Getting diagnosed with cancer is a life altering moment. Imagine learning three people in your family have cancer and it is probably a result of drinking contaminated water. That is what the Miller family, formerly of New Brighton, Minnesota, is currently experiencing.

Lisa Miller, mother of three, is only 40 years old yet she has battled brain cancer twice. Her cancer–which had been in remission for two years – is now back. Doug, her husband, was diagnosed in 2002 with chronic, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Lisa’s mom, Lynne, was diagnosed with bone cancer of the face. This is a cancer so rare there are only 10 cases in the world according to the Mayo clinic. “What are the chances I get a brain tumor and others in my family get cancer? We have no history of cancer in my family. ” states Lisa.

Lisa’s family moved to New Brighton when she was two and lived there for the past 20 years. In 1981, it was discovered New Brighton’s municipal water was contaminated with high levels of toxic chemicals from a former Army Ammunition Plant in Arden Hills. One of the chemicals, TCE, was reported to still be 600 times higher than the federal standard in 2007. TCE is used mainly as a degreaser to clean metal parts. Health effects from TCE exposure include cancer, birth defects and genetic damage.

In the past couple of years, Lisa started researching the water contamination in her former community. “People in my old neighborhood started getting cancer in the last ten years. One neighbor had breast cancer, another neighbor’s child had cancer, another person on the block had breast cancer. People all along my old block and a nearby block were getting cancer. I became really upset and wondered, did I get this from the water?”

While the municipal water in New Brighton is now filtered and considered safe, the legacy of the TCE contamination continues to unfold. What happened there is occurring in numerous communities across the U.S. Water is contaminated but the health effects do not develop in people until sometimes decades later, often after people have moved from the contaminated area. “It’s unbelievable how our lives have changed; it’s hard to take in. Things have to change for the safety of everyone’s health.”

Do your part to stop this from happening again.

Visit http://www.cleanwateraction.org/programinitiative/healthy-legacy to learn more about toxins in water and what you can do to create a healthy legacy.