school districts of Detroit, Lansing and Muskegon.

At that time, five months before DPS conducted its own testing, a Virginia Tech water expert said Michigan schools were likely to have lead problems that were going undetected.

“You would definitely find it in other schools (in Michigan) — not all schools,” said Marc Edwards. “You’ll have some schools where every tap tests clean. But with schools, every tap has to pass.

“If you have a faucet in one kindergarten classroom, you have a captive groups that’s drinking from that same tap all year.”

In October, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality tested schools in the Flint system and found three with elevated lead levels. Three months later, two state senators introduced legislation calling for mandatory water testing in state schools.

To date, no action has been taken on the measure.

State Rep. Leslie Love, D-Detroit, said she was disheartened to learn of the DPS test results.

“Given the crisis in Flint, as well as other infrastructure issues we have faced across the state in the last year, it is becoming clearer with each passing day that we cannot afford to run Michigan like a business. Too often, the model has been to not address something until it causes a problem, but by then it is often too late,” Love said.

State Rep. Brian Banks, D-Detroit, said the elevated lead levels need to be dealt with immediately.

Banks is calling for quick action on his bill, House Bill 4061, which creates a trigger when any health crisis exists dealing with lead.

The bill would require an initial noninvasive screening and take steps to ensure that lead exposure in children is caught early so that long-term health impacts can be minimized.

“We know that severe problems are caused by any level of lead in a child’s system, and we have to take action now to address lead exposure quickly,” said Banks.

HB 4061 requires health professionals to order lead exposure screening when a patient, between the ages of 12 and 24 months, lives in any of the target communities named in the bill, which would include Detroit.

by Lewis Millholand, originally posted April 14, 2016

Citizens of Orleans, a small town in upstate New York, have suspected for a long time that the Department of Transportation’s nearby salt storage facilities have been contaminating their private wells. Fed up with her local government’s lackluster response, Orleans resident Stephanie Weiss called on the aid of Virginia Tech.

Weiss and her husband Andy Greene have lived in their current home for about 15 years and have received inconsistent results from testing their private well-fed tap water. Sometimes lead levels soared, sometimes not so much. But what they and the rest of the community were really looking at was salt in the aquifer — it was only after reading about the crisis in Flint, Michigan, that Weiss began to suspect lead contamination.

At that point, the next step was a no-brainer.

“Who did I reach out to?” Weiss said. “I guess I reached out to people who could help me answer that question. People like Marc.”

Marc Edwards, Virginia Tech professor and face of the Flint Water Study Team, has championed the charge to expose the corruption surrounding water contamination. He’s also advocated to improve water infrastructure across the country. As Edwards puts it, “Civilization as you know it can end if you don’t have a good operating water system.”

When Weiss reached out to Edwards, he put her in touch with Virginia Tech researcher Kelsey Pieper, who published a study last fall that revealed lead levels in 19 percent of Virginia’s tap water drawn from wells exceed the EPA action level.

The EPA standard is a guideline though, not a legal requirement, since the EPA does not have the authority to regulate private wells. This also means that there are not a lot of data available on well water quality, and there are no standardized sampling protocols. On top of that, because the wells are private, testing must be done with the explicit consent of the homeowner.

“A lot of my work relies on engaged homeowners. So I’ve worked with some really wonderful people,” Pieper said. “It’s a growing conversation. One of the things I always like to say is, we do a lot of developing work, and we still have struggles in the United States.”

The Virginia Tech team sent 126 water testing kits to the citizens of Orleans, and Pieper anticipates receiving the results toward the end of April. Those data will shed light on the specific problem in Orleans and determine whether or not high chloride levels from the road salt are causing plumbing materials to leak lead into the water supply.

Pieper, who admitted to “nerding out” over her father-in-law’s specialized septic tank, is glad the subject of water contamination has been thrust into the national consciousness. She traced this back to Virginia Tech’s actions in Flint.

“Because of Flint, people have become very aware and been better understanding what it means to have lead in water,” Pieper said. “What we’re doing is we’re providing an opportunity for homeowners to participate in water quality testing and increase their awareness about what their water quality looks like so they can be empowered to make changes.”

The Flint Water Study was born in June 2015 when Flint resident LeeAnn Walters’ son was diagnosed with lead poisoning. Weiss “can’t think of a worse way to find out we have a problem” than discovering lead in a child’s blood.

Thankfully, the situation hasn’t escalated quite that far in Orleans. According to Weiss, most of the residents don’t drink the water from their tap, instead opting for local spring water suppliers.

However, both cities are similar in that their governments did little to address the problem. The crisis in Flint led to the resignation of Emergency Manager Jerry Ambrose and spurred calls for the resignation of Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI).

“We have a government that has not been responsive to its citizens because there’s a very strong likelihood that they caused the aquifer contamination,” Weiss said. “They have not, so far, fixed the problem.”

“Lead, just, it seems like it makes people crazy,” Edwards said. He has testified before Congress numerous times about the EPA’s rules on contaminated water. “Not people who are exposed to lead, but people who are supposed to protect us from it … Why have these environmental policemen turned into environmental criminals?”

According to Weiss, citizens of Orleans have been reaching out to their government for decades to address issues with the drinking water. The Orleans government, as of a few months ago, started supplying the town with clean drinking water from outside sources.

“I do feel like this is an opportunity for our government to make a choice about how to orient to an issue in general,” Weiss said. She hopes the town’s new connection to Virginia Tech will spur action. “I would hope that they would respond enthusiastically to try to help to figure out what their role is in the problem and own up to that, if necessary, and then to find solutions.”

As a citizen of a town with fewer than 3,000 residents, Weiss appreciated the prompt and involved response from a man who has testified before Congress and the aid of a university more than 10 times the size of her town.

“It’s very moving to deal with people who don’t care what your title is or what your role is or who you are, but just that you’re trying to do work for your community,” Weiss said. “I think that it’s easy to be cynical in this world of trying to get things done, of trying to get people to listen to you, and I feel like there is a real value to an institution that is responsive to people.”

originally posted on April 14, 2016

It’s not just in Flint.

That was the finding of a recent investigation by The Desert Sun and USA TODAY, which found that nearly 100 public water systems in California registered high readings of lead in tap water from 2012 to 2015.

Most of the public outcry over the lead issue has stemmed from the crisis in Flint, Michigan. Gov. Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in the city in January after it was found that children with elevated levels of lead in their blood might have doubled from 2013 to 2015 due to exposure to drinking water. President Barack Obama also declared a federal state of emergency in Flint.

While Coachella Valley water district officials say there is no lead issue with water in the desert, Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia is seeking to help provide water free from other contaminants, like arsenic, that are present in that which flows into some local homes – especially in the eastern Coachella Valley.

The Coachella Democrat is sponsoring a bill that would direct $10 million from the state’s general fund to pay for drinking water stations in schools facing water access or quality issues. The idea is modeled after the Agua 4 All program that has brought water stations to the eastern Coachella Valley.

In the last two years, the campaign has resulted in the installation of 75 fill-up stations in more than 20 locations in the eastern valley. Garcia sees this effort as a way to get safe water to these areas now.

Legislation by state Sen. Bob Wieckowski, D-Fremont, has a broader focus. He wants to impose tougher permitting requirements on new public water systems and require these proposed systems to consider joining existing water agencies.

Part of the problem in California is that of the 7,600-plus public water systems in California, nearly two thirds have fewer than 200 service connections. These small systems often have nowhere near the resources to meet ever-stringent water quality standards. Coachella Valley Water District officials have lamented the legal and financial impediments that can prevent connecting small systems with the CVWD network. The Wieckowski bill could help clear those hurdles.

The Safe Drinking Water Plan for California is based on “the right of every human being to have safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitation.” That laudable goal must remain a priority for lawmakers and all stakeholders.

Efforts like those of Garcia and Wieckowski keep California on the path to ensuring all of the state’s residents, including the most vulnerable populations in our own Coachella Valley, have access to healthy water.

by Mark Hicks, originally posted April 13, 2016

Elevated lead or copper levels have been reported in the water at 19 Detroit Public Schools, district officials said Wednesday, nearly a third of those tested.

The district began collecting water samples the week of March 28 at 62 district elementary and elementary-middle schools during screenings by the city and the Health Department. More than 20 of the district’s middle and high schools are expected to be screened this month.

The district did not immediately release information on the levels of lead and copper found in the water, only that those were elevated. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules call for lead levels to fall below 15 parts per billion and copper levels to not exceed 1,300 parts per billion. The district has 97 schools in the system housed in 93 buildings.

Testing involved collecting samples from three “high priority water outlets” at the schools, including the student drinking fountain and food prep sink in kitchens, and was done by a licensed environmental consulting firm, the district said.

“We did this in a proactive way just to ensure that we know exactly what’s going on in our schools,” said Michelle Zdrodowski, executive director of communications at Detroit Public Schools.

She said final figures were not yet available Wednesday night. And “while we remain concerned, the (initial) levels we are seeing are not extremely elevated,” she said.

The testing comes as lead contamination in Flint water after the city began using Flint River water in April 2014 led to that city’s crisis and has forced residents to rely on bottled water for drinking.

Of the Detroit schools tested so far, 19 had initial test results indicating elevated lead and/or copper levels, DPS officials said. They are:

Beard Early Childhood, Bow Elementary School, Ronald Brown Academy, Bunche Preparatory Academy, Burton International Academy, Carstens Elementary-Middle School, Carver STEM Academy, JE Clark Preparatory Academy, Detroit Lions Academy, Edison Elementary School, JR King Elementary-Middle School, Ludington Magnet Middle School, Thurgood Marshall Elementary-Middle School, Moses Field Elementary-Middle School, Priest Elementary School, Sampson Webber Leadership Academy, Spain Elementary-Middle School, Turning Point Academy and Vernor Elementary School.

Last week, the district reported that results for nine of the schools tested by that point showed elevated copper levels at Burton and higher lead levels at the former Beard Elementary, which is more than 100 years old.

The decision to test was not mandatory but pushed to guarantee student safety and spurred by the elevated lead levels found elsewhere in Michigan, district officials said.

“Like every school district, DPS makes the health and safety of its students and staff its first priority,” said DPS Emergency Manager Steven Rhodes in a statement when testing began earlier this month. “We are committed to ensuring that each of our schools provides an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning. The district has an obligation to ensure that our students and staff can focus all of their attention on what is most important — improved academic achievement. Proactively screening the water in our schools will help everyone stay focused on this goal.”

Once sampling was done and findings were in, officials shut off the drinking fountains until further notice, provided additional bottled water and notified students’ families, Zdrodowski said. Further testing also was planned.

The water at those sites is still considered safe for hand-washing; the EPA says harm from lead relates to ingestion over a long period, according to the district.

“Although children are exposed to lead from many different sources, the EPA maintains that the main place for exposure is in the home due to lead-based paint that is damaged and peeling,” DPS officials said.

Parents with concerns are asked to contact their pediatrician, the Detroit Health Department or the United Way for Southeastern Michigan’s 211 help line.

City health officials have also been urging all Detroit charter schools and early childhood facilities, including day cares, preschools and head starts, to test their drinking water for lead. The Children’s Hospital of Michigan Foundation is supporting the effort with a $135,000 grant; through that, the city is expected to reimburse up to $225 per building for the lab testing, officials announced last week.

“There’s nothing more important than the health and safety of Detroit’s children,” Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Director of the Detroit Health Department, said in a statement. “Regularly screening drinking water in schools is a well-established best practice.”

by Cheryl Corley, originally posted on April 14, 2016

Chicago’s North Broadway Street is always bustling, but in the past few weeks, it has been noisier than ever. There is water flowing from an open fire hydrant, and as traffic inches by, a cement truck backs up and pours concrete down into a big hole in the street.

“Well, we always say there’s two seasons: either winter and construction,” says Maureen Martino, the executive director of the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce. This water main upgrade is only the beginning; Martino says the city has plenty more scheduled for the area this year.

“When we took a look at the water mains, what they pulled out, this week over on Broadway and see how old they look, and how crumbling and what the new water mains look like, you’ll see the need is there,” Martino says.

It’s part of the city’s sweeping plan to update and replace miles of the city’s aging water lines that was announced four years ago. But while there has been praise about the long-overdue new infrastructure, there has also been criticism — and a lawsuit from residents who say the work is causing unsafe lead levels in the city’s drinking water.

Chicago has more than 4,000 miles of water mains under city streets. In 2012, the city announced a 10-year plan to replace 900 miles of water pipes. The mains are not made of lead, but nearly 80 percent of the water lines that connect up to the water mains and bring water into homes and businesses are lead pipes — and that’s the problem, says attorney Steve Berman.

“So we have children drinking lead in the water in Chicago — that’s not acceptable,” he says. “So we seek to have proper warnings sent out in the future when this is done, to have testing of kids to see if they have elevated lead levels, and to have the city of Chicago replace these lead pipes with nonlead pipes.”

A study was published in 2013 by the EPA and Chicago’s Department of Water Management that aimed to figure out better ways to determine the lead levels in the city’s drinking water.

The EPA’s Miguel Del Toral says while Chicago’s overall water quality is good, what the study made clear is that the method or sampling protocol that’s used to measure the amount of lead in drinking water is not effective.

“Our sampling protocol is not really capturing the high lead that’s there,” he says. “Everywhere, not just in Chicago. It’s a national issue.”

Del Toral, who was among the first at the EPA to raise concerns about the water crisis in Flint, says disturbing lead pipes can cause lead levels to spike. But it depends on how severely the pipe is shaken and how much of the pipe’s protective coating is knocked off.

Chicago recently announced that it will resume a water testing program at homes in some neighborhoods where children have tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. In an interview with WFLD-Fox TV in Chicago, Tom Powers, the city’s outgoing commissioner of water management, says Chicago water is safe.

“Water meets and exceeds every standard of the U.S. EPA,” Powers says. “We’ve done testing in areas where water main work has been done, and we have not seen any correlation to any increases in lead levels as a result of any of that work.”

Powers says the water department adds phosphate to the water supply to mitigate lead leaching, but anyone can call the city to arrange free testing for lead. Del Toral says that’s a good step, but the country needs to have a conversation about what it would take to eliminate all lead pipes.

In a city like Chicago, where the use of lead pipes is nearly universal, that would take a very long time.