SC officials say water supply safe. Denmark residents lined up for bottles instead

Hundreds eagerly lined up Friday morning behind a Denmark furniture store for a special giveaway.

But it wasn’t holiday shopping deals or door-buster savings they were clamoring for, but rather bottled water.

Bothered by headaches, diarrhea and eye irritation, hundreds of residents waited in line to receive cases of water, saying they’ve lost confidence in the quality and safety of the city’s drinking supply.

“My son, we’ve been taking him to the doctor back and forth for these headaches. We don’t know where they (are) coming from,” lifelong Denmark resident Shaquita Chatman, 40, said.

Chatman, too, said she suffers from eye irritation she worries may be linked to a little known and unapproved pesticide the city injected into its drinking water, raising health concerns about the use of the chemical.

“The people of Denmark need some clean drinking water,” she said while standing in line with about 30 other residents to receive a couple cases of water for her household of five, which includes children ages 18, 11 and 7.

Lawyer and CNN commentator Bakari Sellers, along with volunteers, distributed about 1,000 cases of bottled water to about 500 households Friday beginning at 10 a.m. By noon, they’d given out the last case.

Another truckload of bottled water from Walmart will be distributed from 5 to 6 p.m. Wednesday from the loading dock in the rear of Denmark Furniture, 199 Coker St., organizers said.

The donation was sponsored by Strom Law firm, Wilson and Luginbill law firm, Walmart of Barnwell, Walmart of Orangeburg, and Denmark Furniture.

Sellers, a former state lawmaker from nearby Bamberg, has sued the city on behalf of Denmark residents, pressing South Carolina regulators and the city to provide answers about Halosan injections into a municipal well to kill iron slime.

A second lawsuit, filed in Bamberg County, also alleges lead and copper are polluting town water.

Denmark resident and Army veteran Detra Salley-Bruce, 58, said doctors found traces of lead in her blood, “but it’s not a lot, and I can’t say it came from the water,” which comes out the tap discolored.

“Wash your white clothes they come out rusty looking. It’s just been, over the years, it’s just been horrible,” she said.

While health officials have not issued warnings or advisories about the city’s drinking water, Sellers said, “I dare anyone to say they want to drink a gallon worth of brown water.”

HaloSan is approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for disinfecting swimming pools and spas, but is not approved for use in drinking water, the suit alleges. If not used properly in drinking water, the chemical can irritate people’s skin and eyes.

Town and state health officials, however, have stressed tests show the city is in compliance with lead and copper limits in drinking water, and HaloSan was deemed safe by a national certifying agency, even though the EPA had not approved it.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control told The State the chemical is safe and no one became ill from exposure to HaloSan, regulators say.

But DHEC enforcement records show Denmark water treatment operators were ‘”unfamiliar with the function’’ of the HaloSan system. And critics, including one nationally known researcher, have said it’s unclear how much HaloSan was injected over the years.

Denmark brought in HaloSan’s manufacturer to train staff on use of the iron bacterial removal system, according to a Nov. 15, 2011, letter to DHEC from Denmark administrator Heyward Robinson. DHEC gave Denmark a satisfactory rating for the HaloSan system in 2012.

Regulators at Clemson University ordered Denmark to stop using HaloSan this summer.

“The accusations (of people being sickened by the city’s drinking water) are out there of course, but our water is fine,” Denmark Mayor Gerald Wright said.

Wright said the city has stopped using the well in which the city pumped HaloSan to kill iron slime, and has stopped using the chemical.

“But when it was used, as far we know, it accomplished what it was intended to accomplish without any potential harm to water users,” he said. “There’s nothing that provides evidence that our water is of poor quality or should have caused any harm to anyone. ... There’s not documented evidence on that, and we don’t expect that there will be.”

This story was originally published November 23, 2018 at 3:21 PM.