Lead in water at Wisconsin schools: What we know from testing so far - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Lead in water at Wisconsin schools: What we know from testing so far

Wisconsin schools still have water fixtures with lead. Here's what that means
AnnMarie Hilton Laura Schulte

Four years ago, the Stevens Point Area Public School District realized it had a problem.

Testing done by a school advocacy organization showed elevated levels of lead in the water coming from fixtures in buildings throughout the district. Administrators started working on a plan to remedy the issue, but they still needed to protect students in the meantime, providing bottled water to ensure no students or staff were consuming concerning levels.

“While we were figuring it out we brought in the outside water so everyone could feel safe,” said Thomas Owens, director of business services for the district.

The majority of the water sampled from the district had lead levels safe for children, but some fixtures showed levels as high as 171 and 208 parts per billion, well over the 15 ppb regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the 10 ppb trigger level for further investigation.

The testing was put together by CESA 10, a Cooperative Educational Service Agency based in Chippewa Falls that provides support for schools within its boundaries in a broad area of western Wisconsin.

The result: about 10 schools were found to have fixtures or pipes with lead, meaning that children could be consuming the toxic chemical when they get a glass of water at lunch or sip from a water fountain during a passing period.

And that's just the districts tested, which is a small fraction of the 421 districts across the state.

While CESA 10’s testing gives parents and administrators a glimpse into what may be lurking in Wisconsin schools, a lack of testing requirements means most schools have not yet tested water for lead, a compound known for its profound effects on young children. Even low levels of lead in a child's blood can create behavior issues, slowed growth, anemia and more.

Attempts to pass legislation to require districts to test water fixtures for lead have failed over the potential cost to test and address any issues testing would reveal for already burdened districts.

But addressing lead in school water wouldn’t necessarily mean a complete plumbing revamp. In most cases, it would mean replacing a single sink or a couple of drinking fountains — not the entire system, said Charlie Schneider, the CESA 10 administrator.

Testing is the first step, but that alone won't tell a district how to address any issues with lead it may have.

“Just testing wouldn’t do the job," Schneider said. "We need to investigate and figure out where it comes from.”

Lead pipes were ubiquitous, and pose risks to children's health. That's why CESA 10 is testing

Lead is known for its soft and malleable qualities, which led to it being used often in laterals that connect a municipality’s infrastructure, typically underneath a roadway, to pipes within a building. Because of its soft qualities, it could be bent around trees or other obstacles.

Lead was banned from use as a way to carry water in 1986, after studies revealed the toxic effects it could have on those who consumed it, especially children. It works its way into water when the lead pipe corrodes over years of use, and releases flakes of buildup into water as it travels through the pipe. Lead levels can vary based on the different chemicals in the water itself, which may vary based on the source of water or the geology of the area.

Although there is no "safe" level of lead in the body, doctors recommend that levels of lead in the blood remain below 5 micrograms per deciliter to prevent a buildup of the metal in the body that could lead to long-term health issues.

These symptoms could indicate lead poisoning: slowed growth and development, behavior problems, decreased ability to pay attention in school, or even hearing and speech troubles.

That’s why CESA 10 decided to look into lead levels in schools.

Lance Gregorich, environmental health and safety manager for CESA 10, said he followed EPA protocols when he collected about 100 samples from each school to get data from each place students and staff could have accessed water for drinking or cooking.

School buildings are often remodeled, and can have complex systems because of that, Gregorich said, necessitating testing at each fixture.

The samples were sent to a Department of Natural Resources-certified lab to be analyzed. Gregorich and his team were then sent the results, and retested any fixtures that initially showed high levels of lead. The second test was done after the fixture was run, or flushed, for 30 seconds to remove any stagnant sediment.

If levels were still high after flushing, Gregorich and his team helped identify the cause and created a plan to bring the levels back within EPA’s accepted limit.

Districts 'have to weed through all those variables' when looking for the source of lead in their water

Owens said Stevens Point spent one “tough” year bringing in outside drinking water for students and staff. It was a process to determine where the lead was coming from and what it would take to lower the levels. Since the district doesn’t have its own well, the village of Junction City, where the school is located, was part of the process as well.

“There are a lot of variables involved,” Owens said. “Some had to do with our fixtures. Some had to do with the solder, and the rest was just the source coming in in the first place. You have to weed through all those variables.”

Ultimately, the district replaced multiple faucets and fixtures. It also does routine flushing to make sure sediment isn’t building up in the lines and spends about $6,000 every two years to replace filters on potable water sources.

For the Stevens Point district , one building — Kennedy Elementary School in Junction City — had the most problems. The school was built in 1961 and is farther out from the rest of the district, Owens said.

The district’s other buildings were built in various years throughout the 1950s and 1970s.

Buildings constructed before the U.S. banned pipes, solder and flux that weren’t lead-free in 1986 pose greater concern, but Gregorich said newer buildings should be tested, too, because they could have used products brought in from other countries.

It isn’t clear how many Wisconsin public schools were constructed before or after the ban since the most current statewide data is from 1999, when the state Department of Public Instruction surveyed all public school districts on the state of their facilities.

At that time, roughly half of all Wisconsin public schools were built in the 1950s and 1960s. One in 10 schools were built in the 1990s. The survey did not ask about water quality at schools, but nearly 88% of schools described their plumbing system as “adequate,” “good” or “excellent.”

A statewide problem: Lead shows up in rural and urban schools

CESA 10 also tested the water for St. Croix Falls School District in Polk County. It’s a smaller school district with just over 1,000 students.

In the summer of 2017, there were three areas with slightly elevated lead levels. Two of them aren’t used very often — including a kitchen sink not open to student use — district administrator Mark Burandt said. The other was a sink in a concession stand used for volleyball games and wrestling matches.

“I was pleased with the results not because we had three, but that we only had three,” he said.

The spots were tested a second time with a flush, and all three came back with safe levels. This meant the water was safe during normal use, but could be a problem after sitting stagnant.

The state’s largest district, Milwaukee Public Schools, tested its water in June 2016.

Nearly 12,000 samples were taken from 191 buildings, according to a 2016 news release from the district about the sampling.

Of the more than 3,000 drinking fountains in the district, 94% tested below the EPA’s standard. Fewer than 200 of the drinking fountains yielded elevated levels. Those that did come back high were immediately turned off.

Today, the district is still reliant on filters to protect students from lead, with a donation in August providing free filtration for the next five years.

More: MPS gets new water filters, health department recommends lead testing

Despite testing in Milwaukee and other districts pointing to a larger issue, other districts are still hesitant to do their own.

Dave Strifling, the director of Marquette Law School’s Water Law and Policy Center, said districts will likely hold off on testing until there is some type of statewide push or mandate.

“The hurdle is that this is a regulatory vacuum of sorts, because schools aren’t required to test for lead,” Strifling said. “Most of them are not public water sources in their own right; their water is supplied to them by their community.”

Lawmakers may need to push for a bill not only to test, but to help fund any sort of mitigation that might be required.

‘There’s a lot of people thinking about how we get this done’

While there hasn’t been a push to mandate testing for lead at fixtures in schools in the current legislative session, there have been other pushes to address the growing lead issue in Wisconsin.

Earlier this year, Gov. Tony Evers attempted to get funding in his budget to investigate lead poisoning in children, add positions to aid in responding to the rising number of lead investigations, raise Medicaid reimbursement rates for lead investigations and aid in the replacement of lead service lines.

Those proposals were stripped from the budget before it was passed earlier this summer.

In 2020, legislators attempted to pass a bill that would require testing in schools, but the proposal never made it to a formal vote in the Senate or Assembly.

Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay, said he authored the bill in hopes of learning more about which schools needed help replacing lead pipes of fixtures, after legislation years ago created a program to help with lines outside buildings.

“If there was a better chronicle or good list of everything, of all the schools that still have bad infrastructure and lead pipes, that would be helpful in targeting later legislation,” he said.

Cowles said he had been shown evidence that a number of schools are affected by lead, but because of everything else on their plate, school districts might not have the money to do anything about it. Being able to target that one issue could be beneficial for young people.

“It’s more dangerous for young people to be consuming lead,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get our arms around this problem and come up with a plan.”

Cowles said he hopes to reintroduce another bill targeting testing within schools; for now, there’s nothing formal planned. But there is support.

“There’s a lot of people thinking about how we get this done,” he said.

Sen. LaTonya Johnson, D-Milwaukee, said she would support a bill requiring testing, but with one caveat: There would have to be funding provided to schools and daycares for the testing costs.

“These lead levels are something that needs to be immediately addressed. That should be a call to action for our legislature, an issue that we were elected to address,” she said.

“I think it’s time for us to start investing in our own communities and our own state to make sure our children are OK, because at the end of the day, no family deserves to have their kids negatively impacted by lead.”

What to do if you’re worried about lead levels in your home or school

People looking for more information about lead can visit the Department of Health Services Lead-Safe Wisconsin website. It has information about sources of lead, poisoning and other resources.

If you're interested in testing for lead in your home, the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene offers testing. For more information or to order a kit call 800-442-4618.

Parents who are concerned about their child can speak with healthcare providers or other professionals they trust, such as a local health department.

CESA 10 also has information on its website about its water testing program.