RICHMOND, Va. — A Northern Virginia family is taking legal action after their daughter was one of more than two dozen people who fell ill after swimming in Lake Anna over Memorial Day weekend 2024.
In a letter sent to the Office of the Attorney General, lawyers for the Inglett family warn of a forthcoming lawsuit, stating that the teenage girl’s illness was the result of “negligent and grossly negligent public water management,” and also a “failure to warn” Virginians about the potential danger lurking in the water.
A six-month-long CBS 6 investigation into last summer’s outbreak has uncovered that more than two months before Memorial Day, a water test found that the E. coli levels in that Sandbar section of the lake - where 15-year-old Ava Inglett was exposed - were double the acceptable limit.
Despite those levels, the state never issued a public warning, and no further testing was conducted.
In fact the March 12, reading was the second highest recorded since 2002, according to records CBS 6 obtained from the the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VDEQ.)
Sick After Swimming
The teen was one of 25 people, primarily minors, who contracted E. Coli after visiting the lake Memorial Day weekend.
“The second day I was home, I started feeling kind of like my stomach was hurting and I was vomiting," said Ava. “I told my mom, I feel like I'm gonna die. It was horrible. I couldn't even walk, like, just laying in my bed turning over.”
“I said, no, not today,” Ava’s mother Judy Inglett recalled.
Ava’s parents rushed her to the hospital where blood work confirmed the teen was in renal failure.
"She went to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and she had a catheter surgically placed in her groin and they immediately started dialysis. She had four rounds of dialysis. She had four blood transfusions and it was, it was really a lot. It was horrible, because Ava was always healthy," said Judy.
Ava was hospitalized for 10 days and was diagnosed with the rare blood disorder Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS).
This is something Ava will have to deal with forever.
"This can cause high blood pressure, there's still a risk that she will go into kidney failure," said Judy. "They need to do something to change, because what they've been doing isn't working, and a lot of people got sick for no reason. That should have never happened."
Illnesses Linked to Lake
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) ultimately linked the illnesses to the lake exposure after closing their investigation July 2, but was not able to identify the source of the bacteria in the water. That was after collecting samples from six areas of the lake starting around two weeks after the holiday weekend.
Watch: Harmful algae prompts swimming advisory for parts of Lake Anna
"None of those toxic forms of E. coli were found in the actual water. I would go one step further and try to take more samples," Dr. Rachel Noble, a professor of Marine Science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, said.
Noble is an expert on water quality testing but was not affiliated with the Lake Anna investigation.
“I would want to put orders of magnitude more funding into the water quality monitoring, because of the economic cost that could happen if I don't do that. The economic kind of losses that would be experienced," said Noble.
Under the Freedom of Information Act CBS 6 obtained E. coli related communications from the VDH on the Lake Anna investigation.
They returned more than 700 documents on the Lake Anna outbreak.
Included, historical data on water sampling by the VDEQ which showed that E. coli levels had been taken monthly and were not elevated near the Dam and Mid Lake in 2021 and 2022 as they were at Goldmine Creek which is near the Sandbar where the majority of this summer’s exposures took place.
However, according to internal notes, testing was not consistently done near the Sandbar the last two years because the VDEQ says they were focusing on the lower portion of the lake for “assessment purposes.”
In 2023, E. coli testing was only done once on November 13, and this year prior to the outbreak, in February and March.
The March 12, test which was two months before the Memorial Day weekend, there was an E. coli reading in that area of 816 counts which exceeded threshold levels and double limit.
For reference, in freshwater, E. coli bacteria shall not exceed a geometric mean of 126 counts/100ml and shall not have greater than a 10% excursion frequency of a statistical threshold value (STV) of 410 counts/100 ml, both in an assessment period of up to 90 days.
History of Lake Anna Water Quality
CBS 6 requested a history of Lake Anna water quality test results and received results that date back to 2002.
The highest reading was 9804 counts on 9/1/20 at Terry’s Run Arm (Route 719.)
The second highest level was the March 12, 2024 reading at the Sandbar.
The majority of the other testing was well below levels of public health concerns.
"I would like to know why they did not alert the public to this high reading. Because I would have definitely, if I would have known that I would not have let my daughter go down," said Judy.
"You can swim in other areas with being fine, because the lake is pretty big," said a Lake Anna swimmer.
"The public needs to know,” said Noble. "If you're above that standard, there's a solid likelihood that you could become ill and so that acceptable risk is the driver for the entire program and so if state or a municipal government is in possession of data that would allow them to say that this location should at least be posted or an advisory placed," Noble added.
Why No Advisory?
CBS 6 reached out to the VDH on why an advisory was not issued in March.
“It was outside the recreation season," VDH spokesperson Brookie Crawford said.
She also added, “VDH does not have a freshwater testing program."
VDEQ spokesperson Irina Calos said, “DEQ’s bacteria monitoring program does not provide a real-time indication of swimming conditions for the public. Disease causing bacteria and other pathogens may occur in any natural water body, and recreating in these waters is never risk-free.”
She added, “The Lake Anna Civic Association also conducts routing water quality monitoring parameters to include fecal bacteria, E. coli.
"DEQ’s monitoring strategy provides the public with a big picture view of Virginia’s waterways, including bacteria pollution," Carlos said. "DEQ’s bacteria monitoring program is designed to determine the general health of the Commonwealth’s waters and to identify recreational waters with high levels of bacteria. Once these waters are identified, DEQ works to determine and address pollution sources through clean-up studies and implementation plans."
Calos said, “Routine E. Coli testing by DEQ provides an indication of possible bacteria contamination. It does not specifically identify disease-causing strains of E. Coli, like STEC O157, which VDH identified as the cause of illness in people who had visited the Lake Anna area over the Memorial Day weekend.”
"Monitoring in inland locations actually gets to be a little bit more complicated, because it's hard to know how long if you do determine that there's a signal of a fecal contamination source there. It's hard to know how long that signal will persist," Noble said.
Health officials said the potential sources leading up to the holiday weekend were heavy rains, failing septic systems, boating discharge, swimmers and livestock.
"I would want to be doing some of that work for some of these more prominent potential sources to see if there's any chance that I might get a detection that would allow me to mitigate that source,” said Noble. “Maybe that's where you place your fence. Maybe that's where you remove the access of those animals to that lake location. Maybe that's where you put signage. I would really advocate that in areas where you do have higher numbers of people recreating, particularly children, the elderly and any small children, like toddlers, that you really invest in high intensity monitoring so that you can really get a snapshot of what's going on in the system,” Noble added.
Records CBS 6 obtained show that investigators met with Virginia agriculture officials to encourage restricted cattle activity on the lake after documenting that “Bottom Line: Cows in proximity/swimming in recreational water is concerning (potential point of exposure.)” When CBS 6 visited Lake Anna, cattle were spotted defecating in the water.
"I think everyone has a part in this,” said Ava. “The farmers should keep their animals away from the water. The people that are doing the tests, I think,maybe, do it more often, or just tell people about it. This affects people, alot, like lifelong, some people are affected lifelong, like me and it’s just frustrating to have to go through, and just kind of, traumatizing too."
While some state health officials have committed to making adjustments, Ava is not comfortable returning to her summer sanctuary.
"Ava is a water lover, and our family is too, and it's like it's ruined it. She'll never put her pinky toe in a lake again. And that's a shame," said Judy.
The VDEQ’s monthly water quality monitoring of Lake Anna runs from April to October. This year included 16 stations and the majority of samples were well below threshold levels.
In the past, the VDEQ tested the upper half of the lake one year and the following year tested the lower half. However, the VDEQ says in the future they will conduct monthly sampling at seven sites throughout the lake including the Sandbar.
“It is worth noting that because DEQ is not able to test all million+ acres of freshwater in the Commonwealth as frequently as might be desired, we want to remind the public to report gastrointestinal illnesses from freshwater to their local health department [vdh.virginia.gov], and to visit www.swimhealthyva.com [swimhealthyva.com] for additional safe swimming information,” said Carlos.
The VDH said they have not identified any specific action they are taking moving forward as it relates to this case but said public health protection and messaging on safe recreational swimming will continue to be a priority.
The Inglett’s notice of legal claim was sent to Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office on October 7. The Commonwealth, VDEQ, and The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources are listed as agencies alleged to be liable.
None of the agencies were able to comment on the pending legal matter.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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