SUMMIT TWP — Lead in the water at Summit Township Elementary School exceeds state and federal safety standards.

Butler School District officials have known about it at least since September, but the children and staff have been allowed to drink the water, wash hands and make coffee and Kool-Aid with it anyway. They weren't informed about the risk until this weekend.

Young children, infants and pregnant women are especially vulnerable to the health risks from exposure to lead. The risks include brain and kidney damage and interference with the production of red blood cells. Scientists have linked lead with lowered IQ in children.

The staff, children and their parents were not alerted until Friday of the severity of the lead contamination, according to documents obtained this past week by the Butler Eagle.

According to the correspondence among school officials, school board members and staff members at DEP's regional office in Meadville, 10 water samples drawn from various faucets in Summit Elementary in September showed lead concentration levels ranging from 13 parts per billion to 55 parts per billion (ppb).

The only safe level for lead is zero, according to state and federal regulations, but according to standard testing procedures, if 10 percent of the samples measure 15 ppb or greater, a school must notify the public of the specific test results; it also must draw up an approved action plan to fix the problem and remove the lead from the water.

Of the 10 samples taken at Summit Elementary in September, nine measured 18 ppb or greater for lead.

Attorney Thomas King, the district's solicitor, said Friday that the test results in September should have triggered the public notification and action plan immediately. But neither happened. King said he doesn't know why. He wasn't notified by anyone in the district. He was not copied on some of the e-mails included for this report, he said.

“A letter is going home to every parent today,” King said Friday. “Letters also will be mailed. I'm told the teachers and staff were to be informed on Thursday. But all this should have been done as soon as the test results were known.”

The district hired environmental consultant Gannett Fleming Inc. to oversee remediation, King said. The hiring should be formalized during Monday's school board meeting.

In a news release faxed Friday to the Eagle, Superintendent Dale Lumley said he was informed Thursday about the specifics of the testing. He called the district's response to the DEP “both untimely and inadequate.”

The school's water fountains were turned off Thursday. Bottled water, hand sanitizers and wet wipes are being provided for students and staff, Lumley said. Well water is still hooked up to flush toilets in the lavatories, Lumley said.

Some of the correspondence raises questions about which school officials knew about the lead test results, how much they knew and when they knew it, and how much they should have known.

School board member Leland Clark said he grew concerned when he read a copy of a Sept. 28 letter that Summit Elementary Principal William Chwalik sent home with students.

The two-sentence letter reads: “I would like to inform you that the water system for our school's water is corrected. We are able to allow students to drink the water and that we will continue to run periodic checks to ensure that it remains safe.”

The letter's date is the day after the school received the test results. It implies the water was shut down temporarily and parents were notified, but not necessarily told why the water was shut off.

Chwalik's letter didn't mention lead or any other contaminant. It didn't mention DEP or regulatory compliance.

“Was that the DEP giving us a green light?” Clark asked. “And if that's the case, was there additional testing done to get the green light? I didn't see any evidence of it.”

Clark filed a right-to-know request for DEP correspondence with the district and learned there never was an order to turn off the water or turn it back on again — the regulations don't work that way.

Instead, DEP provided the district with an extensive detailed list of requirements, including a detailed plan and timeline to make the school's water system compliant.

That information was given to the district on Sept. 27, the same day the test results were provided.

Copies of the DEP requirements were distributed to board members on Sept. 28 as an e-mail attachment from the office of the superintendent.