Center for Green Schools Releases White Paper on Testing for Lead in Drinking Water in Schools

The Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) recently released a white paper on state legislation on testing for lead in drinking water in schools. The white paper studied 16 existing state actions and analyzed whether the actions were mandatory or voluntary, who had responsibility and enforcement, the scope of the testing and the risk reduction. The white paper offers several perspectives for future state legislation, and concluded that “the result of the existing federal framework is that without state action-whether administrative or legislative-many schools outlets will not be tested for lead”. More research and more work are needed to solve this challenging issue, as well as addressing child care centers. Getting the lead out of schools and child care centers is going to take some time and effort and it’s an important issue that warrants focus.