Burbank Unified schools test negative for lead in water fountains
Burbank parents can rest assured that their children will not be exposed to lead from any drinking fountain at any school in Burbank Unified.
Burbank Water and Power recently published its 2016 annual Water Quality Report in the agency’s June 2017 issue of its Currents newsletter, which reported that there were no detectable levels of lead at any of the 22 local public schools.
Tony Umphenour, water-quality analyst for the city-owned utility, said Burbank Water and Power worked with the school district to test for traces of lead at four drinking fountains and a kitchen faucet at each school.
The tests were conducted this past March and April, in which utility staff arrived at each school at about 6 a.m. to collect water samples and deliver them to an outside agency for testing.
“You have to let the water sit for six hours, so our best bet was doing the test early in the morning,” Umphenour said. “We put bags over the water fountains to make sure that the water was stagnant for at least six hours.”
The State Water Resources Control Board requires there be no more than 15 parts per billion, or 0.015 milligrams per liter, of lead in the drinking water. Umphenour said there were some signs of lead at one drinking fountain at the Burbank Adult School, but the test results concluded that the amount of lead found was far below the state’s limit.
Umphenour said that the issues surrounding the water crisis in Flint, Mich., where its water was contaminated with lead, are unlikely to occur in Burbank mainly because of the decreasing use of lead pipes and lead soldering for the water infrastructure.
“California is so stringent and so highly regulated, so something like that couldn’t happen,” he said. “I couldn’t say that it wouldn’t happen 100%, but I would say 99.9% that it won’t happen because of our sources of water.”
Burbank purchases its water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, known as MWD, and from a local groundwater source in the San Fernando Basin.
Umphenour said he thinks Burbank Water and Power has gotten to the point where it can treat the groundwater to a safe point and blend it with MWD water to create the best and safest product to distribute to residents.
“We’ve been doing it for about 20 years now, and I believe we have it down,” he said.
anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
