Drinking Water Warning Issued for California Schools: ‘Poisoning’ Students

A teacher is accusing the Oakland Unified School District’s water supply of “poisoning” students in California after staff learned that lead amounts far surpassing legal limits were present in the district’s water supply.
Reports documenting the lead amounts were allegedly available in the spring, KRON4 reported, but the district didn’t notify teachers and parents of the situation until this month, meaning that some students—such as those present in the schools for summer classes—were exposed to the water.
Teachers are now questioning why it took so long to notify the impacted parties about the dangerous water and demanding that OUSD remedy the situation.
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“How could we be poisoning our students for so many months?” teacher Stuart Loeble said, according to the KRON4 report.
Loeble went on to say it was “criminal” that students were exposed to lead without knowing, and the district admitted to poor communication in a message sent to district families on Monday morning.
“Despite our attention to detail and care for our sites, we did not communicate effectively to the members of each school community as the testing launched, as we received the results, and as fixes were being implemented,” the district said. “We are putting systems in place to ensure a lack of effective communication does not occur again, and that school communities receive quick notice when this kind of testing is taking place on their campuses.”
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When reached for comment, an OUSD spokesperson directed Newsweek to the district’s message. In it, OUSD encouraged parents to send their child to school with a reusable water bottle to use at filtered water stations.
The statement also explained that the district’s limit of allowable lead concentration in water is much stricter than state and federal limits.
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“In most cases, the fixtures tested under the District’s limit,” the statement said.
More than 10 percent of the district’s water fixtures—such as faucets and water faucets—tested below the state limit but above the district limit. More than 6 percent of fixtures tested above the state limit. Any fixtures testing under the district’s limit remain in service, with all others taken out of service until repaired and retested.
“A total of 61 fixtures have been fixed so far, and are now waiting to be retested before being brought back on line,” the district said. “We anticipate that remediation process will take approximately three weeks.”
The concerning discovery comes several months after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced an additional $3 billion from President Joe Biden’s Investing in America agenda to aid states and territories in identifying and replacing lead service lines. The project aims to prevent exposure to lead in drinking water.
“Lead can cause a range of serious health impacts, including irreversible harm to brain development in children,” the EPA announcement said. “To protect children and families, President Biden has committed to replacing every lead pipe in the country.”
In 2023, the EPA released data that shows Florida as having the most lead service lines in the country at 1.16 million lines, more than 12 percent of the total number of service lines in the state. Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and New York also have a higher percentage of lead lines.
California, however, tested as one of the states with the least percentage of lead service lines, according to the EPA data. At that time, there were 13,476 lead service lines, accounting for .15 percent of the total number of service lines in the state.