Illinois Sues Town Over Tainted Drinking Water

The Illinois attorney general filed suit June 9 against the village of Crestwood, several officials and the village's former certified water supply operator for allegedly using a contaminated well and knowingly providing false information about the water supply to residents and state regulators.

The nine-count complaint, filed in the Cook County Circuit Court, charges that Crestwood officials became aware in late 1985 that one of the village's wells was contaminated with volatile organic chemicals, including vinyl chloride and dichloroethylene.

Despite this knowledge, village officials continued adding the contaminated water to the public water supply until 2007, the lawsuit says.

During this time, Crestwood officials assured residents and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency that the village's only supply of water was Lake Michigan and water purchased from another nearby Chicago suburb, the complaint says.

"For years, Crestwood officials failed to ensure that the water supply was safe and repeatedly failed to disclose to residents and the IEPA that the village was using water from the contaminated well as part of the public water supply," Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in a statement.

The named defendants include the village of Crestwood, Mayor Robert Stranczek, former mayor Chester Stranczek (Robert's father) and Frank Scaccia, the former certified operator of the village water supply.

Madigan is asking the court to order the defendants to pay the statutory maximum civil penalty of $50,000 for each violation of the Illinois Environmental Protection Act and Illinois Pollution Control Board regulations and an additional $10,000 for each day the violation occurred.

An April 22 letter from the mayor on Crestwood's Web site says the drinking water is safe. In the past, well water treated by chlorine was periodically incorporated into the village water supply during times of high demand, the letter says.

"There is no evidence that the drinking water that flowed from our kitchen taps contained any substances inconsistent with what the law allows," the letter says.

The village says it stopped using water from the well as a source of drinking water as of October 2007.

Crestwood and its officials have also been the subject of numerous class-action lawsuits filed by residents claiming they have developed cancer and other illnesses after drinking contaminated water.

Federal regulators are also investigating whether a crime has occurred in connection with the tainted water. In April agents of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency executed a search warrant for records at Crestwood's Village Hall.

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