City school officials showed up last Tuesday armed with fresh water and a repair plan for a Brooklyn high school where a $5,100 high-tech water fountain never got turned on because of dangerous lead levels.
The Post reported on Sept. 15 that students had raised money to buy the new fountain to bring clean water to the International HS at Prospect Heights, which is housed in a 95-year-old building.
But the fountain remained unused after being installed last June because tests found lead contamination in the water.
Two days after the story ran, Department of Education workers hauled in five-gallon jugs of purified water and a dispenser, which they set up for students and staff near principal Nedda deCastro’s office.
Plumbers removed “particulate matter” in the soldering that links the building pipes to the fountain, and the water will be retested, officials said in a letter to school staff.
“Educational bureaucrats converged on our school,” said a grateful Steve Watson, a math teacher who helped the teens sell popcorn to buy the HydroBoost bubbler and water cooler.
“Thanks to the Post reporting, the level of effort to get this thing resolved is greater than it has ever been,” he said.
Under a 2016 state law, schools must provide safe water for free.