Less than a week before the start of the 2024-25 school year, Cumberland County Schools has reviewed districtwide tests to measure lead levels in school water.

The results?

Surprisingly good, says the principal of Cumberland County School.

Nearly 27% of the district’s 86 schools have detected lead in their water. A positive test means a sample contains 10 or more parts per billion of lead, which is when North Carolina requires abatement of the metal. All tests come from faucets and fountains in schools used for drinking and cooking, and are conducted after the water has sat unused for at least eight hours.

As of August 21, ten schools had been tested, but the results are still pending.

“As old as our schools are, things have gone better than expected,” said Donna Fields, superintendent of Cumberland County Schools.

Some of the county’s school buildings are 50 or 60 years old. Their age means they could have been built two decades before Congress passed a 1986 ban on the use of lead in public water systems or plumbing in facilities intended for consumption. Given those facts, Fields said the CCS rate is “pretty good” and will only improve with cleanup efforts.

The dangers of lead

Lead is a toxic metal that was commonly used in plumbing and paint before it was banned. Lead does not occur naturally in North Carolina’s water sources, so the lead in water comes from lead pipes. When water flows through a lead pipe or other plumbing materials that contain lead, it corrodes the metal.

“Water is a universal solvent — just look at the Grand Canyon — it dissolves everything with time and the right temperatures, pH levels and everything else,” explains Jason Green, Fayetteville Public Works Commission water treatment plant manager. “It absorbs the lead in the water.”

Many of the lead pipes installed before the ban are still in use, according to a 2021 study by the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. The study estimates that North Carolina has 82,000 lead pipes across the state. Lead can also still be found in faucets and other fixtures.

Lead exposure can cause serious health problems because the concentration of lead in the body increases with each exposure. Lead exposure can negatively affect the entire body, damaging the kidneys, brain and muscles. Children are particularly vulnerable to lead because they are still developing and their nervous, reproductive and immune systems are damaged.

While a test in a school will only be positive and require mitigation if it shows 10 ppb or more, there is no safe level of lead in water. In 1991, the Environmental Protection Agency set a health goal of 0 ppb lead in water — but not a legal requirement. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that lead levels in water should not exceed 1 ppb.

“We talk a lot about how to stay safe from gun violence in the United States, and that’s often in the news, and that’s an acute stressor when these kinds of problems occur,” said Jennifer Hoponick Redmon, a senior environmental health scientist at RTI International. “But lead in drinking water is this chronic problem. It’s been a problem forever and it continues to be a problem.”

Hoponick Redmon is also the program director of Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids, the state-mandated testing and remediation program that assesses the hazards of lead in water, lead paint and asbestos.

Remove lead from district schools

Much of the lead found in county schools comes from the faucets, not from corrosion of the service lines. Most of the positive tests come from tilting skillets, faucets attached to industrial pans called tilting skillets, found in school cafeterias.

The schools that tested positive have either already implemented or are currently implementing lead reduction measures at their faucets. According to a 2021 study by the National Association of State Boards of Education, North Carolina is one of only 12 states, along with the District of Columbia, that require both lead testing and lead reductions in water in schools. No federal law requires schools to reduce lead in their water.

Some of the actions taken by Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids include replacing faucets and fixtures that have tested positive. This was the case at Douglas Byrd Middle School, for example, where a water dispenser tested above 12 ppb and was replaced with a certified lead-free water dispenser with a filter and bottle filler. In other cases, signs are placed identifying the faucet for handwashing only.

“We actually have lead-certified filters and lead-free faucets and drinking fountains that can be shipped directly to the facilities,” Hoponick Redmon said. “And if they’d like, we also have a plumber that will come on-site and do the installations for them.”

From the federal American Rescue Plan, $150 million in one-time state funds will fund Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids and provide testing and remediation to all schools and child care centers in North Carolina by November 30, 2026. An additional $1 million or more from EPA will help the program continue efforts to combat lead in child care centers beyond November 2026.

Fields said some filters cost between $150 and $250 and must be replaced every 12 months. Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids will only cover the cost of the first filter. Any additional funding for further work must be requested from the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners, Fields said.

For levels above the 1 ppb recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids suggests free mitigation strategies such as using only cold water for drinking and cooking and flushing faucets for one to two minutes daily. A filter is considered a cost-effective solution.

“We still encourage them to consider what we call free clean water habits or implementing low-cost solutions,” Hoponick Redmon said. “But that’s not covered by the program. If the level is below the action level (which leads to mitigation measures) and they want to do follow-up testing below the action level, that’s not covered by the program either.”

A brief history of lead regulation

North Carolina has been ahead of much of the country in testing its schools’ water and pipes for lead. In 2019, the state passed regulations requiring child care centers to test for lead in water as part of the Clean Water for Carolina Kids program. Regulations passed in 2022 expanded that program to include the Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids program, which requires all public schools and child care centers to test for and remediate lead in water, lead paint and asbestos.

“We can’t do all the infrastructure improvements with the resources we have, but we can prevent the exposure, right?” Hoponick Redmon said. “And that’s our goal. Our goal is to prevent exposure to these hazards as much as possible.”

The federal government is also updating lead regulations through revisions to the EPA’s Lead and Copper Regulations. In 2021, the revised regulations required public water systems like PWC to inventory their service lines and test water in elementary schools and daycare centers for lead. Additional improvements are scheduled to be completed in October and would, among other things, lower the federal action limit for lead to the same level as North Carolina and require the replacement of all lead pipes within the next 10 years.

To comply with federal regulations, PWC, Fayetteville’s water utility, has conducted an inventory of all of its service lines and their connections to private lines as part of its Operation Clean & Clear. To date, PWC has not found any lead service lines in its system or in the lines to the county’s schools. There are approximately 31,500 unknown private service lines remaining that PWC must inventory by October 2027 under EPA regulations.

Micheal Smith, PWC’s water resources management coordinator, is confident PWC will not find lead in its system.

“However, the customer’s problems would be with fittings and faucets or something similar,” said Smith.

PWC is still waiting for guidance from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Protection on whether the county’s daycare centers and elementary schools that have already been tested as part of Clean Classroom for Carolina Kids will need to be retested. Current guidance from the EPA states that PWC must test 20% of the county’s elementary schools and daycare centers annually for the next five years, beginning in 2028.

“We’re hoping we can just provide them (PWC) with the results because they meet the same criteria that their sampling plan would have to meet,” Fields said. “It would be kind of silly to have to take samples from faucets that you just sampled within the last six months.

Findings on lead in water, lead paint, and asbestos can be found on the Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids website. Information on lead pipes in Cumberland County, including a map of the utility lines inventoried by PWC, can be found on the PWC Operation Clean & Clear website.

CityView reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member at Report for Americaa national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health issues in and around Cumberland County and may be supported by the CityView News Fund.