When All It Takes is a School Project?

The Don Hansen Charitable Foundation send packs to UK schools to encourage Science. A recent pack sent to 600 schools, included materials enabling pupils to assess the taste of the school's drinking water. As some of the results were unexpected, the Charity conducted its own tests on samples of drinking water returned by 81 schools. Fourteen of the samples had lead content that was above 50mg/litre. This is 5 times the recommended maximum level (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/05/science-project-reveals-high-lead-levels-in-schools-water). Lead, of course, is highly toxic and damages Intelligence Quotient. It's why lead was banned as an anti-knocking agent in petrol, decades ago. Having high levels of lead in school drinking water is not a great idea. Lead piping, for water supplies, has been banned for several years. Many schools are, however, older properties built before the 1970s. It has been estimated that 8 million properties in the UK, have lead in their drinking water. Some water companies use additives to their supplies, to reduce lead concentrations. The Aquaphor Company (linked to the Don Hansen Charity) are supplying free filters to the affected schools. It should not, however, have taken a random school project to find this problem.