New report alleges drinking water in Philadelphia schools ‘plagued’ by lead

PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia School District is facing labor shortages, issues with asbestos and now alleged claims that lead is tainting drinking water in many of its school district buildings. 

"Unfortunately, our new report lead in the water, shows that our school buildings are plagued by lead in drinking water," said Emma Horst-Martz. 

Horst-Martz is an advocate with the PennPIRG Education Fund. The group, along with the PennEnvironment Research and Policy Center and the Black Church Center for Justice and Equality, released a new report Wednesday with data on self-reported samples showing lead in drinking water in 65 public schools in Philadelphia. 

"It shows lead in 61% of drinking outlets tested across the district," Horst-Martz said. "The medical research is crystal clear there is no safe level of lead in the drinking water, especially for children."

The report used information from publicly available data provided by the school district. 

A law passed in 2017 requires the school district to test all of its school buildings by the end of 2022. To date, only 29% of school buildings have been tested.  

Advocates say the school district can tackle this problem with federal funds, but the district is refuting the claims. 

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After the report was released, the school district released the following statement: 

The data and report issued today by PennPIRG is not an accurate reflection of the water quality that students and staff in our District are accessing each and every day. The School District of Philadelphia is fully committed to supporting clean, safe and welcoming learning environments for every student and staff member – and that includes providing access to drinking water which meets the City of Philadelphia’s rigorous lead-in-water regulations, and proactively preventing access to any drinking water in any District-owned building that does not meet City of Philadelphia standards. In the event that a water outlet tests at or above 10 ppb, the City of Philadelphia’s required threshold for school drinking water, which is significantly more strict than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) threshold of 20 ppb, the outlet is immediately shut down. The District closes these outlets, both because it is required under City and EPA regulations, and to prevent students or staff from using or ingesting contaminated water.

The District has an ongoing and comprehensive safe water testing program that launched in 2016. All 269 District-owned buildings were sampled once through 2017, and all water outlets that did not meet the City’s standards were turned off and remediation actions were implemented. The second cycle of sampling began in April 2019, with a planned completion timing in April 2023 in alignment with the City’s five-year cycle requirements. The District paused sampling while school buildings were closed to in-person learning due to COVID-19 because of  the lack of water movement in our school buildings would have created sample results inconsistent with regular water use; and would have failed to capture accurate sampling results. The District resumed testing in April 2021 in school buildings that were occupied, focusing first on elementary schools. We are still in the five-year cycle requirement and will continue inspecting and sampling water in every school.

The Penn PIRG report calls for the increased use of hydration stations, but fails to acknowledge their use in the same schools highlighted in their report. The District aims to have a minimum of one filtered hydration station per 100 students, per floor in its 269 District-owned school buildings. More than 1,320 hydration stations have been installed to date, and more are being installed as we receive them. These purified drinking sources are tested and have consistently shown lead levels which are safer than that required by City regulations. The District will continue its existing efforts to place hydration stations within easy access to all staff and students.    

The District has had prior conversations with PennPIRG to address their concerns, and is deeply disappointed by their mischaracterization of water quality in our District buildings.   

One parent told FOX 29 they should have known about the issue. "We should have already known something about that!" the parent said. "I didn’t know anything about it at all to tell you the truth." 

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