Identifying schools with high lead levels in drinking water

Date:
December 15, 2021
Source:
American Chemical Society
Summary:
Consuming lead can cause health problems for anyone, but children
are particularly vulnerable because the element can interfere
with their growth and development. While water systems will soon
be required to measure lead levels in school tap water, it's not
clear how these measurements should be interpreted. Researchers have
now used real-world data to determine an approach for identifying
schools likely to have problematic lead levels.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Consuming lead can cause health problems for anyone, but children are particularly vulnerable because the element can interfere with their
growth and development. While water systems will soon be required
to measure lead levels in school tap water, it's not clear how these measurements should be interpreted. In a new study in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology Letters, researchers used real-world data to
determine an approach for identifying schools likely to have problematic
lead levels.


========================================================================== Under certain circumstances, pipes, faucets and other plumbing system components can release lead into the water they carry. Research has
shown that such contamination is widespread among schools, so the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently developed a plan to revise
its rules on testing for lead in these buildings. The revision will
require water systems to test for lead content based on five samples
from a school. However, the amount of lead that shows up within a
building's water can fluctuate, so some researchers are concerned that
this approach won't accurately detect those schools with potentially problematic levels. Kelsey Pieper and colleagues wanted to take a closer
look at the problem, and to see whether just five samples could be used
to identify at-risk schools.

The researchers analyzed 47,727 lead measurements taken from 1,094
schools in Massachusetts. They found that water from 12% of the fixtures,
such as water fountains and faucets, had lead levels of more than 15
parts per billion (ppb) -- the threshold at which the state requires
that a fixture be shut off. These problematic fixtures were not evenly distributed: 90% of them were located in just 34% of schools. The team
also used these data, which averaged nearly 44 samples per building,
to classify schools as having low or high lead levels.

They then tested two ways of making the same classification with only
five measurements, the results of which they verified by comparing them
to those derived from the full data set. In the first, they simply counted
how many of the five samples had more than 5 ppb, and for the second, they
used a statistical analysis to score the five together. By combining the
two approaches, they found they could most accurately identify schools
at low or increased risk of having elevated lead levels. The strategy
couldn't classify schools based on a lower, 1 ppb threshold. Despite
that limitation, the researchers say that these results confirm that
five samples could be used to prioritize lead remediation efforts if
analyzed in these two ways.

The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and Northeastern University.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by American_Chemical_Society. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. McNamara Rome, Stephen Estes-Smargiassi, Sheldon V. Masters, Alan
Roberson, John E. Tobiason, R. Edward Beighley, Kelsey
J. Pieper. Using the Lead and Copper Rule Revisions Five-Sample
Approach to Identify Schools with Increased Lead in Drinking
Water Risks. Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 2021;
DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.1c00845 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211215082017.htm

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