Odor shuts down school water

DINGMAN - Dingman-Delaware Primary school students Wednesday came home with a letter saying they can’t drink the school’s water. Parent Deanna Margiore said her daughter came home with the letter. “Now I’ve got one at the primary school and one at the middle school who can’t drink the water.” Marvin Eversdyke, director of support services for the Delaware Valley, said custodians detected “a slight odor” in the building’s water at opening on Wednesday. “It was faint. You could smell it if you poured water into a cup, but in a minute it’s gone,” he said. Eversdyke said water fountains in the building were shut down and bottled water is being provided for all purposes except cooking and toilets. The state Department of Environmental Protection was called and took water samples, he added. The state directed a “no drink” order for the building water. Eversdyke said “right now we don’t know what it is or where.” Preliminary testing has determined that the problem is not the well, but stems from something inside the building, he said. The problems affects 618 primary school students, who join 743 middle school students on the Dingman-Delaware campus, who have not been allowed to drink their school’s well water since a Jan. 4 discoloration incident led to the shutdown of the middle school’s drinking water supply. Those students have been using bottled water ever since. In the interim, the district has completed an engineering study which recommended consolidation of the water supply serving the campus’ three schools. But there is no quick relief in sight, as load testing on the elementary school well, which is considered the best supply of the existing wells, must be completed. “We won’t be able to do that until the end of the school year,” Eversdyke said.