Pure Spout Highlights Importance of Clean Water Through Lead Exposure Prevention in Grade Schools

To mark Earth Day this week, environmental groups and health organizations pointed to the importance of preserving clean water. Within this space, grade school drinking water safety is an environmental justice issue that deserves more attention. Lead exposure is a widespread concern for state officials and school administrators because water faucets and fixtures frequently contain lead parts. The U.S. EPA advises attacking the problem by installing certified point-of-use (POU) filters in public schools. To raise awareness about technologies that prevent drinking water lead exposure in schools, filtration experts from Pure Spout today issued an Earth Day fact sheet to inform the public and policy makers at all levels about the: "Top-5 Benefits of Drinking Fountain Water Filters in Grade Schools."

Pure Spout Co-developer and Manager Matthew Griffith said: "We must move faster to prioritize our children's drinking water. Marking Earth Day this week provides an opportunity for everyone to consider the massive scope of the lead problem in U.S. schools and the benefits that drinking fountain water filters can quickly provide. Children should know the health implications of lead exposure as well. They can gain insights in different ways about the effects. On Earth Day, kids also learn about the impact of single-use plastics. Some prefer to use a water fountain for those reasons. This fact sheet can serve as a resource for anyone seeking more information."

Pure Spout's Fact Sheet introduction explains the challenge of both replacing lead-containing pipes in a community's water system and replacing thousands of faucets and fixtures inside schools to help prevent lead exposure. The benefits section examines how inexpensive technologies for filtering water fountains provide enormous benefits to protect public health. The fastest and most cost-effective solution to immediately address this public health crisis is to remove any potential lead contamination issues at the point of use.

The Top-5 Benefits of Drinking Fountain Water Filters in Grade Schools are identified in the Fact Sheet as: 1) Lead Exposure Prevention; 2) Encourage Children to Drink More Water; 3) Improve Academic Performance; 4) Avoid the Long-Term Consequences of Lead Exposure; and 5) Affordable Solution for Lead-Free Water.

The Pure Spout Fact Sheet states: "Nationwide, school districts are scrambling to attack the issue of lead-free drinking water in grade schools. Replacing water fountains can cost thousands of dollars per unit and, in most cases, doesn't solve the lead problem if other plumbing material in a building is made of lead. Another option is to put water filters inside the water fountain, but these are difficult for school custodians to install and therefore poorly maintained once they are in place."

On-fountain water filters address these challenges, providing a reliable, cost-effective, and easy-to-install solution for grade school drinking water quality.

To access the full Pure Spout fact sheet issued today on the leading benefits of drinking fountain water filters, visit: https://purespoutfilter.com/.

ABOUT PURE SPOUT

Pure Spout® is an award-winning water filtration solution with a mission to ensure clean, safe drinking water in communities across the nation. Pure Spout® offers a patented, replaceable filter that fits onto most drinking fountains. This product provides an immediate, cost-effective solution to reduce lead in drinking water and is certified to NSF/ANSI Standard 53 for lead reduction by the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials Research and Testing (IAPMO R&T).

EDITOR'S NOTE ? ADDITIONAL REGULATORY BACKGROUND

U.S. EPA has determined that there is no safe level for human exposure to lead. Pursuant to its mandate under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Agency issued the Lead and Copper Rule in 1991 and has updated it multiple times in recent decades. LCR requires water systems to control the corrosivity of water and to collect tap samples from sites within a system's service area that are likely to have plumbing materials containing lead.

EPA's latest iteration of revisions to LCR ? the Lead & Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI) ? were proposed in November 2023, and are expected to be finalized in 2024. Key provisions in the proposal include requiring the inventorying and replacement of all lead service lines within 10 years, reducing the enforceable lead action level from 15 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion, increasing the frequency of tap sampling, and improving public communication activities of water systems in the event of contamination.

In the long run, these changes will strengthen the ability of water systems to protect their customers from lead exposure, but immediate actions should be taken to safeguard grade school children from lead now. Point-of-use (POU) filtration is a cost-effective, proven solution to protect our kids.