Lead pipes were banned in the United States in 1986. But dozens of Inland Empire school districts still had lead showing up in their drinking water in the past decade.
California published its final report on lead in school drinking water in 2020. At that time, 18 of the Inland Empire’s four dozen districts and other education agencies had lead in campus drinking fountains or sinks, according to the State Water Resources Control Board’s last listing.
The California Department of Public Health warns that lead exposure can harm a child’s nervous system and brain. Impossible to see, smell or taste, it can cause anemia. And very high levels can result in organ damage and lead to seizures or death.
After testing, all these districts fixed the problems by replacing pipes, shutting off drinking fountains and adding filters to sinks. Still, many Inland students in recent years likely drank water with lead levels higher than the recommended standard.
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“I don’t know that anyone wouldn’t, if the lead surpassed the certain level, take immediate action,” said Gregory Franklin, a former superintendent of the Tustin Unified School District and now a professor of clinical education at USC’s Rossier School of Education.
But replacing lead pipes takes money and time.
“It’s hard to do a big construction project without a bond or state matching money,” Franklin said. “Most of the money that goes to school districts for deferred maintenance goes to repairing roofs, reslurrying asphalt or replacing air conditioning units.”
Districts would have to do such a big project over the summer — when every other district wants to — driving up costs. Or if done during the school year, districts would have to find another place for students during construction.
“When you are opening up trenches or tearing down walls, it’s hard to run school,” Franklin said.
In the U.S., there are at least three major standards — each set by a different agency or group — for lead in drinking water:
Eighteen Inland Empire districts had schools with lead levels above 15 parts per billion in some of their drinking water between 2017 and 2019, according to the 2020 report:
- Alta Loma Elementary School District
- Barstow Unified School District
- Chino Valley Unified School District
- Colton Joint Unified School District
- Corona-Norco Unified School District
- Fontana Unified School District
- Hemet Unified School District
- Morongo Unified School District
- Perris Union High School District
- Redlands Unified School District
- Rialto Unified School District
- Rim of the World Unified School District
- Riverside County Office of Education
- Riverside Unified School District
- San Bernardino City Unified School District
- San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools
- Val Verde Unified School District
- Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District
But every local district listed in the State Water Resources Control Board’s spreadsheet exceeded the 5 parts per billion threshold that the FDA warns is dangerous.
“Any amount of lead can be dangerous,” said Dr. Tejal Khandhar, a pediatrician with UC Riverside Health. “It can lead to developmental delays, learning difficulties, lower IQ, abdominal pains. And many times, it’s not high enough for them to have symptoms.”
Younger children are more at risk than older children. Pediatricians such as Khandhar routinely test 1- and 2-year-olds for lead exposure.
The body’s natural filtration systems mean that older children and adults can remove more ingested lead. But it’s not good for anyone.
“It can definitely still affect their learning,” Khandhar said. “They can get developmental delays, they still get lower IQs.”
A December study by researchers at Duke University and Florida State University suggests lead exposure may have helped cause 151 million cases of psychiatric disorders among Americans over the past 75 years.
Samantha Ying, an assistant professor of soil biogeochemistry and co-director of the UC Global Health Institute Planetary Health Center at UCR studies metal containments, particularly arsenic, chromium, manganese, iron, vanadium and has expertise in drinking water and lead.
Ying said that some metals, like manganese, have a type of micronutrient and that, while it is debated how much of the metal one can safely drink, it is known to have some function in the human body.
That’s not the case with lead — which the body doesn’t need at all.
“So you actually need manganese in your body versus things like lead and arsenic,” Ying said. “We have zero need for those metals in our body, which is why they are more regulated.”
Studies show that extended or chronic consumption of even low concentrations of lead can have an impact, she said. For health reasons, people should not have lead in their bodies because it is not something the body produces naturally, Ying said. The guidelines don’t follow this health standard, she said.
“So, for example, for arsenic, like I said, there’s zero amounts of arsenic that your body needs,” Ying said. “…The health goal, is zero, like, let’s just not intake any arsenic, since we don’t need it.”
She said regulatory agencies don’t call for zero amounts of a substance, often because of the economic costs of monitoring and treating.
One way to help teenagers’ bodies filter out lead is a diet high in calcium and iron, Khandhar said.
“That’s one of the reasons it’s so important for teens to have a healthy diet,” she said.
In 2017, Assembly Bill 746 required community water systems to test lead levels in drinking water at all California public K-12 school sites built before 2010. It was intended to find places that had more than the EPA’s 15 parts per billion standard.
The law required California’s State Water Resources Control Board to update its spreadsheet of reports of lead in drinking water in California schools one last time at the end of 2020.
Since then, school districts have taken steps to prevent students from drinking water with high amounts of lead.
In 2024, the state looked to fund infrastructure improvements, including reducing lead in drinking water with money from Proposition 2, which voters approved in November. The bond measure will provide $8.5 billion for construction at schools from transitional kindergarten to high schools.
The proposition allocates up to $115 million for reducing lead levels in water at public schools.
The last time districts received a state funding boost for infrastructure improvements was Proposition 51 in 2016, which authorized $9 billion in bonds.
To receive Proposition 2 money, districts must have matching funds. The state will usually pay 50% of new construction projects and 60% of the cost for renovations. The rest falls to school districts to pay for with local dollars, generally bonds.
The Inland Empire school districts that had high levels of lead in their drinking water between 2017 and 2019 all appear to have followed similar courses of action, based on answers from those that responded to requests for comment.
They replaced lead pipes, shut off drinking fountains or found alternate water supplies. In other instances, follow-up testing suggested the high lead levels were due to false positives on an earlier test.
Drinking water samples from three sinks at the Chino Valley Unified School District’s Glenmeade Elementary School showed 21 and 180 parts per billion of lead — 12 times more than the 15 parts per billion that the EPA declares is a safe level to drink.
A district plumber fixed the issue at schools where levels of lead were above the federal standard, district spokesperson Andrea Johnston said in an email.
The most recent report of lead in drinking water from Chino came in 2023. Three campuses — Anna Borba Elementary School, Marshall Elementary School and Alicia Cortes Elementary School — reported lead in drinking water. After the report, plumbers replaced pipes, faucets and added filters, Johnston said.
This is normal any time a report of lead in drinking water is made, Johnston said.
A drinking fountain outside the cafeteria at Colton Joint Unified’s Terrace View Elementary School in September and October 2017 showed 25 and 73 parts per billion of lead — almost five times what the EPA declares is a safe level to drink.
The district replaced those pipes that November, spokesperson Katie Orloff said. Two later tests showed levels had dropped to 5 and 7.8 parts per billion, above what the FDA and pediatricians recommend, but in line with the EPA and state law.
“For results requiring corrective action, our district facilities and maintenance staff acted promptly to ensure that the water available to students and staff is well within the standard for safe drinking water established by AB 746,” Orloff wrote in an email. “We take these guidelines extremely seriously and appreciate the partnership of our local water agencies in helping us to meet them.”
At Redlands Unified’s Orangewood High School, drinking water samples on three occasions in 2018 showed levels of 18, 26 and 34 parts per million of lead. That’s up to double what the EPA says is safe.
The district took the faucet out of service in 2018 and it hasn’t been used since, spokesperson Christine Stephens said. It has been replaced by a newer drinking fountain.
“To ensure continued access to safe drinking water for students and staff, a replacement water filter was installed in the same” spot, Stephens wrote in an email.
A classroom sink at Highland Elementary School in Norco, in the Corona-Norco Unified School District, showed 160 parts per billion of lead in the water in 2019. That’s more than 10 times what the EPA says is safe.
The district replaced those pipes and the faucet, spokesperson Brittany Foust said.
“Fifteen parts per billion is equivalent to about one drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool,” Foust said.
The most recent districtwide test was in 2019, and only Highland had lead in the water above the 15 parts per billion level, she said. After the district completed the repairs, the sink didn’t test positive for lead, according to Foust.
