Esko woman recalls the fight of her lifetime

Elaine Osborne remembers walking along Highway 61 near her home between Scanlon and Esko on a balmy January day in 1984, when she realized the nearby Maki Swamp appeared to be steaming. "It was brown, frothy and smelled of sewage, and it was situated directly above the troubled sewage line," Osborne wrote in her new book, "If I Felt Alone."

It wasn't the first time the line carrying sewage from Cloquet, Scanlon, Carlton and Wrenshall to Duluth had broken - releasing wastewater that included industrial waste from the paper mill in Cloquet along with fecal matter - and it wouldn't be the last.

The swamp flooded in December 1980 with 13 to 30 million (newspaper accounts vary) gallons of sewage. It flooded again in March of 1981, spilling 200,000 gallons. In April 1982 and less than a week later in May 1982, the line ruptured again, releasing 15 million gallons of sewage each time. Another spill in September 1985 filled the swamp behind Osborne's home with more than 8 million gallons of wastewater which crept dangerously close to her house.

Osborne said she began experiencing what she thought were bouts of the flu in the winters of 1981-82. Not normally prone to colds or the flu, she attributed her illnesses to stress, because she was recently divorced and had moved to the Esko area from Barnum, with her teenage daughter, for a new start . Besides, officials had told Osborne and her neighbors that their water shouldn't be affected because the groundwater flowed away from their homes.

The Pine Knot reached out to the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District. Spokesperson Karen Anderson said everyone who worked at WLSSD when the sewage line was installed and then found to be deeply flawed is gone now, mostly retired. She shared a large file of newspaper clippings that cover much of the pipeline history from the early 1980s through the replacement of the entire line, completed in 1997.

In her book, Osborne details her fight to get the WLSSD to take responsibility for the pipeline ruptures and its impact on the neighbors, along with her journey to understand what was happening to her own body and mind over those years, ultimately finding out that she had developed multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), or environmental illness.

That experience tested Osborne's faith: in doctors and medicine, the legal system, governmental agencies and in God. Deeply religious, her faith in God is the only thing that survived intact, and even that ebbed and flowed like the sewage in the swamp below her home.

Sewage

Over a 5-year period, the 42-inch WLSSD sewer line broke at least five times, releasing tens of millions of gallons of sewage into the swamp over time. Once the breaks were discovered, the sewage would be diverted and even more millions of gallons dumped directly into the St. Louis River until repairs were completed. Osborne suspects there were other times when the line was simply leaking, like that steamy day in January.

Officials told neighbors and anglers on the river not to worry. A Duluth News Tribune story from April 30, 1982 quotes WLSSD assistant director John Klaers saying that the fish wouldn't even notice there had been a bypass, because water levels were high so the sewage was diluted.

Osborne said she began experiencing what she thought were bouts of the flu in the winters of 1981-82. Always one to drink lots of water, Osborne drank even more tap water when she was sick. This was long before bottled water was sold in 24-packs in the stores. Her health continued to deteriorate.

"I did not notice a change in my water until the fall of 1982, when I noted the water in my toilet had begun to scum up and was greyish brown in color," she wrote. "The smell of sewage filtered into the laundry room as the water from my well filled the washing machine."

It reeked, she said, and the hot water came out amber in color. "The Culligan man" suggested she have it tested, which she did for the first time since purchasing the property. The results showed contamination, so she disinfected the water repeatedly, testing after each time.

"I periodically disinfected my water while always trying to get a clear reading," she wrote. Finally Carlton County suggested she look outside her well for the contamination source.

Meanwhile, she thought her hearing was failing, because she was struggling at work to understand instructions. Her hearing was fine, but her doctor diagnosed her with depression, noting also shortness of breath and sputum production in January 1983.

The shortness of breath was the worst when she would try to drink a glass of water. "I'd gasp, frantic because while I would have the glass up to my mouth in an attempt to swallow, I'd feel like I couldn't breathe," she wrote. "Panic would set in."

Two months later she developed pain in her chest and shoulder area, which progressed to dizziness, chronic headaches, diarrhea and vomiting almost daily. Her cognitive issues also worsened: she would get lost in familiar places and worried that she had Alzheimer's disease.

Still, Osborne didn't connect her health problems with the sewage spills and neither did her doctor.

Discovery

Later, when Osborne was the last neighbor standing in a lawsuit against WLSSD, an inter-office memo emerged that suggested that the contaminated groundwater might have been flowing toward her well.

Osborne also discovered that 10-day "black liquor" chemical spill at Potlatch lined up with a violent bout of illness she experienced in her home in January 1985 during the lawsuit. Today she blames that spill for neurological damage that would make her brain "click out" from time to time.

"For those 10 days, guess who was deathly ill and couldn't go to work?" she said. "I didn't know it was from the sewage spills. I didn't know until the litigation that it was the same 10 days that I was too sick to go to work. I was being poisoned: blacking out, dizzy, vomiting."

Her doctor told her she should try to calm down, and treated her for depression, adding that she should come to her office in Duluth when she got that ill. "I had to crawl down the hall to the bathroom when I was that sick," Osborne said. "I certainly couldn't drive to the doctor."

It wasn't until after the fifth spill in September 1985 - when the sewage water came within 25 feet of her home - that Osborne quit drinking the water from her well and began hauling artesian water home to drink, cook and wash with.

WLSSD workers took samples two days in a row, claiming the first time they apparently used contaminated bottles. Instead of the usual three-day turnaround, 11 days passed before she got the results of the test on her well from the St. Louis County Health Department, which reported coliform bacteria "too numerous to count."

The fifth spill was a catalyst. Osborne was furious to find out about the spill after her car had stalled in the wastewater covering the Maki Road. She called WLSSD to check her water. She also set up a meeting with the WLSSD director. She asked the district to buy her home, because it was unsellable with bad water. She tells how he leaned back in his chair and told her they would not be doing that, implying that she would have to take him to court to make that happen.

Angry, she knocked on doors in the neighborhood and found others with mysterious ailments. Together, 19 neighbors filed a lawsuit against WLSSD, and told their story to newspapers and television stations in the area. With the help of their attorney, the district agreed to install filtration systems and chlorinators on their wells.

Symptoms

Even after she quit drinking her own water, Osborne's health was bad. In June 1986, she was talking to a friend on the phone when the right side of her face went numb and her speech slurred. She didn't go to the emergency room. It took months for the numbness to go away, as evidenced by her crooked smile in photos from that year. She was retaining fluids and had a runny nose, sore throat and cough for more than six weeks.

"I can only hope that readers will now realize how severely my brain had been affected to eliminate logical thinking to such a degree," she wrote. "After all, weird symptoms in my life were a constant, still only reflecting to others the high level of stress I was under."

Osborne finally quit going to her Duluth doctor after finding Dr. George Kroker of Allergy Associates in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, in 1990. She was wearing a mask at the fabric store and a woman asked her why, then told her about Kroker and his work with people with chemical sensitivity.

After a day of extensive testing and interviews, Kroker told her she suffered from environmental illness. He put her on a regimen that included avoiding perfumes of all kinds, plastic containers, and eating organic foods as much as possible. She eliminated sugar, bread and alcohol from her diet for months as part of the detoxification process. Buy air purification systems for her home and car, Kroker advised.

Osborne also took antigen drops every day, which contained minute amounts of the chemicals she was sensitive to, to help her body build up a tolerance for the offending substances.

After a few weeks, she stopped having momentary blackouts and started to feel alive again, Osborne said. She lost 10 pounds in two weeks. Her headaches decreased.

Over time, her physical and mental health improved, but it wasn't always smooth sailing. Relapses were triggered by, for example, working near an area that was being painted, or being near a loading dock with diesel exhaust fumes filling the air.

Trials

Her sensitivity to chemicals made it difficult to find work. It also made it impossible to be in the courtroom when her lawsuit against WLSSD and the engineering company was being tried. It's a sore spot for Osborne, because she feels the judge ended the trial too soon. She also acknowledges that her testimony was deeply flawed, because of her neurological issues with fully understanding and responding to questions.

Although the other 18 neighbors dropped out of the lawsuit - after pressure from WLSSD, Osborne said - she continued.

"They threatened that we would have to pay the court costs if we lost," she said. "I had a brand-new house that I couldn't even sell because of the water. I figured they'd taken everything from me already, my health, what more could they take?"

Osborne and her second set of attorneys had their day in court Feb. 15-16, 1996 in front of a jury at the Sixth District Court in Duluth.

WLSSD had previously settled with the pipeline manufacturer for $1.1 million and in 1993 won a lawsuit against PRC Engineering, formerly known as CTA, the Chicago company that oversaw the design and construction of the pipeline, for $3.7 million. In that case, according to a Duluth News Tribune story, the jury found PRC negligent "in its duties to design, inspect and oversee construction of 4.5 miles of main sewer pipeline between Scanlon and Esko." None of the arguments in that case could be used to bolster Osborne's case against WLSSD and PRC.

In the end, Osborne writes, her attorneys told her she had to settle her case. She says the judge would not allow any more testimony. The court transcripts reveal only what was said in the courtroom, so that is impossible to verify. When asked if she was in agreement with the settlement, on the record, Osborne responded three different times: "I have no choice."

The settlement provided Osborne with a payment of $36,000, which didn't cover all the costs. She filed for bankruptcy shortly thereafter, but they couldn't take her home (and the credit union helped her stay by lowering her payments).

In 1987, WLSSD board members voted to replace at least part of the faulty line. In the end, it would take a total of 11 years and $15 million to replace all of the defective pipes between Cloquet and Duluth.

Finding Words

After she lost the lawsuit, Osborne said she asked God to help her.

"I thought, there must be some reason he wanted me to struggle through," she said. "I wouldn't have written this book if I had won. I wrote it because of my illness, and also because I want people to know you can't trust the entities that are set up to protect you. You have to persevere, keep pushing."

Her book, "If I Felt Alone," allowed Osborne time and space to tell her story, the one she was incapable of telling in court because of her own disabilities and the time constraints imposed by the court system, and to describe the myriad ways multiple chemical sensitivity can affect a person.

"When will more of society recognize the dilemma for ones, such as myself and others, who have suffered from the wrath of chemical sensitivities or an environmental illness," she writes toward the end of her book. "Most individuals have visible disabilities. I do not." She wants people who may be suffering from a crazy list of symptoms to know enough to ask about MCS.

Dr. Kroker continued treating Osborne for 30 years, although the frequency of the appointments slowed down over time. She is incredibly grateful to him for believing her when no one else would, and for helping her get better.

And she still won't drink her well water.