DHEC plans to check schools yearly for lead in water

Checks for undiscovered lead in drinking water could start shortly in some Midlands classrooms, a step likely to expand across South Carolina later.

Officials in Columbia – the largest water provider in the Midlands – plan to offer free checks as soon as next month at classrooms in Richland 1, Richland 2 and Lexington-Richland 5.

“It’s the right thing to do,” city water works superintendent Clint Shealy said Wednesday.

Similar tests may be offered to Lexington 1, but many schools there were built after concern about lead in plumbing became known, Lexington town utility director Allen Lutz said.

State environmental officials say they don’t know of problems in schools, but are ready to add yearly tests as a precaution as part of its focus on checking for lead after the water crisis in Flint, Mich.

“We’re really going to start focusing on that sector,” David Baize of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control told officials of more than 30 public and private utilities at a workshop at Lexington Town Hall.

DHEC has not always required annual testing for schools. Many of them are checked every three years.

Public and private utilities were checked earlier. Twenty-eight, including some that serve schools and day care centers, had elevated levels of lead. The metal can cause brain damage in children.

New tests show lead levels are now within safe standards in 18 of the 28. DHEC is working to end high levels in the others.

The level of concern for lead in drinking water is 15 parts per billion, with state and federal officials aiming to eliminate it entirely because of toxic effects on children even at low levels.

An Associated Press analysis released Wednesday of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data found nearly 1,400 water systems serving 3.6 million Americans have exceeded the federal lead standard at least once since 2013.

The affected systems nationwide are large and small, public and private, and include 278 systems owned and operated by schools and day care centers in 42 states. It was not immediately clear if South Carolina was part of that survey.

Coming up with a plan to accurately measure lead in schools is demanding since there are multiple uses of water by students, teachers, cooks, janitors and other staff, Baize said.

“There’s challenges in trying to design it in ways that make sense,” he said.

Meanwhile, DHEC continues to examine others ways to reduce overall lead threats.

One idea is replacing lead and copper water lines with other material. Although water can be treated to keep lead from washing into it, using other materials for water lines is preferable to stop the threat altogether, officials say.

Replacing lead and copper service lines is a big task that could cost millions of dollars in areas with older water systems, including Columbia.

“It’s a lot of expense; I wish there was a silver bullet for that,” DHEC director Catherine Heigel told The State newspaper Wednesday. “As I’ve said repeatedly, our goal is zero lead in water. We’ll continue to be vigilant until there aren’t these issues.’”

Among DHEC’s efforts to reduce lead threats is a focus on helping small utilities – many privately owned and supplying mobile home neighborhoods. Those systems made up virtually all of those identified in February as having elevated lead. Bigger systems, such as Columbia, have not shown problems.

For homeowners, it’s easy to avoid health problems from consumption of lead by running faucets a bit before using water, officials said.

The discussion about lead included Midlands utility officials from Cayce, West Columbia and Carolina Water Service as well as Columbia and Lexington, one of a series of meetings DHEC has held.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 3:40 PM with the headline "DHEC plans to check schools yearly for lead in water."