http://www.stjoenews-press.com/12-16-99/Lo19.shtml

html impaired- Linkmeister,if you would ,please.

3 Plattsburg officials indicted on federal charges

St. Joseph News-Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A federal grand jury in Kansas City indicted three current or former Plattsburg, Mo., city officials Wednesday for allegedly conspiring to submit false reports to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources about the city's water quality.

The grand jury indictment charged Fred C. Vanderau, 54, Tommy R. Eads Jr., 28, and Donald R. Smith, 51, with one felony count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and two felony counts of making false statements to the United States.

U.S. Attorney Stephen L. Hill Jr. of Missouri's Western District announced the indictments in a news release his office issued late Wednesday afternoon.

If convicted as charged, the men could each face maximum sentences of 15 years in prison without parole and up to $750,000 in fines.

At the time of the alleged offenses, December 1998 and January 1999, Mr. Vanderau was the water treatment plant supervisor for the city of Plattsburg. Mr. Eads was the city's public works director. Mr. Smith was the city administrator.

Contamination in Plattsburg's water caused an unspecified number of residents to become ill with flu-like symptoms in December 1998 and January 1999.

According to the charges, at the time of the alleged offenses, the city was required to submit monthly water quality reports to the Department of Natural Resources, the state agency authorized to enforce the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

The indictment alleges that the men conspired to submit false reports to the Department of Natural Resources for December 1998 and January 1999, according to the news release.

It further charges that the reports for those months falsely reflected that samples from Plattsburg's water treatment plant tested at or below the department's acceptable levels for turbidity, which is a measurement of suspended particles in water.

According to Department of Natural Resources rules, if turbidity exceeds a certain level, a city should issue warnings or boil orders to notify residents to boil water before they drink it.

The city didn't issue any boil orders to its residents during those months.

Mr. Vanderau and Mr. Eads, with Mr. Smith's knowledge, allegedly tried unsuccessfully during those two months to correct Plattsburg's high turbidity levels, then met on numerous occasions and mutually agreed not to report the high levels to the Department of Natural Resources, according to the news release.

Mr. Vanderau and Mr. Smith no longer work for the city. All of the men are from Plattsburg.

Mr. Vanderau and Mr. Smith didn't immediately return calls to their residences on Wednesday evening. Mr. Eads couldn't be reached for comment.

FYI-Plattsburg,Missouri is an exurb a few miles northwest of Kansas City MO/KS.

This story has been gathering momentum for several months.While it may not be strictly y2k related,it illustrates that TPTB will on occasion fib to their constituents.

-- Sam (Wtrmkr52@aol.com), December 16, 1999

Answers

I think this could be classified as an outbreak of cannibalism.

YumKook

-- Y2Kook (Y2Kook@usa.net), December 16, 1999.

link

Of course, it also shows that the system can be self-correcting. Three water department officials are not what you usually think of as TPTB

-- link learner (practice@html.xxx), December 16, 1999.

Turbidity, now theres a word I haven't heard in a while. On sub's we used to test for turbidity to find contamination of the "clean" steam system water. And they faked the test's. What are the chances of any of the vast number of water treatment facilities doing the same thing come January?

-- Squid (ItsDark@down.here), December 16, 1999.

To quote Crocodile Dundee...

"BETTER THAN AVERAGE"

-- (Kurt.Borzel@gems8.gov.bc.ca), December 16, 1999.