Philadelphia schools have a rising problem in their health protocols, Lead.
By: Taimar Stubbs
April 8, 2022Engineering and Science along with many other schools in the Philadelphia School District has lead in their water. According to available data. Of schools with published testing data, lead was detected at 61 percent of fountains and other taps, and 98 percent of these schools found lead in the water at one or more outlets. But what makes our situation different from other schools? As of 2019, 32% Engineering and Science’s water supply was contaminated with lead, the assistant Principal Ms. Curry is aware of this problem.
“I just read the recent article that says that there's even more lead in school drinking water so I am aware that there's lead contamination in school district schools,” said Curry.
Lead is a natural occurring found in the earth’s crust in small amounts, it can be in air, water, and our homes. Lead is used in paint, pipes, plumbing materials, batteries, gasoline, and cosmetics. Lead has the possibility of moving from soil to groundwater depending on the type of lead and the soil.
Philadelphia is no stranger to lead, but most of the city suffers from lead. It has been estimated that 85 percent to 92 percent of the city’s housing units were built before the year 1978, which is when the country’s lead ban went into effect. 54 percent of homes in the United States were built prior to that year.
“Actually the city of Philadelphia is drinking water that the pipes that belong to the city contain, or the pipes, specifically on the property contain lead, and I'm sure that there's some contamination that way,” said Curry.
Research shows that lead contamination can hurt young students. Exposure to lead can seriously harm a child's health, including damage to the brain and nervous system, slowed growth and development, learning and behavior problems, and hearing and speech problems. So lead contamination in a school full of middle schoolers and high schoolers can cause unnecessary damage.
“It can damage students and our children's IQ, they can it's been linked to possible learning disabilities. Maybe even hearing and speech problems. I know that most kids before they are one are actually tested for lead contamination. And there's that's across the board for Office. Not just Philadelphia,” said Curry.
Lead contaminated pipes occur all around the city of Philadelphia, and it connects to multiple houses, buildings, and schools. To further find out why there is lead in our schools, community, and buildings the Building Engineer, Mr Adams added some details.
“The same pipes that's coming into the building here are the same pipes that go into the residential areas. years ago the pipe to the ground was filled with lead to seal the actual pipes, right and no, they didn't take all the power to the ground. So of course you'll get some traces, some lead so that's why we saw all the bathrooms either has hand wash only. There is a map for drinking purposes,” he said.
There has been steps taken in order to stop lead form getting to the Carver Community.
“So if you see a red tag that means, so they either isolated turn it off completely, or you supposed to let the water run for 20 minutes or so.” The filtration lines that are in the hallway they use in a bottle. Those have the filter,” he said.
So in order for students to stay safe, they must be careful about where they get their drinking water.
“So yes, there might be lead in water that gets tested here. Right, but those are our non drinking things. So bathrooms, lab science labs, probably those the pipes haven't been replaced. Right, but um, what I think that we've done here is to make sure the water fountains have the right filtration so students aren't drinking lead,” said Curry.
In a sense the students of the Carver community are safe from drinking lead.
“We're not just going to let kids drink lead,” said Curry.