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Water contamination hits home

Infant with heart trouble was one of many sickened

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 27, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Ray Cook, left, and wife Jenn, of Alamosa, stand with their son, Jordan, who was hospitalized in Denver after being sickened by salmonella. The Cooks have filed a legal claim against the city, and have hired Bill Marler, an attorney from Seattle who specializes in food poisoning cases.

Photo by Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky

Ray Cook, left, and wife Jenn, of Alamosa, stand with their son, Jordan, who was hospitalized in Denver after being sickened by salmonella. The Cooks have filed a legal claim against the city, and have hired Bill Marler, an attorney from Seattle who specializes in food poisoning cases.

Montrice Hollier, left, and Kristina Hall give away water Wednesday on U.S. 160 in Alamosa. They were with a group from Yellow Book USA out of Colorado Springs.

Photo by Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky

Montrice Hollier, left, and Kristina Hall give away water Wednesday on U.S. 160 in Alamosa. They were with a group from Yellow Book USA out of Colorado Springs.

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For Jenn and Ray Cook, this city's salmonella crisis began March 9 with a terrifying sound.

Their 7-month-old son woke up screaming at 3 a.m. with bloody diarrhea and a fever of 103 - just weeks after his second heart surgery.

San Luis Valley Regional Medical Center quickly decided the fluffy-haired baby needed special care. "They Flight-for-Lifed him to Children's Hospital in Denver," said his mother, Jenn, 28.

Jordan, who is missing the left ventricle of his heart and faces one more operation, was given intravenous fluids and oxygen. Children's doctors then spent five days trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

Finally, tests hit on the answer: Salmonella poisoning. He was one of the first cases.

Baby Jordan is recovered now, to his parents' relief. On Wednesday, he was smiling broadly and sporting pale blue socks to match his shirt.

So far, 276 people have been sickened by salmonella, traced to the municipal water supply. Water experts have come from across the state to help flush the entire 50 miles of city water pipes with a chlorine solution so strong that residents won't be able to use the water for anything but flushing toilets for days.

Salazars renew call for aid

Meanwhile, the federal government has not sent a single person to Alamosa to help, five days after Gov. Bill Ritter requested more than five experts.

Sen. Ken Salazar and Rep. John Salazar, Democratic brothers from near Alamosa, repeated the request Wednesday in a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Command center spokesman Jim Shires said the city has been told to expect only two observers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Jenn and Ray Cook also became the first victims to file a legal claim against the city for the salmonella contamination.

The Cooks declined to discuss their legal case, but they hired Seattle attorney Bill Marler, a specialist in food poisoning cases who has won millions against Jack in the Box and other companies. The Colorado case, however, can't be so high-priced. Marler said Colorado law limits damages against a city to $150,000 for one injured person or $600,000 for all injured parties.

Woman works while ill

Others in Alamosa are also finding the situation tough.

Shelli Pattison, her husband, Christopher, and their 9 1/2- month-old son, Sean, all came down with illness. Shelli is working two jobs, sick, and her husband is working on a farm nearly an hour away and makes it home only on weekends.

Tom Ford closed his Valley Pride Car Wash because the chlorine fumes inside the automatic car wash would be too strong. His 15 employees are temporarily out of work and he's losing $2,000 a day. He plans to reopen today, keeping his employees outdoors for the prep and finish work.

Angie and Scott Graber are innovating. Before the severe water restriction began, they boiled water in their brewing equipment at the San Luis Valley Brewing Co. to kill the salmonella, then transferred water into small kegs. Their restaurant staff now pulls the tap on a keg to get water to prepare meals.

"It's been interesting trying to run this place without something we take for granted every day," said Angie Graber.

The Grabers are now hoping the National Guard water truck can refill their water supply today.

Then they could brew, and set the concoction to ferment for two to four weeks. If they can't get back to work on their prime product soon, they could - disaster of disasters - run out of beer.

Alamosa is the largest city in Colorado to have a municipal water system that it does not disinfect, but it has pulled its water from deep, uncontaminated wells.

On Wednesday, it finished heavily chlorinating a 500,000-gallon water tower, and began flushing the city's water lines. By night, everyone in the city was expected to received a red leaflet warning them to use the water only for flushing toilets. Even hand washing could cause skin irritation.

Shires estimated that the chlorine had reached about one-third of the city by 6 p.m. It was moving quickly across the city.

The source of the salmonella in the water has not been found.

The job of flushing the system is enormous, because the chlorine levels must be checked repeatedly, at many locations in the system of pipes, to be sure that the disinfectant is strong enough for long enough to kill the salmonella.

Helping out

* The Comfort Inn in Alamosa is offering free showers to Alamosa residents between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The hotel asks that you bring your own towels and toiletries and tip the cleaning staff.

* The Salvation Army will provide vouchers for paper plates, cups, and plastic utensils to allow residents to conserve water.

Where: La Gente Center, 2261 Enterprise Drive, Alamosa

When: 2-4 p.m. today and 1-3 p.m. on Friday.

For more info: 719-587-5404

Comments

  • March 27, 2008

    12:16 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    BC writes:

    It is interesting that Alamosa hasn't confirmed ANY salmonella in the water system yet. The bacteria comes from animal or human waste. How did this bacteria get into a pressurized sealed system? Nobody has a clue.

    The water comes from 5 different deep wells in a sealed system. It's pumped into two separate water towers. It enters the water system from different points and feeds different mains. Yet, somehow, this non-swimming bacteria found its way all across the city. Nobody has been able to explain this yet. Nobody.

    Alamosa water was used at motels, in restaurants, to make fountain cokes, used to spray veggies in the supermarkets and a wide variety of other uses exposing a large non-resident population yet, nobody -- not one single person -- shopping, passing through or otherwise outside of the city has come down with the illness.

    I just don't think we know what is going on yet. I hope it is the water system and that it can be confirmed but, not one test has confirmed salmonella in the Alamosa water system yet. While tests have found other bugs, they haven't found salmonella. Wednesday was supposed to be the day of the findings and salmonella was not confirmed.