Tuesday August 18, 2009, 2:37 pm
Neighbor Kari Craton's fingernails turned orange; her appliances were destroyed. Diana Bennett's garden is useless.

Some 50 families live near a plume of groundwater contaminated with metals that spread from the local Birds Eye processing plant. At a nearby Minute Maid juice plant, there's another plume.

In rural west Michigan, food processors have sprayed so much wastewater onto fields that heavy metals seeped into groundwater, contaminating wells. State officials have known of the polluting for at least a decade but, residents complain, moved slowly.

The list of tainted sites keeps growing. And the contamination plumes continue to spread as the Department of Environmental Quality and companies argue behind closed doors over what must be done. Frustrated residents say they're bearing the costs -- altered lives and fear of the water that pours from their taps -- even as state and industry officials say there's no acute health threat. "You're living with all these problems, but you can't get out," Craton said.

• PDF: See how groundwater gets contaminated.
• COMPANY RESPONSES: Some offered statements about the contamination problem.



Worried residents want help

On the wall of the family business is a collage of photos and awards Dick and Rita Pfister's son earned in his too-brief life. He died at age 21 of gastric cancer, a disease his parents were told was highly unusual for someone his age.



The Pfisters don't know whether there is a connection between his death and their home's metal-poisoned well -- with water that got so dark, they couldn't see the bottom of the tub when they filled it.

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 10:31 am
There is a difference between wells and ground water, I can see how ground water can become polluted, but I cannot understand how well water can be polluted. Rain water has to drain downwards to the aquifers for wells through hundreds of feet of filtering earth. The articles just does not make sense to me because well water is protected by so much earth, unless the earth itself has been poisoned by this activity and the articles does not bring up poisoned earth,

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 10:35 am
Thanks cowboss. The insensitivity of corporations to homeowners' safety and property is just unspeakable.

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 10:36 am
Thanx Betsy

What I found most intriging about this story was the fact that it recieved little to no media attention. Could it be that Coke, the owner of Minute Maid has effectively shut the media up!? A very frightening prospect although I am convinced that it happens on a regular basis!

cowboss

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 1:48 pm
I think you might be right there C.B. I never hear anything about the water.

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 1:59 pm
Thanks cowboss. Why isn't the municipality doing anything about these contaminants? Don't they collect taxes? Why haven'tt Coca Cola and the other food processors been held accountable for this? Never mind; I think I know the answer to that one. Once the food companies pull up stakes, there goes the local economy.

From another article on this issue....."PAW PAW -- In 2000, Coca-Cola North America and state officials negotiated an agreement to resolve groundwater contamination caused by wastewater sprayed from the firm's Minute Maid juice plant onto fields. In 2000, Coke agreed to build a $7-million water treatment system, but nine years later, the groundwater remains contaminated.

If I ate or drank any Coca-cola products, I would boycott them.

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 2:12 pm
Found this article, From http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2009/02/water_expert_warns_residents_n.html

Very interesting

cowboss

Water expert warns residents near Fennville's Birds Eye plant not to drink well water
by Myron Kukla | The Grand Rapids Press
Thursday February 12, 2009, 10:13 PM
FENNVILLE -- A water expert and members of Erin Brockovich's environmental consulting firm had strong warnings tonight for residents living near the Birds Eye plant: Don't drink the water from their wells.

"Don't drink the water. And if you grow plants watered from the wells, don't eat the plants. The water and the plants could have arsenic in them," said Robert Bowcock, a California-based water expert who was in town to study the groundwater pollution problem many residents believe is being caused a nearby Birds Eye food processing plant.

Bowcock didn't pull any punches about who he believes is the source of the problem.

"The pollution in Fennville is absolutely the responsibility of Birds Eye," said Bowcock, who spoke to more than 120 residents at a two-hour meeting at the Fennville District Library.


Bowcock planned to review reports from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and other sources and expects Brockovich to come to Fennville in March to speak to residents about the problem.

Brockovich rose to fame in the 1990s after spearheading a $333 million damage settlement from Pacific Gas and Electric for residents of Hinkley, Calif. who were exposed to a cancer-causing compound from the company's operation. A movie about the case, starring Julia Roberts, was made in 2000.

Birds Eye officials have denied being the source of the water contamination, saying the solution it sprays on its property from operations is basically sugar water and salt-laden organic matter. No representatives of the company were at the meeting.

The Michigan DEQ maintains the company's discharge strips soil of oxygen, freeing metal oxides into the groundwater.

"It also releases arsenic, heavy metals and bacteria that are suspended in the soil layers," said Bowcock, explaining the simple sugars flowing into the groundwater becomes food for bacteria and "other bugs" that depletes soil oxygen as it feeds.

DEQ test results show a contamination plume of about two square miles southeast of the plant that seems to be emanating from the Birds Eye property and contaminating wells and groundwater.

"I'm am very concerned about this. I have an acre of garden I plant every year near the Birds Eye plant and I eat that food," said Royal Streicher, who owns 17 acres of land that borders the Birds Eye property where the plant sprays its processing water.

Streicher said he has had to drill two new wells in the past nine years and has had problems with well filters becoming plugged nearly every other month.

Property owners at the meeting complained the metal oxide water is coloring their home siding and sinks and the smell from the water sometimes drives them from their homes.

"I'm hoping the people of Fennville will get together and fight this. They don't have to live with this disaster anymore," said Kari Craton, who wrote to Brockovich last month asking for help for their community.

Bowcock said a simple solution would be for Birds Eye to build a wastewater pretreatment system at the plant and put in drainage wells to change the course of the contamination plume.

"For the millions of dollars they've spent trying to prove it's not their fault, they could have done this already," Bowcock said.

E-mail the author of this story: localnews@grpress.com

Wednesday August 19, 2009, 5:41 pm
Ugh! Food processors/processed foods need to make it right, and if that means bankruptcy to pay for people's healthcare and property damages all the better, because it'll shut the processors down.

Thursday August 20, 2009, 12:57 pm
Thanks Cowboss.

Thursday August 20, 2009, 1:21 pm
Things like that happen over here on the east side of the state also. I know of 2 or 3 times where the well water at my friend's house was contaminated and all the troubles they went through to make it safe again! They finally sold the place and moved into town with city water.
Ain't it something how the big corporations think they can do just about anything they want...
Thanks Cowboss.

Friday August 21, 2009, 2:36 am
Awful.. that these wells are even getting contaminated... strict measures in the environment should be put in place... and these people should be recompensatd for their losses..

Saturday August 22, 2009, 6:38 am
thanks cowboss

Sunday August 23, 2009, 9:58 am
Don't forget that Nestle has also come into western Michigan to take the water for free for bottled water for their profit and many peoples wells have dried up, wetlands are gone and other problems relating to our water as well and very little even gets printed in the newspapers. All done in the name of greed and big corps. I do not drink Coke products any more and rarely use Minute Maid and never use Birds Eye products and especially now, never will. I will be passing this information on to my coke drinking friends.