About half of Montana schools that had tested their water by mid-February under a new state rule had high levels of lead, according to state data. But the full picture isn’t clear because fewer than half of the state’s school buildings had provided water samples six weeks after the deadline.

For many schools with high lead levels, finding the money to fix the problem will be a challenge. The options aren’t great. They can compete for a dwindling pool of state money, seek federal aid passed last year, or add the repairs to their long lists of capital improvement projects and pay for the work themselves.

“We prioritized emergency needs and then will follow up with the next-most-serious thing,” said Brian Patrick, Great Falls Public Schools’ director of business services and operations. “Obviously, this is something we want to get addressed right away. We want safe water for our kids.”

Lead, a toxic metal long known to cause lasting organ and nervous system damage, can make its way into drinking water through pipes and fixtures. Children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can slow development and cause learning, speech, and behavioral problems. Although federal rules require that community water sources be tested for lead, schools have largely been free from that oversight and can decline to be tested.

The rule in Montana, created by the state Department of Public Health and Human Services in 2020, requires schools to check at least every three years for lead in the water of any sink or fountain used for drinking or food prep. Schools’ initial deadline to get that done was Dec. 31, 2021. According to the rule, any faucet whose water has a lead concentration of 5 parts per billion or higher must be fixed or routinely flushed. Fixtures that test higher than 15 ppb must immediately be shut off.

“There is no safe level of lead,” said health department spokesperson Jon Ebelt. “And that is why schools, DPHHS, and (the Department of Environmental Quality) are taking actions to remove sources of lead in children’s environment.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that school water fountains not have water lead concentrations higher than 1 ppb, according to a 2016 policy paper.

State officials have said 589 school buildings need to meet Montana’s new rule. Of the 222 schools that had turned in samples by Feb. 18, 110 had at least one water fixture with lead levels higher than 15 ppb, according to a KHN analysis of state data. Almost a third of all fixtures tested so far across the state had dangerous levels of lead in their water, according to state data.

Read the full article about dangerous levels of lead in school water by Katheryn Houghton at The 74.