The City of St. Charles School District is committed to the safety and well-being of our students and staff. As you may note, many of our current CSIP goals are developed with this in mind. In alignment with that commitment and in compliance with the new Missouri state law, “Get the Lead Out of School Drinking Water Act,” the district hired a professional environmental consulting firm to initiate and complete testing of our water, prior to the start of the 2023-24 school year. Every possible source of drinking and food preparation source in our schools and buildings was sampled and tested to determine if the lead concentration in the water was above the required action level of five parts per billion (5 ppb), which is equal to 5 micrograms per liter. The 5 ppb level required by the newest state legislation is below the Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) recommended action level of 15 ppb. The sources that were not initially tested was due to major construction projects in select buildings and areas within those buildings whose water supply had been shut down. At the time of this letter, all fixtures have been tested.
While the law specifies that all preschool through 12th grade schools that receive state funding have until August 1, 2024 to complete these tests, the district wanted to be certain we responded well before that deadline. The district planned to have all fixtures tested prior to the start of the 2023-24 school year, with the exception of those areas that were impacted by construction.
Starting in July of 2023 and finishing in September of 2023, each of our buildings had the water outlets of possible drinking and food preparation water tested, this included ice machines and even science labs. The science lab fixtures accounted for 23 total tests that exceeded the 5 ppb new requirement. Moving forward, the district will utilize signage at each science fixture so that students are aware the water from these areas is non-potable.
Upon receiving results, each of the water sources above 5 ppb was taken out of service by our district facilities team. Following the recommended remediation steps by the professional consulting firm, the district will keep these sources out of service until corrective actions are performed and follow up testing can occur. If the remediation was successful the source will be allowed to go back into service. An unsuccessful test will keep the source out of service until a corrective action provides a test below 5 ppb.
Additional information and resources are listed below:
Information about Lead and Water from the EPA
Information about Lead and Water from the Missouri Department of Health
Tips for Families from the Missouri Department of Health
