Blount County Schools found lead in +10% of drinking water sources | News | thedailytimes.com

2022-08-20 01:40:29 By : Mr. Kevin Du

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Blount County Schools plumber Doug Ogle installs a water bottle filling station at Prospect Elementary School in late July.

Water bottle filling stations that Blount County Schools has been installing, including this one at Prospect Elementary School, are designed to reduce the spread of strep throat and other diseases.

Blount County Schools plumber Doug Ogle installs a water bottle filling station at Prospect Elementary School in late July.

Water bottle filling stations that Blount County Schools has been installing, including this one at Prospect Elementary School, are designed to reduce the spread of strep throat and other diseases.

More than 10% of the water fountains and sinks Blount County Schools tested this year showed high levels of lead in the water, with results from one school still pending.

Of the 925 sources of drinking water tested during spring break in March, 95 showed levels of lead greater than 20 parts per billion, the level at which the state of Tennessee requires action. Another 30 showed levels of 15-20 ppb. As required by federal law, any site with results of more than 15 ppb were turned off until they could be cleaned and resampled, according to James Duke, BCS supervisor of facilities and capital projects.

Early in the summer BCS cleaned aerators and resampled water but has not received results yet from the second round of testing this year, Duke wrote in an email reply to The Daily Times.

Federal and state law require public notice of any results exceeding 20 ppb, and Duke said BCS notified the parents of students attending the affected schools, along with the Blount County Health Department and Blount County Board of Education.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say, “There is no known safe level of lead in a child’s blood.” According to the EPA, even low levels of lead in children’s blood can lead to learning problems, behavior problems, lower IQ, hyperactivity, slowed growth, hearing problems and anemia.

Five Blount County schools had no water problems, and another five had only one site above 20 ppb.

However, at Carpenters Middle School nearly 42% of the drinking water sources had lead levels higher than 20 ppb, and at Montvale Elementary nearly 41%.

Duke said he asked the South Blount Utility District to check its water system “and it came back clear.”

He noted that Carpenters, Union Grove and Heritage middle schools primarily had high levels in their science sections, where the water may not be used often. He explained that brass fittings can leach lead even if the amount used in them was miniscule. ‘We may either have to replace fittings or implement a plan of regularly flushing the science lab sinks,” Duke said.

He said he received permission from the Tennessee Department of Health to open the faucets in the science rooms with a sign saying “Do Not Drink,” and he gave school principals that option so the sinks can be used for lessons.

Results from the March tests have come back come back intermittently throughout the year, Duke said, and as of Tuesday (Aug. 9) the district still had not received the results from Walland Elementary School.

This is the second round of testing since a state law took effect in 2019 requiring districts to test all sources of drinking water in schools built before 1998 and to remove the source from service if lead exceeded 20 ppb.

Blount County Schools opted to test all schools, and in this round the one with the most lead problems was CMS, which opened in 2001, after laws mandating “lead free” pipes and solder.

The BCS testing this year was funded by a federal Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act grant through the Tennessee Department of Health.

In 2019 researchers from the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Nutrition Policy Institute at the University of California reported that in a dozen states with school drinking water testing programs, 44% of schools had at least one water sample with lead at or above the level the state required action, and 12% of all test samples were above their state action level.

Maryville City Schools has not had any water with lead levels that needed to be addressed since the law took effect in 2019, according to Director Mike Winstead.

For Alcoa City Schools most of the high lead levels it has found have been in the middle school, including four restroom sinks tested in 2021 with levels ranging from 24 to 54.7 ppb. The district’s high school and intermediate school do not have to be tested under the state law.

Separate from the lead testing, Blount County Schools has been replacing old water fountains with water bottle filling stations to reduce the spread of disease.

Over the summer the district installed 50 new stations throughout the schools, using $42,250 from an Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity grant to buy the equipment.

“It’s a great partnership and will hopefully reduce the levels of strep throat and other communicable diseases throughout the school system,” Duke said.

In recently installed bottle filler sites, he said, the lead testing results were “negligible,” less than 0.196 ppb.

School .. Drinking water sources tested .. Greater than 20 ppb lead .. 15- 20 ppb lead

William Blount Ninth Grade Academy .. 36 .. 3 .. 0

Samuel Everett School of Innovation .. 3 .. 0 .. 0

Walland Elementary (results not received yet)

Amy Beth earned her degree from West Virginia. She joined The Daily Times in 2016 on the education beat covering Alcoa, Maryville and Blount County school systems.

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