After reports of problems with lead contamination of water at schools around California, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a

The measure by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, mandates that every school test one to five water outlets for the presence of lead. If any of the tests shows over 15 parts of lead per billion, the parents or guardians of students must be notified. Young people exposed to lead can suffer permanent problems – sometimes extreme – with cognitive development and behavior.

Given the attention paid to the national scandal over dangerous water in Flint, Michigan, the state law came as a relief to concerned parents, school officials and health agencies. But a comprehensive new analysis by the EdSource website suggests this relief may be premature.

The key issue is whether the 15 parts per billion standard, which is recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is strict enough to protect students’ health. The American Academy of Pediatrics considers that standard to be so weak that it puts young people at risk. The academy calls for a maximum of 1 parts per billion.

Pediatricians say federal standard is risky

“We know there is no safe lead level,” Dr. Jennifer Lowry, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Environmental Health, told EdSource. “Schools ought to work to remove that source of lead for these kids.”

Experts were also sharply critical of the California law because it didn’t require all sources of water to be tested at every school. While sometimes lead contamination is system-wide – as seen in large parts of Flint in recent years – a single corroded pipe, faucet or other plumbing fixture can be responsible for lead contamination.

Gonzalez Fletcher told EdSource she supports strengthening the law and said the 15-parts-per-billion standard was agreed on to gain enough support so her bill would pass. The California School Boards Association worried that a tougher standard could be financially onerous for school districts.

The CSBA’s concerns may seem dubious, given that schools have enjoyed large increases in funding in recent years, thanks to a strong economy and Proposition 98 – a 1988 state law mandating that public education get roughly 40 percent of state revenue. But every school district is likely to face at least one and more likely two fiscal crises in coming years.

School districts face fiscal double-whammy

The first is the immense cost of the 2014 California State Teachers’ Retirement System bailout. The great majority of the cost – 70 percent – is borne by districts, which face a phased-in increase of CalSTRS contributions, going from 8.25 percent of pay in 2013-14 to 19.1 percent in 2020-21. In many districts, increased state funding due to healthy revenue gains has been largely used for these new pension bills. By 2020-21, when the final increase takes effect, most school districts are likely to have compensation costs eating up 90 percent or more of their general operating budgets.

The second crisis is not an absolute certainty, just highly likely. That crisis is a recession that sends state revenue plunging. Because California is so reliant on the income taxes paid by the very wealthy, the Great Recession a decade ago prompted a 20 percent drop in revenue and a corresponding reduction in state funding for public education.

That is why in recent years that Gov. Brown worked so hard to get the Legislature to strongly increase state fiscal reserves. By summer 2019, the state could have $13.5 billion in hand, according to an analysis earlier this year. But given that Brown has warned that a recession could wipe out $55 billion in revenue over a three-year span, these “rainy day” funds won’t go that far in helping schools.

Against this backdrop, the next governor, state lawmakers and education officials face a difficult calculus next year: how tight a standard for lead in schools are they willing to set with such a gloomy budget picture.

In the last testing results made available by the state, 150 schools – or 4 percent of those surveyed – had one or more more water outlets with lead levels over 15 parts per billion. Just under 25 percent of schools had lead levels over 5 parts per billion – hinting at how costly it would be if the state went to a tougher standard.

The water contamination scandal in Flint, Michigan, triggered national outrage and prompted Congress last month to pass a bill rushing

The local regulators who knew about the severity of lead contamination and protected themselves but not the community are facing criminal charges. That’s because a high presence of lead in the blood is associated with low IQs and cognitive problems and can be devastating for infants and children.

Now a massive study by Reuters — based on federal health data from 21 states and broken down by ZIP code — points to at least 13 areas in California with problems as bad or worse than what is now seen in Flint, where 5 percent of tested children have elevated levels of lead in their blood. The national norm is 2.5 percent.

Oakland neighborhood has worst problem

The problem appears worst in the Oakland community of Fruitvale (ZIP code 94601), where 7.57 percent of children had high levels of lead.

Next is the Seaside-Sand City area (ZIP 93955) east of Monterey, where the rate was 7.44 percent.

Nine ZIP codes were in the Fresno area, which has already had a lead scare this year, as CalWatchdog reported in August. The results were worst in Selma, 15 miles southeast of Fresno (ZIP 93662), where 6.62 percent of children had high levels of lead in the their blood.

The last two California communities with lead contamination problems worse than Flint were in Los Angeles County.

In south-central Los Angeles (ZIP 90011) in an area east of the 110 Freeway and south of the 10 Freeway, the rate of children with elevated lead in their blood was 5.28 percent.

In the Rosemead-South San Gabriel area (ZIP 91770), the rate was 5.17 percent.

The federal health statistics are mostly based on blood samples from at least 500 children in each ZIP code for five- or 10-year increments ending in 2015. California did much better that most of the 20 other states whose data was studied. In total, 278 ZIP codes had much worse lead problems than Flint, with the biggest concentration in industrial centers in the Midwest and in areas with a history of heavy mining.

Flint fits that profile. But its problems were at the least exacerbated by city officials’ 2014 decision to stop bringing in water from the Detroit system in favor of a switch to cheaper local sources, including the heavily polluted Flint River.

When lead contamination problems are found in the United States, the problem is usually exposure to lead-based paint, especially in older housing, and from old water pipes.

Official misconduct in Fresno endangered residents

Such pipes caused the lead scare in Fresno earlier this year, but official misconduct was part of the problem. In January, after many reports of discolored water, Fresno officials began reviewing how the city water agency dealt with complaints. They discovered that a water official named Robert Moorhead had failed to pass along as many as 1,400 complaints from 2005 to 2011 about problems with water from the treatment plant in northeast Fresno that he managed. Moorhead, who was fired for undisclosed reasons in 2011, has denied wrongdoing.

But a subsequent city probe found evidence of excessive lead in pipes in 51 of the first 280 homes it inspected, or 18 percent. Eventually, city officials warned residents of the 93710, 93720 and 93730 ZIP codes that they could have pipe problems and thus potential exposure to excessive lead.

But the Reuters study should offer some relief to residents of those ZIP codes. None were found to have Flint-level contamination rates.