Exploris Middle School students in Raleigh N.C. surveyed fourteen water fountains for lead in the water using EPA approved meters we loan for free. (You can borrow them by clicking here.)
The students carefully documented every step in their process with photographs of where samples were taken, when, and the resulting meter results. You can see their impressive report here.
According to Education Week magazine, there are over 100,000 K-12 school buildings in the United States. About half are over 44 years old and roughly one-third of them have serious plumbing issues, including those that add lead to drinking and cooking water.[1] The last time serious updates to federal regulations governing new plumbing installations were made was roughly 30 years ago – long before the lessons of Flint Michigan were learned![2]
If half our schools are over 44 years old and our current lead levels were set 31 years ago, there is potential for unsafe levels of lead to be present in a majority of our schools. You can find out about a number of issues involved in lead in school drinking water by visiting our website www.thepollutiondetectives.org (Look at the bottom right box.)
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