SCHOOLS GEARING UP TO TEST WATER FOUNTAINS FOR LEAD
Times-Picayune, The (New Orleans, LA) - April 12, 1989

Author/Byline: From staff reports
Section: METRO
Page: B1
Readability: >12 grade level (Lexile: 1360)
New Orleans area schools, already wrestling with expensive, time-consuming removal of cancer-causing asbestos from classrooms, are
checking water fountains suspected of promoting lead levels that pose health risks to children.
In St. Tammany, officials expressed frustration over the Environmental Protection Agency's recommendation that certain models of water
fountains be tested.
"On the one hand, they're telling us we need to do this, and on the other we're not going to get any funds to do it," school system
spokesman Vic Johnson said. "So as usual, we're stuck with footing the bill if we want this done."
Johnson said the system is considering an offer from a graduate of St. Tammany schools to test the drinking water for free.
Glen Hansen of Caleb Brett, USA Inc. in New Orleans has volunteered his company's services to "give something back to the
community," Johnson said.
Orleans Parish school maintenance workers will begin surveying all 140 schools today to locate fountains that have lead components or
lead-lined tanks.
On the third floor of School Board headquarters at 4100 Touro St., two fountains have already been shut down because they bear a
model number for fountains suspected of promoting unhealthy lead levels.
EPA officials said school water fountains will probably account for only a very small part of the lead exposure that youngsters face. And
they said it is uncertain whether the high lead levels in some coolers were from the coolers or water pipes.
Nevertheless, the agency urged school officials to test cited coolers, especially those in which tanks were found to be lined with lead.
"We found very high levels of lead in these (lead-lined) tanks," said Mike Cook, director of the EPA's office of water contamination.
The EPA, which already has listed 113 manufacturers' model numbers, plans to issue a detailed guide on how to test for risky lead levels.
Although the EPA can't order testing, a new law requires states to start a program to help school districts test for lead in drinking water.
"Every year it's another mandate," Daniel Daste, St. Bernard school superintendent, said. "If it's not asbestos, it's gas lines. If it's not gas
lines, it's the paint on the walls."
He said he probably will not begin a review of the system's water fountains until a formal request, with guidelines, is issued.
He said few parish schools have the water fountains with coolers attached.
Jefferson Parish Public Schools will request the EPA's list of model numbers for suspected fountains and will remove the affected
fountains from the schools, said Frank Davis, the school system's chief financial officer.
In the next few months, the water supply in Orleans schools will be tested based on EPA's forthcoming guidelines, said Ken Ducote, who
is in charge of facility planning in Orleans schools.
In a preliminary screening in November, the water samples were tested from 15 school system buildings, most of them schools, officials
said.
Pete Riley, a school system maintenance supervisor, said the water was found to be safe.
"The EPA considers a lead level of 20 parts per billion in water to pose health risks.
"The highest we had was 5 parts per billion," Riley said.
Ducote said that based on literature he has read, the hardness of the water in the New Orleans area makes lead contamination less of a
problem.

 In St. Charles Parish, nine fountains that exceeded acceptable limits for lead content were replaced after testing in December and
January, Larry Sesser, the board's physical plant director, said.
The school system learned from the parish's west bank waterworks director and from an education publication that the EPA was studying
the problem, so it hired a Harvey company, Acculab Inc., to test the water in school fountains, Sesser said.
The first analysis identified 18 fountains with unacceptable amounts of lead in the water, but a second test of those showed only nine
fountains with unacceptable amounts, Sesser said.
The nine fountains included two fountains each at Luling Elementary, Lakewood Elementary and Mimosa Park Elementary, all in Luling,
and one each at Carver Elementary in Hahnville, Destrehan High School and the Boutte special education center.
Several of the fountains had been in service for many years, but the two at Lakewood were put into service in 1981. One of them was not
refrigerated, so there was no tank, lead-lined or otherwise. The lead content from that fountain probably resulted from an excessive
amount of lead solder in the pipe leading to the fountain, Sesser said.
St. John the Baptist Parish Schools Superintendent Gerald Keller said no public schools in St. John contain water coolers with lead-lined
tanks.
"Most of our water coolers are pretty recent water coolers," Keller said.
Record: 8904120398
Copyright: Copyright, 1989, The Times-Picayune Publishing Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Used by NewsBank with Permission.