This part of the “Madison fouled its own nest” series is based entirely on articles by Wisconsin State Journal reporter Ron Seely (all linked in the below article). There is much more to the story from the community’s perspective–several of my friends and neighbors were involved in the grassroots community organizing, and two academics I know based their dissertations on it. Though also drinking contaminated east side water, and serving it to my young daughter, I was too overwhelmed with other work to be involved. (After finishing my UW PhD in 2004, my family moved from the east side to the north side in 2005. While the debacles below were playing out, I was a UW postdoc researching health and safety risks, citizen engagement and policy challenges related to emerging nanotechnologies. We had also just created MEJO and were working with subsistence anglers on mercury and PCB fish risks and advisories and working on Madison-Kipp’s horrendous pollution problems, which also affected our groundwater/drinking water–but the public was in the dark about that till 2011…see next part of the story).
East side and other Madison residents who organized to address Well 3 (and other wells) during this time deserve huge thanks and kudos for the work they did demanding that the Madison Water Utility be more honest and transparent about the contamination in our drinking water–and to comprehensively engage the community. One day I hope to enrich this part of the story with more first-hand recollections and insights from my friends who were involved with the Well 3 debacle on the ground. Please send comments, questions, and/or corrections to mariapowell@mejo.us.
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Madison fouled its own nest, Part III: “The wicked witch is dead”
Oops! No uncontaminated places to sink a new well
As described in Part I and Part II of “Madison fouled its own nest,” by the 1970s and 80s, Madison leaders knew the city’s municipal drinking water wells were poisoned with toxic chemicals, chloride, metals, viruses, bacteria, and other pollutants that had been drawn down into the city’s very deep wells from contaminated lands and waters on the surface–despite repeated public assurances that they wouldn’t make it down this far. Some city wells had already been shut down.
In his May 3, 2006, Wisconsin State Journal article, reporter Ron Seely cited the Madison Water Utility’s General Manager, David Denig-Chakroff, who told him that finding uncontaminated sources of drinking water as the city continued to grow would be more and more challenging.
To find clean drinking water, Denig-Chakroff said, the city would have to sink wells toward the outer boundaries of the city and pipe water downtown. If the city had to do this, “then you’ve got a huge problem. We don’t have the infrastructure to do that”—and building this infrastructure would be very expensive.
DNR’s pollution detective: “Our past sins are catching up to us.”
Seely also talked to Pat McCutcheon, a hydrogeologist with DNR’s Remediation and Redevelopment program, about Madison’s growing drinking water problems. McCutcheon, in Seely’s words, was “a detective”—not searching for criminals, but “finding and getting rid of pollutants that threaten groundwater in south central Wisconsin, including Madison” (more on the role of DNR’s RR program in preventing groundwater pollution in subsequent pieces).
Yet again Seely wrote that “the aquifer from which we draw our drinking water is deep and protected,” but then (paradoxically) quoted McCutcheon, who knew “from his sleuthing that our drinking water is prone to pollution by chemicals from our factories and dry cleaning stores, gasoline from our service stations, even drugs from our medicine cabinets.”
Echoing other experts, McCutcheon said “our past sins are catching up to us.” Wisconsin Geological & Natural History Survey hydrogeologist Ken Bradbury piled on, repeating what he’d said publicly many times in prior years. “What those pollutants show us is that we have a connection between surface water and our groundwater. It’s vulnerable,” he said.[1]
Mayor proposes Water Utility improvements
Seely’s series prompted Mayor Cieslewicz to announce a 10-point plan to address the Water Utility’s problems–which Seely described in an article on May 21. The plan would result in higher water rates, but Cieslewicz said “I think the public, given a choice between higher rates and the health and safety of our water, would clearly choose the health and safety of our water.”
Specific points in the plan included putting wellhead protection plans in place for all 24 of the city’s wells by 2010, more aggressive water main flushing and monitoring to deal with manganese, improving public outreach, including the city’s public health director on the Water Utility Board, implementing enforceable performance standards for the utility and its general manager, accelerating efforts to replace aging infrastructure and planning for new growth, and creating a “technical water quality peer review task force” to assist the Board in reviewing technical data (this eventually became the Water Utility’s “Technical Advisory Committee”). The plan also included “creating a citizen focus group to review the annual water report and ensure it adequately answers questions about drinking water.” (It’s unclear whether this ever happened).
By that time, it was too late for wellhead protection plans to prevent contamination of many city wells. Health officials were advising people who got water from Well No. 3 on the East Side and No. 10 on the West side who had liver problems, and babies under 6 months, not to drink the water because of high manganese levels. Well 3 also had detections of carbon tetrachloride over health standards in prior years, and was shut down while the Water Utility decided how to deal with the problem (as described in more detail in Part II).
Well advisories for infants continued for some time, but were lifted when flushing seemed to be reducing manganese levels. “But, even with the flushing program, the city is stuck with three wells that are producing water with high levels of manganese,” Seely wrote a couple months later. The wells were on standby, to be used only in an emergency. The Water Utility proposed a $2.5 million filter for Well 29.
Reports of high manganese levels in Madison residents’ blood
In July 2006, Seely reported that a Madison woman was diagnosed with high manganese levels in her blood, which her doctors suspected could account for “numerous physical problems” she had been struggling with, including pain and difficulty walking, numbness and tremors.[i] Her UW neurologist said exposure to manganese in her drinking water could be a possible cause, but John Hausbeck with the Madison-Dane County Health Department said tapwater where the woman lived had “relatively low levels of manganese”—well under the EPA’s health standard of 300 ppb (up to 25 ppb was found in her apartment’s water).
This was one of several reports of health problems suspected to be connected to manganese exposures in Madison. A 17-year old Nakoma resident served by manganese-contaminated Well 10 on the west side was diagnosed in 2005 with high manganese levels and had symptoms of manganese toxicity. Thomas Schlenker, Director of PHMDC, also said a physician reported a patient with high manganese levels to his department.
However, Schlenker told Seely he was “skeptical” that people’s health problems were connected to manganese exposures. Based on “information available in the scientific literature,” he doubted that anyone in Madison (where most detected levels were below the EPA’s recommended health standard) had been exposed to enough manganese over a long enough period of time to cause illness.
But recent animal research suggested that exposures lower than EPA’s recommended safe levels could cause brain injury. Schlenker called these studies only theoretical and therefore “highly artificial.” Countering this, the scientist who did the manganese research told Seely that “more and more evidence is showing that manganese is not as harmless as we previously believed” (see footnote).[2]
How to replace Well 3? “Extensive contamination exists across the Isthmus”
On October 3, 2006, Seely reported that the Water Utility would hold a public meeting to discuss the fate of Well #3 on First Street off E. Washington Ave.[i] Three options would be on the table: abandon the well and rely on other wells, build a new well, or treat the water to remove the carbon tetrachloride.
Water Utility general manager Denig-Chakroff explained the challenges of each option to Seely. Well 24 and Well 8, which were serving the neighborhood currently, would be adequate for fall and winter but would not suffice during the summer when more water is needed. Using wells from further away would be difficult because “we just don’t have the pipes to do that.”
Drilling a new well would cost about $3 million and “may be difficult because of the extensive contamination that exists across the Isthmus,” he said (emphasis added). A filter could be installed to remove carbon tetrachloride, but it would not treat the iron and manganese.
By this point, many residents, especially those served by Well 3 and other contaminated wells, had lost trust in the utility. Seely quoted Mifflin street resident Joe Sweeney, who used only bottled water to protect his 15-month old daughter. “How many times are they going to say, ‘This well is OK,’ and then find these high levels again? It’s just so hard to believe them.”
Water Utility Board member Jon Standridge observed that “[t]he utility has a real issue with communication. And we’ve lost the trust of people because of that…The goal should be having absolute trust in the water from all our consumers.”
The utility said it was committed to comprehensive engagement with residents on what to do about the well.
Future Mayor Rhodes-Conway: “This is what’s coming out of people’s taps…they’re concerned about what’s in it.”
Another public meeting about the well was organized by six neighborhood organizations in November 2006—and again covered by Seely at the Wisconsin State Journal.
Eken Park resident (and now mayor) Satya Rhodes-Conway helped organize the meeting, Seely wrote, because of “concerns she said she heard from many” in her Eken Park Neighborhood. “It’s about the water,” she said. “This is what’s coming out of people’s taps. It’s what they drink. They’re giving it to their kids. And they’re concerned about what’s in it.”
But adopting a well-worn public relations approach, Water Utility and DNR officials downplayed health risks, assuring that “it is unlikely that water contaminated with high levels of carbon tetrachloride reached homes.”
Not surprisingly, people were distrustful of the Water Utility’s assurances. Lilly Irvin-Vitella with the East Isthmus Neighborhoods Planning Council repeated questions she heard from neighbors—“Am I going to get cancer?” “How do I get my water tested?” and “Why weren’t we told about this sooner?”
Rhodes-Conway stressed that residents should be kept informed and involved. “It’s absolutely appropriate for neighbors to have a role in talking about this,” said Rhodes-Conway. “People need to know that something is going to be done. They need to know what that is and need to have a say before it’s a done deal.”
Reflecting on residents’ concerns, Seely opined that “[s]uch questions are likely to become familiar as the water utility struggles to provide clean water for a growing city.” Further, he added “A master plan being considered by the utility calls for building a well every two years over the next 20 years.”
(My commentary: Sadly, this draft master plan showed that growth was the city’s top priority and it was willing to pay a steep public health price for it—drinking more and more of its own poisons—whether or not its residents knew it. Even after the public outrage about well contamination in the previous years, the Water Utility and city were ignoring scientists’ warnings going back to the 1970s–that heavy well pumping from growing numbers of wells was depleting the aquifer beneath the city, drawing surface water downward, and pulling toxic contaminants at the surface into wells.)
Water Utility will shut down Well 3–but don’t worry! Nobody was exposed to harmful levels of poisons…
Over 130 residents attended the community-organized public meeting on November 27 (again reported by Seely at the State Journal). At the meeting, Denig-Chakroff announced that the utility would shut down Well 3. East side residents might face water restrictions, he warned, while the utility looked for a place to drill a new well on the industrialized Isthmus, much of which was contaminated.
Thomas Schlenker, Madison and Dane County director of public health, again assured people that it was “unlikely” that any residents who drank from Well 3 or other city wells ingested levels of manganese or carbon tetrachloride high enough to cause health problems. He told Seely: “The water that is being delivered to Madison homes is perfectly safe to drink.” Still, he had asked the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (part of the CDC) to study whether there were any connections between manganese in the water and human illnesses.
Denig-Chakroff also downplayed problems, saying manganese had only been found sporadically at levels above the EPA’s health advisory, and at only a few homes. The carbon tetrachloride, which had started showing up in the well in 1993, likely came from “a nearby paint plant that is now defunct.”
But meeting attendees, Seely wrote, remained “uneasy about what they perceived as the city’s lack of response to health concerns” and Rhodes-Conway again stressed that people “want their concerns heard and they want them addressed.”
Unsatisfied with the utility’s and public health agency’s assurances, one resident said she asked Schlenker if his department would track potential illnesses possibly caused by exposure to manganese. He told her they kept track of phone calls about manganese and had people who called fill out a survey. Sometimes they visited homes. “The good thing is that in all the cases so far, we haven’t found a connection between the drinking water and someone’s health condition. But we have looked aggressively.”[3]
The next day, Mayor Cieslewicz told a joint meeting of the Water Utility Board and Madison-Dane County Board of Health that the city had invested millions of dollars into a citywide study of manganese contamination, building new water pipes, and shutting down problem wells. The city also had hired a new water quality manager, improved its website, developed a better system for recording and responding to customer complaints, developed enforceable performance standards for the utility’s general manager, and accelerated development of wellhead protection plans for all 24 of the city’s wells by 2010 (and more).[4]
Manganese testing to date, the mayor reported, found 13 samples (out of 2074 total samples) from 11 sites that had over the 300 ppb EPA lifetime health advisory level—but repeat tests were below these levels. Problem wells had been shut down and a new flushing technique had “blasted” manganese out of more than 400 miles of the city’s 840 miles of water mains.
Echoing DNR and public health officials, the mayor dismissed residents’ health concerns. “While manganese in our water is an important issue, it is not affecting public health,” he said.
People are tired of “soothing responses” and “mixed messages”
Lilly Irwin-Vitela, leader of the East Isthmus Neighborhoods Planning Council, was not reassured. “We don’t trust that the information we’re getting is accurate,” she said. “We don’t feel we’re getting candid answers.” This is one of the top reasons residents began organizing their own meetings—as Seely wrote, they were “tired of waiting for the city to figure things out.”
The city had just released phone survey data the previous week, which found that 26 percent of residents were not satisfied that the utility can supply them with safe water. The survey was part of efforts recently funded by the city to assess and improve the utility.
Another Isthmus resident, Dan Melton, president of the Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara Neighborhood Association said “I have more questions than answers.”
Melton highlighted the mixed messages coming from the utility. Seely paraphrased Melton’s comments: “On the one hand, city and utility officials repeatedly cite the high quality of the city’s drinking water. At the same time, residents know Well 3 has been shut down because of a carcinogen, carbon tetrachloride, and they’ve heard utility managers say that finding a clean source of water for a new well on the formerly heavily industrialized Isthmus will be difficult.”
“Such waffling, Melton said, only heightens distrust. People, he added, are tired of ‘soothing responses.’” He said people weren’t happy that the utility might still use Well 3 in emergencies, wanted more information about whether they or their families may have been exposed to carbon tetrachloride, and wanted to be involved in the process of siting a new well.
Moreover, he told Seely, “[t]hey’re alarmed at the appearance that the water utility doesn’t seem to have a plan. They seem to go from day to day just dealing with situations as they come up. Some people are pretty angry about that.”
Priscilla Mather, president of Water Utility Board, was very angry about the community-led meeting, which she thought “seemed almost orchestrated to reflect badly on the utility.”
The Board formed a subcommittee to work on improving communication with residents. Irvin-Vitella, Melton, and another local activist Lynn Williamson were appointed to it.
Though angry about the meeting, Board president Mather admitted that she “respects and understands those health concerns raised by the neighborhood associations and that “people do want health information. They want to know if the water is safe for their kids. It is an emotional issue, close to their hearts.”
Water Utility Board member: “We’ve got to get this kind of thing out of the back engineering rooms where it has been handled in the past”
In early 2007, Ron Seely reported that the Water Utility and East Isthmus neighborhood association held a joint public meeting, which Lily Irving-Vitella told Seely she hoped would provide people with more information about what’s in their drinking water. “What were we exposed to? And what are the things we should be concerned about because of that exposure?”
Dan Melton was optimistic. “They’re really trying,” he told Seely. “I think it has become clear to folks at the water utility that they need to do things differently.”
Water Utility Board member Jon Standridge, a vocal critic of the utility, said it was “like pulling teeth” getting the utility to make more efforts to involve the public in water decisions, but that recent efforts were “a good sign.”
The public, Melton said, wanted to find out more at the meeting about what chemicals are routinely tested and “testing of humans for lifetime accumulations of things like carbon tetrachloride.” They also wanted to be involved in decisions about placing a new well.
Standridge agreed that many people were very interested and should be involved in these decisions. “We’ve got to get this kind of thing out of the back engineering rooms where it has been handled in the past,” he told Seely.
Report: “A culture change” is needed at the Madison Water Utility
A couple weeks later, Seely reported, the consultants hired to assess Water Utility’s operations and management released the findings of their report before the Water Utility Board. The utility received good scores on many ongoing operations, but consultants found problems in public communications and employee relations, along with management “weaknesses.”
The consultants told board members that the utility would need to “learn a different way of doing business”—including “turning communication into a habit instead of an afterthought.” The report also recommended leadership coaching and training, and employee training to better deal with the public. They said it would require more than just small adjustments—it would require “a culture change,” a consultant said.
General manager Denig-Chakroff said he was committed to following through with the requirements in the report, and that the study and report “will have a tremendous impact on this utility in the way we move forward.”
At the meeting, the board approved $50,000 to hire a consultant to advise on siting a new well. According to Al Larson, the utility’s head engineer, this was $45,000 more than what was allotted to well siting in the past. The increased cost was partly because of the “ambitious public participation plan that will be necessary,” he said. “We’re changing the whole concept of how we site a new well with this one.”
The Wicked Witch is Dead!
On April 20, 2007, Seely reported that the Water Utility said it would abandon Well 3, “the oldest and most problem-plagued of the city’s drinking water wells.” “It will never be used again,” Denis-Chakroff told Seely. “The wicked witch is dead.”
One reason the utility was comfortable shutting down this well is because the board had voted to install a $2 million manganese filter on Well 29 on the city’s far east side, which was found to be contaminated with high levels of manganese within its first year of operation. With a filter, a recent study showed, it could be used while a new well was built to replace Well 3.
However, Seely noted, “building a new well in the East Isthmus area, the site of numerous abandoned factories and old landfills, is not going to be easy.” The consultants hired to help site a new well, Steve Gaffield, “said the job is going to be a challenge because of the history of the area and the resulting high levels of contaminants.”
Extensively involving the public in this process would also be challenging, Gaffield said, and it would be the first time the water utility had attempted to do so.
To be continued in Part IV: What contaminant sources were the Water Utility and government officials aware of but NOT telling the media and public about, despite their commitment to transparency and open engagement?
[1] The article included a sidebar with “10 ways to protect and conserve our groundwater” from the American Water Works Association. It included “take shorter showers,” “shut off water while brushing,” “dispose of household chemicals properly, not down the drain,” “check leaky faucets” “water plants only when necessary,” and other individual behavioral changes.
[2] On Feb. 4, 2015, Manganese was listed on the EPA Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) fourth Contaminant Candidate List (CCL 4). Nominators for the CCL 4 (typically toxicologists and other scientists), “cited more than 20 recent studies that indicate concern for neurological effects in children and infants exposed to excess manganese, which were not available at the time manganese was considered for the first Regulatory Determination or CCL 3 (in 2009). In addition, new monitoring studies from USGS and drinking water monitoring information from several States supported an earlier survey (i.e., the National Inorganics and Radionuclides Survey), which indicated manganese is known to occur in drinking water. EPA eventually determined that the new health effects information and additional occurrence data merit listing manganese on the CCL 4 in December 2016.
[3] Tracking complaints of people who call is far from a scientific or “aggressive” study of potential health problems associated with manganese in drinking water.
[4] Seely reported on December 24, 2006 that Cieslewicz had announced that “he is appointing George Meyer, former head of the Department of Natural Resources and an environmental activist, to fill an empty spot on the board.”
