State Ignored
Threat of
Elevated Lead Levels in Water at 120 Schools
by Steven Sanders
The State Education Department
(SED) and the State Health Department (DOH) have ignored, for over three months,
results of a survey they conducted concerning levels of lead in drinking water
at schools and daycare facilities. Of 684 schools and daycare facilities surveyed
who responded, 120, or 18 percent, reported the presence of potentially dangerous
levels of lead in their water. The survey did not ask schools to report the actual test
reading, only whether lead levels were below or above 20 parts per billion
(above what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems an “actionable
level”). They ignored the findings entirely and did absolutely nothing
to follow up.
Given the results
of this survey of a significant sample of schools and daycare facilities,
there are probably hundreds more throughout the state with unacceptably elevated
or hazardous lead content in children’s drinking water. If the level
of lead in drinking water is too high, it poses imminent health threats,
particularly over time and especially to infants and children. Very troubling
is that lead is associated with irreversible learning disabilities, hearing
loss and attention deficits. For neither SED nor DOH to show any concern
or even curiosity about this is a disgrace.
Parents should have been warned, and schools should have done remediation
where lead levels were at a medically dangerous level. The State failed even
to request the actual readings to learn precisely how much over the 20 parts
per billion measure the samples indicated. What if some schools have 200,
2000 or 10,000 parts per billion? Neither the State Education Department
nor the Health Department bothered to ask. Who knows how many children are
being contaminated?
In April of this
year SED, in a collaborative effort with the State Health Department, sent
out surveys to schools and daycare facilities in districts where local water
supplies had reported elevated levels of lead, as well as to schools that
have their own water supplies. The notice accompanying the survey provided
the following background information: “Exposure
to lead is a critical health concern especially in children whose growing
bodies tend to absorb more lead than adults. The longer water remains in
contact with leaded plumbing components, the likelihood for lead to reach
into water increases.” These results were made known to SED and DOH
in August.
You do a survey, you need to
follow it up with action and appropriate oversight. They had these results
almost three months ago and have done absolutely nothing. The State Education
and State Health Departments showed no sense of urgency about protecting children especially, not to mention others also at risk. Both
Departments were shamefully negligent. They should have 1) investigated the
exact conditions at each of the 120 schools; 2) ensured that parents were notified
where lead levels were indeed a health risk; and 3) checked that all appropriate
corrective measures were taken to protect children where the water was unsafe.
I plan to introduce legislation
requiring the State to implement a water quality testing regimen, perhaps modeled
after U.S. EPA protocols, for every public school. At present, such testing
is mandatory only for the 400 school buildings in New York State that have
their own water supply.
What a shame
when government officials, who surely have the obligation to protect children,
could sit back and ignore results of their own survey. The sad truth is we
don’t know
how many children may have already been harmed, in some cases even, irreversibly.#
Assemblyman Sanders is chairman
of the Education Committee. E-mail
him at sanders@assembly.state.ny.us or phone 212.979.9696. His mailing address is 201 East 16th
Street, New York, NY 10003.
