GREENE COUNTY, Mo. — “I think any time you have this substance specifically than it is seen in your wastewater, that that’s going to raise some questions,” Christian Overstreet, Superintendent of Fair Grove Schools, said. “What I was told is that and, you know, this is specific to wastewater. This is not drinking water. This is nothing that anybody’s going to consume. This is specific to black water and sewage.”
The Fair Grove School District is just one of the many schools that had wastewater tested recently by the state health department, but had traces of Nitazenes, a powerful opioid, which the state health department says is 5 to 10 times more potent than fentanyl.
“I ask the question, how does it get in there, and I was told that it could be from urine. It could be from somebody washing their hands with that substance on it. It could even be it on their clothing and some of that falling into obviously the toilet or the sink. There’s several different ways that it could get in the wastewater. Obviously, we don’t know who, our school buildings are open to a lot of people throughout the week. So, you know, it’s completely anonymous,” Overstreet said. “We don’t have any of that information, but we’ve got enough to know that it’s in there. It is a very minute trace amount. So, that is also too important, important to note as well, that it wasn’t anything huge.”…