Michigan schools and day cares receive state grants for drinking water infrastructure
In accordance with a 2023 law, schools and day care centers are working to filter drinking water in their buildings to protect children from lead poisoning.
Michigan schools and day care officials are in the process of meeting a state-imposed deadline for adding filters to drinking water sources in their buildings.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed into law the bipartisan Michigan Filter First legislation in October 2023 as part of the state’s efforts to protect its residents from lead exposure in the wake of the water crisis in Flint that came to light almost 11 years ago. The law requires schools and day cares to develop a drinking water management plan, install lead-reducing filters on at least one drinking water station per every 100 school occupants, and test filtered water regularly, every year for schools and every two years for child care centers.
Child care centers must comply with the Filter First law by October 2025 and schools by June 2026. In December, the state awarded $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to over 700 school districts and child care centers to aid in the endeavor.
The grant funding will be used for the installation of bottle-filling stations, faucet-mounted filters, or filtered water pitchers in hallway drinking fountains, teachers lounges and school kitchens.
Before the passage of the Filter First legislation, Rebecca Lazarus, a former Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education president and treasurer, helped implement the installation and testing of drinking water filters in the school district in 2019-2022. A few years prior, AAPS had proactively tested its water sources following public outcry related to the Flint water crisis, which saw 99,000 Flint residents exposed to lead in the drinking water after the city switched its water source from Detroit to the Flint River in 2014. An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease that killed 12 people and sickened at least 87 was attributed to water from the Flint River.
“If we didn’t learn anything from Flint, it’s like, shame on us,” Lazarus told the Michigan Independent.
Under the Whitmer administration, the state has enacted laws requiring doctors to screen all children aged 12-24 months for lead poisoning and invested millions to upgrade water infrastructure.
There are no safe levels of lead exposure for kids, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, and even low levels of lead in blood can negatively affect children’s academic achievement and ability to pay attention in class.
“I think that health and safety of our drinking water in these buildings is paramount in our community to make sure that our kids are safe,” said Lazarus, who is the parent of two AAPS students. “Lead in a developing mind is unreversible.”
AAPS fortunately had money to fund the filter replacement through a major capital bond and a sinking fund millage, Lazarus said, but not every school district or child care center has similar means.
The law got the stamp of approval from educators, environmental advocates and public health experts who signed a joint letter to the Senate Energy and Environment Committee in March 2023. The group depicted the filtering plan as a cost-effective way to prevent lead exposure in schools, as opposed to the “test and chase” method utilized in other states, which requires school districts to test all drinking water fixtures and replace fixtures at locations that test positive for lead.
“This is an expensive approach that would at best confirm what we already know to be true – that there is lead in our schools’ drinking water infrastructure – without addressing the problem, because new ‘lead free’ materials installed may still contain lead,” the letter read.
The $50 million in one-time grant funding will reimburse schools for costs incurred while meeting the Filter First law’s guidelines. Grants were awarded based on such factors as a community’s poverty level, whether the community is in a rural area, and a community’s proximity to environmental hazards.
Utica Community Schools, Michigan’s second-largest school district, received almost $3.1 million from the Filter First grants, the most of any school or day care awarded by the state.
Utica Superintendent Robert Monroe said in an emailed statement to the Michigan Independent that the safety of students and staff is a top priority and ensuring the schools’ drinking water is safe for consumption is paramount.
“Our students are able to grow, learn and excel with the support of the clean drinking water that has been and will continue to be provided throughout our school district,” Monroe said.
Adding filters and replacing plumbing infrastructure is an expensive undertaking, however, and Monroe said the district is still short the roughly $5.2 million it’ll cost to fully implement the Filter First program.
Lazarus said the grant money was an important step forward, but there will be a need for ongoing funding as the filtering systems must be maintained and retested in the future.
“Is it fixed? No. Do we have a lot of work left to do? Absolutely. Do we have the community that wants it done? Absolutely. We just have to continue to educate the community and work with our legislators to get it done,” Lazarus said.
