Stonehedge Elementary School Credit: Debadrita Sur | Central Current

More than one in four public schools in Onondaga County have reported having at least one drinking-water outlet with elevated lead levels, according to a recently released study. 

The study found that 33 of 121 public schools in Onondaga County — all in the suburbs — reported at least one drinking-water outlet dispensing water with lead levels above the state limit of 5 parts per billion. 

“It should be zero,” said Lanessa Owens-Chaplin, the director of the racial justice center at New York Civil Liberties Union. 

The study was conducted by the Environment America Research & Policy Center, the New York Public Interest Research Group and the Frontier Group. Researchers analyzed the most recent data posted on the state health department website from the 2023-2025 cycle and limited reporting from the 2026-2028 cycle. 

The county data falls below the statewide rate of schools with elevated lead: Across the state, 42 percent of the public schools had at least one outlet testing above 5 parts per billion, the study found.

The state should shift their energy and resources from a testing-based approach to a preventative one focused on filtering neurotoxins out of the water consumed by children, said David Masur, a senior advocate at Environment America Research & Policy Center. 

“Even in the year 2026, almost two decades after the Flint, Michigan crisis, we can put a man on the moon, but we haven’t implemented what we need to do to protect kids and schools from lead in drinking water,” Masur told Central Current. “We should not play this game of whack-a-mole with kids’ health.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, even at low levels, lead exposure can cause “nervous system damage, learning disabilities, hearing problems and impaired blood cell formation and function in children.” The EPA has set the contaminant level goal at zero parts per billion. 

Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration passed a law in 2016, which has since undergone revisions, mandating schools test any water outlet used for drinking or cooking for lead at least once every six months. The state in 2022 lowered the action level from 15 parts per billion to five. 

Schools must report the numbers to the state health department if the levels are above the threshold of 5 parts per billion. The school has to remediate the problem by replacing or removing the outlet or installing a filter that rids the water of lead. They get reimbursed by the state. 

Despite those efforts, more than 12,000 statewide school water outlets exceed the 5 parts per billion threshold.

Masur pointed out what he called a “loophole” in the lead reporting process. Despite the public consensus from health experts that even low levels of lead exposure can be harmful to children, schools do not have to report positive lead tests below the state threshold nor do they have to take remedial actions if the outlets test 5 parts per billion, he said. 

“This is probably just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential risk of lead contamination in school drinking water,” Masur said. 

Suburban schools in Onondaga County had more outlets testing above the threshold compared to city schools.

  • Seven schools in the West Genesee Central School District found elevated lead levels in their water fountains. Stonehedge Elementary School had 20 outlets with lead levels over 5 parts per billion, Onondaga Road Elementary School had 11 outlets testing over 5 parts per billion for lead and Split Rock Elementary School had 16. East Hill Elementary School and West Genesee High School had five outlets each. 
  • Ten Liverpool schools have outlets testing over 5 parts per billion. Of those, Liverpool High School has the highest number of outlets — nine — testing above the threshold, followed by Soule Road Middle School with six outlets and Soule Road Elementary School with five. 
  • Tully Elementary School had 19 outlets that tested over 5 parts per billion while the high school had seven. 
  • No public school in the Syracuse City School District reported outlets with lead levels over 5 parts per billion. 

“There’s sort of this perception out there that lead in drinking water is really just like an urban problem: houses and schools in cities,” Masur said. “But what our data shows is that lead contamination in school drinking water is in some ways non discriminatory. It’s in city schools, but it’s also in very rural schools, in very affluent, high-income suburban schools.”

Central Current reached out to West Genesee Central School District (once by phone and once by email), Liverpool Central School District, Tully School District and Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District, among others. 

Only F-M Superintendent Magda Parvey responded to questions. Parvey directed a reporter to the school district’s remediation plan online.

According to the website, 63 outlets were tested at Fayetteville Elementary School, of which one classroom sink faucet exceeded the state threshold limit. The school has put up signage on the sink to indicate that it must not be used for water consumption and the faucet will be replaced and tested. Three outlets in Mott Road Elementary School with elevated lead levels were immediately replaced. Remediation is currently underway on three faucets that tested over 5 parts per billion in Fayetteville-Manlius High School, the website said.

Masur and his co-authors have several recommendations to address the widespread threat of lead contamination in school drinking water:

  • Move away from the test-and-fix approach and install lead-capturing filters on all taps used in schools for drinking or cooking. 
  • Lower the threshold from 5 parts per billion to 1 parts per billion as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.
  • Make these changes before state legislators or the governor require them
  • Tapping into the state’s $500 million Clean Water Infrastructure Fund, designed to help schools test and remediate lead in drinking water, and adopting a filter-first approach is the way to go, Masur said. 

Ripping out all the pipes in a school building can be pricey and burden taxpayers, he said. Instead, schools should get rid of old drinking fountains and replace them with certified lead-filtering hydration stations or water bottle-filling stations to provide safe drinking water, Masur told Central Current. 

The state would not be the first to adopt this method: In 2023, Michigan became the first state to adopt the filter-first approach, which could save $331 million worth of taxpayer money that would have paid for lead testing testing costs over the next decade, according to an analysis by the Michigan Association of Local Public Health. 

The county needs a plan to prioritize eliminating lead from school buildings while also focusing on contamination from lead in water, soil and lead dust, Owens-Chaplin said. 

“It’s really alarming that we send our kids to school every day with water bottles and they could be very well refilling those water bottles up with lead water,” she said.



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Debadrita Sur is a multimedia journalist and Report for America corps member who reports on the I-81 project and public housing for Central Current. In 2023, Sur graduated with a master’s degree in journalism...