Healdsburg School Using Bottled Water For Remainder Of Year After Lead Scare

HEALDSBURG (KPIX 5) -- It will be bottled water for the remainder of the school year at Healdsburg elementary after a lead scare they have only just learned was a false alarm.

Even so, school administrators aren't taking any chances.

"The test results say there are only trace amounts of lead and the water is safe to be consumed," / Healdsburg Schools Superintendent Chris Van Den Heuvel said.

The school noticed murky water around Thanksgiving, and decided to have it tested. They shut off water to all the drinking fountains and brought in bottles of water as back up. But they didn't tell parents until this week, and plenty of them are put out about that.

"It's an old building. As soon as you saw the water that was provided you had to figure that out," parent Wickie Keel said.

So far, no children have gotten sick, and now that the school has discovered the lead levels are within the legal limit, the concern has calmed down among moms and dads.

But, the district's caution remains. The school's drinking fountains will stay dry until the problem is fixed with a completely redone system. In the meantime, the superintendent of schools learned a valuable lesson of his own.

"Given the sensitivity to this topic in the news, I think we could have handled it better. In retrospect we probably could have notified sooner," Van Den Heuvel said.