By Sara Jerome,

@sarmje

Alabama is responding to concerns about lead in drinking water at schools by testing every public school for contamination.

“The Alabama State Department of Education is moving forward with plans to test the drinking water in all of the roughly 1,500 pre-K through 12th grade public schools in the state for lead content within the next three years. The testing is not required by state or federal law, but is intended to ease concerns over contaminated drinking water,” The Birmingham News reported.

The testing is expected to begin this spring, according to WKRG. The state is developing a training program aimed at minimizing the cost of the new oversight effort.

“State school officials developed a plan where one or two individuals from each school system will be trained to collect samples of drinking water. Over the next few months, the Department of Education will be training officials at all schools so that responses will be quicker and someone will be on hand to answer questions from parents when they arise,” WKRG reported.

Alabama State Department of Education Director of Facilities Perry Taylor described the rationale behind the new program.

"With interest nation-wide in the quality of drinking water, we feel a moral responsibility to proactively test for lead content to ensure the safety of students and employees," he said, per The Birmingham News. "Our partner, Alabama Department of Environmental Management, assures the water sources that feed our schools are safe. We want to be sure that drinking water inside our schools meets safe environmental standards.”

The backdrop is that the problem of lead in school drinking water is sounding alarm bells across the country.

A report released last month by Environment America Research & Policy Center reviewed policies in 15 states for how well they protect children from lead contamination of drinking water at schools. California, Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin all earned "F" grades. Alabama did not receive a grade.

The report highlighted policy gaps contributing to the problem in schools: