"Despite aging pipes and vulnerable children, schools face no national requirement to test for lead"
"SPRING VALLEY, N.Y. — When the state of New York became the first in the nation to require all public schools to test their drinking water for lead in 2016, Keyry Broncano learned that water drawn from 68 different taps at her high school contained dangerously high lead levels.
Then Broncano, at the time a high school junior, discovered that the water she’d been drinking since kindergarten in the East Ramapo Central School District, about an hour north of New York City, probably contained elevated lead levels: Water from 23 taps at her elementary school was found to contain at least 15 parts per billion of lead. At her middle school, 85 taps had high lead levels.
“I was like, ‘I think I’ve been drinking poison,’” Broncano said, recalling rushing home to explain the news to her mother, a Guatemalan immigrant."
Silvia Foster-Frau reports for the Washington Post August 8, 2024.
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