{"id":235479,"date":"2026-03-25T07:13:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/235479\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T07:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T07:13:15","slug":"contaminated-water-from-california-prison-sickens-residents-of-nearby-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/235479\/","title":{"rendered":"Contaminated water from California prison sickens residents of nearby town"},"content":{"rendered":"

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)\u2014independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it.\u00a0Donate<\/a>\u00a0to sustain Prism\u2019s mission and the humans behind it.<\/p>\n

Last July, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) held a series of town halls inside Mule Creek State Prison intended to be run-of-the-mill information sessions on colon cancer. Incarcerated attendees packed the hall on the prison\u2019s E yard with other health concerns in mind: Two months earlier, an investigation<\/a> by The Appeal circulated through the facility about a severe environmental and infrastructural breakdown at Mule Creek, which incarcerated people believed had poisoned their water and impacted their health.<\/p>\n

Many had questions pertaining to serious medical conditions, frustrations regarding care provided, the status of the water, and what appeared to be an increase in the number of people suffering from thyroid and kidney ailments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not zone in on cancers that people are getting?\u201d some attendees asked. CDCR officials didn\u2019t have an answer.<\/p>\n

What the incarcerated attendees didn\u2019t know was that similar meetings had been unfolding in the surrounding town of Ione, whose City Hall was located just three miles from the prison. Increasingly, Ione residents had been attending monthly City Council meetings to demand answers about their own health issues that they believed to be linked to the prison, from thyroid cancer to leukemia to elevated childhood cancer rates.<\/p>\n

These frustrations reached a fever pitch during a session<\/a> in November. \u201cThis city needs to provide a true and accurate diagram of what is going on out there,\u201d one local said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI want these issues looked into; we need answers,\u201d said another.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city needs to grow a pair and take care of this problem,\u201d said another resident, \u201cbecause it will get worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water in our sink is orange or black\u201d<\/p>\n

An investigation<\/a> published by The Appeal revealed that people at Mule Creek have been drinking poisoned water for decades. The prison, which opened in 1987, had aggressively expanded over the years to hold more prisoners and industrial worksites where incarcerated people labored for pennies on the hour<\/a>. These worksites\u2014from welding to meat-packing to textile manufacturing\u2014produced increasing amounts of toxic sewage and industrial wastewater that the prison infrastructure was not equipped to treat. That stress, in conjunction with a poorly built underground piping system, caused significant leakage and cross contamination.<\/p>\n

Testimonials from nearly 100 people, including currently and formerly incarcerated people, their loved ones, and former prison staff, have since revealed 20 years of health and water quality concerns that the CDCR and other state agencies have repeatedly deflected, ignored, and denied. Mule Creek residents reported that the water would often taste \u201coff\u201d and leave a black residue on drinking glasses if left overnight, according to The Appeal report, and many developed illnesses they did not have before entering prison, from mysterious rashes to kidney issues to cancer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But those inside Mule Creek haven\u2019t been the only ones affected by the polluted water. Residents, former prison staff, and local politicians living in the nearby town of Ione\u2014who, like those in other rural \u201cprison towns\u201d across the country, were sold the prison\u2019s construction and expansion as an economic benefit\u2014have also grown increasingly concerned with the environmental contamination and public health in their community. Though the people of Ione possess more resources than those behind bars to address these concerns, they still face a profound lack of accountability from the CDCR and state agencies responsible for monitoring their water quality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel betrayed,\u201d said Tammy Meza, a retired prison staffer whose 3-year-old grandson lives near the prison and has leukemia. \u201cYou think not everyone is affected [and] put your blinders on and cover your ears. It is a small price for some, not all, to pay for the luxury of a quiet environment, a beautiful and untouched place to raise your children that\u2019s free of violence. But now that this has affected my grandson, this is all coming full circle, this is all making sense, and this is all not right.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meza worked for the CDCR for 35 years. For 18 of those years, she belonged to Mule Creek\u2019s Inmate Grievances Department, where she often received water- and health-related complaints from prison residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOn and off, throughout the years \u2026 inmates would say, \u2018The water in our sink\u2014 which is our only form of drinking water\u2014is orange or black,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThey were demanding bottled water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Meza, the CDCR\u2019s response to these complaints was \u201cit\u2019s not our problem.\u201d Meza also said that most prison staff brought bottled water to work to avoid drinking the tap water. Incarcerated people at Mule Creek have no access to bottled water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During her employment in 2020, Meza had been unaware that an environmental lawsuit<\/a> had been filed against the CDCR over Mule Creek\u2019s failing infrastructure and the environmental impact across Ione. The lawsuit revealed that the prison consistently dumped millions of gallons of highly contaminated stormwater into Mule Creek, which cuts through the prison and into Ione. Despite a settlement<\/a> in 2021, the illegal dumping didn\u2019t stop. In April 2025, the prison spilled another 177,000 gallons of waste into the creek.<\/p>\n

Meza only learned of this lawsuit a year into her retirement, after her family had already received devastating news: In the summer of 2024, her grandson Jesse, 18 months old at the time, was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.<\/p>\n

They were not the only family in Ione facing such news. Seven months prior to Jesse\u2019s diagnosis, then-11-month-old Brooks Costello was diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia, a rare and aggressive blood cancer. Brooks and his family lived a block away from Jesse and his family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started questioning why two boys, one street apart, within a month of birth\u2014is there any kind of environmental stuff that could be connected?\u201d said Anna Lee, Jesse\u2019s mother and Meza\u2019s daughter. Lee was shocked to find extensive reporting<\/a> by the local newspaper, the Ledger Dispatch, about the prison\u2019s history of environmental contamination in Ione and its potential connection to childhood cancer cases<\/a>. Lee also learned that the prison sent some of its wastewater to irrigate<\/a> the Castle Oaks Golf Course near her home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI worked at the prison in 2017, my mom retired from there in 2023 \u2026 so it was very alarming when we found these articles,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe reached out to [Amador County Public Health] and they said the state would look into it, and that was where it died.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Ione City Council and the CDCR did not respond to Prism\u2019s requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A lack of accountability<\/p>\n

Since summer 2024, Amador County Public Health<\/a>, which oversees public health in Ione, has repeatedly failed to provide a representative for an interview. Then, in a written statement sent in December 2025, the agency stated that \u201cchildhood leukemia incidence in Amador County from 2011 to 2021 is comparable to both California and national rates across sex and racial\/ethnic demographics\u201d and that \u201cno studies have identified specific environmental exposures in Amador County that are directly linked to an increased risk of childhood leukemia.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It seemed that, when it came to the safety of the prison\u2019s drinking water, the CDCR, Amador Water Agency, Amador County Public Health, the local Regional Water Quality Control Board, and the California Water Resources Control Board all denied responsibility. Ione residents also found that no state agency was offering to help. In 2018, Jim Scully and a few neighbors living on rural properties within a mile of the prison learned from the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board that their wells tested positive for toxic chemicals linked to the prison<\/a>, such as benzoic acid and bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, the latter of which is a human carcinogen<\/a>. A similar instance occurred in 2006, said Rocky Costa, a local property owner, when his well across the street from the prison tested positive for chemicals linked to the prison\u2019s dry cleaning plant, which closed soon after. At the time, the county outfitted the property with a drinking water line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This time, in Scully\u2019s case, no drinking water line was provided, and neither was any regular testing or remediation efforts provided by the state. In fact, according to the Ledger Dispatch, the CDCR ultimately refused an order<\/a> to monitor and test seven wells the prison had contaminated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese chemical tests are very expensive and really only the state can afford to do them,\u201d Scully\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Scully, who exclusively drank from his well until 2018, was diagnosed with leukemia in August 2025. \u201cIt\u2019s like being hit upside the head with a baseball bat,\u201d he said. \u201cThe first thing on my mind: How many years had I drank that water?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Another Ione resident, Rich Gonzales, lives on a more suburban property directly off the Castle Oaks Golf Course with a protected drinking water line. Yet, in the summer of 2024, he was diagnosed with spindle cell thyroid carcinoma, an extremely rare cancer. Though doctors have since removed his thyroid and 168 lymph nodes since September 2024, they expect the cancer will soon spread to his lungs.<\/p>\n

Gonzales recalled that when the golf course was irrigated with prison water about eight years ago, it smelled like raw sewage. \u201cWe could not go into our backyard for about a week and a half,\u201d he said. He also recalled a broken pipe behind his property on the golf course that developed a standing puddle for several years. He now believes it was contaminated, but had no idea about the lawsuit against the prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think hardly anybody\u2019s aware of anything like that, because they kept it quiet,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s impossible to link an illness to an exact environmental cause\u2014especially since Ione has a long history of mining, which can also adversely impact community health\u2014local observers point out that the incidence of these illnesses is concentrated in specific areas directly surrounding the golf course and prison. Ione\u2019s former Mayor and current Vice Mayor Stacy Rhoades, who has long spoken against the prison contamination,\u00a0said the state has provided limited resources to Ione residents and has not conducted environmental testing since the lawsuit against the prison was settled in 2021<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee and Ashley Costello founded Amador\u2019s Heart of Gold<\/a> in response to their sons\u2019 cancer diagnoses, as a way to support families and raise awareness around local childhood cancers. In the past two years alone, they found seven cases of childhood cancer diagnosed across the county, three of whom resided in Ione at the time of their diagnosis. Ione\u2019s childhood cancer rate, according to their calculations, is nearly 20 times the national average.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If this was a corporation it would be stopped, but this is a prison. The state agencies don\u2019t really police each other; they\u2019re here to police you and me.<\/p>\n

Ron Curran, retired correctional officer at Mule Creek State Prison<\/p>\n

For many residents, including former prison staff, the lack of support and accountability mirrors the everyday reality for incarcerated people. \u201cIf this was a corporation it would be stopped, but this is a prison,\u201d said retired Mule Creek correctional officer Ron Curran. \u201cThe state agencies don\u2019t really police each other; they\u2019re here to police you and me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to an email detailing health concerns made by Ione residents, Amador County Public Health said, \u201cAmador County Public Health takes the concerns of our citizens seriously. We have been and continue working with state and regional agencies to investigate the situation in the Ione area.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The fight continues\u00a0<\/p>\n

One man had no doubt that his illness was linked to the prison, and he fought against Mule Creek until his death in November. David Anderson, a former contractor hired to install a culvert at the prison in 2012, was the original whistleblower<\/a> who sparked the Ledger Dispatch\u2019s water contamination reporting. He believed that exposure to toxic soil and wastewater on site led to a range of health issues he and his crew experienced during and after the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anderson never fully recovered; he was eventually diagnosed with gastroparesis and hospitalized for full body sepsis. Despite these conditions, he continued to speak<\/a> at City Council meetings, reaching out to state and public health representatives, and calling out the CDCR. In an interview with Prism before his death, he maintained that the scope of contamination was greater than the state had let on, and that the prison\u2019s infrastructure could not be fixed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anderson\u2019s outlook in the summer of 2025, only a few months before his death, was grim. \u201cThere\u2019s no leadership involved here at all, from the state level or locally, just nobody taking responsibility for what\u2019s going on,\u201d he told Prism. \u201cAnd when you look at it closely, it\u2019s just abject evil.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similar to Anderson, at least one other illness cluster emerged among people who worked at Mule Creek. Steve Dill, Aaron Weaver, and Mike Foeldi worked in the central health building. Within a few years, all three were diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer. Weaver was diagnosed in August 2019 and died in December 2020. Foeldi was diagnosed in spring 2023 and died in June 2024. Dill received his diagnosis in 2020, entered a clinical trial, and received a bone marrow transplant in 2021. The cancer is incurable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still here in my cancer,\u201d Dill said grimly. \u201cThe prison is the problem. They ought to address it, but they\u2019re not doing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaver left behind a wife and young children, while Foeldi had a fianc\u00e9e, a fellow correctional officer, now retired, who he had met at Mule Creek. Both women expressed profound grief and lingering uncertainty around the group\u2019s diagnoses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought, God this is strange. But we didn\u2019t know what to do,\u201d said Foeldi\u2019s fianc\u00e9e, Heather Ellis.<\/p>\n

Julie Kingston-Weaver, Aaron\u2019s wife, said he was \u201c100 percent\u201d convinced his illness was linked to the prison, because he was otherwise healthy before he started working there. While doctors ultimately couldn\u2019t confirm his work environment was the cause, they couldn\u2019t rule it out either.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has to be a connection, and it\u2019s really frustrating,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel like I was robbed. My kids were robbed.\u201d<\/p>\n

To this day, the Ione City Council still seems torn by the water contamination issue. In September, during a special meeting closed to the public, the board at first voted 3-2<\/a> to resume irrigating the Castle Oaks Golf Course with water from the prison. Rhoades, the vice mayor, was outraged.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minute that water touches the golf course, I want samples \u2026 and I will take them in for testing,\u201d he told Prism. A City Council member then changed his mind, creating a majority against delivering prison water to the golf course.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the issue remains in contention, more and more Ione residents are understanding that their role in this David versus Goliath fight, much like those incarcerated at Mule Creek, is to continue to speak out despite fear of retaliation or negligence from the CDCR.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI see this as nothing short of a battle between good and evil,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cWe\u2019re just trying to do something that\u2019s honest and protects everybody\u2019s health and safety, and they\u2019re just indifferent.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Right to Write (R2W) project is an editorial initiative where Prism works with incarcerated writers to share their reporting and perspectives across our verticals and coverage areas. Learn more about R2W and how to pitch\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Editorial Team:
Rikki Li, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor<\/p>\n

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