Portland's Day Care Centers Don't Get Tested for Lead in Drinking Water

Portland Public Schools' problem with lead in drinking water highlights a central concern about lead poisoning: Very young children, those 3 years and under and not yet in school, are also particularly vulnerable to the damaging health effects of lead exposure such as brain damage.

Yet Oregon law does not require testing drinking water for lead at preschools and day care centers—including those in caretakers' homes.

"Home day cares are just as big a problem as schools," says Tamara Rubin, a Portland activist who's been fighting to address lead hazards in public schools and parks for years.

Oregon's Office of Child Care, which regulates day care centers in the state, asks counties to perform sanitation inspections of day care centers and their kitchens. There are 313 licensed child care centers in Portland, not including 788 home-based or family-care facilities.

But the counties' inspections, including those in Multnomah County, don't check for lead in drinking water. Instead, counties simply check to make sure water is coming from an approved source. In Multnomah County, that means making sure the water comes from the Portland Water Bureau, says Jeff Martin, an inspections supervisor with the county.

"For child care, you're going to see the same forms and same regulations throughout the state," says Martin.

So far, Multnomah County has declined to go further. "It's not our program," says Martin.

David Austin, a spokesman for Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury, says the county is following state law. "If the Early Learning Division made a requirement to test for lead, we would do that," he says.

Karol Collymore, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Department of Education's Early Learning Division, which includes the Office of Child Care, says there's nothing preventing Multnomah County from doing more as a matter of routine. The county could do that without action from the state, she says.

"There is not a rule that we have at the state that would prohibit local municipalities from testing the water for any lead," she says. "They are welcome to do so."

Willamette Week