An Illinois law required schools to test water for lead. They found it all over the state

Most Illinois public school districts that tested sinks and fountains for tiny traces of brain-damaging lead as required by a 2017 state law had to tell parents they found the toxic metal quietly lurking in the children’s drinking water.

According to a Tribune analysis of state data, more than 1,800 of the roughly 2,100 public schools that submitted test results identified some amount of lead in their drinking water. That includes more than 1,350 schools where at least one water sample had lead levels exceeding 5 parts per billion, the threshold where parental notification is required.

But despite the widespread nature of the problem — and the threat lead poses to young brains, even in small amounts — the state’s efforts to curtail lead in school drinking water mostly ended there.

The Illinois Department of Public Health, the state agency tasked with overseeing the law, did not make the statewide testing results public. It did not ensure that all eligible schools had conducted testing and submitted their results. And it offered schools conflicting guidance on what steps they should take after finding elevated lead levels in their drinking water.

“You don’t really realize it could be an issue as an educator,” said Kankakee School District 111 Superintendent Genevra Walters after water testing identified traces of lead at each of the district’s 11 buildings, including six schools with fixtures where water lead levels exceeded 1,000 parts per billion. “We’re focused on education; we’re not necessarily focused on the facilities as much as we should.”

As the public health department stumbled in its oversight efforts, the law itself also posed barriers to finding and eliminating lead in school drinking water statewide:

- Illinois legislators carved out major testing exemptions in the law, including schools serving students in 6th grade and up, as well as those in buildings constructed after 1999. Schools in these categories that voluntarily tested their drinking water sometimes found elevated lead levels, according to testing data obtained by the Tribune.

- Schools were instructed to test their drinking water just once before the end of 2018 by taking two samples from each fixture. Experts who study lead contamination warn that the amount of lead leaching from internal pipes can vary widely based on water temperature, water pressure, frequency of use and other factors. Dozens of schools that conducted more than one round of testing identified