The South Carolina Department of Public Health parallels the Aiken City government cover up of public health hazards in our drinking water. This Op Ed documents the current status in a fight for safe drinking water, where government agencies control and censor information needed for public health improvements.
Coverups Continue
Both the Aiken government and now the South Carolina government thwart legitimate investigations of serious health hazards. The Aiken government claims that requested Freedom of Information Act information (FOIA) is unavailable, yet some of that information has already been released. The South Carolina government provides partial information with fictitious excuses for refused information. Together, this blockage of information prevents adequate tracking of disease transmission to Aiken residents.
SC Department of Public Health Censorship
In response to a FOIA request, the SC DPH provided Tables 1 and 2 but refused to provide even the zip codes or dates for infected personnel, and Aiken refused to provide water main-break information for dates or locations. The DPH claims that zip codes are protected information, where 'Information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute unreasonable invasion of personal privacy'. How can such information that covers hundreds or thousands of people protect specific individuals.? Such a claim is absurd and dishonest.
Without such data, cross-referencing disease transmission to water main breaks is nearly impossible. The single case that Aiken cannot censor was recorded for an Aiken resident in an earlier Op Ed.
'In December 2019, in the kitchen of her home, she drank clear water that passed through a Brita filter, which does not filter cryptosporidiosis from drinking water. When she went upstairs to brush her teeth, she saw that brown water was flowing from the faucet in her bathroom sink. Chlorine used to disinfect drinking water has no effect on cryptosporidium, which can enter water mains during repairs and through water hammer-induced cracks.
She was ill for five days after drinking the partially filtered brown water, where cryptosporidiosis symptoms appear in two to ten days. She collapsed within several days of drinking brown water, and she was later hospitalized for four days in January 2020, and the cause of her illness was unknown for several years until it was diagnosed as cryptosporidiosis in 2023. Between December 2019 and 2023, she saw different doctors on several occasions and experienced 'severe diarrhea all the time, fatigue and zero energy', which are symptoms of cryptosporidiosis.
In 2023, the Mayor of Aiken informed her that her water was tested and was safe to drink. In other words, he falsely claimed that tests performed years after the infection event were adequate to confirm her water safety. There is no possible way that tests, at such a late date, had anything to do whatsoever with infection years earlier.'
She was also informed by the DPH that an investigation of Aiken Cryptosporidiosis cases was in process in 2023. DPH would not provide any information concerning that investigation in response to my 2025 FOIA request.'
Consistent with reported facts, evidence concludes that she was infected with cryptosporidiosis by Aiken drinking water.
From DPH data for potentially deadly cryptosporidiosis, Legionella, Listeria and Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), there is no doubt that drinking water diseases are in process in Aiken and South Carolina, but censorship thwarts public health. Note that DPH 'Aiken Brown Water Fiasco' data has been redacted, where most of Aiken was potentially exposed to infectious diseases. To withhold disease information from the public is irresponsible and dangerous.
Drinking Water Poisonings Are Here
Between 2018 and 2025, there were 22 cases of Cryptosporidiosis, 10 cases of Legionella, 3 cases of Listeria, and 33 cases of STEC. Aiken County has several water suppliers, but a drinking water safety issue is certainly present in Aiken City drinking water, as well. This Aiken and national coverup hammers forward to endanger our health.
Table 1. DPH, Aiken drinking water transmissible diseases. Aiken City data is included with Aiken County data per DPH.
(Image by SC DPH) Details DMCA
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