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expert who helped expose the Flint water crisis, supports their push for stricter standards, citing the dangers of outdated plumbing and inconsistent water use in aging school buildings.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.
This reflects ongoing concerns in San Francisco, particularly in Bayview-Hunters Point and the Mission District, where aging infrastructure and delayed responses have led to unsafe water in several schools. At Dr. George Washington Carver Elementary and Bret Harte Elementary, students have relied on bottled water for over a year after some fixtures tested as high as 150 ppb — 30 times the state limit. Meanwhile, at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 in the Mission, where students are predominantly Latino and low-income, families report poor communication about contamination and little transparency about when and how water systems will be fixed.
Parents and community advocates in both neighborhoods voice deep distrust in SFUSD’s commitment to student health, especially when compared to wealthier parts of the city. Nearly 99% of students at Bret Harte and Carver, and over 80% at Buena Vista Horace Mann, are children of color and come from low-income households. Residents argue that if these schools were located in San Francisco’s wealthier, whiter neighborhoods, the response would have been faster and more transparent. A 2022 Duke University study supports their claims, linking racial segregation, lead exposure, and academic inequity statewide.
While both Oakland and San Francisco districts cite high remediation costs — over $50 million in Oakland alone — students and families argue that protecting children’s health shouldn’t be optional. Recent state legislation and a proposed $10 billion bond may provide partial funding, but critics say current laws place the burden of fixing lead issues largely on under-resourced schools.
For youth organizers like those behind Project Nemo, the fight for clean water is inseparable from the fight for racial justice, transparency, and respect. “The board waited until things were really, really bad,” said Kayondo. “I hope that in the future the board shows us that they care about kids in our schools.”
EdSource has a helpful map indicating the lead levels in schools throughout the state.
Image: Jonathan Chng/Unsplash
