After six months of testing for lead in the water, the Bellevue School District released the results.
Seventeen schools in the district were found to have fixtures that were leaching lead into the water. The district says all of those fixtures have been replaced, removed, or labeled "Do not drink."
The district started testing for lead last May. At the same time tThe Associated Press reported lead in the water at eight Bellevue elementary schools. It turned out that was the most recent data the district had to release, but it was from 2005. The district was already in the process of new testing.
The district said it took a long time to test more than 3,000 water samples and said the state lab was backed up with other tests.
Seventeen schools had fixtures with lead with water that tested above the district's limit of 15 parts per billion in the samples. The EPA standard allows 20 parts per billion.
The district waited until they had all of the tests results back and fixtures fixed or removed before updating parents this week with an email.
Some parents wish they would have known sooner.
"It takes too long for them to solve the problem," said Joanne Wang, her son is a student at Newport High School.
Six fixtures at Newport High School tested high for lead.
"It's kind of unexpected to know they've been hiding this for so long and it's been an ongoing issue for this long, "said Newport student Wiley Wu.
KIRO-7 asked why the district didn't release the results as they were received.
"You didn't know when you were going to get a school result and there were some cases where the schools were older buildings and all of their fixtures were fine." said Elizabeth Sytman, Bellevue School district spokesperson.
The district says it wouldn’t have helped-- there wasn't a pattern, it wasn't based on the age of the school or the type of fixture.
The district removed or replaced 72 fixtures leaching lead.
The testing results showed that 98 percent of the fixtures tested came back with safe lead levels.
Top stories on KIRO7.com
>> Download the KIRO 7 News App for updates and breaking news push alerts
Cox Media Group
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/WRE45HXGLFA53BMDVGZXFP2VTA.jpg)
:quality(70)/d1hfln2sfez66z.cloudfront.net/04-25-2024/t_890b024e4146412fba10831bc7dfacf2_name_5as__Tesla_Autopilot_Ax_transfer_frame_0.jpeg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/VJGHDQCCXFBE5NWSC5QPZ2YDWA.jpg)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/IPIXRAQD4KXZGRHJ52HJAS7CAE.png)
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/LYXELYCV5G7WBT7663ANY5MQFQ.jpg)