SEQUIM — Administrators with the Sequim School District anticipate all sink fixtures at Greywolf Elementary School and four fixtures at Helen Haller Elementary School will be switched out by Aug. 31, the first day of school.
The sinks are being replaced because excess levels of lead were found in the water from them last spring.
Lead testing on Sequim’s other schools wasn’t conducted over the summer as originally planned.
Sequim Schools Superintendent Gary Neal told school board directors Aug. 15 that the state Department of Health advised school staff to wait until the new school year when the fixtures are in use.
Neal had directed school staff to begin voluntary testing for lead in Sequim’s schools’ fixtures May 4 following multiple news reports of lead in drinking supplies across the country.
On May 26, the school district notified parents that eight fixtures at Greywolf and two at Helen Haller were identified to be above the state-recommended threshold for lead in the water. After learning of the affected fixtures, school staff disabled the sinks.
School officials announced at a forum June 2 at Sequim Middle School that they planned to replace fixtures above the allowable threshold and those of the same type and age. Greywolf’s fixtures were all installed in 1992.
In total, school staff replaced 42 faucets with four at Helen Haller and 38 at Greywolf.
The threshold for exceeding allowable lead levels by the state is 0.02, or 20 parts per billion, and the affected fixtures ranged from 0.023 to 0.048,or 23 parts per billion to 48 parts per billion, the school district reported.
No drinking fountains were found to have water lead levels above the unsafe threshold, school officials said.
Neal said the school district’s base kitchen and Olympic Peninsula Academy will be tested next in September, but no date has been set.
Originally, Sequim Middle and Sequim High schools would be tested soon thereafter this summer, but Neal said those tests are dependent on available resources.
“We’ll see what we can feasibly do and take direction from the Department of Health,” he said.
Based on guidelines from the Department of Health, the school district has five years, or until May 2021, to complete district-wide testing and replace any affected fixtures/water lines.
The district has three years to test the middle school and four to test the high school, Neal said.
“We got on it before we needed to,” he said.
The cost for replacing the faucets at the two schools came to $6,894, testing at $2,020 and internal labor at $858, said Brian Lewis, Sequim schools’ director of business services.
At the June forum, Dr. Christopher Frank, health officer for the Clallam County Health Department, said the lead threshold is conservative and there’s no mathematical formula for how much lead in water is going to affect people.
Frank said variables for the impact on students and staff could range from how much water students drink from an affected fixture to how long the water sits in the pipes to the size of the child to what they eat to where they live.
He said lead in water is of lesser concern compared to being exposed to lead-based paints.
Frank and other health officials advised if parents are concerned about their child being exposed to lead, they should consult their physician.
For more information on the schools’ studies, visit www.sequim.k12.wa.us or contact Patsene Dashiell at 360-582-3264 or mdashiell@sequim.k12.wa.us.
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Matthew Nash is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at mnash@sequimgazette.com.
