Northern Lehigh School District has been questioned by a resident over severely discolored water at the middle school.

Eric King asked the school board on Monday for an update on some of maintenance items that were outlined back in June during the budget meetings.

“There was a three-tier list that some things were more important than others,” King said. “I’ve been trying to do some research and find out if that topic has been brought up at all.

“It’s kind of becoming the running joke on how bad the water is at the middle school, and now that we’re being told the kids are just given bottles of water during the day,” King said. “I thought this was approved and going to be taken care of before the school year even started, if I’m not mistaken.”

King then held up a bottle of discolored water and said “I don’t know why anybody would think this is acceptable to come out of a public water fountain in a school district.”

Board President Mathias Green said the board has been talking about some of those items.

Superintendent Dr. Matthew J. Link responded.

“Myself, (director of operations) Mr. (Christopher) Mann, and building level administration have been doing building walk-throughs,” Link said. “Near the end of this month, myself, Mr. Mann and all school board members that would like to join us, we’re all going to be doing walk-throughs with the school board, and then our list of most immediate recommendations all the way through 10 years out will be presented to the board as part of the budgetary process going into the 2026-2027 budget development.”

“The running joke is now we want to change our school mascot logo from Bulldogs and pronounce how it’s spelled out, but we can’t take the time to fix a water situation,” King said. “It’s kind of embarrassing when students and teachers alike are both laughing at how bad our water is at that middle school, but yet we’re worried about how our mascot looks and how it’s pronounced on logos.”

Green said he shared King’s concerns.

“I know there have been ongoing discussions with the Borough of Slatington, there have been ongoing discussions with the water purification people,” Green said. “But it is a concern, and it hasn’t gone away; you’re absolutely correct, I understand.”

King told the board “if that water came out of your fountain at your kitchen sink on any of your homes, you would not wait six months to get it fixed.”

Green said “I can tell you it’s being worked on.”

Link said the equipment has been ordered and delivered and was to be replaced by Tuesday.

“When you are doing full building water softener installation, it takes time just to have equipment built and delivered, so that has begun,” Link said. “It has also been ordered for Slatington Elementary and the high school as well.

“We do active water testing. I agree with you Mr. King, it does not look pleasant.”

King said the bottle of water he was holding up came from the fountain from Meet the Teachers Night, “but looking at that in a cup, no one would be willing to drink that or want to drink that.”

King said “hopefully everything works out and if it’s a replaceable filter that we can keep up with that would be great.”

Director Chad Christman asked that with the improvements the district is doing, if there were any studies or looked into “at how our lateral is going out to the main.”

“Is there a lot of sediments in there?” Christman asked. “I know we used to do a lot of flushing, I don’t think that happens any more.”

Link said the district had been doing external flushing with the borough.

“They have since removed that device,” Link said. “We do internal flushing every morning prior to student arrival.

Resident Crystal Billby said she heard that the water authority said that the line coming from the main line in was the problem.

“They were saying that it’s not a Slatington problem because it goes from their main, our main into the building is the problem and they said that the board was aware of that situation so I was a little concerned when we were just putting a softener in versus fixing the line that may be the problem,” Billby said.

Green responded to Billby’s inquiry, and that as a board member, “I an not aware of that situation, I have never been informed of that by anyone whether there were ongoing conversations with anyone else I don’t know, but I am not aware of that.

“I have not heard that it was the incoming line. I have heard some other accusations, but I’ve never heard that one.”

Billby said she thinks the district should talk to the water authority and find out, especially if the district is going to spend all that money for the softener and it’s not going to change the color of the water.

Green said that as a board member, “I can tell you there are ongoing conversations, there’s ongoing work. There’s work being done, and like they said, the filtration system was developed, it was delivered, and they are working on putting it in.

“It’s not something we’re ignoring. We’re not just walking away from it and saying ‘too bad you got dirty water and that’s it. We’re working on it.”