Tanner Elementary School

Chicago Public Schools announced May 20 that they would be testing water in all Chicago schools after unsafe levels of lead were found in the drinking water at Henry O. Tanner Elementary School, 7350 S. Evans Ave. in the Grand Crossing neighborhood.

Of five locations in the school, several drinking fountains were found to have lead levels higher than 15 parts per billion (PPB), the Environmental Protection Agency’s “action level.” Fountains tested had lead levels of 19. 8 ppb and 47.5 ppb. One fountain on the third floor, which had been shut off for several days had a test level of 114 ppb, the school told parents in a letter from CPS Chief Forrest Claypool and Dr. Julie Morita, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health.

“The safety of your children is our highest priority, and we are doing everything in our power to address this situation in a quick and thorough manner, the letter said. “We will continue to keep you and your family informed throughout this process.”

Claypool said at a May 20 press conference that CPS would be expanding the pilot-testing program to “every school in the district” with 250 older school buildings built before 1986 at the front of the line.

The school’s principal and district officials met with parents May 24 to answer questions. The school serves about 370 children. Officials said the drinking fountains had been shut down and students would have bottled water available for the rest of the school year.

Illinois has among the highest levels of lead poisoning among children in the U.S., according to the Illinois Department of Public Health. In 2014, the most recent year that a report has been issued, 2,279 children had blood lead levels of 10 micrograms per deciliter (μg/dL) or greater and 18,412 Illinois children had blood lead levels at the reference value (greater than 5 μg/dL), the IDPH yearly report shows.

How much of that is due to lead plumbing pipes is not widely known, since most local health departments have been focusing on lead-based paint dust and other sources of lead such as imported spices, lead-painted toys and ceramics with lead, said Anita Weinberg, director of the ChildLaw Policy Institute at Loyola University Law School.

Water fountains at Tanner elementary School were turned off after CPS testing uncovered elevated levels of lead. (Tanner Elementary School Website)

“Everything I’ve been told by the city, the county the EPA, the greatest danger is lead-based paint,” Weinberg said. Weinberg said typically when a child’s residence is remediated for lead-based paint, the measured lead in the blood level usually drops.

In Chicago and Cook County, many children live in buildings built before 1978 when lead paint was outlawed. Pediatricians in Illinois are asked to require lead blood testing in all areas of Chicago and a handful of other Cook County towns: Bellwood, Berwyn, Blue Island, Cicero, Evanston, Home Town, Kenilworth, Lyons, Maywood, Oak Park, River Forest, Riverside and Summit, according to the IDPH.

In 2015, more than 100 cases of children in suburban Cook County with blood lead levels greater than 10 μg/dL were referred to the Cook County Department of Public Health, said lead expert Deanna Durica. In Chicago in 2014, 783 children tested positive for the highest lead levels, according to the IDPH.

Some children with elevated lead levels show no signs whatsoever, Weinberg said. Some are going to be “far more sensitive,” she said.

“If you find out your child is lead poisoned, you need to act as quickly as possible,” she said. “The length of the lead exposure can make a difference,” she said.

For students with elevated blood levels, early childhood intervention services with pre-school reading, talking and interacting “make a big difference,” Weinberg said. She said a group of researchers are hoping to make lead poisoning an automatic eligibility for early education services.

“The message to parents is: If your child has lead poisoning, it’s not the end of their future,” Weinberg said. “There are ways to respond that could be helpful to your child.”

Weinberg wondered about the extent of lead in a child’s environment at home vs. at school. “They should shut the fountains down absolutely, but how much exposure are children really going to get at a school drinking fountain? You can’t see lead in the water. It’s frightening to everyone and we need to resolve the problem with [lead] pipes,” she said. “My concern is that with limited resources, making sure the water is lead free will take up resources that could be used to address lead paint.”

Lead testing at Chicago Public Schools will continue through the summer. CPS said lead test results for all Chicago schools would be uploaded to a website http://www.cps.edu/leadtesting.

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— CPS testing water for lead after high levels found in South Side school —