HIGH AND DRY
Lanner, Devorah
High and Pry Prudential's neighbors wonder where the water went BY DEVORAH LANNER Prudential Insurance Company owns more than a piece of the rock; it holds title to a sizable chunk of American...
...Our average yields for the last five years are down," says Phyllis Kosta...
...Nitrates are converted into potential carcinogens in the human body, and also can cause "blue-baby" syndrome, which inhibits the flow of oxygen in infants and young children, resulting sometimes in serious brain damage...
...The Kostas and Prohoskys must buy bottled drinking water or take from others...
...Last October, the Indiana state office of the U.S...
...The Kostas own other property in the area, including an elegant, turn-of-the-cen-tury house that sits unoccupied and un-rented because the pipes have been invaded by sulfur...
...Sulfur is also highly corrosive, causing property damage when it seeps from the household plumbing...
...On a sultry summer day in 1981, while she was preparing the evening meal, her husband Robert was taking a shower...
...Doing the wash at the Prohosky home is a parody of a Tide detergent commercial...
...In exchange, each farmer was required to sign a statement agreeing the company had no legal liability for the water problem...
...Large-scale irrigation using center pivots is a novelty in Indiana, where a favorable climate and shallow water table make irrigation unnecessary for most farmers...
...Prudential leases land to tenant farmers and farm managers...
...Money is not the issue for my clients," says Nesbitt...
...Devorah Lanner is a Washington correspondent for the Center for Investigative Reporting...
...They raise corn, peppermint, and spearmint on 500 rental acres one-and-a-half miles south of Prudential's land...
...For Wanda Prohosky, a farmer whose 640 acres are bordered on three sides by Prudential land, troubles began almost immediately...
...Nitrate fertilizers are an essential component of Prudential's irrigation scheme, and the heavy doses of water flush nitrates through the soil and into the aquifer, according to Etzel...
...The iron content of the water stains Wanda Prohosky's laundry...
...They replace a set of faucets every six months or so...
...He views the company's irrigation as a model of technologically advanced agriculture...
...Since 1983, drinking water in the area has been heavily contaminated with sulfur...
...The Kostas say they have averaged a twenty-bushel-per-acre loss on soybeans and a sixty-bushel-per-acre loss on corn since 1981...
...it holds title to a sizable chunk of American soil—660,000 acres of farmland from the Far West to the Deep South...
...James Etzel, an environmental engineer at Purdue University, analyzed the results of tests conducted on water samples from wells near Prudential property...
...Steven Beckham, an agronomist, reports that the loss per acre is as high as $250 because of stunted corn and soybeans...
...It's too late for us," says Wanda Prohosky...
...Most of this empire was purchased during the 1970s, when land values were rising...
...There are many sources of nitrates," he contends, "and some of these nitrates are twenty feet from the septic tanks...
...the taste and odor are so noxious that the water is not potable...
...In effect, U.S...
...According to local hunters and trappers, there has been a dramatic decline in muskrat and quail, presumably because the animals are going thirsty...
...This decision has angered farmers in Jasper and Newton counties, who feel that Prudential will profit at their expense...
...The Prohoskys pay an average of $50 more per month for electricity to pump the water...
...I fear for other communities who will go through this next...
...Heavy land-clearing machines moved across the earth, replacing stands of oak and maple with rows of corn...
...The tests revealed high levels of nitrates, exceeding in eight cases the EPA's permissible standard...
...The clearing of land for crops is a "capital improvement...
...The sinkholes are up to five feet deep and ten feet wide...
...A baptismal pond used by local churches, including Wanda Prohosky's Bethany Free Evangelical Church, is often a mere depression of mud during Prudential's long irrigation season...
...Suddenly the water pressure went limp...
...During irrigation season, the pressure is so low that it takes several hours for the cold side of her washing machine to fill up...
...There's just no money we can come up with to join the lawsuit...
...Last summer, their wells dried up for twenty-five consecutive days...
...By 1983, many farmers had to dip further into their own pockets to replace the replacement wells...
...The Prohoskys' water is still filled with sand and sediment...
...Jack Nesbitt, the plaintiffs' lawyer, is amassing evidence of plummeting crop yields on their property...
...Wayne Ponader, an Indianapolis-based attorney for Prudential, denies that his company is to blame for high nitrate levels...
...The situation became chronic, affecting scores of farmers in the vicinity of Prudential's holdings...
...One minute there was no water, and the next, black mud was coming through the pipes," she recalls...
...A short distance away, the rubber wheels of the center-pivot irrigators rolled over the land, spraying water around the clock...
...The Indiana Department of Natural Resources could not determine the cause, but many residents fear the earth is collapsing as more and more water is pumped...
...They want an end to their water problems...
...Last March, the plaintiffs won a partial victory...
...Deer congregate around a pan of water in the Kostas' backyard...
...Between 1981 and 1984, the company quadrupled the volume of groundwater withdrawn for irrigation, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources...
...We lived, ate, drank, and dreamt this problem...
...But suing Prudential is beyond the means of tenant famers like Arlene and Gary Schultz...
...The sulfur ruined the wiring in their television set and is gradually destroying the electric organ...
...Etzel concluded, however, that if septic tanks were the cause of unsafe nitrate levels, there should also be a corresponding increase in chlorides...
...By the end of last year's growing season, it was consuming about 1.25 billion gallons a year...
...From corporate offices in Newark, Memphis, and Chicago, the company makes all the important decisions about what and how to farm...
...Ponader, one of five attorneys representing Prudential in the suit, believes the plaintiffs "aren't happy because they haven't got any money out of us and don't want us to have the right to irrigate at all...
...Wanda Prohosky's prized apple orchard is dying because the roots cannot obtain adequate moisture from the soil...
...The Kostas and Prohoskys are among those farmers whose subsidies are being reduced...
...When water returned, it was blackened with sulfur and undrinkable...
...Judge Allen Sharp issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the use of endguns—center pivot attachments designed to spray the remote corners of fields...
...But Prudential dug deep wells and installed fifty center-pivot irrigation rigs, which are mobile, circular sprinkler systems...
...My God, that would gag a maggot," a relative once remarked of the sulfur...
...The odor engulfs their home...
...In 1984, five sinkholes appeared on property farmed by Wayne Cupp, adjacent to Prudential's ground...
...It is not amusing, however, for the policyholders of the company for whose benefit this investment has been made, many of whom are Indiana residents...
...The Prudential solution proved ephemeral...
...On the complaint of the Prohoskys, the rig was temporarily stopped, and water returned a few hours later to their pipes...
...Prudential obligates its tenants to "maximize" production by using costly machinery and irrigation methods, paid for by the company, to cultivate soils that are unsuited to cultivation...
...Left high and dry by the company's escalating irrigation were the expensive new "good neighbor" wells...
...But for the most affected Indiana residents, Prudential's investment has been a disaster...
...Their deep and powerful pull temporarily distorts the flow of a region's groundwater, interrupting the horizontal movement of the water and causing it to rise vertically in the sprinklers...
...The purchase was prompted by an exhibit at the Indiana State Fair promoting the irrigation of "Plain-field" soil, which is sandy and has little water-holding capacity...
...taxpayers are underwriting the company's practice of plowing and irrigating lands ill-suited for crops...
...Most farmers, unable to raise a decent crop on such soil, leave it in pastureland...
...Of course, our crops aren't getting the water they need...
...The deeper these were, the lower the quality of the water that rose to the surface...
...buying 23,000 acres of land in Jasper and Newton counties for $24 million...
...Down the road from the Prohoskys, Phyllis and Ed Kosta live on a ninety-six-acre farm a half mile east of Prudential's land...
...We planted the same variety, Tl 100, we planted in 1980 during a true drought...
...Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Conservation and Stabilization Service announced that irrigators are now eligible for the subsidies at a rate one-third higher than nonirrigators, who make up the majority of farmers in the region, because crop yields on irrigated acres are higher than on nonirrigated acres...
...At the Kostas, water comes through the tap bearing black chunks and particles of sulfur...
...They irrigate twenty-four hours a day, even when it's raining," says Arlene...
...In testimony before the 1981 Indiana General Assembly, Prudential opposed any regulation of groundwater use: "It may amuse some people if Prudential, after making a large capital investment like this, is forced to curtail its operation in whole or in part," the company claimed...
...Prudential has made 7,000 acres of absolute wasteland, what was theretofore useless land, bloom," he claims...
...Irrigation with center pivots overcomes the natural limitations of the soil, providing a "life-support" system for crops...
...Prudential's endguns frequently malfunctioned and "irrigated" roads and ditches...
...They drilled a replacement well at twice the depth of their original wells, but the new water is suited only for flushing the toilet...
...The demand for bottled water in these small farming communities is so great that several local merchants have raised the price...
...I doubt our wells will ever return...
...There is growing concern that Prudential's irrigation is not only an extraordinary inconvenience and economic hardship, but a public health hazard as well...
...Phyllis Kosta, who serves as president of the Jasper County Farmers' Union, has pushed for state legislation to conserve and regulate the use of groundwater...
...Old wells are typically located in the bedrock aquifer, fifty to 100 feet beneath the water table, and are for household or livestock use only...
...Other changes cannot be as easily measured...
...Phyl-lis's grown children refuse to enter the house when visiting...
...Center pivots also increase the market value of the land...
...Instead, the insurance giant is installing costly irrigation systems on previously idle land, taking advantage of an array of tax breaks and farm subsidies...
...The company arrived in the area in 1979...
...Under 1981 tax legislation, the company can deduct 10 per cent of the cost for new work-related equipment—irrigation rigs, tractors—and can deduct the entire cost of work-related operations over a five-year period...
...Prudential's installation of center pivots qualifies the company for several tax deductions...
...no such increase was found...
...In northwest Indiana, Prudential's policy is exacting a particularly heavy toll on neighboring small-scale farmers...
...But this water was brown, sandy, and unfit to drink...
...We're struggling as it is...
...Center pivots can reach up to 200 acres at a time...
...The Kostas' clothes smell, and their household fixtures and appliances are corroding...
...Prudential never turns their rigs off...
...1984 was not a drought year, yet we're down fifty bushels per acre from 1980," says Phyllis Kosta...
...Prudential, which prides itself on its "good neighbor" policy, offered to pay the Prohoskys and others half the cost of new replacement wells that would tap deeper into the receding water supply...
...The Kostas and Prohoskys and thirty-six other farm families from Newton and Jasper counties have filed a Federal civil suit against Prudential that asks for a permanent injunction to restrict the company's irrigation activities and for $100 million in punitive and actual damages...
...Their old, trustworthy wells went temporarily dry when the center pivots were in use...
...The judge chastised Prudential for its "very distasteful and disagreeably indifferent attitude" and ordered a court monitor to observe the company's irrigation activities during the 1984 season...
...But now that the market in farmland is declining, Prudential is not relying on inflation to guarantee a return on its land investments...
...Farmers who asked for an appeal hearing were denied one by the Government...
...While there are no fatal health effects from the sulfur, it can cause nausea, diarrhea, and other dysentery-like symptoms...
...This year, the plaintiffs will have a jury trial to make their case that Prudential's irrigation is a "malicious and gratuitous" use of water...
...And the water level in area ditches, ponds, and rivers is far lower than normal...
...Beginning this year, Prudential can become a full participant in Federal price-support and set-aside programs...
Vol. 49 • February 1985 • No. 2
