Four Oakland high school students are demanding action on lead-contaminated drinking water in schools, saying it threatens the health and futures of thousands of youths. Their call echoes the lead crisis in SF’s Bayview-Hunters Point and the Mission.
As reported in Oakland North, four Oakland High School seniors have turned their senior project into a grassroots campaign called Project Nemo, demanding lead-free drinking water and stronger protections across the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Alarmed by years of delayed action after lead contamination was discovered in 2017 and reconfirmed in 2024, students Palmer Kayondo, Daniel Thomas, Jeremiah Evans, and Nijeer Roy-Enis launched the initiative to push for urgent infrastructure fixes, clearer communication, and accountability from district leaders. Their campaign includes public testimony, coalition-building with advocacy groups, and school-wide awareness efforts.
The students argue that OUSD’s current lead threshold of 5 parts per billion (ppb) is too high, emphasizing that no level of lead is safe according to health experts. Elin Betanzo, a water quality expert who helped expose the Flint water crisis, supports their push for stricter standards, citing the dangers of outdated plumbing and inconsistent water use in aging school buildings. OUSD’s 2024 testing found elevated lead levels in hundreds of fixtures, prompting a plan to install inline filters, though experts say only point-of-use filters offer meaningful protection. Students also report that existing filtered water stations are often broken or overused, limiting access to safe drinking water…