(Phil Kassen)

On January 23rd my group had an interview with Phil Kassen our school director. He helped us understand the schools water filtration system. Recently the school put water filters on all of its sink and water fountain flaw-sets. They did this because even though most of New York City’s water is very clean there are some old pipes and lead can be found in the water that runs through those pipes. During our interview he told us that the school did not have a lead problem but they wanted to make sure the schools water was extra safe. So the school brought in a professional who tested the water in all the sinks and water fountains around the school. This person found that most of the schools water was already clean but in a few of the lower school classrooms there were small traces of lead. The school put special filters into the sinks that they found this in. The school also put filters in the water fountains. Phil helped us better understand our schools water systems and how they are working to make them better. He also told us that he understands that water pollution is a big and growing problem and wants to try to help. Currently our school actually does very little to try to conserve water and he told us he doesn’t even know how much water we use each year. Their are many ways that we could try to do this in the future. Some of these things that we could do would include perhaps putting a timer on the sinks to prevent waisted water. We could even reuse the sink water in the toilets because this is actually a very affective way to save water. Though it is not so easily done, however he does hope that there are ways he can reduce water usage in the future.