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Schools Encouraged To Test For Lead

Environmental Protection Agency

The Wyoming Department of Education encouraged schools across the state to test for lead.

A memo sent out earlier this month informed superintendents and principals of a program offered by the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s called the 3T Program — for training, testing and telling — and it’s designed to support schools in monitoring and keeping lead in drinking water at minimal levels.

Rich Cripe, from the Department of Environmental Quality, said single family homes are the first area of focus for lead testing, and not all schools are mandated to test drinking water. That means schools can get left out. 

Cripe said most of Wyoming’s water is good quality, and treated to prevent the leaching of lead from old pipes. But the 3T Program encourages schools to take a cautious approach.

"Look at how schools are built. Not all schools are completely brand new. They add on. So you could have an older portion of a school," said Cripe.

He gave Pinedale, a school which tested positive for lead, as an example. "They have older portions and new portions also."

While the EPA guidance is free, schools wishing to test for lead in their drinking water must pay a nominal fee.

The Environmental Protection Agency was unable to comment on this program at this time.

Tennessee -- despite what the name might make you think -- was born and raised in the Northeast. She most recently called Vermont home. For the last 15 years she's been making radio -- as a youth radio educator, documentary producer, and now reporter. Her work has aired on Reveal, The Heart, LatinoUSA, Across Women's Lives from PRI, and American RadioWorks. One of her ongoing creative projects is co-producing Wage/Working (a jukebox-based oral history project about workers and income inequality). When she's not reporting, Tennessee likes to go on exploratory running adventures with her mutt Murray.
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