Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark
The Oakland Unified School District is one of the few districts in California that has continued to test lead levels in drinking water years after it was no longer required by state law. In 2017, an extension to the existing law (AB-746), also known as the California Safe Drinking Water Act, required districts to sample water from at least five faucets in every school and report the findings to the state by July 1, 2019. State funding for lead testing ended after the deadline. The law resulted in school districts getting a snapshot of lead contamination in their drinking water at that time. But because of the one-time requirement that districts test only a small sample of faucets, and exemptions for charter and private schools, there are no statewide records that offer an accurate representation of lead presence in California schools currently. Seven years after the law went into effect, school districts and communities, including Oakland, are still grappling with how to keep lead out of drinking water.
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