A mysterious appearance of rust-colored water in Lititz Run was investigated by state and industry officials late Friday afternoon.

The discovery was made barely a week after Lititz Borough tap water was tested for an unexplained minty odor and taste and officials took four wells out of service as a precaution.

The wells were shut down seven or eight days ago "because we weren't certain if there was any contamination in that well field," Carl Kline, of Severn Trent Environmental Services Inc., said Friday. Severn Trent operates Lititz Borough Water System, which serves 8,900 people in the borough and 10,788 people in Warwick Township.

Kline said the new discovery appears to be the result of suspended solids that colored the stream where the water emerges from underground and forms the head of Lititz Run. Traces are visible for about 100 yards, or almost the distance to Broad Street (Route 501).

He said Lititz Run will be monitored to see if the discoloration continues downstream, indicating something more is washing into the stream.

"We're trying to find … a sinkhole," said Kline, who has worked with the water system since 1973. He said he has "never seen this rust color" in Lititz Run.

More-than-adequate water supplies for customers will be drawn from three remaining wells east of Lititz Springs Park, Kline said.

Kline said stream samples were collected late Friday by representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection and Johnson & Johnson, which operates a pharmaceutical production plant west of Lititz Run.

DEP spokesman John Repetz said Lititz Run water samples will be tested Tuesday for odors that could indicate volatile organic compounds and metals traced to inorganic compounds.

He said a DEP field inspector saw orange coloring on algae on the sides and bottom of the streambed, but no discoloration of the water Friday.

Repetz would not rule out the cause as being from a sewer line or a sinkhole.

He said no information was available on tap-water tests or an inspection of a Johnson & Johnson sewer line that runs less than 200 feet from two borough wells.

A statement last week from Severn Trent said, "There are no known health concerns. The water-treatment plant is operating normally, and water is being disinfected as required."

The Lititz Run anomaly was observed Thursday and Friday by Raymond and Barbara Warringer, 545 Creekside Lane, Lititz.

The husband and wife have backgrounds in industrial science.

"There appears to be some solid mixed in the water," said Raymond Warringer, a retired process control technician at the water filtration plant at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. "There's an area the water bubbles out of. That's where we saw the brownish water. Over time the solid settles out. The solid that settles out is called precipitate."

Barbara Warringer described what she saw as a tan to orange "discoloration of water and a precipitate coming out of the spring head. Along the sides of the channel it has that precipitate on it."

She said the couple did not take any samples, and they did not detect the minty odor that led to the recent complaints about tap water.

Raymond Warringer said, "I really don't have enough information to make a wild guess" about the cause of the discoloration. He said, "Things like this will take time to sort out."

E-mail: bhannegan@lnpnews.com