Okemos updates plan to meet Michigan’s Filter First lead-in-water requirements
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Summary
District officials told the board they have installed new filtered drinking fountains, are developing a building-by-building drinking water management plan and expect testing to cost about $10,000 a year while some filtration products and labor estimates remain unresolved.
Okemos Public Schools officials told the board they have largely completed an initial rollout of drinking-water filters and are working through product selection, sampling logistics and ongoing costs to comply with the state’s Filter First law.
Director Brian Lieber summarized the district’s work and said the law, signed in October 2024, requires schools to install lead-reducing filters on at least one drinking water station per 100 building occupants, label all water sources, cap unused sources and test filtered water annually for schools (every two years for childcare centers). “It’s officially occupants,” Lieber said, noting that detail changed from earlier drafts of the law.
The nut graff: The rule will require the district to catalog and label every water source in every school, add or upgrade filters and perform recurring sampling — an expense that will be ongoing even if some implementation costs are covered by one-time grants.
Lieber said the district has installed new bottle-filling drinking fountains across schools and faucet-mounted filters in classrooms where required. He warned that food-service areas and ice makers need higher-flow or specialized products and that vendors have been slower than the law’s timeline to provide tested options. “The legislation has moved a little faster than the technology,” he said.
Sampling logistics remain a live issue. Lieber said the district’s contracted environmental consultant, ERG, will run the sampling program and that statewide lab capacity may be constrained if many districts test at the same time. The district estimates the routine testing program will cost roughly $10,000 per year and is watching for any state grant funding to help cover that cost.
On replacement and maintenance, officials told trustees some faucet-mounted filters are inexpensive but potentially less durable, and that high-school installations will be the most labor-intensive because of how older fixtures were built into walls. Labor and plumbing supplies are still being scoped. Replacement cartridges will require an annual procurement and the district will use a QR-code reporting system so staff and the public can flag problems with specific filtered devices.
Lieber also said the district selected drinking fountain models that could accept PFAS-capable cartridges if future requirements expand beyond lead. Superintendent John Hood told the board the district’s prior remediation work at the Oneida Preschool/Childcare site (OPM) was reimbursed in part through state budget action, and that the district expects to continue sharing test results publicly on the district website.
Trustees asked about flushing practices and whether filters remove the lead risk entirely. Lieber said flushing after long stagnation events remains a best practice and that certified filters are intended to capture lead at sources where lead was previously detected. He cautioned that positive results historically were often tied to specific old faucets and that filtering removes that exposure pathway when the installed product is certified for lead reduction.
Ending: District leaders said they will finalize a drinking-water management plan for submission to the state, continue vendor and product evaluations (notably for food-service and ice machines), and bring updates to the board as sampling schedules and costs are confirmed.
