Home FEATURE STORY Ruben Luna Bruce Brummel Libby Thompson Bill Sinn Dave Erickson Tom Schultz Anna Sutton Anonymous Dana Weese Bill Fleming Update:Nicor denies contamination issue again Denise CrosbyDenise Crosby weighs in. Find out more. The Documents View Gallery Download .pdfs The Culprit? Workers at the Nicor plant in Aurora believe methylene chloride was leaking into drinking water at the plant How can your water go bad ? Without a fairly simple device, it’s easy for polluted water to back up into your shower. Download the page Read More Peril in the pipes Backflow problems have had serious consequences in the United States. Find out more. Additional Links Nicor Co. Information via Google Nicor Corporate Homepage OSHA Homepage Credits Story by:
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Bill Fleming, 54 Employee: 1976 - about 1994 Two months ago, doctors gave Bill Fleming two months to live. Now, he’s hoping another few radiation treatments will buy him a few more months. Bill Fleming is trying to remember the year he left Nicor. It was either 1994 or 1995; he just can’t be positive anymore. A lot of those sorts of details are escaping him lately. The grinding headaches, the constant buzzing in the background — they make it hard for him to concentrate on questions or give the right answer. Sometimes he picks a random word that only sounds like the one he means.

“It sucks when you can’t communicate,” the 54-year-old Warrenville resident says.

Fleming has concerns much bigger than losing words. There is a large mass in the his left lung and another mass crowding between the front of his skull and his brain. Two months ago, doctors gave him two months to live.

Fleming is practical about the diagnosis.

“What’s to deal with? They say you’re dead,” he said. “The brain is going to shut down. That’s all there is to it.” Two months ago, doctors gave Bill Fleming two months to live. Now, he’s hoping another few radiation treatments will buy him a few more months. Dana Weese worked at Nicor’s Aurora facility from 1993 to 1995. She was shocked when she found out that other former Nicor employees were suffering from the same pains and digestive problems she has dealt with for years. “I just can’t believe how many of us are sick,” she said.

Now, friends are saddened to see the man they once called “the Wolfman.” When he worked repairing gas lines at Nicor’s Aurora plant from 1985 until he left the company, he was known for his hair.

“He had a head of hair like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever,” said friend and former co-worker Bruce Brummel. “He didn’t have a gray hair on his head.”

Now, seven ineffective radiation treatments have left him nearly bald. He doesn’t know who, or what, to blame for most of his illnesses. He has heard other Nicor workers believe the water made them sick, a claim the company denies.

And Fleming did fill his water jug with ice made at the River Street building, but he also handled mercury during his early years on the job.

At this point in what’s left of his life, the cause isn’t as important as the result. “I smoked cigarettes, so the lung is my fault, but the rest of this stuff — I didn’t do that,” he said. “All this (stuff) kicked in at once. Hopefully, I’ll be 55 in another month.