- Lead is a neurotoxin that's especially harmful to young, developing brains.
- But more than half of US schools haven't had their taps tested for lead.
- At schools that have been tested, more than a third of the taps were contaminated. Schools in cities like Portland, Los Angeles, and Atlanta have water that has tested positive for lead.
No one should be drinking lead. The neurotoxin can cause brain damage and lower a person's IQ.
But unless your taps have been tested recently, you can't know for sure that you're not consuming the poisonous metal in concentrations that could hurt your health.
Generally, tap water from municipal pipes in the US is extremely safe to drink, and is even subject to more stringent standards than bottled water. But recently, kids across the country have found out that the water in their schools is contaminated with lead. A 2019 Harvard study looked at water tests from 10,888 schools in 12 states, and found that nearly half of the schools (44%) had at least one water sample with worrisome lead concentrations.
In 2018, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that of all the US public schools that had tested their water in the previous two years and reported the results, more than a third (37%) found elevated levels of lead. But perhaps even more worrisome: less than half (43%) of schools had tested for lead at all over the last couple of years. At least 10 US states and the District of Columbia mandate lead testing in schools, but in the rest, it's done on a voluntary basis or not at all.
Jacqueline Nowicki, who works on education policy at the US GAO, estimates there are still close to 15 million US students who don't know whether their water is safe to drink at school.
This is troubling because lead is especially harmful to kids' young, developing brains.
"In children, there is no identified threshold or 'safe' blood lead level below which no risk of poor developmental or intellectual function is expected,' according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Lead exposure can negatively impact a child's ability to concentrate and learn for years.
Here are nine surprising places around the US where the tap water in schools has tested positive for lead:
As recently as 2018, some Los Angeles schools were reportedly still dealing with dangerous amounts of lead in their water.
Plumbers have been repairing fountains in the Los Angeles public schools, the second largest school district in the country, for years.
But EdSource reported that as of 2018, some schools were still dealing with concentrations of lead in their water that were well above state and federal limits.
Under a new state law, all California public schools will have to test their taps before July 2019.
Maine has some of the most rampant lead problems in the country when it comes to schools and day-care centers.
According to a 2016 nationwide drinking water analysis from USA Today, "one water sample at a Maine elementary school was 41 times higher" than the EPA action level of a 15-part-per-billion lead threshold.
High lead levels were recorded at other fountains and faucets in at least 25 different facilities in the state.
This year, Maine lawmakers are considering new legislation that would require schools to do more testing, as the Portland Press Herland reported in February.
More than 50 Detroit public schools have found out that their drinking water is contaminated with high levels of lead, copper, or both.
The problem is widespread in the Motor City. In September, the superintendent turned off the taps at all Detroit schools and dispatched coolers and bottled water across the city. This cost $200,000 for the first two-month supply, as Crain's Detroit Business reported.
Within weeks, donations began pouring in to help cover the bulk of the $3 million cost of new hydration stations for schools, according to an October report from the Detroit Free Press.
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