No common ground found on cancer ‘cluster’

http://citizensvoice.com/news/no-common-ground-found-on-cancer-cluster-1.1152060#axzz1NN3RonoJ

By Andrew Staub (Staff Writer)
Published: May 25, 2011

PITTSTON – To prove the existence of a cancer cluster near the Butler Mine Tunnel, residents arrived at a city school on Tuesday armed with anecdotal evidence – exhibits like a bald head hidden under a ball cap, scars from medical treatments and stories of friends and family who succumbed to cancer.

To discount the existence of a cancer cluster near the Butler Mine Tunnel, scientists from the state Department of Health and officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency arrived to the school with empirical evidence – 17 year’s worth of data, literature and detailed presentations.

The two sides, meeting in the Martin L. Mattei Middle School’s cafeteria, never quite reached a common ground. Instead, residents lobbed questions – and frustrated grumbles – toward officials from the EPA and Department of Health when told the 60 or more cases of cancer that have accumulated on Mill and Carroll streets do not qualify as a cancer cluster.

Such an assertion, residents said, is hard to believe considering the Butler Mine Tunnel looms beneath portions of the city. The tunnel, designed as a drainage outlet for a maze of abandoned mines, served as an illegal dumping ground for oil waste in the late 1970s and twice spewed its sludge into the Susquehanna River.

“Who shot Kennedy?” said Chuck Meninchini, a Carroll Street resident diagnosed with lymphoma in February.

While allusions to a cover-up at worst and a lack of answers at best filtered through the room, the EPA’s remedial project manager for the Butler Mine Tunnel Superfund Site, Mitch Cron, tried to assure residents the mine tunnel posed no present danger to them.

“The public is not exposed to contamination from the Butler Mine Tunnel Superfund Site,” Cron said, uttering a line he would repeat several times throughout the night.

The EPA has found oil and grease residue near a borehole at the Hi-Way Auto Services Station, the business that allowed the waste to be dumped into the ground from 1977-79, Cron said. And though one hazardous chemical was detected in amounts above drinking water standards, Cron said that the mine water is not used for drinking and that the water running through the tunnel now is “generally very clean.”

Dr. Stephen Ostroff, director of the state’s bureau of epidemiology, presented data that showed Pittston’s cancer rate outpaces the state average by 11 percent, with an excess of lung, colon and thyroid cancer diagnoses from 1992 to 2008.

Still, Ostroff couldn’t confirm the presence of a cancer cluster, defined by the EPA as an “occurrence of a greater than expected number of cases of a particular disease within a group of people, a geographic area or a period of time.”

City residents suffered from a wide range of cancers, while cancer clusters generally involve a large number of one type of cancer or a rare cancer, Ostroff said. The types of cancers found in excess in Pittston, Ostroff said, usually are not caused by exposure to chemicals.

“That’s the bottom line,” he said.

Most residents disagreed with Ostroff.

Some questioned why the Department of Health examined the entire 18640 zip code instead of limiting its examination of Pittston to just Mill and Carroll streets, where most residents say they’ve noticed inflated numbers of cancers. A small sample size, Ostroff said, would not provide sufficient data.

Others discounted the data from the state cancer registry, and one resident even suggested to “delete” it. Another man walked out when Cron said the EPA had no plans to test soil samples from homes on Mill and Carroll streets.

Edward Appel lives on Mill Street and came to the school with his wife, Helen. She sat in a wheelchair beside Edward, who described his wife’s past battle with breast cancer, then brain tumors. He believes the mine tunnel must be connected to Helen’s trip through “hell.”

“It’s easy to say nothing’s happening – by the people that don’t have the cancer,” Edward Appel said.

Another Mill Street resident, George Boone, collected some of the pamphlets at the open house. A heavy white bandage wrapped around his left arm told the story of the kidney dialysis he endures three times a week, while his shirt hid the scar left when surgeons removed his right kidney about 11 years ago at the outset of his battle with kidney cancer.

Boone’s friend, Phyllis Hadley, said cancer claimed in-laws and her husband. Then she rattled off surnames of several city families who have lost someone to cancer.

“You know what,” Hadley said, “if you stopped to think … ” “… You’ll count forever,” Boone said, finishing her thought.

The anecdotal evidence hasn’t changed the mind of the EPA or the Department of Health, both of which stood by past research and observations.

Area elected officials such as state Sen. John Yudichak and U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, though, left residents with a vow to continue the search for clarity about Pittston’s high rate of cancer. Barletta would like to see additional testing to find out if there’s a root cause, said his spokesman, Shawn Kelly.

“Even if it’s not the Butler Mine Tunnel, we want to make sure it’s not something,” Kelly said. “The people here deserve answers.”

astaub@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2052