Site addresses water quality programs, potable water Standard, and testing protocols to ensure safe drinking water.

Document addresses water quality programs, potable water Standard, and testing protocols to ensure safe drinking water.

Subdivision 1. Model plan. — The commissioners of health and education shall jointly develop a model plan to require school districts to accurately and efficiently test for the presence of lead in water in public school buildings serving students in kindergarten through grade 12. To the extent possible, the commissioners shall base the plan on the Standard established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The plan may be based on the technical guidance in the Department of Health’s document, “Reducing Lead in Drinking Water: A Technical Guidance for Minnesota’s School and Child Care Facilities.”

Subd. 2. School plans. — By July 1, 2018, the board of each school district or charter school must adopt the commissioners model plan or develop and adopt an alternative plan to accurately and efficiently test for the presence of lead in water in school buildings serving prekindergarten students and students in kindergarten through grade 12.

Subd. 3. Frequency of testing. (a) The plan under subdivision 2 must include a testing schedule for every building serving prekindergarten through grade 12 students. The schedule must require that each building be tested at least once every five years. A school district or charter school must begin testing school buildings by July 1, 2018, and complete testing of all buildings that serve students within five years.

(b) A school district or charter school that finds lead at a specific location providing cooking or drinking water within a facility must formulate, make publicly available, and implement a plan that is consistent with established guidelines and recommendations to ensure that student exposure to lead is minimized. This includes, when a school district or charter school finds the presence of lead at a level where action should be taken as set by the guidance in any water source that can provide cooking or drinking water, immediately shutting off the water source or making it unavailable until the hazard has been minimized.

Subd. 4. Ten-year facilities plan. — A school district may include lead testing and remediation as a part of its ten-year facilities plan under section 123B.595.

Subd. 5. Reporting. — A school district or charter school that has tested its buildings for the presence of lead shall make the results of the testing available to the public for review and must notify parents of the availability of the information. School districts and charter schools must follow the actions outlined in guidance from the commissioners of health and education. If a test conducted under subdivision 3, paragraph (a), reveals the presence of lead above a level where action should be taken as set by the guidance, the school district or charter must, within 30 days of receiving the test result, either remediate the presence of lead to below the level set in guidance, verified by retest, or directly notify parents of the test result. The school district or charter school must make the water source unavailable until the hazard has been minimized.