Roughly a year ago, New York City’s Department of Education announced the results from a series of lead tests in public schools: 8 percent of water outlets had high lead levels, including more than 33,000 water fountains, all of which were taken out of service.
Today, the city has reported that all problematic fixtures have been replaced. But a WNYC analysis found only 20 percent of schools have notified parents that the water has been retested and is safe to drink, leaving hundreds of schools with drinking fountains that are out of service and forcing students to bring their own water to classes.
In the wake of the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, New York State passed a law in 2016 that requires school districts to test their water for lead contamination. New York City complied with a round of testing that same year. The results were encouraging: less than 1 percent of outlets had lead levels above the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 parts per billion.
However, a review of the city's methods revealed those initial tests were flawed. DOE had run the water in every outlet for two hours the night before taking water samples - a process known as flushing, which can temporarily reduce lead levels prior to testing.
After conducting a new round of tests, a very different picture emerged. A majority of schools had at least one water outlet with high lead levels. DOE took all affected outlets out of service. Some schools had to shut down as many as two dozen of their water fountains.
The city said it would replace all outlets that tested high for lead and retest to ensure the water was safe before reopening them.
A year later, WNYC tracked the school system's progress, focusing specifically on water fountains because those are where students expect to get drinking water when they're thirsty. Having fountains out of service presents the greatest day-to-day concern.
The city’s test results from 2017 showed more than 700 school buildings that had water fountains with high levels of lead. Whenever DOE replaces the fixtures in a school, retests the water and reopens the fountains, it sends home a letter to parents to let them know the water is safe. A copy of the letter is posted to the school's individual website. WNYC found that as of February 2018, fewer than 150 schools had sent out remediation letters, leaving 80 percent of buildings that might still have water fountains out of service.
DOE said it expects to finish re-testing, reopen all fountains and get letters out to parents by the end of the school year.
“All schools have access to clean, safe drinking water, and we are working diligently to complete the remediation process,” said DOE spokesperson Michael Aciman in an emailed statement.
But many students continue to have to bring their own water or buy drinks before arriving at school.
At the Brooklyn Institute for Liberal Arts, water fountains in the locker rooms were taken out of service, leaving students thirsty during gym or after-school sports practices. Mykela Moore, a 17-year-old senior, said she had gym two or three times a week, and would buy extra-large bottles of water in advance.
“I shouldn’t have to spend $2.50 everyday when there should be clean water flowing in my school system,” Moore said.
Moore and dozens of her classmates grew frustrated. As part of a civic engagement class, they started an online petition, attended community board meetings and wrote letters to seven elected officials, including the Brooklyn borough president and the New York City Schools Chancellor, Carmen Farina. They also invited their assemblymember, Diana Richardson, to speak to their class and follow up with the DOE on their behalf.
After a year of this work, the students received news last week that their fountains had been fixed and reopened. Nickala Stephens, 17, said she's disappointed it took so much time and effort to get something that seems so basic.
“It makes me feel shameful that us students have to make sure that the DOE knows our rights of having clean water,” she said. “Could you imagine us not talking to them or not writing letters. Would they still allow us to have lead in our waters? To me, that is shameful.”
Many parents have stopped trusting water in schools altogether, even after the fountains in their child's school have been remediated. Victoria Frye, a parent of two public school children in upper Manhattan and a member of the District 6 Community Education Council, said she packs water bottles for her children everyday, regardless of the fact that the water outlets in their schools have been repaired.
She said it's hard to know when an old pipe might start leaching lead into the water. "That can't really be predicted," she wrote in an email. "I have no way of knowing what other outlets are now producing leaded water after having tested okay previously."
Additional reporting was contributed by Kaitlin Sullivan.
