League of Women Voters tells Nueces County officials lead exposure clusters appear in ZIP codes 78415 and 78380

Catherine Oler, president of the League of Women Voters of the Corpus Christi area, presented the organization’s four‑year study of lead in local drinking water and childhood lead testing to the commissioners court on July 21. The league highlighted that infants, children and pregnant or nursing women are the most at risk from lead exposure and said no Texas public drinking water system currently uses a health‑based lead standard.

The presenters noted two local ZIP codes — 78415 and 78380 — showed disproportionately high counts of children with elevated blood lead levels in Texas Department of State Health Services data they obtained. The League urged the county and water utilities to refine sampling locations by ZIP code, establish monitoring in schools and daycare facilities, publish monitoring data by ZIP code and adopt a lower operational trigger (they recommended 5 parts per billion at the tap) for mitigation steps.

The court thanked the League for the study and asked for footnotes and citations; commissioners discussed coordination through the county’s public‑health advisory structures and the Better Health Outcomes task force. The judge and staff said they would share the report with county public‑health and social‑determinants teams and look at whether ARPA or other funding could be applied to water‑quality work and targeted outreach.