The Hazleton Area School District fails to adequately test for lead in drinking water, according to a new report from a nonprofit environmental group.
The report, Lead in School Drinking Water: How Pennsylvania school districts and the commonwealth are failing to protect children’s health, found districts regularly violate state laws and best practices.
PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center requested information from nine school districts in the state and found that most fail to test or discuss testing at a public meeting, make test results difficult to find or don’t provide children with sufficient access to drinking water. The organization looked at districts in Altoona, Bethlehem, Harrisburg, Hazleton, Norristown, Scranton, Upper Darby, West Chester and York.
“Unfortunately, I think the results were even worse than we imagined,” said David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment. “Nearly every district we surveyed, eight of the nine school districts across Pennsylvania, weren't just avoiding implementing best practices to protect kids from lead in school drinking water, they were actually violating the law and … could put kids' health at risk.”
State law requires districts to test for lead in drinking water or discuss the absence of testing during a public meeting. Repeated lead exposure can lead to symptoms in children including fatigue and vomiting, and to more serious issues, such as developmental delays, hearing loss and seizures.
Most schools have at least some lead in their plumbing systems — even those built relatively recently. Until 2014, national codes allowed significant amounts of lead in new pipes, pipe fittings, plumbing fittings and fixtures, according to the report.
Through Right-to-Know Law requests, PennEnvironment found that Hazleton does not test every school or hold a meeting discussing testing. Hazleton only tests water in a school which is on a well. For schools with public water, the district relies on testing done by the water utilities — before the water comes into the buildings, according to the organization.
Superintendent Brian Uplinger defended the district’s practices, saying the “health and safety” of students is the district’s top priority.
“We do regular testing of lead levels in our schools that use well water and are in close communication with the local municipalities that supply water to our schools,” Uplinger said in a statement. “Over recent years, we have upgraded a number of fountains with new bottle filling stations and have installed new water stations that are leased and serviced on a regular basis.”
In early 2020, the Scranton School District discovered widespread lead issues that had been overlooked or ignored. Water coming into the schools did not contain lead, but after sitting in pipes or fixtures, the water had been exposed to old fittings. Later that year, the district directed maintenance to turn off fixtures that had any detectable level of lead, although the water from the fixtures remained within the limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“Lead is a contaminant that builds up as the water is sitting in the pipes, and we know that there are a number of potential points for lead contamination in school buildings,” Masur said.
The PennEnvironment report questioned Scranton students’ access to drinking water, but the district has bottled water available and is in the process of replacing fountains with filling stations for water bottles.
PennEnvironment calls for the state Legislature to pass a pending bill that would require districts to replace old drinking fountains that pose a risk of lead contamination with lead-filtering water bottle filling stations and drinking fountains. The legislation also includes funding to cover the costs.
