What I Did When I Found Out There Was Lead in My High School’s Water
. . After school I take a course at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. I’ve noticed that above each water fountain in the museum is a sign reading “Try our NYC tap water — it’s refreshing! Delicious! Healthy!” Knowing that other cities aren’t so lucky, I've always found those signs reassuring. Then, in January, I received an email from my school stating that the water from some of the fixtures in our building had been found to contain an unhealthy quantity of lead. NYC tap water may be great, but it doesn’t matter how clean the water is if it’s running through bad pipes. It’s true that the water at school often came out as a cloudy white, but it would usually clear up after a minute and I never thought anything of it. The lead email started a running joke about being Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with me and my friends, but the humor definitely had undertones of legitimate worry. Even though none of the lead-containing fixtures were in the area of the build...