Topic #1: Why We Don’t Drink the Water at The Sherman School

To fully understand the issues surrounding the water quality at the Sherman School over the past 5 years, and more importantly, today, one must first understand this point: the primary use of the school water is not for drinking, it’s for everything else.

Water has many uses in a public school building other than drinking it, including but not limited to: fire suppression, heating and cooling systems, flushing toilets, washing hands, janitorial needs, food preparation, and kitchen maintenance. On average, the Sherman School uses about 1000 gallons of water per day. But the school uses only about 15 gallons per day for drinking water, which is provided by water cooler jugs.

For over 5 years, various properties in the center of Sherman have been having issues with their well water. Properties such as The Sherman School, Gidding’s Garage, The Sherman Firehouse, The Sherman Town Hall, The Sherman Senior Center, and others, have had too much salt in the water. That’s an oversimplification of the issue. The important thing to understand is that samples of the well water at these properties have had so much salt in them that the water was deemed mostly unusable, and definitely not advisable to drink. In fact, as of the writing of this letter, Gidding’s Garage is still advised not to use their well water- not even for washing cars- as the high salt content would contribute to rust.

Before we go further, it’s important to point out that, as of recently, the salt issue in several of these ‘town center’ wells have subsided. But there is another very important point to understand: water hardness. We all drink from well water, and so we probably understand what hard water means, but in case you are not familiar, water ‘hardness’ refers to the amount of dissolved minerals, namely calcium and magnesium, in the water. Unlike salt water, hard water is safe to drink. But salt water and hard water both have something in common: they are bad for plumbing. They are bad for just about everything actually: bad for pipes, valves, fixtures, circulators, tanks, and any part of a system that water touches. Hard water clogs things, and salt water corrodes things, and Sherman School’s water is hard, very hard to be precise.

Water, and water quality, is not measured ONLY by its drinkability. Remember: Sherman School uses only 15 gallons per day for drinking, and 1000 gallons per day for utilities. So, it’s less important that the water is drinkable, and more important that the water is suitable for utilities. For utility purposes, salty water = not suitable (and not drinkable), very hard water = not suitable (but drinkable).

Going back to the salt issue for a minute, even though the levels are down, it’s still an issue. The figures below help to tell the story with salt and with hardness. When referring to salt on a water test, the test measures sodium ions and chloride ions separately. So when we refer to salts, we are talking about ‘sodium’ and ‘chlorides’. For a public school (defined as a non-transient, non-community water supply), the state health code requires that we have at least 2 wells (one primary and one reserve). We will refer to these wells as Well#1 and Well#2:

• Well#1 currently has levels of sodium and chlorides that are below the specified limit of 100 ppm (parts per million) sodium / 250ppm chlorides, but are still higher than 28 ppm sodium. To use this for potable drinking water, a warning label would be required advising anyone with potential health concerns related to sodium intake (e.g. hypertension) should not drink the water.

•Well# 2 continues to test at levels that are at or above the specified limit for both sodium and chlorides. As a result, Well#2 remains offline, and is only periodically purged to keep it from accumulating bacteria.

•Currently the state health department is allowing the school to use the water from Well#1 only.

•Water from Well#1 only is being used for flushing toilets, washing hands, heating/ cooling needs, and for various food related purposes, but NOT food preparation. Well#2 cannot be used for any of these things. Therefore, all of the above-mentioned critical needs are being satisfied currently by one well, Well#1.

•Well#1, the only well in use, continues to test at levels above 300 ppm (parts per million) hardness. In the world of water hardness, 0-75 ppm is good, 75-150 ppm is moderately hard, 150-300 ppm is hard, and over 300 ppm is very hard.

What’s this all mean?

The number one issue with the water quality at the school is that, due to the water hardness, AND due to the salt issue past and present (in Well#2), the water is ruining all of the building systems, building systems that have been retrofitted together through 5 renovations over the past 90 years.

Try to imagine the circulatory system in your body: your veins, arteries, capillaries. The water is interwoven into the building the same way those veins and arteries are interwoven into your body, and they are failing. The maintenance team replaces various failing components in the water system frequently, and sometimes these are expensive. The week of December 22 it was an actuator valve $5000, the week before it was a circulator $3000, and the week before that it was a zone relay $2000, and so on.

So why don’t we drink the water?

As you may now understand, the issue of drinking the water is not at the forefront. Using the water for utilities is currently the main problem.

So if the water at school is drinkable, why don’t we drink it? This is a judgment call by the school administration, but nonetheless, the same judgment call has been made at the Sherman Town Hall, the Sherman Senior Center, and at the Sherman Firehouse. As of the writing of this letter, none of these facilities use their well water for drinking, they all use water cooler dispensers.

What about a water treatment system?

A modern water treatment system is only one component of a fully functioning water supply network. As mentioned previously, salinated and very hard water has been circulating through a labyrinth of pipes combined numerous times over multiple additions and renovations. This makes two things true – (1) the plumbing system is already failing because of corrosion, and (2) fixing it isn’t easy or simple. Pinhole leaks have required regular repairs and introducing clean and filtered water doesn’t fix the problem - it makes it worse. Water chemistry dictates that clean and filtered water forces previously deposted salt and minerals to be drawn out from pipe walls causing them to fail and leak.

The true cost and logistics of a proper water treatment system and water supply comprise the first in a series of dominoes that all fall together, leading to the foregone conclusion that a comprehensive school renovation makes more financial and logistical sense than any other permutation of smaller, disjointed repairs.

Together, the “dominoes” require a comprehensive renovation project

In the upcoming months, we at the Save Sherman School hope to address the biggest of these dominoes (water, roof, HVAC, fire suppression) to help the community understand the conclusions that multiple Boards of Education, Licensed architects and engineers, and administrations have already arrived at: to adequately repair the existing facility requires a comprehensive renovation and it’s going to cost money.

A final important takeaway is this - you’re NOT being lied to by our Board of Education, by the school administration, or by the Sherman Building Committee about the water. Quite the opposite, actually. These people are volunteering their time (excepting the paid school administration) to help our town make an informed decision as to how to move forward with our school.

An informed decision requires considering all factors and context. We hope everyone will take the time to inform themselves and become a constructive part of this important conversation. This decision will shape the future of the community in which we all live.

-The factual accuracy of the information contained herein has been corroborated with the Town of Sherman Health Department, and the Sherman School Administration and Maintenance Departments.