Families endure long wait for good water
June 19, 2005 By Paul Alongi
STAFF WRITER
The Greenville News

Tracy Riner would risk kidney damage if she drank tap water from the kitchen sink of her mobile home.

She is among the residents of a rural area west of Simpsonville whose wells contain uranium, the radioactive element used to fuel nuclear reactors.

Four years after the discovery of tainted water, some residents still don't have clean water flowing to their homes. And they have been left on their own to figure out the long-term health consequences.

The lines carrying clean water from mountain reservoirs should reach the last of the affected homes in the next few weeks. But access isn't guaranteed because residents must pay $1,305 to tap into the system.

Robert Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, said communities that lack the resources to hire attorneys often wait longer for a response to natural disasters than wealthier neighborhoods.
"Four years is a long time," Bullard said.

Large amounts of uranium have been linked to kidney damage and cancer, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
More than 1,000 private wells, mostly in the Upstate, have been tested for uranium with 80 having levels higher than the federal maximum contaminant level, according to the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The immediate aftermath of the uranium discovery is detailed in three 2001 and 2002 reports from DHEC.
Seventy-nine residents were given cups in 2001 and asked to urinate in them first thing in the morning, then store the samples in their refrigerators, according to a March 2002 report.

State and federal health officials picked up the specimens in late October, put them on dry ice and shipped them to a lab in Brussels, Belgium, for analysis, the report says.

Tests showed uranium had either no harmful effect or a reversible effect on the kidneys of 96 percent of residents, according to the report. It doesn't specify what accounted for the results from the remaining 4 percent, or three residents.

"Additional follow-up is warranted to determine the long-term effects, if any, that could result from this exposure," the health consultation report said.

Tracy Shelley, a DHEC program manager, said individuals were referred to their doctors and advised to buy bottled water or treatment devices, although no long-term study was done.

"There was no reason to do any additional work because we knew the exposure was stopped," she said.

Randy Greer said he and two sons, Austin and T.J., drank well water for 10 years before discovering it was tainted with uranium. He said he's had two aneurysms since last year and wears a patch over one eye to keep from seeing double, although his doctors never linked his health problems to uranium.

"I brought it up to the doctors, but they don't want to talk about it," Greer said. "They just don't know that much about it."

A DHEC study of well water at 39 homes in 2001 turned up a mean uranium concentration 17 times higher than the federal standard with one home more than 259 times the standard. Researchers also found high levels of radon, a radioactive gas caused by decaying uranium, in wells.

Riner said the line that could carry clean water to her Wasson Way home has been sitting across the street for nearly a year. She and her husband have been drinking bottled water while saving money to pay not only Greenville Water System's fees but also for a contractor to burrow under the street to connect her home to the public line.

"I told my husband, 'We're not going to make any more major purchases until we get water,'" she said.

Frank Eskridge, operating and engineering manager for the Greenville Water System, said he didn't know of any program that helps residents pay for the $1,305 meter and tap fees.

A $3.5 million project funded by federal, state and local governments is making the system's water available to as many as 250 residents in the uranium-tainted area, he said. The final stretch in the 20-mile construction program that began in 2003 will be approaching completion this month, Eskridge said.

Toni Sutherland said well water still flows into her mobile home on Wasson Way, although the public water lines have been available for months. She said her water didn't exceed federal uranium standards, but she's still concerned, especially for her 5-year-old daughter, Tristan.

Every time Sutherland fills a glass from the faucet, she wonders, "Are you taking another drink of my life away?"

Ingested uranium is absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract and deposits in the bones, kidneys, liver and other soft tissues, according to another March 2002 report from DHEC.

A 1940s-era study involving human subjects who were injected with uranium showed the body excreted 75 percent of the element in five days but retained a small portion for several years, according to the report.

More recent studies of workers exposed to uranium have proven inconclusive, the report says.

"The health impact, if any, of the observed body burdens of uranium is not known," according to the report.

Uranium occurs naturally in the ground near Simpsonville. The toxicity, not the radioactivity, makes it potentially harmful to kidneys, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

The 2001 tests on Simpsonville residents measured retinol binding protein, high levels of which are used as an early indicator of kidney damage, the study says.

Several other factors, including pregnancy and heavy exercise, can lead to high protein levels, according to the study.

Twenty-five of the 79 participants were children, according to the study. The report doesn't say if any children were among the three with high levels of the protein.
Luz Liriano says her family had to wait about two years for lines to be installed from the time they found out the water wasn't drinkable. She believes a wealthier neighborhood probably would've had water lines available sooner.

"Money talks," she said.

Animal experiments have shown that kidney damage from uranium exposure might be reversible, according to a DHEC report. But it says it would be prudent for study participants to tell their doctors about their elevated exposure to uranium.

Eddie Jones said it took countless phone calls to legislators, hours of research and meetings with his neighbors to get the water lines extended. The 500-foot-deep well at his home didn't contain unsafe levels of uranium, but the water flow was so low he couldn't pour a glass of water in the kitchen and water his cattle outside at the same time.

For a while, it seemed his home set on 65 acres of rolling, green fields would be good for nothing but hay storage. He now has "city water" flowing to his home but believes it should be extended to the rest of the area covered by the Canebrake Fire District.

"Clean, drinkable water is a basic that that everybody should have," Eddie Jones said.

Paul Alongi can be reached at 298-4746.