Clean water is something we take for granted on a daily basis. This is especially true when we send our kids off to school and don’t even question if they are getting pure water that day. Apparently, a predominantly Black metro Atlanta city has an issue when it comes to providing safe drinking water to its students. A recent report has revealed that some public schools in the metro Atlanta have lead-tainted drinking water. The Dekalb County School District revealed this information in its system-wide testing for the presence of lead in drinking water at four of five schools.
These schools have been identified as John Lewis Elementary, Kittredge Magnet Elementary, Murphy Candler Elementary and Rock Chapel Elementary. The presence of lead was detected in some of the drinking fountains at the affected schools. The district has reported that all of the drinking fountains where lead was detected have been removed and remodeling is in progress on safer equipment. Any water source that tests at or above the EPA’s guidelines for 15 parts per billion is a failed test.
Dekalb County joins a growing list of schools throughout the country that have started testing for lead in their water supply. Following the Flint Water Crisis, the nation is looking at the aging infrastructure of water pipelines and plumbing in old buildings. The dangers of lead poisoning include:
- High levels of lead and copper in bloodstreams, brains, bones and other organs;
- Skin lesions and hair loss
- Chemical induced hypertension
- Autoimmune disorder
- Neurological disorders such as “brain fog”, seizure-like convulsions, vision loss, memory loss
- Psychological disorders such as depression, chronic anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder and an inability to cope with normal stress
