Editor's Note: This is the fifth installment of an ongoing series of stories about contamination problems in the Talladega water system.When two Talladega wells registered unsafe levels for contamination in their water supply in 1995, officials did not want to tell the public.
"The Talladega Water and Sewer Board is requesting to be relieved of doing public notification at this time," wrote Robert O'Neal, former board superintendent, to the Alabama Department of Environmental Management. He penned the letter only days after ADEM directed the board to inform the public about a year of sustained contamination in the Harmon Park and Grant Street wells.
"The board has shut down both of these wells and will not use them until a complete study has been performed to find the source of pollution and get it cleaned up," O'Neal wrote to ADEM in his July 24, 1995, letter.
Records show the Grant Street well was reactivated off and on until 2003, and the contamination was never eliminated.
Numerous attempts to contact O'Neal for comment over the past two weeks have been unsuccessful.
The wells were contaminated with tetrachloroethylene, also known as PCE. Prolonged exposure to the contaminant could raise the risk of liver problems and cancer, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Under state and federal laws, the board was required to notify the public that both wells violated maximum contaminant levels (MCL).
Chemical analysis reports show that both wells had a history of contamination with PCE since 1988, and both the Harmon Park and Grant Street wells had to be shut down in 1995 by ADEM because of the problems.
According to monthly usage reports, Harmon Park well was taken off line in 1995, and it doesn't appear that the well ever went back into service. The Grant Street well went back on line in 1998 and continued to pump water laced with PCE to customers off and on until May 2003, shortly before ADEM ordered the well closed again until further notice.
WHAT MISSING
In August 2003, The Daily Home requested through water board attorneys to see all documents related to the Grant Street well in an effort to find out what led to the well's closure.
After a two-week wait, The Daily Home was informed by board attorneys Jake Montgomery of Talladega and Charlanna Spencer of Montgomery that reporters for the newspaper could review documents pertaining to the Grant Street well.
The documents were pulled from board files by a board employee and sent to Spencer, who is representing the board in a lawsuit filed by water customers angry over the contamination of the Grant Street well. The documents were then sent to the law firm of Stringer, Montgomery & Montgomery in Talladega for review by The Daily Home.
Although O'Neal's letter was included in the packet from the board's lawyer, letters addressed to board manager George Montgomery from ADEM, directing him to notify the public about the PCE contamination of the Grant Street and Harmon Park wells, were not included.
The Daily Home had requested all documents pertaining to the Grant Street well since 1995 from board attorneys, but those produced fall short of other documents known to be in existence from the ADEM files.
Among those ADEM documents are engineering correspondence addressed or copied to the board manager or written by former board engineers. Those letters show the board hired an engineer in 1995 to fix the PCE contamination problem with the Grant Street well.
Documents that were provided locally show only the hiring of an engineer in January 2003, which charged the board more than $20,000 for its second set of packed tower aerator designs for the Grant Street well. To date, there is still no aerator in place.
Other documents that have not been produced in Talladega involve a letter from ADEM to George Montgomery dated July 16, 1996, along with chemical analysis results showing the Grant Street and Harmon Park wells had been contaminated with PCE since 1988 and 1989 respectively, not since 1995 as first thought. They also show that the board had PCE contamination problems with most of its wells back in the mid 1990s.
At the time of the newspaper's initial request for Grant Street documents, board lawyer Charlanna Spencer wrote the newspaper, saying, "This is an ongoing process. Therefore, we will continue to assimilate all documents related to the Grant Street well and will update this file as more documents become available.
"You are welcome to inquire again as to the status of our efforts at locating or identifying any other related documents and may review the same." Spencer has not returned repeated telephone calls from the newspaper since Sept. 5.
George Montgomery has refused comment about the PCE contamination of the Grant Street, citing the pending lawsuit. He referred all questions to Spencer.
Attempts to contact Jake Montgomery on Thursday and Friday for comment about why certain requested documents were not provided to The Daily Home, but those attempts were unsuccessful.
NOTIFICATION DELAY
On July 18, 1995, ADEM advised George Montgomery of the health risks associated with well contamination. Thomas DeLoach of the water supply branch of ADEM told Montgomery that the board must notify the public of the violation of the Harmon Park and Grant Street wells and of the health risks associated with PCE.
"The average of Talladega's tetrachloroethylene monitoring results for the last four quarters of tetrachloroethylene monitoring of Grant Street and Harmon Park Wells is .007 mg/l, which exceeds the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for tetrachloroethylene of .005 mg/l," DeLoach wrote Montgomery.
"A customer notification must be made for all tetrachloroethylene MCL violations, and state law requires that a copy of the notification must be forwarded to a communications media. This notice must contain the type of violation which occurred, the period for which the violation occurred and required health effects information. ... A copy of a model notice which may be used for this notification is enclosed.
"Proof of public notification should be provided to this office within 15 days of receipt of this letter."
No notification by the board about the contamination of the two wells was made as directed by ADEM at that time.
Instead, O'Neal's letter to DeLoach asking to waive notification was written six days after ADEM notified Montgomery that the board must make the public aware of the PCE contamination in the Grant Street and Harmon Park wells.
In a Sept. 12, 1995, inter-office memorandum from former ADEM engineer Charles Davis to DeLoach, Davis said he notified Montgomery that the Harmon Park well could be used as a water source as long as the system was willing to go to public notification anytime the four-quarter average of PCE exceeded the maximum level for contaminants and "as long as the system is seeking a fix for the problems with the wells being contaminated."
"I also told him (Montgomery) he was about to receive another letter from you (DeLoach) asking for evidence that the initial requirement for PN (public notification) had been complied with," Davis wrote. "He said he would get with Robert O'Neal and do what is required."
Two months after asking for Talladega's proof of public notification, Montgomery was contacted by ADEM again. In a Sept. 21, 1995, letter, ADEM again told Montgomery to make proper notification to the public about the PCE contamination in the two wells.
"As of this date, this office has not received proof that Talladega has completed public notification requirements for their tetrachloroethylene maximum contaminant level violation," DeLoach wrote to Montgomery. "If the public notification has been made, please provide proof to this office within 10 days.
"If the public notification has not been made, a customer notification must be made, and state law requires that a copy of the notification must be forwarded to a communications media. ... Proof of public notification should be provided to this office within 15 days of receipt of this letter."
A story about the PCE contamination of the Grant Street and Harmon Park wells finally appeared in the Oct. 14, 1995, edition of The Daily Home, 23 days after the board was directed to give public notification for the third time and almost three months after ADEM initially directed Montgomery to do so.
PROOF OF NOTIFICATION
Whether that public notification was made directly to water customers is still under question.
In September, board lawyers produced a public notice with "October 1995" typed on the bottom of it, but it was not accompanied by any bulk postage receipt to show it had been sent to customers, like the July 2003 Grant Street well PCE violation notice.
Also, a letter to ADEM dated Nov. 6, 1995, signed by O'Neal was provided to The Daily Home by board attorneys.
"The Talladega Water (and Sewer Board) has completed the public notification required by your office, on the VOC (volatile organic contaminant PCE) violation the board had," O'Neal wrote. "Enclosed is a copy of both notices, one for the local newspaper and the other was mailed to each customer."
Some residents on Grant Street who are suing the board and other agencies because of the contamination say they don't remember the notice from 1995.
When shown copies, they cite the differences between the 1995 version and the 2003 version, maintaining the earlier warning was not nearly as specific or straightforward as this year's.
