School Board calls for urgent action on lead in water

By Sanjay Bhatt
Seattle Times staff reporter

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At Fairmount Park Elementary in southwest Seattle, 85 percent of the drinking-water samples tested in October 1992 showed lead levels exceeded safe limits. The district's own environmental coordinator urged that the plumbing in that school and three others be replaced, but that never happened.

It was that finding and others that shocked the Seattle School Board, which called for urgent action Wednesday night: Immediate testing of drinking water in all 100 of its schools, free bottled water as needed and a plan to fix the problems.

The emergency action is the first concrete example that newly elected board members are delivering on campaign promises to be responsive to community concerns.

"There was very much a feeling this was at emergency levels ," said board member Sally Soriano, who provided documents to her colleagues that persuaded them to act quickly.

The two people who had the most influence on Wednesday's action weren't in the room — Wedgwood Elementary parents Geoffrey Compeau and Mark Cooper. Both scientists spent about $1,000 to test samples from Wedgwood and testified at several board meetings.

"The change in the board was instrumental in recognizing this as a significant health issue that needed to be acted on," Compeau said in an interview yesterday.

The board's Policy & Legislative Committee will meet Wednesday to flesh out more details on the emergency plan. Soriano said state Sen. Ken Jacobsen, D-Seattle, whose district includes Wedgwood, is working on legislation to require all state districts to test their water for lead periodically.

The two parents' experience offers an empowering tale and lessons for other activist parents.

In November, Cooper walked up to the board-room dais and presented Superintendent Raj Manhas with a bottle of orange, sediment-filled water from a Wedgwood tap. He said initial tests identified levels of iron above federal secondary, or aesthetic, standards.

Then the parents learned that a 1990 district study, and a follow-up report in 1993, revealed lead levels in school drinking fountains. The 1990 study showed that about one-third of the district's fountains had excessive lead levels. The district then replaced some "bubblers," or fountain heads.

The 1993 report showed that after the bubblers were replaced, lead levels were at or below the recommended limit of 20 parts per billion (ppb) in 62 percent of the fountains. But at four schools — Schmitz Park, Fairmount Park, Mann and Wedgwood — the new bubblers didn't reduce lead significantly, the report said.

The report recommended replacing all "domestic water piping" in the four schools, random sampling to ensure that lead levels were within recommended levels, flushing fountains daily and possibly turning them off.

On Wednesday, district Facilities Director John Vacchiery told the board that the pipes weren't replaced and that sampling and flushing hadn't been pursued systematically. It's unclear why the district didn't follow through; several facilities directors have come and gone since the 1993 report, Vacchiery said.

Sticking to a schedule for renovations or repairs was difficult in the district in the early to mid 1990s: Construction-bond measures failed in 1992 and 1994. A capital levy finally passed in 1995.

Earlier this month, Compeau and Cooper drew samples from Wedgwood at four fountains where the district, in 1990, had found excessive lead levels. According to the tests by North Creek Analytical in Spokane, the four fountains had excessive lead levels ranging from 22 ppb to 200 ppb, and three of the four showed cadmium levels above federal health limits.

In 1992, only one-quarter of the Wedgwood fountains the district tested were over the 20-ppb limit for lead. It did not test for other metals.

Meanwhile, the district yesterday released results of tests by Seattle Public Utilities for water samples at the two spots — a fountain and a kitchen tap — the Wedgwood parents originally had tested in November. The utility's results showed water from those two sources contained lead and cadmium levels far below federal recommended limits, but exceeding aesthetic standards for iron content. Now the school district plans to test water from the hot spots identified this month by the parents.

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com

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