California school lead testing results and the new lead and copper rule

Abstract

Abstract Under the revised lead and copper rule, schools and daycare centers will need to conduct lead and copper sampling. The California Division of Drinking Water required Public Water Systems to assist local schools in testing water for lead between 2017 and 2020. There were 43,803 samples collected from 7,058 schools in 864 school districts. In total, 5.2% of the samples had lead present in concentrations greater than the Detection Limit for Reporting (DLR) of 5 μg/L, and 1.1% of samples had lead concentrations greater than the Action Level (AL) of 15 μg/L. When broken down by counties, these patterns are consistent throughout most of the State. Drinking fountains had significantly lower frequencies of results above the DLR and AL than samples collected from sinks and food preparation areas. Chloride, bicarbonate, and pH appeared to influence the frequency of results above the DLR and AL.