Health Experts and Advocates Issue Joint Call to “Get the Lead Out” at Schools and Child Care
In this Sunday’s New York Times, Lori Peek documents a sobering set of health and safety threats facing our children at school. But one pervasive threat was missing: lead in drinking water.
Lead is a potent neurotoxin linked to brain damage and other adverse health effects. It can profoundly impair the way our children learn, develop, and behave. More than 66 million children in the U.S. are enrolled in schools and child care programs, where they may be exposed to lead in old paint, water pipes and fixtures, soil, air, and products on a daily basis.
More schools have been testing their water since the 2014 Flint, Michigan, crisis. Many districts, across a wide spectrum of socio-economic communities, are finding lead. Even the wealthy New York City suburb, Bergen County, New Jersey, detected lead in water from 55 percent of the taps tested in its schools.
Such confirmed cases of lead-laced water are likely just the tip of the iceberg. Lead leaches into water at highly variable rates, so even proper testing can sometimes miss or undercount the risk of lead in water. And because virtually all schools have at least some lead in their pipes, plumbing or fixtures, the risk to children is ubiquitous.
During National Public Health Week last week, experts in education, child care and children’s health issued a joint call to get the lead out of schools and child care facilities. The new report, Eliminating Lead Risks in Schools and Child Care Facilities, is the result of a December workshop funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. While at this workshop, I was particularly struck by the research of Bruce Lanphear, MD, MPH, whose presentation vividly demonstrated how even low levels of lead have serious impacts on children’s health.
The policy implication of Dr. Lanphear’s research is clear: we should not be waiting for more test results to confirm that children have lead poisoning, or that their water is tainted with lead. We should proactively remove lead from our children’s lives.
And that is the whole point of Environment America’s “Get the Lead Out” campaign. For drinking water at school, that means proactively removing lead-bearing pipes, plumbing and fountains. In the meantime, schools should take immediate steps, such as installing filters certified to remove lead, to ensure safe drinking water. Finally, we need a regulatory standard reflecting the medical consensus that there is no safe level of lead for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is urging schools to ensure that lead in water does not exceed 1 part per billion (ppb).
While more states are starting to address this issue, far too many, alarmingly, are adopting measures that don’t protect our children from lead-tainted water. Most states are still reacting to tests. And they are allowing lead in water at 15 times the level recommended by AAP. While such measures are better than nothing, they’re not good enough, and worse, they give parents the illusion that their children’s water is now safe.
Fortunately, some states and communities are taking more aggressive action to get lead the out of drinking water at school. Illinois is now requiring schools to remediate any outlet where lead is detected in the water, down to 2 ppb. Austin, Texas, is putting certified filters on all taps that show lead above the AAP standard of 1 ppb. San Diego and Washington, DC, now have a 5 ppb standard for schools’ water, and the DC ordinance also requires filters to be installed at every faucet and fountain.
No doubt, removing lead that can hurt our children’s lives will cost money. But the math is tragically simple and compelling: childhood lead poisoning costs the U.S. $43 billion a year, according to the World Health Organization.
So before National Public Health Week fades too far in the distance, let‘s renew our commitment to this clear principle: our kids deserve safe drinking water, especially at school and pre-school where they go each day to learn and play.
