US EPA collects samples in cancer cluster region

By Becky Brooks

Man­ag­ing Editor

news@gazettepublishingco.com

CLYDE – It will be at least spring before res­i­dents of East­ern San­dusky County know if any soil, water and air sam­ples being col­lected by the U.S. Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency start­ing this week will reveal new infor­ma­tion as to why there is pedi­atric can­cer clus­ter in the region.

On Mon­day after­noon, Steve Wolfe, onsite coor­di­na­tor for the U.S. EPA, met with more than a dozen media rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the 100 block of East Street at the for­mer For­mu­lated Prod­ucts location.

Wolfe told media that EPA staff was con­duct­ing “geo­phys­i­cal” sur­veys of that site and 13 oth­ers between the city of Belle­vue and the Ohio S.R.19 in the East­ern half of San­dusky County.

Wolfe said the sites were iden­ti­fied by the Ohio EPA and the Ohio Depart­ment of Health dur­ing their 2009 inves­ti­ga­tion of the pedi­atric can­cer cluster.

Last August, EPA offi­cials met with area can­cer clus­ter fam­i­lies and they are fol­low­ing up with this envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment. The Ohio Depart­ment of Health iden­ti­fied 36 chil­dren in the region as part of a can­cer clus­ter, with new cases being diag­nosed for nearly the past decade.

Wolfe said the US EPA con­ducted back­ground research on the 14 sites being checked this month.

“We’re to the point we want to do some phys­i­cal sam­ples,” Wolfe told the media who were stand­ing in a field south of the rail­road tracks near East Street.

He reviewed the equip­ment being used, but pointed out that while the col­lec­tion of sam­ples may be com­pleted in two to three weeks, results would not be ready until late spring or summer.

The EPA would be look­ing for met­als, volatile organic com­pounds, pes­ti­cides, radi­a­tion and other chem­i­cals in the sam­ples, he listed.

The offi­cial also reported that while the Ohio EPA and state health depart­ment col­lected a list of pos­si­ble dump sites in the region, they did not test them.

Wolfe was ques­tioned about what the U.S. EPA expected to find at the dump locations.

“We don’t know what’s here,” he stated.

“Any data we get will be shared with them,” he said about turn­ing over infor­ma­tion to the health depart­ment and state EPA.

Wolfe said four of the test sites are by Whirlpool Cor­po­ra­tion in Clyde — one of those is on the Whirlpool prop­erty, and the oth­ers are Amert lagoon, Leach Dump and the Golem­biowski Dump.

Three sites are located near Belle­vue — the York Town­ship Dump, Belle­vue City Dump North­west and Belle­vue City Dump Southeast.

Other sites to be tested include Riley Town­ship Dump, Townsend Town­ship Dump, McGrath Dump, Clyde City Dump, Wick­er­ham Drum, and Green Creek Town­ship Dump.

Wolfe also said that as a result of nearly 50 calls and e-mails the US EPA received con­cern­ing pos­si­ble dump sites on the east­side of the county, the test­ing could be expanded as inves­ti­ga­tors are fol­low­ing up on lead by inter­view­ing res­i­dents, review­ing doc­u­ments and his­tor­i­cal data.

The toll-free ded­i­cated hot­line is 855–838-1304.

At the test­ing site Mon­day were Clyde res­i­dents War­ren and Wendy Brown, who lost their 11-year-old daugh­ter Alexa to can­cer. The Browns met with U.S. Sen­a­tor Sher­rod Brown and trav­eled sev­eral times to Wash­ing­ton D.C. seek­ing sup­port and fund­ing to find answers to the cause of the can­cer cluster.

Wendy Brown said she and her hus­band had met with EPA offi­cials ear­lier in the day Mon­day about the upcom­ing tests.

“All the dump­ing that has gone on around Clyde, they should find some­thing,” she com­mented. She added that what­ever con­t­a­m­i­nants were found – she wanted them removed.

She also added that test­ing at the Clyde City Dump, which had been tested by the Ohio EPA within the past decade, was not com­plete and it also needed retested for water contamination.

Brown too com­mented that she was con­cerned about local Decem­ber reports that there con­tin­ues to be ille­gal dump­ing in the community.

While the mother of Alexa Brown, a child who lost her bat­tle with a brain tumor, was happy to see the U.S. EPA test­ing sites in the com­mu­nity, Wendy was not pleased with how long it took to get action.

“I think they did the whole inves­ti­ga­tion back­wards,” she said. Brown com­mented that the envi­ron­men­tal test­ing should have been con­ducted first instead of the Ohio Depart­ment of Health con­duct­ing long-term epi­demi­o­log­i­cal stud­ies — on health events, char­ac­ter­is­tics and pop­u­la­tion patterns.

War­ren Brown, stand­ing 50 feet away, con­curred that reach­ing this point with the test­ing that started Mon­day took too long.

“What’s hap­pen­ing now should have hap­pened five years ago,” he said. “I’m not mad, just disappointed.”

Posted by Becky Brooks on Feb 14 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.