Erin Brockovich Heading to the Basin
By: Jackie Smith
Updated: November 17, 2010
MIDLAND -- Chromium was first discovered back in April 2009 at more than 50 times the accepted levels.
This discovery came after residents near County Road 112 started having inexplicable hair loss, rashes, migraInes, and even tumors.
Resident Kay Sathre is not done fighting.
She told me she never thought she would ever know this much about water.
"Rashes, nose bleeds, stomach aches, diarrhea, kids hair falling out. We didn't find out what was causing all of that," said Kay Sathre.
Kay Sathre could not figure out what was wrong and why her water was green until,
"April of 2009 we got a letter from TECQ that told us that we had 5,250 parts of chromium in our water," said Sathre.
She has been drinking this water for 56 years.
So have her pets.
"The animals out here have tumors. Dogs, horses, cats, everything has tumors," said Sathre.
Everyday she has to test her water, which is cleaned with an ionic filter.
If its blue, they're in the clear.
If its green its contaminated.
But no matter how many filters it passes through.
Sathre worries it might be to late.
"I have the forerunner to lupus and its called ranan syndrome. I grew up out here I drank this water all of my life," said Sathre.
And she says her home has turned into her nightmare.
"Property value is zero. In fact iIm thinking about going to my board and say i want to be tax exempt, it's virtually worthless," said Sathre.
Sathre is hoping Brockovich will found out who is responsible.
"Erin is going to be here tomorrow and she is going to share with us a very important step, next step," said Sathre.
That next step she can't say just yet.
All she wants is clean water and for the counties priorities to change.
"This is an oil field town and they are going to defend and protect the big oil field companies. We don't matter because we are the poor side of town and they just don't care, and thats just the way it is," said Sathre.
This big step Sathre might be talking about is finding out who is responsible for all this damage.
She did say that its not about the money.
Sathre and the rest of the community just want their clean water back.
