As the new school year begins, Oakland is carrying out an aggressive strategy to limit lead in water by expanding water testing, installing filtered water stations and adopting a lead limit of 5 parts per billion, lower than the state and federal limit of 15 parts per billion.
Oakland Unified is among the California districts that have adopted lead limits for their drinking water that are more stringent than those in a new state law that requires schools to have their water tested for the toxic metal.
San Diego Unified has adopted a 5 parts per billion limit and is looking to borrow $45 million to further lower its lead standard to 1 part per billion by 2020.
California’s lead testing law, which went into effect on Jan. 1, requires schools to take action only if their drinking water tests with lead levels over 15 parts per billion.
But testing also revealed that 46 schools in Oakland — just over one-third of those tested — had lead levels between 5 and 15 parts per billion.
The district shut off every water outlet where tests found lead levels over 5 parts per billion after lowering its lead limit in February, spokesman John Sasaki said.
Sasaki stressed that the sources of lead contamination at those schools were individual water fixtures — not supply lines and pipes running throughout the building — so high lead levels found at one water fixture do not mean that an entire school’s water supply is contaminated.
Tests recorded lead levels between 5 and 15 parts per billion at 45 San Diego schools.
Push for districts to adopt lower lead levels Rusch said CALPIRG is encouraging “dozens of districts” that still rely on the 15 parts per billion standard, including San Francisco Unified and Los Angeles Unified, to adopt more stringent lead policies.
Of the district’s 20 schools, three tested over 15 parts per billion and three others had lead levels between 1 and 5 parts per billion; the rest were under 1 part per billion.