History of our Award-Winning Program
Although there are bans on lead in paint and gasoline, there is still an allowable amount of lead in piping and plumbing used for drinking and cooking water. Given that there is no safe level of exposure to lead, the North Carolina Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, child advocacy groups, academic institutions, and legislators remained concerned about the potential for children to be exposed to lead in drinking water while in child care. With a lack of data and information on the feasibility of a large-scale program to detect and fix problems related to lead in drinking water, a path forward was difficult.
In response to these challenges, RTI International conducted the Clean Water for Carolina Kids™ pilot study. The goal of the pilot study was to:
- Determine if lead was present in drinking and cooking water at child care centers and schools with pre-kindergarten Head Start programs, and
- Pilot a participant-science sampling approach that trained child care administrators to collect samples, ship them, and implement recommendations to remove lead from water.
106 centers enrolled and 86 centers returned the mail-in test kits. Lead was detected in 97% of child care centers in at least one tap, and above 15 ppb in 16% of centers. The pilot study demonstrated the importance of testing for lead at every cooking and drinking tap. The study also showed that lead in water can be identified and addressed with simple, affordable solutions by training and empowering center administrators as participant scientists.
The information from the pilot study was used by the State of North Carolina, child advocacy groups, and Duke Environmental Law staff to propose an update to North Carolina’s child care sanitation guidelines. The North Carolina Commission on Public Health approved the update in 2019, and the NC Rules Review Commission voted to adopt the rule thereafter. For more on the 2019 rule, see the announcement from the NC Division of Child Development and Early Education here.
This resulted in the Clean Water for Carolina Kids Program™, which tested over 24,000 drinking and cooking taps at over 4,200 child care facilities from 2020 through 2022. With funding from EPA, child care facilities were able to complete this initial testing for free. During this period, lead was detected above the state hazard level in approximately 3% of all taps and at 12% of child care facilities. Results and findings from these studies have been published in in the American Journal of Public Health and Environmental Science & Technology.
The Clean Water for Carolina Kids™ program has been recognized as an innovator and thought-leader in this space.
In 2022, the North Carolina State Legislatures passed rules that included a requirement and funding for testing and remediating lead and asbestos hazards at every public school and child care facility in the state. This led to the expansion of the Clean Water for Carolina Kids Program™ into the Clean Classrooms for Carolina Kids Program™. The expanded program now includes public schools and family child care homes (in addition to child care centers) and addresses lead-based paint and asbestos hazards (in addition to lead in water hazards). Our team looks forward to leveraging our award-winning program and expertise to help identify and eliminate hazards where even more North Carolina children learn and play.