Joe Siler held a sterile 20-ounce plastic bottle under a water fountain in a hallway at Jason Lee Middle School before classes started Wednesday morning.
Siler, a certified plumber who works for Vancouver Public Schools, began taking water samples from one fountain in each of the district’s schools and facilities at 5 a.m. Tuesday. When he finishes later this week, he will have gathered samples from 47 sites. That includes 37 schools plus the Kiggins Bowl, the Propstra baseball stadium, the district office and more.
Vancouver is among the Clark County school districts testing their water for elevated lead content. Last month, several Tacoma schools reported high lead content in school water. That followed on the heels of alarming lead levels reported in the city water supply in Flint, Mich.
Many Clark County schools, including Jason Lee, recently installed water-bottle-filling stations. In fact, there is a water bottle station just around the corner from where Siler stood. But he bypassed those stations, which have newer plumbing and filtered water.
“I want a true reading. I want to test the oldest drinking fountain in the school,” he says, and pointed to the old, porcelain drinking fountain from which he’d taken the sample.
Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday issued a seven-point directive to the state Department of Health and partner agencies to assist local communities with lead testing and to take steps aimed at reducing lead exposure in Washington.
The directive advises the state Department of Health and the state Board of Health to review and possibly suggest ways to implement a 2009 law requiring school districts to monitor environmental health risks, such as lead and mold. The rule has not been implemented due to a lack of funding.
Department of Health and other state agencies are charged with reducing lead exposure in drinking water, but also where children are most susceptible, such as older buildings that might have lead paint.
“While no imminent public emergency has been discovered, recent detections of lead in some water systems are highlighting the important roles our water utilities, schools, public health departments and the state play in ensuring we all have access to safe, clean drinking water,” Inslee said.
Local schools
Vancouver Public Schools plans to test all of its schools, starting with its oldest ones.
“Testing was deemed necessary as more school districts like Tacoma are finding issues with their water,” said Pat Nuzzo, district spokeswoman.
It takes Siler only a few minutes at each school. The samples are delivered to a local lab to test the samples. The district estimates it will cost between $1,500 and $2,000 for testing, not including Siler’s labor. Results should be available in about three weeks, Nuzzo said.
She pointed out that eventually new water-bottle-filling stations, like the ones at Jason Lee, will be installed in all of the district’s schools.
Evergreen Public Schools, the county’s largest district, is in the process of getting quotes to test all water sources, including potable water in drinking fountains and water from sinks in chemistry labs, at all schools and facilities, said Gail Spolar, district spokeswoman.
The district is budgeting $300 per elementary school, $500 per middle school and $700 per high school for testing the water.
“There are testing mandates and protocols for lead paint, asbestos, lead. It’s just something we do,” Spolar said.
Evergreen tested potable water in all of its facilities in 2004. More recently, the district has begun installing water-bottle-filling stations in schools, which will eventually be in all schools. So far, about a third of the district’s schools have the stations, which provide filtered water from new pipes, Spolar said.
“We’ve been talking about it as we’ve been installing the water-bottle-filling stations.”
Evergreen’s oldest schools are Mill Plain, Sifton and Ellsworth elementaries, which were built in the 1950s.
Woodland Public Schools is also testing the water at all schools in the district, even Woodland High School, which opened in September, said Scott Landrigan, director of facilities.
“We were prompted by the recent issues in Flint,” he said. “We are just being proactive in trying to get in front of anything like that.”
Landrigan said that the schools are being tested now, and moving forward, he thinks the district will set up a testing plan so each school’s water is tested yearly, most likely before the start of the school year.
Camas School District will follow Inslee’s directive, and plans on collecting water samples from the four schools built before 2000, according to an email from district spokeswoman Doreen McKercher.
“We are following information and guidance from the Department of Health for testing lead in our facilities,” she wrote.
In addition to testing at the four schools — Dorothy Fox Elementary School, Lacamas Heights Elementary School, Liberty Middle School and Skyridge Middle School — McKercher said that the district also will test the water at the administration center, home to community education preschools and before- and after-school child care.
Following protocol
Other districts already had testing planned, or recently decided to take a look at the water before Inslee’s message came out.
Long before the governor’s directive, Battle Ground Public Schools scheduled water testing in all schools for this summer. The district last tested water districtwide during the 2005-2006 school year and followed the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s protocol for water testing in schools, said MaryBeth Lynn, district spokeswoman. Those tests found slightly elevated lead levels in some schools, including at Maple Grove Primary.
“We put in portable water coolers until we could get all the faucets changed out,” Lynn said.
Following protocol, the district tested six months later. Those tests showed no elevated lead levels. At Yacolt Primary, when they tested for lead and copper in 2005-2006, they found elevated copper levels from the water system.
“We added a treatment plant at the school that took care of the copper,” she said.
Battle Ground schools test for lead paint “whenever we’re going to work on a wall that’s going to disrupt the paint. There was districtwide testing of lead paint just before 2002-2003,” Lynn said.
Washougal School District Superintendent Mike Stromme said the district tested water in five of its seven schools last week, and he’s waiting for the results. The other two schools in the district, Canyon Creek Middle School and Cape Horn-Skye Elementary School, have their own wells, so they are tested annually.
