No need to fear.

The 35 or so people that showed up to last Thursday’s special meeting about lead in the drinking water at Ordway Elementary were sated with technical speak and reassurances from the medical community.

“This is not Flint,” health officials — both state and local — stressed.

Not even close.

“To put it into perspective, you’re more likely to have water toxicity than lead toxicity [at these levels],” Dr. Alexander Garrard of the Washington Poison Center explained. “That’s how much water you’d have to drink to pose a health risk.”

Dr. Fred Walters of Bainbridge Pediatrics also dispelled fears.

“With what we know, my impression is it’s very safe,” he said of the water in the island’s public schools, adding that he’s instructed his three daughters, who attend Blakely, Sakai and Woodward, to continue drinking it.

“The risk of exposure probably doesn’t exist at these levels at all,” he told attendees.

Bainbridge school officials quickly pulled together a panel of experts to address community concerns about water quality in local schools after the district announced Feb. 29 that tests had shown elevated lead levels in the drinking water at Ordway Elementary.

As of Thursday’s meeting, Bainbridge Pediatrics had received 45 requests for lead blood testing, Walters said.

The medical practice had results for 18 of those tests — some patients had opted not to pursue the testing — and all of them were negative, revealing levels of less than 1 microgram of lead per deciliter. (Blood levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter are considered high, although symptoms don’t usually appear until 10 or 20 micrograms per deciliter, said Washington Poison Center director Alexander Garrard.)

Walters said he does not feel it is appropriate to recommend blood lead testing, but “if it gives you peace of mind, then it’s worth it.”

Bainbridge Pediatric’s phone was ringing off the hook after the school district informed parents about elevated lead levels in the water at Ordway Elementary School on Feb. 29, the doctor recounted.

Of the 68 water samples taken on Feb. 17, 23 had exceeded the EPA’s action level for lead in schools of 20 parts per billion, with results ranging from less than 1 ppb to

384 ppb, a figure taken from an art room sink.

Following these results, the district immediately took all Ordway fixtures out of commission, brought in bottled water for staff and students, contacted local and state health authorities and hired an engineering firm, Confluence Engineering Group, to flush and resample Ordway’s water system for lead.

Melinda Friedman, the president of Confluence Engineering Group, said the district’s sampling methods might have actually overestimated lead levels.

Lead sampling is highly complicated and requires strict protocols, she said.

“There can be huge variability in sample results collected between schools, within schools and within taps,” Friedman added.

The first round of testing, of 433 fixtures, was conducted over winter break, she explained, when pipes were sitting unused for days. Subsequent testing was also less than ideal, conducted after the system had experienced extensive flushing, rather than after a suitable stagnation period of several hours.

Friedman confirmed that the school district had handled the situation correctly, by implementing mitigation strategies immediately, following up with monitoring of fixtures with levels above 20 ppb and continuing sampling.

With her firm’s follow-up, she was confident that the source of exposure would be located.

“Now that all fixtures are out of service, we have time to better understand the current conditions,” she explained.

While subsequent testing has proven a bit of relief for parents and students, the district has been criticized for not alerting families sooner after early tests showed the presence of lead in the water at Ordway.

Superintendent Faith Chapel was remorseful, and she stressed at last week’s meeting that the school district will share all test results moving forward, and, in hindsight, should have shared results with parents back in January, after elevated lead levels were detected in 13 fixtures.

“We looked at it as very preliminary at the time, a small number of fixtures that we were looking at,” she said. “But I think we would do differently because of the obvious interest.”

Some in the community have also questioned the lack of earlier notice and have suggested officials were keeping quiet about the water contamination problem because they were seeking support for an $81.2 million bond measure in February.

The timing of the announcement had nothing to do with the Feb. 9 bond measure, Chapel said in response to an audience member’s question.

“My personal feeling is that if we made this public, it would have supported the fact that we needed capital improvements in schools. But it certainly wasn’t a factor,” Chapel said.

The bond measure did allocate $12.2 million for repairs — including plumbing work — at several schools, Chapel said, a “significant chunk” of which is for Ordway.