How is the water quality in our schools monitored for lead?
ACPS has been proactive about sampling for lead in drinking water and has no reason to believe that there is lead in the water in our schools. Here is a summary of our testing efforts and their results:
- In 2016 and 2018, ACPS voluntarily tested every drinking water fixture in every school, approximately 800 in total. It included every water fountain, classroom sink/bubbler in elementary schools, kitchen sink, and any other sink and/or water source where we believed people might be getting their drinking water. A limited number of fixtures were found to have lead levels above the EPA’s maximum contaminant level (MCL). In each circumstance, we replaced the pipe or utilized a filter to mitigate the issue and retested it to confirm that lead levels were reduced to below the MCL.
- The EPA recently created a new rule requiring all waterworks operators/public utilities to conduct a lead service line inventory by October 2024. We have conducted this inventory for ACPS’s five (5) waterworks sites and found no lead service lines. The Albemarle County Service Authority (ACSA) has recently completed its inventory and found no lead service lines in its distribution system. We are required to make these inventories public. To fulfill this requirement, we have created an interactive web map. We will post this map and links to the public reports from the City of Charlottesville utilities and ACSA to our website next month.
- At our five well-water schools, we are required to conduct lead samples at each school every three years. Our results have been consistently below the EPA’s MCL. ACSA is likewise required to conduct triennial lead testing within its distribution system. Results for all ACPS water samples are publicly available via VDH’s Drinking Water Viewer: https://vadwv.gecsws.com/
Answered by Rosalyn Schmitt, Chief Operations Officer