Some officials say scam, others say information only
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.
That’s the situation Chillicothean Tim Murphy found himself in last week after noticing a plastic bag hanging on his front door knob with a water test bottle inside.
What started with a supposedly simple water test turned into what Murphy is calling a scam perpetrated by Superior Water Services Inc.
The company’s president, Gary Spencer, however, wants the public to know the situation was not a scam, but a water awareness campaign instead.
Murphy, on the other hand, said he wants the public to know because he is concerned the elderly will be the ones to suffer the consequences of what he considers a less-than-honest situation.
Murphy pleads his case
On April 13, Murphy noticed a plastic bag hanging on his front door. Inside the bag was a piece of paper requesting his name, phone number and address, as well as a small plastic water sample bottle.
Residents in the RiverSound subdivision were being asked to fill the bottle with tap water, place it back in the bag and hang it on the front door for pickup.
“It didn’t say Superior Water Services or anything,” said Murphy. “I thought it was a free water test.”
A woman saying she represented the company called about the test at 6:43 p.m. Thursday evening, after the bottles were picked up the day before.
Murphy wife, Diane, said the woman told her the water sample contained sewage (fecal matter) and that they had extremely hard water.
Diane told her the water was taken from the filtered water on their refrigerator, and she said the woman responded, “Well, it’s not working.”
It was then Murphy himself got on the phone and asked what company the woman represented. After checking in the phone book, he found Superior has two offices, one in Peoria and one in Pekin.
The company sells Kinetico home water systems, including drinking water systems, water softeners and whole-house filters, as well as Hague Quality Water.
Then it dawned on him, he said, that this tactic was a scam to entice him to purchase Superior products.
Murphy said he had once seen a program on 20/20 about people doing the same thing.
Murphy said he decided to “play along” and learn as much as he could.
After he asked what he could do about his water, the woman told him she would send a technician to his house at 10:30 a.m. Friday to talk with him.
When he hung up, Murphy called former superintendent of the Chillicothe Public Works Department, Sid Crabel.
Knowing Crabel worked at the department for 31 years, Murphy told him about his experience.
Crabel called public works employee Josh Cooper about the situation. Cooper said he had just done samples on Parkhill, next to RiverSound, the previous week, and the water was fine.
“I don’t want to see the elderly get taken by this scam,” said Crabel. “In the 31 years I did water, I’ve never had detections of fecal matter, and it doesn’t now, either.”
Friday unfolds
As Superior owner Gary Spencer pulled into Murphy’s driveway that morning, so did water operator Cooper, current superintendent of Public Works Dave Tutterow and employee Swede Yoder.
Spencer got out of his van with a bag in his hand, they said, prepared to talk to Murphy.
But seeing the city truck, Murphy said Spencer immediately started apologizing to him, he said, about how his secretary was mistaken and should not have told him his water contained sewage. “He knew right away that he was in deep trouble,” said Murphy.
Cooper and Tutterow, who said they were angry, started peppering Spencer with questions about how he could say the city’s water contained sewage, which meant they were not doing their jobs.
He said Tutterow asked Spencer where he got his information, and he presented a copy of the city of Chillicothe’s water department report to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency printed from the Internet.
Spencer was unable to produce papers on the results of his company’s own water test taken the Monday before, Murphy said.
In the meantime, Chillicothe Police Officer Nick Bridges arrived on the scene to witness the conversation.
Bridges contacted Chillicothe Police Chief Steve Maurer, who told him people placing testing bottles or anything else on residents’ doors are required to have a permit before doing so.
In relaying the information from Maurer, Bridges told Spencer that he would not be able to get a permit now, and that he should pack his stuff, get out of town and not come back.
Murphy also said he is convinced Spencer would not have offered him an apology if the city works’ men would not have arrived when they did.
The public works men took their own sample of Murphy’s water Friday, and the tests came back clean, said Cooper.
“If my water comes back OK, then those people are slandering the city,” said Murphy, who said he was glad to have helped solve something he said could impact several people, especially the elderly, in Chillicothe.
“That’s who they prey on,” said Murphy. “This is a scam that most people won’t fall for.”
Spencer’s side
Gary Spencer, formerly of Chillicothe, is the president of Superior Water Services Inc., and he is determined to set the record straight.
“It is not a scam,” said Spencer in a telephone interview Monday.
“It’s just a water awareness campaign. You have city water, and you have a choice to do better if you want to.”
Spencer questions police tactics in accusing him of attempting to scam residents when he was told simply to leave town.
He said he also showed the officer the water report, as well.
“If the police are calling it a scam, but then they didn’t arrest me for a scam, then how could it be a scam?” he said.
“Yeah, it was a poor approach. But I know they’re calling it a scam. Why wasn’t I charged with a scam if they’re calling it a scam? If I was truly scamming people, I would have been fined or jailed, but I was let go.”
Spencer said the homeowner “took it like I was trying to scam them somehow. That’s not what I was trying to do at all.”
Superior has been in business since 2002, with offices in Peoria and Pekin, offering home water systems.
“We do a water awareness program where, normally, we just hand out literature,” said Spencer. “But we had some bottles, and we decided to put them out in that area.
Maybe they could use some better water.”
The misunderstanding, he said, came with how the tested water report information was presented to the homeowner.
“The problem is, the way it was conveyed, the person who called her made it sound worse than it is, and that’s not our intent,” said Spencer. “She’s been reprimanded for it. But according to the city’s water report, there’s sewage in the city water. When I got done, it seemed the homeowners were more on my side than the city’s side.”
Spencer said he printed the water report directly from the Illinois EPA Web site, where Chillicothe Public Works sends its reports.
In that report, the nitrate level is listed as 3-6.5 parts per million. The Environmental Protection Agency says up to 10 parts per million is an acceptable level of nitrates in water.
“Zero is acceptable to me,” said Spencer. “Sewage is the likely source of nitrates in the water. Maybe there aren’t illegal levels of it, but it’s there. But the homeowner went overboard.”
He said although the nitrates were not over the legal limit in Chillicothe’s water report, “honestly, you could have better water if you wanted.
“You have a choice. People can have better water if they want. But they don’t have to. Normally people are thanking me when I leave. That’s all I wanted to do.
“The reason I didn’t get arrested is because what I said is true. This is all in their report. I just confirmed it. I understand their position. You can’t scare people, and I’ll never do that again.
“I’m not out there to be a bad guy or to make any enemies. I’m from Chillicothe, and my parents still live there. I care about Chillicothe more than any other town in Illinois.
“I just think people should be made aware, and then it’s up to them.”
Water/police departments have say
Public Works employee Josh Cooper knows his water facts, and he said Chillicothe’s water is very good.
“Mr. Spencer didn’t lie to anybody, he just left out major information that made it sound like our water is unsafe,” said Cooper.
In 2009, Cooper said the range of nitrates in Chillicothe water was 3-6.5 parts per million, under the 10 ppm danger zone listed by the Illinois EPA.
Cooper said Chillicothe water reports must be placed in two locally-read newspapers every July, and it contains a summary of all tests done throughout the year.
To see the results of Chillicothe’s drinking water report, visit the Illinois EPA’s Web site at www.epa.state.il.us/water/drinking-water-watch/index.html. Click on “drinking water watch,” then “review consumer confidence data” and then find Chillicothe.
“Elevated nitrate levels can be caused by sewage, he said, but there are many other reasons they occur.
“They also come from crop fertilization runoff and erosion of natural deposits,” Cooper said. “Most of ours are from fertilizers.”
The Illinois EPA Web site says possible sources include “runoff from fertilizer use; leaching from septic tanks, sewage; erosion of natural deposits.”
Cooper encouraged any resident with questions about water to call Chillicothe City Hall at 274-2020, and a public works employee will get back to them as soon as possible.
Maurer said that the high-pressure tactics used by the Superior employee on the phone was the main reason Spencer was believed to be scamming residents.
“Basically, these people seem to target the elderly,” said Maurer. “But they high pressured everyone they talked to. When the police department showed up, they changed their story completely. Other people who received calls from these people said it was very high pressure.”
For information about Chillicothe ordinances, or to notify police about a possible scam, visit www.chillicothepd.org, or call CrimeWatch at 274-4300.
