Dear Editor,
Upon reading Michael King’s article on unsafe lead levels in Texas schools [“
Getting the Lead Out,” News, March 3], I was a bit alarmed, not only due to the fact that these issues face our Texas schools, but also because of the implications that our bodies of water will face. Many times when we bring attention to an issue, we fail to look beyond it and connect it to bigger and greater things. Not that our children are not important, but a hazard such as lead seeping into our water systems does not only mean that our children are at risk, but an entire city, like we’ve seen with Flint, Michigan.
When writing about hazards in our Texas schools pertaining to our drinking water, we should also connect them to bigger issues, such as how they can later on impact and possibly cause more hazards in our bodies of water. Every year we pollute our water by being careless, and we ignore the fact that they were once issues that could be easily prevented at a smaller scale and at a cheaper price. I appreciate that the article did call for a better legislative effort but it could have also included a segment on how to become more involved in protecting not only our schools from hazardous chemicals, but also our Texas waters.