DELAWARE- Starting on Dec. 19, the Department of Education (DOE) will retest for elevated lead levels in schools' drinking water after the state identified mistakes in the last round of testing.
The DOE received backlash from concerned parents earlier this year after delaying the release of lead testing results.
Delaware's Secretary of Education, Mark Holidick, said "We were not as timely as we should have been with our communications with our schools and our communities. Having been secretary for almost a year now and really looking at the big picture around all of this it just seems appropriate to me that we have a resampling across the entire state."
When results came out in October 2022, nearly 50 schools in Delaware contained lead levels above the federal threshold of 15 parts per billion.
Sarah Bucic is the co-chair for Lead-Free Delaware, a coalition aimed at lead poisoning prevention. She said this threshold is not a health based standard.
"In actuality the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is a medical association, says anything over 1 we don't want to see that," said Bucic.
She also mentioned the long-term health risks of lead poisoning.
"When you wait a year to give someone results you are not going to be able to get meaningful data about an exposure," she said. "Even though lead poisoning is irreversible when we can identify it people can access services."
Holidick said another issue with the original testing was that it was done during the pandemic.
"I just think our focus was on, and it's not an excuse, but it was on other things all things related to Covid," said Holidick.
He said this time around, things will be different.
"Our goal is to be incredibly timely and transparent with all of our communications and so that requires us to work very closely with a number of partners, none more so than our schools and communities."
The retesting process may take up to five months and the DOE plans to release results no more than 90 days after they are received. This round of testing will not be overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Batta Environmental Associates, Inc., a Newark-based environmental consultant, will retest all fixtures that initially tested at 7.5 ppb or higher and all consumption points at schools statewide.
Blood lead screenings are available at community health mobile units in all three Delaware counties.
Find more information about when and where those mobile units will be here: https://dhss.delaware.gov/dph/chs/chsleadtesting.html
Lead-Free Delaware also hopes to see the General Assembly take steps towards providing funding for lead poisoning prevention in the coming months.
Bucic said she "would love to see people in the General Assembly value this. The prevention is so critical and you are literally investing in the future of children having better outcomes."