The Wind River diversion dam in Wyoming was built to divert water to mainly non-Native American irrigators on the Wind River reservation. Many Shoshone and Arapaho tribal members fear the complete loss of their fishery because of depleted waters. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

FORT WASHAKIE, Wyo. – Jason Baldes stands next to a bridge facing the Wind River diversion dam, a concrete reminder that his Eastern Shoshone tribe does not have the right to use the water on their lands as they want.

Instead, dams and diversions move water toward the many farms in the region, leaving the Wind River depleted to the point that it sometimes runs dry. In what became one of Wyoming’s longest running court battles, known as the Big Horn cases, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that allocating water to benefit fish and wildlife and recharge groundwater was not considered a beneficial use.

“This is an environmental justice issue,” said Baldes, a member of the Shoshone tribe who still takes issue with the court’s decision. “It’s as though the tribes don’t exist when it comes to using water for our purposes.” The Eastern Shoshone tribe’s code lists 15 beneficial uses of water, including fisheries and culture.

In the final 1992 decision, the courts upheld the state of Wyoming’s right to administer Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho water rights, which they had secured in previous court cases, and the tribes’ traditional use of the river as a fishery was barred.

In 1905, farmers were offered land on Native American reservations to encourage agricultural development. The federal government built a massive network of irrigation districts, canals and dams.

“The tribes were hunters and gatherers, fishermen,” said Richard Baldes, who served with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service for decades and continues to sit on the tribal water board. “If you don’t have enough water in the river, then fishing isn’t any good. And that’s exactly what’s happened as a result of the Bureau of Reclamation building the diversion dam on the Wind River.”

Wind River tribes faced decades long legal battles over water rights from News21 on Vimeo.

Hydrological maps of the region show a stark divide between portions of the reservation dried from the diversions and portions of the reservation fed from the diversions – one side brown, one side green. The green areas are the most concentrated with private land ownership.

Upstream from the dams, fish are healthy. Downstream, there are almost no fish. Sediment deposits are making the area around the dam uninhabitable, and fish are blocked from moving upstream, save for a “largely ineffective” fish ladder designed to help fish get past the dam, according to recent research by Kelli Blomberg out of the University of Wyoming.

Climate change coupled with heavy demands on water for oil and gas industry and agriculture activities are stressing supplies. In an economic study funded by the Wyoming Water Development Commission, Edward Barbier notes that “persistence of drought conditions over much or all of the state of Wyoming in recent years has raised concern as to whether water availability relative to use may be limiting economic growth.” He notes that oil drillers are reportedly striking deals with farmers for use of their irrigation water.

Jason Baldes, A member of the Shoshone Nation in Wyoming, is teaching is sons to hunt and fish. He hopes they will pass on the same to their own children. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

At certain times of the year, portions of the Wind River run dry. Past shortages have even caused skirmishes among farmers in the region, according to reports by WyoFile.

“Time and time again, when you look at the history of water for Native Americans, you have to look at the social, political issues that stand in the way of how tribes progress,” said Yufna Soldier Wolf, an Arapaho tribal member.

Paul Robinson is a research director at the Southwest Research and Information Center. “Often Indian water issues are secondary to other water concerns of the states,” he said. “Tribes get water when there is infrastructure for other people getting their needs met.”

He pointed to the management of the Colorado River as an example, where major diversions from northern Arizona and eastern New Mexico to serve urban centers have limited Native Americans’ access to water.

“The trail of tears over Indian water is one where first water users don’t always get control over that right,” he said.

What frustrates Baldes most is that, properly managed, there’s enough water for everyone. His ancestors chose the headwaters of the Missouri River as their home for its wealth of resources, and there should be plenty to go around, he said. He added that the one year that the tribes were able to run instream flow was a drought year, and farmers still had bumper crops.

“We know that the ranchers and farmers need water for their crops. But we also know that fish need water to survive,” he said.

“I believe that the two can co-exist.”

Jason Baldes of Fort Washakie, Wyoming, has many friends who are farmers and has nothing against the industry. He said he wants to see water on the reservation used for both farming and the protection of the fishery. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com.

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This year, 29 journalism students from 18 universities traveled across the country. They conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed thousands of pages of state and federal statutes and other records and built databases and data visualizations documenting the issues surrounding water pollution.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water” and view the 30-minute documentary, go to troubledwater.news21.com. Watch a preview of the project here:

News21 investigates drinking water in America from News21 on Vimeo.

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Troubled Water Trailer from News21 on Vimeo.

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Jeff and Rhonda Locker tour their old farm property in Pavillion, Wyoming. The home now has a cistern and underground tank with clean water because the well is contaminated with benzenes and other substances, which the couple believes is from the oil and gas activities on their land. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

PAVILLION, Wyo. – Rhonda and Jeff Locker enjoyed hosting friends and family at their farm home in Pavillion, Wyoming. The 56 year old said she took pride in serving her guests water from the well on their land.

“It was the best I’d ever tasted,” Rhonda Locker said.

That changed in the early 1990s when the couple began to suspect something was wrong with their water. It would intermittently run black and release a strange odor, they said.

The Lockers were not alone. Similar complaints came from other residents near Pavillion – a town with little more than a couple hundred residents and an oil field.

Decades later, officials still can’t definitively identify the source of the contamination.

The Lockers, however, believe they know who is responsible. They are taking an oil and gas giant to court, claiming the company polluted their water and lied to them about it. They are seeking compensation after Rhonda Locker became ill.

In 2014, the couple filed suit against Encana Corp. for negligence, and the couple claimed the company convinced them to drink unsafe water and did not communicate water problems with them, according to court documents. The case is ongoing in U.S. District Court.

Encana officials deny any wrongdoing.

Couple tries to identify cause of mystery illness

The Lockers’ brown farmhouse sits between tall apple trees and has a view of the Rocky Mountains. Pavillion residents have learned to coexist with the dozens of gas wells on their hay and barley fields.

When the couple noticed changes in their water, they contacted Tom Brown Inc., a company that built and operated gas wells on their land. The company sent a hydrologist to test the Lockers’ wells.

The company assured them the contamination was not from their oil and gas activities, and there were no petroleum by-products in their water – and the Lockers believed them, they said. Tom Brown Inc. paid for a reverse osmosis water filtration unit for the home. In exchange, the couple signed an agreement releasing the company of any future liability.

“We wanted to believe them,” Rhonda Locker said. “I so badly wanted water to drink out of the faucet again. It was no fun to always bring jugs of water home, always having them on the laundry, on the washer machine – everywhere. And our house wasn’t that big, so It just got to me.”

Jeff Locker and his son still did not drink the water because they did not like the taste of it, but Rhonda Locker did.

“I just wanted to be able to take my vitamins and brush my teeth out of my own bathroom sink,” she said.

Four months after installing the filtration system, Rhonda Locker became ill. Her arms and legs tingled, she could not think clearly and she struggled to walk.

The couple became determined to find answers.

Rhonda Locker sought out numerous doctors, none of whom could give her a clear diagnosis for her mystery illness.

It was her declining health that lead the couple to file suit against Encana, the company that bought Tom Brown Inc.

Wyoming couple’s water problems launch national debate about oil and gas drilling from News21 on Vimeo.

EPA study suggests connection

The Environmental Protection Agency began an investigation into Pavillion groundwater in 2009, and it released a draft of its conclusions in 2011, pointing to the oil and gas industry as a possible culprit for the contamination.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry informed the couple their groundwater showed signs of contamination in 2010 and suggested the couple use an alternate water supply. This was the first time the Lockers were informed of specific contamination in their water since the problem began in 1992, they said.

It was not the first time someone knew of the contamination, however. According to court documents, Tom Brown Inc. tested the Lockers’ well in 2001 and found toluene – a harmful solvent oil and gas companies use that can cause “central nervous system depression and decreased memory,” according to World of Chemicals.

The EPA’s report confirmed Pavillion groundwater was contaminated with benzene, methane and other petroleum by-products. The lead author of the report said the contamination was most likely due to leakage from unlined pits carrying oil and gas wastewater.

Encana refutes the draft study, arguing that it was flawed science. They deny the chemicals in the Lockers’ well came from their activities, citing a number of other possible sources, in their official response to the EPA findings.

The company declined to comment on the court case since it is ongoing.

The well at the Locker family home near Pavillion, Wyoming, is contaminated with benzenes and other chemicals. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

EPA’s study causes scrutiny

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., in a statement called the EPA’s draft study part of the agency’s “witch hunt” aimed at harming the oil and gas industry.

“The Obama Administration has done everything it possibly can to destroy domestic production of oil, gas and coal,” Inhofe told the Senate floor in 2012.

The issue has become part of a national debate over the potential effects of hydraulic fracturing in the oil and gas industry.

The industry is a boon to Wyoming, which is one of the top 10 oil and gas producers in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Coal, crude oil and natural gas are produced in all but one of the state’s counties.

While the EPA said it “stands behind its work and its data” in a 2013 news release, the agency handed over the groundwater investigation to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. Encana donated $1.5 million to the Wyoming Natural Resource Foundation for the state to fund the investigation and for a groundwater education campaign, according to the same release.

The state released a report in 2015 “discrediting” the EPA’s earlier report, according to a statement from the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. The state’s report contended hydraulic fracturing had most likely not impacted the water supply.

The state of Wyoming did not return requests for comment.

Senior officials at the EPA had decided not to finalize the draft and hand the investigation over to Wyoming because of the “intense pressure from the oil and gas industry and the state of Wyoming,” said Dominic DiGiulio, the lead author of the EPA’s initial study.

“The findings affect hydraulic fracturing across the country,” said DiGuilio, a researcher at Stanford University. “That’s why the oil and gas industry was very defensive about the findings out there.”

DiGuilio released results from an independent, peer-reviewed investigation with Stanford University in 2016. It also concluded that the water contamination was due to the industry’s disposal of fracking waste into unlined pits.

In 2016, the EPA released a comprehensive national report that didn’t offer a conclusive answer to whether hydraulic fracturing effects water, and it suggested more testing.

Rhonda and Jeff Locker said they are happy they live in a new home with safe water in the Pavillion area of Wyoming. They are tangled in a legal battle over the source of contamination, which they believe came from oil and gas activity on their farm. (Photo by Lauren Kaljur/News21)

Couple still has unanswered questions

As Rhonda and Jeff Locker sit on the back porch on a warm summer evening, they still want answers.

The know there was something wrong with the water. In fact, the state of Wyoming started giving cisterns to residents with contaminated water in 2012. They just haven’t proven what caused it.

Without her medication, Rhonda Locker can’t walk properly. Her cognitive problems are becoming more severe. She feels much older than she should in her 50s, she said.

“It’s always, ‘Don’t hurt grandma, watch her legs,’ and stuff like that,” she said. “I did picture how much I was going to run around with them and do all these things with them because I was so active, and it didn’t happen that way.”

“In retrospect, if there’s anything I could change and go back,” Jeff Locker said. “I’d just soon not ever have heard the name Encana and Tom Brown.”

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Jessica Griffith, a resident of Garwood, West Virginia, holds her youngest son. She said she used the community’s water to prepare his bottle for nine months before learning the water wasn’t being treated. (Photo by Jordan Houston/News21)

GARWOOD, W.Va. – In southern West Virginia, hundreds of unqualified residents must now run their local water systems, which often draw water from abandoned mines.

As the state has lost coal-industry jobs, the miners who once ran these systems have abandoned this task to the remaining residents.

Environmental Protection Agency data shows that at least eight communities have no water operators, and residents say they face frequent outages and taps that deliver muddy water after heavy rains.

Some Wyoming and Fayette county residents said they are getting too old to continue upkeep on the systems and lack the funds to carry out proper treatment.

In Garwood, a 55-person Wyoming County town surrounded by coal mines, residents have struggled to keep their system afloat after it was deserted in 2014.

“Everybody just up and quit,” resident Jessica Griffith said. “There was no warning, no nothing. Nobody handed it over to anybody else.”

Since then, the mother of five and her neighbors have been paying to patch up leaks and fix busted pipes themselves. The community has had frequent water outages for nearly two years. Last November, Garwood went more than three weeks without water because the reserve in the mine was too low. Many residents had to shower in nearby towns, Griffith said.

Griffith said the community can’t afford to test its water, so residents have no way of knowing if it’s safe to drink.

“You don’t really know what you’ve come in contact with,” Griffith said. “Even just like animal feces, you can’t keep that from not getting in the water when it’s coming out of the ground like that.”

Garwood residents rely on bottled water donations they received from a church in Virginia. Griffith stores a large pack in her garage, which she leaves open for her neighbors. The community is down to its last row of bottles.

Two hours north, Kanawha Falls residents also face uncertainty with their drinking water. The town, known for its roaring waterfalls, has relied on volunteers to run the community water system for as long as anyone can remember, residents said.

Bobby Kirby, 80, has helped out as the system’s treasurer for more than a decade. He said he collects money from residents to pay for chlorine to dump into the storage tank, which sits half a mile up on a mountain that houses an abandoned coal mine. However, Kirby said he hasn’t tested or treated the water in years.

“We just don’t have the money to do it,” Kirby said. “It just got too expensive. Nobody was paying the bill to do it, so we just quit it.”

Kanawha Falls, West Virginia, resident Joe Underwood, who recently recovered form skull surgery, said he’s too afraid to drink his own water. His doctor told him not to drink or bathe in the town water to avoid infection from contamination. (Photo by Jordan Houston/News21)

Resident Joe Underwood, who recently had skull surgery after a four-wheeler accident, said he won’t drink or bathe in the town’s water. He said doctors told him the water gave him two infections near his brain following his surgery. Underwood said he now only drinks bottled water and showers with a cap.

“I just finally realized the importance of the type of water that’s coming in,” Underwood said. “I’m meaning that for people that have serious injuries. I’m meaning that for little babies. I’m meaning that for anybody that has any kind of health problems.”

According to EPA data, a number of other communities in the southern part of the state struggle with similar problems. The state’s Office of Environmental Health has placed many of these communities on boiled water advisories.

The West Virginia Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council, the agency responsible for improving infrastructure across the state, announced projects to link Kanawha Falls and Garwood to surrounding city water systems.

However, Susan Small from the Public Service Commission, which oversees economic regulation for the state’s public utilities, said these types of projects are expensive.

“If money wasn’t an issue, we could extend water systems everywhere,” Small said. “But the topography in the mountainous terrain of West Virginia makes extending a mile of water line much more expensive than, say, Ohio.”

Officials expect to connect Kanawha Falls – a project that cost $1.8 million – by the end of the summer. Garwood will receive funding if the council has leftover money from another waterline extension project in a neighboring town, officials said.

Griffith said she has doubts Garwood will be hooked up to city water any time soon.

“We should be able to turn on the faucet and there’s water and not have to go day-by-day wondering if I’m going to have water today or if I’m going to have to drive down the road and give my kids a bath.”

Kanawha Falls, home to 55 residents, dates back to the Civil War. Union soldiers occupied the West Virginia town during the war and handed the water system over to residents after it ended. (Photo by Jordan Houston/News21)

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Nancy Colas is a small business owner from Newburgh, New York. She and her family tested above the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum level for perfluorooctanesulfonic acid last year. (Photo by Elissa Nuñez/News21)

NEWBURGH, N.Y. – When Newburgh’s city manager declared a state of emergency last year after tests found dangerous levels of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid in the city’s water supply, Nancy Colas scheduled blood tests for everyone in her family.

“My 17-year-old, he pretty much grew up here, and he’s been drinking that water all his life,”  she said.

The Colas family tested well above the the maximum level allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. PFOS, a dangerous chemical found in firefighting foam, has been linked to cancer and other medical problems.

“There are effects that I wonder how it’s going to affect us down the line,” Colas said. “Cognitively, are my children going to be OK as they get older?”

Newburgh, a poor city filled with black and Latino residents, is one of many communities of color whose water has been contaminated by nearby Superfund or hazardous waste sites. In this case, the Stewart Air National Guard Base leaked PFOS into the town’s lakes and reservoirs.

Colas, like a growing number of Newburgh residents, is suing the city of Newburgh for negligence, contending that city officials were long aware of the problem before they declared a state of emergency, putting residents at greater risk of illness.

“It hurts to know that they knew, and they didn’t say anything,” she said. “I’m sure there are people that knew.”

And much like other Newburgh residents, Colas also thinks that had she lived in a different town or been born a different race, she would’ve never been exposed to PFOS.

“It is an environmental justice issue because if we were sitting in Deer Park, Long Island, I don’t think it would have ever been an issue,” Colas said. “I don’t think there would have been contamination, period. Because someone would have said ‘not in my backyard.’”

The Hudson River runs alongside the city of Newburgh. (Photo by Elissa Nuñez/News21)––≠

Many residents, including city officials, said the Department of Defense would be more motivated to clean up the Superfund site if Newburgh were a whiter, more affluent town.

“It certainly feels like that might be part of it, because why are they ignoring us?” said Genie Abrams, a Newburgh City Council member. “Are they ignoring other communities, the wealthier communities, the whiter communities?

Some residents said town meetings meant to update residents are poorly publicized. Many still haven’t been blood tested, specifically in the Spanish-speaking community. The city government has posted materials in both Spanish and Creole on its website, but community activists said it’s not enough.

“For this level of danger, there should be letters being sent out to every single home periodically to update, and that’s not happening in English and Spanish,” said Kevindaryan Lujan, a Newburgh resident. “So this is an issue the community is concerned about. And there’s whole bulks of the community that are unaware of what’s going on.”

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is working to complete a multimillion dollar filtration plant to treat Newburgh’s poisoned water by October. State officials and environmental experts are pressing the Department of Defense to clean up contamination at the Superfund site.

“The federal and the state government have really been passing the buck to each other on this issue, no one really wants to take care of it,” Lujan said. “It’s kind of being put under the rug, and people are still scared.”

Newburgh will return to its original water supply in the fall when the filtration plant is fully constructed. “We need to have clean water here, it’s a basic human right for anyone, no matter what your income level is,” Abrams said.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Kip Sauve, 59, stands in front of his cabin holding one of the notices he was given not to drink his water. He lives in the Kontree Apartments in Lynden, Wash. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

LYNDEN, Wash. – Kip Sauve has lived at the Kontree Apartments in Lynden, Washington, for two years. He won’t drink the water from the tap. And he won’t let his pet cat and bird drink it, either.

For more than a year, the residents of the complex have periodically received “do not drink” advisories  after authorities found excessive levels of the pesticide dinoseb and nitrates in their community’s well water.

Still, Sauve enjoys the small garden in his backyard: “I got peas, beans, radishes, corn, lettuce, sweet lettuce, beans, peas, carrots. I got potatoes.”

The area is known for its crops, especially its blueberry, raspberry and strawberry farms. The farming may have contributed to the water issues facing Sauve’s small community.

The EPA banned dinoseb, an herbicide widely used to control weeds, in 1986. However, it’s an example of legacy contamination, a term used to describe pollution from the past that still lingers in the environment today. It’s often difficult, expensive or sometimes impossible to clean up the contamination.

That means the residents of the Kontree Apartments – and others across the nation who must deal with legacy contaminants – often have few options when trying to clean up their water.

The apartments are a cluster of old migrant worker quarters marketed as cabins. Sauve said when he first moved to the community, he began having abdominal pains after drinking coffee in the morning at a friend’s house.

“I said, ‘What the hell?’” Sauve said. “And he told me, ‘Yeah, it’s the water.’ So ever since that I buy my own water.”

Though Sauve can’t drive, he said he makes his way to the store to buy at least 15 gallon jugs of water each month. He wishes he could live somewhere else, but he can’t afford to because he lives off disability checks.

Christina Hayden lives at Kontree Apartments, but she didn’t know about the “do not drink” alert posted by the Washington State Department of Health. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

Resident Christina Hayden said she was never informed of the contamination.

Hayden moved to Kontree in April 2017. She said she’s friends with 19 residents who live there, and no one trusts the water.

Derek Pell, a planning and engineering manager for the Washington Department of Health’s Northwest Office of Drinking Water, said the contamination is likely the result of a spill that still manifests in the water supply. He said that while the levels have gone down, they are still above the maximum contaminant level.

To Pell, the solution is simple: Connect to Lynden’s water. Various local departments have worked to get Kontree hooked up to that water line, but progress has been slow because of a water-rights issue with a nearby community.

Even if Kontree can hook up to the municipal line, Pell said it might mean a higher utility cost for the residents such as Sauve who live off disability or welfare income.

“Our priority is we want those folks to have safe and reliable water,” Pell said. “When that water isn’t safe, we make sure people know how to protect themselves.”

Kip Sauve, 59, buys at least 15 gallons of water every month for himself and his pet cat and bird. He doesn’t trust the water that comes out of his faucet in Lynden, Wash. (Photo by Nicole Tyau/News21)

News21 reporter Jackie Wang contributed to this article.
To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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Bottled water piles up in the home of Texas resident Leroy Thomas, who has long relied on bottled water. (Photo by Brandon Kitchin/News21)

PHOENIX – When Bonnie Sicard of Beebe Plain, Vermont, started receiving notices about arsenic in her drinking water more than than five years ago, she wasn’t going to risk poisoning her family. She went straight to bottled water.

“I got seven grandsons,” she said. “When they used to come over when they were little, we didn’t let them drink the water.”

Maine officials often recommend bottled water when they find traces of arsenic because it’s less expensive than water treatment options.

However, the cost adds up over time. Sicard spends about $20 a week, she said.

Bottled water has become the No. 1 beverage choice in the U.S., with 12.8 billion gallons sold in 2016, according to the Beverage Marketing Corporation. Wholesale sales totalled $16 billion last year.

But bottled water can come from many sources, but most of it is either spring water or purified tap water.

Bonnie Sicard of Beebe Plain, Vermont, holds up a boil water advisory. She drinks bottled water. (Photo by Fionnuala O’Leary/News21)

About 45 percent of bottled water, including leading brands Dasani and Aquafina, comes from public tap water that is treated before being bottled, according to the companies’ websites and California-based scientist Peter Gleick, who wrote the book “Bottled and Sold.”

Arizona State University professor of practice Elisabeth Graffy, who used to work at the U.S. Geological Survey, said consumers shouldn’t assume any bottled water is completely safe.

“You should be able to trust tap water more than bottled water,” Graffy said. “Bottled water is actually not regulated the same as tap water.”

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors public water supplies, and it makes violations available to the public. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration monitors bottled water.

While there are some similar regulations, according to a 2010 analysis by the nonprofit EWG, 18 percent of bottled water brands do not provide customers with the source of the water, and 32 percent do not give any information about how the brands test the water.

A 2008 study by the same group found 38 pollutants – from industrial chemicals to bacteria – in 10 brands of bottled water.

However, Graffy said consumers must make the choice.

“There are concerns when you’re talking about the implications of people relying on bottled water,” Graffy said. “But then, you compare that to the concern of water that you know is contaminated … that may be a risk that is fine.”

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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One neighborhood at the edge of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was left off the grid for decades as municipal water systems expanded around them. The Robert Eubanks community, a historically African American neighborhood, had to rely on private wells, which were often contaminated. They watched – and waited – as the white neighborhoods around them hooked up to city water systems, which residents felt provided cleaner, safer water.

Residents and scholars said race may have played a role in the community’s lack of access to the city water. Reporter Bryn Caswell takes us to the community.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

 

Robert Campbell stands at the edge of the forest in his North Carolina community. (Photo by Fionnuala O’Leary/News21)

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Gloria Murray grew up in Hilton Head, South Carolina. She said the septic system on the island was “disastrous.” (Photo by Bryn Caswell/News21)

HILTON HEAD, S.C. – Gloria Murray spent 20 years dealing with the consequences of a faulty septic system on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

She grew up on the island, which is often described as “paradise” by tourists, with its sandy beaches and gated golf resorts. But for many native islanders such as Murray, everyday life on Hilton Head was often more hellish than heavenly because of the septic situation.

“When it rained, it actually filled up the (septic) system,” she said. “The drainfield got clogged up at the end of the line, so there was no place for any of the water to go except come up on the ground or back up in my house.”

Murray told News21 that it was “disastrous” bringing up three children in that environment. Water would regularly gurgle up from the drain in the bathtub, while they sometimes could not flush the toilet for hours.

When it rained, the water wouldn’t drain properly, and the house would become flooded. The septic system had to be fixed “every three months” before the Murrays finally connected to the public sewer system in November 2016.

Murray told News21 that she had “religiously” lobbied Hilton Head’s Public Service District before they got the connection. “For 20 years, I have been checking to make sure when they came through here with the infrastructure that I would be first on their list,” she said.

Soil conditions on the island aren’t suitable for septic systems because of excessive drainage in some parts and a lack of drainage in others, said Pete Nardi, general manager of Hilton Head  Public Service District.

The town has allocated more than $10 million to bring sewer lines to unserved areas, but that funding won’t cover all residents immediately.

Nardi is part of the Sewer Access For Everyone project, a collaborative effort with Hilton Head town and Community Foundation of the Lowcountry. The initiative aims to connect all island residents to sewer by 2020.

Mario Martinez and his family, who live in Hilton Head, South Carolina, must live with a septic system that frequently breaks down. (Bryn Caswell/News21)

The foundation raised $3 million to hook up 1,000 low-income homes to public sewer. Residents can apply for grants to help cover the expense.

“There will still be some places where the town funding won’t be at play,” Nardi said. “That’s what we’re tackling with Project SAFE: using that charitable effort to get the low-moderate income homeowners connected.”

Mayor David Bennett said the aim of the project was to give everyone who desires public sewer the ability to connect to it.

“First, we are getting the infrastructure in place for individuals to connect to,” Bennett said. “Our hope is that everyone will connect to that. If that doesn’t happen, then I suspect the town council will come back and look around at a policy of requiring everyone to tap on to the sewer system.”

But Murray said the project will take a long time: “Four years is not a long time. But if you have (septic) issues, it seems like a lifetime.”

“These 30-year-old septic tanks, (they’re) going to become a hazard before too long,” she told News21. “It’s going to cause lots of illness and sickness if we don’t take care of it.”

However, there are still people who will not be eligible for the grant given the fact that Project SAFE is for “owner occupied” households, Nardi said.

Landscaper Mario Martinez has lived in the community for four years, and he has yet to be hooked up to public sewer.

“There’s a certain level on the water where it just stops working,” he said. “Nothing works until the (water) level goes down.”

“We just basically have to wait (to shower),” he added. “The toilets don’t flush. The water doesn’t go away. It just stays there.”

Martinez cannot connect his family to public sewer because he is renting his home on Darling Road. This means he cannot apply for a SAFE grant.

To see the full News21 report on “Troubled Water,” go to troubledwater.news21.com on Aug. 14.

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