GREENFIELD — Greenfield’s new high school and the town middle school have problems with lead and copper in the water.
This news comes two weeks after a similar problem was discovered in the older elementary schools, after water quality testing done with a state grant.
The middle school — similarly to the elementary schools — has some lead and copper issues with certain fixtures, such as water fountains and faucets. The high school has high copper levels because the new building was plumbed with copper pipes.
For the most part, the problem spots are faucets and not drinking fountains. The problem is not with the town’s water or its distribution pipes, according to town and school officials.
School officials say the school water is safe to drink and steps such as flushing the system in the morning and shutting off particular fountains have been taken. These measures help to temporarily address the cause: lead and copper build-up overnight in buildings that are kept heated when not in use.
No students or faculty are suspected to have been impaired by the lead or copper, school officials said.
A total of 19 fixtures across the Greenfield public school system showed lead readings above the legal limit of 0.015, or 15 parts per billion, with the highest reading, 0.08, at a third floor sink in the middle school. When children drink water that has lead levels above the legal limit, it can have an effect on their development.
“I don’t think you can say they have been poisoned by lead but what you can say is there is a concern that we need to really eliminate lead exposure from all sources,” local water specialist Glenn Ayers said.
As for copper, a less concerning contaminant, across the public school system, 42 different fixtures came back with levels above the limit for copper. Repeated exposure to copper can cause nausea, but it can also potentially affect liver or kidney health.
The results came to light after Greenfield participated in a voluntary state-funded water testing program through the Department of Environmental Protection.
Right now, all schools are following a morning flushing program that the custodians are adding to their routine by turning on a faucet in the farther point of the school and letting it run. They have shut off access to fixtures that failed testing and the school will replace these fixtures, ideally by spring break, at a cost of about $5,600. The money will come out of the school budget.
“In certain respects, this is a really good thing,” Facilities Manager Alan Schmidt said. “We actually know. There are all these school districts out there that didn’t bother to do this. When this gets back up to the state Legislature or somebody passes a law and says you have to do that, at least we’re way ahead of the game, and we at least know what’s going on; it’s just a matter of now we’ve got to deal with it.”
There was initial confusion among school officials when they found out Greenfield Middle School and Greenfield High School had issues with water. When the state corresponded with the school officials, it first supplied what appeared to be a complete set of results that did not include the middle school and high school.
The Department of Environmental Protection sent the high school and middle school results separately. Within 48 hours, the superintendent sent a letter to families, students and faculty with an update.
Mayor William Martin, who is the School Committee chairman, was out of the office the past two days and not available for comment.
There were both lead and copper issues at the middle school. The older building, despite a 1995 renovation, still had issues with lead.
“Schools are always the hardest ones because the water sits on the pipe all night,” Greenfield Director of Public Works Donald Ouellette said.
Since these results, Ouellette said he has looked at every faucet or sink that failed. He said most were rarely if ever used, like one in a closet in a music room and others that you had to move boxes to turn on the water. These faucets have been shut off and will be replaced, he said.
Failed sinks in the science labs were used when the building was a high school and now are unused.
The fixtures at the high school, which is less than two years old, are not an issue.
Copper is leaching into the water from new copper pipes. Instead of copper pipes, the town could have chosen plastic pipes, said Ouellette.
The water that sits overnight in the pipes and picks up copper is now being flushed each morning. Ouellette and school officials do not know why this practice was not instituted from the start.
“I can’t really answer that. I’m sure that it was talked about and mentioned,” Ouellette said.
He added, “Now that we know we have an issue, we’re going to go ahead and solve it.”
Typically, new copper pipes in their early years will allow small amounts of copper into the water system when the water sits overnight, unused, Ouellette said. He did say that copper, unlike lead, is an important mineral to the body and at marginal levels is not harmful.
Asked why the schools haven’t been flushing the high school pipes before now, Schmidt said, “Mainly because I didn’t even know I needed to know it.”
Superintendent Jordana Harper agrees that ideally this would have been addressed from the beginning but looks to this as a learning opportunity.
“I would recommend it as a proactive protocol,” Harper said. “I wish we had the information to act upon it in a proactive manner. I’m glad the health effects are minimal if it all, and I think it’s a good idea to implement if anybody else is in a similar situation.”
You can reach
Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264