Our Children Deserve Clean Drinking Water
10,549 signatures toward our 30,000 Goal
Sponsor: The Literacy Site
Poisoned and contaminated water is becoming all too common in schools across the U.S. Take a stand for children's health!
Flint, Michigan set a horrifying precedent when disastrous levels of lead water poisoning were left unmitigated in the public water supply, leaving families and children without access to safe water1.
Tragically, Flint is not the only U.S. community that suffers from unclean drinking water. This has become a national issue2.
Poisoned and contaminated water is becoming more common in schools across the U.S. This means young people are being exposed to dangerous chemicals throughout the day3.
In Baltimore, officials at multiple schools have been using bottled water for drinking since 2007, when tests revealed the presence of elevated lead levels there4.
In 2018, for over a year, the water fountains in all 106 public schools in the Detroit Public Schools were dry due to concerns about contamination. Access was only restored in late 2019, shortly before COVID-19 hit5.
We desperately need a federal nationwide requirement for water testing in schools, but there is currently no such mandate6.
The discovery of lead in drinking water can be alarming to communities, but ignorance presents a much more costly scenario.
The federal government could end up paying as much as $300 billion to clean up Flint's water supply, with the city itself paying $400 million7.
The public health crisis in Flint prompted a spike in voluntary efforts to test for lead, but the majority of U.S. schools have no data on water quality. Today, 44 states still do not require schools to check for lead8.
Ensuring our children's safety is more important than ever.
Sign the petition and help us ask the Department of Education and Environmental Protection Agency to work together and institute a nationwide requirement for water testing in schools.
- Melissa Denchak, NRDC (8 November 2018), "Flint Water Crisis: Everything You Need to Know."
- Dina Gusovsky, CNBC (24 March 2016) "America's water crisis goes beyond Flint, Michigan."
- Annie Sneed (22 January 2021), "Forever Chemicals Are Widespread in U.S. Drinking Water."
- Scott Dance and Lauren Lumpkin, The Baltimore Sun (17 August 2018), "State-mandated testing finds lead in water at two dozen local schools; Baltimore, Howard counties will test this year."
- Sarah Maslin Nir, The New York Times (15 November 2018), "Not Far From Flint, Contamination Has Left Detroit School Taps Dry."
- United States Government Accountability Office (July 2018), "Lead Testing of School Drinking Water Would Benefit from Improved Federal Guidance."
- , Grainger, "How Much Does it Cost to Clean up Your Water Supply?"
- Elissa Nuñez, Amy Molloy (14 August 2021), "Schools fail lead tests while many states don't require testing at all."
The Petition:
To the the Secretary of Education and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,
When children spend the day at school, their health and safety should be ensured.
As the 2014 water crisis in Flint, Michigan, proved, this is not always easy, especially when disastrous levels of lead water poisoning are present in the public water supply.
The tragic fact is, poisoned and contaminated water is becoming more common in schools across the U.S. This means young people are being exposed to dangerous chemicals throughout the day.
The discovery of lead in drinking water can be alarming to communities, but ignorance presents a much more costly scenario. The federal government could end up paying as much as $300 billion to clean up Flint's water supply, with the city itself paying $400 million.
We desperately need a federal nationwide requirement for water testing in schools, but there is currently no such mandate.
I implore you to institute standards of testing for water quality in schools in the U.S.
Sincerely,
