Oakland’s Schools Are Contaminated With Lead. What's the District Doing About It?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Oakland school district is looking for ways to fund lead contamination cleanup, after tests earlier this year revealed that at least 30 schools have dangerous lead levels in the drinking water. The district has been under fire from students, teachers and parents for taking months to release the results of its testing. We’ll talk about why Oakland, in the schools and beyond, has such high rates of lead poisoning, how the school district has handled it and what needs to be done to fix it. Guests: Alex Bledsoe, activist filmmaker producing OAKLEAD, a documentary about the history of lead poisoning in Oakland Kelly Hardy, senior managing director of health and research, Children Now, a California-based org focused on improving child well-being Mike Hutchinson, vice president, Oakland School Board Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:46.5	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:02.8	Here's the ugly truth.
1:04.2	Many, many school buildings in older cities have water that is contaminated by lead.
1:09.6	The real question has never been whether this was the case,
1:12.3	though the recent testing in Oakland horrified a new round of parents. The real question is what we're
1:17.6	willing to do as cities, as a state, as a nation, to remediate these problems. To make Oakland schools
1:24.4	water safe, it's going to be expensive and difficult.
1:30.6	Can the money and political will be found to get it done?
1:33.8	Or will this be another problem with a known solution that our society cannot get it together to implement even for our kids?
1:38.3	That's what coming up next after this news. News. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Oakland schools did a round of testing for lead
1:58.1	in their water beginning in April. And though several sites
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