Montville — Montville High School, which has been relying on 5-gallon jugs of bottled water for drinking and cooking for more than five years, could have its own water sources again by the end of 2017.

State Office of School Construction officials have approved a plan to route water from three wells at Leonard J. Tyl middle school and one at the high school into a 15,000-gallon tank that would provide water for drinking and cooking for both schools.

An older well on the high school’s property has been off-limits for drinking and cooking since the fall of 2012, when a contractor conducting a routine analysis of the school's well water found high levels of manganese.

In the years since, district officials have struggled to come up with an affordable solution, while dried manganese has built up in the high school’s pipes and students and staff have gone through countless jugs of water in lieu of water fountains and faucets in the school’s halls and kitchens.

In 2014, the town’s Water Pollution Control Authority, which controls the wells that serve the two schools, proposed a pipeline along Route 163 to bring water to the high school.

That idea, which would have required a town referendum vote to go forward, fizzled in 2015 after town officials deemed it too expensive. A consulting firm hired by the town estimated the pipeline would cost $6.8 million.

A proposal from the nonprofit Southeast Connecticut Water Authority to route water from some of the wells it owns nearby also was rejected because of high cost and legal complications, Montville school Superintendent Brian Levesque said.

Last year the district drilled a new well, also on the school’s property, which does not have high mineral levels.

This year, if the Town Council approves the plan, a contractor will connect that well and three at the middle school to a new tank, clear out the manganese that has built up in the high school's pipes and replace water fountains and fixtures there.

Montville’s state-set rate for school construction reimbursement is 70 percent, and the Office of School Construction said it would cover that much of the cost of the project, which Levesque said would total an estimated $480,000 or less.

The Town Council still will have to approve the deal, which would leave the town paying about $150,000, though the final cost could change once contractors bid on the project, Levesque said.

A larger tank at the middle school would be repurposed as a water source for fire suppression. That tank now is used for drinking water at the middle school, but it holds more water than Tyl staff and students typically use and must be chlorinated.

Under the plan, which district officials developed with the help of Norwich-based CLA Engineers, that larger tank still would hold the water for fire suppression at the two schools, while the new tank would supply drinking water to the schools and the nearby bus garage.

With four wells feeding into the tank, the system will have multiple back-ups in case one fails, Levesque said.

"We think this is a long-term solution," he said. "It's not ... a Band-Aid approach."

m.shanahan@theday.com