A sign urges students and staff not to use a water fountain at School 11 in Jersey City. The school had a number of sinks and water fountains that had lead levels exceeding federal standards during recent rounds of testing. Photo by Terrance T. McDonald.

Nearly 200 water fountains and sinks in Jersey City public schools contained lead contamination above federal environmental standards during recent testing, according to a report unearthed by a Jersey City parent.

One of the water fountains had lead contamination at levels more than 800 times the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for lead in drinking water, while 37 water fountains and sinks contained levels of lead more than 100 times the standard, the report shows.

A hand-washing station in School 3’s cafeteria had four times the standard, according to the report.

A school district spokeswoman said the water fountains and sinks in question had been shut off for years, but that doesn’t appease Ellen Simon, a founder of the advocacy group Jersey City Parents for Progress. Simon, who unearthed the newest report two weeks ago, calls the lead issue a “black eye” for the school district.

“My fear is that, long term, years from now, someone may forget why those fountains were shut and turn them back on,” she said.

Simon sorted the data from the report on the Parents for Progress website, which urges parents to check to see if “the water fountain nearest your child’s class” is shut off if it has a lead reading of .015 mg/liter or more.

Simon also raised another concern: sinks in the district’s pre-K classes – where toothbrushing lessons are part of the curriculum – were not tested.

Some 1,017 fountain and sinks were tested from October 2012 to January 2013. The worst fountains and sinks were found at Schools 5, 9, 23, 25, 27, 29 annex, 31 and Zero Tolerance, an alternative program at the Bright Street Academy, the report shows.

School 25 on Kennedy Boulevard had the most problems, with 20 sinks and fountains exhibiting lead levels above federal standards, while School 41 on Wilkinson Avenue had 18, according to the report.

View Report shows lead levels in Jersey City public schools exceed standards in a larger map

Other locations with high lead levels include an ice machine at Snyder High School (with lead 20 times the federal standard), a nurse’s sink in School 16 (three times the standard) and a water fountain on the seventh floor of the district’s central office (one time the standard).

The EPA recommends action when lead levels in drinking water exceed 15 parts per billion, according to the agency’s website. Some 174 water fountains and sinks in the school district met or exceeded that standard, according to the latest round of testing.

“Water fountain 206” in Zero Tolerance had levels at 12,800 parts-per-billion, or 853 times higher than the federal standard. Xiaoguang Meng, a Stevens Institute of Technology professor who studies water contamination, was flummoxed when he learned of that result.

“Wow!” Meng said. “That is an insanely high number.”

Parents in schools where high lead concentration has been found in water from sinks and water fountains should send their kids to school with water bottles and urge them not to drink tap water inside the school, he said.

If it were just one water fountain, then the problem could be considered isolated, but multiple water fountains and sinks in one school means there is a larger problem, Meng added. Exposure to lead in water could cause delays in a child’s mental development, he warned.

The Jersey Journal reached out numerous times to speak with Schools Superintendent Marcia V. Lyles. District spokeswoman Paula Christen said each time that Lyles was unavailable.

The recent lead testing was performed by Aqua Pro-Tech Laboratories of Fairfield at a cost of $22,560.

Mountainside environmental firm Lew Corporation conducted a separate round of lead testing in 2010 – at a cost of $26,550 – and found 108 water fountains and sinks that exceeded standards for lead contamination in drinking water.

Susan Curry, of advocacy group Parents and Communities United for Education, has been warning the district about lead contamination for years, and was instrumental in pushing for the 2010 round of lead testing.

Curry said she recently met with the district’s facilities director, who said nothing about the report Simon released. The district turning off suspect water fountains doesn’t make her feel better, she said.

“We started this in 2008. It’s 2013 now,” she said. “That was the second lead remediation company that they paid thousands of thousands of dollars to and the problem’s still not fixed.”