PARIS ACHEN - Rep. Alissa Keny Guyer, D-Portland, chairwoman of the House Committee on Human Services and Housing (File photo)

SALEM — Lawmakers have revived a bill that mandates testing for lead in water supplies and carbon dioxide monitors in public schools.

The bill also provides a special $2.5 million fund to pay for the new obligations.

Administrative rules approved last year by the Oregon Board of Education already require school districts to have a plan for testing for lead and other environmental hazards and notifying the public of any results, but lead testing itself is not mandated.

The bill by Sen. Michael Dembrow and Rep. Alyssa Keny-Guyer codifies into law the existing requirements by the education board and adds the mandate to test for lead and install carbon dioxide monitors.

The bill received a public hearing in the Senate Rules Committee Wednesday, May 10, after almost perishing in Senate Education because unfinished amendments caused it to miss a deadline for passing bills out of committee. Only the Rules Committee can move late-breaking bills during the legislative session.

The bill could return to the rules committee for a possible vote in the next two weeks, after some minor amendments.

The Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Department of Education asked schools last summer to test for lead in school water. Lawmakers approved about $2 million to pay for the tests.

The fund set up with the legislation to pay for lead testing and carbon dioxide detection consists of about $2.5 million. That amount would not cover the cost of mitigating toxins found in schools.

The $2.5 million fund would be siphoned from an existing $9 million facility grant fund used to pay for furniture and other miscellaneous items when school districts approve bond measures. That fund exists because schools are prohibited from using bond money to pay for furniture under law.

School districts would be required to submit a plan for testing for environmental hazards by July 1, 2019, to the education department.

The push to mandate testing and require school officials to communicate the results followed a media coverage of a scandal in Portland Public Schools. Officials in that district were testing for and found lead in drinking water supplies but did not share that information with parents.

“We realized we have a problem here, not only with not testing for lead, but with not communicating in a transparent way as much as is needed,” Dembrow said.

State agencies, including the education department and the Oregon Health Authority, have no authority to force school districts to test for lead in water. The bill could give the education department the authority to withhold funding from a school district that refuses to conduct testing.

Dembrow and Keny-Guyer, both Democrats from Portland, spearheaded legislation in 2015 that required districts to test for radon. At that time, they assumed that school districts already were testing for lead, Keny-Guyer testified Wednesday, May 10.

The legislation in play would consolidate all of the environmental testing regulations for schools, making it easier for school officials to comply, said Sen. Arnie Roblan, D-Coos Bay, a former school district administrator.

“We were thinking about addressing just lead and over the course of meetings with parents (and others), they were pointing to other problems: asbestos, mold, lead in paint,” Dembrow said. “We decided the better way to approach this was to do it comprehensively rather than hazard by hazard and let districts know we expect them to have a comprehensive plan.”

New York enacted a law last year requiring schools to test for lead, report results to the public and develop a plan for reducing exposure to the toxin, according to the Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office.

Paris Achen

Portland Tribune Capital Bureau

503-385-4899

email: pachen@portlandtribune.com

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