• Environmentalists Blame Clinton for Lax Enforcement (12/3/98)

  Milford Water Problems (10/28/98)

• Links to Hog Farm Issue

Farm families south of Milford have a major worry: Bacteria in the water. And nine state and federal agencies are launching a major investigation. The contamination was discovered in nearly two dozen private wells just North of Beaver County's gigantic hog farm. Environment Specialist John Hollenhorst reports.

The state says it's unlikely the huge hog farm or it's 90 sewage lagoons are the cause of the problem. But the question lingers. State experts are checking wells, and taking water samples to verify private testing: Of 29 wells, 20 were positive for coliform, 2 had e-coli bacteria. Debra French says her family members have been sick. "I couldn't really say it's the water that's made them sick, but there have been a lot of outbreaks of different illnesses," she says.

The contamination lies under the so-called Milford Flats, a seven mile long stretch between the hog farm and Milford. Don Ostler of the Utah Division of Water Quality says, "It is an unusual situation to have this many private wells that have these bacterial contamination incidents."

But are pigs the cause? The state says it could be septic tanks, small livestick operations, even surface water, flowing underground. The hog farm has nearly 100 monitoring wells that have tested clean. And studies suggest it would take decades, not years, for contamination to move from the hog farm to its neighbors.

Ostler says, "We don't think that's real likely, but we certainly wouldn't rul it out at this point in time."

Brian Mauldwin of Circle Four Farms says, "We're confident that we're not responsible for the problem, based on the monitor-well test results."

Some residents suspect the hog farm but are reluctant to take on the area's biggest political player. Bonnie Powell is a Milford Flats resident, "I won't point any fingers until we get some kind of conclusive evidence."

The owners of this farm did regular water testing and they noticed deterioration of their water quality a few months after a known incident of pollution at the hog farm. The company admits accidentally siphoning 80,000 gallons of pig sewage into the ground. Powell adds, "A few months later, my children and I got sick, my grandmother came down with kidney failure."

But the company says the pollution was pumped and disinfected, and their own wells show no continuing problem. John Hollenhorst, KSL News, Beaver County.