The Altoona Area School District is one of nine districts examined in a new report on lead in Pennsylvania school drinking water. The non-profit group, PennEnvironment Research & Policy Center, says those districts are ignoring best practices.
Altoona is the only district to fail every category in their report, including testing water from only a few faucets and fountains, and making those results hard to find.
Brad Hatch is the Altoona Area School District superintendent. He said the district follows Environmental Protection Agency regulations along with state law.
“We may not be following the recommendations or the guidelines that an independent group may be recommending," Hatch said. "However, we are very confident that we continue to provide safe water for our students and will continue to do so by whatever measures we need to do.”
The EPA says schools do not have to test their drinking water for lead if it comes from a public water supply. Hatch said every building, except Juniata Gap, gets water from the City of Altoona.
Trevor Robinson is the Director of Buildings and Grounds for the district. He said they tested high-traffic water sources across the district in 2019, per recommendations set by the EPA.
“We started with the oldest schools in our quote, unquote, fleet. We started at Baker, W & J [Washington and Jefferson] and our old Kimmel building — it was the old Pleasant Valley [Elementary School] building on Jaggard Street. We no longer own that building at that location," Robinson said. "We found buried in a back room, there was one faucet that was never used that came in above the [lead] action level. We immediately took it out of service.”
Other than that faucet, Robinson said every test was “well below the accepted action level that the EPA sets."
PennEnvironment suggests yearly testing.
Hatch said the district has had its own water testing program for a number of years. He also points to a construction project that finished in 2020 at the high school, which replaced the water fountains with filtered water bottle stations. That's one of PennEnvironment's recommendations.
“We have started to implement some of those throughout other buildings within our district, including our junior high school. You know, in the long term, that could be part of the planning process as we move forward," Hatch said.
Hatch addressed another concern in the report, which said water test results were hard or impossible to find.
He said that information is available through Right-to-Know requests, public meetings, or on the school's “Board Docs” program online.
Hatch also said students are welcome to bring in their own water.
**UPDATE: A previous version of this story reported the Altoona Area Junior High building did not receive water from the City of Altoona. District officials say Juniata Gap Elementary gets well water.**
