SILEX, Mo. — A Lincoln County community is under a state of emergency after unsafe levels of carcinogens were detected in the water.
At Night Owls Café in Silex, they serve the best burger in town, but this week they’ve run into a big issue.
“We can’t use the water for anything,” Will Southerland said.
People in Silex haven’t had water service since Tuesday night when the Missouri Department of Natural Resources detected unsafe levels of radium in multiple samples.
“This is a chronic contaminant that takes a while to build up in your system,” Silex Mayor Lynne Luckett said. “It is a carcinogen. It can cause cancer.”
“It’s naturally occurring and came from the rocks,” Luckett said.
Luckett said it’s still safe for people in Silex to take showers and wash their clothes.
“The water right now is not safe to drink,” Luckett said.
While the state has stepped in and demanded that Silex provide water to people in town.
“What they’re wanting us to do is provide one gallon per person per household per day, which is quite costly,” Luckett said. “The city doesn’t really have the funding for that.”
There is hope for Silex in the form of three recently purchased reverse osmosis machines.
“We’re hoping with the RO units that will bring us below the acceptable level for the EPA,” Luckett said.
Until that happens places, Southerland said Night Owls will keep purchasing purified water to keep his customers safe.
“It’s just something else to deal with,” he said. “Nothing’s easy.”
The city is working on eliminating its water system and piping in water from Pike County, but that could take up to two years.
In the meantime, the city is working to get pallets of water to give out to local residents.
They want to make it clear that radium is not something that can be boiled out of water.
