TROUBLED WATERS
Fountain in B’klyn elementary school h l had lead levels worse than Flint
A classroom water fountain at PS 289 in Brooklyn had lead levels of 15,000 parts per billion, which topped even Flint, Michigan’s worst reading of 13,200 ppb. The city moved to replace school fountains after widespread toxic lead levels were found.
Students in a Brooklyn elementary-school classroom drank from a fountain whose water was more contaminated than Flint, Mich.’s — laden with 1,000 times the amount of lead permitted by federal safety regulations.
A Dec. 16 test revealed a staggering lead-concentration level of 15,000 parts per billion in the water spouting from the spigot in Room 222 at PS 289 George V. Brower in Crown Heights, city Department of Education records show.
The Environmental Protection Agency requires water suppliers to reduce lead levels if they reach 15 ppb.
The amount of lead flowing from the Room 222 fountain was also three times the 5,000 ppb level at which the EPA classifies water as “hazardous waste.”
By comparison, the highest level of lead recorded during the Flint water crisis was 13,200 ppb. The scandal — in which cost-cutting measures resulted in the contamination of the city’s drinking water — led to criminal charges against 13 current and former government officials.
A scientist who helped expose the Flint scandal said any kid who drank from the Brooklyn school fountain faced “an acute health risk.”
“If you were the unlucky student who went to that fountain and was exposed to 15,000 ppb, there is almost no doubt you would get some level of lead poisoning,” said Marc Edwards, a civil-engineering professor at Virginia Tech.
It was unclear how many kids drank from the fountain, or how long its water had been tainted.
But a custodian at the school, which was built in 1958 and serves 419 kids in pre-K through fifth grade, said the problem was not a new one.
“Do you think that lead just got here? This goes way back,” the worker said.
On Monday, The Post revealed that elevated lead levels were found in water from about one in every 20 taps in the city’s elementary schools during testing that took place between December and February.
That testing had followed results announced in July, when officials claimed that fewer than 1 percent of all samples from the city’s schools exceeded federal standards.
But criticism of the city’s watertesting methods — which included running every tap in each school for two hours the night before — prompted to a second round of tests.
Lead poisoning can result in learning disabilities in children and kidney problems and high blood pressure in adults.
Lead levels in blood will fall over time once exposure stops, but severe cases can be treated with chelation therapy, in which medication taken orally binds with lead so it’s excreted through urination.
The DOE said it didn’t have the results from the first test on the Room 222 fountain and couldn’t say when the fountain was last tested prior to that.
In September, Gov. Cuomo signed a law requiring school districts across the state to conduct periodic testing for lead contamination.
DOE Deputy Chancellor for Operations Elizabeth Rose said the Room 222 fountain was shut off following the test results, after which workers replaced the fixture and piping.
It was turned back on after testing in January that showed the level of lead was below 15 ppb, she said.
Rose also said the 15,000 ppb reading from the Room 222 fountain “was not a typical situation” and noted that lead levels tend to fluctuate depending on how long water sits unused in piping.
She also said that when any “drinking or cooking faucet” tests higher than 15 ppb, “we will immediately take it offline until we can replace and fix the pipe to the wall and retest that fixture to get a test result below 15 ppb.”
Edwards, the civil-engineering professor, said that protocol doesn’t necessarily guarantee safe water, because pieces of lead can come loose and circulate in piping, causing levels of the heavy metal to skyrocket.
“I call it water-fountain Russian roulette,” he said.
Edwards said he favored the use of water filters to reduce lead.
An official with the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene downplayed any dangers posed by the Room 222 fountain.
“These testing results don’t reflect a steady state or result,” said Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the agency’s first deputy commissioner.
“I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying exposure during the day would equate to a public health risk.”
Barbot also said the city had no plans to test any children who drank from the Room 222 fountain.
“If there was a true risk here, we would have seen it already,” she said.
A PS 289 parent was outraged to learn about the situation and said she had never received any notification from the school.
“Who knows how long that has been going on,” said Cynthia Thomas, 46, whose 12-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter are enrolled there.
“It makes me want to pull the kids out of school, but my son is graduating soon. My daughter is only in third.”
Thomas said she planned to take her children to their doctor for testing.