Local Daycares Failed To Test Water For Lead, Audit Shows

Sixteen daycare centers in Brooklyn failed to meet lead testing requirements for their water supply, and some were found to contain dangerous levels of the highly poisonous metal, according to an audit released on Friday June 24, by New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. In addition, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene officials were caught falsifying lead testing records in daycare centers in order to expedite permits, leaving hundreds of children city-wide exposed to potential lead poisoning.

The audit, conducted by the City Agency, found that the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), which oversees 2,300 daycare centers throughout New York City, failed to enforce requirements for lead testing in the water supply of New York City daycare centers.

Of the 119 open daycare centers sampled, nearly 70 showed no evidence of required lead testing. Of 49 centers that did have testing records, five showed dangerous levels requiring immediate action — two centers in Brooklyn. The DOHMH indicated that it would only require further testing if high amounts of lead were present in a child’s blood, according to the audit report.

“The health of our children is non-negotiable,” Comptroller Stringer said. “The fact that the Department of Health directed its employees to enter false information in an official database is a blatant violation of public trust. It should not take an audit to ensure that a City agency is doing its job to protect our kids.”

Symptoms of lead poisoning are hard to detect, according to the Mayo Clinic, but lead exposure can cause severe mental and physical impairment in young children, and in some cases death.

All daycare centers are required to test their water supply for lead, based on a 2008 City Health Code amendment, but the amendment lacks specifications like when and how often to conduct tests. To ensure proper enforcement, the DOHMH added a measure in 2011 that required daycare centers to show proof of lead testing in order to receive operational permits.

But the recent audit revealed that between 2012 and 2014, DOHMH officials directed their staff to falsify information in the agency’s tracking database, overriding their own requirements by saying that lead testing had been completed at daycare centers where it had been skipped, according to email records discovered during the audit.

As a rebuttal, the DOHMH stated that the testing requirement created the unintended consequence of blocking renewal permits for daycare centers, and thus entered false information as a ‘workaround’, according to audit reports.

In Brooklyn, sixteen daycare centers from the sample were operating without a proper water lead test, including:

Prospect Lefferts Gardens:

• First Stepping Stone LLC, 4017 Church Avenue between East 40th Street and Albany Avenue

Sheepshead Bay:

• Congregation Keshet Beanan, 1612 Quentin Road

Brighton:

• Labor & Industry for Education, Inc. 2757 West 33rd Street, between Neptune and Bayview Avenues
• Ms Sunshine Inc., 3096 Brighton 6th Street, between Brighton Beach Avenue and Brightwater Court (Update: Ms Sunshine Inc. sent us documents from the Department of Health showing they passed a lead-in-water analysis on May,16, 2016. New York City public records confirm a test found the water safe to drink.)