By: Paul Chon
The Division of Drinking Water (DDD) and the California Department of Education collaborated to test for lead in drinking water of all K-12 schools, the government website waterboards.ca.gov said. All California public schools constructed before Jan. 1, 2010 are required to test their community water system for lead by July 1, 2019, the government website waterboards.ca.gov added.
As of Jan. 16, 2019, 193 sites out of 22,547 sites have a lead amount over 15 ppb (parts per billion), according to the government website waterboards.ca.gov. 4,429 public out of approximately 11,000 public schools are participating in the lead sampling program, the government website waterboards.ca.gov added.
“Recent events in the United States have shown that lead in drinking water remains an on-going public health concern, particularly for children,” the government website waterboards.ca.gov said. “Lead rarely occurs naturally in California’s drinking water sources, but may become present when water passes through older plumbing fixtures or solder containing lead that connects plumbing. Schools that are served by a public water system are not required to test their water for lead under the current Lead and Copper Rule.”
For MUSD, the results of the water samples have not come back yet, Maintenance, Operations, and Transportation Director Brian Shreve said in an email. There is an estimated time of 4-6 weeks before results come back, Shreve said. However, it all depends on the lab and their workload, Shreve said. The results are not back possibly because of a huge workload, Shreve said.
“We are waiting for results from the samples taken,” Shreve said. “Inquiry has been made from the water company to lab. The lab has been slow to respond. We’re still hoping for all of the sampling results in the near future.”
Although the results of the water samples have not come back yet, we, the Union, will do our best to get the results in a future issue of the newspaper.