In 2016, New York became the first state in the country to mandate lead testing for drinking water in schools, and has since been working to remove lead from schools' water supplies. But a report published by three nonprofit research groups suggests those efforts have not been as effective as they can. WAMC Capital Region Bureau Chief Grant Ashley joined Ray Graf on Midday Magazine to break down the report's findings.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Graf: So, what did this report find?
Ashley: So, the data in this report was taken directly from the state Department of Health, and it found that 42% of schools had a potable water outlet that had levels of lead above the limit set by the Health Department. So, that translates to about more than 1,900 school buildings, and you know, the Adirondacks had, you know, the highest number of school buildings with at least one lead-contaminated water outlet. Jefferson County, St. Lawrence, Lewis, and Franklin counties those were all in the top 10 statewide for number of buildings that had at least one contaminated outlet. And in the greater Capital Region, Schenectady, Schoharie, and Albany counties were all in the 50 to 60% range, in terms of, you know, how many of their school buildings had a contaminated outlet or more than one contaminated outlet.
And, you know, it's also this is a different metric, but it is worth mentioning Columbia County had a high rate of the total amount of outlets in their schools that had elevated lead levels. Kate Canada works for Environment America, which is one of the research groups that put out this report, and she stressed that no lead level is safe for children.
Canada: It's one of the few things that we can all agree on: is that lead at any level is bad, especially for children. It can lead to learning disabilities, hearing and speech problems, and IQ loss.
Graf: New York State has been working to remediate the lead levels in schools' drinking water for years, and yet the levels [are] not optimal. Why?
Ashley: So New York is currently using what these researchers framed as a test-and-fix approach. So schools are supposed to test all of their water outlets every three years, and if one of those outlets has more than five parts per billion — with a B — of lead, the school is supposed to fix it. You know, they say the problem with this, though, is that lead contamination fluctuates, so the testing isn't necessarily always accurate. So maybe for whatever reason, the pipe is leaching a lot of lead into the water on Tuesday, and then, you know, not on Friday, right? And the data showed plenty of these "remediated outlets" still had high levels of lead when they were tested later. Schools report this data, so it's also possible it's incomplete. And Canada says that because of that, there are potentially still thousands of untested outlets.
Canada: Out of all of these findings, one of the worst parts might be that we might just be at the tip of the toxic iceberg when it comes to lead in drinking water in New York State.
Graf: So, what are these groups advocating that New York do about this issue?
Ashley: So, these groups proposed a filter-first approach, is what they called it. So you would put a lead filter on every faucet that people use for drinking or cooking in schools, and then, you know, theoretically, problem solved, right? They also want to lower the lead standard from five parts per billion to one. That would be in line with recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the funding for this would come from the Clean Water Infrastructure Fund, which is already meant to fund lead remediation
Other cities and states have done this. Michigan and Philadelphia were both mentioned by the people who put this report together, and they say the plan would cost at most around $100 million. Blair Horner is a senior policy advisor with the New York Public Interest Research Group, which worked on the report, and he says that you know the benefits are worth the money.
Horner: Well, I mean, first of all, we're talking about kids, and we're talking about kids' health. So I don't know how you put a price tag on that. New York is currently spending tens of millions of dollars to test and then remediate these programs.
Ashley: And I should also mention that Horner is a member of WAMC's Board of Trustees. He had no editorial input on this piece.
Graf: The New York State Legislature would have to pass this lead filter plan. The governor would have to sign off on it. Is that likely to happen?
Ashley: Horner seemed pretty confident that they could get this filter-first approach passed.
Horner: This is an issue where you lobby the legislator and their staff; they get it, and they don't understand why we haven't done it already. So I, so yes, is the short answer. We're meeting with the governor's office. We've met with the mayor of the City of New York's office. We're trying to get as much as we can to get support for this because in a $270 billion budget, $100 million to protect kids' health seems like a bargain.
Ashley: But I do think it's worth noting that a similar bill was introduced in the New York State Legislature in 2025, and it died in committee this session. So, you know, if this does pass, it'll probably be because there was a big push behind it.
