A 16-year-old girl in Trinidad, Texas, stepped into her shower on May 28 and came out with what doctors later described as severe chemical burns. Her parents say the city never warned them it was changing the chemicals in the water supply. And when local residents started asking questions, city officials arrested the people doing the asking.
The girl, whose name has not been released, first noticed something wrong after showering at the family's home in Trinidad, a town of fewer than 1,000 people. Not knowing what caused the pain, she took two more showers trying to ease it, and her skin grew worse each time.
Her parents, David and Misty Logan, brought her to Children's Health Dallas, where a doctor's note stated the diagnosis plainly: "Most likely chemical burns/severe dermatitis from water she was exposed to, and unknown to her of the treatment done to the water, she kept re-exposing herself, which triggered the reaction." The city, it turned out, had been in the process of changing a disinfectant in its water system. The Logans say they were never told.
David Logan told the Daily Mail and Fox 4 News that he believes the water caused his daughter's injuries. An attorney for the family provided Fox 4 with a preliminary water test strip that showed what was described as "dangerous" levels of free chlorine in the Logan family's water.
"This is not a laughing matter. I do strongly believe that this, with my daughter, had something to do with the water."
Misty Logan was more direct. She said on social media that she was "so angry at the city of Trinidad" and that she had received no notice of any changes to the water treatment.
"They had put chemicals in our water. I was never notified of that being done."
She added: "We don't need anyone else getting sick, let alone burned from chemicals that are being put in our water."
The family is now considering a lawsuit against the city. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has opened an investigation into Trinidad's water. City officials scheduled a water workshop for Thursday to receive a report from Aqua Services, the company servicing the town's water, but Misty Logan claimed on social media that nobody showed up.
The Logan family's ordeal did not happen in a vacuum. Residents of Trinidad had been raising concerns about their water since at least April, when an independent journalist named Jennifer Combs posted on Facebook claiming that residents had been hospitalized due to bacteria in the water. Combs encouraged people to report whether their water was "discolored," had a "strong odor," or whether they had "experienced related health issues."
Roughly two weeks after Combs' post, the city issued a boil water advisory. Trinidad Police Chief Charles Gregory said the advisory was a "precautionary measure" due to "low chlorine residual levels" in parts of the system.
Then, instead of addressing the water concerns, the city went after Combs.
Gregory arrested her last month on a felony false alarm charge. He called the case "cut and dry" and said her claims "are simply false and have only caused unnecessary fear and confusion in our community."
A Henderson County grand jury disagreed. It declined to indict Combs.
Combs has since filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Trinidad and Gregory. Her attorneys argued in the filing that she did nothing wrong, and that the arrest was retaliation for journalism the city didn't like.
"Mrs Combs did not fabricate an emergency. She did not summon emergency responders. She did not trigger evacuations. She reported, accurately and in good faith, what community members had told her about the safety of their water, performing the most basic and constitutionally valued function as a journalist."
Her lawyers described the arrest as "an act of deliberate political retaliation."
Combs was not the only person the city targeted. After her arrest, a citizen journalist named Winston Noles showed up outside Trinidad City Hall to protest. He carried a sign containing expletives directed at "bad cops." For that, he was taken into custody and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct.
Trinidad Municipal Judge Shellena Bivens threw the case out. She said she saw no evidence that the city's water clerk, Colby Reyes, was offended by Noles' actions, the basis prosecutors had used for the charge.
"You know he was peacefully protesting. He didn't break the law."
What happened next tells you everything about how Trinidad's leadership handled dissent. Both Bivens and Reyes were fired from their city positions.
Bivens told Fox 4 she stood by her record: "I'm a good judge. I'm a d*** good judge." She said she is now considering legal action against the city.
Reyes filed her own lawsuit. She claims she was terminated because she "refused to lie" on behalf of Gregory and City Administrator Cynthia Dosier. In her filing, Reyes stated that she was "never offended" by Noles, directly contradicting the story that had been used to justify his arrest. She further alleges that Gregory publicly fabricated the claim that she was frightened by Noles in order to have grounds to take him into custody.
Consider the sequence. Residents complained about the water. A journalist amplified those complaints on social media. The city arrested the journalist on a felony charge. A grand jury refused to indict. A protester showed up and was arrested on a misdemeanor. The municipal judge dismissed the case. Then the city fired the judge and the clerk whose testimony undermined the arrest.
Meanwhile, a teenage girl ended up in a Dallas hospital with chemical burns from her own shower. Her family says they got no warning. A preliminary test strip showed dangerous chlorine levels in their water. And the state environmental agency has now stepped in to investigate.
At a May 28 city council meeting, Gregory insisted he had "nothing to hide" regarding the arrests of Combs and Noles. The lawsuits, the firings, the grand jury's refusal to indict, and the hospitalized teenager suggest there is quite a bit left to explain.
A law firm representing Reyes is now working with Consumer Wellness Center Labs to organize free independent water testing for residents on the city's water supply. That effort, organized by private attorneys, not the city, may tell Trinidad's residents more about what's in their water than their own government has bothered to share.
The people of Trinidad, Texas, are not asking for much. They want to know what's in their water. They want to be told before the city changes the chemicals flowing through their pipes. They want to be able to ask questions without getting arrested.
Those are not radical demands. They are the bare minimum a local government owes the people it serves.
Instead, Trinidad's leadership arrested a journalist, arrested a protester, fired a judge who followed the law, and fired a clerk who refused to go along with a false story. All while a teenager was being treated for chemical burns at a children's hospital.
When a town of fewer than 1,000 people manages to produce this many lawsuits, this many firings, and this much retaliation, all while its water remains under state investigation, the problem isn't the people asking questions. It's the officials who decided the questions were the threat.
