 Well, good morning everyone and thanks for being here as we come to realize over the last year many of Vermont schools and child care Facilities are in older buildings, which means lead from piping and plumbing fixtures can get into the water With this understanding the health department piloted a lead testing project during the 2017 to 2018 school year. Keep in mind this was prior to the passage of Act 66 Where we asked 16 schools to voluntarily allow the state to test for lead in their drinking water Of this small sample lead was detected at all participating schools and about a third had at least one tap Above the EPA's action level of 15 parts per billion The state worked with the schools where elevated levels were found to replace or permanently take out of service affected plumbing fixtures The pilot project demonstrated the importance of going further in testing every tap This ultimately led my administration and the legislature to agree on the need for statewide testing The budget adjustment of funded this effort and on June 17th. I signed the legislative proposal Act 66 into law it requires all public and independent schools and Excuse me and all license or registered child care facilities to test for lead at every tap Used for drinking or cooking Health Commissioner Dr. Mark Levine agency of natural resources Secretary Julie Moore and a team from the Department of Environmental Conservation are here to update you on where we are at this point This work is a critical part of our responsibility to protect the health of Vermont's children Keeping them safe from exposure to lead in drinking water At two places where they spend a lot of time Which is so important because science tells us the brain develops immensely fast for kids at a younger age The statewide effort is a collaboration between the health department the agency of education The department for children and families the Department of Environmental Conservation in the approximately 440 schools and more than 1200 child care facilities where testing is being conducted And it's well worth the effort We are working not only to protect the health of our children, but to promote their future successes as well So I'll now welcome dr. Levine to provide an update on these efforts at the Levine Thank You governor Reducing the risk of lead poisoning children is a top public health priority Here and around the nation There's no safe level of lead in the human body at any age Leads a neurotoxin And children are as the governor pointed out at special risk because their bodies absorb Lead more easily than adults Exposure to lead Can slow down a child's physical growth But it also can cause developmental learning and behavioral problems While the effects of lead poisoning are irreversible Lead poisoning itself is entirely preventable In vermont in 2018 420 children under the age of six were poisoned by lead The major source of lead poisoning is paint In older housing But lead in plumbing pipes and fixtures can add to a child's overall lead exposure So that's why this project is of such tremendous importance and worthy of the tremendous amount of work That's required in testing every tap in every school that is used for drinking water And then of course remediating them when needed And this is at more than 1600 schools and child care locations When lead is detected above the threshold Add or above four parts per billion in drinking water By law now The school or child care provider is required to stop using those taps for drinking And cooking and take corrective action to reduce the amount of lead in the water And our experience thus far The fixes are relatively inexpensive and very effective at reducing lead levels We're thankful for the support and collaboration of the governor with the legislature in passing act 66 And for the collaborative effort of multiple other state agencies The department of children and families for one has been very instrumental In contacting and providing technical assistance to all child care providers And they will continue to be More than 300 have already tested their taps And you can see the results on the website that will be demonstrated for you shortly The agency of education has helped direct communication with the schools We were able to test five schools early before the close of the school year this year And the rest are being scheduled now to begin testing when the school year begins and then continue throughout the following year The department of environmental conservation of the agency of natural resources has the critical role of providing invaluable technical assistance With remediation actions And follow-up test results And as you hear Their staff from the agency of digital services are responsible for the website you're going to be able to view real time And I want to also thank the dozens of experts we have at my own health department Who've been working so hard to manage this very complex project They've created the extensive public information and communication materials Instructional videos for the school staff and others webinars and in-person trainings guidance documents, and they continue to Review tap inventories that schools are sending in to comply with us every day They've also coordinate the logistics of getting test kits to and from the schools And the child care facilities and they've analyzed water samples and reported test results This work is reflected on our health department's website at healthvermont.gov Slash led test dash response I'd like to now introduce julie more the secretary of the agency of natural resources Good morning water is a critical resource to the state of vermont and we're committed to making sure all vermonters have access to clean Safe drinking water staff from the agency of natural resources and department of health As you've heard working in partnership with the agency of education and department for children and families Schools and child care centers statewide are working to sample and for lead and make sure that drinking water is protected In vermont many of our buildings are older, which means the plumbing is also older and fixtures are more likely to have lead As we've heard today lead does not come from the water itself Lead contamination happens when the water reacts with various pieces of plumbing some of which may contain lead Not many child care facilities or schools have led service lines or led pipes But we know that there can be high leg content and things like older solder and brass That's why the state of vermont is making sure that every outlet that is used or expected to be used for drinking or cooking at our schools And child care facilities will be sampled Actually, two samples are being collected at each outlet a first draw sample Which is water that sat in the pipes for eight to 18 hours Which is part of the reason is dr. Levine alluded to that we need to do this work when schools are in service We don't want that water to have sat indefinitely, but for a finite amount of time And then a flush sample Where the tap is open water is allowed to run for 30 seconds and then a sample is collected If the reason we do this is to investigate what the likely source of the lead is Whether it's the fixture or some plumbing component deeper in the system If lead is found above four parts per billion in the water at one of these facilities that outlet is immediately taken out of service Many of the solutions to high lead levels are easy and low cost They include things like replacing plumbing fixtures, removing redundant or seldom used fixtures And encouraging the use of centrally located well maintained bottle filling stations Once the fix has been implemented the tap will be retested to ensure lead levels have been reduced And for families and community members interested in tracking the test results We've created a user friendly website where this information can be viewed The results are organized by facility And on the website will also note the steps that the facility has taken to fix any outlets that tested above the four parts per billion threshold The results are available online at ledresults.vermont.gov and posted as they become available And patrick southern um from the a n r a d s team will now demonstrate how parents families and community members can navigate this website I'll just briefly get set up first Okay, no one look at my password I It's not password All right, so i'm patrick southern i'm with the agency of digital services and i primarily support the uh drinking water folks in the Department of environmental conservation building software and things like that What we've done here with our various partner agencies involved in this project is we've set up As julie said a user friendly website that's available publicly accessible So anyone can go on and search for a school or child care And see the details of what the school has done in terms of testing What results are available and any action that they've taken if they had a result that exceeded the action level So that website is available as julie said at ledresults.vermont.gov And if you go to that website you'll see this search page when you first get there This provides your way to search by school or child care name or a piece of it if you know it by town And you can specify if you want to see schools child cares for both So for this example Let's just search everything and see So you can see there's a bunch of schools and child cares that have tested and the results are posted on this website already We'll choose the first one four corners children's center And when you do that it will bring you to a page that will give you all the details of what this school has done So at the top you see some general information about act 66 and How to interpret the results you're going to see And then you'll first be presented with a tap summary table So this organizes the All of the information by individual tap So you'll see one row for Every tap that was tested and you'll see associated information like the most recent first draw sample The most recent flush sample When those samples were taken and when they were analyzed And for this first one you can see it exceeded the action level of four parts per billion So it's in bold dark red And as a result this child care was required to take action to address that Action level exceedance And you can see the action they took was to replace that fixture that was permanent action And they took that action on august 30th 2019 The only other features of this public search website Is if you are pulling this up on your phone right now anyone You'll first be brought to a tap summary cards page So this is just the same information you saw on that table But in a mobile friendly view so you don't have a table going all across your phone The other thing that's on here Is all results if you want to really dive into it Or if anyone wants to dive into it and see every sample that was taken They can get that here and they can export this to excel if they want to do further analysis And then I'll just mention You saw the Fixture replacement action taken here. This came from the authorized users for this child care center They put that they put that information in this remediation form that's available here And it shows up on the website what they put and there are frequently asked questions available That's all I think Thanks So Oh, we can open it up to questions at this point How many schools and child care centers have been tested since I think it's been a five of the schools. Is that correct? schools and Five schools were tested in the spring But there are schools like the ones that participated in the pilot Whose results essentially will count towards this test. Okay, so we had yeah 16 facilities before Five five before they shut down for the summer Some of my frustration was Why can't we test during the summer when we have time to do this and and I was told that we would get a false reading Because you need to have that constant flushing and the water working through the pipes So it would be ineffective in some respects So we had to make sure that the school the schools were back open And that's why we'll we'll start again in september. So this is really just getting started Very much so But we're we're at a point. I believe it gave us an opportunity to try this out to get the The the site all set up get the department Ready to go the health department ready to go So I I believe we'll be able to hit the ground running and be able to take care of a number of these In a expedition expeditious fashion when we do start back up again And the silver lining about you want to come up summer Silver lining about the summer is we will have the majority of the child cares already done that are open to year-round So that's a huge chunk of Lab results that will already be available on the website And like in this example when an action is taken this this fixture replacement. Is there a round of retests to make sure that the action worked? Yes Yeah, any sample That is above standards where remediation is applied other than permanently removing the fixture from service It it will be retested with both The first flush and second draw samples to confirm that the the action had the desired outcomes Some of the schools that participated in that initial pilot There was an iterative component to some of their work. So when it's the fixture, it's very clear oftentimes You take that that tap out of service and replace it and you see instantaneous results when it's deeper into the plumbing Sometimes it takes a little bit more of an investigative approach And so there are instances where it's an iterative process So five schools around 300 child care centers so far as you look at the results Um, are they better or worse than you expected? Ben Montrose from our drinking water program is probably best position to answer that. Yeah, come on up But going back to the 16 schools that we tested initially It led us to to believe that we're going to see an issue Just because the large number within the the sample of 16 in that pilot program Uh, that we'll probably see more as we go along and it's probably I don't know if it's geographically or depending Depending on the school and when it was built and constructed That that probably will have an effect as well, but please So i'm going to bring up david grass with me who's my co-part With the health department. Um, we are seeing certainly we've seen Facilities and buildings that have had high results We've seen a lot of the child care centers that have a lot of times it's in home So it's the kitchen tap. It's something that's probably a newer fixture. It's been used a lot the results are quite low So we've seen everything, you know across the board. I think overall I haven't been overly surprised by anything that we've seen certainly so, you know It does depend as the governor said on the vintage of the plumbing and the pieces and parts So it's really up to excuse me up to the tap by tap to see what what's there It's not this school is entirely bad. It's that wing may have been high or those couple taps may have been high I mean, would you say of the taps that have been tested? 5 percent more above level so so It's been consistent with what we saw in the pilot testing So all five of the schools that tested in the spring had at least one tap that was elevated above the action level Four parts per billion in terms of the child cares About 10 percent of the child cares that have tested already had at least one tap that was elevated above the action level And again, that's about what we were expecting And so what does it tell you if you have a facility where one tap Tests fine And the another tap in a different part of the building is over the limit Does that help you identify what the cause is? It's it's a it's a fixture. Uh, keep in mind. You know, it's it's a faucet It's a water fountain. It's something of that nature. So the fixture itself Could be suspect it could be something within the fixture and that's why it needs to be replaced But if it was throughout the whole system, it might lead you to believe that there's something further in the piping as at the inlet of the School or wherever it is, but but typically I think it's the fixture itself Yeah, I've said it Uh, the the the lead content standards and the plumbing regulations have changed over time So if it's an older fixture, it may have had 50 50 lead tin solder If this was up until the the early 80s If it's been installed since then it's had less lead content if it's been installed installed since 2011 or so It's been even less lead content and the lead is in the solder. It's in the brass. It's in various pieces and parts So if if they've replaced the kitchen faucet in the last decade should be fine If it's an older fixture from the 60s or 70s, it may have higher lead solder So it really is, you know case specific by each individual outlet and who's paying for the remediation Well, there is a program in place. There was money allocated for that. I think I believe it was a little over a million dollars But it's a sliding scale. There's some participation That was is required depending on the on the school and the size and so forth. I think I don't know all the details of that But there is participation from the state and then we'll see You know, we didn't know what the magnitude of this was or is at this point So we'll learn more as we go along If we find that it exceeds the amount of money that we we have available We'll obviously have to go back and ask for for more in the future is to help with the remediation, but You have more details you want to add on On that sure Very specific So The state will pay for the cost the actual costs up to $1,800 for public drinking fountains and ice machines $650 for outlets used for cooking $350 for all other outlets in schools $400 for all other outlets and childcare providers But does that cover most of the costs? For like one random faucet, that's very easy Yeah, if you think about just a faucet in your home, it's you know under a hundred dollars I was going to ask you about the homes too. There's always been this concern about lead paint Is there any in now shopping about fixtures and faucets and homeowners aren't really aware of that? Are they? Is this something that might Be a concern in the future for residential Or has the state ever done anything related to that? State's never done it. I don't know of any state that's actually done anything in that regard, but you're right Whether you're talking about older faucets in the 60s and 70s that have not been replaced or whether you're talking about housing that was constructed prior to the 80s and painted And not remediated those paints most likely contain higher levels of lead than we'd like to see So we always know about children who themselves tested high for lead and there's a program that assists their parents and the homeowners essentially and Investigating where the source of that lead could have come from and make sure that if it was paint everybody's aware of it but not just in general across all homeowners But it would also find the source of lead in if it's in the pipes or in the faucets Yeah, if some if some child actually tests positive a complete Investigation is done I mean, that's you're right. Education is critical. So we've done a I think As good a job as we can as a state in educating the public about the dangers of lead and where it comes from And most of the time the focus has been heavily on the paint But now I think everybody's much more aware of the water issue Which we estimate may cause about 20 of the burden of lead in a child's body If they have a significantly high level This is always dangerous, but I'm going to ask the question anyhow And Can can homeowners Take their own samples and send them to the department of health for for analysis so The health department encourages all homeowners to test their test their water. We have a test your tap campaign And that encourages homeowners to test every five years for certain contaminants every three years for other contaminants And and lead is one of them and it could be that you are on town water and the water coming into your home is great Great quality, but the lead is getting introduced in your home, especially if you have those older fixtures And so it's important to test unless you test you don't know Julie, this might sound like a strange way of asking this question I think it's a weird one because you're both the head of and are also a mom And I wonder how moms out there should receive this information when they hear that Only a handful of schools have been tested, but each one found at least one tap to be a potential threat How do you hope they? receive that info I think It's important to keep in mind some of the context that dr. Levine provided that lead in drinking water is but one source and that lead paint is really the most dominant source In kids where we're seeing those high lead body burdens That said lead is is invisible, right? You can't see it. You can't taste it And so this sort of testing is david just alluded to is essential to understanding what's going on in our drinking water supplies And I would hope parents would have be pleased to see the state undertaking a comprehensive initiative to make sure that we are doing our part To reduce exposure to kids to the extent possible in these places where they they spend a lot of time I think the fact that the fixes are relatively low cost and straightforward should be reassuring to folks knowing that this work will be done Excuse me and done quickly I think it's also don't go away I think it's also important to note that the federal standard is much higher Than the vermont standard is at this point. So this should give vermonters I I guess some sense of security knowing that we're going to a different Much stricter standard For for detecting this and highlighting this so I think is it 15 parts per billion correct is is the federal standard and ours is much lower Right ours is anything that it exceeds for and it is in recognition of the point dr. Levine made that there There's no safe level of lead exposure and we know that some of our most sensitive and vulnerable populations are those that are in our child care facilities and schools If the school has found to have led is there a time frame they need to fix this by a month or a week or Yeah, it's as I understand it it's shut down Immediately if there's a if there's a fixture that's uh exceeds the limit We the fixture is shut down Then so they have to they have to either repair it or not use it So it's a media right and we we haven't seen a systemic lead issue where an entire every Outlet in an entire facility has been above our action level of four parts per billion So generally there are other faucets or taps that folks could go to in the interim while that work is being done But bottled water is also always an option if if we were to discover a systemic problem in a particular location But they're required to fix it They are required they're required to take it out of service immediately To the extent that they don't wish to return the fixture to service You could imagine if you're a school and you had dozens of water fountains or bubblers You may choose to to leave one out of service rather than replace it But it can cannot be returned to service With with a fixture that's known to have high lead levels other questions I have none Uh, what is your reaction that court Granted a preliminary injunction against woodside Requiring some changes to policies about restraints and seclusion practices. Uh, what is your reaction? Yeah, obviously unfortunate The incident itself is unfortunate Um, we've been talking about woodside with the legislature Legislative leaders over the past session Trying to come to some conclusion about what we want a woodside to be Either a rehabilitation center or a detention facility Or a combination and we're still working our way through that and and working with the legislature to come to terms with that But obviously, uh, we own this. Uh, we're going to do better. Uh, we uh, we thank the court for for offering their advice and opinion And we'll adhere to that arguably this had been sort of Something that had been known for a while. There's been a lot of criticism About these practices before this ruling. Why wasn't something done before? Well, we we believe that Something had been done along the way, but just not quick enough and Again, we own it. We need to do better and we'll move forward from this when you say that what have you Um, you mean what we've done in the past I the the Department of Child Children Families and Corrections have been aware of this issue and and have Taken action and rectified as some of the situation obviously this incident That I haven't seen I've just read about Is something that uh, that we can't tolerate. We should do better With all the recent shootings around the country do you have any Second thoughts about vetoing the waiting period here in Vermont? Yeah, well the the waiting period legislation was geared around suicides, it wasn't really geared around Mass shootings of this nature as you recall we took a lot of action A year ago on this issue and And it's proving to be the right step to make I believe many other states have followed suit I believe that Sometimes after the fact when you look at other states like Florida and Arizona and so forth I think we we did what we we thought was right and and I'll stand by that And this issue that from my perspective The data didn't back up what what they were trying to accomplish It was handguns only 24 hour waiting period And most of the deaths that we've that I've seen that reflects Our people military, which is concerning veterans In an older age, so I'm not sure that this would have helped in that situation Would you like to see congress go back and read state the assault weapons ban? Well, I think congress should take a look and determine that themselves. I'd like to see them take action and it's like Whether it's immigration or or gun safety measures I think we're just waiting for for congress to do something Rather than just this partisan Polarization divide that's uh, that's uh, that's we're witnessing Across our country. So I think that they need to take action on something But would you support an assault weapons ban? Well, you know, I had weighed in on this assault weapons ban issue before You know when you take a hunting rifle a 223 hunting rifle is semi-automatic It's not really a lot different than an assault weapon. It just looks different and the magazine The capacity is different with an assault weapon. So we Rightly or wrongly we'll find out, uh, you know, there's a Supreme court case that will will come to To terms with with the magazine on limits, whether that's constitutional or not, but The magazine limit somewhat took care of that assault weapon issue So when you say you want congress to do something Well, yeah, what do you want to do? Well background checks. I mean red flag legislation I mean all kinds of things. I think that they should they should take another look once we we have Enhanced background checks. I think they really need to take a look at the next system itself Because I think it needs improvement and I think it has to reflect some of the red flag legislation That we've we passed and whether that's introduced in the next system And how quickly I think this is this is all evolving Before before our eyes and something that we have to come to grips with What do you think the blamant law that you signed Serves as a model for what should be done at the federal level? Well, I think it's being looked at I mean the red flag legislation is being talked about the Enhanced background checks are being talked about so a lot of the the Measures we took are being considered or at least talked about I don't know about considered at this point, but at least talked about What is your reaction to the Insurance rates that were approved by the care board? Yeah, again concerning These rate increases are affecting everyday vermoners and and I talk a lot about the affordability of our state And when you see a 10 11 12 increase it affects the folks that are in need so This We're we're again. I think there's many steps that need to be taken some long term Hopefully we're taking a look and seeing if there's some some approach we could take with reinsurance and so forth, but that's That's that's something the agency of human services is working with the our federal federal Folks to see if there's anything we can accomplish in that area, but again concerning and unsustainable But the all-payer model that we've We've been working on that had the pilot program enhanced that We think it's part of the answer long term But we also need a younger healthier population being introduced in vermont. That's I I think that's part of our problem as well As we age we we use healthcare more It just the the usage goes up the costs go up And we don't have the younger healthier population That is uh helping to spread the the burden I mean when you look at the factors in the rate increases you saw an older demographic you saw prescription drugs So, I mean you've got factors out there that I mean, how do you deal with those? Well, yeah, again prescription drugs for instance, I forgot about that but We we took we took some steps as a legislature and the administration working together I signed the legislation for a re-importation from canada The federal government has said well, we're going to try and you know put something forward to to help The states that are interested in doing this And we look forward to working with them pass for I'm going to be asking for a meeting with with the federal human services Agency to see where we go from here because we want to be part of Whatever they put forward and we'd like to expedite it as as as fast as possible So, yeah prescription drugs is a major factor as well. Thank you very much appreciate it