TEACHERS and parents have been urged to read the report and let the "facts speak for themselves".
That was the plea from the independent public health consultant, Dr Margaret Hannah, as she unveiled the findings at a press conference in St Ambrose High.
Asked what she would say to anxious staff or families ahead of the start of the new school term on Monday, Dr Hannah said: "My advice would be to read the report and the facts should speak for themselves.
"I think they should come to their own conclusions. I'm not trying to force them to come back - I'm trying to give them the facts.
"My advice is that the school is safe."
Nonetheless, it is almost inevitable that the report will be dissected by some on social media as a whitewash or a cover-up.
Language such as "toxic dump site" or "cancer clusters" has created a sense of menace, while a presumption of links between blue water, children testing positive for arsenic, sudden blindness and a reported four teachers with bladder cancer - in fact, there were three - has heaped confusion on top of panic.
The report states: "Although we wholly understand and welcome the raising of concerns by parents, staff and MSPs, we also recognise that, having properly done so, a counter risk arises.
"This is the risk that in raising public awareness, it can at times also sow fear and alarm particularly if health issues exist with other causes."
The extent to which that "fear and alarm" took hold is evident in plummeting attendance rates following a heated public meeting on June 6 where officials who insisted there was no danger to health were branded "liars" by angry parents.
By the third week in June attendance had fallen from an average of 90 per cent to 45% at St Ambrose and 78% at Buchanan High in what the report calls "a reflection of the level of concern and anxiety that was developing in the school community".
The council was not without fault, however.
Concerns over blue water were first raised in October 2013 and repeatedly in the years that followed until April 2017, when a decision was finally taken to replace pipework supplying the Home Economics department.
When water sampling in November 2018 revealed copper levels "higher than quality standards" flowing from other taps a decision was taken to replace all the pipework.
Since then, copper levels have fallen to safe limits but the crisis was already brewing.
In September 2018, NASUWT first raised water concerns in relation to a possible cancer link.
It is understood that one of the teachers suffering from bladder cancer is a NASUWT member who had instructed the trade union to pursue legal action for damages.
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According to the review, North Lanarkshire Council were "both too slow and too defensive in their response, especially on blue water".
This eroded confidence in the authorities and, when news reports emerged earlier this year of "four teachers with bladder cancer" and the sensational claims that an autistic child with unusually high arsenic levels had gone blind, conditions were ripe for distrust.
There had always been suspicion among some about the wisdom of building the schools on a brownfield site once used as a dump. For the project's critics, these were the chickens coming home to roost.
If anything is key to this drama though, it is the persistent trap of mistaking correlation for causation.
It is not unusual for cancer clusters to occur by chance; it is extremely rare to find an environmental or occupational carcinogen as a cause.
The report concludes: "We see no causal link between these three cases of bladder cancer and attending the school.
"The remaining two members of staff had two different kinds of cancer and no plausible explanation could link all of these together with the school.
"Bladder cancer is not very rare. There is a real possibility that it can appear as a cluster due to chance alone and once plausible exposures were eliminated, it was reasonable to come to this conclusion."
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