Fort Yukon tells state high manganese and iron have made its water unsafe for infants

The City of Fort Yukon has told the State Emergency Operations Center that its water has had high levels of manganese and iron for more than a month, turning it brown and making it unsafe for infants. The state recorded the city's account in its daily situation report on Monday, Oct. 26.

The report lists two sources of safe water so far. Tanana Chiefs Conference sent 24 cases of bottled water to the city, and a nearby radar site has been opened up for safe drinking water. The Department of Environmental Conservation's Drinking Water program and a Tanana Chiefs Conference remote maintenance worker are providing technical help.

Monday's report is the first in the state's daily series to mention Fort Yukon's water. The Oct. 23 report did not. The report gives no laboratory numbers, so "unsafe for infants" is the report's description, not a lab result.

The state's Drinking Water Watch lists the Fort Yukon Public Water System as an active community system serving 650 residents through 287 residential connections. It draws on two wells. Its primary source is classed as groundwater under the direct influence of surface water, a federal term for well water that shows signs of surface water, such as shifts in temperature or cloudiness that follow the weather. The system's public list of tested substances has no entry for manganese or iron. The state last recorded an on-site inspection of the system on June 24, 2025.

The Environmental Protection Agency's secondary drinking water standards are non-enforceable guides for taste, color and staining. They set manganese at 0.05 milligrams per liter, where water can turn black to brown, and iron at 0.3, where it can turn rusty.

The EPA's 2004 health advisory for manganese sets a lifetime level of 0.3 milligrams per liter to guard against possible neurological effects. Its one-day and 10-day level is 1 milligram per liter. For infants younger than 6 months, the advisory says to use the lower 0.3 level even for a 10-day exposure. Young infants may absorb more manganese and excrete less, and formula carries more manganese than breast milk.

The state record does not say exactly when the water changed or why, or when a fix is expected. It also does not say whether the city has issued a formal advisory, whether the school's separate water system is affected or how long the bottled water and the radar site's supply will last.