Tests show ‘elevated iron and manganese’ in the water at Tacoma school, district says
After brown water was detected at a Tacoma elementary school earlier this year, lab testing found heightened levels of manganese and iron trickling from certain faucets, the district recently announced.
Parents at Birney Elementary School, 7627 S. Sheridan Ave., claimed that water in one of the campus’s buildings started coming out brown in mid-February, The News Tribune previously reported. Teachers were reported to be buying bottled water for students with their own money.
One Birney parent said during a late-March school board meeting that the water in the campus’s “round building,” which houses three first-grade classrooms, had turned brown during a Valentine’s Day party. Since then, she added, it had been “deemed unsafe for use.”
The parent further alleged that students had to depend on hand sanitizer after going to the bathroom because they couldn’t wash their hands with the discolored water.
Now the district has given parents an update.
On May 3, The News Tribune requested records pertaining to brown water at Birney’s round building. Later that afternoon Principal Ronel Balatbat wrote to families letting them know the results from recent tests, which had been received on April 23. He also emphasized that the main Birney building does not have the same water concerns.
A third-party lab determined that samples from certain round-building faucets indicated an “elevated level of iron and manganese,” Balatbat said.
“The Washington State Department of Health said it is most likely caused by plumbing specific to the round building and is the cause of the water discoloration,” Balatbat continued in the email, the body of which the district copied and sent to The News Tribune. “DOH advised us to begin a flushing protocol and re-sample the water, which we did.”
New samples were gathered on April 25, according to the email. Those results are set to arrive within four or five weeks.
Manganese is a mineral present in groundwater, surface water and rocks, according to the state’s health department. People need minor amounts of the nutrient to keep healthy. The problem is when there’s too much of it: Manganese in large doses “can be harmful, especially to infants.”
Brownish-black stains on bathtubs, toilets or sinks may come from manganese, which can make water taste bad and have an unpleasant smell and appearance, per the department.
Discolored water might also be due to iron rust, according to a health department fact sheet: “While unpleasant and potentially damaging to clothes and fixtures, iron in drinking water is not a human health concern.”
PTA member Andrya Holt told The News Tribune that Birney students, including her third grader, go to the round building to access the library. She wishes the district had conducted water testing before letting children in that structure, which was opened in 1962.
It’s Tacoma Public Schools’ responsibility to protect students, some of whom may have autoimmune issues, she added.
“The whole thing of putting your student in a school — whether it be private or public or co-op or whatever — is the people that are there taking care of your child are doing everything they can to make sure they’re safe,” Holt said. “That’s part of that job, and why I pay my taxes to the district to take care of my sons while they’re in school.”
Balatbat wrote to parents May 3 that Tacoma Public Schools is supplying staff and students with hand sanitizer and water, and providing round-building classrooms with filtered water coolers. The plumbing in that structure will be replaced after a vendor is secured, he said at the time.
The district posted an update to Birney’s website on Wednesday, May 8: A contract for the plumbing replacement has received the green light. Work is expected to start next week and wrap up by month’s end.
Some 523 students attend Birney, according to its website. The South End school started hosting first-grade classrooms in its round building in November because of overcrowding in the primary structure.
Birney is known for its hard-of-hearing and deaf programming.
The district noted in the update it initially thought that the brown-water issue might have been temporary: a result of recent flushing in the area by the public utilities department. The problem persisted, however, even after flushing stopped in March.
“On April 11 the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department conducted a visual assessment for turbidity and discoloration, no violations were reported,” the district’s website states.
Water samples submitted for testing on April 1 did not adhere to the Washington health department’s protocol, the district continued. They were taken “[o]ut of an abundance of caution” and under the belief that it was the right method.
The results from that round of testing are, according to the district:
“Room 1 (Storage): Sink faucet showed elevated manganese. Drinking fountain showed elevated iron and manganese.
Room 2 (Storage): Sink faucet showed elevated iron and manganese. Drinking fountain showed elevated iron and manganese.
Room 3 (Library space): Sink faucet showed elevated manganese. Drinking fountain meets water quality standards.
Room 4 (Classroom): Sink faucet showed elevated manganese. Drinking fountain meets water quality standards.
Room 5 (Classroom): Sink faucet showed elevated iron and manganese. Drinking fountain meets water quality standards.
Room 6 (Classroom): Sink faucet meets water quality standards. Drinking fountain shows elevated levels of iron.
Room 7 (Library Classroom): Sink faucet showed elevated manganese. Drinking fountain meets water quality standards.
Kitchen (Storage): Sink faucet showed elevated levels of iron and manganese.
Round room (Passageway between rooms): Meets water quality standards.”
This story was originally published May 10, 2024 at 9:00 AM.
