The San Diego Unified Board of Education recently unanimously approved a new clean water plan providing drinking water districtwide solely through filtered hydration stations to achieve the state’s strongest lead in water standard of 1 part per billion or below. 
“This plan will go a long way in protecting student health,” said Samir Naji, San Diego Unified School District’s facilities communication supervisor. “We know from working with health experts and CALPIRG that any level of lead in drinking water presents health risks to students, especially younger kids. By using filters at the point of service through the filtered hydration stations, and by eliminating all old drinking water outlets, we believe we will reduce lead levels to 1 part per billion or below, delivering the cleanest water available at any school site,” Naji said.
The cost of the hydration stations, including installation, is $12 million. The cost of the annual maintenance is $400,000. Filtered hydration stations will be a combination of a traditional drinking water fountain and a reusable water bottle filling station.
Since April 2017, SDUSD has pursued lead in drinking water through districtwide testing of drinking water fountains. Using a strict action level that is three times stronger than legal requirements, more than 2,500 water samples were taken. Any drinking water outlet that produced a result above the district action level of 5 parts per billion has been remediated. All high-risk schools have been remediated.
SDUSD used the lessons learned from the data generated from all its testing and is ready to implement the clean water plan by moving to filtered hydration stations districtwide.
“This a very substantial step forward for public health here at San Diego Unified and is a model that may be replicated throughout the state and nationally,” said Naji. “It has been a long road to get here. As you know, we did find elevated levels of lead at several school sites. We are fortunate to have had great community support and partners as we aggressively tackled this issue … and built this plan that has been adopted by the school board.”
Consumer watchdog group CALPIRG also hailed the school district’s efforts to purify drinking water.
“We are thrilled about the new district plan to get lead out of school drinking water,” said CALPIRG public health advocate Laura Deehan. “Lead is highly toxic to children. Even exposure to very small amounts are now linked to irreversible damage to a child’s brain, and can cause IQ loss, ADHD and anxiety disorders.”
Added Deehan, “Unfortunately, lead has long been commonly used in plumbing, and small amounts can leach into our drinking water. As we can see, it is possible to get the lead out and protect children from this preventable toxic exposure. And we urge school districts across California and the United States to follow San Diego’s example and protect children from this toxic threat.”
“These are the kind of far-reaching commitments needed to ensure that all our children will have safe water to drink at school,” said John Rumpler, clean water program director for Environment America, a national network of 29 state environmental groups. “We’re working to continue this momentum and convince even more school districts, cities, and states to do the same.”
San Diego’s commitment is the latest in a growing number of school districts that are beginning to take action to prevent lead contamination of drinking water. Environment America and U.S. PIRG plan to highlight some of these accomplishments in a report later this spring.