Milwaukee Common Council To Consider Lead Testing Resolution For Charter Schools - WPR
Ross Terrell
January 5, 2017
A resolution to require Milwaukee charter schools to test their water sources for lead will be considered Friday by the city’s common council. If the resolution passes, eight charter schools would be required to test their water sources for lead.
Alderman and chairman of Milwaukee’s Water Quality Task Force, Jim Bohl, said the cost of testing would be included in the next city budget.
“We don’t envision there being a cost to any of those charter schools for the testing,” Bohl said. “But, because they own their own buildings, if some drinking fountain were to fail, that would be on them. That’s their responsibility.”
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The resolution would require any schools chartered by the city to perform lead tests annually.
“Under circumstances today, testing could show that a water source does not exceed the federal EPA standard for high levels of poison,” Bohl said. “Then, under some different circumstances where – whether it be six months from now, a year from now – it could go from one level low to a level high.”
Bohl said Milwaukee Public Schools were proactive in the testing of their water sources last month but he wants to make testing uniform across all charter schools. At least one charter school in Milwaukee conducts such tests.
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