Lead Test Dates Set At Silver Valley Schools

Testing for lead and other metals in Silver Valley schools will start June 19, according to documents filed in Idaho state court on Tuesday.

Robert Huntley, the attorney representing 15 school districts in a lawsuit against the state, is offering to pay for the testing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may not have immediate funding for the work, according to a letter Huntley wrote to an EPA watchdog. EPA officials were not available for comment late Tuesday.

Huntley is disputing claims that the testing is too expensive to carry out immediately, despite an order in March from a state judge.

“Assuming the cost is as modest as I believe it will be, I will advance the expense myself if neither the federal nor the state government can overcome their paralysis,” he wrote Robert Martin, the EPA’s national ombudsman, on June 1.

The schools are suing the state for allegedly failing to meet constitutional requirements to provide adequate education. Their lawsuit focuses on dilapidated buildings and other inadequacies at the state’s schools, including safety problems.