Local and state authorities are warning residents in two Kalamazoo County communities to stop drinking or cooking with water following findings of high amounts of industrial chemicals.
Rick Snyder instructing the state departments of Environmental Quality, Health and Human Services, and State Police as well as the Michigan PFAS Action Response Team to assist the communities.
The State Emergency Operations Center has also been activated.
Kalamazoo County said bottled water will be distributed to residents in Parchment and Cooper Township from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at Parchment High School.
“We fully recognize the seriousness of this situation, and we recognize people are going to have concerns,” Sheriff Richard Fuller told reporters during a rare late-night news conference Thursday.
Snyder said in a news release Thursday that “our first priority is the health of residents in the Parchment and Cooper Township area and to ensure they have access to safe drinking water …" “Our next step is to work as a team to address the source of this contamination and restore the municipal water system,” he said.
They can be found in food packaged in the materials, commercial household products or manufacturing facilities.
It has also been used in fire fighting.
The ban will last until test results show PFAS levels are below the health advisory levels, he added.
"You will get water."

It is estimated that 66 million people in 20 states are at risk due to excess fluoride and 10 million due to excess arsenic in the groundwater.
When water is available, it is likely to be contaminated (up to 70% of our water supply is contaminated), resulting in nearly 2,00,000 deaths each year.
While access has improved markedly in recent years, with almost 87% of rural households having access to basic water, the provision of safe water remains a huge challenge.
Currently, only half of the rural population has access to safely-managed water, far behind even our neighbours such as China and Bangladesh—resulting in one of the highest disease burdens due to water-borne diseases in the developing world.
Tamil Nadu has managed to get an overall score of 51% – one point above the median score and with a dismal to moderate score in most of the 10 key CWI indicators of water management.
This is 3.8 points above median score which puts the state in the third position and Andhra in first among Indian states.
Under Major and Medium Irrigation (Supply side management), Tamil Nadu has a minus 6 score in FY 2016-17 and 3 in FY 2015-16.
In Rural Water supply, TN ranks fifth among Indian states with a median score of 4.1 points.
In Sustainable on-farm water-use practices (Demand side management), TN ranks last among the 17 non-Himalayan states with a dismal score.
The alarming condition of water quality is based on the fact that the lack of clean drinking water has put over 11.5 million people of India at a high risk of the bone crippling disease, fluorosis.

PARCHMENT, Mich. — Kalamazoo County officials are advising residents of Parchment and parts of Cooper Township to stop using the city’s water supply after high amounts of PFAS were found.
PFAS is a man-made chemical believed to cause numerous health problems including thyroid and reproductive issues and various types of cancer.
Boiling water and using common residential filters do not remove or treat PFAS.
Swallowing it is the primary way it gets into the body.
Touching water contaminated with PFAS is not considered a health concern.
County officials say in a release that in the next 24 to 48 hours Parchment’s water supply is being drained and that the city of Kalamazoo’s water supply will be connected to begin flushing its supply system.
Officials say they do not know how long that process will take.
Gov.
"Our first priority is the health of residents in the Parchment and Cooper Township area and to ensure they have access to safe drinking water, a plan for which is already being executed by local agencies with state assistance," a statement from Snyder reads.
"Our next step is to work as a team to address the source of this contamination and restore the municipal water system."

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – An attack, carried out this week on the Nushour water facility in Yemen’s northwestern city of Sa’dah, cut off 10,500 people, including over 5,000 children, from safe drinking water, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
According to the fund, this has been the third attack on the facility since this March.
"UNICEF deplores in the strongest terms yet another attack on vital and lifesaving water systems in Yemen.
A large water facility in Sa’ada, northwest of the country, came under attack this week.
This is the third such attack on the same facility.
More than half of the project is now damaged, cutting off 10,500 people from safe drinking water," a UNICEF report quoted Geert Cappelaere, the UNICEF Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa.
According to the report, cutting off children and their families from safe drinking water increases the spread of water-borne diseases in the country, as well as the number of deaths among the country’s civilians.
The fund also urged all the warring parties in crisis-torn Yemen to cease their military activities near any civilian infrastructure, including water facilities, schools, and hospitals.
READ MORE: Saudi-led Coalition Enters Main Airport Compound of Yemen’s Hodeidah The conflict between the Yemeni government and the Houthis, ongoing since 2014, has resulted in thousands of people being killed and a major nationwide humanitarian crisis.
The conflict has already left 8.6 million children in Yemen without regular access to safe drinking water, according to UNICEF figures.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Resilient Waters, a five-year, $32.4 million project to address severe water challenges facing the Limpopo River Basin and Okavango River Basin communities.
Resilient Waters will increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation services for nearly 21 million people spanning South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, and Namibia.
This project will also improve management of transboundary natural resources and strengthen ecological infrastructure needed to maintain healthy water systems.
USAID Zimbabwe Mission Director Stephanie Funk stated: “By conserving one of Zimbabwe’s most important natural resources, USAID’s Resilient Waters project will protect health and livelihoods and make communities more resilient in the face of climate change.” In Zimbabwe, the Limpopo River and its tributaries carry water to more than 800,000 people who depend on its consistent supply for their health and livelihoods.
The river runs through a semi-arid region that is particularly vulnerable to climatic events, including the devastating 2015-2017 El Niño-induced drought.
Resilient Waters will work with local communities to improve water management and increase access to safe drinking water and sanitation services along the Limpopo River Basin and within its catchment areas such as Matobo Hills.
Resilient Waters follows the U.S. Government’s Global Water Strategy, which supports efforts to create a water-secure world where communities can be resilient, retain this essential resource, and foster healthy, prosperous lives Edited by Daniëlle Kruger Sponsored Links .
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More than 4,600 customers in Pittsburgh’s North Side affected by a “flush and boil” water order this week likely will be able to resume consuming their household water as usual by Thursday, officials said.
The precautionary order remained in place Wednesday while water quality officials waited on the results from samples collected the day before, PWSA spokeswoman Mora McLaughlin told the Tribune-Review.
“We have to complete two consecutive rounds of testing to confirm to residents and our regulators that there is no contaminant issue,” McLaughlin said.
Officials said they issued the order “out of an abundance of caution” to ensure the area’s water was safe following an hours-long drop in pressure caused by the main break.
The line that split was 97 years old.
The order calls on affected customers first to flush water by letting it run from a faucet for at least 60 seconds to eradicate any loose particulates from lead pipes.
PWSA customers also can access a water buffalo stationed at Brighton Road and Woods Run Avenue.
Symptoms caused by bacteria in drinking water can include diarrhea, cramps, nausea and headaches.
Natasha Lindstrom is a Tribune-Review staff writer.
You can contact Natasha at 412-380-8514, nlindstrom@tribweb.com or via Twitter @NewsNatasha.

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI — Parchment City residents are being told to immediately stop using tap water after high levels of PFAS were found in the public system.
Health officials issued the advisory about 9 p.m. Thursday, July 26.
The advisory applies to residents in the city of Parchment and Cooper Township that use the Parchment public system.
PFAS, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, were chemicals used in manufacturing and firefighting in past years.
According to a post on the Parchment City web site, testing by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality came back with a level of 1,410 parts-per-trillion.
In a release from health officials Thursday, it wasn’t clear from where the PFAS contamination originated.
— The City of Kalamazoo will begin flushing the City of Parchment’s water supply system.
— The City of Kalamazoo will continue flushing out the City of Parchment’s water supply system until test results come back that shows the PFAS levels are below the health advisory level.
"Our first priority is the health of residents in the Parchment and Cooper Township area and to ensure they have access to safe drinking water, a plan for which is already being executed by local agencies with state assistance," Snyder said.
As soon as the tests results were reported, the state and local agencies tasked with protecting public health and our environment began coordinating a response and should be commended for how quickly and how well they worked together on this," Snyder said.

Early Tuesday morning, Paul Hirst received a call with “unprecedented” news: Twenty-five million gallons of water had been drained from one of the Benchland Irrigation Water District’s reservoirs overnight, leaving it empty for the first time anyone working there can remember.
• No weekend watering from 8 a.m. Saturdays to 8 a.m. Mondays • No weekday watering from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. • No secondary water for new landscaping for the rest of the season In Riverton, city officials are also trying to get ahead of overwatering and are asking residents and businesses to cut their culinary and secondary water by 25 percent.
“So we’re just asking everybody to do their part voluntarily right now with the hope that people will cut back a little bit.” If Farmington residents continued their pre-restriction usage rate, district officials estimate, the water supply would dry up by Sept. 1.
There’s no indication that the canals in Riverton will dry up, Saxton said, so the reduction is voluntary for now.
That’s an average of 683 gallons per household of culinary water and 2,952 gallons of secondary water — and it’s unsustainable.
“We need to get comfortable with brown spots in lawns,” Saxton said.
At this time of year, where it’s hot and dry, the brown spots are going to be a reality.” Riverton has cutting back on watering its 473 acres of parks and other green space.
One of the biggest challenges Riverton and the Benchland Irrigation Water District in Farmington face in fighting overuse is that their secondary water sources aren’t metered.
“That doesn’t mean it should be unlimited,” Saxton said.
“And we just want to encourage everybody to be responsible neighbors, to be responsible citizens and to really only use what they need.” But in Farmington, water district officials are realizing that relying on their residents to play by the rules might not be enough, and they’re considering metering — a process that would cost about $1,000 per connection to install meters, along with additional costs to hire employees to read them and bill customers.

A north-east is giving out free bottled water to residents affected by shortages in private supplies.
A Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) report warned that current water levels in parts of Moray are at “significant scarcity” due to the spell of high temperatures and the local council said some people have seen their private springs run dry.
Although the vast majority of Scotland has access to public water supplies, nearly 4% of the population rely on private water supplies and the Scottish Government last week released funding to councils to help those affected by the shortage.
There are more than 800 private water supplies in Moray serving approximately 4,825 properties.
Moray Council said free bottled drinking water can be collected in Elgin and Aberlour.
A spokesman said: “This would normally be something that we would expect owners of private supplies to source themselves, but these are not normal circumstances.
“We are prioritising requests from those more vulnerable in the first instance.”

UNICEF deplores in the strongest terms yet another attack on vital and lifesaving water systems in Yemen.
“A large water facility in Sa’ada, northwest of the country, came under attack this week.
This is the third such attack on the same facility.
More than half of the project is now damaged, cutting off 10,500 people from safe drinking water.
“Continuous attacks on water systems in Yemen are cutting off children and their families from water; increasing the likelihood of water-borne diseases spreading in the war-torn country.
“For families in Yemen, these crumbling basic services, are a matter of life and death.
Access to these services is about the sheer survival of boys and girls in Yemen.
If they continue to come under attack, more lives- among them many children- will be lost, unnecessarily.
“Attacks on civilian infrastructure including water systems are a violation of international humanitarian law.
UNICEF calls, once again, on parties to the conflict wherever they are in Yemen and those who have influence over them, to stop all attacks and military activity on or near civilian infrastructure including water systems and facilities, schools, hospitals and clinics”.