Don’t drink the water at these city schools
One of San Francisco’s civic calling cards is its tap water, flowing from Sierra snow above a granite canyon near Yosemite. Its purity makes heavy treatment unnecessary, and there’s none of the chemical taste that sends people to the bottled water shelf at the market. That’s why schoolkids, along with everyone else, feel free to sip from drinking fountains in hallways and gyms in dozens of city campuses. But that healthy habit is in doubt after spot checks at three schools showed harmful lead levels.
The results are sending school authorities scrambling. The water taps are shut down, and bottled supplies are on hand. Wider testing is promised to doublecheck the findings, and the lead levels should be known and publicized. You can almost hear the soda industry snickering after health experts berated their sugary beverages as unsafe and city voters approved a tax.
But the lead contamination needs a reality check. The problem should never have reached this point. Relatively simple policies that oblige custodians to flush out water lines each morning apparently weren’t followed. That step would clear out lead that might have seeped into standing water in pipes. But even letting the water run for 30 seconds doesn’t always work, leaving contaminants in the lines.
City voters, not just school families, have a right to be concerned. Three bond measures, totaling $1.725 billion, won passage in the past decade to pour money into the school system for the very matter at hand, modernizing and updating aging classrooms. Swapping out old fixtures and plumbing was part of the work. Any thought of asking voters for more money should wait until the issue of lead contamination is resolved and school leaders routinely fill their water bottles at the spots that are now the most tainted.
There’s a puzzle to the picture. High lead levels might be expected in older buildings or from outlets that aren’t used often. But that wasn’t the case at four schools operating at three sites: Malcolm X Academy, West Portal and San Francisco International Academy. Gym fountains, kitchen prep faucets and even a faculty lounge all had lead that was beyond safe levels. The three locations are among 72 tested out of the district’s 124 schools.
The initial testing focused on five outlets at the
schools. When levels above the recommended maximum of 15 parts per billion were found, all of the water sources were investigated. That additional screening turned up the wider and and disturbing numbers: frequently used fountains near the gym at International Academy, a high school, reached 644 and 493 parts per billion. Readings at the other schools were double or triple the safe levels. Further tests are under way to double-check those numbers.
The situation comes with ample background. Unsafe lead levels are linked to delayed child development by harming the brain and nervous system. Schools should be the last place to expect such a health threat. Since the 1980s, changing regulations have done away with paint, gasoline and ammunition that contain lead, a shift credited with reducing the level of the contaminant in the environment.
But problems clearly remain and can’t be ignored. Soldering together metal pipes is a suspected source of lead, along with older faucets and fixtures. Each trouble spot turned up by testing will need to be examined and an individual solution developed, a school official suggested.
The water crisis in Flint, Mich., where city pipes leached lead into the water supply, led California authorities to push for safety checks. A voluntary system is in place with the city Public Utilities Commission sampling the school water levels. Other communities including Oakland, San Diego and Los Angeles are discovering similar lead presence in school water supplies.
Families need to be assured and students protected when it comes to lead contamination. It’s a proven health threat that can be alleviated in this case with the right materials and fixtures. San Francisco’s schools need to make sure that happens.