May 8, 2026 · INSTITUTIONAL SUSTAINABILITY AND INNOVATION · 7,367 words · 10 speakers · 51 segments
Good morning, all. Thank you for being here today. We are going to begin the public hearing of the Institutional Sustainability and Innovation Committee. We'll bring the meeting to order now. We'll let the members that are here introduce themselves. So we'll start with Representative Mihalik on the end.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Senator Ferry, and welcome to Upper St. Clair. We appreciate you being out here on this important topic, interested to learn more about the bill. I think that we are all being bombarded with chemicals, whether it's in our water, in our air, in our food, and I think this is a really smart way to eliminate one of those toxins and certainly protect our kids. So we appreciate you being here. Thank you, Senator Ferry, for coming out to wonderful western Pennsylvania in the 37th District. and thank you Representative Mihalik for joining us here today at a library that both of us share in our district here at Upper St. Clair. This is a wonderful library that just went through an extensive renovation and has been serving the community for many years. The reason why this was an attractive venue is that they have these lead filters on their drinking water fountains. So we're looking forward to hearing a lot more of the testimony. This is actually a bill that I've had for a couple years, so it's great to see some attention and some movement going towards it. Thank you.
Great, thank you. And we also have some members joining online. Senator Carney.
Thank you, Chairman Ferry. First of all, my apologies for not being there in person. I would much rather be there, but events happen here in the district that require my attention here in Delaware County. But it's a huge topic across the whole Commonwealth, something we've been dealing with in the southeast for many years, and I look forward to the testimony. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you. And I believe some other senators are going to be joining as we move through the program. Senator Carney has staff on the call as well, and Aaron is on behalf of Senator Haywood. So as the other senators join us, we will recognize them in between testimony.
Senator Robinson, do you want to talk a little bit more about your bill, or do you just want to roll right into the testimony?
I think that we can roll right into the testimony.
Okay. So we do have some housekeeping items. Members and panelists on Zoom will be muted until it's their time to speak. Each testifier will have five minutes to speak, followed by a round of questions after each panel. Please keep in mind there are a number of testifiers to cover a lot of ground in the next 90 minutes. As a reminder to all members and panelists, the hearing is being recorded and live-streamed. Testimony and the hearings recordings will be available on our committee website. The agenda can also be found by scanning the QR code, which is over there. So we will begin with our first panel of testifiers. Those that are present here, if you don't mind standing up so we can swear you in. Those online, you're going to be sworn in as well. Do you swear that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Great, thank you. So the first panel, we have Dave Mazur online virtually. He is the Executive Director of Penn Environment. We have Michelle Nacardi-Chapkis, Executive Director for Women for a Healthy Environment, who is present live. We have Matthew Windrum, who is from the Plumbing Manufacturers International. He is also present with us. And we have Deborah Moss, MD, who is a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh Children's Hospital. And she is in the Division of General Academic Pediatricians. She is live as well. So, Dave, we are going to start with you virtually. Please begin your testimony.
Great. Thank you. Is the sound quality okay? Hopefully this is all right.
Yep, you're good. Thank you.
Good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to testify today, and Senator Robinson for your leadership on this issue. Good morning, everyone. My name is David Mazur, and I'm the executive director for the statewide nonprofit environmental group, Penn Environment. Penn Environment works to promote clean water and clean air and protect Pennsylvania's incredible outdoors and natural resources. Penn Environment has a long history working on the topic of lead in school drinking water. We have written multiple studies on the topic, and in 2022, we helped craft and pass legislation to address the threat of lead in school drinking water across the school district of Philadelphia. And that policy is based on and really considered the Cadillac of protections, and it's the same parameters in the policy that Senator Robinson has introduced in Senate Bill 759 with Senators Art Haywood and John Kane as modeled on some of these core principles about protecting kids and occupants in our schools from lead and drinking water. As I'm sure you all know, the science is clear. Lead is unsafe at any level for human health. And yet recent studies and a lot of self-reported data from school districts across the Commonwealth show that lead in school drinking water remains a significant problem across the Commonwealth. Michelle's here. I'm sure she'll talk more about this, but Women for a Healthy Environment have showed that more than 90% of school districts in the Commonwealth that test for lead in their drinking water were reporting finding lead contamination. And Penn Environment's 2022 study found that an incredible 98% of Philadelphia's school buildings tested positive for lead in their drinking water. So this is a chronic problem. We have a lot of data. We know that it's not just in cities. The data shows that school drinking water in Pennsylvania tests for lead. in suburbs, in rural communities, in boroughs, townships, and cities. It doesn't matter if you're a Democratic legislator or Republican, lead is commonly found when testing is done. So it probably begs the question, why is the problem persisting even after the legislature required schools in Pennsylvania to start testing and reporting for lead in drinking water back in 2018. And number one, you know, in part, there has been a failure of implementation. I can certainly get into that in more detail if there are questions. But more fundamentally, the current policy, which we sometimes call a test and fix policy, where first you test for lead, and if your test results come back positive, then you fix and remediate that drinking outlet or sink, the test and fix policy that really seems so promising is now running into a hard scientific fact. And that's because lead testing is highly variable. And experts are now telling us that water from a fountain or a faucet can be highly hazardous even if several samples fail to detect lead. Again, I can walk through if there are questions from the committee on why that is, but the data is fairly clear there, and we see that also here in Pennsylvania. And because children spend so much time in school buildings during the prime years of their development, lead contamination in school drinking water is particularly dangerous. It's well proven that lead exposure causes numerous negative health effects, including damage to the nervous system, learning disabilities, and impaired hearing. And for all of those reasons, Penn Environment, and I think you'll hear that from many of the testifiers today, believe it's critical that the legislature revisit this matter with a policy that's based on prevention. And that, I think, is the core piece of Senator Robinson's policy. This is about prevention, knowing we've identified a problem, and now moving on to address it and protect kids. So instead of relying on variable testing results, Senator Robinson's legislation, Senate Bill 759, would require school districts to install filters certified to remove lead on every tap used for drinking water. You may ask why that particular solution, and that's because this is the most effective and financially responsible way to address the threat of lead in school drinking water. Sometimes I hear elected officials say maybe we should replace the service lines, the lead service line issue, but it's important to note that most school buildings are not attached to lead service lines out at the road. So addressing the service line issue won't ensure lead-free water in our school buildings. And also because lead is commonly found in many of the plumbing components in the building behind the walls. Everything from the water meters to the valves to soldering to strainers to faucets and even in the drinking fountain components themselves. Your only other solution to tackle blood is to rip out all of that plumbing, which is incredibly costly for taxpayers and time-consuming. So that's why installing filters at the point of water withdrawal is the most common sense and comprehensive solution. I'd add that it's really become actually a triple win when protecting kids. As the technology in filtering water has improved, many of these filters that would be required under Senate Bill 759 wouldn't only tackle lead. Now it also removes PFAS contamination as well as microplastics. And I know that the legislature, I believe, last week or the week before, had two bills related to tackling PFAS move, one through the state Senate around banning PFAS and firefighting foam. I believe Representative Mihalik was a chief sponsor on the House bill that passed around removing PFAS from consumer hygiene products for kids and in products like dental floss and women's hygiene products. So we know there's support for tackling PFAS and reducing the threat of microplastics. So this is really a triple win. Lawmakers in Michigan, home to the Flint water crisis, have now adopted the filter first policy with broad bipartisan support. And that law is now determined to be the strongest law in the country. And Senate Bill 759 would replicate that. I'll wrap up by saying protecting kids from lead. I think we all know it's it's broadly supported across the political spectrum. and from the public, from Maha Moms to progressive organizations and the policy solutions in Senator Robinson's Senate Bill 759 have been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Pennsylvania Medical Society, the American Heart Association, as well as labor unions like the Pennsylvania Building Trades, PSEA, the American Federation of Teachers, and parent groups like the Pennsylvania PTA, as well as over 100 other organizations and dozens of local elected officials have called for implementing this common sense and much needed policy. With our kids health at stake Pennsylvania can and should be a leader on this important issue And by enacting Senate Bill 759 we can ensure that So I just wrap up by saying thank you again Mr Chairman members of the committee for allowing me to testify today. And if there are questions, I'd certainly be more than willing to answer them.
Thank you, David. We appreciate all your insight. Michelle?
Better? Better. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present today, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am Michelle Naccaratti-Chapkas, Executive Director of Women for a Healthy Environment. We are a nonprofit based here in Pittsburgh but operating across the Commonwealth, and we focus on addressing the environmental exposures that impact public health. That is at the core of our work. We operate three main program areas, healthy homes, healthy schools, and healthy early learning centers. And if you think about those three spaces, the core of that is really protecting where children reside, where they spend their days, where they live and where they learn and where they thrive. As a community-based organization, we address those environmental exposures that impact public health, as I mentioned earlier. And I'm here to focus on one of our core program areas, healthy schools. Since our organization's beginning, we have provided education, technical assistance, and coalition building focused on these primary prevention strategies. This is modeled after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's whole school, whole community approach, meaning this integration between education leaders and health sectors to improve a child's cognitive, physical, social, and emotional development. The physical environment is one of those core areas of focus. A healthy and safe physical school environment promotes learning by assuring that the health and safety of the students and all the school personnel are protected. This area of focus also transcends across the EPA's creating a healthy school environment program. EPA also notes that the health of the school environment, including in and around and outside of the school building, can affect the well-being and the lifelong health of the students and educators. Studies show that a healthy school environment will not only reduce absenteeism, also improve test scores, enhance student and staff productivity, and improve the health of students and staff. Next slide. Today we're here to discuss lead in drinking water in schools. Pittsburgh had its own crisis with lead in the drinking water in 2016, as I'm sure many of you had heard. Sorry, one more slide. which at that time we were exceeding Flint, Michigan's levels of lead. At that time, Women for a Healthy Environment mobilized, distributing thousands of water filters across the city and hosting hundreds of educational workshops. Our goals were simple, provide accurate, scientifically-based information to the community, distribute water filters proven to substantially reduce the lead contaminant in drinking water up to 99%. percent and demand attention and action to this issue next slide we formed a countywide lead coalition and also launched the 1,000 hours a year program in 2017 children spend well over 1,000 hours a year in the classroom hence our program name the two main environmental hazards focused on in this program are lead and radon these are two known but very preventable environmental hazards Our goal for that program was simple, to incorporate a primary prevention strategy into our work by removing the environmental exposure to the school occupants. It seems perhaps rudimentary, but indeed it works. We can address the harm. We can create healthier environments. Since 2017, we have worked in over 170 school buildings to address lead in drinking water. Next slide. In our 2025 State of Environmental Health in Pennsylvania Schools Report, this is our third iteration of that report, and as we continue to compile information from districts all across the Commonwealth, we're well over half of the school districts all across Pennsylvania, we query them on various environmental health issues to see how schools are responding in their particular districts. From our last report that was published in August of 2025, of the 166 school districts that we queried, 118, or 71 percent of them, indicated that they had performed lead and drinking water testing. 117 school districts reported that their most recent testing dates ranged from September of 2016 to August of 2023. However, it's critical that I share an important thing. Among the schools that tested, we also found a greater proportion of schools with lead in drinking water and a fewer percentage of schools that actually took action and mitigated that has been a consistency with this report and the last two as I had mentioned that we issued oftentimes schools do not indicate or frankly choose not to mitigate in fact only about 11% of those school districts responded that they had addressed the presence of lead in drinking water. A filter-first approach would change that by requiring schools to filter the drinking water with the benefit of removing lead and, as you heard earlier, many other contaminants. Next slide, please. Previously, when we hired a certified laboratory to assist us in the collection and testing of the drinking water, very rarely was there a no detection of lead result, and testing on its own has many limitations. Testing one day at one particular time can yield one result, and the next day, a completely different result. Testing can be very unreliable. For the years that we've been doing this work, we can look at a water fountain now, and by merely looking at the model, we can determine if it has lead components. Several years ago, we moved strictly to installation of these drinking water stations, these filter stations, thereby eliminating the unnecessary cost of testing. This is an economically achievable approach and significant way to protect public health. Based on our work, these stations range from $1,500 to $2,100, a small price for a significantly health benefit. Further, often something that people are unaware of or discuss is the premise plumbing in older school buildings. Under the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act, even today, there's an allowable lead content in plumbing. 0.25% by lead weight, calculated as a weighted average across all wetted surfaces of a pipe, a pipe fitting, a plumbing fitting, or a fixture, and 0.2% lead for solder and flux. This demonstrates that when we test for lead, we indeed find it present. We can spend thousands of dollars testing each component of the water fountain, the bubbler attached to the fountain, the classroom sink, the preparation sink in the cafeteria, the nurse's sink, et cetera. We can sample the water. We can use an XRF detector in and around these plumbing components. And what will we find? Lead. Let us be mindful that there's no safe level of lead. As you will hear multiple times this morning, lead is a neurotoxin, and exposure can impact every system of our body. Children exposed can have damage to the brain and nervous system, hearing and speech impediments, and learning and behavior problems. Lead exposure certainly may impact a child's academic performance now and well into the future. Further, women of childbearing age may have children with low birth weight, preterm birth, or even miscarriage. This is also an occupational health and safety issue. Just think about the thousands of employees in the school buildings, many spending decades of their educational career in that same building. Next slide. The EPA had previously referenced an action level for lead in drinking water in schools under their 3Ts program. That stands for training, testing, and taking action. They abandoned that notion years ago, not wanting to give people the false notion that anything over 15 parts per billion of lead was deemed safe for human consumption. In 2016, and then reaffirmed in 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy paper recommending that state and local governments should take steps to ensure that water fountains in schools do not exceed water-led detections of one part per billion. We have long called for an amendment to the Pennsylvania Public School Code that established the Safe Schools Drinking Water Fund. Our work over the last decade, as I've described, has demonstrated that schools have essentially an easy out should they choose not to test for lead in drinking water, and there was no enforcement mechanism in place to mitigate for lead in drinking water contamination, as those results have been demonstrated through the State of Environmental Health and Schools report. Although very well-intentioned, this bill has not adequately protected students and school personnel from lead in drinking water. This bill, Senate Bill 759, is significant in that a filter-first approach ensures that drinking water is filtered for lead at the tap, thereby not relying on testing the water and assuming mitigation will follow. Similar laws have already been enacted, as you heard, in other states, such as Michigan, which is considered at this point the gold standard, and this is economically achievable for school districts, as you've heard. In closing, there are critical components to the bill that must remain to protect public health, including requiring that schools utilize filters that are NSF certified. Next slide, please. A third-party certification system, meaning the efficacy of the filter has been tested. The use of NSF certification marks demonstrates the applicable product or the operation meets those stringent standard requirements, including plumbing components. Further, the requirement for establishing a filter maintenance and oversight schedule for all certified point-of-use filters installed is critical. Next slide, please. Too often we have heard that a filter is in use, but a maintenance schedule has not been adhered to, in essence making the use of the filter obsolete and of no benefit to public health. In some cases, this has led to other types of contamination to drinking water that could have been easily avoided, such as bacterial growth, chemical release, mold and algae, and sediment and scale buildup. Next schedule, please. In closing, I urge you to pass Senate Bill 759 from committee. The health and wellness and academic performance of our children depend on it. Together, we can create healthier school communities. I thank you for the time this morning.
responsible plumbing systems that deliver clean drinking water to households, schools, and businesses every day. For decades, plumbing manufacturers have invested in safer materials, lead-free technologies, water efficiency innovations, and rigorous product certification standards to reduce risks to consumers and shore up confidence in the public drinking system. Our members supported Flint, Michigan, for instance, during its water crisis by donating and installing hundreds of lead-free fixtures and other plumbing supplies in coordination with the local chapter of the Plumbering and Pipefitters Union. Our members understand that protecting drinking water is not simply a regulatory obligation, it's a generational responsibility. Safe plumbing systems are foundational to public health, community resilience, and ensuring that future generations have access to the drinking water that we've often taken for granted. Today I like to offer PMI strong support for Senate Bill 759 which of course would ensure that drinking water in Pennsylvania schools is safe by requiring that drinking water outlets be equipped with certified lead point filters and by establishing the Safe Schools Drinking Water Fund PMI represents several manufacturers of lead removing bottle filling drinking fountain stations including Haas, Sloan Valve, and Zern LK and others who manufacture under the sink systems. Additional suppliers that sell such products include Oasis by Culligan and Murdoch. The installation of point of use filters certified to NSF NC 53 standard for lead reduction is a direct and cost effective way to address the problem of lead in drinking water, no matter the age of the school building or the composition of its plumbing infrastructure. I'll let the experts elaborate on the following point, but it is well established that young children are particularly vulnerable to lead, and because school buildings are a bit older, their water is particularly vulnerable to lead contamination. In a time where replacing the entire plumbing infrastructure of old school buildings is often cost-prohibitive, filtered bottle-filling stations and fountains and undersink point-of-use filters are an integral part of the solution. By contrast, repeated test-remediate-retest strategies can become expensive and unpredictable, particularly in older buildings where lead sources may exist deep within aging infrastructure. So while a filtration plan like Senate Bill 759 is first and foremost an opportunity to protect kids' safety and well-being, It is also a prudent and pragmatic use of taxpayer dollars. Examples of successful clean drinking water initiatives, of course, exist right here in Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh Public Schools replaced more than 1,000 unfiltered water fountains with filtered options, and in response to findings of extensive lead contamination, the School District of Philadelphia installed more than 2,000 new lead filtering hydration stations across the district. State of Michigan, meanwhile, which, of course, is justly repeated here, enacted laws collectively known as Filter First in 2023, which requires schools and child care centers in Michigan to develop a drinking water management plan, install lead-reducing filters on all consumptive fixtures, and test filtered water. So in sum, by passing Senate Bill 759, Pennsylvania can take a practical, science-based step toward protecting children, strengthening public confidence in school drinking water, and advancing the shared responsibility of ensuring clean, safe drinking water for future generations. Thanks so much for your time and your careful attention to this matter.
Great, thank you. And before we move on to Dr. Moss and Dr. Nevin, does the panel have any questions for Dave and Michelle or Matthew? Representative Howick.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Matthew, I think you'd probably be the most appropriate to answer the question of maintenance. I think that it was said maybe upfront cost is about $1,500 to $5,000. It can vary. Can you just describe how often these need to be maintained? What is the cost associated with that? And I don't know if you would know the answer to this as well, but if the bill provides for grant funding for not only the initial install but the maintenance as well. Sure thing.
Well, I'll answer to a certain extent. The upfront costs are more or less correct, what you just cited. Of course, our members who make this make different technology, and it can be somewhat variable. But as a general point of analysis, what usually this boils down to will be, you know, within the single digits, low single digits per child, you know, over the course of a year, not including labor. So that's about what you could expect, which I think, you know, I think all things considered is quite, you know, something we can justify in terms of keeping kids safe. Thank you.
Thank you. Any more questions? No? Okay. Michelle, we were in your testimony.
It made me think of where this kind of all started was Act 39 of 2018. and that just nearly encouraged schools to test for dangerous levels of lead. And since it was unfunded by the state, a lot of schools didn't opt to do that. But the schools that did, we've come up with an idea that it's in the hundreds of schools that actually have elevated levels of lead. So can you talk to why schools are hesitant to even test for it currently?
Sure, I'd be happy to. There are a whole host of reasons why. Oftentimes, frankly, we've had conversations with school solicitors who said, are we going to be setting ourselves up for any concerns? Should we find lead in our drinking water? And that has not been proven anywhere across the Commonwealth. That was one thing early on in 2018 when we rolled out our program to really encourage schools to doing that. So we had a lot of conversations with superintendents and solicitors about the program and said, you're actually taking a leadership role. You are focused on the primary prevention. We all have inherited old school buildings and this issue, so nobody is at fault. So that's one thing. One of the other things is that there was this unknown about, for many years, what the cost was for both the testing and for the replacement, the mitigation, as you had heard about earlier. And people didn't recognize until we started collecting data, which was really powerful at that point, because then we could share with school districts. Well, frankly, we had a fund and a program here locally in Western PA, and we had schools all across it from Clarion to some school districts in Erie down to Washington County who all participated in this program and realized the value and benefit then of doing this initial install for these filters, but then requiring this regular maintenance, which is so key. So it was really the unknown, too, of cost associated with it, and sometimes it's something new that facility directors had to get comfortable with, too.
Thank you for your testimony. Matthew, can you talk about why the filters that are certified, obviously a little bit more expensive, are the better investment? than the cheaper non-certified filters that are also out there and being advertised. Yeah, well, NSF ANSI has been setting the sort of gold standard
and certification standards for years and years, and that's where you can guarantee that the filters are going to be the very best, the very top at reducing the lead to a fraction of a grain of sand. So that's the sort of standard that, you know, you can be assured that it's delivering what it says it's delivering if it's certified to NSF ANZ 53. Okay.
Thank you. Mr. Mazur, are you still on?
Yep. Yep. Thank you.
I know that, you know, almost last minute we got the study from Yale graduate student Chad Baer. He has been studying the filtering hydration system. And can you talk a little bit on his findings?
Yes. Yes, Chad, just so folks know, he's a parent in Chester County and has two kids, I think, in the Chadsford School District, has been very interested in the issue and went out and started to look at how do schools test for lead. He did a set of right-to-know requests to districts across the Commonwealth, and the information that came back, I think, you know, showed that, as I mentioned in my testimony, in part there's a failure of implementation. You know, certainly the process for testing, and there's a very clear process for testing, you know, can be complicated for school district officials or school maintenance crews who don't have expertise in doing the testing. It can also be very expensive to do the testing if you hire an outside vendor. And what Matt, excuse me, Chad's data showed that I think is probably reflected in what Michelle mentioned and what we've seen in that environment is, you know, for better or for worse, many school districts don't test properly. And that then can put kids and occupants of those buildings at risk to elevated levels of lead in drinking water. So, for example, I think a very extreme example in some of Chad's findings, one school district replied and said the way they tested for lead is they were using testing strips that they had bought online. And when Chad did the research on the product, it's actually a testing strip to test for chemicals in your fish aquarium at home. And because it didn't pop for lead, the district assumed everything was okay. You know, that I think is clearly a failure of implementation. We see districts openly admit they flush the pipes before doing the testing. That cuts against testing protocols and will lead to false negatives. You have to let the water sit in the pipe. And that's explicit on the Pennsylvania Department of Education site. So I think Chad's findings have shown that, you know, we see real testing problems. As Michelle noted, when they eat fine lead, there are solution problems. And then I think, if I may, Mr. Chairman, add to Matthew's point, on the cost effectiveness, there was a study out of Michigan that showed if school districts essentially stayed the course on testing. If school districts in Michigan properly tested for lead versus stop testing immediately and just move right to replacement, the cost savings for Michigan taxpayers would be $300 million over 10 years by moving immediately to filter first. and that's because testing is expensive and because every time you test, you're finding a set of outlets that have to be replaced anyway, so you're paying twice, both for the test and the replacement. The cost becomes even higher. So I think that study, I mean, $300 million, as we all know, is not chump change. This is real money for taxpayers. That is a real wise financial investment to change course to move away from the test and fix to the filter-first policy. Thank you very much.
I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman. All right, Senator Carney, do you have any questions for the panel?
No questions at this time, but thank you very much for the testimony. Okay.
Thank the three of you. It was very informative, so we appreciate the information you provided us, and we'll move on to our next panel. We have Dr. Moss online. Dr. Nevin, do you want to come forward as well? Dr. Nevin submitted a written testimony, and she is here to help answer questions from us. And Dr. Moss, you were sworn in previously. So if you want to go ahead with your testimony, we appreciate it.
Thank you so much. So as you heard, my name is Deborah Moss. I'm a practicing pediatrician and have been so for over 25 years in Pittsburgh. Among other roles, I participated in the Allegheny County Lead Task Force in 2017, commissioned by then County Executive Fitzgerald So I thank you for the opportunity to speak about the impact of lead exposure on children health I got three main points The first is what you heard a bit about so far which is that numerous studies have shown that lead has negative irreversible health effects on every part of the body and on any one Lead, you've heard, is a neurotoxin, which means it is a toxin that affects the brain and nervous system. This is one reason why lead exposure has especially serious consequences in children because of their developing brains. As you've heard, lead impairs cognition and thinking. It leads to diminished intellectual abilities and problems with learning and behavior. And lead adversely affects all body systems. the heart, the kidneys, the immune, endocrine, hematologic, and GI systems, as well as fertility that you've heard about, among others. And evidence shows that poor nutrition worsens lead's effects. This is because nutrients like calcium and iron in our diet compete with lead, preventing lead from being absorbed in our stomach. So children without adequate amounts of these nutrients, children with poor nutrition, absorb more lead in their gut. Historically, kids from low-income families were at greatest risk of poor nutrition, therefore at greatest risk of worse effects of lead exposure. But if any of you have children or teens, you know that many of their diets consist more of junk food and fast food than nutrient-rich food. So there are probably more children with poor nutrition and therefore greater risk of lead toxicity than we public leaders are aware of. Lead exposure comes from three main sources, paint, water, and soil. Just to inform you, so dust from lead paint is the leading cause of lead exposure in children. We all know that Pennsylvania has old housing stock. Because lead does not degrade over time, lead dust is still found in houses even under many layers of paint, where there's chipping paint or dust created from friction of windows or doors opening and closing, or from renovations and demolitions, which leaves lead dust in the soil also. Lead in soil also comes from airborne emissions, mostly from industrial pollutants, children are exposed to lead dust in soil that gets tracked into the floor of houses where children often play or consume from the surface of plants grown in the soil. So now to lead in water. Lead is also found in water when it flows through pipes, plumbing fixtures, and solder made of lead. Prior to the 1986 Federal EPA Safe Drinking Water Act. Most pipes and plumbing fixtures were made of lead. That act established safe drinking water criteria and required all new plumbing to be lead-free. However, as you've heard, lead does not degrade, and that law and subsequent federal and state laws have failed to protect children from potential lead exposure in school drinking fountains. on your written handout. I have a number of links to that, those legislative acts. And that is why Senate Bill 759 is so very important. Parents deserve to know that their children are safe when they're sent to school. My third point is that you legislators have a huge impact on protecting the health of our citizens, especially those most vulnerable, i.e. our children. On your printout, you can see the graph that I included that shows the impact of lead prevention policies on children's lead levels over time, and it's very impressive. So in summary, lead from any source contributes to the burden of exposure and therefore needs to be reduced and then eliminated. Evidence from numerous studies over the past decades have taught us, and the Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics have confirmed, and as you've heard, that there is no safe level of lead in children. This is why it is so important to eliminate lead in the environment, especially where children live, learn, and play. Thank you so
much. Thank you, Dr. Moss. Dr. Nevin, can I swear you in real quick, if you don't mind? If you don't mind rising, do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Great. Thank you. Dr. Nevin, I know you submitted a written testimony. I don't know if you have any follow-up comments based on what you heard from the other panelists. Okay. All right. Clear. If you push a clear button, it'll light up green. There you go. Okay.
Sarah Robinson, go ahead.
Doctor, did you have something to add?
No, I was checking my microphone.
All right, good.
Sarah Robinson? Yeah, thank you for joining us, both of you. Thanks for joining us today. I just wanted to kind of highlight, you know, how dangerous of a situation this actually is. So can you walk me through how you actually test for lead in children?
So that's generally a blood test that's often done as a capillary test initially. That can be misleading sometimes if the finger has been touching something. You don't really know if that's the blood level or the environment, but you certainly know that it's in the environment even with a capillary test. And then the best way to know the actual blood level is in a venous check. We screen very young children. Sometimes older kids we don't screen as routinely, so you can miss it, but the point is by the time you've already done the testing, exposure's there. What we know is going to be most helpful is preventing the exposure in the first place, not chasing it, because once it's in, it's irreversible.
And how long does lead stay in an adult person's body and a child's body?
So it deposits into the bones, and it can leach out later in life. Once it's there, it's in your body. Yeah.
Yeah, and Dr. Moss, if you want to add any testimony to that, too, to answer the questions, feel free.
The one thing I'll add is, again, in the past, we've primarily used testing of children to find out where there's lead risks. And again, that means that we're turning our children into sort of the biomarkers of lead risk in the environment as opposed to really testing and eliminating it from the environment. So I really do appreciate your bill in terms of filtering out the lead as an elimination or mitigation procedure.
Do you have any idea how many children in the Pittsburgh area or throughout the Commonwealth have a dangerous exposure to lead?
You want to take that one, Dr. Moss?
I can. And I think it's about 3.5% of children of all ages and about, please don't quote me, but I believe it's about 1.8% to 2% of children under age 2 have elevated or action levels of blood, of confirmed blood test blood levels.
And can you tell me, you know, what their lives are going to look like? you know what what does lead do to childhood development
i can start and dr neva can maybe add on or finish i have to say uh that is a difficult question to answer because one we pediatricians are optimistic about the resilience um of children and there are mitigating factors to the effects of lead. And so to sort of label a child as permanently damaged, I think puts the child at extra risk and is not actually a valid assessment of their potential. So while the lead effects are irreversible, there are strategies, early intervention strategies strategies have been shown to mitigate the impact of lead exposure. So again, I wouldn't want to predict a lifelong effect on a child who is exposed to lead. But Dr. Nevin, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say about that. Sure. I echo what you're saying. And I know in the wake of Flint, Michigan, President Obama at the time was very much saying the exact same thing. We don't We don't want to lose hope in our children when we find these elevated levels. The American Academy of Pediatric Policy on Prevention of Childhood Lead Toxicity, in addition, everyone knows there's no safe level, but did estimate an IQ loss of five to six points for a lead level of over five, and that's just one thing we can talk about very concretely. I always worry about specific learning disabilities, hyperactivity, impulse control, a lot of what we think about with young people today. And gosh, there's so many factors that go into this, but this is one that we can really address very directly. So I think for me on a personal level, because in addition to all the science, these kids all have names and faces and grandmothers and stories that I can, when I'm here, I think my event's a little different, thinking about dealing with these problems in their children and how they should have never happened in the first place.
Well, thank you. I think that that covers all of my questions. Senator Carney, do you have any questions?
No. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Okay. I see Drew is on from Senator Keene's office. I know Senator Keene is your co-prime on this bill. I know he had some commitments in the district. He was trying to catch up for the hearing. I do not have any questions because everything that was laid out by both panels, I thought it was very succinct to think our children are the proverbial canary in the coal mine in this, as Dr. Moss alluded to, is a pretty scary thing. You know, this is something that you would hope would not require the initiative of the legislature in Harrisburg to solve, because this could be solved at the local level. You did great work with that here in the western part of the state. You know, when I go back east, I'll be talking to a few of my superintendents to kind of check on where their status is. But sometimes we have to intervene at the state level to ensure safety is done at the local level. So hopefully we can have some progress on this issue. At a minimum, the awareness hopefully this hearing generates may spur some local action as well. But I do thank everybody for taking the time. I found it very enlightening in a very concerning way. But I learned a lot from all the testifiers today, and I thank you for your time here and look forward to working with Senator Robinson on moving this bill forward. So thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
So at this time, we are going to conclude today's hearing. I do want to thank your beautiful library here, the gentleman we walked in here we think managed the library it was wonderful to see all the young people in it level of activity it is a beautiful facility I'm sure it gets a lot of great public use so I want to thank them for hosting this I want to thank Senator Robinson and his staff for helping put this together and the Senate Institutional Sustainability and Innovation Committee stands at recess until the call of the chair. Thank you everyone