October 29, 2004
Reaction Time to Fixing Lead in Schools' Water Is Disputed
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN, NY TIMES

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The chairman of the State Assembly Education Committee charged yesterday that New York State health and education officials failed to follow up on reports that dangerous levels of lead had been detected in drinking water at 120 schools and day care facilities.

State officials disputed the charge and said that problems had been corrected at all but eight of the schools.

The chairman, Assemblyman Steven Sanders, said that regulators distributed a survey in April to 684 schools and day care centers, and that results tallied in August found that the lead levels in water from fountains and sinks at 120 locations were high enough to require action under federal Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

In a blistering attack on the state's Health and Education Departments, Mr. Sanders charged that the agencies "ignored the findings entirely and did absolutely nothing to follow up." He also criticized the agencies for asking schools and day care centers only whether their lead levels exceeded the federal standard of 20 parts per billion and not demanding the specific results.

Mr. Sanders also complained that 91 schools had checked a box on the survey saying they needed assistance on lead in drinking water but had received no response. He said he would pursue legislation mandating periodic lead testing at all schools.

State officials said that Mr. Sanders was being unnecessarily alarmist and that parents had little reason for concern. "All but a handful of the schools identified as having levels that exceeded the standard have taken corrective action," said William Van Slyke, a spokesman for the Health Department. "This has actually been a wonderfully successful effort by the two state agencies."

Mr. Van Slyke accused Mr. Sanders of grandstanding ahead of Election Day. "This is an egregious example of election eve hysteria," he said.

Repeated exposure to hazardous lead levels can result in lead poisoning, which can cause irreversible neurological damage, including learning disabilities, hearing loss and other problems. Mr. Sanders, a Democrat from Manhattan, called the agencies "shamefully negligent" for failing to follow up on the survey and request detailed information from schools.

State officials said the survey was distributed only to schools in areas where questions had been raised about the public water system and where officials would have been monitoring the situation. And they noted that the survey asked schools: "What follow-up actions have been taken as a result of the sampling?"

Officials said that even before the survey was distributed to 1,700 schools in April, the state had worked with federal officials to check the water in the largest school districts, including New York City, where 33,857 samples were taken from the city's roughly 1,200 schools.

In a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency, Michael E. Burke, the director of the Bureau of Public Water Supply Protection, part of the state's Health Department, reported that "in New York City, mitigative measures were taken at outlets in 370 schools."

In Syracuse, Mr. Burke reported, 2,351 samples were taken from 370 schools, and problems were addressed at 289 outlets.

More than 400 of the state's 5,000 schools operate and maintain their own drinking water supply and are required to test for lead.