Untested Waters

Before you stoop for a drink at Western’s untested water fountains, ask yourself, is it really worth it?

By Jacob Pederson, second-year Environmental Journalism student at Western Washington University

Thirsty students at Western Washington University would do well to avoid the drinking fountains on campus and bring filtered water from home instead. The water flowing from campus fountains comes from an untested water source that could contain unseen particles of a highly toxic heavy metal: lead.

Lead testing on campus drinking water sources is delayed for a year because key staff have recently left Western Washington University. Students began seeing signs warning of the neurotoxin on water fixtures in Arntzen Hall, Bond Hall, Environmental Studies, Fairhaven Stack Three, Fine Arts, Humanities, Old Main, Parks Hall, Ridgeway Kappa, and Engineering Technology during the fall of 2019.

The tests on further water fixtures were postponed because two laboratory safety and hazardous waste management personnel withdrew from the lead testing efforts at Western to pursue other career opportunities, said Sue Sullivan, director of Environmental Health and Safety at Western. With their departure, the completion date for testing the drinking water is June 2021, according to Sullivan.

Lead was commonly used in plumbing until the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned it in 1986.

Western first screened for lead in its drinking water sources in 2008. The results showed that lead levels above the EPA action limit of 15 parts per billion (ppb) were present in drinking water fixtures in several buildings.

The tests on further water fixtures were postponed because two laboratory safety and hazardous waste management personnel withdrew from the lead testing efforts at Western to pursue other career opportunities

The University decided to test their water sources for lead again every five years, testing in 2013 and 2019. The University tests singular drinking water sources for a certain floor or section of a building, such as a drinking fountain. Other water sources like bathroom sinks remain untested since most are not considered drinking water sources.

Thirty of the 900 sites tested on campus in 2019 were above the EPA’s 15ppb threshold, according to Sullivan. One kitchen sink in Parks Hall tested as high as 480ppb.

The EPA’s 15 ppb threshold that Western is using as a guideline to determine whether a water source needs to be fixed. This is not based on health standards.

“If you had to come up with a health action level that would be some kind of health based standard, it would be less than five parts per billion,” said Lanphear.

Even at low levels, lead could be a neurological issue for students on campus because people can suffer damage to their nervous systems up until age 25, according to Emma Sharpe, another environmental toxicology graduate student at Western.

Lead in drinking water is especially dangerous for fetuses, resulting in premature birth or low birth weights even when the lead levels in the water are miniscule, said Dr. Bruce Lanphear, health science professor at Simon Fraser University and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics declaration on lead toxicity.

“If a woman was pregnant and drinking regularly, the amount of lead in the water of 15 ppb to 50 or more, then it could increase her blood lead levels sufficiently so she’d be more likely to give birth too soon or to a small child,” said Lanphear.

University water tests found high lead levels in the drinking water of 10 apartments in Birnam Wood this fall. Keith Light, a Birnam Wood resident, was unable to use his kitchen sink for most of fall quarter.

“We were using the bathroom water while this was all going on. And I, you know, had questions about the possibility of lead being in that water too if it was affecting multiple apartments,” said Light.

Birnam Wood was not tested for lead in the 2008 or 2013 testing periods due to a lack of funding, said Sullivan. Because of this delay in testing, previous residents may have been exposed without their knowledge.

When asked what his advice would be to incoming students, Light replied, “buy a Brita Water Filter…the kind that says it filters out lead.”

Once the University discovered the lead, they provided outside water sources for Light and his roommates at Birnam Wood until the water was usable again. They brought the residents 10 five-gallon water jugs every two weeks.

“So we ended up having, you know, close to 30 at one time, just stacked up in various rooms,” said Light.

The University has replaced some of the 30 drinking water fixtures with high lead levels, said Paul Cocke, director of Western Washington University Communications and Marketing. The rest have signs warning of their high lead levels, said John Furman, the Facilities Management Director at Western.

The University has over a thousand other drinking water sources that still need testing, according to Furman. Once this is complete, Western can put together a plan and a budget for bringing all of its drinking water to 15 ppb or below

While lead testing remains in limbo, students are taking matters into their own hands by not drinking from water fountains, according to Light.

When asked what his advice would be to incoming students, Light replied, “buy a Brita Water Filter…the kind that says it filters out lead.”

Information about which water sources on campus contain lead is available on the Western Environmental Health and Safety website.