District, utility reacted poorly to school water crisis (Citrus County)

A Times Editorial
Published April 11, 2006

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Take hundreds of children and adults at two schools, turn up the heat on them for a week, drain off their drinking water and you have a recipe for a health disaster.

The Citrus school system narrowly dodged a bullet last week when students and staff members at Citrus Springs elementary and middle schools went all week without being able to drink water from the schools' fountains.

The utility in charge of providing water to the schools, the locally embattled Florida Governmental Utility Authority, cited the lack of rain recently plus the high demand for water from its customers in the Citrus Springs area as the reason for the low water pressure at the schools.

The schools had enough flow to operate the toilets, at least. The kitchen staff had to boil water in large kettles to purify it for use in preparing meals for the schools.

The worst, and most dangerous, effects were felt in the classroom where, amazingly, each room was given one gallon of bottled water per day to be rationed out one paper cup at a time to thirsty children.

Human beings under normal conditions require one half-gallon of water each per day, according to the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Children need more water, the agencies say. And the same heat that was blamed for the lack of water in the first place also meant that the active youngsters and adults needed more than a half-gallon of water to stay hydrated.

Instead, they got a ration of water in a cup, with a single gallon expected to slake the thirst of 20 or more children and adults for an entire school day.

The children, it seems, should be grateful they got even that much. Citrus Springs Middle School principal David Stephens said his staffers went out themselves and bought the bottled water, plus brought in coolers for ice to keep the jugs cold.

The staffers are to be commended for their response and resourcefulness. However, school officials dropped the ball by not immediately notifying parents of the water emergency. Parents certainly had every right to know about this situation so that, at the very least, they could send in some water jugs for their children's classrooms.

District officials, in turn, should have responded better and faster to the emergency by securing plenty of drinking water and trucking it to the schools.

A single-day loss of water from, say, a broken pipe would have been enough of a challenge for the schools' staffs. As the emergency stretched on for an entire week, it became a district problem.

Of course, the FGUA deserves most of the blame. The utility is responsible for supplying water to its customers every day, not just when the weather cooperates. It should have anticipated the need for more water based on the lack of recent rains and the higher number of customers.

There is a simple formula that would have proved useful. It's known as supply and demand.

The FGUA has had its share of problems in Citrus County lately, and county government is moving toward taking over the FGUA's Citrus County systems as a result. Leaving hundreds of children high and dry is no way for the FGUA to make a case for continuing its relationship with Citrus County.

The utility and the school system, of course, have no control over the weather. But they can and must be better prepared to respond when an emergency water shortage develops.

With the circumstances that created last week's crisis still with us, they will have ample opportunity to get it right the next time.

[Last modified April 11, 2006, 02:30:31]