TOO MUCH LEAD:
Schools forced to fix fountains, add filters
Do you send a reusable bottle to school with your children, one that you fill up with water at home?
Or do you tell them that, when they get thirsty, to drink from the school water fountains?
You might be surprised to know that school boards have been scrambling to address a widespread problem of higher-than-acceptable levels of lead found in the water coming out of fountains and sinks at elementary and secondary schools across B.C.
Why should parents care about a little lead, typically leaching from old pipes, showing up in the water their children may drink? Because major medical organizations, including the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, say there is no known safe level of lead in a child’s blood.
The physical and behavioural effects of lead, including learning disabilities, shorter stature and impaired hearing, occur at lower exposure levels in children than adults.
Widespread testing was ordered in schools last year, following a Vancouver Sun and Province investigation that revealed too-high levels at some schools.
As a result, 15,257 water samples were collected at 1,500 schools across all 60 districts. Some boards, such as Surrey and Richmond, tested extensively. Others did less, as the province has given the districts three years to complete the tests.
An analysis of this data shows more than one-quarter of these tests had lead levels higher than the Canadian maximum of 10 parts per billion. In some schools, the amount of lead detected was hundreds of times higher than the national standard.
Twenty-six of the boards had no worrying results, although some of those districts, such as Langley, have not yet tested all their schools.
In the remaining 34 boards with high-lead results, some had just a few problematic sinks and fountains, and others had hundreds to fix. Most boards told the Sun and Province that they have taken measures to address this issue, although the steps taken — and the potential effectiveness of those steps — have varied.
B.C. Education Minister Rob Fleming said the overall results were concerning, which is why testing and mitigation requirements will continue under the new NDP government. About $6.5 million has been provided to school dis- tricts since last year to help reduce lead levels in water.
The charts look at some of the worst cases of lead at fountains and sinks when the tests were conducted, between the spring of 2016 and the spring of this year. Action taken since by boards include closing fountains, installing filtering systems, replacing pipes, flushing water daily and placing “do not drink” signs above sinks.
But this work is not over yet, as boards continue to test the safety of all water sources where thirsty children go to school.