Pittsburgh Public Schools completed effort to tackle threat of lead in drinking water

The harmful health effects of lead contamination are well known and well-documented. That’s why the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) launched their “Drinking Water Quality Management Initiative” in 2016 after finding elevated levels of lead at various drinking fountains across the district. PPS undertook this groundbreaking project to minimize the threat of lead in school drinking water, and set out to remove every single old drinking fountain in every school building and replace them with hundreds of lead-filtering water bottle filling stations and lead-filtering drinking fountains. 

As National Drinking Water Week 2024 kicked off on May 6, PPS joined PennEnvironment to unveil the completion of this visionary and important effort. 

In total, PPS installed over 900 chilled lead-filtering drinking fountains and almost 400 filtered bottle filling stations across 70 school buildings, field houses and administrative offices. The District also added 175 lead-filtering sink outlets to early childhood education classrooms and select nurses’ offices. 

At the same time, PPS made sure that each school building had at least one lead-filtering drinking outlet for every 100 school children to ensure ample access to clean, healthy water to the district’s kids. 

With this week’s unveiling of the completion of this groundbreaking project, Pittsburgh Public Schools serves as a national model for the best steps that school districts should be taking to protect children and the need to “Get the Lead Out” of drinking water. 

“Today marks a monumental achievement for the health and well-being of our students and staff,” said PPS Superintendent Dr. Wayne Walters. “By prioritizing water safety through our ‘Filter First’ approach, we are reaffirming our commitment to providing nurturing school environments that foster learning and growth.” 

The announcement was met with widespread media coverage throughout the Pittsburgh region, including stories on the local CBS News, Pittsburgh’s NPR News Station WESA-FM,  local NBC affiliate WPXI-TV, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and others. 

“While studies show that lead is commonly found in school drinking water across Pennsylvania and the nation, the leadership of the Pittsburgh Public Schools shows that it doesn’t have to be that way,” added PennEnvironment Executive Director David Masur. “Now is the time for school districts across Pennsylvania and the nation to follow Pittsburgh’s lead and get the lead out of school drinking water once and for all.” 

To learn more, read our news release about the announcement event here.