Only 2 Fountains Flunk Tests : County Schools’ Water Found Safe to Drink

After two months of testing drinking fountains in Orange County school systems, health and school officials said Friday that the overall situation is safe and that only two instances of unsafe lead content were found in water.

Two of the refrigerated drinking fountains--one at Ole Hanson Elementary in San Clemente and the other in Orange Unified School District administrative headquarters in Orange--were permanently removed as a result of the tests. Health officials did not express any concern about ill health effects in people who drank from the fountains.

A non-refrigerated drinking fountain at Ralston Intermediate School in Garden Grove initially tested barely over the unsafe level, but subsequent tests showed it consistently safe, health officials said. The Ralston Intermediate fountain was left standing and is considered safe, the officials added.

They said that overall there is “no significant problem” in drinking fountains in the school systems in Orange County. Schoolchildren can feel safe in drinking from all existing water fountains, according to the county Health Care Agency.

Tests of refrigerated drinking fountains began statewide in December after Superintendent of Public Instruction Bill Honig, noting a draft report by the federal Environmental Protection Agency about possible unsafe lead content in some refrigerated drinking fountains, urged a check.

In Orange County, 14 of the 28 school districts asked the county Health Care Agency to make the tests. Six other districts had water tests made by private laboratories, and eight districts had no refrigerated fountains in student areas and thus had no tests.

In conducting its tests, Orange County officials applied federal guidelines that say there should be no more than 50 parts per billion (p.p.b.) in drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency, however, has recommended that the standard be lowered to 20 p.p.b.

In the tested school districts, the Health Care Agency found 400 p.p.b. in the chilled-water fountain at Ole Hanson Elementary, 189 La Cuesta, San Clemente. A chilled water fountain near the office of Assistant Supt. Harriett Bakenhus in Orange Unified School District administrative headquarters, 370 N. Glassell St., Orange, was found by a private laboratory to have registered 92 p.p.b. lead. Both coolers were permanently removed.

The Health Care Agency tested 288 samples of water from 80 schools in the 14 school districts. The two isolated cases of excess lead in the water thus indicated no dangerous pattern or situation, according to Robert E. Merryman, director of environmental health for the county’s Health Care Agency.

In a report released Friday, Merryman said: “These results indicate that lead from refrigerated and nonrefrigerated drinking fountains is not a significant problem in Orange County schools.”

Merryman said tests were made of non-chilled water fountains to see whether the basic supply of water was the problem or whether it was the cooling containers used in refrigerated units. In non-cooled fountains, water comes straight from the pipes. In refrigerated fountains, the water first goes through a chilling process in holding tanks. The EPA’s draft report cited by Honig indicated that the holding tanks might have lead solders and thus might be seeping dangerous levels of lead into drinking water.

Merryman’s report said the two unsafe-level fountains “were sampled under the worst case conditions during Christmas break after standing unused for 10 days. Subsequent recheck samples from both fountains were all below the current (EPA) maximum contaminant level.”

Environmental officials have noted that water resting in pipes and coolers for several days can accumulate more concentrations of lead, especially if pipes or chilled-water units have lead linings.

Merryman said Orange County generally has “hard water,” a term that means the water has a high level of minerals. He said hard water is called “non-aggressive” because it tends to attract fewer other chemicals. “Soft water” is called “aggressive” and tends to attract other elements, such as lead, Merryman noted.

In his report, Merryman said: “Water supplies in Orange County are comparatively non-aggressive to lead. Findings in Orange County may therefore not be representative of conditions in other areas of the state with more aggressive water supplies.”

The 14 school districts whose fountains were checked by the Health Care Agency were Cypress Elementary, Fullerton Elementary, Huntington Beach City Elementary, Ocean View Elementary, Savanna Elementary, Fullerton Joint Union High School District, Brea-Olinda Unified, Capistrano Unified, Garden Grove Unified, Irvine Unified, Newport-Mesa Unified, Placentia Unified, Saddleback Valley Unified and Santa Ana Unified.

The school districts that opted to have private labs test their refrigerated drinking fountains were Fountain Valley Elementary, Anaheim Union High School District, Huntington Beach Union High School District, Tustin Unified, Orange Unified and Los Alamitos Unified.

The health agency said the following school districts have no refrigerated fountains in student areas and thus required no checking of water supplies: Anaheim City Elementary, Buena Park Elementary, Centralia Elementary, La Habra City Elementary, Magnolia Elementary, Yorba Linda Elementary, Westminster Elementary and Laguna Beach Unified.