That was Dominic's mantra after he was diagnosed. It is also why I started reading records.
Dominic Watson was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme with giant cell features, WHO Grade 4, on January 20, 2018. He was 11 years old. He was my son.
His diagnosis is where my search began. What followed was four years of records: Wichita Falls' 2014–2015 direct potable reuse project, historical NDMA detections, treatment decisions, monitoring that was recommended and never performed, and a permanent reuse system that is still operating today.
I did not begin as a researcher. I began as Dominic's mom.
I am not an engineer, a scientist or a doctor. When Dominic was diagnosed I was trying to understand one thing: how a healthy 11-year-old develops a brain tumor that rare.
Five months before Dominic, another Wichita Falls boy was diagnosed with a high-grade brain tumor. He was 10. As I learned more about our two families, I found that we had lived about 400 feet apart in the same small area of southwest Wichita Falls, and that our time there overlapped by roughly 16 months.
Then I learned of two more Wichita Falls children diagnosed with brain tumors in the same five-month window. Four children, in one small city, within five months.
I wanted to know what the boys might have had in common during the years before they got sick. I started with the neighborhood, then the surrounding area, and eventually the water.
That search took me back to the drought, and to the emergency direct potable reuse system the City operated from July 2014 through July 2015 — during roughly 11 of the 16 months our families lived near each other.
So I started looking for the records. One document led to another. Water-quality reports led to federal monitoring data. Engineering documents led to correspondence. References to NDMA led to scientific literature, treatment research and more public-records requests.
Four diagnoses in one community over a narrow period cannot establish a cause. The boundaries of the area were recognized after the diagnoses, not defined in advance. The children did not all have the same tumor, and their exposure histories differ.
I am not calculating the probability that these diagnoses happened together by chance. Doing that after observing the cases would produce a number that looks precise without the population, exposure and epidemiological data needed to support it. The circumstances are documented so that qualified researchers and public-health professionals can evaluate what they warrant. The cancer information is set out separately here.
Two boys, the same small neighborhood, the same year of water.
In the years before the diagnoses, both families lived in the same small area of southwest Wichita Falls, roughly 400 feet apart. Our home was approximately 1,150 feet from the Cypress Water Treatment Plant, the plant where reuse water was blended and treated into drinking water.
I am not publishing either family's street address, and I am not publishing a distance from the other family's home to the plant until that measurement is independently verified from historical property records.
Approximately 16 months in the same small area
The two families' periods of residence there overlapped from approximately February 2014 through June 2015.
Wichita Falls' emergency direct potable reuse system operated during approximately 11 months of that shared period.
Timing establishes sequence. It does not establish cause. It is the reason I began reading the water record, not a conclusion drawn from it.
NDMA appears repeatedly in the historical record.
Reviewing the years surrounding Wichita Falls' potable-reuse projects led to records involving N-nitrosodimethylamine, or NDMA, in drinking water, in treated wastewater, and in later reuse-treatment testing.
Finished drinking water
Federal UCMR 2 monitoring detected NDMA in Wichita Falls finished and distribution water, five years before the reuse project began.
Treated wastewater
NDMA was detected in treated wastewater during the period when potable reuse was being evaluated.
NDMA raised before DPR
A TrojanUV representative sent City staff information about UV oxidation and NDMA, and asked directly whether NDMA levels leaving the River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant had been examined.
Monitoring recommended, not required
NDMA was listed in the verification protocol as a parameter the City volunteered to monitor, then deleted at the City's request and approved by TCEQ. TCEQ recommended quarterly NDMA monitoring again in 2014. It was never required.
Emergency DPR
Wichita Falls operated emergency direct potable reuse for approximately one year. The operational record does not contain routine NDMA measurements from that period.
UV added, for pathogens
The dedicated UV system came online after roughly seven months of operation. Its treatment objective was pathogen inactivation, at doses far below those used to destroy NDMA.
Families may hold information no database contains.
Residents know where their children lived, when they moved, where they went to school, when symptoms began and what they were diagnosed with. Those histories may never appear together in a government database.
Public observation does not replace epidemiology, toxicology or environmental science. It can identify patterns worth documenting, preserve information before it disappears, and put potential connections in front of people qualified to evaluate them.
The cancer question is not the only reason to test for NDMA.
The historical record cannot establish that NDMA contributed to any child's illness. Current NDMA testing is warranted on its own, as a water-quality question.
NDMA was detected historically in Wichita Falls drinking water and in treated wastewater, and later pilot testing identified NDMA in water from the reuse treatment process.
Wichita Falls continues to operate an indirect potable reuse system. That system is configured differently from the 2014–2015 emergency project, but current testing answers a question the historical records cannot: whether NDMA is present in finished drinking water now, and at what concentration.
Water consumed during DPR cannot be sampled today, and the measurements that were never taken cannot be recreated. Water flowing through the system right now can be tested, using an established method — EPA Method 521.
That information is useful regardless of what any future research concludes about the childhood cancer diagnoses.
Why NDMA is hard to remove → Request an investigation →Did your child live in the Wichita Falls area and develop cancer?
I want to hear from families whose child lived in Wichita Falls or the surrounding area and was diagnosed with cancer — any type of cancer, and whether or not you believe water or any other environmental exposure had anything to do with it.
Information about where your child lived, approximately when, their age and diagnosis may help preserve histories that otherwise exist only within individual families.
Contacting me does not mean your child will be identified on this website. Nothing about your family is published without your permission. Tell me what you are comfortable sharing, and whether I may contact you for more detail.
Contact Me →The record should be checkable.
This site preserves source material, separates documented facts from interpretation, and makes the basis for the investigation available for independent review.
Source documents
Government records are identified by the originating agency where known. Scientific publications remain attributed to their authors and publishers.
Known limitations
Missing records, unavailable measurements and uncertain facts are identified rather than filled in with assumptions.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell me and I will correct it and note the correction. The goal is an accurate public record, not a fixed conclusion.
The available record deserves independent review.
NDMA was detected in Wichita Falls finished drinking water before DPR. It was detected in treated wastewater before DPR. It was raised with City staff before full-scale operation. Monitoring for it was recommended, removed at the City's request, recommended again, and never performed. Later testing of water from the reuse treatment process identified NDMA after reverse osmosis.
Separately, four pediatric brain tumors were diagnosed in this community within five months. The small number of cases, the differences among the tumors and the limits of historical exposure data prevent any conclusion about cause.
Current NDMA testing remains worth doing even if no relationship between NDMA and these cancers is ever established.
The concentrations that were never measured cannot be recreated. The records can be reviewed. The water can be tested now.
Review the record for yourself.
NDMA explains the compound at the center of all of this. The Timeline documents the sequence. Records provides the source documents. Cancer Data sets out the health information separately.