The following email was sent to families on the Wayland Schools listserv:
To the Students, Families, and Staff of the Wayland Public Schools:
We are writing to inform you about our effort to reduce potential exposure to lead in drinking water at our school buildings. Both the Environmental Protection agency (EPA) and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) as part of their healthy school efforts encourage schools and child care facilities to reduce exposure to lead from facility drinking water by taking a number of steps. These include testing drinking water for lead and copper, disseminating the results and taking the appropriate actions to correct any actual or potential problems found.
Given this advice along with the heightened concerns that the issue of lead in drinking water has received nationally, we recently sampled 41 drinking water fixtures – roughly a third of the fixtures in each school (including The Children’s Way). This is above and beyond the periodic testing conducted by the town’s Water Department. We learned that samples from two of these water taps – Room 12 at the Loker School and Room 124 at the Claypit Hill School – had lead levels that exceeded the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection “action level for lead in drinking water at schools and child care facilities.” No copper tests reached an actionable level. We take these test results very seriously and, to safeguard the health of the students, faculty and staff, we immediately closed off access to these fixtures and, as is recommended, flushed and retested them. The retesting results came back well below the limit. Neither of these rooms are regular classroom spaces. There’s some likelihood that the initial high levels were partly a result of their infrequent use.
Going forward, we will continue with a testing program that will test all fixtures over a three year cycle. To ere on the side caution, in all schools except the high school we are also going to institute a flushing program in which every drinking fixture will be flushed after long periods of idleness, such as after a vacation week. (The high school results were all below detectable levels, in part due to its recent construction.)
Exposure to lead is a concern because lead is a toxic metal that has a range of adverse health effects. We are committed to keeping the public informed and following MassDEP safety guidelines. You can find the testing results on our website by clicking on this link:
http://www.wayland.k12.ma.us/
http://www.wayland.k12.ma.us/
As a reminder, the water systems at the schools are not unlike those found in area homes. You may want to consider having your home water tested. To learn more, you can refer to the information posted on the MassDEP website by clicking on this link:http://www.mass.gov/eea/
Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Paul Stein
Superintendent of Schools
Ben Keefe
Public Buildings Director
