Cold prevented replacement of water fixtures in schools

Officials were ready to replace several water sources in February, a report from schools Superintendent Clifford Janey to the Board of Education stated.

“However, a two-week cold snap in the Washington region coupled with the deteriorating plant of DCPS facilities, shifted the priority to the [heating] systems,” Janey’s report stated.

Janey’s report stated that it took school officials nearly a year to test 18 schools for lead. Critics of the superintendent have blasted Janey’s plodding approach to the myriad problems in the city’s failing schools.

Aides to Mayor Adrian Fenty — who Tuesday won a first, critical District Council vote to take over the school system — warned school officials last month to take charge of the lead problem, sources told The Examiner.

Officials have since tested all 142 schools in the District and gotten results on 129 of them. Three-quarters of them had at least one fountain, sink or cooler that tested positive for lead.

More than 55,000 children and young adults attend D.C. public schools. Lead is toxic to humans. It causes a host of health problems, from brain damage to miscarriages. It affects the young the worst, experts say.

“The first exposures that you get, even at low levels, are critical,” said Paul Schwartz of Clean Water Action, a nonprofit group that lobbies for safe drinking water. “That can be a critical slug of lead.”

Schools spokeswoman Patricia Alford-Williams sent an e-mail late Tuesday. It quoted Paul Taylor, who oversees school maintenance. Taylor said the schools used higher standards than the Environmental Protection Agency in determining dangerous lead levels and have shut off fountains, coolers and sinks that tested positive.

District Council member Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, was unimpressed with the schools’ response to the crisis.

“It’s a travesty,” she said of the lead tests. “It’s another illustration of how ineffective the school system has been at protecting the District’s children.”

Some parents reacted angrily to news that officials had stalled on replacing sinks, fountains and coolers.

“I guess that’s the whole reason I’m in support of Fenty’s plan to take over the schools,” said Paul Simms, whose son, Paul Jr., is an eighth-grader at Jefferson Elementary School in Southwest. “There’s no accountability in the schools. It’s crazy.”

It’s not clear where the lead comes from. But the District has been on notice for more than five years that lead threatens the city’s water supply.

In 2002, the Washington Water and Sewer Authority found dangerous levels of lead in the city’s drinking water. Several homes tested at six times the Environmental Protection Agency’s “action level” of 15 parts per billion. As late as 2004, District homes tested for lead at four times the EPA’s action level.

Last year, the EPA fined the Water and Sewer Authority for violating a consent order that was put in place to check the city’s water supply for lead.

Expert: lead testing not done properly

The District of Columbia schools’ lead problem may be even worse than suspected because authorities aren’t testing for the toxic metal properly, an expert warned Tuesday.

“We’re missing critical data,” said Paul Schwartz of Clean Water Action, a national advocacy group.

Schwartz said that D.C. school officials have flushed their water fountains, sinks and coolers for more than 45 minutes before testing the water. According to its Web site, the Environmental Protection Agency recommends that schools take their first samples from the first draw of a tap.

“It’s really problematic in terms of getting an accurate sample,” said Schwartz, who has worked on safe drinking water problems for more than 27 years.

Internal tests results The Examiner obtained show that almost three-quarters of the city’s schools had at least one water fountain, sink or cooler that tested positive for lead.

Lead is a dangerous metal that affects the young the worst. It’s been linked to brain damage, kidney disease and birth defects.

Schwartz said that makes it all the more important to obtain an accurate test, because even small amounts of lead can harm children.

In general, city and school officials have been too lax at attacking the lead problem, Scwartz said.

“Montgomery County assigned someone to go out and systemically test for lead,” he said. “So they weren't having to react in crisis mode again and again. We have a vulnerable population in the schools and we're not doing a good job of communicating the dangers.”

bmyers@dcexaminer.com

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com