Fears of tainted water still linger for family
The simple act of drinking water is problematic for Tyanna Cannata.
"To be honest, from the day I got the letter, I've never looked at water the same way," said Cannata, who lives in an unincorporated Wayne Township neighborhood southwest of the Mallard Lake landfill.
The letter from DuPage County informed Cannata that the well water her husband, Jeff, and children, Alec 14, Jake, 11, and Paige, 8, were drinking contained vinyl chloride, a toxic chemical. Numerous private wells in the neighborhood were also found to be polluted in early 2006.
On Thursday, federal judges finalized $8 million in settlements in two separate lawsuits involving the landfill near Hanover Park, which is owned by the DuPage County Forest Preserve and operated by BFI Waste Systems.
The vinyl chloride case the Cannatas are lead plaintiffs in settled for $5.5 million while a lawsuit concerning leaks of methane gas from the dump settled for $2.5 million.
The vinyl chloride lawsuit alleged the chemical, used to make plastics, leaked from the dump into the aquifer and from there to people's wells, roughly 2 miles away.
Neither BFI nor the district admit wrongdoing or liability in either action and authorities have not pinpointed a source of the vinyl chloride.
Although the judge's decision closes the case, for Cannata what she, Jeff and her neighbors endured until being hooked up to Lake Michigan water is a "a memory that won't easily go away."
"What bothers me the most is not knowing to what extent we were exposed to a dangerous chemical that can cause cancer," she said.
Jeff's father died of cancer when he was a teenager and Tyanna's mother battled the disease as well. As a result, she did her best to give her family a healthy lifestyle.
The well pollution "gives me a risk factor I never should have had. It's very unsettling. I still get angry about it."
Before the county installed a main carrying Lake Michigan water to the neighborhood, the Cannatas took quick showers with the windows open, had 5-gallon water jugs in the bathroom for brushing teeth and kept their swimming pool dry.
The $5.5 million, minus attorney fees, will be divided among 92 households.
Cannata said the money will help compensate for costs of getting hooked up to lake water and a water purification system they installed.
"It's great we have safe water now, it's easier to sleep at night," Cannata said. Still, "it's not about the monetary settlement," she said. "Someone needed to correct a bad situation. I don't want to see anyone go through this again."
Mallard Lake has a history of illegal dumping of chemicals. And, experts agree that vinyl chloride is commonly found in dumps as a byproduct of other chemicals breaking down.
Forest preserve officials have countered that groundwater at Mallard Lake flows away from the neighborhood.
"We do not believe Mallard Lake had anything to do with the vinyl chloride in that neighborhood," BFI attorney William Beck said in court Thursday.
For the Cannata family, "we'll move on, but there's always a reminder," Cannata said. "When I go past the landfill, every time I go by, I think about what it did to our family. There will be some closure, but you can't take back what's already been done."