The Carolinas Challenged by Water Woes

By: Duane Craig

Nearly 100 homes in southwestern Cumberland County, N.C., with wells threatened by contamination, will be able to connect to a public water supply by spring 2013, according to this article. The county is installing a water line that will provide connections for the affected residents using a Clean Water Revolving Loan from the state.

The project has been five years in the making even though the contamination causing the problem has been known about for 20 years. Benzene leaking from tanks at a long-closed gas station is considered to be the culprit. Surprisingly, only 40 of the homeowners surveyed said they were in favor of hooking into city water supplies.

Delays in getting the project started ranged from disagreements with neighboring counties on providing the water, requests for federal money being declined, and voters turning down the project because it also included Gray’s Creek.

Nearby in South Carolina, a public water company is pressuring two large, local businesses to help fund a filtering system it now has to install to clean up contamination in its water system, according to this article.

Named in a $450 million lawsuit brought by Alligator Rural Water and Sewer are McLeod Farms and Mar Mac Wire. The utility company says it has evidence the two businesses are the sources of three chemicals polluting the water supplies near McBee. Two-thirds of the wells used by the McLeod peach farm are contaminated, according to the state’s environmental department. News reports are unclear about Mar Mac Wire’s contribution to the problems. The United States Geological Survey is tracking the contamination to determine where it’s originating and how long it’s been present. The report is expected to be completed sometime in 2013.

Owens Corning, SC Residents Discuss Contamination: Chemical Found Underneath Creek

September 13, 2010 - Owens Corning officials told a group of concerned residents Monday night a chemical found underneath a creek will not affect the drinking water at their nearby homes.

In 1988, the fiberglass products company discovered soil and groundwater had been contaminated on their property at the site of an in-ground treatment pit that was designed to neutralize acidic waste water from the manufacturing processes. At some point, the contents of that pit leaked into the surrounding soils and migrated into underlying groundwater, according to the company.

Since then, the company has worked with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control to repeatedly monitor the water at and near the plant.

In 2009, investigators discovered contaminants moved a half mile off the plant's property about 300 to 500 feet underneath Betsy Creek, which is near dozens of homes.

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SC Family Told to 'Avoid the Water' Being Pumped Into Their Home

August 5, 2010 - Dry cleaning soaps, degreasers, a total of ten toxic chemicals all found in one family's drinking water in Clover.

A few years ago Judy Miller and her husband had their 40-year-old home's plumbing redone.

"It was around that time I first noticed this chemical smell," said Miller.

Miller thought the cause of the smell was from the new pipes. She had the Department of Health and Environmental control test the water. The results were clear, but the smell remained.

"I got used to it and then it got a little worse and I started buying bottled water," said Miller.

So she called DHEC again to test the water one more time. Those results were scary.

"Do not come in contact with the water, do not drink it, do not bathe in it. Use it for toilet flushing only," Miller says she was told when the results came back.

The test said there were high levels of chemicals in the well water.

"TCE's is what they call them," said Miller.

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Industrial Chemicals Found in Clover, SC Area Well Water

August 1, 2010 - The 75 acres at the edge of Clover where the Miller family has lived since the 1700s has seen nothing but sweet potato and alfalfa crops and a few houses surrounded by woods.

Being so isolated, Judy Miller and her husband Ralph never suspected the chemical smell in their well water came from high concentrations of toxic, industrial chemicals.

In June, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control tested their well water, finding ten chlorinated solvents commonly used in dry cleaning, degreasers and other industrial cleaners. Four of the solvents exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency's standards for maximum contaminant levels in drinking water and one, tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, was found in concentrations more than 6,000 times what is considered safe for drinking water.

"I guess I was so naive to think that someone would dump something so terrible," Judy Miller said.

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South Carolina Plant Relocates Due to Neighborhood Pollution

December 3, 2009 - Some people living near the AVX Plant in Myrtle Beach say they're glad the plant is relocating to Greenville, hoping it will reduce pollution in the area. Bonnie Burtsfield is one of those neighbors who has lived directly across the street from the Myrtle Beach AVX plant for 16 years. For most of that time, Burtsfield says she hasn't had one sip of her tap water.

Coupled with infertile soil, Burtsfield believes pollution from the plant is seeping into the environment. "Everything we put out turns brown and it just dies. We tried the garden and we couldn't even get a tomato to come out," she explained.

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Landfills pollute groundwater near communities in South Carolina

April 11, 2009 - Both of Richland County’s commercial landfills have polluted groundwater near communities that depend on private wells for drinking water, state records show.

The groundwater contamination occurred years ago and has not spread off the site of at least one of the landfills, the one on Screaming Eagle Road, say state regulators and a disposal site operator. It is unknown whether contamination from the other disposal site, the Northeast Landfill, has left the property’s boundary.

All told, landfills across South Carolina — from nuclear waste dumps to disposal sites on military bases — have polluted the groundwater in 125 places, according to DHEC’s 2008 groundwater contamination inventory.

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South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control is keeping secrets

November 18, 2008 - Locked in a government storage room are files that tell the story of a leaking nuclear waste landfill near Barnwell.

But when environmental lawyer Bob Guild asked to see the documents one day five years ago, state regulators only gave him a thin folder.

Landfill operator Chem-Nuclear had persuaded regulators to withhold many of the files, arguing the information included trade secrets. Without the records, Guild lost a court case that could have forced tougher disposal practices at the 37-year-old landfill.

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South Carolina residents could spur cleanup

November 4, 2008 - Victor community residents in Greer came armed with more than their frustration to a meeting where they heard guarded hope from officials that the rat-infested, debris-ridden, contaminated former textile mill centered in their neighborhood might be cleaned up.

About 110 residents filled pews at Victor United Methodist Church Oct. 30 to hear plans and to fill out comment sheets to be filed with a federal grant application by Nov. 14.

An EPA-funded site assessment found contamination at the site, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, arsenic, which may or may not be higher than naturally occurring levels, and limited amounts of lead and PCBs, Jeter said.

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South Carolina Study: Victor Mill toxins 'widespread'

September 19, 2008 - An analysis by a company hired by the federal government to assess environmental hazards at the defunct Victor Mill site shows widespread contamination with byproducts of combustion such as coal, which must be addressed before the site can be redeveloped.

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Myrtle Beach, SC Residents Prepare for a Fight

August 20, 2008 -

With a plan to start cleaning toxic groundwater contamination caused by AVX Corp. at least a year away, residents living near the Myrtle Beach manufacturer met Tuesday to protest a permit that would let the electronics maker emit hazardous air pollutants in the same neighborhood.

About 50 people attending a Bent Oak Estates neighborhood watch meeting told officials with the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control that they no longer trust the state or AVX to protect the environment near their homes.

AVX officials were invited to the meeting, but none attended.

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Myrtle Beach was told of TCE in water 12 years ago

April 24, 2008 - An environmental report issued more that 12 years ago alerted Myrtle Beach officials to the possibility that trichloroethylene was polluting the city's groundwater, but the city apparently never conducted a follow-up investigation to identify the extent or source of that contamination.

City officials say they did not learn about the contamination until reading reports last year in The Sun News.

However, a 1995 study by the U.S. Geological Survey showed elevated levels of TCE in Withers Swash, a body of water on the northern edge of the contaminated neighborhood.

TCE is a degreaser that has been linked to cancer and other health problems.

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South Carolina State Regulators to investigate pollution concerns near north Columbia neighborhood

March 26, 2008 - State regulators will investigate questions about water and air pollution near a north Columbia neighborhood that backs up to an industrial area off I-20.

Residents of the Northwood Hills community say they’ve been trying for two years to get answers from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, the city of Columbia and Richland County.

“When I’m outside working, it burns,’’ said Ulysses Green, a resident of Staffordshire Road, referring to air pollution he believes comes from nearby.

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Water contamination in McBee, South Carolina

February 28, 2008 - More than 100 residents of the McBee area came together Thursday to learn more about the possible contamination of the groundwater in the region.

S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control officials presented the facts of the situation and ways for the residents of the area to avoid the contaminated water.

The chemicals contaminating the groundwater is Ethylene Dibromide (EDB) and the other is Dibromochloropropane (DBCP). Both chemicals were used as farming pesticides. DBCP was discontinued in 1979 and, according to DHEC, most use of EDB was discontinued in 1984.Prolonged ingestion of the contaminated water might lead to problems with the liver, the stomach, the kidneys and reproductive systems. The chemicals also might increase the risk of developing cancer in some people.

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Neighbors of contaminated industrial site in York South Carolina worried about the safety of their well water and families' health

February 7, 2008 - Despite reassurances from environmental control officials, neighbors of a contaminated industrial site in York are worried about the safety of their well water and families' health.

Both deep and shallow groundwater have been contaminated, as well as soil under the building, DHEC project manager Angie Jones said.

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Meth Labs in South Carolina: Poisons lurk as state does little to notify public, make toxic sites clean

September 25, 2007 - t was one of Lexington County’s most hazardous home meth labs, complete with a bathtub full of a weird pink liquid.

“It could have blown up — that’s how dangerous it was,” said Sheriff James Metts, as officers in hazmat suits went in and out of the Gaston house in June while neighborhood children stood well back and watched.

Two months later, a neighbor said the empty house still reeked of foul chemicals.

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South Carolina officials to test drinking water in rural Barnwell County to see if a 36-year-old nuclear waste dump has polluted private wells

August 21, 2007 - Recently opened state records show tritium pollution beneath the landfill exceeds safe drinking water standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The contamination, which flows off the landfill to a creek, also rivals pollution on parts of the nearby Savannah River Site, a nuclear weapons complex with a history of groundwater pollution, The State newspaper reported Sunday.

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Radioactive tritium in South Carolina groundwater

August 19, 2007 - Higher-than-expected amounts of a radioactive material are tainting the groundwater at a nuclear waste dump long considered safe by state regulators.

Previously sealed records, obtained by The State newspaper, show groundwater beneath the state-owned landfill in Barnwell County has tritium levels exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for safe drinking water — in some cases by hundreds of times.

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South Carolina: Neighborhood wells contaminated by nearby plant

July 17, 2007 - From 1966 to 1982, industries in the area near Williston discharged pollution through a wastewater system originally used by a trailer park. At least six home wells near the site were later found to contain metals contamination.

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South Carolina Lags in Leaking Tank Cleanup

June 22, 2007 - South Carolina state lawmakers this year agreed to spend $5 million more on cleaning pollution caused by leaking underground gasoline tanks.

But federal regulators say that's only a fraction of what's needed to clean an estimated 3,200 sites statewide.

The leaking tanks can pollute wells and about $1 million state residents get their water from groundwater.

The state gets about $17 million a year from gas taxes for the work. But regulators say twice that much is needed to clean the sites.

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