 Let's go to the chairs that move this morning. What are the records that you tell us to name and who you represent? My name is Katie Ballard, and I am here as a parent. And I am here for disability rights coalition. I first want to start by saying thank you to the committee for giving us the opportunity to speak with you on Disability Awareness Day. As a person living with a disability, as a parent of two children with disabilities, the importance of Disability Awareness Day is big in our family. So having this opportunity today really means a lot. I'll be honest, most of my previous testimony experience had to do with specific bill or subject, so not having one is a little bit harder. So please, if there are questions, don't hesitate to ask, because I know sometimes I can jump around. I am the parent of two children on IEPs in the Essex Westford School District. I have three children who attend school there. We started in the Essex Town School District prior to the merger. And after being homeless for a number of years, we were able to secure an affordable apartment in the junction. Now, given that the school has merged, we were lucky enough to be able to continue our older two children in the school in the town. And my youngest now attends in what used to be the junction. So I've had experience with both different systems a little bit and the way that they navigate special education specifically. I think there are a lot of different opinions and discussions about special education and parents' role in special education. And I think one of the things I'd really like to talk about with you today has been some of the really positive experiences that have come from my ability to be a active and engaged member of my children's IEP teams and how that's benefited their education, as well as our home life, and allowed me to continue to grow and to actually get back to work full time as a person with a disability and still parent to children on IEPs that have intense levels of meetings at times. I'd also like to speak to some of the challenges I have faced as a parent in the education system with two children on IEPs. In the beginning when my older son, so this was back in 2012, we realized there were some challenges with his behavior. And we realized that in preschool. And then we had a house fire where we ended up not being in the district where we had originally thought we would be. So we moved after the start of the year into the Essex town district. And I had no idea what being a parent of a child on an IEP actually meant, what an IEP even was or should be, or where to find that information. And nobody really had a good answer of where to start to try and even become educated myself on some of that. I was thankfully connected eventually to Vermont Family Network through their family support. And they were able to really provide me with the information that empowered me to go to those meetings independently and be able to feel confident in advocating when it was uncomfortable. Being a parent in an IEP team is hard and emotional because you're so focused on your children and their best interests and making sure their needs are met. It's very similar to the feeling coming into this room and sitting at the table with you folks and knowing that I feel 100% safe, but that it is very scary to know that you actually have no control over what is happening other than what you're saying. And I think in an IEP meeting, there is this thought that parents should be team members and parents should have some of that voice. But oftentimes parents, my experience personally and my experience with the families I've supported over the years also has been that until you actually understand what is going on in that room, you're actually not being the most positive voice you can be because you don't always know what you should be saying or sometimes you think something isn't OK, but because you don't understand it, you're not really right. And oftentimes it's so emotional that as a parent with disabilities who has had to put my health to the side to ensure that my children's needs were met at times because things can get very intense in terms of the amount of time required, it's easy to see why parents might feel a little bit scared or unsafe at times to be the one to continually say, hey, can we talk about this? Or, hey, my son's not making progress. He hasn't learned any additional letters from the form he started the school year with. It's now February. What are we going to do? Those aren't conversations you think about having in general as a mom of a child who's not on an IAP and doesn't have special education. That's not something I've ever experienced in that realm. So I imagine if you don't have children who are a part of special education, you really might not understand necessarily what that process feels like, how intense it is, or why some parents may not present with the most appropriate advocacy. Because I think there are a lot of times where parents, myself included, allow their emotions to rule when they don't know what else to do. So I think one of the things I've seen is when parents are provided with the resources or the education to inform themselves, it also allows them to be informed about the expectations on them as a member of the team. So how to respectfully advocate and appropriately advocate in that room without getting personal or without it becoming a conflict between you and the school. Because at the end of the day, when you're feeling that conflict, you're not actually collaborating successfully together. And for me, I have been disabled since I was in my 20s. So I have lived without a disability and I've lived with a disability. And one of the benefits of being truly included in the IEP process was that I was finally able to look at full-time employment and not worry about losing my job because between my own health and my children's needs, it requires a lot of time away from my job. So by being included and by understanding the process and being able to advocate to various levels, including here at the State House in the past, it has taught me how to be in that room and how to also help other families get in that room. And when you're disabled or your child is disabled, that can be a very overwhelming process. I now sit on the Advisory Council for Child Poverty and Strengthening Families for the Mott Coalition for Disability Rights. I was recently hired as a Family Resource Coordinator for Early Intervention at Vermont Family Network. And the people they look at to hire those family resource coordinators are people who parent children with disabilities or are disabled themselves. So they're providing opportunities to work, to families who need a little bit more flexibility and can also meet families where they are in the process so they can come in and kind of help them balance what they're experiencing and what the information they're getting is and connect them to the necessary resources. Okay, I wanna make sure we have a little bit of time for questions too. And I just have one quick one for you. So in terms of the special ed process, if you can remember your first IEP meeting. Oh, I can very clearly. You can very clearly. One of the questions that's always before us is our parents, did you feel adequately notified about what your rights were as a parent? I did not become adequately notified or informed of what my rights were for the first three years. And it took me accessing the Agency of Education and Vermont Family Network's Family Support Program to be able to be provided with that information and also to learn that my family's experienced homelessness in the school district. And I'm not sure, but Vermont was the fifth highest per capita rate of family homelessness in the country last year. And in Vermont, the highest number of homeless children being served is disabled children. So I wasn't even aware of the McKinney-Vento law when we had a homeless liaison after a house fire and wasn't aware of any of the appeal process or anything and actually ended up having to go through multiple years of navigating between the AOE and the U.S. Department of Education and the district to be sure everyone was using the same process and paperwork because the district actually wasn't aware of the newer paperwork that was available on the AOE website. A couple more minutes. Sorry, I was told the 15 to 30 minute window, so I was just trying to give you guys as much. Yeah, so thank you. We're kind of working with the 15 to 30 minute window. Are there other questions? I think one last point that I'd really like to make is one thing that would really support both parents families with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities that may not be disabled themselves would just be to really, I know you guys have heard a lot of testimony about the special education advisory committee and all of that. And I just think there are a lot of parents out there who have struggled to present and maybe not have given the best picture of the value that parents can bring by sharing their experience and their voice when done respectfully and appropriately. And I think the better we can as a state come together to bridge the gap and help families not see it as a conflict with the district, but as an uncomfortable conversation that can be uncomfortable and still be productive. Absolutely. And as you know, we just moved our special advisory panel with one more day with it here. And hopefully this will reinvigorate that panel so that there are more parent representatives on there because those voices are really critical. They're only in school for part of the time but they're with you all the time. Absolutely. I think that is one of the hardest things to navigate as a parent is recognizing that they are with you all the time, so you do have a lot of knowledge but the value that the school team brings that they see in their day is on the same level and allows you to when you can work together and have that consistent communication allows you to provide consistency in the home and in the school. And I've seen that significantly decrease the number of services that my son has needed to access to be in the classroom or to have adequate educational benefit. So I think there is some cost-saving reasons to continue that very important discussion. Absolutely. Further questions or comments? I can't hear you. Yes, keep going. I just want to say I think you're awesome. I was a guidance counselor at the Essex Middle School for most of my career and I just think you're awesome. You're articulate, you know, you're an advocate and I just want to congratulate you because I really think you're number one. Thank you. And the reason that I have been able to find my voice and advocate has been through my experiences with the school district. Even the negative ones and overcoming them and learning through them have really helped me to see how to do that. And so I really respect the quality of educators that we do have here in the state and think it's a very important balance to recognize. Thank you. Thank you so much. Now we're moving on to lead. Oh. Oh, for back to lead. Yes, for back to lead. And Michael O'Grady is going to walk us through the bill. My only lead, thank you. Is it on your face? If you like that, I'll give it a three. Yeah, don't worry. This one. I don't see it on your face. I don't know. I don't see it. Can you get my fridge to come? Yeah, sorry, I turned it off. It was definitely super loud. And just look for S. Wardens. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm going to fish. That's okay. Sure. Yeah. I'll let it for now. Yeah, that'd be great. I'll let it for a while. No, it's okay. Bye. Thank you. We've been hearing a bit about this bill. Yeah, I just heard a little bit about it on the floor too. So would you like me to just walk star one third? Would you walk us through the bill? My name is Michael O'Grady with the legislative council. Just going to give you a broad overview before you go into the line by line of the bill. Generally, this bill requires schools and childcare providers to test outlets in buildings that are occupied by students and staff for lead. If results indicate exceedance of an action level above three parts per billion, the school, the childcare provider is required to implement a lead remediation plan, prevent usage of that outlet until retesting indicates that it is under the action level or safe, I should say. And then there will be retesting required according to a schedule adopted by the department of health by rule. There is notification requirements to parents and staff prior to testing and when the results are down. And all results are posted on the department of health website or total public transparency. Spending on the testing. I think you just heard a little bit on the floor what the spending will be. It is contemplated that the department of health, the state will pay for the initial testing. There would be a cost share for remediation and there would be two positions. Created one at the department of health and one at the agency of natural resources to staff the requirements. Any spending by a school would not be calculated as part of the excess spending calculation. So moving on directly into the bill. There is a new chapter being added in title 18. Title 18 is the health chapter. So this is a program that's administered and implemented by the department of health. You'll see that there's a section 1241. The purpose of that section is to require all schools and I'm just gonna say all schools throughout but it is for school districts, supervisory unions, independent schools and so it's every variant of school that you can think of. So all schools and childcare providers test drinking water in their buildings and childcare facilities for lead, contamination and develop an appropriate response for a lead remediation when sampling indicates unsafe levels so that's the purpose. There is a definition. Key definition is the action level. Three parts per billion. I expect you heard testimony from the sponsor or the reporter why it's three parts per billion. Building is any structure, facility, addition or wing that may be occupied by children or students. Childcare provider, there's a default definition of childcare provider. I can go through that if you would like but it's basically those that are licensed by the state. The childcare facility is where the childcare provider provides their services. The commissioner is the commissioner of health. Then you get to drinking water which is non-carbonated water that is intended for human consumption or other consumer uses. First draw sample means a 250 milliliter sample of drinking water that has been standing in plumbing pipes at least eight hours. It's collected without flushing the tap and is conducted before the building for facility owners. So that's the first draw. That's where it has been standing for eight hours but there's also the flush sample which is a sample of drinking water from an outlet. It's taken from the outlet after the water has run for 30 seconds. And that helps to identify the source of the lead. If it's just been sitting in the pipes there can be certain results and if it's flowing you can get other results and so that is to help distinguish the source of the lead in the water. Outlet means a drinking water fixture currently or potentially used for consumption or cooking purposes including a drinking fountain, ice machine or a faucet. Later on in the bill in 1243 subsection G you'll see that bottled water and water in from vending machines is also not subject to this bill. You get a definition of potable water. This water is sufficient for consumption and free from impurities. I'm not gonna go over the rest of it in the way that needs to be free from. And that's really the definitions. That brings you to section 1243 of the testing of drinking water. So first the scope of testing, statement of what it is to require. It is to require testing by each school and each childcare provider in the state in any building or facility that owns controls or operates. So moving on from there, you get the initial sampling on or before January 1st of 2020. Each school or childcare provider shall collect the first draw sample and the flesh sample. And remember the two different samples from each outlet, each building or facility that owns controls or operates. Sampling occurred during the school year. The Senate committee wanted sampling to occur during real time conditions and not during the summer when there wasn't actual use of the building or the outlets. At least five days prior to sampling, the school or childcare provider notifies all staff and parents directly in writing or electronic needs. They provide the schedule of sampling, the requirements for testing, why testing is required and the potential health effects of exposure. Information regarding how the school or childcare provider shall provide notice of the sample results and how the school district, school, childcare provider shall respond to a sample that exceeds the action level. Now the department is gonna be overseeing the program. They may adopt a schedule on how these schools or childcare providers do the testing. That's important because later on you'll see that the department is responsible when we're conducting a lab analysis or contracting for the lab analysis. So that they probably wanna do it in a way so that not every school in the state is doing it in the same time period. So then there's a requirement for continued sampling after January of 2020. Each school or childcare provider shall sample each outlet and each building or facility at homes according to a schedule adopted by the Department of Health by rule. There is an interim methodology and this trips up people a little bit. So ultimately the Senate wanted the department to set the requirements for testing but they also wanted testing to go into place as soon as possible. So during that interim before the rulemaking there is saying that prior to adoption of those rules sampling shall be conducted according to a methodology established by the Department of Health provided that it has to be at least as stringent as EPA's three teams for reducing lead and drinking water in schools. Does anybody talk to you about the three teams? We have not talked about the three teams. So that's one thing that you. We've been talking about it a lot but we have not actually talked about what we need on the case. Sure. It's basically a guidance document that EPA has published and they've published it for many years now which provides information to schools on why to test, how to test, the methodology for testing. It does provide guidance for notification. So it's effectively kind of a framework for how schools or states can do this testing. What are the T's stands for? Testing, treatment, and. Training, training. I didn't hear the treatment part but I'll do the training and the testing. Sorry. All right, so then we go on, should I move on? On page five, you're in subsection E waiver. There is this provision that the commissioner shall waive the requirements for a school or childcare provider to do the sampling if they have completed sampling of outlets in their buildings in the counter year proceeding January 1, 2020. They conducted that sampling according to a methodology consistent with the departments and they implemented or scheduled remediation that ensures drinking water from all outlets does not exceed the action level. So I'm sure you know that there was a pilot program that went on and this is basically to address those schools in the pilot program. They don't need to retest again if they've already tested within the previous calendar year and are scheduling remediation for exceedances. But those schools are still eligible to receive financial assistance from the state for the cost of remediation that's been implemented. The Senate did not wanna penalize schools in the pilot project for their participation in the pilot project. So at the top of page six, you'll see the laboratory analysis requirement I referenced earlier. The analyses of drinking water samples required shall be conducted by the Department of Health or someone at the lab that the department contracts with. Then you get to page six, sub G, the application to bottled water. The Senate wanted to express its intent that its intent is to achieve significant reductions in lead levels of all drinking water provided to children in schools or childcare providers. With that said, they recognize that there is an acceptable lead level in bottled water by the FDA. And so bottled water from vending machines and bottled water from water dispensers shall be exempted. So FDA is the one that set the five. For bottled water, there's an FDA standard as five parts per billion. Do we know what they base that on? I don't know the basis of it, but I can find you the basis of that if you would like. We're just having a lot of numbers thrown out and I'm just struggling with what they only need. Sure. That's where we throw the dog. Yeah, I think you're getting here numbers anywhere from zero to 20. I can talk about that now if you would like or not. Yeah. So zero, generally, scientifically, there's no safe level of lead. It has an impact. That's according to EPA and other scientists. But EPA has set an action level of 15 parts per billion, meaning that if that is tested or found in a sample to be in water, according to them, that is when a public water system or anyone else required to test should do something to remediate, to cause it the water to get below that 15 parts per billion. You know when that was set? I don't know the date, but I can find out. What confuses things somewhat is that they also issued a guidance document that said, you really need to start worrying about it when it's a 20 parts per billion. So basically you'll see some states with lead testing a 20 parts per billion and they base that off of that EPA guidance. But when the actual action level is 15, and some states have already implemented lower than 15, there are three states, three jurisdictions, there's the District of Columbia, Illinois, and I think Montana, Pennsylvania just went up 15. Anyway, there's a third state out there. So, and Montana may have just proposed it by rule, that's why I'm thinking next month. But, so that's where you get zero, that's where you get five, because some states have five. 15 is from the EPA action level, 20 is from a guidance document that they had issued as well. Three was based on the Senate's review of the testimony they received, review of how other states are contemplating going below 15, and what they thought was achievable and affordable. So, in terms of all 50 states, is the action level across the board 15, or some have something and some have nothing? So, there's a maximum contaminant level of 15 parts per billion for public water systems, all right? Not all schools are public water systems. Some schools in Vermont are public water systems, and they are already testing, either bi-annually or quarterly, for lead. If they exceed that, then there are requirements under the water supply rule for what that level is. The water supply rule just cross references the US EPA's rules for lead and copper. So, basically you would have to do what the US EPA rules say if you have an exceedance of the 15 parts per billion. So, just to be really concrete here, then, if I walk into any public building around the country that's considered a public building, I can be guaranteed, because everybody is following the rule and the law, that it would be 15 or less, or they'd be breaking the law. First, there are different kinds of public water systems. So, not everything that you think is a public building is subject to this. So, that's the first thing. There's community public water systems. There's non-community public water systems. There's transient non-community and community public water systems, and there's non-transient non-community community. I don't really want to tell you the definition because one of them is, it's not the other, so. Yeah. Right. I can feel comfortable in the post office. Right. Just put your own bottle of water. That's probably a transient public community system, and yes, I think that they would be subject to this. I'm gonna back away from this question. So, there are four different categories. Yes. And what is most typical in Vermont schools? That's, they're not all public water systems at the beginning. Right. So, if they're getting their water from a community system, they use Champlain water and chicken in it. So, most of those schools are getting their water from the Champlain water district, and that is the public water system. They are the ones that are required to test. The schools aren't required to test, but if a school is on a well, they likely are a public water system that has to test. I had the numbers. Originally, I don't have the numbers in my head. Now, I can get you the numbers on the number of schools that are public water systems. Thank you. Okay, moving on to 1244, the response to actionable levels. So, if the sample indicates an exceedance of the action level at the outlet, the school child care provider shall conduct remediation that's required. And it's to eliminate or reduce the lead levels from the outlet. And the Senate wanted to be, have a kind of a directory statement, not necessarily mandatory, that they wanted to direct schools and child care facilities to try and achieve the lowest level possible in drinking water, and add a minimum child prohibit use of the outlet until a lead remediation plan or remediation approved is implemented. Sampling indicates that the lead levels are below the action level, the outlet is, or the outlet is permanently removed and cannot be accessed by a person. After a lead remediation plan or other approved remediation is implemented, retest the outlet until results indicate the levels are below the action level, and then provide occupants of the building and adequate supply of potable water until remediation is performed. They must also notify all staff and all parents directly of the test results in writing or by electronic means within 10 business days after receipt. And they have to submit their lead remediation plan to the department as they're completed. As I referenced in the overview, there are record keeping requirements. The department retains all records of test results, lab analysis, lead remediation plans, and waiver requests for 10 years. And the records produced are public. And then there's a public notification that commissioners shall publish on the DOH website the data from testing so that the results are fully transparent and accessible. The data shall include a list of all buildings or facilities at which an outlet exceeded the action level within the previous two years. Commissioners shall publish all retesting data on the website within two weeks of receipt. Then the agency of education shall include a link on its website to the Department of Health website. So in case someone was thinking, oh, I can find this information on the agency of education website, even though the agency of education has no mandate under this, they will still be able to find that information. There is a consultation requirement in section 1246 when a lab analysis shows an exceedance, the school or child care provider shall consult with the commissioner on how to develop a lead remediation plan. There's also a guidance provision, the commissioner of the Department of Health shall issue guidance on development of the lead remediation plan by a school or child care provider, and they shall reference the US EPA's three keys. There's rulemaking. Remember, there's the interim methodology for initial sampling. There's continued sampling. The rulemaking is the requirements for sampling after the interim or the initial sampling. So on report November 1, 2020, the commissioner shall adopt rules regarding implementation of the requirements. The rule shall include requirements for sampling. The rule shall include requirements for frequency of sampling. The rules will include requirements for implementation of the lead mitigation plan or other necessary response. They will include conditions or criteria for waiver and any other requirements that the commissioner deems necessary. There is an enforcement provision. This is to provide some incentive, but it's after notice and an opportunity for hearing the Senate contemplated that if the school wasn't complying that the commissioner of health will provide notice to that school, give that school an opportunity to come into compliance. If they don't, there's still an opportunity for a hearing and for the opportunity for the school to come into compliance. Then if they still don't, they can impose an administrative penalty above the $500 for a violation. Penalties that are not designated where they go are paid to the state. And if there's no special fund for where they will be put in, like victim services, the money goes into the general fund. So if there's a penalty, it's paid into the general fund. I'm sorry, where does it say that? If there's a penalty, if someone- Where is it? I just was wondering where this was. 1248. 1248. On page 10, section two, this is the definition of education spending. I do not want to go through this in detail because I don't really understand it. But I know that on page 11, B11, that the costs incurred by a school district for supervisory union when sampling drinking water outlets shall not be included in the calculation of education spending. You'll see that it's just school districts for supervisory unions and not independent schools that are not subject to the excess funding calculation. Then you'll see section three, the position sampling of drinking water outlets in school, one position at ANR and environmental analysts, one position at the Department of Health, the public health analysts. The bill takes effect on passives. So I'm sorry, it's two positions. Yep. One is Department of Health. What is the agency, what's the percentage at ANR? ANR is, well, stepping back, ANR generally has jurisdiction over testing of public water systems, testing of wells, et cetera. So they are going to be important or engaged in the process regarding testing. And they believe that they need this position and it's initially intended to be limited service and permanent, so meaning it will go away after it's not necessary. Questions? They did fiscal note, I'm sure. Pardon me? They did fiscal note? They did. We're having Stephanie, if I manage to explain that, stop. Okay. Okay. Question? Yes. Rapitans, too. On page seven, page four, page four, says the Neurofile staff and parents, four guardians, there's nothing to do. It's only, is there a reason why they left and they tell if they don't fill the students? Maybe that's not a good question for you. I think they were looking to get noticed to the adults. I do know that most of the guidance documents out there, it's about the notice to the parents and the staff and other users sometimes in other states, but I don't recall, maybe some of the advocates can correct me, I don't recall the requirement to notify the student, too. I'm just thinking of the ones. Yeah, correct. The ones for you. Yeah. Representative Jim Batista. On the last page, where the limited service positions are authorized, I assume that was done with an assumption that funding would be in budget adjustments or any future iteration of the bill in which positions were funded for the fiscal 20 budget that would need to reflect that, I think? Yes. Okay. Right, because this was the, as you'll see about the fourth line from the bottom, it was authorized in the fiscal year 2019. Okay. Actually, one more question. This might be for Stephanie. Sound like we're gonna enjoy the fiscal year shortly, but limited service position does not carry a, it's not a full time FTE, but it's just for a period of time and their service term is dependent upon whatever's funded. I think it depends. Okay. Right, it depends on the position. Sometimes they are temporary full time or full time temporary, I can't remember. So they are FTEs and I think you're gonna have to talk to Stephanie about how this was going to be funded, especially for fiscal year. Is it in rulemaking where details will be worked out? I think about child care centers or an in-home child registered daycare, where only a portion of the house is used for that. Would it be within rulemaking where they would say, okay, only those fixtures that serve the child care portion of the residence would need to be tested? Or does the testing is still not? Right now the outlet is a drinking water fixture currently are potentially used for consumption of drinking purposes. So if there was an outlet in that facility that's potentially could be used for drinking water or cooking, this would require testing. All right, now there was contemplated that if users, students, staff didn't have access to like a sink in a janitor's closet, that that wouldn't need to be tested. Where there's that possibility for access that it was contemplated, it would be tested. With that said, some child care facilities are already required to test. It's usually on the term of the renewal of their license and it can be more frequent depending on if they show an exceedance. Do you have to see if it's true for registered as opposed to licensed? It's licensed, I believe, right now. Mr. Mastin, if a facility is found to have about three community tests and the parents don't want the child tested to see if there's been any, but listening, I'm assuming the parents incurred a cost? This bill does not contemplate those costs of testing the child during the blood test for the child. Representative Matista. I'm just wondering, in the course of developing this bill did the committee in the Senate consider the Department of Children and Families because we're talking about child care centers here and I know that the Department of Health is part of the Agency of Human Services but we seem to have a direct nexus to the Agency of Education for Schools but it feels as though there's a lack of connection to CBD or whoever would be doing the child care licensure. I believe the Department of Health has the child care facility rule now, not you. Well, then it's DCF, yes. Now, there wasn't any contemplation or coordination that I know of with DCF that I would have to go back to the various systems. I know that the Chair of Human Services would want this bill and there, our understanding there is that licensed child care facilities are required to do work but they're not held to the standard of the rate, is that correct? Are they 15? Just got my Department of Health over here. I have a question to speak. I'll just follow up on yours, speaking with the non-witness. And that's licensed versus registered, right? Reservant. So this is David Elner, I'm a senior policy advisor at the Commissioner of Health. All licensed child care facilities and all licensed child care providers are required to test so they're all licensed just different kinds of licenses. And so they're required to test consistent with the water supply rule, so today that's 15. So this bill would change. Correct. It would be adjusting that, yeah. They're questions. So actually, can I? Yes, please. Because I've heard people say that this changes other requirements and law that it impels by implication the MCL maximum contaminant level for public water system. And I don't agree with that because in appeal by implication, the legislature needs to show that they intended to appeal by implication in a manner that the two different laws are so repugnant to each other that it would be it's clear that the legislature intended to repeal by implication or that they are so overlapping in scope that they both cannot be implemented independently. And so if you're a child care facility that has to show testing that they meet the 15 parts per billion once every three to five years, I can't remember the term. You can do that and still conduct the testing for three parts per billion every year or whatever frequency of retesting will be required. I don't see, I see that you can do both of these without them being repugnant to each other. Similarly with the public water systems, this bill is a Department of Health bill. Public water systems are an agency and natural resources program. The water supply rule applies to public water systems. This bill only applies to schools and childcare providers. Child care providers can test for three parts per billion and those that are public water systems can conduct testing for the 15 parts per billion on a quarterly or bi-annual basis. I don't see, I don't see repugnancy. I don't see overlap that creates total conflict that prevents them from doing both. Representative Elder. Just curious how the number of three parts per billion would arrive down. There's no saying the pilot study that was completed. One part of the building was used and so a lot of the data range that we have, we wanted to try to extrapolate this pilot study that had been done is not really in a particularly useful range data-wise. I'm just kind of wondering how do they get from the pilot study measuring with really just the number of one PPP and 15, where did three PPP come into it in the course of the Senate? You know, can you speak to that? The committee took testimony from scientists, experts and others, looked at levels in other states and tried to set a standard that they thought was as protective of children as possible while still being implementable and relatively affordable. They were trying to be ambitious and they definitely had discussions about going lower. Just to clarify, so if we have a public water system such as this, we have water that's coming from Lake Shenflade, it goes to the facility there, it's treated, it's sent down the line with other things going on with the water as it goes and this bill is only talking about really pretty much what's happened at the level of the faucet whereas A&R is checking what's happening with the water more before it's leaving the water. Well A&R's requirements, they're supposed to do, the public water system is in just the plant where the water is brought in is the entire system, including the piping and the satellite pumping stations, et cetera. So they're supposed to test throughout the extension of the system, but that's about what's in the water. The fact that the fixture might be made out of lead is not governed by. And that seems to be the major, one of the major sources of lead that we're dealing with is actually at the level of the fixture. That has been the testimony, yes. Now Vermont banned lead or banned it to a certain point, there's a de minimis level that's allowed in plumbing fixtures, but that did not go into place until 2008 maybe. And was there an update in 2014? The federal rule complied with what previously had been California, Vermont, New Jersey, I believe. And so basically from 2008 to 2014, my understanding limited research is that a lot of manufacturers had dual assembly lines going and that there was not necessarily a lot of fidelity in maintaining. So in other words, 2008 to 2014, what you're gonna get that's called a lead-free faucet, which is at the 0.25%, as opposed to the 8%, is not such a sure thing. It sounds like, and so if you really wanted to look, you need to look at the MSF certified as opposed to compliance, because you can just report compliance without testing. There's now a category, but it really starts in 2015 of what was commercially available. So it's pretty recent. Sound right to you. He knows more than I do. I'm not attracted to Vermont, I just don't know. I have a question. The person down there is scary. One thing I was just noticing in the pilot project is that it really seemed that the strong recommendation is to go to bottle fillers, right? For the bottle filling station, seems like one of the best practices. And I have been interested in this just because it kind of seems that we're gonna do all this testing to basically tell us something that we kind of already know, which is that any fixture made before 2015 probably has an 8% lead level in it and is gonna keep causing elevated lead levels as long as you use it, as long as water doesn't matter. So I just wondered to some extent, should we just be going through and saying, we're getting rid of all fixtures that are older and we're gonna take that one and a half million for all the testing we're gonna do it and we're gonna put it into subsidizing bottle filling stations, or just, and I know that that's a pretty different route to get there. It's just as I've been kind of looking at this, it kind of seems, I guess the strong is arguing I can hear against that as well. There's a lot of faucets out there that might have an 8% lead level, but they're not causing elevated readings. So if we did that, potentially, testing would mean that maybe we'd only have to replace 20% instead of 100%. But it doesn't seem to me that there's any reason to believe that you're not gonna have an elevated lead level later because you're just leaving all these faucets in place that have 8% lead in them. I've also read that there's totally different readings. You can get an assistant, if a system has chlorine in it, as opposed to if it has chloramine in it, that leads to a different lead level and that has nothing to do with the fixture. So anyway, I'm sorry to get so into weeds. I'm just not convinced that this million and a half of testing is well-suppacked when there's 2.4 total. I guess that's my point in the end. So there is a correlation to disinfected by-products with lead? Is that your understanding? There can be yes. My favorite old topic from the other day. Does everyone know what a disinfected by-product is? There are requirements under the Safe Drinking Water Act, Federal Safe Drinking Water Act, for water systems to treat their water to certain safety standards. Treatment can actually create by-products which can have health effects as well. So there's secondary treatment standards that are intended to treat the by-products of the initial disinfection. And those secondary, the disinfectant by-products can be harmful and the case study that people use is that there's an island off the coast of Virginia treating its water prior to the secondary treatment, standard provision. Treating its water, according to Safe Drinking Water Act, multiple, multiple failed pregnancies, birth issues, and it was from the disinfected by-products. Have we sent the change? Okay. No, that was one of the questions I had, just so I didn't get that clarification. Thank you, Michael. May I interrogate the member from Starkspur? No. And maybe this isn't the time to do that. Let me just see who else we have going here. We've got Kale up here all the time, so. I think it's pretty good. Let's keep the focus a little bit with the attorney at the moment. Okay, let me try. So the three was just kind of an educated guess is to say it's as close to zero as we can get, also being not so restrictive at the actionable level. Three is the actionable level. Yes. There was testimony in the Senate committee about going, that it should be zero. That there is no safety law. That zero may be a cheap. And that they heard testimony, you'll probably hear similar testimony with what the state agencies think should be done versus what the child health advocates think should be done. I think everybody thinks something should be done. Is there anybody that they did not have time to ask to testify that you would be willing to recommend us? Not that I'm aware of. They had a pretty good list. All right, anything else for Michael Grady? Thank you. Thank you very much. Hey, Elena. Just a change of the thing. Oh, no, it's that you want to show them those things as you go. It's okay. You can, if you're that screen. Thanks, I know. I want folks to be here. Yeah, that's fine. I have my laptop because I don't have a hard copy of the most recent bill, but, okay, for the record, my name's Elena Mahali. I am an attorney at Conservation Law Foundation. Thank you, Chair Webb, for the time to testify this afternoon. I want to, I submitted some written testimony and I'm gonna just pull out some of the highlights based on the conversation that I've heard this committee have already and the questions that have come up. So hopefully I can just hone in on the real questions you have. The first is the action level. CLF is one of the organizations that is advocating for the action level to be one part per billion. There's no debate, I think, as you all heard from the scientific and the medical health community that there is no safe level of blood for children or anyone to be exposed to. The American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Toxicology Program, have done research showing that even trace levels, minuscule levels of blood exposure have severe lifelong irreversible consequences for kids and adults. And for that reason, the American Academy of Pediatrics and our own Vermont Department of Health have set an advisory level of one part per billion. That is the health-based standard. So that has been set. There are really adverse consequences that I just want to take the time to walk through because I think we sometimes just say, oh, there are really bad health impacts and don't really focus on them. So I want to take a minute. So once water is ingested that has lead in it, it flows from the blood to the brain, to the kidneys and the bones. And in children, the impacts that this can cause are attention deficit disorders like ADHD, decreased IQ level, delayed learning and behavioral problems, decreased hearing, decreased growth in terms of stature, decreased kidney function, and we know that it's just as deleterious for adults as well, who let's not forget that there are teachers in these places and there are staff in the childcare centers. And in terms of the adverse impacts to adults, we know that lead can cause decreased kidney function. Again, that is really an area that's focused on increased blood pressure, incidents of hypertension, other cardiovascular effects. And in pregnant women especially, it's very damaging. Early births, stillbirths, miscarriages, terrible impacts to pregnant women. And we know that there are significant costs of lead exposure on the individual that's being exposed. But also on society writ large, the testimony that I've just been witness to today and yesterday, talking about behavioral issues in the number of students that are needing extra attention. The loss of IQ in a student and increased susceptibility to attention deficit disorders, that has a significant cost beyond just that student on our entire education system. We're also seeing research come out that's documenting a strong correlation between childhood lead exposure and violent crimes, which has both a direct economic cost in the millions of dollars, but other costs than society that are much harder to quantify. Lead exposure also creates mental health emergencies for parents and families that learn that their children were exposed to lead for sometimes a decade in school and they didn't know it. Parents have described guilt, extreme stress and anxiety, sometimes even suicidal thoughts, after learning that they have not known and not prevented their child from getting exposed day after day when they go to school or when their infant is going to a childcare center. Especially the infant, the early stages, zero to five, that is when the primary architecture of the brain is being built. And that is when kids are most susceptible to these toxic impacts. So to the extent that anyone is trying to get childcare centers out of this bill, I would urge this community to bear that in mind, that actually those are the most vulnerable for monsters that we should be protecting. Public health experts estimated that the lead exposure crisis in Flint, Michigan could cost that city $400 million and thousands of cumulative years of poor health and impacted children. These costs to individual children, to families, to society, on the whole, they far outweigh the any estimates for the costs of preventing exposure. Remember from that Vermont pilot study that the cost of remediation was no more than $500 for the majority of those schools. So when we talked about, so according to that study, I believe that $500 was the maximum that any school paid for remediation. Now those are specifically taps, replacement of fixtures. We're not talking about bigger reparations like lead service lines, but that's what was reported in that pilot study. I recently asked if they said something like 450 schools with 50 taps, that's like a lot of taps. There are more taps than you would think in schools. And I think that goes to something that Dr. Costanza was talking about yesterday, how one option is to actually just take out of service a tap since there are so many taps in schools. But my point is that when we talk about costs, we have to talk about all the costs. Not only the costs of the individual impact, but society, the economy. And it's important to just have a whole frame big picture. The second thing I wanna just note is that one part per billion, I think Dr. Costanza yesterday from Middlebury made my case for me that one part per billion is achievable. So to the extent that you're asking if three was the actionable, one has been demonstrated to be a number that schools can and aren't already meeting. So we already have schools throughout Vermont that are meeting the one part per billion standard. We know that replacing, if they're not, that replacing the tap is often a very low cost low hanging fruit option to routinely get to one part per billion. They won't always, but it is a low cost option. And Representative Elder brought up the notion of NSF certified filters. These are readily available on the market filters that can reliably get water levels down to one part per billion or below, even when challenged. So an EPA study coming out of the Flint crisis, they looked at 200 samples of water containing over 150 parts per billion of lead and they ran them through these filters and reliably got down to below one part per billion. I think in fact 80% of them had a detection, a non-detect level of lead. So if we had a detective, an action level was at three. Once it got repaired, these newer faucets, that's gonna bring it down below at one anyway, right? Did that make sense? Most likely if you install a filter, you will get down to, if it's an NSF certified filter, in most scenarios, you will get down to below one. Yes. I wanna talk about the 15 part per billion standard that's been talked about. It took me as an advocate that works in water quality for my living. A long time to understand this. So I know that this is maybe some repeat, but hopefully helps clarify. So the Department of Environmental Conservation yesterday talked about EPA setting what's called this MCL, a maximum contaminate level of 15 parts per billion. They assert that this represents what's technically feasible and cost-effective. And I just wanna note that reliance on that EPA level for schools and for daycare centers is a very different scenario than relying on that for a big public water system for a couple of reasons. First, it's not a health-based standard. We know that because the Vermont Department of Health's own health advisory is one part per billion. Second, it's an outdated standard. It was first promulgated in 1991 and it remains largely unchanged since then. So it's almost a 30-year-old standard. It also is primarily based on corrosion control technology that is available to an entire water system as opposed to other technological options that are available to schools on a tap, individual tap basis to remove lead. So it's a standard based on what a whole system is technically available, like reasonably available to them to do to address lead versus what a school can do at a tap-wide basis. Can I just clarify for something? You're saying that the 15-part per bill per billion was basically a corrosive level and that was a concern versus a health concern? Yes. Was it necessarily to protect the water system but not necessarily the health system? Yes. It's a standard that EPA has to take into consideration what's the available technology and the available technology to a system and what that would cost for a system is different than if EPA were looking at an individual school and what they could do. So what I'm saying is it's kind of like comparing apples to oranges to say that the 15-part per billion standard is applicable to schools because EPA just didn't, that wasn't a part of their calculus when they were setting that action level over almost 30 years ago. And finally. Would be, I actually would appreciate that to verify that with research so that you get that clarified because if we get to this event so we're gonna have to say why we're not doing 15, we're doing something else and that feels very important. I'm happy to provide that. I will also, yeah. Yeah, okay. Also just I'm not understanding what you're saying about the Vermont Department of Health has set an advisory level at one. What's that? What is, how does advisory level differ then from what we're talking about here? Well, I can defer, I can give you an answer but Department of Health is here. My answer would be that it's a, when it's an advisory, it's a guideline to be used. It's not enforceable. And what we're talking about here, what we're asking for is to use that guideline to set an enforceable standard so we can actually require remediation to that standard. Right now it's serving as guidance and what I was gonna say is that we've heard about this three T's document. I think Dr. Costanza yesterday referred to it as the Bible of lead testing and that EPA had put out. And that updated three T's book. So it was last updated, I believe in 2006. EPA itself said that 15 parts per billion is not a health based standard. And we recommend that states quote, set the lowest possible action level in consideration of whatever the guidance is from the health department. Here, our health department's guidance has set a standard of one part per billion. So the EPA's own three T's document implores the state to set that level, that action level at whatever the Vermont Department of, whatever the State Department of Health has guided them is the health based standard. I can submit the three T's document with that language in it. Your opinion would it be a good practice to have lead free brass fixtures in all our schools regardless of what our testing shows? So you perfectly teed up another one of my points which is that we should consider adding this, adding language to this bill that actually is getting us towards proactively getting the lead out of our systems. Because in a way what we're talking about here is testing to see if there's a problem in our body and then putting a bandaid over it when we install a filter. But so long, the most effective way to eliminate lead exposure is to eliminate the source of lead. And so what we're seeing other states do in their legislation because by now over 16 states or 15 states, one district has passed legislation dealing with having schools. And several of them have incorporated language which CLF provided in a red line of the bill with our testimony to actually get schools to start planning and inventory where there is lead in their fixtures, their actual service lines that are delivering lead to them so that schools can get a better grasp on where our problem is and how prolific is it. And start working towards actually just taking out the lead because as you know, we have much better standards now for how much lead is allowable in lead free fixtures. So in many cases, we are overdue in looking at the actual service lines that are delivering the lead. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it kind of does. I mean, what I've heard from Professor Costanza is that in her estimation distal piping was really not shown to be much of an issue is in the pilot project, the fact that flush samples routinely were a lot lower seemed to really indicate that the problem was in the fixed year. So I mean, yeah, it would be interesting to look at. The only clarifying point I had is I wasn't actually referring to an NSF certified filter before, I was talking about the actual certified brass lead free brass. And I think there is, well you're referring to as well as filter, but yeah, just this idea that if we know there is a type of brass that is effectively lead free and that the other type of brass is the leading culprit. Just whether, regardless of what any tests say, whether we want to move it towards a place where we have no more, I'll call them leaded drinking faucets in our schools. I believe, and perhaps one of the other witnesses in the room can help me here, but I believe that that is one of the movements that other states have been taking is, parents are calling schools and this three T's book, our guidance from EPA has a list of sort of the culprits of faucets and taps that do cause the worst problems. And so it's kind of something that parents have been starting to ask of their schools, hey at the very least could you make sure that we don't have any of these bad culprits at our school. But I think what you're saying is it sort of falls into the remediation steps that a school would want to consider to try, there is that retesting. So there is an option to sort of place something, see if that addresses the problem. And I would think that schools would first go to the most inexpensive solution in an attempt to see if that helps the problem. I already touched on this, but I just wanna hammer home that childcare centers really need to be included in this bill and just to summarize why I think we've heard smatterings of that from other people. The current program, they do have a testing program. However, Dr. Costanza hit on this yesterday, the method that they're using is the same method as the community water systems are subject to. And the actual sample size that they're taking from the faucet is one liter instead of 250 milliliters. And the effect of this is to dilute the sample and it does not give an accurate reading of what the first draw really contains. So that's one problem with the current regulation. Another problem is that the testing is not frequent enough. Licensing happens every six years and there are many different things that can impact the outcome of a test. It can be impacted by the rate of the water flow. It can be impacted by whatever the system is using to disinfect. It can be impacted by construction that's happening outside that's jostling the lead service lines with themselves. There are a lot of things that can impact lead testing. And you'll note in our written testimony that one of the amendments we suggest is that this statute actually address the frequency of testing. Because that is a very important part of making sure that this is an effective solution is that we're testing with enough frequency where we actually are able to capture changes that happen and it's not fair to have certain kids be able to move through the whole school system or their whole middle school experience and never have a test happen during that time. So also the child care centers are subject to the 15 part pavilion which as I alluded to before is not a health based standard or standard that should be applied at that individualized level. I mentioned the note about proactively planning and getting the lead out and that CLF submitted red line of the recent version of the bill with suggested changes for all of the things that I'm talking about today. So I hope that's helpful to the committee. But I just wanna end with the three main things we'd like to see amended. One, we want to see that action level go down from three parts per billion to one part per billion to the Vermont health based standard. And I'm happy to provide the committee with the language in the three T's manual that I referred to. Two, we would like to see language inserted that gets us towards preventing this problem from happening in the first place. So I call that get the let out language and we've included a section of red line in our testimony identifying that. And the third is that testing happened annually going forward. We feel like this is a reasonable way to pick up on changes that are happening that could impact the tests. And we would be open to some method where a portion of the school is being tested every year so that schools don't have to take it all on at one time. But it's sort of a rotating testing cycle. But we think that should be identified in statute and not left to rule. And there's one other red line in there that I wanna note. It basically, the bill identifies a couple of things that the legislature would like to see in the agency's rule. And one of those is guidance or requirements on testing methodology. And for reasons that I think were really highlighted by Dr. Costanza when she gave the New York example, we can't have guidance alone on how samples are taken. We need to have requirements. So it should just be requirements, not guidance or requirements. We need everyone to be sampling with the same methodology and held to that. And that's a rule. That's in, right now, the way that the statute is written is that the rule should provide guidance or requirements. And we just want the statute to say requirements, yeah. So to conclude, and then I'll take, happy to take questions, CLF works on a variety of very complex environmental pollution problems from climate change to, we were just talking yesterday, phosphorus into Lake Champlain that have myriad multifaceted solutions that take a long time to get our heads around. This is not one of them. This is a solvable problem. And I hope that, I think this bill really gets us a huge step forward with the suggestions that I just gave, especially the action level. This is a problem that we're ready to tackle. Thank you. We're here still from Department of Health and we're gonna hear from J.F. Bottles. And I don't have anyone on the list, do I, Jeff? Not today. Not today, okay. Okay, any questions? Are we gonna hear from the agency? From the agency of education? Yeah. They did, sorry. Yeah, not today. No, they wanna play in. I just wanna second your request to data. The data, whoops, I got a lot of data in terms of the effect of lead on children and there was medical results that we had to have. Absolutely, I have materials that I have shared electronically and have some work to have in the future. Great. I did also just post the webpage of the Dark Sea to the toolkit for the EBA's three T's. So that's under Elena's name. If you have more, please send them to me. But that is there for a start. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll probably get you back at a more cut point. Happy to do that. But I do wanna get David and Linda from the Department of Health. And then Stephanie will get you up to that. Okay. This is it. Do you mind if I just ask you a quick question? What is the reasoning for the rotating cycle for testing? I think CLA thinks it should have it annually and the rotating cycle was a way to alleviate the burden on schools to every year due to their entire system. But it was this notion that every year they would do a portion of their system so that that way you capture potential systemic problems like there's construction going on outside or the water system has, this year, changed to a different treatment solution so that you don't wait four years before you uncover that. But that you're doing some testing in some part of your school every year. Got it. Is that helpful? Definitely. Okay. Okay. So, for the record. For the record, my name is David Engliger and I'm the senior professor of digital medicine at the University of New York Health and I'd like to be before you. I don't have written testimony. I don't have written testimony. My main intention being here is to answer questions you may have and which I'll be able to answer a subset and there'll be even more questions that I will probably not be able to answer but I will do my best. I do want to actually make a quick preference or a remark or two which is the Department of Health strongly supports the testing. The idea of testing originated out of the Department of Health with fellow partners at DEC three years ago and when we started having conversations about a pilot going into schools and seeing what was out there following the experiences of what happened in Flint, Michigan. And so you know that the series of which the Department of Health has taken this, we've actually already begun. We've opened what's called the Health Operations Center or the HOC which is something that's done typically in response to a potential epidemic or a foodborne illness. So we have all the folks from epidemiology to environmental health logistics to finance who sit in a room for half an hour every day, obviously every day, every week. If it's a foodborne illness we do it every day in the case of water of this project where we're meeting once a week. So the Department of Health is already sort of spinning up and ready to meet this other requirements of the law. So with that, I would, I think this would a series of questions that have been asked that I will do my best to answer succinctly and carefully. So David is legal counsel to the Department of Health. So this is an opportunity for us to get. So one of the questions I had is we just heard a distinction between the 15 and the three is the 15 by EPA is actionable for corrosive reasons as opposed to health reasons. Does that make sense to you? So the question of the 15 is actually very directed to the much more well educated and familiar Brian Redmond speaking to the one, the Department of Health, and this question was asked earlier that the Department of Health has, let me, I will send you this document. We have Vermont Health Advisors and Vermont Action Levels. And those are for some of those. So these are calculations are done by the Department of Health staff by looking at epidemiology and toxicology and determining health-based levels. So in the case of 15, I think we all agree 15 is not a health-based level. So we would look at what is the epidemiology and toxicology show us? And what is that? And we follow that, we follow the science down the road and it gives us what it gives us. So in the case of lead, the answer is one. But it is as the distinction over from CLF mentioned that that is not an enforceable standard. And the Vermont Health Advisors become enforceable when they're adopted by DEC into one of their many rules. Okay, you just mentioned CDC. No, sorry, CDC, yes. CDC does not have rules. CDC does not have rules. No, they are an Arctic group. No, they don't, they're not a regular, in this area they're not a regulatory body. Just at the federal level. Yes. Not looking at natural resources, but looking at health. There's no guidelines health-wise that from the federal government. There's just the, I don't know what the FDA, I don't know what it would be. Correct, there's no federal guidance as to a health-based level. They don't do, well I should say, there are some guidance documents. The Department of Health, the Department of Health does its own calculations. Department of Health, Department of Health. The Vermont Department of Health has its own calculations with regard to toxins, toxins, and other contaminants in the environment that have potential health effects. 13. I'm still back on the health advisory. I was just looking at your website. Yes. A health advisory is what, the lowest level of alert? And then it looked like there was a health alert. I'm just trying to understand what a health advisory actually is supposed to indicate to the public. Sure. So the advisory, so I don't want to bore the committee. A health advisory reflects the consideration of public health concerns and analytic laboratories reporting limits. The health advisory considers ingestion for exposure for all chemicals as well as potential exposure via inhalation of vapors in the case of air due to household use. So the driver, blah, blah, blah. If a health advisory's exceeded, it does not necessarily follow that the health effects may occur, but exposure should be minimized while further evaluation of the water supply is conducted. And I'll send this document to you so you can have this all written out. You can't memorize that as I read it to you. That was fast. For the education community, we actually read those documents. Of course. With, I assume, with highlighters, so. With highlighters, yes. Absolutely. Rep. Eddie Belger. I'm just curious, do you know has, there's nothing, there's a certain amount of testing that just happens to the 15 parts per billion for municipal water systems, et cetera. Has any broad-based testing as is envisioned in S40 happened in Vermont ever to a standard, be it three parts per billion or one. And I hear that we just heard testimony asking for lower standards. Just wondering if that's, if the Department of Health's ever done that. Has ever, have we done this to state buildings? Have we done this to this building? Or have we, do we have a comparable study to look at? So the pilot is what we have. We have the testing of municipal water systems that the DEC does and we have the testing that's done by child care facilities and day care. So there are home-based child care and there licensed child care facilities. So we do have all the results from the testing that they do in order to be licensed. And to get their license, they've got to be under 50. Yes. So they're not, you don't need data from the child care centers that would necessarily get this three parts per billion. We do because we have, we actually have the, we do have, we have the actual results from what they got. So whether it be one or whether it be 16, we actually have those results. Have you gotten a sense on a percentage basis how many of those would fail if their action level was three? Yes. And if you give me a moment, I'll sample, I try and find the email. I was actually just looking at this, at this chart yesterday. I could talk about something else while my computer's looking at searches to each. Yeah, the pilots, the pilots. Yes, the pilot. Where is the pilot study complete? Where is the report? Yeah. Yeah, I can, I'm happy to provide you with a copy. Yeah. And that's going to show the different schools that were tested and what the results were. The schools, the levels, what they did and the costs associated. And that they reported in parts per billion? Parts per billion. Okay, because sometimes I see that it's, you know, milligrams per liter or something. So you have to speak to a scientist, my understanding is it's the same thing. Yes. What is the same thing? Parts per billion. Parts per billion and micrograms per liter, it's actually the same thing. That's the same thing, okay. So if I say too much, if I say too much of grams per liter, that's the same as. And there's a conversion that you have to do and that's part of the reasoning behind that the need for a good, clear database because the way it comes out of the lab, the conversion needs to happen to the public to understand. Okay. But it's 0.15, micrograms per liter is 15 parts per liter. 15 points, okay. Thank you. So I now have those numbers. Okay. And I'm happy to send this to you as well. So I'm just going to read this out loud and I'll do so in a slower fashion. Results were 486 home-based child to care that were collected, first-draw samples. Well, I can just send this to you. So greater than one PVB was 15%. Greater than three was 4.5%. Greater than five was 2.8%. And greater than 15 was 1%. 1%. 1%, so that's five homes were about 15. The 486 that were tested. Correct, 73 homes were below one. 22 homes were below three. So you're talking about 19, so if the level were set, just being theoretically, if the level were set at three, 19 homes out of the 486 would be way over six. That one. And, excuse me. I don't think I can do the math. 70 to 75. 70. 15% of 486, right? Yeah. 70 to 75. I'm seeing, DC might have an answer. Just for the record, Brian Redman, Director for Drinking Water and Groundwater Protection Division. One point of clarification with this data is that they are one-liter samples. So they are, is it different sample volume than what's contemplated under S40? Okay. And actually, while I have your attention, I have a little bit of additional data that I can share and I'll provide this with the committee. Monitoring from our public water systems, which are schools. Again, one-liter samples and not all outlets. We've collected 1,799 samples. 1.9% of those, and this is, sorry, to back up in the last three years. 1.9 of those were over the action level of 15 parts per billion. 6.4 of those over five parts per billion. And 29.2 over one part per billion. And I'll provide this information to the committee. So just in terms of these one-liter tests and comparisons of the tests that they're talking about in the bill. So just in terms of reliability and validity of some of these tests that are in comparison, you're going into someone's home, is it possible they could have run the pipes for half an hour before anybody tested it? It is possible, yes. So there is a factor. They aren't necessarily adhering to the three T's. Right. I do, can I have a point? Please do. I would say somewhat parenthetically. We talked with the three T's and I don't think it hasn't been updated. Is it 2006? I think so. So the Department of Health is reviewing that now and because the bill allows the Department of Health to adopt a protocol that is more strict than the three T's and we are looking at those provisions carefully now because they do feel like they are. That some of those provisions are outdated. Okay. And the provisions that are in this bill are the three T's? Are the three T's but allows the Department of Health to adopt a protocol that is not less stringent. So you're not locked to that level. But by rule, you'll be able to. Well even our interim protocol or the rule will be able to, and I'm just informing the committee that it will likely be more stringent than what is contained in the three T's. Yes. Again for the record, Brian Redmond, one point of clarification. The three T's is updated this past fall. Oh okay. So there is a brand new version available. And it's still 15 in the new version. The original three T's that I believe was referenced earlier. I'm not familiar with the language that Elena had testified to but the standard in three T's and this is why you see it in some of the state programs that are out there in the country was 20 parts per billion. The re issuance, and I think the basis for the 20 parts per billion is the sample extrapolating off the 15 parts per billion which is the federal action level. And then extrapolating out for sample size is the basis for that number. The re issuance of the three T's, they now left that discretionary up to the states. I never trouble anyone without Brian because he has the information. Madam Mayor also to make a point of clarification. Yes for the record. Elena Mahaly again, Conservation Law Foundation. You had asked if there was a federal standard, health-based standard for lead and there is. So EPA sets first what's called an MCLG which is a maximum contaminant level goal. That is the place where they take into account epidemiology and toxicology and health alone. That for lead is zero parts per billion. Now then they take into consideration technical feasibility and costs on the water system and that's how they get the MCL. Okay, so this is tying to what Michael O'Grady was talking about a little earlier in terms of them not. This is one of the further clarifying this is not enforced. The G is meant enforceable standard. Correct. The goal is headed this way. Aspirational. Other questions? So just to clarify, they would agree with O'Grady's assessment that they're not conflicting. Yeah. Yes, yeah, okay. You would agree and feel up with it. Feel up would agree. And did you say would agree? I agree to what? That's the action levels on the federal level versus the state would be. The MCLGs, right? Right. MCLG according to EPA for lead is zero. The action level is 15 parts per billion. The Vermont Health Advisory has established that one part per billion, which the reason why it's one is because that is the level that you can detect lead in a water system. It's essentially equivalent to zero. It's the detection level. The detection level. Whose point was he? I think he was talking. Were you asking if you would agree that this is not an impeal by implication? I think that's his question. That's what I'm asking. That's right, thank you. I would want to take a closer look at that is the case that would. I would hope that would be the case. I don't have a position. So you hope you agree? Yes. Okay. And you agree? I agree. Representative Elder. Thank you. What the pilot project results would use that? You can ask. I'll go see if I can answer. Can I even have you come back? Yeah. I would be delighted. I think this will be quickish. So like the. Very simple. So it's a relatively smaller school. I'm just scanning the data. Richford Elementary School, not trying to pick on them, but it certainly jumps out because there's a total of 26 tasks. At first they had 15 of them where over 15 parts per billion, right? So that's high. And then I'm just noticing that their first draw sample, what we heard from Dr. Costanzi yesterday is that typically, especially if it's a fixture issue, we're expecting the first draw to be higher and then a flush sample to be lower. In Richford's case, that doesn't really happen. In fact, they're kind of below one part per billion. They actually get fewer samples. They get below, you know. So I'm just wondering, that would just seem of all this data to jump out and say, huh, maybe Richford's got a problem, other than the fixtures that we think are the most common cause. Maybe they have an issue upstream in a water tank. Maybe they have lead solder in their pipes. How are we going to handle that? Is there going to be any, I see in the bill that the Department of Health is responsible for coming up with remediation plans for these schools. I'm just saying, is there going to be some differentiation based on that kind of data? So that's a great question. So the Department of Health actually won't be coming up with remediation plans. We'll be coming up with guidance. The schools have to come up with remediation plans with the assistance of the capable DEC and they'll submit those remediation plans. We won't do it for them. It's really getting one person and we have at last have 1,550 facilities between we must, from whom we will get tests. 1,550. 50. Okay. Oh, one minor technical point, which is that right now the exemption and I'm afraid I don't have it somewhere around here. There was an exemption for schools that have tested within one year. That actually doesn't cover the pilot period. So the Department would recommend that that date be moved back to October of 2017. I believe that schools started testing in November. So October of 2017 would actually cover it. But right now, but the one year proceeding, which is just January 2019, would not cover any of the pilot schools or other schools who were testing it during that time period. Okay, so when would they test it? What would the date be? So the pilot school started testing in November of 2017. Okay. But we might get you back to talk to us about that. Okay, I would be. Okay. That's true. Thank you. My pleasure. Yeah. Can I make a quick point? Yeah, please. Which is, in version of elder, I don't want to, you raised a question yesterday, but I, by the way, I pray the committee's forbearance. I had to run down to the Senate and talk about something else. Oh, I thought it was them. Right? Don't tell them I told this, but it's nothing but trouble. You asked a question about, Representative Elder, you asked a question about about the actual testing and how that was actually done and the terms of like the movement of samples. Yeah. The Department of Health will actually, in consultation with AOE and DEC, we actually do one-on-one contact with schools. We do the training. We provide written materials and we give them, we give the schools and now the bill, the daycare centers and home-based childcare centers, childcare providers, I should say. We actually give them the bottles and the box so the Department of Health will actually and we'll also do the tests. So we'll like to handle all the logistics, just not the actual testing itself inside the four walls so that we don't have the entity. So people are going to be looking like for a box and peanuts and shipping labels. We'll actually, we'll do all that. I am sure we will misspeak into you again. I just, I like it. We're fine, we're fine committee, yeah. I was going to get Stephanie up. I have you here. You're willing to just hang with us for a little longer. Thank you. Stephanie. Conservation. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry, I just, thank you for the, thank you for the work. Here's where that, how do the money come in? For the record, I'm Stephanie Baird from the Joint Fiscal Office and let's see how it looks. So I've been the drafter of the fiscal note. It goes with S40 as it passed out of the Senate. And you can see it's at the top, it says version four because it was a bit of a constant work in progress to get up to speed as the Senate committee went through its deliberations. You know, and the governor's proposal and the budget adjustment. So this, just to step back for a moment, the actual appropriation as it came out of the Senate was in H97, the budget adjustment bill, for a total for all portions related to S40, $2.5 million, $2.5, $25,000 was the total. All of that is going to the health department except for $125,000, which would be additional resource in DEC. And so, the fiscal note initially started with just the initial testing cost estimate, then understanding the administrative ask that was included in that, and then adding the estimate for the childcare centers, both the homes and the center base care and the retesting cost and an estimate for the what I'll call initial remediation, the TAP only remediation. There is no estimate in this for remediation beyond that, and there's just not a way to come up with a reasonable estimate of what that cost will be. It's a question mark and fiscal reality that you'll have to face when you know what the scope and depth of those potentially are. So, I don't know if folks have it on there. I didn't want to sort of walk through something that you can read, but the total administrative cost is $400,000. There's 125 for the position in DEC, 125 for position in health department and about $150,000 for data management and the initial startup costs for the project. And one other point, this $2.5 million is envisioned as one time, not as ongoing support from the state for an ongoing initiative. Attached in this fiscal note sort of by worksheets, which may not be the easiest thing to follow, but the initial testing costs, so that's the 400 that I just talked about at the very top of that page, the initial testing costs are pretty straightforward. They're just based on the, I'm gonna, I don't mean to make anyone nauseous, but they're just based on the number of buildings we know about, the estimated number of taps, the cost per test, so that's pretty straightforward. And the, you can see the building count and the tap count included there, and the estimated cost. So of the initial testing cost up here, which is just under $1.1 million, I have $850,000 of that on the school side, which have a lot more taps than on the childcare side where the senders have some taps in the other homes. My estimate was three taps per home. So that, those were the sort of pieces that came together with the easier pieces to estimate. And then the question of retesting and remediation, and in that I relied on, I'm gonna switch back down here again, the data that was able to be sort of put together from the pilot, from the information from DEC, Dr. Robinson could stand it to give some percentages of the failure rates related to Addison Central. Once we had the pilot information and the school specific information from DEC, the lower end of the potential failure rate, even though the sample is, the sample sizes, the sample methodology is different than what's proposed, what gave us a comfort level with estimating the remediation and the retesting cost. So that's the basis for those cost estimates. And so the, the retesting cost had, the one thing that changed when the bill got into Senate appropriations is we had initially, I had initially thought that a $300 tap remediation cost was what would work. But in thinking about the childcare centers, the schools have the capacity to do like the, actually change out the tap as opposed to just pay for the fixture itself. And so the thinking was that on the childcare centers, the tap remediation cost should actually include labor. So that was double to 600 for the childcare centers. And that was a change that went from Senate Ed to Senate appropriations. So the retesting cost based on, and I've averaged one in a five part per billion to estimate the three part per billion that's in the Senate bill. So the retesting cost is just under $190,000, that 188 where I'm averaging the two. And then the school portion of tap replacement is $560,000 and the childcare portion is just about $300,000, that 296. I'm sorry, it's not very well laid out for you to follow through, it's just me putting all my notes together so I'm gonna repeat them to folks. So that's the source of the estimate that was the amount of money appropriated in H97, which was the, is the budget adjustment. So that, I understand that the house budget adjustment will pull that appropriation out and it could be placed back in S40. That's still a football. Okay. But that's, I'll stop there and let folks ask questions. But it does not include anything beyond the tap remediation estimate. It doesn't. I understand that I think there are 200 in federal funds somewhere. Anything about that, no? I don't have any federal funds. This is purely estimated as a general fund cost for these particular pieces. Okay. I thought there was 200 in federal funds by about 200,000 federal funds. See, this is why we need you here, Brian. For the record, Brian Redmond, that those are EPA funds specific to the testing house. We've filed a letter of intent of interest for the funds and we're not anticipating the grant award to occur till sometime in August. Okay. And that would be earmarked for this particular job if it comes through. We should know more in the next two months in terms of the amount and the likelihood of us receiving the shutdown, push the schedule back a little bit. Question. Clarifying question. Yes, please. The, at the bottom, I think it was the bottom where you were just showing the difference between the pilot project. Oh, this is this. Yeah, there you go. So the Addison Central, I was trying to remember, was the method, I know the pilot project was one leader samples, but was the Addison Central, do you know that methodology was more consistent with what S40 would require as in quarter leader samples? I don't know. I think you did. So just to clarify, for the pilot project, we used 250 milliliter samples and the standard that we used was also 15 parts per billion with the aspirational goal going as low as you can, one part per billion. So the, we didn't have any authority in the pilot. So we set up standard and held the schools to the 15 with the goal of going as low as we possibly could. That's how the pilot was wrong. What did we hear about the one leader sample size? That's what is the sampling size under the federal lead and copper rule. So that is the collection that the childcare facilities are currently doing under DCF regulations. They're complying with the requirements of the water supply rule as well as the public water suppliers, which include a subset of schools. 150 schools are regulated as public water systems. Okay. I guess what I was trying to tease out is, is there a real difference in methodology between that as and central and that VDH pilot? Just because those numbers are so different and they establish a really big range that really is going to have a big effect in what you're extrapolating for the process. So I, in the cost estimate, I relied on the VDH pilot, which is sample sized, and the schools from the community portion that the 15 to 18, about 1800 samples. That was the data that Brian had verbally given you a few minutes ago. That is a different sample size. But those were confirming each other. And that was- It was amazing. You didn't draw your assumptions out as for the sub-colonel. But it was a piece of testimony that was when I was first following this that was given. Thank you. So that's, because I did actually put out one version of this that was much higher based on those higher percentages of failure. Yeah. That was a little hard stopping for some people. Yeah, right, that would be a little different. Other questions for Stephanie? So basically, 2.5 million there about plus or minus using one-time money. Yes. This was in the BAA, and we're trying to figure that out. And the positions, the two positions that would be funded are actually created in S40. Yeah. Usually think the money and the positions go together, but they kind of, Yeah, sometimes. You know, There are different votes at the moment. Yeah. Okay. So 2.5 million of one-time money at the three, and I'm sorry- That is at the three parts per billion. Yeah, I'm sorry. If I missed what would the one-time cost be at the one? I can get that for you. Which would be pretty neat. The testing costs, the testing costs and the admin costs wouldn't change, but the re-testing of remediation would change. And so, so the testing costs would go up close to double. Or actually double, because it's, oh, I'll actually send you a note on it just so I don't do it. Yeah. That would be great. That's what I can send you. Alright, so someone said to us, I don't do public math. No. Yeah. That was just real simple. Yeah, I think that's what, yeah. It's unabashed. Now, the thought is that you're, you want to start out, or what can you describe them? So that was, that was based on just an estimated not, so there was a lot of conversation about do you, you know, if you are changing out a tap or like a water fountain, do you go to something that's like an 800 necessarily, encourage an increased spending. So this was, at the 50% was at that 300. I know that, you know, there's, the taps themselves, the replacement pieces, the fixtures. I don't know if there's a list of what is actually, what free, but that's, I know that's something that they'll have to, you don't want to replace something that actually has lead in it. That's a struggle. I've heard that that technology doesn't, but it doesn't assume an upgrade. And the, you know, remediation that would involve something much more involved, construction wise, that's a whole, you know, you get into all sorts of questions about what other, you know, once you start opening walls and things, what other sort of upgrades might you be, you know, there's it becomes a much more complicated question about, you know, shares and. Would we get recommendations? Like some. Like the news or what was it, you know, a reasonable price would make sense. Because we were talking about filters, you know, I'll pass this with a certain filter. Yes. Brian for the record, Brian Redmond. So this, I hate to commit to that now. This is a whole new area of jurisdiction for us. We are not plumbing people. And so we would be able to provide recommendations for filters. Those would be the NSF and C certified units. If the filter route was chosen, again, there's some concerns around the filter route. I think they're proven very effective, but there's a financial cost to them, a time cost to them. And then the key is that they need to be properly operated and maintained. Or as Dr. Costanza Robinson said yesterday, it may be trading one problem for another. But in terms of faucets, we, I haven't done the research, but we would likely sort of start specking what is considered lead free faucets and digging into that research. I did speak with the engineers who are here yesterday and they may be able to provide us some information on that as well. I've asked them to look into it. The other questions then for Stephanie. I think that's it for now. Obviously it's an estimate, so it could turn out that you are here next year being asked for a bit more money, or they could come back and say it didn't cost as much. Oh, wouldn't that be nice? We've been known for that to happen. Okay, thank you. David, as long as you're here, did you want to add anything to what we said? The pressure actually is off for us to get this done. I've spoken with our leadership and she actually saw it as an after-cross-over bill. So we have a little bit more flexibility in terms of timing than I was hearing after the senators were here. So we will have a little bit more time. This is actually fairly significant, in line with some of the other requests before us. Anything else? Just in terms of the last four delays, I'm just wondering again, I think we're talking about the data delays. There's another delay we were asked for, all the proficiency. It seems like we have like three or four requests. We do. I think this morning hearing from the BPA and the School Board Association, the Central Association has put us not to add one more thing. So I'm just wondering if this is a high priority. Can we lighten up on something else that might not be so health-related? We have some things that we have to get through before a cross-over. This is not one of them. 40 is not something that we have to complete before a cross-over. The Senate wants us to complete it now, but the House does not, it's not a requirement. The one about the Green Mountain College, that is, it does need to get done before a cross-over. There are a couple of other little things. I know that there's something around here that we've been discussing that we do need to address, but S40 is not one that we need to complete before a cross-over. 173, at the cross-over, I don't really understand, so could it be after a cross-over, we can say you've got one more year in terms of implementation questions? Now you need to do this. We can talk about that. We actually are prepared to talk about that. Okay. Yes, we are, we need to kind of get together our list of things, and I can tell you, I think I can tell you, I've pulled together some things. We have the Independent Colleges concern. We have, I know that the agency has a bunch of what they would call technical changes that they'd like to make. We have the request of the VASBO for a two-year delay, which we need to sort out. We have Raidon. We have the budget that, Peter's not here, but we're looking at the budget. Then tomorrow we're dealing with a concern around adult, adult education and high school completion. We can also have a equalized pupils. Yes, and we have our school pass rates. So you're working on that, right? It's going to be whenever we're done the budget discussion, right? Yes, yes, great. So budget, we have budgets that we're talking about tomorrow, right? Yes, so if we can get it done with the budget presentation from four, three, three, then Brad is available. Okay, good.