EPA raids Ill. village on tainted water

CRESTWOOD, Ill., April 30 (UPI) -- Federal agents raided a Chicago suburb's government offices seeking evidence the village had secretly pumped drinking water from a polluted well for decades.

Fifteen U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigators, joined by uniformed Illinois State Police and U.S. Coast Guard agents, collected records from Crestwood Village Hall, the public works department and the police department, EPA officials said.

"We're looking for evidence of environmental crimes," special agent Randall Ashe told the Chicago Tribune.

The raid was prompted by a Tribune investigation alleging Crestwood officials supplemented the village's Lake Michigan water supply with water from a contaminated local well for 21 years, despite a 1986 state warning that doing so was dangerous and illegal.

The well was shut in late 2007, after Illinois tested the water for the first time since 1986 and found it contaminated with dichloroethylene and vinyl chloride, which is so toxic the EPA says there is no safe level of exposure, the Tribune reported.

Mayor Robert Stranczek issued a one-sentence statement saying, "Right now our drinking water is 100 percent safe and the village doesn't believe there was anything wrong with it prior to this."