Dark side to the lakes

To the Editor:

I would like to share my stories about growing up in Fairmont. It was a great town and I have a lot of happy memories from growing up on Hall Lake but there is a dark side to the lakes. I know the lakes were dredged to make them deeper and improve the fishing for tourism. This was never a witch hunt to shame the powers that be in Fairmont.

It was a reckless act and I, in my beliefs, want to explain my position. I petitioned the Federal Super Fund to test the spoil sites to find out what was dredged out of those lakes. They believed my theories enough to come test the spoil sites and produce a 1″ thick book which was shared with City members with a report stating the 40-50 chemicals were still hot in the spoil sites after 30 years. My dad, a 30-year employee of 3M, recognized the named chemicals in the report. He felt the chemicals could have come from 3M and a chemical sales company based in Fairmont. I had four people in my immediate family and a wife of 40 years die from various cancers. I believe in their puberty when the lakes were being dredged the water supply was toxic, as if an egg beater was whipping up carcinogens in the water supply. Damaged cells awakened years later and became cancerous. The answer to all of this was to use deeper wells for drinking water supply rather than the lakes. A number of my classmates have had immediate family members, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers die prematurely. I wish someone would join me in trying to make the needed changes in Fairmont to improve the water supply and make it safer and make Fairmont a safer place to live.

Regards,

Mark Young

Fairmont High School class of 1974

Amery, Wis.