High levels of lead in water still at many NYC schools; check to see if your child's school is on the list!

In all the news about peeling lead paint in schools, there has been little attention given to the fact that there were more than 500 NYC public schools and/or preK centers in which lead was found in the water above the “action” level of 15 parts per billion. 

The DOE spreadsheet showing the lead test results of water outlets in 534 schools is posted on this page.  DOE says that “One third of all schools were tested in this round, with the remainder of schools scheduled to be tested in 2019 and 2020.”  Of those 534 schools, more than 80% had at least one outlet with elevated levels of lead.  The detailed DOE spreadsheet is here. 

We created a new spreadsheet, adding tabs for fixtures found to have lead above the action level of 15 ppb sorted by district and by concentration (with outlets found to have the highest levels at the top).  The new spreadsheet is here.

Some of the schools with the highest levels are listed below, showing outlets with lead at 54 to 873 times the action level, with the most alarming results from a cold water faucet in the 4^th floor boys bathroom in Prospect HS.  This outlet emitted water with lead at an incredible 13,100 parts per billion.  In that same school as well, a hallway fountain (or “bubbler”) on the 3rd floor was found to emit water at 3,070 parts per billion. 

But there are schools in every borough showing extremely high levels of lead. The districts with the highest counts include District 31 on Staten Island with 171 elevated outlets, District 28 in Queens with 167 outlets; and District 17 and District 22 in Brooklyn with 151 and 140 outlets respectively.  You can check the spreadsheet for your child’s school and classroom.

Remember that these outlets either did not show elevated levels of lead last time or have been remediated at least once.  Someone really ought to ask DOE officials why there are still so many outlets releasing water at such high levels if they took corrective action on all affected outlets already, and what if anything they plan to do differently at this point to ensure that their methods of testing and/or addressing the problem are more effective.

NRDC has a model state bill that would require remediation through water filtration, which as far as I know, DOE has not done.  Their model bill would also significantly lower the action to 1 part per billion.  As NRDC water expert Joan Matthews pointed out to City and State, and as research shows, “There is no safe level of lead in drinking water for kids.”  

The model bill is posted on the NRDC website here.  Illinois has ordered that parents be notified if their children’s schools report levels of lead in water about 5 ppb; and D.C. has lowered the action level for lead to 5 ppb and requires filtration systems in all schools.  Vermont has lowered the action level for remediation to 4 ppb for all schools and child care providers.

In the meantime, NYC parents should probably send their children to school every day with a bottle of water every day, and get their blood checked for lead annually.

Please add your comments below if your child's school is affected; if the DOE or your principal has informed you of this fact, and what if anything they've advised you to do.

Peeling lead paint found in 938 classrooms; and lead-laden water in 500 schools

Update: 9/4/19: The DOE went back and found elevated levels of lead  in twice as many spaces, including 1800 classrooms for preK, Kindergarten and 1st grade students as well as some common areas, and says all these spaces have now been "remediated".  Check out the DOE press release and the latest by reporter Christopher Werth here.

Update: The current state action level for lead in water of  15 parts per billion – the threshold at which remediation must occur – is not a standard based on health or safety, as any amount of lead in water or blood can have negative effects.  Environmental advocacy organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Healthy Schools Network are advocating for NY to lower its action level to 1ppb before public schools begin testing their for lead by 2020.  More on this here.  
The model bill is posted on the NRDC website here.   The bill also requires specific remediation efforts including filtration systems on any affected water outlets. NRDC also posts a detailed explanation of the problems with the current system of testing for lead in water in NYC schools, and how the model NYS bill follows the law adopted by the District of Columbia.

The DOE found peeling lead paint at 486 schools built before 1985, including over 938 classrooms serving kids in 3-K, Pre-K, Kindergarten and first grade. More on this at Gothamist [with a WNYC radio sound file],  Chalkbeat and NY Post.

The ramped up inspection is a result of investigative reporting by Christopher Werth of WNYC , who wrote in Gothamist earlier this summer how he had found lead paint in classrooms  here and here; and a letter sent by members of Congress to the DOE as a result of his reporting.

Here is the DOE spreadsheet of the schools inspected and the results.

The DOE says they plan to remediate all these classrooms before Sept., by covering the peeling paint with a “certified primer” and painted over twice.

Yet it doesn’t appear that DOE also checked for lead dust on the floors, which can also be quite toxic, especially for young kids who sit on the rug for “circle time”, as pointed out by Werth in the WNYC interview and earlier Gothamist articles.  And they haven’t checked any classrooms for kids over six, or common areas.

The Chalkbeat article also has a searchable list of the 500 schools that still have water outlets that were found to have lead levels still above the “action level” of 15 parts per billion, though the DOE claims to have “remediated” all but 15 of these outlets once again.

Which brings up the question, if they had remediated them last year, as they claimed, how effective is the process by which they address this?

The DOE should immediately inform parents at all schools with classrooms that tested positive for lead.  The more research is done about lead and its effects, the more scientists realize that even children with tiny amounts of detectable lead in their blood are more likely to have academic and behavior problems.  See my earlier blog post about this, as well as these two scientific studies.

All parents should also probably have their kids tested for lead, especially if their schools are on the list but even if not.  Too often children go without lead testing, as reported by Reuters. 

One good thing is that there is new research showing that medical treatment to remove lead from blood can be effective, according to a paper published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics and discussed in Chalkbeat here.

In the fall, you can also contact the DOE to report peeling paint in in your child’s school through the Paint Reporting survey .  For more information, check out the DOE webpage here.