HILLSBOROUGH: Lead testing problems prompt school officials to take a closer look

Andrew Martins, Managing Editor
Issues with how an environmental services company tested for lead in the Hillsborough Township Public School District’s water has raised some concerns with officials, as a second company has since revealed “discrepancies” during the process.
According to officials, at least nine fixtures that had previously been designated as safe for use by the first vendor, PARS Environmental, Inc., should in fact have been closed for months by state regulatory standards.
During the Oct. 9 school board meeting, Business Administrator Aiman Mahmoud was joined by the district’s Buildings and Grounds Director Wilson Quintero and Tim Roman, of Environmental Designs, Inc. to publicly discuss the findings.
“There’s a lot of things we still need as far as information, so for us to say tonight exactly what the number of units are that may be in question, we’re not there yet,” Mahmoud said.
As per state regulations, public school districts are required to test for lead in their drinking and general use water every six years. Board President Gregory Gillette said testing at Hillsborough was conducted by PARS during the 2016-17 school year, at which point 60 units were found to exhibit higher than acceptable levels of lead.
Officials said it was at that time that PARS interpreted regulations from the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Education as saying that the systems leading to the affected units should be flushed and retested.
After following the company’s recommendations, Quintero said some fixtures still showed elevated levels of lead when tested again.
EDI was then hired later in July to conduct the remediation step of the process, officials said the company reviewed its predecessor’s efforts and found them to be inconsistent with the state’s actual rules, which state that remediation of affected units should take place immediately.
“We haven’t seen any evidence that the testing was faulty…only that the protocol used did not comply with the state protocol,” Gillette said.
Both the DEP and DOE have weighed in and sided with EDI’s interpretation that PARS did not follow state guidelines.
As a result, Gillette said the district will be looking into potential legal action against PARS.
Since then, there remain nine areas throughout the district that are still in need of remediation: four water fixtures at Hillsborough Elementary School, three at Sunnymead Elementary School and two at Woodfern Elementary School. Officials said some of those fixtures could be located in classrooms.
While some of those affected fixtures have since been designated as “hand washing only” stations, others have been shut off completely to deter students and staff from drinking potentially contaminated water. Some of those units, Roman said, were ones that PARS said were safe to remain in working condition.
“The outlets which were in question, that should have probably been shut of several months ago, were shut off last week,” he said. “We will be looking to see if there’s any others that may be in question. If there are, we will take immediate action to shut those outlets off as well.”
Roman said EDI’s review of PARS’ work also revealed that some administrative paperwork critical for ensuring the results were in compliance with state regulations was missing. Though he said it would be premature to assume that everything PARS did was wrong, he said EDI will be receiving data in the coming days that may shed some light on what was and was not done during the initial testing process.
“We are working through that data and we are expecting a significant delivery of electronic files this week from that company, which we will then start poring through to understand in better detail what was done,” Roman said. “As we get through that analysis, we will have some more specific recommendations to the district in terms of next steps going forward.
Henry Goodhue, president of the Hillsborough Education Association, said he was concerned that the issue could have done harm to anyone in those classrooms.
“My main concern arises from the fact that…it’s foreseeable that we possibly did have an outlet open that staff or student could have consumed water from which we are now revisiting and saying they shouldn’t have,” Goodhue said.
As a result of these findings, district officials said parents with children in the affected schools and classrooms will receive notification both online and in a mailed notice. Additionally, Superintendent Dr. Jorden Schiff said bottled water will be made available to students in the affected areas.
“Our level of concern and the board’s level of concern is heightened,” Mahmoud said. “We’re talking about student safety and the amount of what’s involved with this is certainly high.”