E. coli cause of BC school closures

OXFORD - E. coli was discovered in Prairie Crossing Elementary and Benton Central Junior-Senior High School's water on Friday. Benton Community School Corporation Superintendent Ross Sloat said school is temporarily closed until test results on the water come back clean. "We need to try to find, was there a source of it or was it a fluke. And sometimes these cases there could be a bad sample. Some places where we took the next sample showed it good out of the same faucet," Sloat said.

Sloat said both schools' wells are clear of E. coli. And he's not sure where the bacteria came from. "The distribution site somehow somewhere there's something that has gotten some bacteria in it that we have to chlorinate and get out," Sloat said.

School officials flushed out the water system with chlorine Tuesday to kill the bacteria. A final test will be done Saturday. If it returns clean, classes will resume as normal on Monday.

"We're taking all precautions that we can. You know we're closing the buildings, doing the sterilization of the water for the safety," Sloat said.

Sloat said no students or staff have reported getting sick from the water. He says the days students miss will be made up at the end of the year.

Tuesday's boys basketball game between BC and Frontier is canceled. Tuesday's basketball game between Prairie Crossing and Pine Village Elementary schools will be played at Pine Village.