The lady I spoke with at DNR gave me another number to call, where I conversed with a man for awhile about my concerns about the streams and wetlands in the Animal Forest.  The man I spoke with requested me to identify what types of contaminants might be in the waters.  I speculated that the streams running through our habitat into the marsh were possibly receiving a lot of trash, gas and oil run off from the parking lot.  Next I mentioned the concerns my co-workers had about the cleaner we had been using to disinfect the animal's holding cages.  I mentioned we did not have a drainage system and the run off from this cleaner was flushed into the ground, having the potential of contaminating the waters in the animal's reserves.   And then I mentioned that the park had an unexplained alligator death in late August, 1999 in one of the animal reserves.

The man on the phone asked me what kind of cleaner we were using, and I told him about how we had recently switched to new cleaner called ZepLemonex, and the employees at the park were under instructions to use it everyday.  I also informed him about how the majority of the workers in the Animal Forest didn’t use the product as instructed, because they knew enough to understand it was both unnecessary and harmful to the immediate environment.  The man on the phone said he would go to our park that day to check out my concerns.

The next day at work, one of my co-workers informed me that a man who had come to inspect the waters in the Animal Forest was from the Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC).  He had spoken with the curator and left her a card with number where he could be reached.  I called him later that day to find out what he discovered.

He told the disinfectant that we were being instructed to use by management was not to be disposed of in the environment and these directions for use were directly stated on the label.  He had advised management to discontinue its use immediately.  He also informed me that he had kept me anonymous.  

I asked him if he had tested the water, and he confessed that he had not.  He informed me that if the water did not turn up to contain enough contaminants, it would take away from the case he was trying to build against the park.  Since most of the Animal Forest employees took it upon their own best judgement to only use the product once a week, traces of it in the water might not have been detectable.

The following week, the Curator called a staff meeting and informed us all that upper management was in the process of investigating who had called DHEC.  I figured upper management had more important things to do, like correcting the mistakes we had been making in the way we were using the disinfectant.  So I decided to come forward at the meeting and confess that I had been the one who contacted the people in hopes they would be able to test the water.  The Curator informed me that upper management would need to speak with me as soon as possible about this issue.  But two weeks went by and no one said a word to me about the situation and no one came out to test the water.

I understood why the man from DHEC had not tested the water the day he came to the park, but I was frustrated that two weeks later the water had still not been tested, so I contacted a pesticide regulation department of a local state school.  Water and soil tests were three dollars each and I decided it would be worth it to see if the streams in the Animal Forest were clean.  I conversed with a man about my desire to test the water, and then I filled him in on what the man from the DHEC had discovered.

The man from the pesticide regulation place knew the man from DHEC, since they had worked together before.  Oftentimes they did the water testing and lab work for DHEC and other local environmental health organizations.  The man promised he would look into the case and come out to test the waters the following week.

The following Thursday, two men from the pesticide regulation place came out to the park.  They inquired about our cleaning methods and about the disinfectant being used.   They informed me our methods of using the "ZepLemonex" were against both Federal and State environmental agency regulations, and I needed to discontinue its use immediately and pass this on to all the other employees.  They also mentioned that since I was made aware of this problem, if I were to ever use this product again, I would be held personally accountable for it.  The same was true for all the other employees in the Animal Forest.  Then they asked if I would be willing to sign a statement stating how I had been instructed to use this product.

The way they were talking about this disinfectant made me feel as if I had been flushing toxic waste into the salt marshes.  So I cooperated with their commands and signed their statement, honored to be taking a stand for such a just cause.  I stated only the truth about how I had been instructed to clean the cages and nothing more.  I hated to risk my job over the issue, but after my recent conflict with the Curator, I figured I’d better help the investigators before while I still had my job.

That day, I wrote a letter to the Curator and the park’s upper management informing them of my cooperation and communications with the two men from the pesticide regulation place and their orders to stop using the disinfectant.