(Newswire.net — August 28, 2018) –Across the country, millions of students began a new school year this week. While most of them were welcomed back to school with clean classrooms, new teachers and and fresh supplies, a percentage encountered a frightening surprise. In many school districts, dangerous levels of lead have been discovered in the schools’ drinking water.
One such school is in the town of St. Joseph, Louisiana where the state and Virginia Tech University lab found exceedingly high levels of lead and copper in the drinking water. Tests revealed the lead levels to be at 402.6 parts per billion which is about 27 times the legal limit. Tests conducted just before the start of the academic year also revealed dangerously high levels of lead in Anne Arundel schools in Maryland, at 11 San Diego California schools, and at Florida schools, among others places.
Exposure to any amount of lead is dangerous to humans as lead is a toxic metal. Lead also is known to accumulate in the body over time, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Lead stored in the bones of young girls can be released later in life and passed on to fetuses, negatively affecting their brain development.
Lead can enter drinking water via old pipes that contain lead and which corrode. Especially problematic are fixtures and faucets with brass or chrome-plated brass with lead solder, from which significant amounts of lead can enter into the water, especially into hot water. While federal law banned the use of lead in new plumbing or repairs in 1986, some schools have pipes and fixtures in use from before the law went into effect.
In St. Joseph’s school, the water has been treated using a method called flushing in which an anti-corrosive chemical is flushed through the pipes. It coats the inside of the pipes preventing the lead from seeping into the water. The school’s drinking fountains and faucets which were old and had lead fixtures have also been replaced. A reputable plumber can determine when a faucet needs to be replaced, explain the experts at DrainMaster plumbers.
Especially vulnerable from exposure to lead are young children, infants, and fetuses because damaging effects of lead exposure can occur at even very low levels. Lead can cause damage to the central and peripheral nervous system; learning disabilities and problems with abstract thought; hearing, memory, attention and growth problems; impaired formation and function of blood cells; and damage to the brain and kidneys among other parts of the body.