Nausea, rashes & sores: Slidell residents claim tap water sickened neighborhood
Residents are mostly baffled that no boil water advisory was issued to warn them about their drinking water during the days when sewage was spilling.
When Ashley Schenck and her family moved to Cross Gates subdivision near Slidell a decade ago, a friend cautioned her not to drink the tap water, a warning that Schenck, a nurse manager and mother of two boys, found hard to fathom.
But during Easter weekend last year, Schenck was hit with nausea, gastro-intestinal issues and severe abdominal and bladder pain at the same time her children and neighbor broke out in sores.
She soon learned that they weren't alone. Several of her neighbors also got sick then -- at the same time raw sewage was spilling from a broken sewer force main near the line that brings water from the Willow Wood well to their homes.
Contamination? Officials insist there was no cross-contamination. But evidence could suggest otherwise.
Resident David Binder has collected photos and medical records from more than a dozen neighbors who got rashes, skin infections and bacterial infections like E. coli during or shortly after the April sewer spill.
Now, 10 months on, they still fear their water could have been contaminated during the sewage spill, and they deeply distrust the parish-run Tammany Utilities.
The Louisiana Department of Health slapped TU with three violations last April, including one for having an inadequate level of chlorine in the drinking water a block away from the sewage spill.
Chlorine can be depleted more when the chemical disinfectant is actively killing germs.
Residents are concerned that no bacteria testing was done until April 5, after chlorine levels in the water had already returned to normal.
But residents are mostly baffled that no boil water advisory was issued to warn them about their drinking water during the days when sewage was spilling. Tammany Utilities’ own operating procedures call for a boil water advisory when there’s a “loss of chlorine disinfection.”
Parish Councilman Mike Smith, who represents the area, and other residents said they implored Tammany Utilities Director Tim Brown to make that call on April 1.
But Brown did not issue the advisory. Parish and state officials insist that no cross-contamination could have occurred because the leaking sewage simply could not have entered a pressurized water line.
But an investigation by WWL-TV and The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate has uncovered evidence that shows pressure could very well have been lost that day.
Loss of Power? Did TU lose power? Could backup generators power the wells?
Automatic notices that went out to TU officials via text message were obtained from the parish last month. They show a power outage at the well April 1, which could have affected water pressure.
Power was lost at the Willow Wood well at 8:41 a.m. on April 1 and at the Steele Road well a minute later. While power was restored at Steele Road 31 minutes later, the outage at Willow Wood went on for five hours.
Smith said he and other council members were told that there was no power outage at the wells that day.
“And there was a loss of power,” Smith said. “That’s something that the people who were in charge should probably answer.”
Parish President Mike Cooper insists that despite the Washington St. Tammany Electric Cooperative outage, power was not lost because a generator at the Willow Wood well kicked on.
“I believe that our generator came on, and the water pressure did not drop to the level of calling for a boil advisory,” he said.
But the administration offered no proof of that, and there’s reason to question Cooper’s assertion.
A report by Owen & White, the Baton Rouge-based engineering firm that Cooper hired to review the water system following last spring’s outcry, says backup generators were not big enough and didn’t have the proper startup mechanisms to power both wells in an emergency.
“The existing generators, even if wired up, would not have been able to run any well without damage to either the generator or well electrical system or motor,” Owen & White engineer Randy Hollis said.
When pressed on that point, Cooper said that he believes new generators have been ordered.
Who is in Charge? Who is responsible for calling a Boil Water Advisory?
Even more troubling, Todd Torregano, field supervisor for the system, told WWL-TV during a recent tour of the Willow Wood well facility that the generator did not come on in April.
Smith and others say they did notice a drop in water pressure in their homes that day.
“If you have any question at all, you just call the BWA,” Smith said. “People get aggravated…but it’s better to have them aggravated than have a problem.”
Cooper says Tammany Utilities calls BWAs when required to do so. But Brown has had issues in the past. In 2018, LDH cited him three times for failing to call boil advisories in a timely manner.
In spite of that, former Parish President Pat Brister promoted Brown to director of Environmental Services, the division of parish government that oversees all utilities, both public and private. She also kept him in charge of the parish-owned TU, so Brown was essentially regulating himself.
Cooper defeated Brister in 2019, and during that campaign accused her of overseeing “poor sewage” and environmental damage. But he has kept Brown in charge of Environmental Services.
Cooper separated TU from the Environmental Services Department last year and hired a new director of a new department to run parish-owned utilities. When questioned about whether Brown was the best person for the job, Cooper defended him.
“Of course I’m confident in his abilities to manage Environmental Services,” Cooper said. “That’s his background.”
The Cooper administration declined a request to interview Brown.
A Neighborhood Illness? Dozens of residents filed health complaints. Leaders are skeptical.
Cooper remains skeptical that residents suffered any illnesses linked to their water, saying that he’s received no corroborating documentation. He also cites a letter from State Health Officer Joseph Kanter saying no common cause of illness was found.
But residents provided WWL-TV and The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate with medical records and photographs documenting their infections and rashes from April 2021.
A Louisiana Department of Health official confirmed in a June 2021 email that LDH had received health complaints from 51 residents on the Cross Gates water system. LDH spokesman Kevin Litten said this week the number was 28.
Schenck, for one, said she contacted four different people at LDH about her case and no one ever called her back. Litten said Schenck was told to send her complaint to a specific state coordinator but that official’s email was misspelled, so her complaint was not processed. However, a record of Schenck's email from May 2021 indicates it was sent properly to four LDH officials, including Kanter.
Litten said the various reports LDH did receive were caused by different pathogens, and some had started manifesting prior to the sewer spill.
“The timeframe and spectrum of reported symptoms were not consistent with a common source outbreak,” he said.
Residents say officials’ skepticism about their illnesses is part and parcel of how TU, and Brown specifically, have responded to their concerns for years, especially regarding brown water coming from the taps.
A Louisiana Department of Health official confirmed in a June 2021 email that LDH had received health complaints from 51 residents on the Cross Gates water system. Schenck, for one, said she contacted four different people at LDH about her case and no one ever called her back.
Residents say the Cooper administration’s skepticism about their illnesses is part and parcel of how TU, and Brown specifically, have responded to their concerns for years, especially regarding brown water coming from the taps.
Residents have photographs spanning the last four years of copper-colored water in their swimming pools, dirt and clay deposits in their bathtubs, toilets and sinks, even brown residue left in their ice trays.
Turtle Creek resident Sherry Roberts complained so much that Brown came to her house to meet with her in July 2019. She said Brown blamed her hot water heaters. Roberts said she spent over $2,000 on new water heaters, but the dirty water didn’t go away.
Some of Roberts’ neighbors with children have taken it a step further, spending upwards of $6,000 to install whole-house filtration systems so even the water they bathe in has gone through an extra cleaning.
Fixing the Problem Some steps have been taken, but the not the 'first and foremost' solution.
When the Owen & White report was made public at the end of October, residents were hopeful that the parish would address the system’s shortcomings – the report found 35 in all. So far, six of the deficiencies have been corrected and another six are in progress, according to Cooper.
But the recommendation the consultant called “first and foremost” has not been implemented yet. It’s called a chlorine burn, essentially pumping free chlorine into the system for 60 days to disinfect the water, rather than relying on chloramines, a different type of disinfectant that requires careful dosing in balance with ammonia and sodium hypochlorite to keep the water safe.
Smith and others have been calling for a 60-day chlorine burn since last April. In June, Brown told the Parish Council that it was too dangerous and not warranted.
But the Owen & White report disagreed with that position, saying that the chlorine burn is critical to restoring public trust and should be done immediately. It also laid out how to do it safely.
Cooper says he’s now on board with a 60-day burn but it will take time to convert the system and go through regulatory processes, including a two-week notification of users.
Residents say that they’ve already waited too long.
“As a healthcare professional, and then mostly as a mom, I’m angry,” Schenck said. “We want to know that the water we’re paying for is safe to drink and safe to bathe in. Simple as that.”
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