Arsenic levels remain high in Canyon Elementary water

District leans toward new well option

CATALDO — Another round of testing by the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality and the Kellogg School District has once again confirmed high levels of arsenic in Canyon Elementary School’s drinking water.

At the Kellogg School Board meeting on Thursday, KSD facilities manager Tim Etherton presented the results and outlined what the next possible step is for getting the school safe water.

Coming in at 11.7 parts per billion of arsenic, this is the third test this year (and fourth in nine months) that the well Canyon Elementary uses has failed to meet minimum requirements. One more failed test, slated to be given in December, and KSD will be asked by DEQ to get arsenic levels back into acceptable ranges in six months from the date they received results.

Anticipating another failing grade five months from now, the KSD School Board is already preparing to implement the only option that it really has available — dig the school its own well.

Since arsenic being present in well systems is not uncommon — especially for this area, health and environmental agencies such as the Panhandle Health District and IDEQ make it common practice to test water systems for the element.

Before 2020, Canyon Elementary’s well received a standard water quality test once every three years. Its last three-year cycle test was in December 2019 and the results showed that there was 10.7 parts per billion of arsenic present. The well that the school draws water from is privately owned and also provides several other homes in the area with water.

Concern over the potential effects of long-term, chronic exposure to arsenic in drinking water prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce the drinking water standard for arsenic from 50 ppb to 10 ppb on Jan. 26, 2006. This standard applies to all 750 community water systems (CWS) and 245 nontransient noncommunity water systems (NTNCWS) in Idaho that exceed 10 ppb of arsenic. The EPA recommends that the minimum level be set at 5 ppb, but has settled with 10 ppb due to the fiscal challenges that lower minimums would impose on homes and businesses.

With a failed 2019 test, albeit barely, Canyon Elementary’s well was then kicked into a quarterly test cycle starting in 2020.

The first quarterly test in February showed an increase of arsenic to 13.5 ppb. The results of the second test in April were slightly better, but still out of compliance, at 12.5 ppb.

Contrary to what was believed back in June, DEQ will not count the December 2019 test as one of the four needed to ask that action be taken. If and when that fourth quarterly test in December does fail, DEQ will also not be offering KSD an Emergency Fund Loan.

While the news about the December test being required buys KSD a lot of time to analyze its options until DEQ asks for action, the first day of school is still just around the corner.

In the short term, KSD Superintendent Nancy Larsen explains that the district will provide bottled water to Canyon Elementary for the 2020-2021 school year. Students and staff will need to use this bottled water while cooking and drinking, but the normal well water is fine for washing and bathroom use.

KSD estimates that this will cost between $5,000 and $7,000 for the year — or at least until a more permanent solution can be found.

“We’re going to do what we can to get the kids fresh water and provide drinking water for them at the school,” Larsen said.

The other news about the DEQ loan going away presents a substantial fiscal problem that doesn’t have an obvious solution.

After being presented with three different options to rectify the situation in mid-June by Steve Cordes, an engineer with Welch & Comer Engineering/Surveyors, KSD officials have leaned strongly toward the “dig a well” option.

This option involves the installation of a new well to exclusively serve the school. Recommended by IDEQ, this option has the highest risk-reward of the three.

Following a nearly monthlong bidding process for well drillers, only one contractor stepped forward and provided the district with an estimate.

Etherton explained at the recent school board meeting that to drill a new well, test it for water, install a pump and bring electricity to the site, KSD is looking at a roughly $67,000 price tag. These costs also don’t include the other likely scenarios where something doesn’t go according to plan.

“With drilling the well, there’s no guarantee of water,” Etherton said, “and if there is, there is a good chance it will have high arsenic.”

The district has tried to drill a well for the school in the past, but it came up dry, which then forced the district to sign a lease with the owner of the current well.

If water is found, but high arsenic levels are still present, the district would then have to either install individual arsenic filters on all potable water fixtures within the school or install a central water treatment plant on the newly constructed well. Installing and maintaining individual arsenic filters would be tedious work, but it would be more cost effective than the treatment plant. Regardless, either option would add to the already high price tag associated with the project.

If all stays the same, Larsen states that funds which were previously allocated to other projects will have to be shifted over to pay for the well work.

“We don’t have a pot of money just sitting out there,” she said. “We hoped to use forest funds (SRS funds) for other facilities to update some things that are just plain failing, but we’re probably going to have to put it into the Canyon well.”

The SRS funds she referred to clock in at $50,000, just shy of the minimum cost to get the well going. Larsen also mentioned that KSD will apply for a USDA grant that could cover roughly 15% of the costs if awarded.

Money spent on the bottles of water is slated to come out of the district’s general fund.

The Kellogg School Board decided Wednesday to table the issue and prepare to put the project out to bid again, in the hopes that other contractors will present lower offers. Etherton is hopeful that ground will be broken for the new well during spring break of 2021.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element found in the Earth’s crust that can be released into the environment through natural activities such as volcanic action, erosion of rocks and forest fires, or through human activities such as pesticide application, improper disposal of arsenic-containing waste chemicals, agricultural applications, mining and smelting.

While the Silver Valley has had issues with arsenic in the past due to mining smelter operations, the arsenic present in Canyon Elementary’s water is naturally occurring.

Arsenic has been reported to cause more than 30 different adverse health effects including cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, skin changes, nervous system damage and various forms of cancer. Although a very high dose (60,000 micrograms) of arsenic can be lethal, the amount of arsenic in drinking water is very small by comparison, and any health effects are the result of prolonged exposure over a period of years.

The more people are exposed to arsenic over time, the higher the risk becomes for experiencing health effects. Different people may have different responses to the same exposure to arsenic, depending on dose, duration, general health, age and other factors, so there is no way to know exactly what may happen in any given case. Reducing the amount of arsenic allowed in drinking water will lessen exposure and reduce risk of adverse health effects.

Canyon Elementary School is located at 27491 E. Schoolhouse Loop in Cataldo.

For more information, check out our previous story at www.shoshonenewspress.com/news/2020/jun/12/arsenic-levels-high-in-canyon-elementary-8/