It’s Okay to Drink The Water
Crippling fear and anxiety exist on most college campuses, but usually not because of water quality. What is normally a beautiful campus, thriving with student life, overly green grass, and so much stress you can smell it, Stetson University turned into an apocalyptic, abandoned campus over spring break. Plastic bags placed over water fountains around campus with signs saying “do not drink the water” made professors, students, and city employees concerned over what was wrong with Stetson’s water.
With an almost PR scandal on Stetson’s hands and the fear of the Flint water crisis happening on our own campus, Stetson University marketing sent out a press release stating that it is safe to drink the water, but the lack of information given in the article still had students and faculty questioning if the water really is safe to drink.
These concerns were originally spawned from a fall environmental public health class study where professor, Nicole Porther, Ph. D, had her students test areas on Stetson’s campus for chemicals in the water. Her classes went to several buildings on campus to test the water using water strips that Porther called “not very precise” to test for mercury among other metals. What the students in the Fall class found were unusual. The students found high traces of mercury in the water in University Hall (a small and fairly new residence hall on the West side of campus), two academic buildings also on the West side of campus, and Sage Hall on the main part of campus. Porther then had her Spring environmental health class test the water in those same buildings with added end results such as lead and copper. The water testing strips that Porther used for this class tested for a mixture of heavy metals and could not just pinpoint one in particular. “We also tested for lead and copper,” said Porther, “because we spoke with other professors who have tested before and said they found a high amount of copper present in our water, and, again, we got the same results with mercury present with both the unfiltered and filtered water.” Porther stated that she also tested her water at home, in DeLand, and stated that the results came back “great” meaning that if her tests were accurate, this would have been a university concern and not a city one.
Once environmental science professor, Jason Evans, heard that there was mercury found in the water, he actually felt safer.
“If there was mercury in the water, that would mean that people are actively trying to poison us, like pouring thermometers into our drinking water supply,” said Evans.
Porther then communicated the findings to Stetson administration which ultimately got to Al Allen, the Associate Vice President of the Department of Facilities Management at Stetson. “Friday, March 10, I picked up an email from [the Dean of Arts and Sciences] Karen Ryan,” said Allen, “I read it and saw the notes from Nicole and I immediately sent that email to Keith,” Keith Riger is the Director of Public Services for the City of DeLand where Stetson purchases the water from, “Keith then called me with two of his staff members and they called me from City Hall Saturday morning, probably about 10 AM, and we talked through it. Keith’s reaction was that its probably more about testing methodology because they test the water pretty frequently.”
After researching the frequency that the City of DeLand tests for water, I discovered that the city, in fact, tests for their water monthly, daily, and annually depending on what they’re testing for. They only report it annually, though, and the last report listed on their website was from 2015. Though Stetson University is in the city of DeLand, Alan stated that in his seven years of being employed at Stetson, they never tested the water; “We never had a reason to,” said Allen.
Riger then agreed to take samples from the four buildings that Porther’s students did and he sent the samples to an independent lab for analysis. Allen then went speak with science professors in Sage.
“I began thinking worst case scenario,” said Allen, “So, in my mind, what happens if the water is contaminated in these buildings, what do we do? So, there’s one issue with the academic buildings, there we can just ask people not to drink the water, but the other building we were testing was University Hall, and we have about 116 students living there.”
Allen stated this was more concerning to him because, obviously, students lived there: they shower there, do their dishes there, and brush their teeth there.
On Saturday, Allen received a phone call from Riger saying that the results from the professional water test looked great and there wasn’t much to be concerned of. After looking over the results, the most concerning level I discovered was of copper at .0003 parts per billion One part per billion is compared to one blade of grass on a football field, in other words, there was nothing to really be concerned of in University Hall, Flagler Hall, Davis Hall, and Sage Hall. But these buildings were not the oldest ones on campus: Elizabeth Hall and Chaudoin (an all girls residence hall) are over 100 years old, so many people are skeptical about the dated pipes pumping water in there. Yet, according to Allen, Elizabeth and Chaudoin just recently had their water pipes rerouted to ones underneath Woodland Boulevard, the main road going through DeLand.
“We’ve analyzed our buildings,” said Allen, “we know which ones have new plumbing, which ones have old plumbing, which ones had plumbing that wasn’t put together on our watch, and we will go through and we will start testing those.”
For Riger, all this information ended up at his doorstep on a weekend. The immediate worries of mercury in the water concerned him because mercury does not come from pipelines, but rather deposits in natural environments that would have contaminated the entire cities water supply which serves about 22,000. “I think it was an excellent class exercise,” said Keith. He then went on to explain that the city sometimes even uses the not as sensitive metric tests, but for this scenario they hired a private organization. “The tests that [were] done are done by very sensitive instruments,” said Keith. Another professor of chemistry confirmed Keith’s statement of the instruments calling them “highly reliable”.
Stetson’s rumors haven’t stopped, and students are still concerned about water supplies, but according to facilities management, the city, and the independent lab, there is nothing to be concerned of now. Allen is hoping to have most buildings tested before this year’s graduation on May 13th 2017 and has decided to treat the situation and all those involved as a learning lesson and now a lighter situation. Concerning the dean, professors, faculty, and staff, all talks of Stetson’s contaminated water are just rumors and he has decided to take it upon himself to maybe even perpetuate the fun: “Karen Ryan’s title has now been expanded, by me at least, to Dean of College of Arts and Sciences…and Urban Legends,” said Allen.
