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:
Matt Hanley Photos by:
Donnell Collins
Bruce Brummel , 44 Employee: 1980-2004 Co-workers called Bruce Brummel "the overtime king." As a street crew leader at Nicor, Brummel routinely worked 70 hours a week.

"He never missed a day," said Brummel's wife, Maria. "He just felt if he didn't go in, they weren't going to make it without him."

One year, Brummel walked away from a Thanksgiving dinner when he heard about a line break. Another time, Christmas dinner was delayed until he finished an emergency job.

"He didn't think about the money," Maria said. "He would think about some little old lady without gas, without heat."

Brummel loved the company. And for two decades, Nicor loved him, too. He received steady raises and glowing performance reviews, according to co-workers.

"I'd put him as one of the top employees in my time there," said Tony Raymond, a former supervisor. "As far as I was concerned, he was one of the best workers I had."

Less than four years before he was fired, Nicor's human resources department sent him a letter, congratulating him on 20 years of service.

"It is dedicated employees such as you that help make this company the success that it is," the letter said.

Maria thought it was the stress of that intense commitment that caused her husband's health problems. Starting around 1999, Maria saw her husband — who didn't smoke and never drank more than a wedding toast — lose 35 pounds off his already thin frame. Not yet 40 years old, Bruce's bones crackled.

"I just get so weak," said Brummel, now 44. "You can't imagine. I call it the surge. If I move my body, I can feel every bone."

Brummel believes all his health problems relate back to drinking water that was contaminated by bad plumbing in his workplace, which he first noticed in June 2001.

The plumbing problems forced Brummel to bring in city inspectors in October 2003. The inspectors determined that Nicor's plumbing "poses a threat to the quality of potable water for both the employees in the building and the city."

Nicor denies it had a problem, saying the company followed all federal and local regulations.

Brummel says he faced intense scrutiny after reporting the allegedly bad water. According to his personal records, he was reviewed 24 times in eight months - including one month where he was reviewed five times.

On April 15, 2004, Brummel was fired. A letter from the human resources department says he was terminated for failure to turn in medical documents. Brummel contends that when he turned in those documents, they were ignored.

When contacted, Nicor spokesman Annette Martinez would not comment on Brummel's firing, saying the company does not disclose personal information regarding any current or former employees.

"despite the company's good faith efforts, spanning over what is now several years, involving substantial expenditure of manpower and resources," Martinez said, "it now is clear that these assertions, which have been repeatedly refuted by various agencies and independent inspections are now surfacing yet again in what appears as actions intentionally designed to portray the company in a false and disparaging light."

Brummel maintains that during those years, his life — and his health — have dramatically changed.

A scan done this February at Rush-Copley Medical Center showed the bones in his left hip and spine were found to be 25 percent below levels found in a healthy male, his age and body size. Brummel's personal doctor has him on a dozen medications that are supposed to rebuild his spine and improve his short-term memory.

Maria has witnessed every twist in her husband's downward spiral, and listened to him scream in pain at night. After two decades together, she finds herself married to a different man.

"He was a happy person," she said. "Now, he's angry, he's mad."

Brummel's eyes are sunken; his skin is plagued with rashes. He wanders through his days, hunched over in pain, an outcast, unsure who to trust. "I kept my end of the bargain up," he said of his years as a dedicated Nicor employee. "I never felt so 'carpet pulled out from under me.'" Brummel continues to push Nicor to acknowledge the problems he believes the company caused and continues to try to cover up. He spends hours every day surrounded by boxes of photocopied documents. Once obsessed with hard work, getting justice now consumes him. He watches small-dog-against-the-world movies Erin Brockovich and A Civil Action for inspiration. He organized protests in front of the Aurora and Naperville offices in April. And each morning, he starts his day in his kitchen, with the pills that are supposed to repair his spine, his memory and his joints. Then he says a prayer that might not fix anything, except his resolve. "I will never forget the scars they caused," he said. "They're not just physical."