Frustrated family fought for a
year
to draw attention to their water woes
By Kevin Dougherty,
Stars and Stripes
Kevin Dougherty / Stars and Stripes
Air Force Staff Sgt. Brian Gordon and his wife, Janeen, said it took a formal inquiry by
their Florida congressman before U.S. military authorities rectified their water problem
in the Vogelweh apartment. At the time, Janeen was expecting the couple's first child,
Austin. |
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — Ten-month-old Austin Gordon fidgets in his highchair as
his mother reaches over to pat him while she resumes her story.
“I assure you,” Janeen Gordon said, “if we had known there was lead in
the water, we would not have chosen to live on base.”
She and her husband, Air Force Staff Sgt. Brian Gordon, still live in government
housing, but this time they reside in a renovated apartment. It seems comfortable and
looks appealing, and their daily water woes, which had them worried about Austin’s
well-being, have been flushed away.
It’s been nearly a year since the Gordons moved to the other end of Colorado
Street in the Vogelweh housing area. The distance isn’t great. Yet they feel a world
away from Building 1129 and the reddish-brown water that often flowed through the
four-story structure where 24 families once lived.
The building is now vacant and a metal construction fence surrounds it. Originally
slated for renovation in 2002, the Air Force decided not to wait.
“It wouldn’t be accepted in the States, and it shouldn’t be accepted
here,” Army Sgt. John Hendrix, another former tenant, said of the building’s
water.
The Gordons have moved on with their lives, but what they still don’t understand
is why their concerns weren’t heeded sooner. The Air Force, which is responsible for
much of the military housing units in the Kaiserslautern area, firmly maintains it was
proactive.
Some residents of other communities have made similar claims of insensitivity when it
comes to water quality and the way their concerns were treated.
In Baumholder, Germany, for instance, one woman said she received little support in
dealing with her young daughter’s eczema, a skin condition she attributed to the
water. She now gives her daughter sponge baths and medicine purchased on the economy. So
far so good.
“When we take baths, we sometimes wonder afterwards if we are any cleaner than
before the bath,” said Teresa Shafe, whose family lives in a small housing area in
Aschaffenburg, Germany.
Military folks in Aschaffenburg get their water from a municipal system, though Army
officials are working with city officials to improve conditions.
The 86th Airlift Wing seems to be doing its level best to reduce corrosion in the water
pipes. Corrosion, typically caused by soft water, is what caused the water in the Vogelweh
housing area to turn a reddish-brown, officials said. Among other things, a bonding agent
has been added to the water to coat the walls of the old pipes.
“[The Kaiserslautern Military Community] leadership is faced with challenges which
have been years in the making,” the Air Force said in a statement, “but is
responding aggressively and with all available resources to improve the situation for our
housing residents.”
“We said there were some problems” at the Gordons’ old apartment, said
Air Force Capt. Todd White, a base spokesman. “We are putting in new [water] pipes
and renovating buildings” in Vogelweh.
The Gordons don’t agree that Air Force officials were as proactive as they say,
noting it took at least several months and a letter to their congressman before they and
others in the building became a priority.
The decision to vacate the building came about six months after bioenvironmental
engineers for the Air Force tested the Gordons’ water for lead and copper. According
to several Air Force documents, the test “found slightly elevated levels of
lead” in a sample taken from their apartment.
So it depends on how one defines “slightly.”
According to documents from the U.S. Army lab that analyzed the August 1999 sample, the
test revealed lead levels to be 12 times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s maximum contaminant level. Air Force documents substantiate this result. All
the services must abide by something called the Final Governing Standards, which is a set
of criteria encompassing EPA and host nation guidelines.
The standard, according to an October 1999 memo by the 86th Airlift Wing, “is
based on a determination by regulatory agencies that, above this level, one person in one
million could be adversely affected by drinking water with higher levels of lead over a
70-year lifetime.”
The memo didn’t state how that ratio is affected when a sample of water is 12
times higher than the maximum contaminant level.
Whatever the odds, the stakes multiplied for the Gordons when they learned that Austin
was on his way. Pregnant women, infants and children are much more susceptible to health
problems associated with lead exposure.
The Gordons moved into their second-floor apartment on Nov. 19, 1998. Immediately, they
noticed that the tap water had a reddish, brownish hue to it, but were assured it was
normal for a vacant apartment. They moved into the apartment soon after their arrival from
the States because they wanted to get settled fast, never fully realizing that by doing so
they were forsaking other options, such as living on the economy.
Told to let the water run for a minute or two, they obliged. Sometimes it worked.
Sometimes it didn’t. The holidays came and went, and it wasn’t until January
that they began pressing the issue.
“Just because my landlord is the United States Air Force, that doesn’t mean
they don’t have any responsibility,” Janeen Gordon said. She faults the housing
office and local Air Force leaders for “showing us an apartment that they knew had
problems.”
Based on the copious records they kept — letters, documents, e-mails —
it’s clear the Gordons followed the so-called “chain of command.” It’s
also clear they got bounced around a lot.
“It’s like when you call a company and they transfer you from line to line,
hoping you’ll just get tired and go away,” Brian Gordon said.
“You get into this ping-pong scenario where no one wants to help you. They just
shuffle you back and forth.”
The records the Gordons kept make for some interesting reading. The correspondence
started out respectfully and, basically, remained so, but the tone of them began to
change, growing more imperative.
In the second half of 1999, the obfuscation subsided, and the Air Force showed more
responsiveness — but not enough to satisfy the Gordons, who wanted to move out before
Austin was born. The bottled water they started to receive for free wasn’t enough,
and they discussed sending Janeen back to the States.
It took a chaplain to convince them to go to the Inspector General and a chief master
sergeant to inject some common sense into the whole matter. By then, a year had passed
since they moved into their apartment.
Only once did they raise the possibility of going to the news media. They never did.
Knowledge of their plight and everyone else’s in Building 1129 became a topic of
curbside conversation. Stars and Stripes learned of the situation from residents living on
another street.
As far as Air Force officials are concerned, the couple “just wanted to get out of
their housing lease.” The evidence doesn’t support that claim. The Gordons
consistently asked either to be moved to a newly renovated apartment or allowed to
relocate off base.
Hendrix, the Army sergeant, scoffed when he was told that officials said they were
keeping people informed. At one point, other occupants began to scratch their collective
heads because all the attention was going to the Gordons and not to them, said Hendrix,
who was the building coordinator.
He concurs with the Gordons: The water was bad, even if it “technically” was
safe to drink in a generic sense. He and his wife said their clothes were often stained in
the wash and dishes would develop a film difficult to clean off.
“I would say everyone I talked to [in the building] had problems,” Janeen
Gordon said. “The water was the color of steeped tea, and it ruined everything, like
your clothes. I used to keep a jug of it in my car. People couldn’t believe it.”
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