Monday, the community’s water system made a list of 26 Montana drinking water suppliers challenged by either high nitrate levels or total trihalomethanes.
Wittak wasn’t sure Flaxville’s nitrates were caused by nitrogen fertilizer on area crops.
We’ve always had high nitrates,” Wittak said.
Over years of drinking water with TTHMS levels exceeding 80 parts per billion, people can develop liver, kidney and central nervous system problems.
When it comes to TTHMS, it’s the chlorine treatment that compounds the water quality problem.
When the fertilizer is stored in piles on the ground, it’s highly concentrated and does leach into the soil.
It’s hard to determine whether nitrogen is the actual cause of nitrates in water, said John Youngberg of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation.
Closer to home, nitrates in drinking water can pose real problems for humans.
The Yellowstone Boys and Girls Ranch west of Billings switched to bottled water after nitrate levels were elevated at the live-in schools drinking water supply.
The ranch has drilled new wells away from its original well site and is now redirecting its plumbing to the new source, which hasn’t been cheap.

SWAMPSCOTT — After a two-year effort, two water refill stations were installed at Swampscott Middle School last month to cut down on waste and continue the school’s recycling efforts.
“Thanks to our friends at the PTO (Parent Teacher Organization), For The Love of Swampscott and two of our teachers, Mr. (William) Andrake and Mrs. (Erica) Vanderhoof, Swampscott Middle School now has two water refill stations,” said middle school Principal Jason Calichman in a blog post.
Andrake, an eighth grade science teacher, said the water refill stations were installed at the school on Sept. 22.
He said she had talked about it and he later went to a conference where there were water refill stations.
The two teachers spoke to the PTO and Swampscott Rotary Club to see if they could help out and also applied for a grant from the Swampscott Education Foundation to get them throughout the school, which was denied.
The goal with trying to get refill stations was to change the school’s culture of waste with using disposable water bottles, Andrake said.
“Basically what they do is they provide a way for students to come in and teachers to come in with their own bottles,” Andrake said.
Andrake said the refill stations are water fountains, but they have the added feature of having a sensor that fills the water bottle, and a counter that keeps track of how many refills there are.
In less than a month since the refill stations have been installed at the school, Andrake said there have been 2,600 bottles of water provided by them, which translates to 2,600 disposable water bottles.
He expects those numbers to keep going down every week, and hopes that by announcing the numbers at school, students will be encouraged to get away from bottled water.

ROCKFORD, Mich. (AP) — Officials are shutting off drinking fountains and providing bottled water at a middle school in western Michigan as they test water for possible hazardous chemicals from a decades-old tannery waste dump site nearby.
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality announced precautionary measures Thursday at East Rockford Middle School.
Superintendent Michael Schibler said he was notified by the DEQ, the Kent County Health Department and Wolverine Worldwide that a disposal area had been located near the school.
He said his immediate concern was the safety of students and staff.
The agency said there’s no evidence of contamination in the Rockford school’s drinking water but said precautions will be taken until test results come back within about two weeks.
They also said eight properties adjacent to the subject area will also be tested as a precautionary measure.
Schibler said the school will provide bottled water for cooking and drinking until school administrators know the status of the well water.
Wolverine World Wide used chemicals at its former tannery in Rockford to waterproof leather for Hush Puppies shoe manufacturing.
Dump sites have turned up in the area, with contamination including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.
State toxicologists said exposure to PFAS have been linked to cancer as well as other health issues.

A West Michigan shoe manufacturer is sending bottled water to East Rockford Middle School.
An old dumpsite for shoemaker Wolverine Worldwide is believed to be responsible for a chemical leak in the area that could pose health risks.
That dumpsite is within a mile of the school.
About 800 students are drinking bottled water until groundwater test results come back.
David O’Donnell, who oversees remediation and redevelopment operations in West Michigan for the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, says the bottled water is only precautionary for the school.
“There is no information to suggest that there is groundwater contamination,” O’Donnell said.
According to O’Donnell, the school still felt it would be best not to drink any tap water until after the results come back.
“That was ultimately a decision the school made, in terms of safety, to have that bottled water,” he said.
O’Donnell says the test results for the school should be back by the end of the month.
Chris Hufnagel, Senior Vice President of Strategy at Wolverine Worldwide, said in a statement released today that the company is offering whole house filters to residents in the affected area who are getting their water tested.

Autoplay:Play Video0:00 0:00: 0%: 0%LIVE -0:00 BALTIMORE, Md.
– Bottled water is America’s favorite packaged beverage.
The agency breaks down bottled water into different categories: artesian, mineral, spring, and well water.
They all must meet FDA water quality standards but they come from different sources.
Well water and artesian water come from underground sources while spring water comes from surface water.
If you want to know the source of your bottled water, you should check the labels.
While bottled water may be branded as “mountain” or “glacier” water, it sometimes doesn’t even come close to those landmarks and the description is strictly for marketing purposes.
The water is usually treated before it’s bottled, however, it comes from a municipal source.
For example, brands like Aquafina, Dasani, and Nestlé Pure Life get their water from the local water supply.
Baltimore City Department of Public Works sells their water for $2.50 per unit, which comes to about $0.003 per gallon, making bottled water around 400 times more costly than tap water.

The Navy is researching new types of firefighting foam free of contaminants that were found in well water near a landing field used by fighter jets and in water systems near several other military installations around the country, according to a congressional watchdog report.
Firefighting foam is used by the Defense Department to quickly extinguish fires and prevent them from reigniting, but the foam used since the 1970s has contained perfluorinated compounds.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t regulate those compounds, but it considers them an “emerging contaminant” that could threaten health or the environment. The EPA is studying the contaminants to determine whether regulations for acceptable levels are needed. A provisional health advisory level is in place for now.
Other studies have shown that exposure may cause elevated cholesterol levels and low birth weight in humans.
Naval Air Systems Command, the Naval Research Laboratory in Arlington and a private firefighting foam manufacturer each are researching the development of a PFC-free firefighting foam, which the Defense Department believes would reduce the environmental impact of training while keeping personnel safe.
Another three homes are undergoing quarterly monitoring to ensure contaminant levels remain below the EPA’s provisional limits.
The Navy reported it spent more than $20 million investigating whether PFCs were in the water near 47 installations, and spent about $24 million on mitigation efforts at or near five of those, including $3 million at Fentress.

SOUTHEASTERN NC (WWAY) — The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality has ordered Chemours to provide bottled water to nine more well owners near the company’s Fayetteville facility after the most recent preliminary test results show GenX above the provisional state health goal in residential drinking wells.
This brings to 35 the number of residential well owners living near Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility who are receiving bottled water because of GenX detections above the state health goal of 140 parts per trillion.
The state Department of Environmental Quality and Chemours have sampled 105 residential wells since testing near the facility began in September.
DEQ officials are working on longer-term water solutions for residents with affected wells, most of whom live north of the facility. Among the possibilities are installing home water filter systems or connecting affected homes to an uncontaminated well source or a nearby public water supply.
Those locations include Marshwood Lake, Point East Lake, Alderman Elementary School, Gray’s Creek Elementary School, Gray’s Creek High School and water fountains at a ballfield north of Marshwood Lake. Results of those tests will be provided to the public when completed.

Manufacturers want to excise duties on their products harmonised.
PIC: Simon Kaheru, Minister Werikhe Kafabusa, Mukwano’s Tony Gadhoke and Morgan Bonna
The Minister of State for Trade, Michael Werikhe Kafabusa, has pledged that the government will work with the Uganda Water and Juice Manufacturers Association (UWJMA) to establish and implement a National Policy on Packaged and Bottled Water, to protect the industry and consumers in Uganda.
We will work in tandem to make sure the industry grows, and that we get rid of counterfeit bottled water products and illegal players,” Kafabusa said.
The Minister received a brief on UWJMA activities from Chairperson Tony Gadhoke also the Mukwano Group CEO, Secretary Morgan Bonna, and committee member Simon Kaheru, at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives Headquarters in Kampala.
We recognise that harmonising excise duties will ease your costs of production and make Uganda more competitive regionally,” he said.
The association’s secretary, Morgan Bonna, explained that the tax disparity put Uganda at a major disadvantage while allowing other countries to export bottled water to Uganda.
UWJMA Chairman Tony Gadhoke assured the Minister that the Association members were focused on producing safe, high-quality, regulated bottled water in the interest of consumers.
“Plastics Recycling Industries will work with all association members to establish and run more collection centres so that used water bottles do not find their way into landfills or into the environment, but are instead crushed and converted into raw materials for the production of plastic products for re-use,” he said.

More than a third of households in the US territory, including much of Sostre’s community, are without reliable drinking water at home.
In their defense, FEMA officials point out also that 20,000 other federal staff and military have been deployed to respond to Hurricane Maria.
There are 3.4 million people in Puerto Rico, and about 35% of households were without access to safe drinking water as of Tuesday, according to government estimates.
It’s a situation where you really should be drinking bottled water.
So I might as well drink this water,” one resident said.
“They need water.
She fell while trying to sweep rain out of her living room.
That was October 11 — 21 days after the storm.
FEMA has distributed 38,000 tarps on the island, said Hernandez, the FEMA official.
The need for roofing help is estimated at 60,000 homes, he said.

Restaurant owners are taking every precaution they can to ensure the health and safety of not only their customers, but employees.
Coffee shops also use water for everything from espresso and coffee makers to doing dishes and washing produce.
The boiling point for water is 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and luckily for many coffee businesses in town, "Most of our espresso machines and our coffee maker gets to at least 212," Strange Brew owner Katelyn Reed said.
Reed said most of Strange Brew’s coffee machines and soda fountains have commercial-brand water filters, and uses boiled water for general sanitation.
But we are open for business and look forward to seeing all of our customers today," she said.
"Our Coke machine is through the tap and when we brew our tea, it’s through the tap. Our espresso machine is fine, but for our coffee, we have big, purified water gallons that we use," Cafe 212 employee Jordan West said.
"This morning we had to come in and redo it, our produce that we usually wash the night before.
At 24 bottles of water to a case and 50 cases to a pallet, the company has sold over 14,000 bottles of water since Thursday evening.