View Comments Around 300 Nueces County children under the age of 6 — and potentially hundreds more — had high levels of lead in their blood between 2012 and 2017, and at least 50 more children experience lead poisoning each year, according to an analysis by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The League of Women Voters of Corpus Christi presented the findings of that study to the Nueces County commissioners’ court this week. The presentation also showed that, as recently as 2019, the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi’s Child Development Center had a higher level of lead in its water than federal regulations allow. Congress banned the use of lead pipes in 1986, but those already in use were allowed to remain. Nearly all buildings constructed before that year have either lead pipes or lead solder in their plumbing systems, meaning people who drink water from faucets or fountains in those buildings could be exposed to the contaminant.