UPDATE: Lead found in drinking fountain at Ucon Elementary School

Officials with School District 93 have confirmed that lead was found in at least one of the hallway drinking fountains at Ucon Elementary School.

Leaders at the school say that only one drinking fountain has tested positive at this point. For the time being all water has been shut off at the school while further testing is done.

Monday staff from the Idaho Falls regional DEQ office contacted the Ucon drinking system operator and asked for four samples to be collected from the school.

Samples are supposed to be taken six hours after the water is sitting in the pipes.

However, the samples were collected at 1:20 in the afternoon on a school day.

Three of the samples did not show lead detection.

One sample from a north drinking fountain came back at 30 parts per billion for lead.

The DEQ was alerted of the results on Thursday.

Friday morning DEQ contacted the school and asked that it no longer have the drinking fountain in service.

The Ucon public water system operator took 10 first drop samples later in the week.

DEQ expects to get those results sometime next week.

However, DEQ is taking full responsibility because it says proper procedure was not followed.

In 2013, sample results the city of Ucon took water samples for their public water system.

Five samples were in the community, five samples were at Ucon elementary.

All samples in the community were below lead detection levels, three in the school were below detection levels, but two were positive for lead.

Those two tests put the school over the action level, which is a higher concentration than 15 parts per billion.

The tests found 48 parts per billion lead from the lunch room’s north sink, and 114 parts per billion in a south water fountain.

“There should have been some follow-up at that time. Additional sampling to determine the extent of the problem, some follow-up. That didn’t occur at the time. We don’t have a good reason for why that didn’t happen,” said DEQ Director John Tippets.

The requirement after a high lead detection level means the drinking system operator should do regular testing and collect more samples every six months.

It also requires the operator to educate the owner of the system as well as the users.

The follow up also requires that more samples be collected to see if the water is corrosive.

“We all want to believe that these folks are doing their job and that folks aren’t going to be harmed,” said John Pymm, safety director of Bonneville School District 93.

The DEQ also says the school district is not at fault in this incident.

“While we’re not trying to minimize the seriousness of the situation it certainly is helpful that this isn’t a system-wide problem. We don’t have lead throughout the system. You find it in isolated locations. The high levels were found in the kitchen and one drinking fountain that’s now been taken out of service. It’s a good thing the kids don’t live at the school, they’re not drinking that water all day,” said Tippets.

The school district leadership is taking the situation very seriously and taking any precautions necessary.

The DEQ has arranged for bottled drinking water to be brought in by Pepsi when classes resume on Tuesday.