The water fountains in your child’s school may be poisoning them — and NJ isn’t doing enough about it

Published by NJ Clean Stream  |  Lead in Schools Series, Article 1 of 3

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What lead does to a developing brain

Lead is a neurotoxin. In children, its effects are categorically more severe, more permanent, and more insidious than in adults, because lead interferes directly with the developing nervous system during the years when the brain is building the architecture it will use for the rest of its life.

When a child ingests lead, it enters the bloodstream and crosses the blood-brain barrier with ease. Once in brain tissue, lead mimics calcium, the mineral that neurons use to communicate. It disrupts synaptic transmission, damages the myelin sheaths that insulate nerve fibers, and interferes with the development of the prefrontal cortex — the region responsible for executive function, attention, impulse control, and decision-making.

The neurological damage from childhood lead exposure manifests as reduced IQ, shortened attention span, learning disabilities, behavioral problems including increased aggression and impulsivity, and diminished ability to regulate emotions. Children with elevated blood lead levels perform worse on standardized tests, are more likely to require special education services, and are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD.

Critically, there is no threshold below which lead is safe for children. The CDC does not recognize a “safe” blood lead level. The CDC’s current reference value — 3.5 micrograms per deciliter — is not a safety threshold. Being below it does not mean a child has not been harmed. And lead damage during critical developmental windows cannot be undone. This makes prevention the only meaningful public health strategy.

Where lead comes from in school buildings

The lead in school drinking water does not generally come from the water source itself. It enters the water inside the building, leaching from plumbing materials that contain it.

Lead service lines are the large-diameter pipes connecting a building to the public water main. An estimated 350,000 lead service lines remain in New Jersey. Water sitting in a lead service line absorbs lead from the pipe walls, particularly when it has been stagnant for hours — like overnight or over a weekend.

Lead solder was the standard material used to join copper pipes in buildings constructed before 1986, when federal law banned it. Solder containing up to 50 percent lead was applied at every joint in millions of American buildings, including thousands of New Jersey schools. The lead leaches continuously, accelerated by water chemistry, temperature, and standing time.

Brass fixtures — faucets, valves, fountain heads, and drinking fountain reservoirs — were manufactured with lead content until regulations tightened. Any fixture installed before 2014 may contain significant lead. Fixtures installed before the 1990s almost certainly do.

Drinking fountains deserve particular attention. They are high-use fixtures that are also frequently left unused for extended periods — evenings, weekends, school breaks — allowing water to stagnate and lead to leach from internal components.

New Jersey’s testing law: what it requires

Under current New Jersey law, public school districts are required to test all drinking water outlets — faucets, fountains, bubblers, and any fixture from which children may drink or use water for food preparation — for lead contamination every five years. Testing uses “first-draw” sampling: water collected from a fixture after it has been stagnant for at least six hours, without running the water first.

If a sample result exceeds the state’s action level of 15 parts per billion, the school district is required to immediately take the outlet out of service, notify parents and staff, investigate the source, and remediate. This is a real framework with real requirements. The problems arise in its exemptions, gaps, and structural limitations.

The gaps that leave children unprotected

Private and parochial schools are excluded. New Jersey has approximately 200,000 students enrolled in private and parochial schools — roughly 12 percent of total K–12 enrollment. The children attending those schools have no statutory protection. Their schools may never have tested the water. Their parents may have no idea whether their classroom faucet contains lead. This exclusion has nothing to do with the lead levels in private school water and everything to do with political resistance to regulating private institutions.

The action level of 15 ppb is not a health standard. It is an engineering benchmark set in 1991. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends remediating any fixture above 1 ppb. California uses a 5 ppb action level. New Jersey has not updated its standard. A fixture testing at 14.9 ppb remains in service, with no required remediation and no required parent notification.

The five-year testing cycle is too long. Lead levels in school plumbing change as fixtures age, water chemistry shifts, and buildings are renovated. A school tested five years ago may have clean results then but deteriorating conditions now. States with stronger programs require testing every one to three years.

There is no centralized public database. There is no single, searchable, publicly accessible database allowing a New Jersey parent to look up their child’s school and see the most recent lead test results for every drinking water outlet. Results are filed in regulatory systems not designed for public access.

Remediation oversight is inadequate. The law does not specify what remediation must consist of, does not require state approval of a remediation plan, and does not mandate independent verification that remediation was successful. Remediation quality is largely self-reported.

There is no dedicated remediation funding. New Jersey has no state funding program specifically for school lead plumbing remediation. The districts with the oldest buildings — and the most lead — are disproportionately the districts with the least financial capacity to fix it.

The equity dimension

Lead exposure in school drinking water correlates strongly with building age, and building age correlates strongly with community wealth. New Jersey’s wealthiest districts have built new buildings and replaced aging plumbing. Less wealthy districts — many of them urban, many serving predominantly Black and Latino student populations — occupy buildings that have not been updated in decades, with plumbing fixtures from the 1960s connected to lead service lines from the 1930s.

This is the direct result of New Jersey’s historical school funding structure, which tied construction and maintenance budgets to local property tax bases. The children attending the most underinvested schools are the most likely to be drinking the most contaminated water — and the most likely to bear the cognitive consequences. This is an environmental justice issue as clearly as any.