District hears detailed briefing on lead testing, auditors' finding disputed

Consultants from Needham Risk Management briefed the Ravena-Coeymans-Selkirk Central School District Board of Education on Feb. 4 about the district's lead and drinking-water testing program and recent audit findings.

Michael Needham, owner of Needham Risk Management, and David Bauer, director of technical services, summarized federal and state guidance behind school water-testing practices and spelled out the health rationale: “The younger somebody is, the more impacted,” Needham said, describing lead’s chronic effects on the nervous system and long bone storage. He told the board the district now uses a lower action standard (stated in the presentation as 5 parts per billion) and called it “extraordinarily low” and an “ambitious” benchmark.

Needham described how sampling is carried out (first-draw samples taken before buildings open, mapping of drinking outlets, lab analysis) and said results are posted on school websites and entered into New York State Department of Health’s HERDS system. He said remediation options include installing filtration, removing outlets from service, or posting “do not drink” signage for non-drinking fixtures.

On a key point of contention, Needham and district staff disputed parts of a controller’s audit that concluded the district had not entered data into HERDS in a timely way. Needham said HERDS displays the last-modified date, which can make earlier, timely first-draw entries look late if additional outlets were added later. District staff described scenarios where certain fountains were offline during COVID and had to be sampled later, producing later modifications to the HERDS record.

The district acknowledged some documentation gaps for parent notifications and said it would produce clearer records going forward. Staff noted that state rules require printed mailed letters for parent notification (backpack mailers), which complicates precise electronic date-stamping. They also described temporary fixes for a cracked pipe linked to hallway and bathroom odors and said a specialist is scheduled to complete repairs.

Board members asked about labeling non-drinking outlets and sampling in science rooms; Needham said science sinks often test higher and that decisions about which outlets to include in sampling are made in consultation with facilities staff. The board did not take formal action on the certification of testing results at the meeting; staff said they will provide the requested documentary evidence and administrative confirmations to address the audit’s record-keeping concerns.

What’s next: staff committed to producing clearer documentation of HERDS entries and parent-notification records and to continuing remediation and mapping of outlets.