The couple who live at 10S182 Alago Road in Naperville are self-described “pool people.”
As soon as Memorial Day rolls around each year, Kevin Stearns, a long-time flooring contractor, is getting the in-ground pool ready for the summer; while fiancee Amy Sutton power-washes all the concrete and plants her myriad flower beds.
The couple even recently spent thousands of dollars in a face lift for their Wheatland Township backyard that includes a new sauna area, paver sidewalks and brick wall.
Only this summer, time spent in the backyard has been minimal – not because of bad weather or busy schedules but because of a persistent mist of what they say is toxic water being sprayed on them from the retention pond of the tony Paddock Subdivision to the west that was developed in 2007.
The spray is coming from the aerator in the pond they insist has unsafe levels of E coli and fecal coli-form that’s left nasty black mold on their fences, sheds, patio furniture and concrete. Even worse, those mold spores, they believe, are making them and some of their neighbors sick, and has even affected the couple’s two small dogs.
Next door neighbor Ted Rachlitz, a retired mechanical engineer who has lived in this older subdivision since 1985, told me he’s even taken to wearing a mask with canister-type respirator when he mows his backyard because he began to develop sinus and respiratory issues that he, too, insists are created by the mist from the pond.
“After they started the spray, I took a trip to New Mexico for 10 days,” he said. “And all the symptoms cleared up.”
He is among a growing number of residents in this older Wheatland Township subdivision who believe this neighboring pond produced a perfect storm of toxicity because it was not only built on a horse farm, where pesticides, fertilizers and phosphates from manure likely found their way into the bottom of the water, the pond was not properly created or maintained after the developer went belly-up following the housing market crash.
Sutton says last summer she and Stearns began experiencing respiratory and sinus issues, fatigue, aches and pains. But things went from bad to worse this spring when a sprayer added last summer began shooting pond water 45 to 50 feet into the air, with the wind carrying it across their property. Both began getting sick with diarrhea and abdominal pains after eating on the grill, they said, and when they began talking to neighbors, some were experiencing similar symptoms.
Sam Harris, who lives across the street, says he and wife Fran noticed a decline in their health. And as a retired chemical engineer, he knows enough about how a pond can go septic and what that can do to air quality “to be concerned.”
Sutton, who is a few classes away from obtaining paralegal certification, admits she’s become obsessed with getting to the bottom of the problem, and has made countless calls to agencies that include Wheatland Township, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Will County Health Department and the City of Naperville, which annexed this subdivision of about 30 expensive homes which were built right before the housing bust.
The seriousness of the pond problem depends upon who you ask.
“It’s not good,” said Wheatland Township Highway Commissioner Bill Alstrom, who took a sample himself recently for lab testing that produced an “unsatisfactory” E coli count.
A spokesman with the Will County Health Department says this is the first such complaint he’s received in some 28 years on the job, but would not comment further because enforcement lies with the City of Naperville.
According to city spokeswoman Linda LaCloche, the water and code enforcement departments were satisfied with the results from a water sample tested by a reputable lab that showed the E coli counts were in the acceptable range.
And after conferring with the city about those results, the IEPA closed the case, said a spokesperson for that Springfield department, noting that retention ponds will always contain some level of contaminants caused by wildlife and street runoff.
Those responses don’t set well with Sutton, however. For one thing, the water sample referred to by the IEPA and city was submitted by a group of Paddock residents, and she contends there are too many variables that can go into water testing to ensure one sample is reliable.
While my repeated attempts to get in touch with Paddock residents were not successful, the city says it has met with the group and advised that the aerators be turned down on windy days and that the trajectory be adjusted so the spray will not hit the neighbors’ properties.
Sutton says those steps are a start, but she’s more convinced than ever after weeks of research that retention ponds should be treated regularly with algicides, as well as skimmed and dredged, with vegetation or rock borders to reduce erosion and provide cover from grass clippings and nature.
“Nobody wants to be held accountable because if one pond goes bad, others can go bad,” she insisted. “And that can open up a can of worms.”
Alstrom, who believes this pond would be better off with a bubbler-type aerator system that churns the water from below instead of a top-water sprayer, says it’s hard to tell how many of the countless retention ponds scattered throughout the suburbs could have a similar issue.
“The problem is, when you get to these kind of E coli levels, it’s no secret that problems can occur,” he said.
And while this pond is not in the township jurisdiction, Alstrom is concerned about the contaminant levels because overflow could find its way into the storm drainage system and affect well water. For that reason, he plans to “continue testing the water every few weeks.”
For Sutton, who spent last week washing off black scum so her granddaughter could play in the backyard during a summer visit, it all comes down to quality of life.
“We have a right to enjoy our own property without getting sick,” she said. “Until the fountain sprayers are shut down and replaced, we will continue to monitor the water … and we will not give up this fight.”