An echo of COVID-related disruptions to schools is being addressed at the Bainbridge Island School District, but it’s not learning loss — it’s lead.

As of the Dec. 11 school board meeting, maintenance staff have addressed water sources at three public schools that show high levels of contamination with lead, said BISD facilities director Dane Fenwick: Bainbridge High School, Ordway and Halilts Elementary Schools.

“In terms of remediation and retesting, we’ve taken immediate action, but all outlets at Ordway, Halilts and Bainbridge High School have been remediated by a filter installation, fixture replacement, or outright removal. We’re updating our maps of all the drinking water outlets to target retesting for January,” said Fenwick.

While BISD is unable to provide medical testing to students and staff who have consumed lead-contaminated water, district officials recommend that those concerned about any effects on their health consult their medical provider.

In 2024, the state Department of Health reissued its 2018-2020 dataset showing the results of lead testing in drinking water sources at public schools statewide.

At BISD, which received testing in 2019-2020, the onset of COVID and sudden shutdown of many government operations garbled the integrity of data reporting, leaving the district without a clear picture of lead contamination in its schools — until the school maintenance department returned to conduct a routine round of lead testing in 2025.

Data cleaning showed that as of 2020, the DOH found 79 water sources on BISD campuses that had lead contamination at “elevated” levels, or more than 6 parts per billion (ppb). 19 water sources had lead levels of more than 15 ppb, considered the threshold for immediate action by an institution, 15 of which were at Ordway Elementary School.

The district’s most recent round of testing, through an independent contractor in November 2025, showed elevated lead levels at 28 water sources, including one above 15 ppb at Ordway. Woodward Middle School had the most water sources suffering from contamination, with 12 showing lead levels above 6 ppb.

As of Oct. 2, all drinking water outlets on BISD campuses that have shown high levels of lead in previous testing cycles have been shut off. Re-testing will take place Jan. 3, Fenwick said.

“Any fixture with a sample above 5 ppb will be retested immediately. If a second test also exceeds 5 ppb, BISD will take immediate mitigation and remediation steps to address the fixture,” the district wrote in a “Water Safety” document published on its website.

Per Fenwick, between the district’s last regular lead-testing cycle and early Oct. 2025, the majority of drinking water fixtures on BISD campuses — lead-contaminated or not — have been operational. However, due to the poor paper trail from pandemic-era testing at both the state and district level, it’s unclear when and how maintenance staff took action.

In some instances, the DOH data from 2020 may have indicated an “appliance” contained elevated lead levels — but there would be no information on the district side about whether that appliance had been replaced, Fenwick explained. In other instances, staff visiting classrooms to disconnect water sources with contaminated faucets or fountains would arrive to find that the water had already been turned off, or pipes would be disconnected, with no record of work.

The presence of lead in drinking water is considered a major health hazard due to the heavy metal’s link to a host of physical and behavioral maladies: damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, learning disabilities, shorter stature, impaired hearing and impaired formation and function of blood cells.

On its website, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) writes that it “has set the maximum contaminant level goal for lead in drinking water at zero, because lead is a toxic metal that can be harmful to human health even at low exposure levels.”

The state DOH warned that “children are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of lead exposure as their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults,” adding that “it is important to minimize the risk of exposure as much as possible, not just in the home but also in schools” on its website.

In 2021, state law began to require the Department of Health to test drinking water sources on public school campuses built pre-2016 for lead contamination at least once before June 30, 2026, and subsequently at least every five years. BISD has been voluntarily testing for lead in school water sources since March 2016, initially performing testing through a contractor and in-house staff, then switching to testing through the state DOH in 2019-2020.

Pre-state involvement in testing, the district’s threshold for immediate action to address lead levels in water sources was about 20 ppb; since the passage of state law, the threshold has been lowered to 15 ppb.

“We’re taking an extreme conservative approach, and we will not stop remediation until we are under 5 [ppb],” said Fenwick. “So, 5.4 [for example] — you can think of ‘4’ as a half a microgram, if you will, and we’ll make sure that we’re not rounding in any way, shape, or form. We consider that 5.4 above the level, and we’ll remediate until it is below 5.”