CHAPEL HILL — This week, the Environment, Health and Safety department at UNC Chapel Hill was testing water fixtures across its campus for lead levels.

The testing is part of a multi-phased plan to identify the highest likelihood of fixtures containing lead based on the age or when the building, where the fixtures were located, was constructed.

This testing was launched months ago due to two Robeson County students, who while serving as interns at North Carolina’s flagship university over the summer, made the bombshell discovery of significant levels of lead in the institution’s drinking water.

“When you think of UNC, it’s one of the premier universities in the UNC system and they have lead that could potentially be making people sick and it was out students that discovered that,” said Anthony Barton, the principal of Robeson Early College High School. “I just think that’s phenomenal.”

Julia Autry, of St. Pauls, and Ja’Myiah Clark of Lumberton, the students who made the discovery, are advanced seniors at Robeson Early College High School, and both have a vested interest in studying geoscience. This is why they jumped at the chance to spend a month in Chapel Hill studying the subject through an internship opportunity.

“I found out about the internship through one of the science teachers at school,” Clark said. “The internship itself was like basically us going out and exploring like nature and stuff —stuff dealing with environmental science.”

“We were at the campus a week before just learning about what we would be doing up there and some of the different activities we would be going to and talking to some different people and then we went up to Chapel Hill and did our internship project,” Autry said.

When deciding on the project focus during the internship, both students knew that wanted to do something involving lead and water.

“We decided that we wanted to do it on the drinking water on the campus … our overall goal was to make sure that it was safe on the campus for the students,” Autry said.

Under the supervision of Michael Sandstrom, a post-doctoral research associate at UNC, the two students sampled water from the older and newer buildings across campus, testing them with a mass spectrometer before obtaining the final results, which were delivered to the interns via email from their supervisor.

“He was like, you’ll never believe the result we got back and that’s how we found out about the levels,” Autry said.

According to the EPA, lead can enter drinking water when plumbing materials that contain lead corrode, especially where the water has high acidity or low mineral content that corrodes pipes and fixtures. The most common sources of lead in drinking water are lead pipes, faucets and fixtures. If more than 10% of tap water samples exceed the lead action level of 15 parts per billion, then the agency requires action to be taken.

“The levels that we found were like way way more … We were mainly shocked,” Clark said.

Making the discovery helped boost the confidence of both students and now they are advocates for their peers.

“I didn’t expect it to have such a big impact that it did,” Autry said. “Originally, when I went up there, I was kind of nervous that I wouldn’t be able to do the stuff right when we were up there but then when we got our results back, they said it was corrected and that everything went good so I was just really proud of me and Ja’Myiah that we were able to do what we did.”

“I was not expecting that at all but I feel like it just shows how much we can contribute to other people if we just put our minds to it,” Clark said. “It just really showed how capable we are of doing things like that … It shows other people like our classmates and our peers that you shouldn’t underestimate yourself cause you can really do anything.”

Barton said that with the release of ESSAR funding over the past two years, there has been an increase in internship opportunities throughout the state and he encourages students while in high school to take advantage.

“It’s common for our students to participate in internships throughout the years but especially during the summer,” Barton said.

“You may think you know what it is you want to do and you may get involved in something and absolutely hate it or absolutely love it … I just encourage students to take the opportunity to do an internship. You may just discover something that could make people sick,” he added.

Autry related this.

“I already knew that I wanted to do something in STEM before but actually being in the lab and being outside in the field doing stuff was just, it really changed my perspective of what I can do,” she said.

It also boosted Clark’s confidence.

“It made me be more vocal and stand in what I believe,” Clark said

“I’m so glad that we were able to work on this together because I couldn’t ask for a better lab partner than her,” Autry said.

Both Clark and Autry will graduate in May with diplomas and associate degrees. They both plan to go to four- year schools and study geoscience.

“They’ve done such a good job representing Early College High School and the Public Schools of Robeson County. We’re excited for the future of both of these girls,” Barton said.

“Robeson County, we get a lot of flack but there is a lot of good stuff happening and this is just another beacon of light in our system that we get to highlight,” said Jessica Horne, the chief Communication officer for PSRC.

Tomeka Sinclair can be reached at [email protected] or 910-416-5865.