It wasn’t until 2005 that St. Louis city officials were told that its drinking water contained a DDT by-product called pCBSA, about which little was known with regard to its impact on human health.
Local officials were told by representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency and the state’s Department of Environmental Quality that the water was then safe to drink, despite the complete lack of any health studies on humans.
Bradshaw spoke to the Pine River Superfund Task Force Wednesday night about those inmates’ suits.
Inmates complained that they were subject to cruel and unusual punishment by being made to drink and bathe in St. Louis water, while prison staffers drank bottled water.. One case was dismissed but not until 2015 when it was decided that the prison officials did not "knowingly" or intentionally make the inmates drink the water.
Another suit several years later was filed against the holding company of Velsicol Chemical Co. and that too was dismissed.
And that was one of the reasons for the dismissal of one of the suits, Bradshaw said.
What was so frustrating to Task Force members was the fact that so little was known about pCBSA’s impact on human health, said Jane Keon, Task Force secretary.
Only one 29 day rat study had been done and task force members begged several agencies for more studies but none were forthcoming.
The inmates’ suits however, weren’t filed in vain, Bradshaw said.
Because so many prisons are sitting so near to Superfund sites, more and more citizens and environmental groups are joining the prisons in the fight against pollution, she said.