Don't drink the water -- and take fast baths: Everyday life changes for Riverview residents after they learn water supplies are polluted
By Jean Hays
© 1998 The Wichita Eagle
The federal government has special advice for those who want to take a bath in the Riverview area:
"Run the water in a well ventilated room and do not remain in the room while the tub fills," reads a letter sent to residents of the area by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. "Return to turn the water off, leave and give the room a few minutes to ventilate, then return and bathe."
Showers, the letter warns, are more dangerous than baths. Shower quickly.
Life has not been the same on Kimberly Lane since about 30 families were notified by letter on Feb. 6 that toxic chemicals from a nearby Superfund site had spread and polluted their water supplies.
The EPA will begin delivering bottled water to homes in the rural neighborhood north of Wichita this week, but that doesn't end the health threat. Every time residents wash dishes, do the laundry or flush, they are exposing themselves and their kids to toxic chemicals, particularly vinyl chloride, one of the few chemicals known to cause cancer in people.
They won't get sick immediately. Health risks come from being exposed to cancer-causing chemicals over several years.
Residents of the neighborhood have warned their children not to play in the water, they've abandoned their hot tubs and put alarm clocks in the bathroom to help limit their time in those dangerous showers.
"You go into shock," said Luis Resa, who lives on Kimberly Lane with his wife, De, and four children, ages 5 months to seven years old. "You're told the water has vinyl chloride. Uh-oh. What's vinyl chloride? I've been drinking this water for 36 years."
The family is trying to use as little water as possible, which Resa likens to his experience of being on a submarine during the Korean War when fresh water was at a premium.
Now, the family leaves the kitchen while Dad turns on the faucet to do the dishes. Luis stands across the room to watch the sink fill.
He and De give the four children sponge baths and then haul the kids to grandmother's house once every three days for a good, safe, soaking.
They haul bottled water home in plastic milk jugs, which they fill at a friend's house in Wichita.
As soon as they told the kids not to drink the water, they became thirstier than ever. "You don't realize how important water is until you don't have it," Luis said.
He is not sure how long the water crisis at the Resa household will last. Once the city of Wichita lays water lines in September to hook the neighborhood up to the city water supply, the EPA will consider the health threat over.
But Luis retired from his civil service job in 1990 to enjoy his second family. The Resas can't afford the $10,000 it will cost them to hook up to the city water, he said.
Superfund meeting
Sedgwick County health department officials will explain what residents of the area near 57th North and Broadway can expect in the Superfund process. The meeting, which is open to the public, will begin at 7 p.m. Feb. 25 at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Department of Community Health, 1900 E. Ninth.
Health officials will begin testing the water this week for residents near the Riverview area who draw drinking water from private wells. To request a water test call the Wichita-Sedgwick County Department of Community Health at 268-8391. The city may not test every well but will sample enough to determine if the groundwater pollution in the area is spreading, said Jack Brown, acting director of the department.
EPA officials who spoke to residents at a meeting Wednesday night said the agency would not order companies that caused the pollution to pay for the water hook ups, something that it has the authority to do under the law. Neighbors have since contacted an attorney about forcing either the EPA or the companies to pay the tab. Down the street, Kevin and Brenda Meyer told their two girls, age 5 and 3, that they can't drink water from the faucet anymore because it has bad stuff in it.
They haul plastic milk jugs to work to fill with water. Hauling water is inconvenient, but the health risk posed by the water from their well alarms them.
In the same letter the Meyers received Feb. 6 that informed them their water was not safe to drink, the EPA enclosed a chart meant to answer health questions.
But the chart, filled with acronyms like ug/ls and MCLs and strange chemical names like cis-1,2-dichloroethene, might as well have been in a foreign language.
They stared at the information for a long time, as if hoping it would explain itself.
The acceptable exposure level for a 22-pound child, the chart said, is 10 parts per billion of vinyl chloride per day for seven years.
But the tests showed the vinyl chloride level in the Meyers' tap water was 23 parts per billion. The family moved into the house five years ago when Brenda was pregnant with their oldest daughter, Madalyn. Since the level of contamination in their water is twice as high as acceptable, did they cross into the unsafe zone in half the time?
The Meyers attended an EPA meeting Wednesday night looking for answers they didn't get. They were among more than 200 residents who attended. When they got home from the meeting, they nervously bathed the kids in water that they had been told could cause liver cancer, breast cancer, and liver and kidney damage.
"I didn't feel any better after I left," said Brenda Meyer. "I don't mean to be negative. You just feel helpless. It's so frustrating. We don't understand what they are saying."
She ran her fingers through her daughter's hair, reflecting on the chances that her children may get cancer.
"The bad thing is we won't know for years to come," she said. The levels found in the Meyers' well water pose potential health threats, said David Parker, with the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the Center for Disease Control set up to advise the EPA on health matters.
Back in his Kansas City office, Parker explained in an interview why the experts can't give definite answers to the Meyers' questions. For one thing, they don't know how long the family has been exposed to the chemicals.
The EPA only began testing water in the area in December, despite earlier requests from residents. Beth White, one of the neighbors and the person who finally persuaded the local health department to test the water, saw a rainbow sheen on top of her coffee as early as 1992, tell tale signs that the water was contaminated with bacteria, gasoline or organic chemicals which deplete the oxygen. The EPA also doesn't know how high a level of toxic chemicals the Meyers' girls have been exposed to.
They don't know the family's genetic makeup or whether cancer runs in the family.
They don't now what else the family has been exposed to. Everyday life -- from eating peanut butter to filling up the car with gasoline -- exposes us to things that may carry some risk of causing cancer.
In 1994, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recommended that blood tests be conducted in some residents living in the nearby Superfund site. That was never done, due to budget problems at the agency.
Parker said he will ask the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to check the cancer rates in the area again.
But the cancer risk in this country is so high -- one of four people will get cancer in their lifetimes -- and there are so few people living in the area that it will be hard to tell if there has been a statistically significant increase in cancer, Parker said.
"The only thing to do," he said, "is go forward and say, 'Here is a level (of contamination) that exceeded what is safe. Let's do something about it."
Jean Hays writes about the environment. She can be reached at 268-6557 or jhays@wichitaeagle.com.