Growing up in the historic Whitted area of Narcoossee, Tracy Paul remembers they were always warned to be careful of the water from her family's private well.
“We were always told not to drink the water. We didn’t know why,” Paul said.
Now, Paul, 55, does know why. Wells in Whitted are contaminated enough to pose a potential health risk to residents, according to the Florida Department of Health assessment from last year.
Groundwater in this area of Oseola County contains high concentrations of arsenic and PFOS, a type of PFAS or forever chemical, according to water samples collected in 2022.
“Well water of some residents surrounding the site containing arsenic and PFOS could potentially lead to (excess) cancer risk and increased noncancer health effects,” according to the health department’s 2024 assessment. “Showering exposure alone is not of concern, however when combined with drinking exposure there is an increased health risk.”
Growing up, “I remember we played in the water. We took showers. We took baths,” Paul said, reflecting on what she now knows is in the water.
She said she can’t help but think of the tests her doctors keep running to try and determine the source of Paul’s autoimmune disorder.
“They can't figure out what's causing it. And I'm sitting here in my life, going back, thinking: ‘Did I [ever] drink the water?’ ” Paul said. “Because I’ve lived in the Narcoossee area my entire life.”
The part of Narcoossee known as Whitted is historically Black, settled by a group of young families who migrated from North Carolina in 1886, the year before Osceola County was established. Paul descends from two of those pioneer families: Paul and Whitted, the area’s namesake.
Older Black generations were more likely to obey directions without question, Paul said, pointing to her maternal grandparents as an example. Stanley Jr. and Christine Whitted served as longtime deacons for the nearby St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church, a neighborhood fixture now more than 130 years old.
“They believed in the Lord for healing and the Lord for everything,” Paul said. “And they always just said, ‘Well, this is what the county told me. This is what the city told me, and we're just going to go by that.’”
But today, younger generations want more answers, Paul said.
“Us as a younger generation, well, we want to know why,” Paul said. “You're telling me I can't drink the water, but why?”
For the past few years, Paul’s cousins, twin sisters Jessica and Jennifer Paul, have been chasing down answers to not only that question, but also: Now what? How to resolve the Whitted community’s water contamination problem?
“It was a journey,” said Jessica Paul, one that began with a developer’s application to build townhomes on a vacant, overgrown site in what’s now known as the Whitted historic community. Once the Paul sisters found out about the application, they rallied their neighbors ahead of a community meeting scheduled by the county to discuss the developer’s request.
“Our folks showed up,” Jennifer Paul said.
A public hearing on the proposal had already been scheduled for later in the month, according to a flier for the June 2021 meeting. But two days before the hearing was to take place, the Osceola County Commission denied the developer’s request.
“The board did the right thing,” Osceola community development administrator Raymond Stangle said. “It wasn't appropriate use of the property adjacent to that historic neighborhood that had the larger single-family lots.”
But the Paul sisters weren’t only concerned by what might become of the old vacant site. They also worried about what that site once was — a dumping ground.
Records show the 3½-acre property was used as a landfill in the 1960s, before the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and modern environmental regulations.
As children, some of the sisters’ older relatives remembered playing on the site. Now, they worried waste materials dumped there decades ago could still be contaminating the area’s groundwater.
Initially, officials said they couldn’t confirm the existence of a dump site on the property.
“There was denial in the beginning,” said Jessica Paul.
But the Paul sisters did research, promptly finding a lease from 1964 that confirmed the site was used for “sanitary land fill and garbage disposal purposes,” likely until 1975. After that, debris on the property indicates it was still used as an uncontrolled dumping site for many years until a perimeter fence was recently installed, according to a site assessment report prepared by consultants last year for the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The department's assessment in 2022 identified high concentrations of PFAS in the soil and groundwater. Twice that year, the Florida Department of Health in Osceola tested water samples from 10 of 18 potable wells within a quarter mile of the site.
In six wells, arsenic concentrations were high enough to trigger potential health risks for residents who come into contact with the water, according to the agency’s health risk evaluation. And three wells contained concerningly high concentrations of PFOS, a type of forever chemical used in firefighting foam and many consumer products, like carpets and nonstick cookware.
Chronic arsenic exposures have been linked to higher cancer risk, specifically cancers of the lung, skin, kidney and bladder, according to FDOH Osceola’s health risk evaluation. And especially for newborns, breastfeeding mothers and children under 11 years of age, drinking the PFOS-contaminated water could lead to other health effects besides cancer, mainly immunotoxicity, per the health agency.
Concerningly high levels of both chemicals, arsenic and PFOS, were found at the historic church on Jones Road, according to the health department’s evaluation.
The Paul sisters grew up coming to St. Luke; today, so do their three children: a fifth generation of Pauls to attend the church.
“This is the heart of Narcoossee,” Jennifer said.
But the county’s overlay plan for Narcoossee doesn’t reflect the importance of the church, or the historic Whitted area: something the Paul sisters noticed when that plan first came to be several years ago.
“When we look at development plans, we should be able to see the Whitted historic community on the map,” Jennifer said. “We asked [for them] to point to us on the map. Where are we on the map? I mean, you can see the line traced where our community was outside of the line. So that's where we raised the flag.”
At that time, the Whitted area had no community name, Jennifer said, so a core group of residents came together to brainstorm one. They landed on Whitted.
Today, the county recognizes the importance of the historic Whitted area and plans to add it to the Narcoossee overlay, according to Stangle.
“They should have been included in the original [overlay],” Stangle said. “I think it was a simple oversight. Sometimes we see a neighborhood and we don't recognize the significance of it.”
But that changed after residents brought the issue to the county’s attention: “We recognize now they should be in the overlay, and we're going to get them recognized officially in our land development code,” Stangle said.
That official recognition from Osceola County will likely come within the next several months, Stangle said. First, the county will reach back out to area residents with its proposals for the area, he said. The goal would be to help preserve the area’s rural feel, keeping with the identity of the community even with future development of the surrounding area.
The Paul sisters said their love for this historic area and the people who call it home is what fuels them to speak out – about the county’s oversight with the overlay plan and Whitted’s water contamination concerns.
Although the issues aren’t directly connected, both are reflective of a historically Black community falling through the cracks.
“Over the years, we have been overlooked in the community,” Jennifer said. But “we want to see that this community is not left behind.”
Today, it still remains unclear when exactly Whitted’s water contamination issues will be resolved, despite the roughly $2.3 million set aside to move area residents off private wells and onto the city of St. Cloud’s centralized drinking water system.
At the state level, a legislative appropriation of about $1.4 million for the project last summer, and an additional $850,000 in federal funding was secured by U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, who represents the area. But the fate of that funding remains unclear.
“We're waiting for the final appropriation documents to sign,” Stangle said. “Unfortunately, since we've got the two agencies involved, we've got to get both documents signed up before we start any process.”
Once the funding is in hand, the county must follow a specific process to solicit and secure the professionals who will survey, design, permit and build Whitted’s new water distribution system, Stangle said. That will be managed by Toho Water Authority, which in 2022 took over management of St. Cloud’s water system.
Realistically, given the time frames for each step, Whitted residents are looking at several years before they’re connected to a public water supply.
PFAS contamination is a growing concern, as research increasingly sheds light on where the potentially dangerous forever chemicals turn up in our environment. In Florida, 23 counties and nearly 2,000 individual sites report the presence of PFAS at levels exceeding federal limits, according to a study published by the University of Florida last year.
But exposure to environmental problems is not equally distributed. Communities made up of mostly Black people and people of color are more likely to live in areas with drinking water violations, and to experience public health disparities as a result, according to one peer-reviewed study published late last year.
That study and others also reveal drinking water violations in diverse communities take “significantly longer” to be returned to compliance, compared to white communities. The disparity is likely due to a legacy of racialized urban planning and long-term disinvestment in water infrastructure, according to a 2023 study co-authored by University of South Florida criminology professor Michael J. Lynch.
Public drinking water systems are subject to regular compliance and monitoring, but private wells aren’t, making it easier for contamination concerns in communities like Whitted to fly under the radar. In this case, bringing light to the issue took community members speaking up.
“People always say government officials are going to do what they want to do. They do what they want to do when you're not involved in your community,” Jennifer Paul said. “So we were involved, and we had a voice. It definitely made a difference.”
Back up the street, where Tracy Paul and her husband live, the well in the backyard now has a filter to help reduce contaminants. But whenever Paul turns on the spigot, the water spurts out brown and gritty with sand.
Just like when she was a child, Paul doesn’t drink the well water; she and her husband rely on the bottled water they buy. Still, she’s more than ready for a change, and a safe drinking water source.
One silver lining for Paul: the sense of validation that comes from knowing her family members were always right to be concerned.
“It feels very satisfying to know that we’re not all crazy,” Paul said. “I wish my grandparents were here to really understand, 'Hey, you were absolutely right, telling us not to drink the water.' ”
Today, she’s grateful for the knowledge she has about Whitted’s water, for the resilience of this community and for the questions her cousins weren’t afraid to raise to officials.
Paul, a member of a local historical society, said she plans to keep on asking questions — and hopes others will do the same.
“Be proactive. If you see a problem, try to ask a question,” Paul said. “One question will lead to an answer that may prompt another question. So be engaged in your community. … Ask a question.”
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