Contaminated wells in a place that time forgot

A narrow, gravel street with grass poking up between tire ruts, it winds through a thick tangle of trees, passes some small houses and vehicles in various states of disrepair before coming to a single-story, black and yellow mobile home. It's a place Irene Carr has called home for the last half century.

 

Her modest home and the others around it are a part of a neighborhood from yesteryear, an antiquated island in a suburban sea. Lined with forestland, the cling-clang of heavy machinery in the distance is the only noise in the otherwise quiet, isolated community.

Cases and 5-gallon jugs of Deer Park water sit at the top of the stairs to Ms. Carr's home. She had to buy her own water cooler for her kitchen - it took too many 20-ounce bottles to fill a pot of water for cooking.

Anything that could touch her lips, her food, her drinking water, the water she uses to wash her face, is from bottled water. She has lived this way since October, ever since heavy metals were found in her well, and Constellation Energy has provided a weekly delivery.

She said she would have used bottled water a long time ago, had she known the problems she faced every time she was thirsty.

"I've been drinking this bad water for eight years. I'm surprised it didn't kill me first," she said.

In October, the county Health Department took water samples from Ms. Carr's well and from 82 other nearby wells.

Tests showed that Ms. Carr's drinking water contained cadmium - a likely carcinogen that causes kidney damage and fragile bones - at three times the Environmental Protection Agency's levels for safe drinking water.

It also had thallium, which causes hair loss, vomiting and diarrhea, at twice the EPA's levels.

The health department found that 22 other wells, some owned by Ms. Carr's neighbors, were also contaminated with a cocktail of metals regulated by the EPA.

Some can cause liver, skin, bladder, kidney and prostate cancer. Others had lead, which can cause brain damage in children. In one well, the lead level was 10 times beyond the EPA's limits.

But the health department's investigation came years after Constellation's own tests showed the presence heavy metals, a circumstance that doesn't set well with Ms. Carr.

"I feel like I have nothing I can do," she said. "Somebody should have reported it."