Why are so many children drinking lead-contaminated water at school? 

All across the nation, children are heading back to school and millions will soon be drinking lead-contaminated water — a health hazard that is impossible to detect with the naked eye and extremely difficult to avoid. 

Parents and students can’t see, hear, smell or taste it, but it can pose serious health problems, especially in young children whose brains are just developing. 

The U.S. government has known about this problem for decades and done little about it. Lead water contamination in schools is putting our children’s health and cognitive development in jeopardy.

Poisoning from lead pipes was documented as early as the late 1800s. But it wasn’t until 1986 that Congress amended the Safe Drinking Water Act that stopping further installation of “non-lead-free” pipes, solder and flux in public water systems. 

Decades later, there is no national requirement to test for lead in water at America’s schools or in child care settings. Testing is entirely driven by the states. As of a few years ago, only 18 of them (in addition to Washington, D.C.) had any mandate for lead-water testing. Of those, only 13 states required lead to be remediated when found.

“There is no safe level of exposure to lead,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yet lead is often discovered when tested for in drinking water.  

A recent study found that nearly 70 percent of children under the age of six in Chicago are exposed to lead from drinking contaminated water. A national analysis of water in schools by ABC News last year revealed nearly 80 percent of samples showed “some level of contamination.”

Every child has the right to attend a school where the water isn’t contaminated with lead. U.S. public health agencies have a responsibility to protect them from being poisoned.    

In October, the U.S. EPA is expected to announce a new rule requiring utilities to test for lead water contamination “at all the elementary and child care facilities they serve.” Additionally, the rule is expected to compel utilities to offer to test middle schools and high schools for the first five years.

It’s a great start, but as a public health strategy, it is nowhere near enough.  

The EPA ruling will not require utilities to remediate the water if tests show lead to be present. In other words, the EPA will point out the problem, but it won’t do anything to fix it. 

Approximately 9 million U.S. lead service lines are in operation today. In May, President Biden announced a $3 billion initiative to identify and replace a portion of them, part of a $15 billion program funded under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to address the broader issue. Biden, to his credit, has attempted to make the issue a priority of his administration. 

But, even after this ambitious, expensive and long-term initiative is finished, the presence of lead contamination in school drinking water will likely persist. Why? Because even when lead service lines aren’t present, many fixtures and faucets contain lead, contaminating water right at the tap.  

Significant health hazards have already afflicted millions of children from daily consumption of lead-tainted water. The younger a child is exposed, the more serious the long-term impact. Even at low levels, lead causes lower IQ, hearing problems, learning issues, slower growth, hyperactivity and anemia. In marginalized communities, the effects are disproportionately worse. 

More state funding and stricter government oversight are needed to ensure public safety when it comes to removing lead from drinking water in schools. But the single most important thing we must do is enact federal laws granting the EPA power to correct lead-contaminated water when it is found — the very same jurisdiction it has in remediating superfund sites.  

“EPA’s Superfund program is responsible for cleaning up some of the nation’s most contaminated land,” reads the agency’s website. The program “focuses on making a visible and lasting difference in communities, ensuring that people can live and work in healthy, vibrant places.” 

Kids are being poisoned with lead at school every day, yet we deny the nation’s leading environmental regulator the authority to protect them from a known and extremely serious long-term health threat. The nation’s children need us to do better than this. 

Lyndon Haviland, DrPH, MPH, is a distinguished scholar at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy.