San Diego

SDUSD Finishes Testing for Drinking Water at 200 School District Sites

The district said 94 percent of schools were lead-free. The district is making plumbing repairs at three schools with dangerous levels of lead.

The San Diego Unified School District has now finished drinking water testing at more than 200 school district sites.

The discovery of contaminated water at Emerson Bandini in Southcrest prompted the district to accelerate plans to test schools.

In May, high levels of lead were discovered at Birney Elementary. Parents requested on-site blood testing for students, and soil testing for the school garden.

No students showed any signs of elevated blood lead levels in their blood, a district pediatrician said, and the school soil was just fine.

On Thursday, the district said 94 percent of schools were lead-free. The district is making plumbing repairs at three schools with dangerous levels of lead.

About 30 to 35 schools had some levels of lead, but not levels that rose to a dangerous level.

Trustee Kevin Beiser said the district planned to remediate the drinking water in those schools anyway because β€œthe health of our kids is priceless.”

Before recently, San Diego Unified has never tested any school water for lead, according to Board President Richard Barrera.

A state bill is pending that would require all California schools to regularly test school drinking water for lead and report the results to parents.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher wrote the bill after toxic levels of lead were discovered incidentally by a contractor in the San Ysidro Elementary School District. The two schools in Southcrest where San Diego Unified first discovered lead are also in Gonzalez' district.

In January 2017, new State Water Resource Control Board regulations went into effect requiring water agencies to monitor school water for high levels of lead, when the school district requests testing.

The City of San Diego estimates the testing cost the city more than $500,000 so far.

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