http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8165024777546661764&pr=goog-sl

Closed plant in Cameron to be checked for contaminants

By ALAN SCHER ZAGIER/The Associated Press

June 27, 2008 | 1:14 a.m. CST

CAMERON — State regulators will examine a shuttered manufacturing plant as a possible source of environmental contaminants that may be behind an outbreak of tumors among northwest Missouri residents.

The Rockwool Industries plant three miles west of town produced fiber insulation before closing more than two decades ago. The city then bought the building and leased it from 1992 to 2003 to Midwest Hanger, a Kansas City coat hanger manufacturer.

State environmental health officials disclosed the plan Thursday night at a community meeting attended by more than 150 worried residents. Local activists have identified 11 area residents afflicted with tumors since 2002.

The number could be much higher. After initially declining to disclose the number of tumor reports submitted, two officials who oversee the state’s cancer registry and its cancer inquiry unit said they have received 20 to 40 reports indicating similar problems from area residents.

They cautioned that those reports are not yet verified. And the state has tracked only benign, nonmalignant brain tumors since 2004, making historical comparisons and causal conclusions difficult.

“We are not going to be able to calculate a rate when we get (complete data) because we don’t have anything to compare it to,” said Jeannette Jackson-Thompson, operations director for the Missouri Cancer Registry.

Among those at the meeting was Billy Kemper, whose 44-year-old wife, Karen, died from complications caused by a tumor-related stroke in May, just one month after her diagnosis.

“She thought she had an inner ear infection,” he said. “She had an MRI, and that’s when they discovered the brain tumor.”

Tests by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources ruled out the city’s water supply as a likely cause.

“Nothing was found in the water above the (acceptable) standard,” said Cheri Baysinger, a Department of Health and Senior Services epidemiologist.

The absence of answers frustrated many audience members, even as state officials pledged their support.

“We’ll do whatever we need to get to the bottom of this,” Jackson-Thompson said.

Environmental tests of the manufacturing site should begin in several weeks, regulators said. Another community meeting will be held once those results are available.

Cameron resident Jim Frasher, whose doctor found a benign tumor about the size of a golf ball on his brain stem in January, compiled a list of 11 area residents — four women and seven men — who found tumors between 2002 and 2008.

Seven of those were identified in the last two years. The victims’ ages range from a 6-year-old boy to the 61-year-old Frasher. All but one of the tumors were found in the brain.

Finding a single cause for the tumors may be particularly difficult because the known cases do not appear to have a common link, such as a workplace or neighborhood. The range of ages and the split between benign and malignant tumors also make it unlikely that a single cause may be found, according to cancer experts.

http://www.communityhealthstudies.org/

We are closer to having a national childhood cancer registry:

June 12, 2008 (Bethesda, MD) – United States House of Representatives
passed H.R. 1553, the “Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer
Act,” which promises to significantly increase federal investment
into childhood cancer research.

The bill authorizes $30 million annually over five years, providing
funding for collaborative
pediatric cancer clinical trials research, to create a
population-based national childhood cancer
database, and to further improve public awareness and communication
regarding available
treatments and research for children with cancer and their families.
The bill passed the House by a vote of 416 to 0.

During markup of the legislation, the bill was renamed the Caroline
Pryce Walker Conquer
Childhood Cancer Act of 2008, in memory of Caroline Pryce Walker, daughter of
Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-OH), who succumbed to neuroblastoma in
1999 at age nine.

Companion legislation in the United States Senate (S.911), sponsored
by Senator Jack Reed (D-
RI), cleared the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
Committee unanimously
in November, 2007. The Senate version of the Conquer Childhood
Cancer Act currently has 63
co-sponsors; a full Senate floor vote on the bill is expected this summer.

Here is a profile of Julie Ross, the Epidemiology Chair for the
Children’s Oncology Group, who has developed a prototype for a
national childhood cancer
registry:http://www.cancer. umn.edu/research /profiles/ ross.html

http://www.thetimes-tribune.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19847137&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=6

Pocono cancer probe reopened due to newspaper

BY DANIEL AXELROD
STAFF WRITER
07/12/2008

TOBYHANNA — State officials investigating if four Pocono Mountain-area teenagers represent a “cluster” of rare bone cancers have reopened their analysis based on a Sunday Times story.

The state Department of Health is “reanalyzing everything based on what we learned from the article,” said spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman.

Since 2006, doctors have diagnosed osteosarcoma in four children, all 15 or 16, including two Tobyhanna girls, a boy who formerly lived there and a Blakeslee girl who attends school in Tobyhanna.

The Health Department recently completed its statistical analysis of whether the children can be designated a cancer cluster — a larger-than-expected total within a group of people, a geographic area or time period. Parents of the four children were waiting for the results when the newspaper learned this week the state had reopened its analysis.

Bill and Olga Whitman, whose daughter, Sonya, was diagnosed last summer, say the state accidentally excluded their child from the investigation despite the fact that the Whitmans asked for the state inquiry.

While Ms. Kriedeman declined to say whether the state omitted Sonya, the Whitmans said state investigator Gene Weinberg, M.D., called them after the article’s publication and acknowledged their daughter was not in the statistical analysis begun last spring. Efforts to reach Dr. Weinberg were unsuccessful late Friday.

Citing health confidentiality laws, Ms. Kriedeman declined to provide the names of the children in the investigation or the targeted towns. She said, “We felt it was necessary to expand the area beyond our original analysis” of nine ZIP codes in and around Tobyhanna to include cancer cases in 12 ZIP codes.

The state is not just examining the osteosarcoma cases, but looking into all incidences of cancer in that area, Ms. Kriedeman said. She could not say when the new investigation will end.

In such inquiries, officials in the Health Department’s Bureau of Epidemiology review the number of recent rare cancer cases in an area. That figure is compared with incidences between 1981 and 2005, the earliest and latest years recorded in the state’s cancer registry. If a strange pattern is detected and not considered a fluke, investigators might test water, soil and air for cancer-causing agents.

For her part, Mrs. Whitman is not confident in the state’s monitoring of the situation, because in the past investigators haven’t used the most current information.

“It just seems so unreal to me that (state investigators) don’t understand their accuracy depends on the data they have,” Mrs. Whitman said. They “should be more=2 0up-to-date with their data before they make such a report.”

Meanwhile, three of the four children are in remission including Sonya, Thomas Abramouski, 16, now of Moscow, and Nakia Irving, 16, of Blakeslee. Alexandria “Xandi” Robbins, 15, died in September at her Tobyhanna home.

“All we want is the public to be aware and the officials to be pushed to identify what the problem is that’s” causing the cancer, said Lori Abramouski, Thomas’ mother.

Contact the writer: daxelrod@timesshamrock.com


©The Times-Tribune 2008

Pocono cancer probe reopened due to newspaper

The Times-Tribune

BY DANIEL AXELROD
STAFF WRITER
07/12/2008

TOBYHANNA — State officials investigating if four Pocono Mountain-area teenagers represent a “cluster” of rare bone cancers have reopened their analysis based on a Sunday Times story.

The state Department of Health is “reanalyzing everything based on what we learned from the article,” said spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman.

Since 2006, doctors have diagnosed osteosarcoma in four children, all 15 or 16, including two Tobyhanna girls, a boy who formerly lived there and a Blakeslee girl who attends school in Tobyhanna.

The Health Department recently completed its statistical analysis of whether the children can be designated a cancer cluster — a larger-than-expected total within a group of people, a geographic area or time period. Parents of the four children were waiting for the results when the newspaper learned this week the state had reopened its analysis.

Bill and Olga Whitman, whose daughter, Sonya, was diagnosed last summer, say the state accidentally excluded their child from the investigation despite the fact that the Whitmans asked for the state inquiry.

While Ms. Kriedeman declined to say whether the state omitted Sonya, the Whitmans said state investigator Gene Weinberg, M.D., called them after the article’s publication and acknowledged their daughter was not in the statistical analysis begun last spring. Efforts to reach Dr. Weinberg were unsuccessful late Friday.

Citing health confidentiality laws, Ms. Kriedeman declined to provide the names of the children in the investigation or the targeted towns. She said, “We felt it was necessary to expand the area beyond our original analysis” of nine ZIP codes in and around Tobyhanna to include cancer cases in 12 ZIP codes.

The state is not just examining the osteosarcoma cases, but looking into all incidences of cancer in that area, Ms. Kriedeman said. She could not say when the new investigation will end.

In such inquiries, officials in the Health Department’s Bureau of Epidemiology review the number of recent rare cancer cases in an area. That figure is compared with incidences between 1981 and 2005, the earliest and latest years recorded in the state’s cancer registry. If a strange pattern is detected and not considered a fluke, investigators might test water, soil and air for cancer-causing agents.

For her part, Mrs. Whitman is not confident in the state’s monitoring of the situation, because in the past investigators haven’t used the most current information.

“It just seems so unreal to me that (state investigators) don’t understand their accuracy depends on the data they have,” Mrs. Whitman said. They “should be more=2 0up-to-date with their data before they make such a report.”

Meanwhile, three of the four children are in remission including Sonya, Thomas Abramouski, 16, now of Moscow, and Nakia Irving, 16, of Blakeslee. Alexandria “Xandi” Robbins, 15, died in September at her Tobyhanna home.

“All we want is the public to be aware and the officials to be pushed to identify what the problem is that’s” causing the cancer, said Lori Abramouski, Thomas’ mother.

Contact the writer: daxelrod@timesshamrock.com


©The Times-Tribune 2008


–
Frank Waksmunski
CARBON COUNTY GROUNDWATER GUARDIANS: http://www.carbonwaters.org/
PENN STATE MASTER WELL OWNER: http://mwon.cas.psu.edu/

Hopewell Council gets Rockwell plan update

Rockwell Automation has no immediate plans to sell Somerset properties and is unconcerned about possible rezoning in the area

By Aleen Crispino, Special Writer

Posted: Thursday, July 10, 2008 11:19 AM EDT

   Representatives of Rockwell Automation — owner of at least four and possibly seven vacant residential properties on the south side of Somerset Street in Hopewell Borough — say the company has no immediate plans to sell the properties and is unconcerned with the possibility, being explored by the borough Planning Board, of rezoning.

   This information was reported by Councilman David Mackie and Borough Administrator/Clerk Michele Hovan to Hopewell Borough Council at its regular meeting Monday.

   Rockwell intends to apply to the Planning Board for permits to demolish the remaining homes on the properties, then “plant some trees and landscaping and maintain them as residential properties until the (groundwater) treatment is finished,” said Councilman Mackie.

   In a conference call Monday with Jennifer Elder Brady, project manager at the Cranbury-based environmental engineering firm Arcadis BBL, and John Persico, Arcadis BBL associate, Ms. Hovan and Councilman Mackie received an informal update on plans by the firm, hired by Rockwell Automation of Milwaukee, Wis., to build a groundwater treatment facility at 21 and 29 Somerset St. and to maintain the property surrounding it.

   ”They said their general procedure is they complete the remediation and then divest themselves of the property,” said Councilman Mackie. Exactly how long it will take to pump out and treat all of the contaminated groundwater is unknown. The project could be completed in “five, 10, 15, 20 years,” said Ms. Brady in June 2007.

   Rockwell Automation, which, as Rockwell Manufacturing Co., operated a plant at 57 Hamilton Ave. from the early 1900s to 1975, has been ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to clean up air, soil and groundwater contamination by “volatile organic compounds,” primarily trichloroethene (TCE), in an area extending from Somerset Street south to Lafayette Street and from Hamilton Avenue east to The King’s Path development in Hopewell Township.

   As part of its effort to remediate the site, Rockwell has purchased two residential properties: 19 and 21 Somerset St., and has already demolished houses and felled trees in order to remove contaminated soil at these locations. In addition, the company has either purchased or is in the process of purchasing the five remaining homes on the south side of Somerset that lie within the borough, Mr. Persico said Dec. 20. The borough has received copies of deeds for 29 and 37 Somerset St., indicating that those sales have been completed, said Ms. Hovan in May.

   Rockwell plans to build a recovery well and an approximately 60- by 40-foot Cape Cod-style treatment building, constructed of pre-engineered metal, at 21 and 29 Somerset St., said Ms. Brady in December 2007. Before doing so, it would need to present an application and site plan and receive the approval of the borough Planning Board. Demolition of any of the remaining houses also would require approval from the board.

   At its last few meetings, the Planning Board has been holding public discussions of the 2007 Master Plan recommendation that the south side of Somerset Street be rezoned for commercial or industrial use. This recommendation was triggered by Rockwell’s purchase of the residential properties for its treatment facility as well as future plans by New Jersey Transit to create a railroad parking lot on the north side of the street for a reactivated West Trenton Line.

   Members of the Hopewell Woods Homeowners Association, whose members reside on Elm Street and whose back yards are adjacent to the south side of Somerset Street, have publicly opposed rezoning for anything other than park or recreation use, and have stated their desire to keep the south side of the street residential.

   Richard Friedman, of 31 Elm St., president of the association, presented the board Dec. 12 with a letter citing homeowners’ fears that rezoning would “adversely affect the quality of life on our street and in surrounding neighborhoods,” as well as that “this action would have a negative impact on property values,” which have “already suffered due to Rockwell’s pollution of the groundwater and soil in the Somerset Street area.”

   The Planning Board has said its main concern is to prevent unwanted use of the properties upon possible future sale by Rockwell. “My overriding concern is to be able to control what happens there,” said Planning Board Chairman Bob Donaldson in May, describing a possible scenario where the land is sold to a developer wishing to build townhouses or condominiums.

   Councilman Mackie said the views of neighborhood residents might be a factor in Rockwell’s future plans. “They’ve had some conversations with residents of Elm Street,” said Mr. Mackie, adding that this may have influenced the decision of company representatives to maintain the residential character of the property for the duration of the remediation effort.

   IN OTHER BUSINESS, council postponed a public hearing on the proposed 2008 budget to 7 p.m. today (Thursday) in the Hopewell Fire Department conference room on the first floor of the Municipal Building at 4 Columbia Ave.

Hearing tonight on radar safety

Two studies have found no public health risks

Cape Cod Times

By George Brennan

gbrennan@capecodonline.com

July 15, 2008 6:00 AM

No public health risks linked to PAVE PAWS.

BOURNE — The public will have a chance tonight to comment on recent studies that conclude PAVE PAWS, an Air Force radar station, poses no health risks to Cape Codders.

The studies, already released publicly, are summarized in the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, which will be presented at 7 tonight at the Best Western in Bourne. Residents will be given two minutes each to comment on the findings, which critics have said are flawed. Written comments will be accepted through Aug. 4.

Last December, a state Department of Public Health study concluded it was unlikely that PAVE PAWS was the main cause of 14 local cases of Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, since 1982. Another study by Broadcast Signal Lab in 2005, which did not look at the Ewing’s cases, also concluded there was no risk to public health.

The two studies were prompted by concerns, primarily from parents of children with cancer, raised at public meetings in 2001 and 2002. At the time, the Air Force was proposing an upgrade to the radar station, Air Force environmental planner Lynne Neuman said yesterday.

“Out of those meetings, we found the public wasn’t concerned with the component upgrade, but with the radiofrequency energy and the potential health impacts with those emissions,” she said.

PAVE PAWS, operated by Air Force Space Command, scans the eastern skies for missiles, satellites and space debris. The Sagamore radar station has been in operation since the late 1970s and for nearly as long there have been concerns raised about radiation and the possible health risks associated with exposure to it.

“We’re very confident, and I think the public is confident as well, that these studies have answered their questions,” Lt. Col. Paul Legendre, an environmental engineer with the Air Force, said yesterday.

If you go

A public hearing is scheduled from 7 to 10 tonight at the Best Western, 100 Trowbridge Road, Bourne.

Written comments can be made to Lynne Neuman by e-mail at Lynne.Neuman@Peterson.af.mil; by fax at 719-554-3849; or by mail at HQ AFSPC/A4/7PP, 150 Vandenberg St., Suite 1105, Peterson AFB, CO 80914-2370.

National Center for Environmental

• FR Notice: Jun 26, 2008
  

Contacts

Technical Information Staff

by phone at:   703-347-8561

by fax at:   703-347-8691

by email at:  nceadc.comment@epa.gov

Notice

EPA announces the release of the Toxicological Review of Tetrachloroethylene (External Review Draft) in the June 26, 2008, Federal Register Notice. This draft assessment is provided for public viewing and comment. Public comments received on the Toxicological Review within 90 days after the release of the FRN will be provided to the external peer reviewers for their consideration.

The date and location of the external peer review meeting will be provided in a separate FR Notice.

EPA is conducting a peer review of the scientific basis supporting the human health hazard and dose-response assessment of tetrachloroethylene that will appear on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) database. Peer review is meant to ensure that science is used credibly and appropriately in derivation of the toxicological characterization and dose-response assessments.

Full Document http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=192423