MISSOURI VALLEY, Iowa (KMTV) — Neighbors in Harrison County who bought their dream homes in the country say their well water is making them sick. The Army Corps of Engineers said contaminants left over from Cold War missile sites in the 1960s are still polluting wells in the area.
RELATED | Testing continues on Missouri Valley wells contaminated by 1960s missile sites
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The chemical plume making its way through rural wells is TCE, a solvent linked to cancer and Parkinson’s disease.
"There are one, two, three, four, five — is that right — five landowners and all of the five have cancers of some sort," Jackson Summers said sitting at his kitchen table.
Summers, and his neighbor Ron Pike, are two of the residents dealing with cancer. Pike has lived in the neighborhood for 25 years and had his first bout with cancer in 2008. He did not know about the contamination until 2015 when the Army Corps of Engineers tested his well.
"It was below the danger level on mine, but just barely," Pike said.
His well tested below Iowa’s health risk limit of five parts per billion, but other states have stricter limits.
"But in Minnesota, it’s two parts per billion," Mari Jo Mentzer, who lives a couple of miles from the contaminated sites.
Other neighbors near Pike and Summers have wells that did meet Iowa’s risk limit.
Mentzer, a former realtor, concluded that running for the state legislature as an independent was the best way to get laws changed. For instance, she wants to see stricter disclosure requirements when land is sold.
"If you would have told me I was going to be running for office, I would have said 'no way,'" Mentzer said. "If you live in an area where there’s TCE and there’s contamination, it should be an automatic, without question that when the county goes out and test wells, they test for that contaminant."
I spoke to two members of the board of supervisors who both agree that the TCE contamination is a worry, but they do not necessarily agree on solutions or the level of county involvement.
"Everybody needs to be involved in this," Summers said.
The Army Corps of Engineers is studying the problem and looking for mitigation solutions. In the meantime, Missouri Valley neighbors say they are the ones suffering.
"I don’t think there’s a safe limit, especially when you’re drinking that water for a long period of time," Mentzer said.
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