By Lois Rogers | Correspondent

As Catholic school buildings around the Trenton Diocese prepare to open next month, students, faculty and staff will enter with the assurance that every available water source in them has been tested and found free of lead.

Such affirmation comes as the result of a diocesan initiative to have the water tested even though the recent state mandate to check for lead contamination did not apply to nonpublic schools, said Joseph Cahill, diocesan director of risk management.

“We wanted to do this because we care about our children. It’s one more way of protecting them,” said Cahill.

In 2016, concerns about lead contamination in water sources in public schools in Newark and Jersey City prompted the New Jersey Department of Education to rule all such facilities throughout the state be tested for lead content in the sources of water for drinking or cooking prior to this July 31.

Considering the health threat that lead contamination posed its students, faculty and staff, “the Diocese felt it was important to step up and take care of the schools,” said Cahill, who oversaw the program along with the diocesan department of property and construction at no cost to the schools.

Cahill said the idea was first raised by Michael Penner, facilities manager of Toms River’s St. Joseph Parish where the campus is home to St. Joseph Elementary School and Donovan Catholic High School.

Penner is a member of the New Jersey Schools Buildings and Grounds Association where lead related concerns were a matter of discussion, said Cahill. When he ran these concerns by Cahill, the reaction was immediate and positive with the buildings on the St. Joseph campus the first to be tested in March, 2016.

Tests revealed lead in two locations which were immediately put out of service, Penner said. “We look out for our children. We want to provide them with a safe environment and we thought that we should be proactive in this approach,” said Penner, who praised the Diocese for moving swiftly on the initiative.

The Diocese contracted with LECO Laboratory, Hamilton, a New Jersey certified analytical testing facility to test for lead contamination in all elementary and secondary school facilities. In all, more than 1,000 samples were taken not just in the schools but in all of the buildings on each school campus. “We felt it was important to have a systemic approach,” Cahill said.

By the end of July, “all schools have been tested and the results are back,” said Cahill, and everyone has been informed what to do,” which is to take the offending point source out of service immediately and replace it.

JoAnn Tier, superintendent of Catholic Schools, said the initiative reflected the overall objective: the health and safety of the students.

“The health, well-being and safety of students enrolled in our Catholic schools are areas of primary concern. To that end, when lead testing became a requirement for public schools, there was immediate agreement that our Catholic schools would also complete the water testing to ensure compliance with EPA requirements.”