NEWPORT — Testing required by a new state law has found multiple water fixtures at Newport Middle and High School, and Richards Elementary School, that must be replaced to abate lead contamination.

With 16 drinking fountains and faucets closed across the three schools, school officials have brought in bottled water to serve the school population and are installing Watts filters, designed to remove lead, on the contaminated pipes. Water fixtures where elevated levels of lead were detected have been taped off.

“We can’t start tearing pipes apart with kids in school,” Newport Schools Superintendent Donna Magoon said.

The elementary, middle and high schools combined host just under 1,000 students and faculty.

“After school is done, we’ll look at what our next, more permanent, steps will be,” Magoon said.

Lead exposure can cause brain, blood, kidney and nervous system damage, stunt growth development and increase the chances of learning and behavioral issues, especially when younger children are exposed, according to the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley. One in five attention deficit disorder diagnoses can be attributed to lead exposure.

Alice Ely, executive director of the Public Health Council of the Upper Valley, described lead as a heavy metal that accumulates in the body, and can cause long term damage “simply by being there.”

“We all need to be concerned about the long term accumulation of lead, and if our school buildings are even a part of this equation, I hope that we’ll have the fortitude and foresight to deal with it,” Ely said.

As of now, there are no plans in place to test Newport students for lead in their blood.

The Newport district is not the only school system on the New Hampshire side of the Upper Valley forced to remediate lead levels above the state limit of five parts per billion. Last July, state lawmakers approved HB 1421, which lowered the maximum contamination limit from 15 parts per billion, or ppb, to five, and also mandated that three rounds of testing be completed by 2024.

Lead is odorless and colorless, and is often found in old paint. It also is traced to aging piping and soldering, and it can be difficult to accurately test for in water.

The Newport schools are among a number of Upper Valley New Hampshire schools that are dealing with elevated lead levels.

Plainfield Elementary successfully remediated six water fixtures in the fall.

Three fixtures at Claremont Middle School tested at dangerous levels of lead in the fall. Officials at the school could not be reached to comment on remediation efforts.

Officials at Cornish Elementary School are waiting to address water fixtures until after they have dug a new well to replace the current one, which has tested for high levels of PFAS, a family of toxic chemicals found in some water supplies that is now facing its own regulations.

For now, as has been the case since last spring, the school uses bottled water.

When lead is present in water, its concentrations “have a lot to do with the water chemistry, how long the water was sitting in the pipes before it was collected,” Lea Anne Atwell, head of the Lead in Schools and Child Care Facilities program at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, said in a phone interview. “It really varies based on the individual faucet that is tested. You could have a really high level in one sink and in the next sink they’re low.”

Lead is not a new issue in Sullivan County. In 2021, the county was issued a $1.7 million grant to address lead paint issues in homes occupied by low-income residents. About a quarter of housing stock in the Upper Valley was built before 1950, and lead paint wasn’t made illegal until 1978, according to the Public Health Council. But the test results from the state’s schools demonstrate that lead is a more widespread problem.

In 2019, Vermont lawmakers approved Act 66, which required schools and child care facilities to test drinking water systems for contamination and replace them if lead levels were found above four parts per billion. The results of the legislation were largely successful, according to the Department of Health. By September 2022, 98% of those systems “were successfully remediated to a lead level below 4 ppb for less than $500 per tap 90% of the time,” according to material from the Vermont Department of Health.

While the tests spurred effective replacements, the results underscored a stark reality. Lead is ubiquitous, especially in rural areas with aging water infrastructure. Around half of the more than 15,300 taps tested in Vermont contained unsafe levels of lead.

About 2,000 fixtures still require replacing. A database of school testing results in Vermont can be found at the following link: leadresults.vermont.gov

Public health officials say the effect of extended lead exposure in childhood could be profound.

Poisoning occurs when lead has built up in the blood, often over months or years. While data showing the lead poisoning in children in the last five years on the New Hampshire side of the Upper Valley indicates relatively small numbers (for example, in 2018, 12 children tested as having been lead poisoned), Ely thinks that doesn’t accurately represent the magnitude of the problem.

“I think that the long term implications of even a small number of children who have been lead poisoned, are greater than most of us understand,” she said.

“We all pay for the impacts. It shows up in our schools, and in the criminal justice system. It has a ripple effect through our world that I don’t think people really see. It’s easy to say that’s not my critical problem.”

Testing of facilities is better than it once was, Ely said, but next steps are unclear. She thinks children exposed to lead should be tested for blood lead poisoning, but that would only reveal the magnitude of the issue, not resolve it.

“We need to know what we’re going to do if those children are shown to be at high levels,” Ely said. “We need to know what difference it makes. It’s not like you can just give them a pill and it goes away. And it’s not fair to give people information about a problem and not also help them see the solution.”

A database of lead water testing results in New Hampshire schools can be found at this link: https://tinyurl.com/2f37u934

More information about lead can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8ad5s4

Frances Mize is a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at fmize@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.

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