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August 10, 2003Woman miscarries, blames waterByRecord-Eagle staff writer MANISTEE - Cynthia McLintock lost the little girl she was carrying in July 1998, nearly six months into her pregnancy. At first she believed the miscarriage was just a personal tragedy. But little things throughout the pregnancy - including weariness she'd never experienced while carrying her other three children - nagged at her. "Nobody could give me a reason why my water broke," said the Traverse City woman, formerly a longtime Manistee resident. "All I could do was hold her until she passed away." A year later, as the McLintocks tried to sell their house on West Fox Farm Road in Manistee County's Filer Township, a potential buyer tested the McLintocks' groundwater and discovered it was contaminated with nitrates. That discovery prompted the McLintocks to file a lawsuit that charged industrial sludge from a nearby Packaging Corp. of America paper mill - used as fertilizer on a tree farm across the street from their home - caused the death of their daughter, whom they had named Haley. McLintock said a May 2002 lawsuit settlement prevents her from discussing the case, but said she has felt pressured by PCA not to talk about the contamination, even in general terms. She wrote letters to newspapers, including the Record-Eagle, and corresponded with Gov. Jennifer Granholm, Attorney General Mike Cox and DEQ Director Steven Chester about the contamination case. "Their lawyer through my lawyer told me 'You better not be on some type of crusade,'" McLintock said. "That comment made my day." McLintock said she's speaking publicly about her loss to spread the word about contaminated water in her hometown. "What I would like to see happen is (PCA) take responsibility for all the damage they've caused," she said. John Olsen, of PCA corporate headquarters in Lake Forest, Ill., said the company would not comment on the lawsuit or settlement. McLintock said she unwittingly drank more than a gallon of nitrate-laden water every day during her pregnancy. Tests showed nitrate levels in the McLintocks' well were almost three times the standard for groundwater contamination as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. "What I found out upset me to no end. When you find out what nitrates can do to infants, it's not good," McLintock said. Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality warns that nitrates in drinking water can be harmful to children under six months old, causing methemoglobinemia, a disease that reduces red blood cells' ability to carry oxygen. An acutely poisoned infant can turn blue from the oxygen deprivation. Although asphyxiation caused by underdeveloped lungs was listed as the cause of Haley's death an hour after her birth, the girl was born with mysterious dark splotches on her skin, according to the suit. The suit named PCA and its affiliated companies, alleging that the company's Filer City mill generated the sludge as a waste product of container board production, as well as Michael and Priscilla Morin, who applied the sludge to their tree farm across the street from the McLintocks. Although the parties cannot discuss lawsuit details, six bulging files in the Manistee County Circuit Court's clerk's office speak volumes about the suit and the McLintocks' charges that PCA and the Morins endangered them by violating terms of a permit that allowed them to apply the sludge. The case quickly turned to one question that occupied thousands of pages of arguments and evidence: Can high levels of nitrates in drinking water cause women who are pregnant to miscarry? Mark Dancer, attorney for the McLintocks, offered two experts who insisted nitrates could cause miscarriages and, in the McLintocks' case, most likely did. Defense attorneys Richard W. Wilson, for PCA, and Roger Wotila, for the Morins, called the plaintiff experts' conclusion "junk science" and they offered their own experts who disputed that nitrates at the levels found in the McLintock's drinking water could pose a health risk. The defendants asked the judge to dismiss the lawsuit because they argued the plaintiff's experts were unreliable, but the suit settled just prior to a ruling. McLintock says she'll continue writing letters urging government officials to right the wrongs she believes were committed by PCA and the Morins. "I'm hoping people are taking notice," she said. "I'm trying to get people to notice. They've hurt too many people to just let it go."
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