Bills to force lead out of schools, child-care centers, draw scrutiny

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A pair of bills meant to force schools and child-care centers to rid buildings of lead pipes and other infrastructure could see changes after concerns were aired Wednesday about how burdensome the new proposed mandate could prove.

The bills, together named the SCHOOL Acts — an acronym which stands for Supporting Children’s Health Ousting Outdated Lead — come amid heightened concern about the consequences of using water infrastructure made of lead. The proposals would require school districts and private child-care centers alike to test for lead in the water and takes steps to lower its concentration. The bills — introduced as Senate Bills 423 and 424 — received a public hearing before the Senate’s Committee on Natural Resources and Energy on Wednesday.

Although everyone who testified before the committee agreed that lead in drinking water now poses too great a threat to children, a number of speakers questioned lawmakers’ proposed method for improving the situation. Some specifically sought clarity on how school districts would comply with testing requirements. Others wondered if a provision allowing districts to hold a voter referendum to pay for lead replacements was the best way to go. Still others questioned if the state should provide child-care centers with a means of financing replacement projects.

Sen. Robert Cowles, R-Green Bay, chair of the committee and an author of the bills, responded to the criticisms by saying lawmakers are still considering changes.
Some, meanwhile, said the bill authors appear not to appreciate how great a burden schools could find themselves under because of the proposals.

“There seems to be an attitude that this is not a big deal for schools and I’m concerned about that,” said Dan Rossmiller, government relations director at the Wisconsin Association of School boards.

Of the two bills, one would require child-care centers to test for lead and remove sources of contamination — or risk losing their operating licenses. The proposal would also require child-care centers to send regulators results from water tests six months before applying for an operating license or a license renewal.

The other bill would require school board members — including those overseeing public schools, independent charter schools and private schools — to test all drinking-water sources for lead within three years of the bill’s adoption and then report their findings to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

If such testing were to reveal lead concentrations at levels exceeding federal standards, school officials would be required to develop a remedial plan, shut down sources of water that contain lead and provide an alternative source of water.

Rossmiller and others separately questioned a bill provision that would require school districts to have their water infrastructure tested every three years until it was able to pass on two consecutive occassions. Because lead is often difficult to test for, and the results obtained can depend on the time of day a test is conducted, weather conditions and a number of other factors, attempts to show that drinking water is below the bill’s maximum allowed level of 1 parts per billion will be complicated. Rossmiller also noted that some sources of lead contamination have nothing to do with schools. Many cities still bring drinking water in through lead pipes, he said.

“I don’t know how schools ever get off that merry-go-round if that water that’s coming from the municipal water supply is above 1 parts per billion,” he said.

The bills would separately allow school districts to go to referendum to ask voters for permission to raise additional property taxes to pay for replacement projects. Some, though, said that remedy is likely to be too slow moving.

John Forester, executive director of the Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance, called referendums a “time-consuming, uncertain and costly” means of dealing with lead contamination. Forester asked lawmakers to clarify how schools should be labeling sources of drinking water. He also said school officials are unsure about whether they would need to simply turn off valves on lead infrastructure or whether they would have to take steps like hiring a plumber to disconnect contaminated water sources entirely.

Another component of the bill would allow school districts to use money in the state’s Safe Drinking Water Loan Program to pay interest on loans that could come from a trust fund administered by the Bureau of Commissioners of Public Lands.

But Jim Ritchie, of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, said that provision could run afoul of current federal rules. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stipulates, for instance, that federal money can’t be used for interior plumbing work.

If those restrictions were violated, money the state receives from the federal government could be at risk, Ritchie said. Recently, the federal government’s contribution to the program came to $18.7 million.

Several speakers also wondered if Wisconsin testing labs could keep up with a sudden influx of lead results from schools across the state. New clean-water requirements could also strain private child-care centers — many of which operate on razor-thin margins, said Diane Jenkins, executive policy advisory with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families. She said more than half of zip codes in the state are so-called “child-care deserts” where child care isn’t abundant enough to provide services to even a third of all children under the age of five.

“We urge you to find the means to offset the costs of remediation that don’t allow child care centers to bear the costs alone,” Jenkins said. Follow @natebeck9