A critical assignment: Every Illinois school should test its water

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Students line up at a water fountain at Brentano Math and Science Academy. A fountain at Brentano found to be a source of lead has been taken out of service. | Lou Foglia/Sun-Times

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To its credit, the Chicago Public Schools system is aggressively testing school water for the presence of lead following the crisis wracking Flint, Michigan.

Tests are being conducted on the drinking fountains, water coolers and faucets of every school in the nation’s third-largest school district, even though federal and state regulations don’t require it.

So far, 19 of 74 CPS schools with test results have been shown to have levels of lead from at least one water source that exceeded federal standards. Even more had lesser levels. Finger-prick tests of some children at the first CPS school with elevated lead levels indicated enough lead in those students’ bodies to warrant further testing.

We can’t assume, obviously, that the threat of lead in school water ends at the city’s border. All Illinois schools — including parochial and private schools — would be responsible to follow CPS’ lead.

EDITORIAL

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Consider three key points:

— Illinois has more lead service lines than any other state in the nation. Such lines were commonly used in buildings constructed before 1986. Hundreds of CPS schools were built before then. So were most of the Chicago area’s Catholic schools, both city and suburban.

To combat the dangers of lead service lines, cities add corrosion-fighting chemicals to the water, creating a protective coating on lead pipes. But this is not foolproof. Street work, water main replacement and plumbing repairs can shake loose this coating, causing lead to leach into water. One recent class-action suit contends this is a particular threat in Chicago, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been on a crusade to replace hundreds of miles of century-old water lines. However, other Illinois municipalities with pre-1986 schools routinely do street and water work, too.

— Not only older schools are at risk. Some post-1986 non-lead pipes can pose a problem if they hold lead in the solder or fittings. Los Angeles Unified school district doesn’t have lead pipes, but it found lead leaching from brass fittings it chose for bubblers on its new water fountains. LA’s newer schools tended to have fountains with the highest concentrations of lead.

— Lead in water knows no economic or racial boundaries. Nationally, low-income and minority children experience higher average blood lead levels, often linked to lead paint exposure. But across Illinois, at least 132 of about 1,750 water systems have exceeded federal lead standards during at least one year since 2004, says State Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills). And that includes systems serving well-heeled Barrington, as well Lake, DuPage and Cook counties.

McSweeney is co-sponsor of a joint legislative resolution requiring the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to monitor the state’s water systems, especially those with past problems, and to produce a final report with policy recommendations by Jan. 1. Though the resolution, which took effect May 31, requires only water system tests, McSweeney would welcome an EPA policy recommendation that all Illinois schools be tested regularly.

“If you are not testing lead levels at schools, that’s dangerous,” McSweeney says.

Let’s understand what’s at stake here.

Infants and children exposed to lead can experience delays in physical and mental development, lower IQs, reduced attention spans, learning disabilities and poor classroom performance. Lead exposure has been negatively correlated with adult brain volume, linked to ADHD and associated with higher rates of violent crime.

One recent studysuggested that the advent of municipal water systems with lead pipes in the second half of the 19th century considerably increased city homicide rates between 1921 and 1936, when the first generation of children exposed to lead through water reached adulthood. Cities that used lead water pipes had homicide rates that were 24 percent higher than cities that did not, the study found.

For all taxpayers, lead exposure packs an economic punch: increased health care, crime, need for special education and a decline in lifetime earnings, according to one Michigan study.

Although the federal EPA limit for lead in water is 15 parts per billion, both the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree: there is no totally safe level of lead in water.

A child’s ingestion of even one particle of lead can be very dangerous, warned Yanna Lambrinidou, a water quality expert at Virginia Tech. She also noted that a school faucet can test clean 10 times in a row, then on the 11th draw produce a particle — in a loosened piece of solder or rust — with a lot of lead in it. So clean results from one-draw tests per faucet can be misleading.

As a result, multiple, regular tests of each school water source seems prudent. Such tests may not be perfect, but they are one way to catch potential problems with long-term, dangerous and costly consequences.

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