By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services

Students attending schools in an old building in Deer Valley Unified School District should be mindful when they drink water from the fountains.

Especially first thing in the morning. And particularly on Mondays.

The Department of Environmental Quality is in the early stages of getting local education officials to test some 7,000 school buildings throughout the state for lead in the drinking water. DEQ is providing the test kits and will do the analysis.

DVUSD has tentatively scheduled its testing over the Spring Break, March 20-24, according to district spokeswoman Monica Allread.

What the state has found so far may cause some concern.

Of results obtained from 118 schools already tested, 24 showed the presence of lead, about one out of every five.

Whether that one-out-of-five ratio percentage will play out across the state remains unclear.

Trevor Baggiore, DEQ’s deputy director for water quality, said these were the first schools looked at in what the agency started earlier this year as a pilot program to get out ahead of the issue and find out if there is a problem. More to the point, he said they were among schools where students are likely to be at risk, such as the fact they were built before 1987 when lead was outlawed, both for pipes as well as the solder used to connect copper pipes.

Ms. Allread said the district is not overly concerned.

"Since many of our schools are newer and/or have been remodeled, including plumbing upgrades, we are not anticipating samples to indicate unacceptable levels of lead in the water," she said. "Of course, the testing will provide definitive results."

Mr. Baggiore noted the testing protocol calls for taking samples from fixtures where the water has been sitting for at least six hours. The reason is that lead leaches into the water supply, particularly over time, which is why readings may be particularly high on Monday mornings after the water has been sitting in the pipes all weekend.

Anyway, Mr. Baggiore said the ratio is not as high as it might seem: While those 24 positive results represent 118 schools, samples were taken in multiple buildings on school grounds. And he said those samples that exceeded federal standards of 15 parts per billion came from tests at 946 buildings, bringing the positive ratio down to 2.5 percent.

Still, the findings resulted have had some concrete results.

For example, the Casa Grande Elementary School District is providing bottled water to students at Palo Verde Elementary School. That came after the district shut off the drinking water supplies after DEQ found high levels of lead.

At San Manuel High School, by contrast, DEQ records show the district took the specific fountain with the elevated levels of lead off line.

The testing is a direct outgrowth of the nationally publicized problems of lead pollution in Flint, Mich..

That issue was different, with the cause having to do with a change in the source -- and the chemistry -- of the water, causing lead to leach out of old pipes. But Mr. Baggiore said it got everyone’s attention.

"I think the nation had kind of gone into a lull,’’ he said. "Nobody was thinking lead issues anymore until the tragic accident of things that occurred in Flint.’’

That, he said, spurred DEQ into action.

"We looked at our own data as well as the things we know about the water systems in Arizona,’’ Baggiore said.

"There was a lack of data on schools and water quality in schools and the lead level (of water) being served at schools,’’ he explained. "We decided to set some money aside and develop this project to identify -- and eliminate -- the risk to kids.’’

Agency spokeswoman Caroline Oppleman said that the risk has to be put into perspective.

"According to the Environmental Protection Agency -- and it’s also supported by our state and local health officials -- childhood lead exposure primarily comes from sources like toys, lead paint, spices, those type of things,’’ she said. Older toys and older homes are more likely to have lead content.

"Drinking water is not considered to be a significant source of exposure for children in Arizona,’’ she said.

But Oppleman said that DEQ simply had no data on what was in what children were drinking in schools.

The first schools tested were those built before lead was outlawed in 1987. DEQ also targeted schools with children age 5 and younger as well as those in what state health officials consider "high-risk zip codes.’’

Since that time, the list of schools wanting to participate has grown to 1,200, though only some are even on the schedule for testing.

While some schools have turned off all water, or at least fountains, based on the DEQ findings of lead levels above 15 parts per billion, Baggiore said his agency does not believe that’s necessary.

Oppleman said the problem of high lead levels could be limited to an "isolated fixture,’’ with the rest of the fountains and faucets unaffected.

Beyond that, Mr. Baggiore said if the results are below 50 parts per billion, there’s a simple answer: run the water for at least a minute before allowing anyone to drink it. He said that should flush out lead that has leached into the water that has been standing in the inactive pipes.

"Shutting water off would not be necessary and would not be something we would recommend,’’ Ms. Oppleman said.

If any test were to show up at greater than 50 parts per billion -- something that has not yet occurred -- Mr. Baggiore said DEQ would advise a school to turn off the fixture if possible and put up signs advising people not to drink it. And even in that situation, he said that does not mean the water needs to be cut off entirely.

"You can wash hands, you can clean and do those things with water that has elevated (levels) of lead without any health concerns,’’ Mr. Baggiore said.

To this point DEQ is planning to test only public schools.

But Mr. Baggiore said local communities may want to do something more comprehensive. For example, he said the city of Scottsdale is using its own resources to test private and charter schools.

DEQ has a spreadsheet it updates weekly with the 1,200 schools in line to be tested as well as those which already have test results at: "http://static.azdeq.gov/wqd/pb_schools/school_test_results.xlsx’’