Testing Your Water
Our Guide for Testing Your Water
LeadCare Illinois makes it easy for child care providers and schools to test for lead in water. We guide you through collecting and submitting samples, reviewing results, and taking next steps with a clear step-by-step process. Check out our videos below to learn how to test your facility's water for lead.
How to Prepare Your Facility for Testing
How to Collect Water Samples
Understanding Your Test Results
LeadCare Illinois will share your test results within 30 days of your samples arriving at the certified lab. Your test results will include a listing of the fixtures that were sampled, the type of sample collected, and the concentration of lead detected in each sample, reported in parts per billion (ppb).
The guidance below will help you determine the appropriate next steps after reviewing your lead-in-water test results.
Child Cares
- This is good news! You are not required to create a mitigation plan or retest your water.
- However, you are required to:
- Post the test results in a visible location in your child care facility.
- Share your test results with your DCFS licensing representative within 120 days of receiving them.
- You are also required to retest your water if you move your child care services to a new address, alter the plumbing in your facility, replace your water service line, or if there is a change to your water source.
- Child care providers must take immediate action upon receiving your test results to ensure a safe water supply for the children at your facility. This means implementing temporary strategies (such as placing “do not drink” signage or using point-of-use filters certified for lead removal).
- You must also develop a long-term mitigation plan to reduce the amount of lead in water to below 2.01 ppb.
- You are required to:
- Post all test results in a visible location in your child care facility.
- Make your mitigation plan available to parents and caregivers.
- Submit your test results and mitigation plan to your DCFS licensing representative within 120 days of receiving test results.
- Once you have implemented a long-term mitigation plan, you must retest each fixture that indicates lead is present at least two additional times until the levels are below 2.01 ppb.
- You are required to collect your first retesting samples no later than six months following the completion of a mitigation plan and your second set of samples no later than one year following mitigation.
Schools
- This is good news! We do not recommend any mitigation steps or additional testing for lead in drinking water.
- We also recommend that you:
- Post the test results in a visible location in your school.
- Notify parents, caregivers, and staff about the results by sending written or electronic communication or by posting the results on the school’s website.
- You should plan to retest your water if you move your school to a new address, alter the plumbing in your facility, replace your water service line, or if there is a change to the water source.
- We highly recommend reducing the level of lead at fixtures with lead levels above 5 ppb. Because there is no safe level of lead exposure in children, we also recommend taking action at outlets with results between 2.01ppb and 5ppb.
- We recommend that you:
- Take immediate action upon receiving your test results to ensure a safe water supply for the children at your school.
- Develop a long-term mitigation plan to reduce the amount of lead in water.
- Make your test results and mitigation plan available to parents, caregivers, and staff in both written and electronic communication and on your school’s website.
- If you implement a mitigation plan, retest your water to ensure the installed measures reduce lead levels. We suggest you collect your first retesting samples no later than six months following the completion of a mitigation plan and your second set of samples no later than one year following mitigation.
- You must directly communicate the results to parents and caregivers via written or electronic communication.
- The communication must include information about where the outlet is located, as well as a link to the U.S. EPA’s website on lead in drinking water.
Sharing Your Results
Communicating with parents, caregivers, and staff throughout the lead-in-water testing process is important. Communicating early and often helps build trust. If you need to develop and implement a mitigation plan, the plan must be made available to parents and caregivers. Download our templates for sample communications to help you keep your community informed throughout the lead-in-water testing process.
Communication Templates
Template: Your Facility Will Test Its Drinking Water for Lead
Template: Communicate Your Test Results (All Samples Below 2.01 ppb)
Template: Communicate Your Test Results (Lead Present)
Template: Communicate Your Mitigation Plan
Template: Communicate Your Follow-Up Test Results (All Samples Below 2.01 ppb)
Template: Communicate Your Follow-Up Test Results (Lead Present at or Above 2.01 ppb)