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The San Diego Unified School District is planning to flush pipes with water at schools prior to the City of San Diego administering tests for lead. District officials say the practice will protect students, while water quality experts warn it could hide dangerous levels of the metal. The San Diego Unified School District began testing its schools’ water Tuesday after lab reports confirmed “higher than allowable” lead levels were found at one campus. Samples will be gathered at five campuses a day, Tuesday through Saturday, now through mid-June.

At the San Diego County Water Authority, we scrutinize every dollar to make sure ratepayers get a good return on their investments in safe and reliable water supplies. But that isn’t the case everywhere – and it’s certainly not the case at the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Several steps removed form nearly 20 million residents it serves, MWD overcharged ratepayers $847 million more than the agency’s budgets said was needed from 2012-2015.

Treated water rates set by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have doubled over the past decade, due in part to unrestrained fiscal practices at the agency. Ratepayers are about to be on the hook for a lot more unless MWD’s out-of-control spending can be stopped. The Los Angeles-based district is the nation’s largest water agency, serving nearly 20 million people across Southern California. In San Diego County, our reliance on MWD water has been reduced by more than half over the past few decades due to strategic investments in dough-resilient water supplies.