Water fountains at CSU Long Beach deemed unsafe by students

A local Cal State campus is operating without much of its drinking water after the water was found to be contaminated and unsafe.

In an interesting twist...it was some of the chemistry students at the school who first uncovered the water contamination.

Elaine Bernal collected water from 10 campus drinking fountains. Her Chemistry 100 students used a kit to test the water samples. She discovered her sample tested positive for lead.

The water from the fountains came back positive for lead in half of the tests, including two done by Bernal to check her students' results.

Bernal has done this kind of testing with her students for three semesters. This is the first time test results suggested the water might be unsafe.

It was enough to motivate Cal State Long Beach to test every fountain.

The hydration stations with filtered water are still running and there are now bottled water dispensers near the defunct fountains.