Courtesy phot / Lab Analyst, Ryan Donoughe of Mountain Research, LLC analyzes drinking water samples for Lead.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a three-part series.

For the first time ever, Altoona Area School District will test for lead contamination in drinking water. The tests are to be conducted this summer.

Other districts in Blair and Cambria counties tested for the first time last year.

Testing of school district water is required — or public discussion of testing is at least required — by a state law that passed last fall.

Children are especially susceptible to harmful effects of lead exposure, which has been linked to IQ decrements, decreased academic performance, decreased attention and increased impulsivity and hyperactivity in children.

What districts like Altoona Area will be on alert for in water tests is a lead concentration of 15 parts per billion. That’s the level that requires action under federal law.

Parts per billion is the number of units of mass of a contaminant per 1,000 million units of total mass.

To visualize the action level, one might imagine a liter bottle containing, instead of water, one billion grains of sand, and 15 grains would be colored red, representing lead.

The actions a district would have to take include public notification and replacement of fixtures or service lines or the installation of a filter.

If Altoona’s first test results turn out like other area districts’ have, there might be some lead but the levels will be well under 15 ppb.

Lead test results

Lead test results requested by the Mirror from all Blair County schools and several Cambria County schools showed results less than the action level with one exception.

A Spring Cove Middle School fountain was removed this year. The concen­tration of lead in the water from that fountain was 38.5 parts per billion — nearly three times the federal action level.

It was the first lead test in the district because it had schools that relied on well water long ago. Water sources in all of Spring Cove’s current schools were tested by Mountain Research in the fall of 2018, and Superintendent Betsy Baker said the district plans to test annually.

“We removed the water fountain in the locker room as soon as Mountain Research called us to inform us of the elevated levels,” Baker said. “That fountain was very rarely used because there is another fountain outside of the gymnasium which is used instead, so we decided to just remove it immediately rather than to take any other action and re-test.”

The lack of use of the fountain likely contributed to the elevated lead level.

“At this point, we have no water sources with elevated levels. If we find through future re-tests that any levels elevate, we will address any concerns immediately.”

Aside from that one fountain, all other samples received the lowest possible reading.

Of 13 districts in Blair and Cambria counties, there was one other result above the action level — at first.

A faucet in a science lab of Cambria Heights High School’s room S129 classroom showed a reading of 15.8 ppb, but a second flush after 30 seconds showed a result of 5.06 ppb, negating the first result.

Three readings are allowed before action must be taken.

“A few of our current classroom fixtures in the high school have some lead piping,” Superintendent Michael Strasser stated in an email. “The building is currently undergoing a renovation in which all pipes will be replaced by 2020. The middle and elementary schools do not have any lead piping as they are newer buildings.”

Most other results at each tap tested at all school districts where reports were provided were below 5ppb.

Testing methods

Methodology and instrumentation vary between laboratories contracted by school districts, which affects how low scientists can read lead levels.

The lowest reading a school district can receive from Mountain Research tests is “less than 5 ppb.” Reports from districts that contracted Fairway Laboratories give a more specific reading.

“One isn’t better than the other. Both should be accurate to the amount of lead if any is in the sample,” Fairway Laboratories Director Michael P. Tyler said. “And the limit being 15 ppb, I don’t know that it matters — 15 is the trigger for EPA action; 5 ppb is obviously three times less than that.”

Instrumentation reading below 5 ppb isn’t necessary, said Mountain Research assistant laboratory manager Steve Gamp. “The EPA considers anything under that to be safe,” he said.

Actually it doesn’t, as stated in a 2016 U.S. EPA white paper on Lead and Copper Rule Revisions. The 15ppb action level has long applied to water authorities responsible for city water.

The EPA paper states the action level is not health-based but based on ability of water authorities to treat water. Corrosion control treatment typically involves the addition of chemicals such as orthophosphate, or chemical adjustment of drinking water pH, to reduce the corrosivity of drinking water.

“Although the current Lead Copper Rule is focused on protecting public health by reducing lead and copper exposures, it does so through ‘technology-based’ requirements. The 1991 rule established an action level for lead of 15 ppb based on an assessment that it was generally representative of effective Corrosion Control Treatment,” the paper states. “Although public discussion often mistakes the action level as having significance in terms of health impacts, EPA has consistently emphasized that the health-based maximum contaminant level goal for lead in the current rule is zero and that there is no safe level of lead exposure.”

‘No safe level of lead’

During the past decade, epidemiologic studies have “consistently demonstrated that there is no safe level of lead,” the white paper states. “Recognizing that there is no safe level of lead in drinking water, the (Lead and Copper Rule) set a health-based maximum contaminant level goal of zero.”

Jeff Cohen, who was on the EPA team that decided on that 15ppb number, told NPR in 2016 that the EPA’s action level was never designed to identify a safe level of lead in drinking water.

“He said the number was simply what water utilities told the EPA they could manage with treatment in the late 1980s, when the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule was drafted,” the NPR report stated.

In an email to the Mirror, EPA spokesman Robert Daguillard said: “The lead action level of 15ppb was set based on EPA’s evaluation of the levels of lead that could be reliably attained through corrosion control treatment in water systems serving homes with lead service lines and plumbing materials.”

House Bill 930

On April 2, following Pennsylvania’s “F” drinking water grade given by the advocacy organization PennEnvironment, Rep. Karen Boback, R-Luzerne introduced House Bill 930, which would lower the state’s action level to 5 ppb. Boback is the House Committee on Children and Youth chairwoman.

PennEnvironment spokeswoman Stephanie Wein said the group supports Boback’s proposal.

“The EPA action level is not a healthy standard, it’s what the building industry said it could resonably achieve, not what doctors say is safe,” she said. “We want the action level to be 5 ppb. It’s not zero, but it’s much closer to a figure we can be confident about being safer.”

“In excess of five parts per billion, schools would have to take steps to lower lead. That could mean ripping out infrastructure or purchasing lead certified filters,” she said.

It is a proposal Boback introduced in the past two legislative sessions as well, but in each case it died in the House education committee. Boback’s staff could not say why.

However, Boback’s office said this week that the House education committee is looking to bring up the bill for a vote this month.

House Education Committee Chairman, Rep. Curt Sonney, R-Erie, stated the committee is working on some corrective changes to the language in the bill and it would not be put on the committee agenda before the members recess this summer.

‘Onus on water supplier’

Lead is not just a threat in schools.

The Lead and Copper Rule white paper states that lead was widely used in plumbing materials until Congress banned its use in 1986, and there are an estimated 6.5 million to 10 million homes served by lead service lines in thousands of communities nationwide, in addition to millions of older buildings with lead solder across the U.S.

Lead exposure, whether through drinking water, soil, dust or air, can result in serious adverse health effects, particularly for young children.

Tests conducted by the Altoona Water Authority indicate pipes are almost all lead-free, Water Authority Engineer Mike Sinisi said.

The Altoona Water Authority conducted its most recent lead and copper sampling in July 2016, in accordance with the EPA’s Lead and Copper Rule.

Analysis for lead and copper was conducted at customers’ taps throughout the service area, the authority’s website states.

The results show that the authority’s water quality continues to meet all state and federal standards.

Lead was detected in only one sample, but at a level far below the EPA level that requires the water authority to take action.

Sinisi said the authority conducted samples at 30 houses that would have been built when lead was used in piping. Sinisi said the state required the authority to test only 30 homes because of low rates of positive results in the past.

Only one of those 30 samples returned positive with a lead concentration at 6.6 parts per billion, but well under the action level of 15 ppb, Sinisi said.

In that case, Sinisi said, the authority is not required to contact the homeowners.

Even though the water provided by the authority is free of lead, the service lines of the home cause contanmination. And even though those lines are owned by the homeowner, if the test result was at the action level, then the cost for replacing the homeowner’s service pipes would fall on the authority, Sinisi said.

“We would have to help them replace the line. The law puts a lot of the onus on the water supplier,” he said. “It’s easier to regulate a water authority than a home.”

Mirror Staff Writer Russ O’Reilly is at 946-7435.