But earlier this year, Henderson began getting unwanted attention when a failed test of the school’s water well revealed the unfortunate truth that the Lodi Unified campus’ water supply was tainted with an excessive level of a chemical deemed by California to be carcinogenic.
“They’re going to have to do something,” Robert McClellon of San Joaquin County’s Environmental Health Department said this week.
“At this time we are choosing to provide bottled water for drinking, and hand-wash stations for sanitation, as a precaution.” Another sign said bluntly: “Do Not Drink Tap Water Until Further Notice.” In addition to the 59-student school for seventh- and eighth-graders, the Henderson campus is home to Lodi Unified’s Child Welfare and Attendance Office and an independent study program whose participants are not required to come to the school campus.
McClellon shared this week one theory of why an acceptable test in February might have deteriorated into an unacceptable result three months later.
“If you look at the time of year, in February there’s not much agricultural pumping going on,” McClellon said.
Potentially, that could have been the reason.” The tainted water at Henderson School became more widely known after the California School Employees Association, one of the unions that represents school employees, announced earlier this month that it had filed a Williams Act complaint with Lodi Unified on Sept. 11.
Kyle Harvey, the labor relations representative for the CSEA, said he became aware of the water issue after a union member working at Henderson contacted him to say he had been told not to drink the water at the school site.
In a Sept. 11 letter to Lodi Unified, Harvey wrote that the district’s efforts to remediate the problem — serving the bottled water and setting up the cold-wash stations — were inadequate.
“We’ve been working on grants with the state Water Board for an interim solution,” Kahn said.
“If that works, we will be in a place to just allow people at the site to wash their hands in sinks,” Kahn said.