School with tainted water bars drinking from the tap

OFFICIALS in Quiot Elementary School yesterday said they have prohibited students from drinking from faucets as a precautionary measure.

According to the school’s guidance counselor Renalyn Umbao, they have provided purified water dispensers in all of the school’s 28 classrooms.

“The water from our faucets are only used to flush toilets and wash hands. It’s not used for drinking,” Umbao told Cebu Daily News in a phone interview.

Umbao said they were caught by surprise upon reading CDN’s front page story yesterday about the school’s failure to pass the water quality test, claiming they were not informed that tests were conducted by the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD).

She said it was in 2008 when the Department of Health inspected the school’s deep well water supply and was found to have been contaminated with e.coli bacteria.

The recent MCWD test indicate non-fecal contamination of the school’s water supply.

“But even then, we don’t use the water from the deep well for drinking,” Umbao said.

“The contamination was not life-threatening. But it can affect the health of those who drink it. It can cause stomachaches and diarrhea,” said MCWD public affairs manager Charmaine Rodriguez-Kara.

Quiot Elementary School was among the 14 public schools which underwent water quality testing on the request of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.

Quiot Elementary is the only school in the list that does not get its water supply from the MCWD.

City disaster agency head Dave Tumulak said he will request the MCWD to conduct tests in other public schools.

“We will ask our City Health Department (CHD) to focus on the schools that are not being serviced by MCWD. But we will ask MCWD again to include all public schools in the city as much as possible,” Tumulak told CDN.

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