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Posted Tuesday January 1, 2008

Tree rings may help explain Hillcrest cancer cluster

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By Tom Wilber
Press & Sun-Bulletin

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HILLCREST — It will likely be sometime in March or April before scientists know whether trees in Hillcrest contain a record of environmental toxins that could help explain a cluster of childhood cancers diagnosed within blocks of one another in the late 1990s.

Researchers at the University of Arizona are waiting for a new round of funding to pay for laboratory analysis of tree rings they collected in August in the area, said Mark Witten, a pediatric toxicologist and faculty member at the University of Arizona.

The analysis would show whether trees absorbed heavy metals and other toxic substances from the environment during specific years.

The search for pollution in Hillcrest, which intensified after the childhood cancers were diagnosed, has documented heavy metals and solvents in the ground, providing a starting point for cleanup efforts in the 1990s.

Additionally, a 2003 discovery found a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene (TCE) was forming gases and entering some buildings in the neighborhood.

But none of the testing to date has given researchers a sense of how long pollution has been a factor, whether it could be responsible for the illnesses, or what concentrations may have been in the past.

Witten and his colleagues hope to learn more with the tree ring study.