Mark Alesia

IndyStar

Six of 635 initial blood tests of students and staff at Greentown schools showed elevated levels of lead following concerns about drinking water, the Howard County Health Department announced Wednesday.

In follow-up venous blood tests of five of those six people, the health department would say only that "fewer than five" exceeded the benchmark that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls "much higher than most children’s levels." That level is 5 micrograms per deciliter.

Results on the sixth person are pending.

The county health department cited privacy laws for not releasing the exact numbers, even though the cohort of 635 people would make the identities of those who tested above the benchmark impossible to discern.

Lead and drinking water: State not in the clear

For people above the benchmark, the health department is conducting environmental inspections of their homes. Lead in paint and dust can be the cause of elevated lead levels.

The CDC says no level of lead is safe for children. In 2012, the CDC stopped using the phrase “level of concern" for blood-lead levels higher than 10 micrograms per deciliter. It instead has a "reference value to identify children who have been exposed to lead and who require case management."

In November, after Tracy Caddell, superintendent of Eastern Howard Schools, learned that levels of lead in some of Greentown's drinking water exceeded a federal benchmark, he ordered tests at his schools. When one of those tests registered above the benchmark, too, the county health department told Caddell to shut down the drinking fountains.

He had the school's drinking fountains covered with plastic bags and offered bottled water until filters could be installed and the county health department approved the water for drinking. When the water wasn't donated, it cost the school corporation near Kokomo $400 per day for its three schools.

Earlier this month, the health department said the water at the schools was safe.

The health department also said that its free lead testing of Greentown's residential drinking water resulted in none of the 39 samples showing more than the federal benchmark, or "action level," of 15 parts per billion.

In the interim, parents of more than 600 students, out of 1,500 in the school corporation, authorized the initial blood test.

"I'm angry, I have to be honest with you," Caddell told IndyStar earlier this month. "I'm angry that my schoolchildren were put in this situation. And I don't know who to blame. But I'm angry. I have 1,500 students who were put in a situation that I don't think they should have been put in."

Call IndyStar reporter Mark Alesia at (317) 444-6311. Follow him on Twitter: @markalesia.

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