Last Friday, the Salem R-80 school district sent out a letter publishing the results of mandatory testing done on the school’s water facilities. These tests showed that 32% of the samples had at least 5 parts per billion (ppb) of lead in the water. No amount of lead in the water is truly safe, but 5 ppb is the cut off that forces the school to take action, said a post on the Dent County Health Center website.
Obviously, this is quite concerning for community members and us as the local health agency. Follow up testing and remediation will be required by the district to reduce the risk of lead exposure to our students.
The immediate actions the district has taken are reasonable first steps. Please instruct your students to respect signage put up by the district and to avoid ingesting any water from the contaminated sources.
While universal lead testing is not a requirement for school-aged children, if individuals or students wish to have their blood lead tested, we can conduct those tests at our office.
Dent County Health Center has also asked the City of Salem to conduct immediate testing of their water system at points near the schools to rule out lead contamination from the public water system. At this point, the evidence suggests that the contamination at the schools is most likely coming from internal plumbing. However, given the risk to public health, it is necessary to conduct additional testing to rule out public contamination.
On the public waterfront, there have been concerns voiced in the community regarding iron and aluminum in the drinking water. Iron and aluminum are confirmed to be present in the City of Salem’s drinking water. This is not considered a health hazard. Aluminum and iron are poorly absorbed through the stomach and intestines, and the amount consumed through drinking water is not significant compared to other common sources. In addition, calcium and iron can help reduce the absorption of lead.
For a more detailed description of this problem, read the two articles published by The Salem News on this subject referenced below.
