Copper in Plymouth South Elementary's tap water tested at nearly 2 1/2 times the federal action level, EPA records show

PLYMOUTH Copper in tap water at South Elementary School in Plymouth, which draws its drinking water from its own well, tested at 3.19 parts per million in the first half of 2025, nearly 2 1/2 times the 1.3 parts per million action level the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets for copper, federal drinking water records show.

That figure is the 90th percentile of the taps sampled, which means more than one in 10 of the taps tested came in above 1.3. Under the federal Lead and Copper Rule, a water system where copper tops the action level in more than 10% of the taps sampled must take a number of additional steps to control corrosion in its pipes, the EPA says.

The EPA's Safe Drinking Water Information System lists two Lead and Copper Rule violations for the school's water system, both starting July 1, 2025: a treatment technique violation, which the database marks as health based, and a monitoring and reporting violation. Neither has an end date in the federal records, which the EPA lists as current through June 30, 2026.

The state Department of Environmental Protection issued an administrative order without a penalty to the system on Jan. 28, 2026, and the EPA's enforcement records link that order to both violations and list both as addressed, with no resolved date.

Lead in the same first half of 2025 sampling measured 8.1 parts per billion at the 90th percentile, below the 15 parts per billion federal action level, and the next two rounds were lower, 1.4 parts per billion in the second half of 2025 and 1.79 parts per billion in the first half of 2026. The federal database shows no copper result for the school after the first half of 2025.

South Coast 360 reached out to the Town of Plymouth and the state Department of Environmental Protection, and neither answered by publication.

Why copper matters

The EPA says some people who drink water with copper above the action level over a short time could have stomach and intestinal distress, and some who drink it over many years could suffer liver or kidney damage. The agency says people with Wilson's disease should talk with their own doctor if copper in their water is above the action level. Copper usually gets into tap water from corrosion of household plumbing, the EPA says, and from erosion of natural deposits.

A school with its own water system

The federal records list the system as Plymouth So. Elem. Sch., owned by Plymouth Public Schools, and the state's map of public water supply wells puts its one well about 800 feet from the school's address, 178 Bourne Road. The EPA classifies it as a non-transient non-community system, a category that covers schools and other places with their own water that regularly serve at least 25 of the same people for at least six months a year, and the records show it serves 950 people from groundwater and is owned by local government.

The same records show earlier violations at the school's system. MassDEP issued an administrative order with a penalty on March 16, 2023, tied to a total coliform bacteria treatment technique violation and a reporting violation in April and May 2022, both resolved in May 2022. It issued an order without a penalty on Nov. 3, 2023, tied to a chemical monitoring and reporting violation from July through September 2023, and another order without a penalty on Aug. 22, 2024, tied to coliform monitoring and reporting violations that were resolved by Oct. 29, 2024. The Plymouth Water Department's system, which serves about 47,100 people, has no violation in the federal database that began after 2019.

What families can do

• Ask the school or Plymouth Public Schools for the most recent lead and copper results for South Elementary and for any public notice sent about the violations. Federal records classify the treatment violation as one that requires a public notice to the people served.
• Read the EPA's Lead and Copper Rule summary and its drinking water standards table, which list the 1.3 parts per million copper action level and the health effects, at epa.gov.
• Talk with a doctor about any health concern, especially for a child with Wilson's disease, as the EPA advises.

South Elementary's main office is at 508-830-4390, and the Plymouth Public Schools central office, at 11 Lincoln St., is at 508-830-4300.

Label: Reported by us, from the town's posted records.