Lead in Virginia school drinking water

The source publishes one row per sample taken at a fixture, so every figure below counts fixture samples. A sample is counted above the action level here when its measured value is at or above 15 ppb.

Samples collected

13,906

Readings published

13,906 — every one carrying a number. Virginia does not mark a reading its laboratory could not measure, so how many of these are measurements and how many are non-detects recorded at a reporting limit is not derivable from what it publishes.

13,906 readings published = 13,906 samples collected

Three-quarters of the readings Virginia publishes — 10,529 of 13,906 — are exactly 2 ppb, and after October 2024 the data contains no value below 2 at all. Before that month the same dashboard published values below 2, including 55 zeros and 27 negative numbers down to −0.03 ppb, which are instrument responses below a detection limit rather than concentrations. Read together, that is consistent with non-detects being recorded at a laboratory reporting limit rather than flagged as non-detects. VDH does not publish that limit — its FAQ names EPA Method 200.8, states no limit of its own, and leaves the choice of certified laboratory to each division — so we do not state one, we do not say which readings are non-detects, and we do not compute a measured-only rate for Virginia. That inference is ours, not the state's. The share of all samples collected at or above the action level is not affected by it: that denominator is every sample Virginia published, however those readings are classified.

1.2% (164 of 13,906 samples collected) — fixtures at or above 15 ppb, the state's action level

10.3% (87 of 844 schools with published results) — schools at or above 15 ppb, the state's action level

The two rates above count fixture samples; this one counts schools with at least one sample at or above the level. The gap between them is itself informative, and the two units must never be mixed inside one comparison.

Sampling period: 2024-01-25 to 2026-07-10.

3 dated rows fall outside the plausible window — 2000-01-01 through the day the data was retrieved (2026-08-09) — and are excluded from the range above: the latest date it publishes is 2508-08-11. Those rows are still counted in every total on this page, and every date survives verbatim in the CSV below.