Thank you for your good article on drinking water quality on campus. As the students who conducted the water quality testing, we want to provide an update to last weeks’ Mass Media article on lead levels in the drinking water on campus. On Friday, April 4th we met with Brian Dumser of the UMB Environmental Health and Safety Office to detail our findings. As the Mass Media reported, we found that although average lead levels in the drinking water are considerably lower than when originally tested in 200l, there were a few fountains that continued to have unacceptably high levels of lead. We identified the problem locations and Mr. Dumser had the fountains shut off immediately after our meeting.

We also understand from Mr. Dumser that the university is in the process of accepting bids for new filtrine systems that will, when they are installed, end the current “flushing” solution used to limit lead levels by circulating water.

Also a small correction — the water quality testing was not performed by the Environmental Club. The testing was part of an undergraduate research project supported by a grant from the UMB Healey Endowment Grant Program. Our faculty advisors are Daniel Brabander and Robert Beattie from the Environmental Studies Program.

We will be displaying the results of our research on campus during Earth Week. We look forward to sharing the information with the campus community.

Sincerely,Anne HerbstCatherine MoroskiCAS ’03