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Crosscurrents

Interview: Lead detected in half of San Francisco Unified School District schools

CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 // Indigo Skies Photography

This is part of our series  “Persistent Poison: Lead’s Toxic Legacy in the Bay Area,” an in-depth look at childhood lead poisoning in the region.It turns out that the majority of lead poisoning in the Bay Area is caused by lead paint in old homes. But there have been reports of lead in drinking water at schools, too. In the past couple of months, all of San Francisco’s public schools have been tested for lead in the drinking water and the results are in.

"When children go to school to learn and play the last thing they should be drinking is lead contaminated water. So we're really concerned about not just the most egregious examples that have gotten a lot of attention, but also these small levels of lead that are getting into the drinking water throughout the district."

Laura Deehan the Public Health Advocate for California Public Interest Research Group or CALPIRG, joins us in studio to talk more about the issue.

You can see the highest lead levels that have been detected at each school on CALPIRG's Get Out The Lead Map.