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After Lead Found In Water, Guilford County School District Adds More Safety Measures

Guilford County School Officials held meetings with parents over the past week to answer questions and provide updates after elevated lead levels were found in drinking water. KERI BROWN/WFDD

Guilford County School officials have a new plan to address concerns over high levels of lead found in drinking water at some buildings. The news comes after three schools tested for elevated levels in the district.

GCS partnered with city water officials to voluntarily test 99 schools and 10 administrative offices over the past several months. They took samples at the tap to look for lead contamination. Southeast Guilford Middle had the highest amount of lead - at 194 parts per billion. That's nearly 10 times more than the EPA's recommended threshold for drinking water.

Frazier Elementary and Allen Jay Elementary also had elevated lead levels.

The district says old faucets were the source, and they've since replaced them. Chief Operating Officer Scott McCully says new tests show the water is safe, and they will continue to take additional safety measures.

“The immediate thing that we are going to do is this flushing protocol each and every day at all of the schools and a parts inventory of all of our faucets, particularly prioritized around the three schools with either further sampling or faucet replacements in the future.”

State and federal law doesn't require districts to test for lead.

Greensboro's not alone. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools recently found a similar problem when it tested taps.  More than two dozen schools in the CMS system had high levels of lead contamination in their water.

*Follow WFDD's Keri Brown on Twitter @kerib_news

Keri Brown is a multi-award winning reporter and host at 88.5 WFDD. She has been honored with two regional Edward R. Murrow awards for her stories about coal ash, and was named the 2015 radio reporter of the year by the Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas (RTDNAC).Although she covers a variety of topics, her beats are environmental and education reporting.Keri comes to the Triad from West Virginia Public Broadcasting, where she served as the Chief Bureau Reporter for the Northern Panhandle. She produced stories for the state's Public Television and Radio programs and was honored by the West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters Association for her feature and enterprise reporting.She also served as an adjunct instructor at Wheeling Jesuit University and Bethany College in West Virginia. She worked with the Center for Educational Technologies in Wheeling, WV, and other NASA centers across the country to develop several stories about the use of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) concepts in the classroom.Keri's journalism career began at WTRF-TV 7 in Wheeling. She worked in several roles at the station, including the head assignment editor. She also was a field producer and assignment manager at WPGH-TV Fox 53 in Pittsburgh.Keri is a graduate of Ohio University. When she's not in the studio or working on a story, she enjoys watching college football with her family, cooking, and traveling.Keri is always looking for another great story idea, so please share them with her. You can follow her on Twitter @kerib_news.

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