At the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, students started to notice that the water fountains of Whitney Young were displaying a red light, meaning that the filters were not working. There was even an announcement about lead contamination in certain water fountains, causing more concern and students quickly wondered if the water was safe to drink. Some students even stopped drinking from the water fountains out of fear that lead was contaminating the water and consumption of the water from these water fountains could lead to health complications. Ellie Odom ‘19 commented on the issue saying, “I don’t feel safe drinking this water. After practice I am always super thirsty, but I’d rather be dehydrated than get lead poisoning!”

By the end of last school year, students hoped this issue would be fixed because it had been going on for so long. Despite these hopes, students returned to school and many of the filters still showed up as not working. Some people aren’t worrying about it as much, Eleanor Sherline ‘19 said “I still drink from the water fountains. The water tastes fine and I’m sure the filters work by now.” Many students have expressed concern that they may never get working water fountains. Students hope that they will soon be able to get water from these fountains without the worry of broken filters and lead contamination.