Homeowners in Vandiver, Alabama, say their well water is still unsafe to drink after an Alabama Power fiber optic drilling project near Lake View Circle left them without usable water and forced deeper replacements. Peter Adkins, one of the residents affected, said the trouble has dragged on for about a year and a half.
Adkins said his own well once measured 86 feet deep and now reaches around 400 feet, after the wells he and his neighbors relied on ran dry in January of last year. Court documents say the Alabama Power drilling project caused the wells to dry up, and the company later drilled deeper wells and restored water to the homes.
But the homeowners say the repair has not fixed the problem. They say the water still smells bad, leaves iron stains in sinks and clothes, and has turned Adkins’ wife’s hair orange. “It’s worse than you could ever think,” he said. “It smells. It is dying our sinks; it’s dying our clothes. And my wife here, she is putting highlights in her hair and the iron in the water is making it turn orange.”
Adkins said the family has kept pushing for answers while the water quality remains the same. “We have been and we have answered and done everything out. Alabama power company has asked us to do as presenting that history, staff, doctors and all this stuff. And they still haven’t reached out to us and tell us, okay, we’re going to do this. Do this to help y’all’s water situation. But as of today, we still got bad iron, bad smell in our water. And it’s just aggravate,” he said.
Alabama Power said each well underwent extensive testing for water quantity and quality under the supervision of hydrogeologic experts before connection and again after residents reported concerns. The company said it understands the situation caused challenges, that it has restored water and provided new wells to all impacted residents, and that homeowners have elected to continue litigation. The dispute now centers on whether the deeper wells solved the damage or simply replaced one problem with another.
For the families on Lake View Circle, that answer matters now because the water still coming out of the tap is the same water they say they cannot trust.