Portland, Oregon is the latest place in the country gripped by unsafe levels of lead exposure. On Friday, Portland officials announced that the school district will shut off all drinking water for the rest of the school year following reports of high levels of lead in water samples from two schools.
Elevated levels of lead were found in six of the 56 drinking fountains and other water sources at the Creston School and eight of the 36 fountains and sinks at the Rose City Park campus, according to a local NBC news affiliate.
Now, until classes end on June 9, the schools will supply bottled water for its students, faculty, and staff. The food service department will use bottled water to prepare food, and will use disposable plates and utensils that don’t need to be washed. Sinks in the science room were not replaced, but now have signs posted to tell students and faculty to use the water for washing, not for consumption.
Officials plan to test sinks and water fountains across 78 school buildings this summer. And on-site blood lead level screens will begin next week.
The shutoff came hours after Portland Superintendent Carole Smith apologized Friday for continuing to allow teachers and students to drink the water even after earlier tests showed unsafe levels of lead.
What We Know About Lead Poisoning Is Scary. What We Don’t Know Might Be Worse.Last year, Joy Moore lived through a nightmare for the third time. After the Baltimore resident and mother of two had…thinkprogress.orgWorkers previously repaired and replaced plumbing, but had not shut off water from fixtures that emitted lead, The Oregonian reported. The schools also had not warned students, faculty, or visitors to stop drinking the water.
“In addition to providing safe drinking water to all of our students, we will be taking immediate action to examine the protocols and procedures that resulted in delayed notification of our families and delays in shutting off impacted water sources,” Smith said.
The Portland Public School has not systematically tested lead in its drinking water system since 2001, The Oregonian reported.
Unsafe concentration of lead in school water fountains and sinks isn’t isolated to Portland. Earlier this week, Oregon officials shut off two drinking fountains and provided water dispensers at a Beaverton-area middle school after finding lead. In March, nearly half of the 60 schools within the Newark Public Schools systems turned off their drinking water to avoid poisoning their students. And hundreds of schools across the United States, including daycares and schools operating their own water systems, have violated federal lead levels within the past three years.
The primary source of lead exposure often comes from paint and lead dust, but the lead exposure crisis in Flint, Michigan helped put a spotlight on failing water infrastructure. Research has found that lead exposure can affect cognitive development and behavior in children, though the symptoms can take years to show up. It has also been linked to adult criminal behavior, substance use, and decreased lifetime earnings, as ThinkProgress previously reported.