Author: Duane Craig

The Environmental Protection Agency is hunting for the sources of soil, air and water pollution that may be contributing to a cluster of cancer cases in Sandusky County, Ohio. Thirty-five children have been diagnosed with cancer in a 12-mile radius in that county since the mid-1990s, and four have died, according to this report in The News-Messenger.com.

The agency is collecting soil, air and water samples at 14 industrial and dump sites in that county. To date, state and local health officials have been unable to find something explaining the cause of the cancer cluster. There is also an effort underway to involve local people in the search for the causes of environmental contamination. Besides reviewing past investigations, there’ll be a confidential hotline set up where people can report dump sites and dumping practices that are illegal.

According to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory from 2002, the top three pollutants released in Sandusky County were nitric acid, hydrofluoric acid and chromium compounds. Other large releases to the environment included pyridine, nickel compounds, zinc compounds, glycol ethers, ammonia and ethylene glycol.

IL Residents Want Water Testing

October 5, 2010 - More than 300 McCullom Lake residents have signed up to get their wells tested for carcinogenic vinyl chloride at Rohm and Haas’ expense.

Of 515 surveys sent out last month by village government, 325 came back wanting the free test, while only 11 responded no, Village President Terry Counley said. Rohm and Haas offered in August to pay for it, more than four years into a series of lawsuits blaming pollution from its Ringwood plant for causing a brain cancer cluster.

"I’d say it’s a very good sign. We’re all in this boat together over here, and we need the answers," Counley said.

Counley must select a water testing company from a list of firms accredited by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Only people who signed up will get their wells tested, and Counley said he would like to get it done before winter.

Three former village next-door neighbors diagnosed with brain cancer filed the first lawsuits in April 2006, alleging that decades of seepage from a closed 8-acre waste pit fouled their air and groundwater with vinyl chloride and other chemicals.

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Deal to Clean Up LA-area Nuclear Accident Site

September 4, 2010 - More than five decades after a partial nuclear meltdown just outside Los Angeles, state and federal officials Friday announced agreements to remove all contamination and return the atomic energy and rocket engine test site to its natural state.

Residents who have fought for years for cleanup of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory heralded the agreements signed by the Department of Energy, NASA and state officials. The agreements, which commit to a 2017 cleanup date, must still go through a public review process before they are finalized.

"It's more than we'd hoped for a long time," said Marie Mason, head of a homeowner's association whose four members have all been sick with leukemia, breast cancer or serious thyroid conditions. "We are thrilled."

During the Cold War, workers at the site, then-operated by Rocketdyne, tested more than 30,000 rockets and experimented with nuclear reactors on the hilltop where now-hollow gray buildings sit like tombstones.

By the time the lab was shuttered, testing and several nuclear accidents since 1959 left a toxic stew of radioactive and chemical contamination that many believed trickled into the communities below, causing breast cancer, thyroid conditions and a rare eye cancer among infants.

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Environment Groups Cite Lansing, NY Power Plant For Coal Ash Pollution

September 9, 2010 - Near one power plant in New Mexico, sheep and cattle ranchers have reported losing hundreds of livestock who drank polluted groundwater. In a Montana town, people have been sickened by drinking water contaminated with high levels of sulfate and boron, the same metals discharged into groundwater by a nearby plant.

And in McAdoo, Pa., federal health officials have confirmed a rare bone marrow cancer cluster in a town near several plants and a waste dump, though federal officials haven't either confirmed or denied a link between the cancers and the plants.

These aren't incidents taking place close to natural gas drilling sites using new hydraulic fracturing techniques, but rather are near decades-old and still functioning coal-fired power plants, which provide roughly half of America's electricity.

One Tompkins County coal-based power plant, AES Cayuga in Lansing, was among 39 across the country cited by three national environmental groups in a new report on groundwater pollution caused by coal ash.

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Maryland Event Explores Possible Detrick Link to Cancers

July 11, 2010 - About 150 people gathered Saturday evening to learn more about cancer cases in Frederick and the possibility that a 1992 contamination problem at Fort Detrick's Area B is connected to the illnesses.

Randy White, a Florida pastor, started the Kristen Renee Foundation after one of his daughters died at age 30 from a brain tumor. His other daughter developed stomach tumors, and his ex-wife is fighting renal cell carcinoma. The three women lived on Lake Coventry Drive from 1995 to 2005, just tenths of a mile from the edge of Area B.

White said the goal of his foundation was originally to help those with cancer, but when doctors told him that his family's cancer cases were not genetic, he started a quest to find the cause of their cancers and fix the problem before more people got sick.

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Acreage Cancer Cluster: One Year Later and Very Few Answers

June 18, 2010 - Acreage residents Bill and Joyce Featherstone find comfort playing with their two dogs.

The pups remind them of the special, but limited time they had with their son, who loved the animals.

The beloved Joey died last September of a brain tumor.

"Instead of me sitting here and being confident, I'm sitting here thinking everyone is asleep at the wheel," Bill Featherstone said. "No one is paying attention."

13 Acreage families with children who had a pediatric brain tumor from 1994-2008 were studied. 11 of those tumors were malignant. There are also countless more reports of adult tumors.

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Cancer Cluster at California Elementary School

June 9, 2010 - Parents are pushing for the Carlsbad Unified School Board to investigate what they believe is a cancer cluster at an elementary school.

More than 300 cancer cases have been reported within a three mile radius of Kelly Elementary School over the past 10 years. Several children have died, and many of the cancer patients attended or worked at the school.

Parents believe pesticide residue or overhead power lines are the cause. Wednesday night, they demanded the school board look into to the potential health hazard.

San Diego County health officials have launched a task force to investigate parents' concerns that the air, water and soil at the elementary school may be causing cancer in students.

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`Cancer cluster' in Florida's Acreage may be also claiming animals

April 6, 2010- Acreage resident Gail Bass never expected what she saw from her window five months ago. The creature perched on her bird feeder looked like a squirrel, but it was covered with tumors. "It was strange because I noticed the one and it kept getting worse,'' Bass said.
The tumors covering the squirrel varied in size and the number of tumors increased over the next three months. Then, Bass said, the cold snap came and she hasn't seen the squirrel since.

The Acreage, a pastoral community in western Palm Beach County, is the focus of a state investigation into whether a pediatric cancer cluster exists in the area. Bass wonders whether there is something making animals in The Acreage sick.

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Tungsten Still Eyed in Fallon NV Cancer Cluster Probe

March 30, 2010- The metal tungsten remains at the center of research into a mysterious Fallon leukemia cluster that sickened 17 children and killed three of them between 1997 and 2004.
Researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, the University of Arizona and the University of California, San Francisco on Thursday presented final reports on studies into the outbreak.

Researchers are looking for possible environmental causes of the cluster and say more research into the effects of tungsten exposure is needed.
Tungsten has been found in greater concentrations in the Fallon area's water, air and people than elsewhere in Nevada.

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Study Finds Childhood Cancer Clusters All Over South Florida

March 3, 2010 - A new study shows the problem may be much bigger and cover a larger area than just the Acreage. This is the study dealing with childhood cancer clusters in Florida. One of the researchers who did this study says his findings were just released in January.

State workers this week are taking soil samples in the Acreage, digging soil, digging for answers to what's causing the pediatric cancer cluster. Now a new study reveals that the problem isn't just in the Acreage. The study found that much of south Florida lies in a childhood cancer cluster.

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Cancer Cluster Frightens Palm Beach County Community

February 16, 2010 - When Stephanie Peskowitz and her husband Ira bought a home in The Acreage five years ago, they figured they had found a woodsy paradise large enough for their dreams. But for the Peskowitz family, and thousands of others in this western Palm Beach County community, the joy of living miles away from the urban clutter and noise has been supplanted by something louder and more insistent -- fear.

This month the county's Health Department confirmed that The Acreage is home to a cancer cluster, defined as an area with rates of brain tumors and brain cancers higher than normal.Evidence suggests the incidence of such cancers may be especially elevated among children.

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Pratt & Whitney Sued Over Brain Cancer Cluster

February 11, 2010 - The first lawsuit related to the pediatric brain cancer cluster formally confirmed in the Acreage last week was filed today in federal court. Four families are named as plaintiffs in a class action suit alleging that since the 1950's, Pratt & Whitney has been dumping chemical pollutants known to cause cancer, contaminating the area. The pleadings, prepared by the law firm of Reid and Zobel state that the estimated class size is 10,000 homeowners.

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Raucous Crowd at Florida Cancer Cluster Meeting

February 10, 2010- More than a thousand people spilled out of the emotionally charged auditorium at Seminole Ridge Regional High School Tuesday night as representatives of the State Heath Department, who were ridiculed for offering too little, too late, attempted to offer sympathy.

"We are sorry for the loss of your children," said Shairi Turner of the Department of Health.” Sorry for the loss of your property values. We understand your frustration."

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TX to Investigate Possible Cancer Cluster in Flower Mound

February 3, 2010- Officials at the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) are preparing to investigate parts of Flower Mound to see if the number of leukemia cases are higher than in other parts of the state.

This comes after concerns of a leukemia cancer cluster in zip codes 75022 and 75028. Residents say that there are five children and two adults within the Wellington neighborhood alone who have been diagnosed with leukemia in the last few years.

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Suspected Cancer Cluster Angers N.J. Town Residents

January 5, 2010- Residents of a northern New Jersey town — that was once home to a DuPont munitions plant – are taking on the chemical giant and making sure their voices are heard after a cancer cluster was uncovered.

Residents have formed an advocacy group called ‘Citizens for a Cleaner Pompton Lakes’ or CCPL.
Regina Sisco, a life-long resident of the town and president of CCPL, appeared on FOX & Friends Tuesday morning. When asked why mostly men in her town are dying at an incredible rate from kidney cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – she pointed to DuPont.

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Cancer cluster has Ohio families concerned

November 9, 2009 - Several families in Sandusky County, Ohio, said they want government officials to take action regarding a suspected cancer cluster in their area.

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer said Monday nearly 20 people in the area of Clyde, Ohio, have been diagnosed with cancer since 2001 and some area residents want to know why.

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Possible Cancer Cluster in Ohio Town

October 21, 2009 - The Ohio Department of Health is beginning a cancer assessment in Ottawa County. It's all thanks to a cancer survivor who believes there's a possible cluster in Port Clinton.

42-year-old Maria Claus Konoff lives in Ottawa Hills with her family, but she grew up in Port Clinton. 15 years ago she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. As the years went on, Maria began to find out that many people she grew up with also had cancer.

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Could suspected cancer cluster in the Acreage Florida be killing pets?

October 18, 2009 - Owners of Acreage pets that have developed tumors or cancer in recent years wonder if their animals' illnesses could be related to the community's suspected cluster of cancer in humans. The Florida Department of Health has been investigating the human cases since June but has not released firm conclusions on whether a cluster exists.

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Illinois Community Files 30 Brain Cancer Lawsuits

October 15, 2009 - Out of a community of only about 1,000 people, 30 people have filed brain cancer lawsuits against a former chemical company, which allegedly spent decades dumping cancer-causing chemicals into the local groundwater.

The 30 current or former residents of McCullom Lake, Illinois have been diagnosed with various forms of brain cancer in recent years. The complaints allege that the high cancer rate in the small community is due, in part, to a chemical plant owned by Rohm and Haas, which purchased the plant from Morton International in 1999.

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Acreage Florida residents try to connect dots in cancer cases

October 3, 2009 - The Acreage, a corner of unincorporated western Palm Beach County, is a rustic patch of dirt roads, canals and horse trails -- and, among some residents, the simmering fear of cancer.

For months, state and county officials have pored over this sprawling community of farms, groves and suburban homes located 15 miles northwest of West Palm Beach to determine whether a cancer cluster -- a greater-than-expected rate of the same cancer -- can be confirmed. The state Department of Health is in the second phase of the study. And, on Thursday, environmental activist Erin Brockovich is expected to come to West Palm Beach to meet with Acreage residents.

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