Elevated iron levels put Northern Middle School on bottled water.
In early February, school officials reported a cloudy appearance in the Hagerstown school’s drinking water, prompting testing of the publicly fed system, Washington County Public Schools spokesman Richard Wright said.
An elevated level of iron was found to be the likely culprit, according to Wright.
Wright said that all school water systems were tested this past summer for lead and other materials.
Depending on the condition of the school, some are tested more frequently, he said.
He assured the school community that the facility’s water remains safe to drink, but administrators wanted to go the extra step to ensure quality drinking water before repairs can be made this summer.
“We are replacing the main water lines from the street to the school this summer,” Wright said, noting that water mains or other pipes could be contributing to the problem.
The exact scope and cost of the project is not yet known.
Sixth- through eighth-grade enrollment at the school in the city’s North End is about 700 students, plus another 139 staff members, according to the school system website.
A letter was sent out to parents and guardians in February shortly after the water test, sharing information about the findings and the plan to provide bottled water.

Citizens Campaign unveils map of 1,4-Dioxane water contamination.
According to their recent evaluation of public water suppliers across Long Island, water suppliers have reported the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane contamination in the nation.
The chemical, found in products including detergents and baby wipes, is listed as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans" by the Environmental Protection Agency.
(1:40 PM) FARMINGDALE – The Citizens Campaign for the Environment has made it easier for residents to see just how widespread the contamination of Long Island’s water is.
According to their recent evaluation of public water suppliers across Long Island, water suppliers have reported the highest levels of 1,4-dioxane contamination in the nation.
The chemical, found in products including detergents and baby wipes, is listed as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans" by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The Citizen Campaign has posted an interactive map on its website that will allow Long Islanders to view their town’s level of 1.4-dioxane in the groundwater.
"Florida has chosen the standard of 3," Esposito says.
"California has chosen the standard of 1.
She is calling on all citizens to call their representatives to outlaw products that use the chemical in an effort to prevent further contamination.

Honeywell will have to face class claims for negligence, nuisance, trespass and medical monitoring in a New York water contamination case, the Northern District of New York ruled Feb. 6 ( Baker v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. , 2017 BL 34914, N.D.N.Y., No.
The ruling came in closely-watched litigation over pervasive PFOA contamination in the town’s water supply, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York wrestled with unsettled issues of New York tort law in its decision.
“This is a wonderful decision for the people of Hoosick Falls, who may now proceed with their lawsuit,” Robin Greenwald, of Weitz & Luxenberg in New York City told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 7.
“The court also invited the parties to appeal the decision, and we are presently considering our appellate options,” Pokedoff said in an e-mail.
Private water well owners also have a possessory interest in wells harmed by PFOA trespasses, and private nuisance claims may proceed because of the “special loss” well owners suffer from the installation of monitoring equipment, the court said.
It did, however, dismiss private nuisance claims brought by municipal water users.
Those plaintiffs presented public, rather than private, nuisance considerations, the court said.
Medical Monitoring Claims The companies also argued New York law barred medical monitoring claims brought by Baker and other plaintiffs with elevated PFOA levels, at least where there is no existing diagnosis.
There are “several complex and novel issues of New York law as to which the existing case law is significantly muddled,” and they warranted an immediate appeal of the order to the Second Circuit.
The law offices of Weitz & Luxenberg represented the plaintiffs.

In this photo taken Saturday, Feb. 25, 2017, malnourished baby Ali Hassan, 9-months-old, is held by his mother Fadumo Abdi Ibrahim, who fled the drought in southern Somalia, at a feeding center in a camp in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Thousands of desperate people are streaming into Somalia’s capital seeking food as a result a prolonged drought, overwhelming local and international aid agencies, while the Somali government warns of a looming famine, compounded by the country’s ongoing conflict against Islamic extremists.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated Press) MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia’s new president declared a national disaster Tuesday for a drought that threatens millions of people and is creating fears of a full-blown famine.
The statement from the office of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed said he has appealed for help from the international community and Somalia’s diaspora of 2 million.
The United Nations humanitarian office estimates that 5 million people in Somalia, or nearly half the country’s population, need aid.
Because of a lack of clean water in many areas, there is the additional threat of cholera and other diseases, U.N. experts say.
The government earlier this month said the widespread hunger “makes people vulnerable to exploitation, human rights abuses and to criminal and terrorist networks.” The U.N. humanitarian appeal for 2017 for Somalia is $864 million to provide assistance to 3.9 million people.
But last month, the U.N. World Food Program requested an additional $26 million plan to respond to the drought.
All are connected by a thread of violent conflict, the U.N. chief said.
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Box Elder County may be at risk for water contamination.
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BOX ELDER COUNTY, Utah — Many people in Box Elder County are still pumping water out of their basements, after weeks of flooding, but now the Bear River Health Department is worried about drinking water possibly being contaminated with harmful bacteria.
"This is bigger than normal so we don’t know how contaminated things are going to be and that’s why we are offering this testing so we can kind of get a handle on what’s out there," said Sarah Cheshire, who tests water samples with the Bear River Health Department.
Bear River said anyone with a private well who was affected by flooding is at risk.
"If you have bacteria in your water it can potentially make you sick, you could have nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and those sorts of symptoms."
"I think it’s a legitimate concern that people ought to take a look and see what’s going on in their own houses," said Summers.
The health department said just eyeballing the water isn’t good enough.
"We have dosages and charts that will tell us how much depending on how deep or shallow the well is, how much water is flowing through there," said Cheshire.

WPX Energy Appalachia has paid a $1.2 million civil penalty for oil and gas violations that affected groundwater and private water supplies in Westmoreland County.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection said money from the penalty will go to the state’s well plugging fund, which plugs abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells that have the potential to cause health, safety or environmental concerns.
The penalty amount is based on the impacts to the water supplies and the severity of the leak, according to the DEP.
In September 2012, testing of five private water supplies indicated that they were impacted by a leak from WPX Energy Appalachia’s on-site impoundment into the groundwater.
The DEP said the impoundment was drained within a week of the leak being discovered.
Affected households were provided bottled water and treatment systems have been installed.
The DEP said it regularly evaluates those systems to ensure they are providing safe drinking water.
In addition to the civil penalty, DEP said the company is required to conclude the investigation into the extent of the impacts and remediate the site in accordance with Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act.
This will include remediation of the soil, groundwater, and any surface waters impacted by the leak.
State regulators hope to address the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s warning of "serious public health implications" due to inadequate drinking water oversight by raising $7.5 million in new fees paid by public water systems.

Water pollution bill advances, despite strong opposition at public hearing.
Chad Cordell, Kanawha Forest Coalition Organizer, shows photos that he had taken of contaminated mine sites in West Virginia.
Cordell was speaking during Monday’s water quality hearing in the house chambers.”These areas looked nothing like this when i was a child,” said Cordell, who went on to talk about how he now cannot take his own children to the same of the places that he enjoyed in his youth, due to water contamination.
A bill that would allow more toxic pollution to be discharged into West Virginia’s rivers and streams moved one step closure to passage Monday, despite strong opposition at a public hearing in the House.
“I’m trying to save the body time so we can get to the real legislation that is going to create jobs.” Pushkin’s motion failed on a vote of 25-72.
DEP would use average flow figures for streams, instead of the current method using low-flow figures.
This would result in water pollution permits that allow potentially significant increases in legal discharges into rivers and streams statewide.
During a public hearing this morning, the majority of the speakers opposed the legislation.
“I know times are tough, but this bill is not the solution,” said Gabriel Peña of Fayette County, one of two dozen residents who spoke against the measure.
“Protecting water quality is an investment in the future of West Virginia.” Joining industry lobbyists in supporting the bill was Woody Thrasher, Gov.

Yes, California’s drought is all but over, and the dramatically revived Cachuma Lake proves it.
While much of California was emerging from five years of drought, this giant reservoir had dwindled to a weedy channel at just 7% of capacity and was perilously close to being written off as a regional water supply.
“We started bailing rainwater out of those boats with water pumps,” said Keller, 52, shaking his head at the memory.
“Meanwhile, the level of the lake was rising before our eyes.” The storm had dropped more than 7 inches of rain over the region, with much of that precipitation cascading down into the lake from the steep slopes and ravines of surrounding mountains.
Perhaps no reservoir in California was as depleted as Cachuma.
The reservoir had risen to 45% of capacity.
“And we don’t know if another storm like that will hit or not.
The lake provides about 85% of the water for a quarter-million Goleta Water District residents and 12,000 acres of cropland along Santa Barbara County’s south coast.
Goleta Water District customers have long relied on Cachuma to supply almost all of their water.
More than half of the district’s water at the time was supplied by its drought buffer: the Goleta Groundwater Basin.

Shrewsbury still trying to find source of water contamination.
Telegram & Gazette Staff @EThompsonTG SHREWSBURY – Soliciting bids for the new $14 million water treatment plant remains on hold while the town continues to try to find the source of hexavalent chromium-6 in some town well water.
At its Jan. 10 meeting, the Board of Selectmen said that process would be delayed for at least a month while Water and Sewer Superintendent Robert Tozeski works to determine the source of chromium-6, a carcinogen, and how to get rid of it.
In subsequent tests of the wells, the levels at seven wells had dropped to close to zero.
It is 10 ppb, but the state’s goal is 0.02 ppb by 2020.
Mr. Tozeski has been communicating with experts in California, where chromium-6 was primarily introduced to the public in the 2000 film "Erin Brockovich."
The true story was about a woman’s quest to expose the presence of the carcinogen in some of California’s drinking water.
It can also be leaked into the environment from industrial processes.
It is considered a carcinogen when inhaled and can cause lung cancer, liver damage and kidney and small intestine problems.
Shrewsbury has installed several test wells to try to find the source.

The Riskos worry that nearby development has finally caught up to them; that PFOA and PFOS have, over decades, crept down from military bases miles to the north through area waterways and infiltrated their lives through a pair of private wells the couple uses for drinking water.
The Riskos’ situation shows that concerns about PFOA and PFOS contamination reach beyond the boundary lines that the military is using to investigate the issue.
Within the boundaries, more than 200 private wells have been found to be contaminated at levels deemed unsafe, but those like Risko wonder if there are even more beyond those lines.
Just how far away are the public wells?
The military and EPA have sampled hundreds of private wells in the region, finding more than 200 have been contaminated above 70 ppt by the chemicals.
Military officials have also previously said they’re legally unable to provide remediation for wells with levels below 70 ppt, because it is the number the EPA has established as safe.
Her private well has been tested twice by the EPA; both times the chemicals were detected at about half the agency’s recommended limit.
In the second half of 2014, the military began testing public and private water wells in the region.
About two years after the test, the family is still waiting to be connected to public water.
Jones said connecting the Johnson home to public water is taking some time because it is "one of the properties that does not have a readily accessible existing water main to tap into."