A Fife father says he only learned that his young children had been drinking water with dangerously high lead levels when they brought home notes from school asking them to pack bottled water.
Ephraim Almaraz started pressing the district for more specific information — and what he found alarmed him.
“In Discovery, the highest concentrations were at the kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms,” Almaraz said.
State testing conducted in March found lead contamination at Discovery Primary School at levels that far exceeded state safety limits. Of 57 fountains and taps tested, 51 showed lead levels above the state’s action threshold of 5 parts per billion. Forty-six of those — more than 80 percent — tested at more than three times the state limit, triggering a requirement for immediate shutoff.
At Columbia Junior High, a quarter of all taps and fountains tested required immediate action. A pot filler in the school kitchen registered 170 parts per billion of lead — more than 11 times the state’s threshold for immediate removal from service, and 34 times the 5 ppb action level.
“Those kids were using the water,” Almaraz said. “And they trusted it the way we trust the system to be working for us, the way we trust our infrastructure.”
A lead law years in the making — is still not finished
Washington passed a law in 2021 requiring all schools built before 2016 to test every fountain and faucet for lead contamination. Under the law, any fixture testing above 5 parts per billion must trigger a remediation plan, including immediate shutoff and parental notification. Results must be posted publicly online, and all fixes must be completed by June 30 of this year.
But Almaraz, who researched the law himself, says the timeline left him frustrated.
“And here we are at the end of March 2026 doing the initial testing,” he said. “I can’t wrap my head around that.”
Fife school officials told Almaraz they did not intentionally delay testing. Off camera, the district told KIRO 7 that the state Department of Health — which was responsible for scheduling and conducting testing — did not schedule Fife schools until March and April of this year.
Fife public schools told KIRO-7 they took immediate action when they received the test results, including taking some fountains and faucets offline, and making some handwashing-only stations. The EPA says lead in tap water is not absorbed by human skin.
Lawmaker who wrote the law says he was ‘outraged’
State Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-46th District, is the lawmaker who crafted and fought to pass the 2021 legislation. A public health instructor at the University of Washington School of Public Health, Pollet said the law carried a clear mandate.
“There is absolutely no level of lead that is safe to be consumed,” Pollet said. “What parent sends their child to school to have them drink the water and lower their IQ?”
When KIRO 7 showed Pollet the data Almaraz had gathered from Fife schools, the representative said the numbers required urgency, and he’s disappointed schools were not tested and remediated long before now.
“That’s very serious — and that’s one of the reasons why we should have taken action as fast as possible. Not waited,” Pollet said.
Pollet said he began looking into testing statewide after being contacted by KIRO 7, and was surprised by what he found: many schools had only recently been tested, numerous results had not yet been published, and some schools had not been tested at all.
“I was outraged,” Pollet said.
He cited one example from just three months ago: a cafeteria tap at Ingraham High School in Seattle that tested at 222 times the state’s action level — and 74 times above the threshold requiring immediate shutoff.
Pollet said some schools are still not complying with the law’s requirement to publicly post their lead testing data.
“That’s a good question to ask the Department of Health and each school district — why did you drag your feet?” he said.
Some schools have not been tested
More than four years after Washington passed a law requiring lead testing in public school drinking water, roughly 220 schools still have no testing data on record, state health officials told KIRO-7 — and results from recent tests won’t be publicly available for months.
The Washington State Department of Health has sampled 1,572 schools across the state since the law took effect in 2021, but officials say pandemic-era disruptions, staffing limitations and logistical constraints slowed the rollout significantly.
“Schools and DOH were dealing with pandemic response and reduced staff capacity when the laws were passed in 2021,” a DOH spokesperson said. “This delayed implementation until late 2022.”
DOH samplers are continuing to visit schools through the end of the current school year in an effort to reach remaining districts, officials said.
The 2021 law, codified under Chapter 43.70.830 RCW, requires testing of drinking water outlets in school buildings built — or with all plumbing replaced — before 2016. The action level for lead is 5 parts per billion; any fixture testing above 15 ppb must be shut off immediately.
Why testing has taken so long
Beyond pandemic delays, officials cited several structural barriers to completing testing statewide.
Water samples must be collected in the early morning before any water moves through a school building, following a regular school day — a requirement that sharply limits the number of valid sampling days available.
DOH also has a finite capacity to conduct sampling, and schools that opt to hire private contractors receive no state funding or administrative support for that process. Schools must complete required pre-sampling coordination themselves, with DOH providing only technical assistance.
The delay between testing and results
Even schools that have already been sampled may not see their results on the DOH website for some time. The agency posts results six months after the date of laboratory analysis, officials from DOH told KIRO-7.
Schools that were sampled in recent weeks can expect results within four to six weeks — but those results may not appear on DOH’s public results page until roughly six months later.
Officials encouraged community members to contact their school districts directly for results, noting that many districts post results on their own websites sooner.
“The legislation gives school districts six months to create and adopt an action plan, which includes publicly posting test results,” the agency said.
There is no published list of untested schools
DOH does not publish a list of schools still waiting to be tested. The agency releases a two-year sampling plan, as required by law, and updates it annually. Officials said a new plan for the 2026-2027 school year will be released soon.
Some of the approximately 220 schools with no testing data are scheduled for DOH sampling in coming weeks, officials said.
“Fixing” problematic lead fixtures is not required by June 30
The June 30, 2026, deadline applies to initial testing, not remediation, according to DOH. Under the law, there is no statutory deadline for when repairs must be completed. A school’s governing body has up to six months after receiving test results to create and approve an action plan outlining mitigation steps and a timeline for remediation.
Test results from 2022 onward are available at the DOH lead-in-schools results page. Questions about the program can be directed to leadfreekids@doh.wa.gov.
Seattle public schools told KIRO-7 it has recently completed initial testing and is working with results as they come in. Parents can access information at the link here.
‘We broke our promise’
Gerry Pollet’s 2021 law has led to thousands of dangerous water sources being shut off in schools across Washington. But he said the slow pace of testing has left children exposed longer than lawmakers intended.
“We promised the kids we were going to get the lead out of school water within five years,” Pollet said. “And we broke our promise — and children will have lifelong effects from breaking our promise.”
The state’s lead testing data for schools is available at the Washington Department of Health’s website. Parents can also contact their school district directly for results, which districts are often required to post on their own websites.
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