Dirt found in Logan campus drinking water

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on Thurs, Jan 9 to reflect current information.

On the first day of classes for the spring semester, Ashlynn Smith, USUSA student events executive director, went to get a drink of water in the Ray L. and Eloise Lillywhite Building and was shocked to find her water tasted abnormal.

“I went to fill up my water before I went to class. And I was like, ‘This water tastes horrible. Yeah, tastes like dirt,’ and then I go downstairs to class in the basement, and I was going to fill it up on my way out, and then I read this sticky note. There was a sticky note taped to the water fountain in the basement. It said, ‘Don’t drink, has dirt,’” Smith said.

A thread posted to the subreddit r/usu claimed similarly.

“Just found out from a friend in the maintenance department that there have been ‘particles’ detected. They weren’t told exactly what it was, but apparently the higher-ups told them to not drink the water. USU obviously probably won’t make a statement considering they can’t charge us money to get that news, just like they can’t charge us to breathe on campus (I’m digging into the fact you have to pay daily to park on campus even if you work there)… So yeah, the drinking water isn’t safe. Don’t even drink from soda fountains. The water is not safe and I highly doubt USU will report it,” the post read.

Associate Vice President of USU Facilities Ben Berret claimed water on campus is safe to drink.

“We’ve noticed and notified the state drinking water division. We’ve tested all the chlorine levels around our system. They’re all in specification, and then we sent some additional tests to a lab to verify that that was the problem,” Berret said. 

USU has two water wells one in the USU Natural Resources Building and one near the Industrial Sciences Building.

Berret later texted the Statesman on Jan 9 stating ” The was negative for bacteria. We have isolated the problem to the industrial science well. We have taken it offline for maintenance and flushed all of the system.”