February 2019 marked the third anniversary of ICSD shutting off drinking water in district buildings. Three years without drinking fountains. Three years of water coolers. (Almost) three years of plastic cups, rolling around on the floor after students aiming for the recycling bin missed their shot. This era, however, is approaching an end.
This January, ICSD released a statement announcing that most elementary schools would have drinking fountains available for use by the end of February, with installation of new drinking fountains at other ICSD schools to follow. The exception is Caroline Elementary School, where water testing in 2018 found elevated chloride levels even though lead concentration had been reduced to below the “action level.” Caroline’s drinking fountains will remain off, even though the district stressed in their statement, “There are no safety concerns associated with elevated levels of chloride.” What this means, however, is that the necessary updates for pipes at other schools, including IHS, are on their way.
The original implementation of water coolers around the district began in February 2016 when, in some district elementary schools, lead levels were detected above the “action level” for which intervention is mandated. This was enough to warrant replacing piping at every elementary school, a process that is only now coming to an end. While the district website has documents verifying the lead testing at all elementary schools, no such documents are available for IHS. Only now that faucets and pipes have been replaced at elementary schools will they undergo the same process at IHS, with no date announced for when the school’s water will be safe to drink.
Among students currently at IHS, only the seniors have attended the school at a time when all of the building’s drinking fountains were functional. Soon, however, that could change.