LEAD IN LONG ISLAND SCHOOL WATERS: What to Know, Learn, and Do

The “bridge” between Long Island and New York City links multiple systems and bodies of water together, but they differ tremendously in their geography and surrounding environment. Compared to New York City, Long Island’s shores reach both North and South, connecting towards the Long Island Sound, while simultaneously diverging to the Atlantic Ocean. With the state’s borders reaching nearly all parts of different bodies of water, the conditions of water would surely be for all residents, neighbors, and government officials to have major attentiveness and concern in. 

Ironically, that’s not exactly the focus.

Where education remains a major priority to families and counties for top schools located in the state and, likewise, the nation, there’s a substantial concern regarding water contamination. Recent traces of these issues derive from a recent report by news outlets covering various high schools across Long Island.

To denote, the fixated and regulated safe level of lead in drinking water remains unestablished, yet the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continuously urges for maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) to be below 15 ppb. The value signifies the action level before heavy regulation and change in pipes and additional services are to be enforced. Thereby, 

newspapers allegedly state the positive testing high schools have gone through for excessive lead contamination in drinking water prevalent in high schools.

Across the several districts, Nassau County schools testing positive or cited potential lead contamination includes Bethpage, Great Neck, Hempstead, Island Park, Massapequa, Plainview Old Bethpage, Port Washington, Syosset, Uniondale, Valley Stream, Westbury; all schools people on Long Island are quite familiar with. Alongside, schools across Suffolk County, such as Bay Shore, Central Islip, Cold Spring Harbor, Commack, Hauppauge, Huntington, Islip, Kings Park, Riverhead, Southampton, Southold, deem susceptible to widespread lead contamination as well.

With numerous institutions across Long Island reaching or already exceeding 50 years old, stated by the National Center for Education Statistics, water contamination together may accumulate detrimentally. Concerns of insufficient or out-of-date technology plays a major role in contamination, and likewise, suggests its primary impact across districts. Additionally, as drinking water is a major source of contact, consumption of lead at heavy amounts may result in significant risks in behavioral problems, growth issues, and in extreme cases, comas and death. Some symptoms or dysfunctions may include increased risk of hypertension, loss of motor skill and dysfunction, peripheral neuropathy, and anemia.

However, to note, these may be extreme results based on the lead’s contamination that remains widespread across the entire body and its biological pathway. While the EPA’s goal is to stabilize MCLs at 0, notably this isn’t the most realistic option that can be faced in our environment today. 

In fact, chemical reactions are predominant sources to lead buildup over time. Through a process called corrosion, when lead built from pipes and materials reacts with surrounding high acidic air or water, it may lead to lead to break down and cause it to decay and dissolve. Likewise, because the pipes are carrying drinking water to local sources, it enters into drinking water, making humans easily susceptible to overwhelming contamination in a short period of time. As the EPA suggests, several factors including chemistry, amount of lead, and how long water stays in pipes, all have a consequent role to the metal’s escalation. 

However, it’s challenging to blame only school districts on this issue. Even though they play a significant role in implementing new regulations and technologies, the local community can and should play a part. 

Often, it would be difficult to rank or place procedures into solving environmental issues. It’s the same for specifically solving issues with drinking water, acknowledging that it's prevalent everywhere and extremely challenging to place it step by step. However, the simplest measure as high school students could be water monitoring, both efficient and feasible to test at a home, school, or “anywhere” setting. Many people aren’t aware of this, but it could take just one call to access free water quality, including lead and other contaminants alone.

Though, it’s better to track and connect with other institutions. With the issue that arose months ago with excessive lead contamination, many districts have assessed these issues and immediately began enforcing new tools and construction to protect our water quality. However, other local water utilities or school boards may not fully address it, which results in leading concerns to the present school year and the future. It’s not acceptable at all to ignore these problems, and, therefore, it is strongly suggested to speak up to the school’s board or local legislature about this issue.

Whether it can go through a tremendous scale by employing new machinery or solely going through the low cost option of regular testing and ensuring replacement funded by the New York State government, any action and mitigation to prevent higher accumulation is better than nothing.