Apr 28, 2009 10:40 pm US/Central
Criminal Charges Possible In Crestwood Water Case
CRESTWOOD, Ill. (CBS) ―
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Tricia Krause is responsible for blowing the Crestwood water scandal wide open.
CBS
There's talk of criminal charges Tuesday night in the Crestwood water scandal. That may help ease the
anger of some village residents. But not for families who feel a tainted well has poisoned their lives. CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports with the story of one woman who's been fighting to get at the truth for years.
After a series of devastating illnesses that struck her children, a mother of three became a do-it-yourself detective. Now, after blowing the Crestwood water scandal wide open almost single-handedly, she's still looking for justice.
"My son had leukemia," said Tricia Krause. "And my daughter had a brain tumor."
Crusader Tricia Krause showed CBS 2 her latest idea. Think someone in your house is sick because of Crestwood's contaminated drinking water? Tie a ribbon.
"A white ribbon would represent neurological damage to a citizen," Krause said. "And a black ribbon would represent someone who had died of cancer."
Krause believes the sickness that once threatened to kill two of her three children may be linked to their
drinking water pumped from this well. Her one-woman campaign to find the truth has some new friends.
"The first that we heard about this was Tricia Krause," said Attorney General Lisa Madigan.
Madigan confirmed CBS 2's exclusive report Monday night.
When asked if there could be criminal charges down in Crestwood, Madigan said, "Somebody has to be held responsible. You cannot be putting contaminants into water that people are drinking, people are cooking with. And if it has chemicals in it that are harmful to people and cause serious health problems and death, people have to know about that."
Former Mayor Chester Stranczek and his son, current Mayor Robert Stranczek, claim that all Crestwood's drinking water came from Lake Michigan. But Krause found documents showing that from 1987 to 2007 Crestwood sold consumers far more water than it was getting from the lake. This "mystery water" amounted to hundreds of millions of gallons.
Illinois EPA director Doug Scott told CBS 2 that Crestwood's longtime water system engineer, Frank Scaccia, has now admitted that he and other village officials lied. Every drop of the "mystery water" was, in fact, pumped from the contaminated well.
Mayor Robert Stranczek told angry residents that Illinois EPA's Scott said no one was ever in danger.
When asked if someone could have gotten sick from the water, Scott said, "It's possible."
"How can this happen to one family? How? And then I started putting the pieces together," Krause said.
Tricia Krause and her three children now live in another south suburb. She said one goal of her ribbons campaign is to prove that the state's official count of cancers missed some in Crestwood. The Illinois Department of Public Health says it's been careful to count them all.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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