U.S. Schools Still Struggle With Lead Contamination,Particularly the old schools of Jersey City’s school district were found to have lead in their drinking water. The ancient plumbing and buildings were part of the issue, as well as the fact that this problem was ignored for several years. About 17,000 students attend these 30 schools where high levels of lead were discovered. We all know that children are at greatest risk from lead exposure.

According to The New York Times, in 2006 only eight public schools in Jersey City were found to have lead in their drinking fountains, and then more were discovered in 2008, 2010 and 2012. Officials finally decided in 2013 to create a comprehensive chart to record all the schools that had been affected.

The Flint, Michigan crisis of 2014, fortunately brought to our attention that this is a serious problem affecting our children–our future, and has to be addressed.

Other U.S. public schools such as Baltimore switched to bottled water for their kids because ripping out the lead pipping would have been impractical, says NY Times. And “The Los Angeles Unified School District allotted $19.8 million in September to retrofit or remove its 48,000 drinking fountains to erase a small but tenacious lead threat. Ithaca, N.Y., schools switched temporarily to bottled water in January after water tests found elevated lead levels at two schools.”

Read more.