BISD close to fixing all elevated lead levels in water outlets

Published 1:30 am Monday, March 2, 2026

Four schools at the Bainbridge Island School District still have elevated lead levels, but two are completely lead-free, following plumbing treatments by the district maintenance staff.

Commodore Options School and Bainbridge High School are officially lead-free, per test results collected in late January, said facilities director Dane Fenwick at the Feb. 26 school board meeting.

Ordway Elementary, Halilts Elementary, Sakai Intermediate and Woodward Middle Schools all still have at least one drinking water fixture showing elevated levels of lead — about 5 or more parts per billion (ppb) of lead.

In December, when the district first shared its initial round of lead-testing results, 28 drinking outlets throughout the district showed levels of lead over 5 ppb, and one that was above 15 ppb. Maintenance staff shut off the dangerous water sources, installed filters and replaced pipes and faucets, then performed a second round of testing in late January. Fenwick publicly shared the results of that second round at the Feb. 26 board meeting.

The facilities director explained that none of the water fixtures are in high-traffic areas of the schools, and all of them have been made off-limits to students.

“I think it’s important to note that the drinking water outlets at Sakai and Woodward both are happening in the kitchens at those schools. Of course, we’ve done remediation work, and the staff at those schools are using different water sources,” Fenwick said.

At Sakai, the contaminated faucet is at a food prep station; the one at Woodward is in a dishwashing room; Halilts has a contaminated sink in the music room office; Ordway’s is a drinking fountain in an anteroom — a small pass-through space between two larger rooms.

The next round of testing occurred Feb. 28.

“Hopefully, fingers crossed, knock on wood, everything that we’ve done to this point will pay off, and we will have zero elevated lead results. As soon as we receive those test results, we’ll know for certain. I do have a plan if any of these drinking water outlets come back as still elevated: we’re actually going to take those drinking water outlets out of service permanently, and provide an alternative,” said Fenwick.

That plan includes monitoring filters that were installed around the district and adding signage to outlets where testing wasn’t required, but that staff still used for drinking water, and paying attention to readings on the water meters installed on outlets with particularly egregious contamination. Periodic re-testing is not part of the plan, Fenwick said.