On a recent day in this 19th-century mining town turned tourist hot spot, students made their way into the Granite High School lobby and past a new filtered water bottle fill station.
Water samples taken from the drinking fountain the station replaced had a lead concentration of 10 parts per billion — twice Montana’s legal limit for schools of 5 parts per billion for the toxic metal.
Thomas Gates, the principal and superintendent of the small Philipsburg School District, worries the new faucets, sinks, and filters the district installed for roughly 30 water sources are temporary fixes. The high school, built in 1912, is likely laced with aged pipes and other infrastructure, like so much of this historic town.
