USA Today has released an investigation about high lead levels found in schools and day cares across the country. According to the report, Maine had the most instances of high lead levels compared to any other state.
But the Maine Center for Disease Control says Maine’s numbers are better than they appear.
For the USA Today Network investigation, journalists combed through Environmental Protection Agency data from 2012 to 2015 to identify water systems with high lead levels — those that exceed the federal standard of 15 parts per billion. When they examined data on schools and day cares in particular, Maine rose to the top.
“Maine actually had the most action-level exceedences over the period that we looked at, for schools and day cares,” says Laura Ungar, a USA Today Network reporter.
Ungar says 44 samples from 26 facilities had lead levels high enough to trigger remediation. But she says there could be even more schools and day cares with high lead levels, because only those with their own water systems, like a well, are required to test.
Ungar says about 90 percent of schools and the vast majority of day cares don’t fall into that category because they rely on municipal water supplies that test the water.
“So basically these schools and day cares can test if they want to, but they’re not required by the federal government,” she says.
But Ungar says the investigation found that schools that voluntarily test do find issues. And that means that the source of the lead problem is something other than the water itself.
“That is the case a lot of times is that these schools or day cares are in older buildings that maybe have lead within fixtures, within plumbing, within solder,” she says. “So it’s a building-level issue, which wouldn’t be found through a water system testing through the plant.”
In 2013, Albion Elementary School in Kennebec County found lead levels in its water that were 337 parts per billion — more than 20 times the limit. MSAD 49 operations director Cheryl Brackett says the school relies on well water, and the issue was traced to the school’s water fixtures.
“We replaced three water fountains, and we replaced 24 sink faucets, and all 48 hot and cold water shut-off valves,” she says. “And this ended up bringing our lead content down to where it should be.”
The director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Ken Albert, says 285 schools in the state are required to test water for lead. And he says they’re responsive when there’s an issue.
“From 2012 to 2015, 30 of those schools and day cares had action levels and work with us on a regular basis to try to find out on what the issue is, what’s the source of the lead, what kind of public education they have to do as a result of that,” he says.
Though Maine had the most instances of high lead levels in the USA Today Network investigation, Albert says currently a little more than three percent of schools with mandated testing have high lead levels.
“There are nine of those schools right now out of the 285,” he says.
Lead levels have become a renewed concern across the country since Flint, Michigan, switched its water source to the corrosive water from the Flint River that leached water from lead pipes, poisoning thousands of children.
Maine does have corrosive water in certain areas of the state, says Albert. But he says there’s a difference between Maine and Flint.
“Flint has a lot of lead delivery lines for their public water systems,” he says. “And its rare that Maine will find an old lead delivery line.”
Still, Albert says, parents should ask schools and day cares with their own water systems how frequently the water is tested. Just as important, he says, is for parents to test water in their homes.
And he also points out that the predominant source of lead poisoning in Maine is not water. It’s lead paint.
Albert says parents can get both water and paint testing kits to find out if there’s an issue.
