DENVER – At a virtual press conference today, Colorado lawmakers, advocates and child health professionals discussed the Get the Lead Out of School Drinking Water Act. The proposed legislature would ensure that every Colorado student has clean, safe drinking water at school.
“Health professionals agree that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children – and when almost three out of four Colorado children have detectable levels of lead in their blood, we need to make sure that drinking fountains and pipes at schools are safe,” said P.J. Parmar of Ardas Family Medicine. “Lead exposure in children can cause damage to the brian and nervous system, slowed growth and development, learning and behavior problems and hearing and speech issues. Installing filters and regular testing is something we must do for children at all of our schools.”
The act is sponsored by Senator Rhonda Fields, Senator Faith Winter, Representative Barbara McLachlan and Representative Emily Sirota.
They hope that the bill will prevent childhood exposure to lead by enacting the following:
Installing water filters on drinking/cooking taps in all Colorado schools and child care centersTesting regularly to ensure ongoing safetyPutting local plumbers to work in good, paying jobsMaking sure that schools won’t be stuck with this financial burden
Natural Resources Defense Council Healthy and Affordable Water Advocate Cori Bell said, “Lead exposure is dangerous and irreversible, but exposure from drinking water is completely preventable through a ‘filter first’ approach. Installing filters on water taps is a simple and affordable way to make our schools and child care centers safe for students and pregnant teachers.”
Forty out of 67 schools participating in Colorado’s lead testing program which ended in 2020 had lead levels above the action level of 15 parts per billion. Lead can dissolve into water when it sits unused over weekends, school breaks and summer vacations.
Public health experts say that the riskiest thing is to be the first kid to drink out of a water fountain on a Monday morning.
“I grew up in Adams County knowing to never drink the water from the fountain at school, because it didn’t taste right, and sometimes I even saw particles floating around in it,” said Sebastian, a Colorado People’s Alliance member. “If you didn’t bring water from home you had to pay for water to have access to safe drinking water during school time. That’s just wrong.”
Want to watch the press event? Click this link.
