Is Clean Water Achievable in Sussex County, Delaware?

Delaware is a small state big in agriculture, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Broiler production annually accounts for over 75% percent of Delaware’s agricultural production and Sussex County is the largest broiler producing county in the United States.

Chicken production may be good for the state’s economy, but it’s bad for water quality. Sussex County’s major industrial chicken producer — Mountaire Farms — is a particularly egregious polluter.

Mountaire Farms

Mountaire Farms is an agricultural food production and processing company that employs more than 10,000 workers and has revenues of more than $2 billion annually. It’s the fourth largest chicken company in the U.S., according to its website. It has a large presence in Delaware and plays a major role in Sussex County’s economy as the main employer in Millsboro, where per capita income is $10,000 below the national average.

The company pledges “to be good stewards of all of the assets that God has entrusted to us” and holds “that the health of humans, animals, and the environment are inseparable.”

From its scholarship programs to its support to many organizations, including Little League, Boys and Girls Club, and the local fire company, Mountaire is known for its generosity and community involvement. Mountaire feeds thousands of folks at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, and participates in Earth Day coastal community cleanups.

But despite these many community contributions, the company is embroiled in a major legal battle over its longstanding failure to protect the groundwater from extremely dangerous levels of pollution.

As in neighboring states, Delaware has a system in place for tracking water quality. The Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control monitors the bays, ponds, streams, and rivers to assess the quality of Delaware’s surface waters, and collects data on chemical, physical, and biological characteristics, including nitrogen and phosphorus. 

The U.S. Geological Survey and other federal agencies, academic institutions, and citizen volunteer monitoring programs contribute to these efforts, and the University of Delaware collects data on water quality conditions in the Broadkill River and inland bays watersheds.

Despite these controls, contaminated drinking water has long been an environmental justice issue for rural communities of color in Sussex County that are near poultry processing plants that release toxic wastewater that ends up in local wells and waterways. 

Thanks to some Millsboro residents, this problem has garnered plenty of media attention, after they sued Mountaire Farms.

An Environmental Disaster

In late 2017, many Millsboro residents found large pallets of water bottles on their porches, along with a note from their “Friends at Mountaire” cautioning them not to drink the water their wells produced from the northern Columbia aquifer. There were no other explanations until the media broke the story. 

Hundreds of gallons of effluent containing 41 times the permitted levels of nitrates and 5,500 times the permitted level for fecal coliform had been released onto hundreds of acres of farm fields. Additionally, Mountaire also failed to report crucial data about its activities to the state, even after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the company to stop polluting more than a decade earlier.

Two residents on Jersey Road live about a mile from the Mountaire Farms plant. Called Anne and Nancy for this article (they fear retribution because their claims are not yet settled), they immediately joined the class action suit, which ultimately expanded to thousands of members.

According to the lawsuit, Mountaire “sprayed billions of gallons of highly contaminated wastewater and liquefied sludge onto fields, which then percolated into the groundwater for nearly two decades.” 

A 2021 Washington Post article by journalist Darryl Fears, who focuses on environmental justice issues, stated that wastewater was contaminated with nitrogen, phosphorus, and other chemicals.

As he wrote: 

Daily, the company drenched spraying fields around the plant with two million gallons of largely untreated wastewater. It maintained nine-million-gallon lagoons that leaked into Swan Creek, which flows into the Indian River. Nitrogen also trickled into the groundwater. The nitrate level reached more than 25 parts per million, far exceeding safety limits and raising the risk of severe health problems, including cancers of the bladder and stomach as well as brain tumors. Other ailments include birth defects, pre-term births, and ‘blue baby syndrome,’ a condition that is fatal to newborns.

What’s more, the plaintiffs’ lawyers maintained that nitrate toxicity caused high rates of cancer, gastrointestinal disease, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, diarrhea, wheezing, shortness of breath, other ailments, and deaths. Likewise, the polluted air was ripe with hydrogen sulfite that smelled like rotten eggs. 

The $205 Million Settlement

In April 2021, Delaware Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz approved a $65 million settlement for more than 3,000 people neighboring the poultry plant who rely on the Columbia aquifer for water. 

Mountaire also entered into a federal consent decree requiring it to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility; remediate groundwater contamination; and provide safe drinking water to affected residents through either a central water system, deeper wells, or individual, whole-home filtration systems. As ordered, it would cost the company $120 million, along with another $20 million for maintaining the improved operations. 

At the time, Mountaire stated that they did not believe they caused any damage to any of the plaintiffs, but chose to settle in order to achieve a final resolution, as well as to allow construction of the new wastewater treatment plant that would allow continued operations. Permits were issued in January 2021.

Residents’ Dilemmas

A court-appointed official was assigned to determine how the $65 million settlement will be split among the class action plaintiffs. To receive a portion, class members such as Nancy and Anne are required to submit a claim that includes the severity of injuries and damages incurred.

“In the beginning, since I have health problems, lawyers came to my house regularly. I wasn’t informed when I must make some decisions about settling. Now, I have many more questions about how to settle and I can’t get return phone calls,” Nancy said. “Can I get a deeper well and/or a whole house filtration system, or both, to guarantee safe water? Or is it too late?”

Nancy and her husband built their house in 2004 upon moving from the Philadelphia area. After being diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2011, he died in 2012. Seven years later, Nancy learned she had congestive heart failure and chronic kidney disease.

“I was told by my lawyer that even if our health problems could be attributed to bad water quality, it would be difficult to amass the large amount of medical documentation needed to prove causation,” she recalled. “Additionally, my husband served in Vietnam and was exposed to Agent Orange. I don’t have faith in the outcome. They are waiting for me to die.” 

Recently, Nancy left a message with her attorney to request a deeper well and the whole house filtration system as her settlement to guarantee safe water but has not yet received an answer. 

In Anne’s case, her parents bought their house in 1984 and lived there until their deaths in 2011 and 2015. “My father had atrial fibrillation, cancer, circulation problems, and problems with his intestines resulting in a colostomy. My mother had an irregular heartbeat and became immobile and then bedridden before she died.” 

Anne and her husband retired and moved from New Jersey into her parents’ home in 2015. Anne suffers from constant itching after bathing, skin breakouts on her upper torso, and yeast infections. After the move, her husband was diagnosed with heart problems and had a pacemaker installed.

“When I spoke with my lawyer about having public water, he commented it was ‘not possible, out the window,’” Anne said. So Anne chose the whole house filtration system and a deeper well as her best alternative. “I did accept a check for $2,500, so I don’t know if that was the final settlement.” 

Possible Solutions?

Approximately 15% of Americans rely on private drinking water supplies, which are not subject to EPA standards. Elevated nitrate concentrations are most common in domestic wells that are less than 100 feet deep. Deeper wells are a solution.

A DNREC hydrologist told this writer, “Twenty-five percent of wells in Sussex County have nitrates over the EPA drinking water standards of 10 parts per million or 10 mg/L from runoff of agricultural farming based on groundwater studies.” 

Indeed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shallow rural wells are those most likely to be contaminated with nitrates, especially in areas where nitrogen-based fertilizers are widely used. Moreover, contamination by animal or human organic wastes can raise the concentration of nitrates in water. 

Some protection against nitrate pollution is afforded by deeper wells, which provide for a protective clay layer between the aquifer and the surface. The DNREC hydrologist stated, “The Columbia aquifer is about 110 feet in the Millsboro area. Residents who install a well at 65 feet deep would not have a protective clay layer.”

Ellendale, a community of about 550 people, solved the problems of contaminated wells by implementing a public central water system, after decades of pushing for one. The project got off the ground in 2018 after final passage of a third referendum, with the help of a partnership between Sussex County and Artesian Water Company, and funding from the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services Bond Bill. 

Delores Price, longtime resident, former mayor, and then-president of the Ellendale Civic Community Improvement Association, worked tirelessly to convince other residents to connect to the central water system. As she explained: “Our town, surrounded by forests, farms, and swampy areas not far from the Delaware Bay, is gradually succumbing to housing developments. These factors contributed to overreach for water supplies, the water table changed, and many of the wells were not deep enough and failed. I had to replace my well two times when it went dry. Runoffs from farms and farming irrigation systems contributed also.”

Loretta Benson, now president of ECCI, said, “The water smelled. We couldn’t use it. It took more than 20 years for the project to become a reality. Most residents connected to the present system at no cost. Water bills are usually $25 a quarter, so it is affordable — and now safe to drink and bathe.” 

Michael J. Globetti, DNREC spokesperson, provided this update on Mountaire:

Mountaire has completed Phase 1 upgrades as required. All remaining upgrades are scheduled to be in place by the end of January 2024. Mountaire will be inspected biannually. DNREC staff will visit the site, meet with Mountaire staff, and observe wastewater treatment plant upgrade status.

Meanwhile, many Millsboro class action members are under pressure to make a settlement decision and the two Millsboro women cited in this article haven’t received answers from their lawyers to their many questions despite repeated phone calls. There is no quick resolution to this story.

Jessica Clark is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Journalism. After a 30-year career as a Public Information Specialist and photojournalist for several federal agencies, she retired to Georgetown, Del. She restored former Governor John Collins’ 1790s home on Collins Pond and is a Sussex County Master Gardener.