今日看世界
How Far Will Montana’s Push to Remove Lead from School Drinking Water Go?_我的网站
一 |
二 |
By Keely Larson | KFF Health News
But even with these two new pools of money intended to last two years, the state’s schools may struggle to remove all but the most dangerous sources of lead, considering about half the schools that tested their water between July 2020 and February 2022 found high lead levels. Medical experts say no amount of lead is safe to ingest.
“When you start replacing faucets and drinking fountains in the hundreds of schools that we have in Montana, that gets eaten up pretty quickly,” said Democratic state Rep. Paul Tuss, who added the state funding to an infrastructure bill passed this spring.
If the total were divided evenly among the approximately 590 schools that need to meet the state’s new lead testing rules, each school would receive less than $8,000 from the state to test and upgrade its faucets, pipes and water fountains. The state already knows that 110 schools have had at least one water fixture with lead levels of 15 parts per billion or higher, three times the level that requires action under Montana rules.
Most schools with lead levels over the state limit could address their “exceedances” with the state money, according to state Department of Environmental Quality spokesperson Moira Davin. “Our plan is to address as many schools as possible with this funding,” she said.
But part of the challenge for Montana is that it doesn’t yet know how extensive a problem its schools have. More than a fifth of the state’s schools facing the new rules — 129 facilities — hadn’t completed any sampling as of Aug. 3, said Greg Montgomery, the director of the department’s Lead in Schools program. And replacing a single school’s pipes can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“We are not talking about solving the whole problem here,” said Levin, who worked on lead exposure during her nearly 40 years at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Lead is particularly harmful to children and can lead to brain and nervous system damage and slowed development and growth. It typically gets into drinking water in schools through piping or fixtures. A 2020 state rule requires schools to test water supplies every three years. If lead concentrations surpass 5 parts per billion, fixtures must be addressed — and shut off if higher than 15 ppb.
Jessica Reyes, an economics professor at Amherst College, said prioritizing fountains or pipes with high lead levels after a “first draw” test could help a lot. The test measures lead in water the first time a faucet is turned on for the day, after the water’s been sitting in a pipe all night. That sample provides the best data to pinpoint the greatest risks, she said.
Running all faucets for a few minutes before kids get to school is quite protective for kids, Reyes added, because the quantity of lead diminishes as the water runs. But Reyes likes to imagine a kindergartner who gets to school early for free breakfast and drinks from a water fountain before anyone in the building clears the pipes.
“Everything kids need to grow — lead is the opposite of those,” Reyes said.
Montana officials will decide how to distribute the money from the legislature, reimbursing schools for costs such as installing new faucets, water filters, plumbing and water bottle filling stations. The federal grant, meanwhile, will be used for covering costs related to testing, Montgomery said.
Schools will have to participate in the state’s Lead in Schools program by sampling their drinking water to get any of the state funding, he said, and they won’t be able to use the money on projects completed before the state bill was signed into law.
Montgomery said the amount available to schools would depend on whether they have any fixtures over the “action level,” or fixtures with lead concentrations over 5 ppb. Funding will be prioritized on a first-come, first-served basis, he said.
Even if a school doesn’t have high samples of lead in its test results, Montgomery said, it could seek money to install water bottle filling stations with filters. Schools could also use the money for larger projects such as replacing piping, but, Montgomery said, the state will set a limit on how much each school can get. And, he said, it’s unlikely the money will be able to cover something like a $100,000 pipe replacement project.
The goal is to make money available to all schools, regardless of size, and ensure a couple of schools aren’t “gobbling” the entire amount, Montgomery said. That means schools with extensive issues will likely need to pick which areas to fix.
“We want to make sure the small schools have equal footing as the large schools,” Montgomery said.
Many Montana schools have already launched remediation projects after receiving high lead results.
One sink at Skyview High School in Billings had one of the highest levels of lead detected in schools across the state. Scott Reiter, the executive director of facilities for Billings Public Schools, said the sink was in a control room in the auditorium and people rarely used it. After the results came in, the fixture was removed to make the sink unusable.
On a larger scale, he said, all cold-water piping for drinking and sinks was replaced at Rimrock Learning Center in Billings last summer. Reiter said the school had been remodeled and all fixtures replaced about five years ago, so when lead was detected all over the school, it was clear it wasn’t just one fixture.
“We knew that it had to be in the lines,” Reiter said.
Reiter said the school district used leftover money from a 2013 elementary school district bond to replace Rimrock’s pipes, which he estimated cost $100,000.
While Reiter said he was disappointed costs from the Rimrock pipe replacements and other projects that have already happened couldn’t be reimbursed retroactively, he welcomed the state’s additional funding. “Any help to the schools for something like this is great,” he said.
The Great Falls Public Schools district also exemplifies how extensive and expensive such work can be. The district used $19,511 from an earlier $40,000 state allocation for drinking fountains, water bottle fillers and filters across schools in the district, said Brian Patrick, its director of business services and operations. He said the district also got 783 tests covered by the state, each costing $25.
His district used a bond passed in 2017 to fund a pipe replacement at Lewis and Clark Elementary School, where 23 tests came in at 5 ppb or higher. The pipes were replaced last summer, Patrick said, costing $411,252.
“It doesn’t get fixed in one fell swoop,” Patrick said.
This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF. It has been published with permission.
。当天下午2:34，一个从天而降的不明物体，突然砸中了他们位于那不勒斯市的房子。该物体击穿屋顶，穿过了两层楼，砸入了地板里。“当时发出了十分巨大的声音，（这个物体）差点就砸到我儿子了。
三 | ”博特罗在接受当地媒体WINK News的采访时说道。
四 | 但当他回到家，将这个物体从地板下取出来后，他发现这个 “天外来物”更有可能是人造的。“从顶部形状可以看出来，它最初应该是圆柱形的物体，在穿过大气层时，顶部金属在燃烧中融化
。” 博特罗说。
五 |
六 | 于是，随后每一次HTV货运飞船运来新一批的锂离子电池，都会带走上一批替换下来的旧镍氢电池，直到2020年最后一艘HTV货运飞船离开国际空间站。但这时，空间站上还剩下最后一批镍氢电池没有带走。这个装有九块旧镍氢电池的货物托盘，编号为EP9，总重量相当于一辆大型SUV。
七 | 而其它运载飞船的设计，比如SpaceX的龙飞船
（Dragon），没有办法装下EP9将其运走。
八 | 换句话说，只有HTV货运飞船，才能运走EP9，但HTV已经不会再来了。
国际空间站的每寸空间都很宝贵，EP9这样的大物件，自然不能一直留在空间站上。于是NASA做了一个决定，它们计划直接丢掉EP9——这也是国际空间站丢弃过的最大太空垃圾（space debris）。2021年3月11日，当国际空间站运行至中美洲以西太平洋上空约418千米处时， NASA的地面控制人员操控国际空间站上的机械臂，将EP9从空间站上释放，丢入了太空。当时NASA表示，EP9将会绕地球漂浮2至3年，然后坠入大气层，并在其中完全燃烧。空间站丢弃EP9
九 | 国际空间站就曾多次为避开太空垃圾，而调整轨道。
至于太空垃圾对地面的影响。ESA表示，大约每一周就会有一个较大的空间物体通过大气层冲入地球，不过大部分碎片在到达地面之前就已经完全燃烧了。大多数航天器、运载火箭和运行硬件的设计都是为了尽量让其在大气层中完全燃烧，从而降低相关风险。但此次EP9事件告诉我们，太空垃圾也可能会威胁地面。事实上，这已经不是第一次太空垃圾砸向地面，并威胁人身安全的事件了。据《纽约时报》（The New York Times）报道，1969年，苏联航天器的碎片击中了西伯利亚海岸附近的一艘日本小船，造成 5 人受伤。据福克斯新闻（Fox News）、ABC新闻（ABC News）等多家媒体报道，1997年，美国俄克拉荷马州的一位居民也曾被火箭的碎片击中过肩膀。不过，大家也不用过于恐慌，毕竟被太空垃圾击中的概率非常非常小，而且世界各国也在积极尝试太空垃圾的清理办法，如英国2018年就开始部署“清除碎片”系统，相信未来我们可以还太空一个干净的环境。Current article:http://5gr4.nenyaogecebenliexi.shop/xzpwm/51s5gel.html
Published on:03:04:31
