Hutchinson ? Reno County Health Department officials told county commissioners they were concerned about residents who were using private wells instead of the public water system.

But residents say their home water wells provide a good supply of clean drinking water that’s less expensive than what they could get from public sources.

At Tuesday’s county commission meeting, Health Department director Judy Seltzer said county residents who disconnected their homes from the public water system at the former naval base south of Yoder could be exposing themselves to pollutants.

Seltzer said the area had a plume of pollution that includes two known cancer-causing agents — carbon tetrachloride and trichloroethylene — likely left over from the naval base days.

“Some of these are four to five times greater than the maximum allowable EPA limits,” Seltzer said.

She said four people out of the 50 users of Rural Water District No. 3 had disconnected from the system.

Rodney Fry and Steve Hindle, who are using water from their home wells, said their water was safe to use.

“I’m not so stupid that I’m going to drink, or let my family drink, carbon tetrachloride,” Hindle said. “We test our well regularly, and we’ve come up with a clean bill of health.”

Both said they disconnected from the public water system because the water district’s rates no longer were affordable to them.

Their decision to disconnect from the system may test the county’s new sanitation code, which requires people living near an affordable public water supply to connect to it.