Goodrich – It’s been a little more than two years since Goodrich School District learned of next January’s new arsenic requirements.
The board moved one step closer to meeting those new provisions at the September school board meeting.
At a cost of $91,350 the Goodrich School Board OK’d Sunshine Water Systems of Linden to provide and install a filtration system on drinking water supplies. The system filters out arsenic at the point of entry’with large tanks filtering water near the point at which pipes enter a structure’s walls.
New arsenic requirements would only affect Goodrich High School and Oaktree Elementary. Goodrich Middle School and Reid Elementary already meet the 2006 standards.
Sunshine Water Systems has been family owned since 1949 and has installed about 30 systems locally including Davison, Kearsley, and Swartz Creek school districts.
John Kesey, company representative says the system should be installed by Thanksgiving.
Currently, the federal Safe Drinking Water Act requires a maximum of 50 parts per billion (ppb) arsenic. As of Jan. 23, 2006, drinking water can contain no more than 10 ppb arsenic.
Changes instituted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are being passed along to each state.States, in turn, are setting standards of compliance for community water systems, as well as for schools and businesses.
Local school officials first learned of impending changes Aug. 21, 2003, when a DEQ-authorized company conducted an arsenic assessment, says Goodrich schools special services director Brian Walton, the school’s designated systems operator.
School officials considered drilling new wells. However an extra 25 feet of casing does seem to show decreased levels of arsenic, say school officials and there’s no guaranteed way of locating potential well sites with lower arsenic levels.
A Genesee County section map shows wells’all at depths between 250 and 300 feet’within approximately a mile of the Oaktree-Goodrich High School area. Despite the wells? similar depths and closely-spaced locations, arsenic levels range from 0.06 ppb to 33 ppb.