Neighborhood in eastern Colorado becomes hazmat scene due to toxic sludge in drinking water 

This should be national news.

$8000? Are you kidding me? Ever person involved in anyway should be in prison

"Only when the last tree is cut down and the last river polluted will you realize you can't eat money".

For the low price of 8000 dollars in fines you can poison an entire community?? Sounds like a bargain

This stinks of corruption from the bottom to the top.

As a manager of a water system, this disgusts me at a level that most will not understand. Absolutely disgraceful

This is a class action lawsuit. It is foresure cancer-causing.

excuse me? for 20 years???? y'all quick to tell me my trashcan cant be by the fence though. lmao

and when the cancer starts showing up? People should be going to prison over this!

So residents have been complaining about this for years….and nothing was being done…and this stuff is Radioactive..it’s not just dirty water? Whoever wasn’t doing anything about this water should be held accountable for poisoning the people with radioactive water. People will end up dying because of this…whether they drank it or showered in it or washed dishes in it….they have been put in danger.

If they were knowingly providing RADIOACTIVE WATER as DRINKING WATER to residents, there needs to be criminal charges. The water is essentially poison.

I’m not a reporter but if I were one and was doing a story about radioactive sludge in peoples drinking water I might ask where it comes from. Wow

Hey Flint, hold my beer. -PVR

The fine is missing a couple zeros at the end, and the developer should be barred from any further business in the State.. at a minimum. Absolutely ridiculous

It's RADIOACTIVE and they only get a few thousand dollar fine??? SERIOUSLY?

This is one of many reasons why private corporations should not be allowed to own water rights, and the government needs to be able to regulate and enforce accountability for these issues and take better care of their residents.

$8,000 is not even a slap on the wrist! That is a heinous act of criminal negligence on the part of the county and state! And deliberate deception through misinformation by the developers! There are several very public occasions in this country alone where the government oversight of safety failed with terrible health results to the residents and their children. The residents here need to file a class action lawsuit against the developers and the government needs to step in and provide new housing for every household here! Greed raises its ugly head again, disgusting!,

The corruption that allowed this to happen is just as disgusting as that water! Makes me so mad that all of those people that had to deal with this so long!!

This is why not only need government oversight, but it must be transparent and enforced! Perpetrators must face severe penalties, not just money but jail time. This is disgusting.

They need to check every water system all across the country, every county, every city, every potable system.

The "special district [was] set up as a private for-profit company." Who owns this company that made a radioactive reservoir? Maybe we should talk to them in addition to the state government.

I listened to this broadcast 2x. They never mention the SOURCE of the contamination. I have to assume it is groundwater, not being piped in from somewhere... So if its groundwater, then the developers likely knew when they built the place and hoped that it would fall to local authorities. They got THEIR money then skipped town. The town or county then and the "water district" are then responsible and the state responsible for making sure it gets done legally and according to established water quality standards, and then, is maintained. This looks like rural working class, and apparently didn't have the influence to make enough waves to get this fixed. How long before Erin Brockovich arrives?

🤮 Crunchy water?!? Thank you Shaun Boyd, for covering this story 🙏

'Crunchy water" something I never thought I'd hate to hear

F-ing outrageous!!! Someone needs to go to prison! All of them, local, county , and state officials involved, need to go to prison!

This is disgusting. I can not believe the outright negligence. My heart goes out to the residents.

People need to be going to prison for this egregious oversight. There needs to be lawsuits holding monsters like this responsible for such a travesty!

Notice how nothing got done until the news expose was aired? This is why local news is so important. This is what news organizations are supposed to be doing. Holding people's feet to the fire and exposing corruption.

I’m sorry… did they say 20 years? I’d be on CNN after 2 weeks.

This whole municipality and every developer needs to be sued.

20 years drinking radioactive water?! Absolutely devastating.

Any one found liable should be forced to use that toxic water for there entire prison sentence.

20 years!? I don’t know how you are so calm in reporting this. I would be more visibly infuriated.

We never blame the corrupt private developers who ran the board causing the damage. It’s always regulators who are underfunded.

Keep digging on this story. Those residents deserve compensation and healthcare/monitoring for the rest of their lives that the government there needs to pay for.

We are watching! Thank you for the whistleblow on this.

WHAT? RADIOACTIVE!!!!

Somebody retired as all this went on. Maybe revocation of all benefits of those individuals. Jail time for those comfortably retired within that system.

People need to be put in prison for this.

When money becomes more important then human life those in charge to change the situation need to resign.

Flint, MI: _"We have lead in our drinking water."_ Prairie View Ranch: _"We have literal uranium sludge in our water."_

Chances are that no one with the County or the State will be held accountable for allowing this to happen for this long! This is a case of Flint Michigan all over again.

only $8000 of fines for pumping radioactive water into people's homes?!? AND $1M missing?!? These are the criminals we need to get tough on.

It would be interesting to check the health records of the residents for the last 20 years

"We investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing"

Decades ago, I lived in a town with ancient electric pumps that pumped water into the water towers. My understanding is that they had these lubricating systems for the motors with a container that held the lubricant, that ran down the shaft. The lubricant was mixing with the water, going up to the storage tower, and out to the public for consumption. The lubricant was supposed to be plant based. For who knows how many years (decades??), the employees who were tasked with refilling the lubricant containers were using the same *exact* oil that you put in your car’s engine. The guy in charge of purchasing was supplying it to them, knowing what they were doing with it. None of them claimed they knew it was mixing with the drinking water. An employee from an outside company discovered that there was a large layer of petroleum on the surface of the water in the tower. There were maybe 6 or 7 towers that had to be in the same condition. The water department quietly switched over to the proper lubricant and instituted a long overdue flushing program, which freaked out anyone paying attention. Some areas of town were worse than others. There was nasty water like in the video, as well as the “rainbow” effect from the oil. I have no idea if they ever got the system safe again. It was never shut down and kept hush-hush. Before that issue was discovered, it was common for people to wonder why there were such high rates of cancer in that town. Ignorance and idiocy abounded, just like with those running the water system in this video.

Anyone with cancer diagnoses or health issues within the past 2 decades needs to sue immediately

UNREAL!!!! REPLACE IT ALL AND THE RESIDENTS SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHTS TO MAJOR COMPENSATION!!!!

This is the kind of stuff that scares the crap outta me!!

20 years?! This is freaking insane!!!

It only took 20 years. Glad they’re looking out for us.

WTF!!!! How is this not on every channel, this is beyond ridiculous!

Holy smokes, 40 micrograms to the liter Uranium content is high enough that they should consider using that well as an in-situ mine! They could literally sell the crude uranium on the market to pay for their system replacement. All they'd need is a ion exchange system and they would be in business.

Complaints since 2017 to me thats rights to sue. They did the appropriate steps. The State ignored it therefore should be held accountable compensating those that were affected.

I lived in Berlin Germany where the tap water is clean and tastes great (doesn't taste like chlorine). It's amazing that the US can't do the same

This is what happens when corruption is run unchecked.

A huge lawsuit is already brewing.

Sometimes it takes journalists to get government to act... this is horrific!

Ridiculous, local corruption in municipalities is terrible.

It is amazing the level of apathy from the developers, the company, the county, and the state! Then they try washing their hands of any responsibility or consequences. Would love to see them try to wash their hands with that water!

One could also think it very likely that the ground is also contaminated, have the residents been tested for elevated lead and radioactivity?

Attorneys should have been hired years ago !!!

20 years to clean up radioactive sludge?!! This is madness!

Oh my goodness, radioactive! This is unconscionable that it happened and was never dealt with for almost 20 years.

And who would have thought building residential houaes and prisons on top of uranium mines would hurt anyone?

Same thing is happening in the city water of Charleston and surrounding areas in West Virginia. They are telling us it's nothing to worry about. But it causes black sludge on the water faucets and is nasty!

Shame on the Gov officials. Charge them with crimes, and shame on locals news stations! You also let this go on for 20 years!

Should be able to sue the state for the cost of every house. Some of these people should go to jail.

Some Mr Burns type is somewhere saying, “Excellent.”

We once again see profit over people...the love of money is the root of all evil, and the illness of the neglected people. Without the response from the AG, it makes me wonder if they knew about this issue already and have ignored it ahead of time. Who do you turn to from here but the federal court if the state is not properly helping?

This is America as a whole

RADIOACTIVE?!?! WTF?!?! WOW!! literally took my breath away! and 20 Years??! HOW?!?! 200 notices... every single part of the system failed at every level... this is almost unbelievable!!!! the details of this will make one hell of a script in the future I'm sure....

Sounds like Love Canal all over again. This is why the EPA was created and why we have regulations. Who dropped the ball here? Sounds like the State of Colorado since they knew about it since the early 2000s about the violations. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Where's the sludge coming from? Where's the source of the water? Is it contaminated? Is there a dumping ground somewhere nearby?

Fines???!!! SMH I'd team up with all the homeowners and sue the hell out of the home developers, the city and the state for failing there citizens!!!

Somebody let Erin Brockovich know about this! One neighborhood in my city was experiencing ugly water. The water company said it was harmless rust from aging cast iron water mains, which would eventually be replaced according to the company's predetermined schedule. Legally mandated lab tests were not showing anything bad in the water. But residents were complaining, and attending city meetings, one carrying a large bottle of black water. The local news was reporting on it. Then Erin Brockovich showed up. There wasn't a lawsuit, as far as I know, but suddenly the water company started replacing water mains in our area, ahead of schedule.

That's a very good notice to the public!

Profit over protection

We can spare trillions for wars,but not a million for water?

This is unbelievable! 😮

Holy moly, radioactive sludge is insane!!!

This is corruption at the top. And there's some people that need to suffer some consequences for lack of performing their duties to the tax paying American citizen. They have forgotten that they are public servants. Maybe we need to set up oversight committees

I hate corruption at any level! I hope those responsible are held to account and have a miserable life! 😮

This is unforgivable!

Did y'all see what happened in Iowa? 68 miles of river all the fish dead. The fine was 25,000. Wtf a major corporation.

State should be held responsible

camp Lejune HERE WE GO AGAIN

Thanks for the information.

Be careful and learn the candidates. You brought these people in, you can fire them.

Imagine... a conservative district hasn't bothered to respond to a health emergency among their contiuents, because those contracts for development were making them money.

The question is where did all this toxic material come from probably from a legacy company like 3M or or some government agency or Dupont or something like that who will never be held accountable

Great reporting

Thank you for covering this, #ShaunBoyd.

If this has been going on for 20 years that community needs more than clean water. They need an entirely new government. If they don't get it it's their own fault.

These agencies should be in prison for crimes against humanity. Very very long prison sentences

Goodness, they were drinking radioactive water and their poor animals! This is outrageous.

This is enraging!

Qualified immunity. No one in government that rubber stamped things will be held accountable.

I want to see a Geiger counter survey done in ALL the homes to check for dangers..

In the 80 s Reagan removed liability for EPA Trump also removed company liability for EPA .For profit means for profit and corruption also possible.

The Commissioners should be held accountable