Disposable water bottle distribution will be history when students return to the Nile Garden School campus on Aug. 6.
That’s because a joint partnership of the City of Manteca and Manteca Unified School District resulted in:
*extending a 12-inch water main some 6,000 plus feet to the rural school on Nile Garden Road to connect its water system to the city system.
*constructing a 2,000 gallons per minute well at Charles O. Palmer Park complete with a state-of-the-art water treatment system.
*installing arsenic treatment at the new well.
The $9.1 million project, funded in partnership with the State Water Resources Control Board, also means a water line is in place to support future growth as Manteca develops to the south.
Students and staff since 2014 have been supplied with bottled water.
It’s because the water well that serves the rural south Manteca campus had repeatedly violated the maximum contaminant levels for both arsenic and 1,2,3-trichloropropane.
The school district a decade ago secured a state grant for safe drinking water to replace the contaminated well.
But because it would have had to operate it as a municipal well — something the district has no experience or desire to do — the City of Manteca teamed up with the district and took the lead.
The State Water Resources Control Board has agreed to reimburse Manteca for the project from the Safe and Affordable Drinking Act bond proceeds.
The elementary school was recently expanded to serve 1,266 students is outside Manteca’s city limits. More than 90 percent of its student body resides in Manteca proper.
Nile Garden started using bottled water 11 years ago when tests showed that the water being pumped from a well no longer met newer federal standards for arsenic.
The previous standard was 50 parts per billion in terms of volume. It was reduced to 10 parts per billion.
Arsenic occurs naturally. Experts have said it would take arsenic levels “about 100 times” higher than what they are now to cause sickness.
The EPA edict has been described by some experts as being “extreme” caution.
The district will determine if it will be more effective to use the existing well for the fire suppression system on the campus or to rely on the municipal water system once the campus is connected with it. There are no nearby fire hydrants currently at the rural campus.
The existing well at Nile Garden will continue to be used for irrigation to avoid using much more expensive treated city water for that purpose.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
