Twenty-five years on, the world’s worst industrial accident continues to kill and blight many lives. And still there’s been no trial

By Nina Lakhani
The Independent

Sunday, 29 November 2009

Hazira Bee, 53, lives in one of the worst affected areas. The leakage blighted her entire family: one son has spent his life in and out of hospital; all her children missed their education, leaving her as the sole breadwinner

Bhopal is a calamity without end. On 3 December 1984, clouds of poison leaking from a Union Carbide pesticides plant brought death to thousands in this central Indian city. Today, fully a quarter of a century later, victims of this, the world’s worst industrial disaster, are still being born.

Here, in neighbourhoods where people depend on water contaminated by chemicals leaking from the abandoned factory and to mothers exposed to the toxic gas as children, brain damaged and malformed babies are 10 times more common than the national average. Doctors at Bhopal’s Sambhavna Clinic say that as many as one in 25 babies are still born with defects and developmental problems such as a smaller head, webbed feet and low birth weight.

Those who were mere children when the fumes overcame this city of a million are suffering, too. Painful skin lesions, stomach problems and raw, itchy eyes are common complaints among thousands of families, some of whom moved to Bhopal only in recent years. And the clinic says that Bhopal now has some of India’s highest rates of gall bladder and oesophageal cancers, TB, anaemia and thyroid abnormalities. Young girls start menstruating much later than normal and experience painful gynaecological problems, which often lead to hysterectomies at a young age.

These problems, say campaigners such as the Bhopal Medical Appeal (BMA), are linked to the continuing pollution of parts of the local water supply by chemicals such as chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. Families have no choice but to use ground water for washing, cooking and drinking when safe sources run dry, according to new research that will be published by the BMA on Tuesday. The study found higher levels of several carcinogenic chemicals in water sources this year compared with last year – strongly suggesting that future generations will be poisoned unless the area is decontaminated. This flies in the face of recent claims by state and national ministers that the site is clean.

Meanwhile, the legal fight for the chief executive of Union Carbide to be tried for his company’s alleged negligence is no nearer success than it was 25 years ago. Amnesty International will this week call on the Indian government and Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, to take “urgent and decisive action” to ensure that the accused appear in court – more than 20 years after arrest warrants were first issued. Dow continues to deny any responsibility for the criminal case.

It was in the early hours of 3 December 1984 that 27 tonnes of methyl isocyanate gas – 500 times more toxic than cyanide and used to manufacture the pesticide Sevin – began to leak from the Union Carbide plant into the surrounding areas. Hundreds of thousands were injured by the gas as they slept. Men, women and children living in the shanty settlements just over the factory fence woke up, gasping for breath and blinded by the gas as it rapidly dispersed.

Around 8,000 people are now believed to have died within the first 72 hours. Hundreds died in their beds; thousands more staggered from their homes to die in the street. Another 15,000 are estimated to have died as a result of the gas exposure since then, often from painful and horrific damage to their lungs, heart, brain and other organs, according to Amnesty International. An estimated three-quarters of the area’s pregnant women spontaneously aborted their babies within hours or days after “that night”. Hundreds more babies have since been born with deformities such as missing limbs, abnormal organs, misshapen heads and tumours. None of the plant’s six safety systems was operational that night.

Even today, Amnesty International estimates that 120,000 people exposed to the gas have chronic medical conditions. While the factory was closed down in 1985, another 30,000 people have become sick from water contaminated by the chemical waste buried underground or dumped in nearby ponds, according to health workers in Bhopal. Children and livestock are still spotted playing and grazing on the grass that hides the waste because the local government has failed to secure the site properly.

Hazira Bee, 53, lives in J P Nagar, one of the worst affected areas to the north of the city. On the night of the disaster, after awakening to the smell of burning chilli, she and her husband ran with their children, their eyes and lungs stinging with the gas. In the panic, her middle son, Mansoor Ali, aged four, was left behind. He has spent the majority of his life in and out of hospital, severely weakened by chronic lung damage. His daughter, now aged three and a half, was unable to hold her head up or turn on her side until she was 18 months old; she has just started to walk. All Hazira’s family have suffered from respiratory, neurological and skin conditions since the leak.

Hazira said: “The scene inside the factory was terrible. I saw dead bodies and injured people with foam coming out of their mouths. Since the gas leak we have all been sick. Because of this, my children couldn’t study and now they can’t get good jobs. Today I am the only breadwinner of the family. If this disaster would have taken place in America, the US government would have taken good care of their citizens. We want UC to take their waste back to America.”

The BMA water analysis report supports previous studies by Greenpeace which established that the areas north of the disused factory are worst affected because the ground water runs in that direction. The Sambhavna Clinic – set up 13 years ago with private donations – sees 150 people like Hazira and her family every day. There are 23,000 people who were either exposed to the gas or who have since used contaminated water supplies registered with chronic conditions such as liver disease, paralysis and severe anaemia. Doctors report new patients – adults and children – at the clinic every day.

According to Satinath Sarangi, a founder of the Sambhavna Clinic, tuberculosis is rife among people whose immune systems have been worn down by chronic exposure to poisonous water. Cancer clusters and children born with deformities are another distinction of the area, found by the clinic’s researchers who are conducting a door-to-door survey of tens of thousands of local people.

Earlier this year, the Indian Council of Medical Research finally bowed to public and international pressure by restarting a government-funded research programme to understand the alarming rates of still births, cancers, neurological and gynaecological problems seen by Bhopal’s doctors. Charities and pressure groups had been left to study the long-term health problems of Union Carbide’s victims after ICMR controversially abandoned its research programme in 1994.

The $470m out-of-court settlement made by Union Carbide in 1989 is regarded as grossly inadequate by the city’s health professionals and survivor organisations. It was based on early estimates of only 3,800 deaths and 102,000 injured, and the maximum amount any victim received was $1,000 – about 11 cents a day over 25 years. Had compensation been the same as for those exposed to asbestos under US court rulings against defendants that also included Union Carbide, the liability would have exceeded $10bn.

The Dow Chemical Company insists that it has no responsibility for toxic legacy. Yet internal correspondence, seen by The IoS and Amnesty, between different Indian ministries (including the Prime Minister’s Office) shows that the company continues to lobby Indian ministers in an attempt to close down the ongoing civil cases. These could require Dow to decontaminate thousands of tonnes of polluted soil.

Colin Toogood, of the BMA, said: “We want to see a full clean-up of the disaster site and surrounding area, including the ground water aquifer – a huge undertaking, but reasonable considering this was the world’s worst industrial disaster. The $470m compensation payout only ever pertained to people affected by exposure to the gas on that night. It does not, and never did, cover children born with terrible defects as a result of their parent’s exposure; people being affected by the environmental or water contamination; and it does not cover the environmental contamination itself.”

Tom Sprick from Union Carbide, said: “Neither Union Carbide nor its officials are subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian court since they did not have any involvement in the operation of the plant… The government of India needs to address any ongoing medical and health concerns of the Bhopal people.”

But according to Tim Edwards, a trustee of the BMA and author of the forthcoming Amnesty report, this conveys contempt for the process of law. He said: “In every form of civilised society it is the judicial system that decides whether an accused has a case to answer. India’s courts have decided that Union Carbide and its new owner, Dow, do – but the company sticks two fingers up.”

Scot Wheeler, from Dow, responded: “Attempts to attach any liability to Dow are misplaced… like all global companies, it is common for Dow leaders to meet with government leaders and officials wherever we do business and have plans to grow. It is also common for companies to discuss challenges and opportunities related to investment.”

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Authorities who want to investigate the McCullom Lake brain cancer cases first will take the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention up on its offer to review previous research.

McHenry County and state officials in a conference call this week agreed to first consult the CDC before proceeding with any investigation into why at least two dozen people with ties to the area have developed brain cancer. The discussion was a follow-up to an Oct. 28 meeting with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency in which it signaled a willingness to further scrutinize the situation.

The latest discussion included the Illinois Department of Public Health and McHenry County Department of Health Administrator Patrick McNulty, County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, R-Crystal Lake, said.

“I think the IDPH wants to hear back from the CDC about the information that is provided them,” state Sen. Pam Althoff, R-McHenry, said. “Is it enough to make a decision? Will they assist in an investigation? I think they want to hear back from CDC before they proceed.”

Thirty individual lawsuits and a class-action lawsuit filed since April 2006 allege that brain and pituitary cancers in McCullom Lake and the neighboring Lakeland Park subdivision in McHenry were caused by decades of air and groundwater pollution from the Rohm and Haas and Modine Manufacturing plants in neighboring Ringwood.

Rohm and Haas is fighting the lawsuits. Modine settled out of court last year.

Koehler asked the CDC in an Aug. 21, 2009 letter to investigate the alleged cluster and allegations that vinyl chloride pollution sickened area residents. The agency responded Oct. 5 that it would be willing to review research done to date.

“I really don’t know what to expect, but I think that we’re trying as a county,” Koehler said. “We’re sensitive to all issues related to the possible McCullom Lake cancer cluster, and we’re taking it to the highest authority we possibly can to outline it.”

Data to be sent to the CDC will include research done by the county and state health departments. The CDC requires that the data be delivered to the IDPH, which then would submit it.

County health officials stand by their pronouncement, made a month after the first lawsuits were filed, that local cancer rates were not above normal and that industrial pollution mapped since the mid-1980s never reached village wells.

The Northwest Herald concluded in a 2007 investigation that the county health department’s work was rushed and flawed, relying on cancer data too vague to be relevant and groundwater contamination maps provided and paid for by Rohm and Haas. Company executives also got to review portions of the health department’s presentation before it was shown to reassure worried McCullom Lake residents.

The IDPH also concluded that county brain cancer rates were not above normal as of 2006, the most recent year of data. But the department’s most recent update, dated Sept. 8, 2009, only examined countywide rates, not rates specific to McCullom Lake.

Officials also will send reports and maps filed with the IEPA by Rohm and Haas charting the groundwater contamination and cleanup efforts. The IEPA in its Oct. 28 meeting stood by the accuracy of the Rohm and Haas reports and the conclusion that the contamination never reached village wells, according to participants Koehler, Althoff and state Rep. Jack Franks, D-Marengo.

The newspaper’s investigation also called the accuracy of some of the Rohm and Haas reports into question and revealed that no government agency ever investigated the allegations of air pollution.

County Board member Tina Hill, R-Woodstock, said the agencies still planned to hold a town hall meeting in McCullom Lake to update residents, at the request of Hill and Village President Terry Counley. Hill began pressing for an outside investigation earlier this year – the plaintiffs include her older sister and three childhood friends.

“I’m not sure we’re going to get any new information, but the fact is, we’re keeping it out there in the public, and we’re bringing it back to the village,” Hill said.

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By COLLEEN O’DEA
GANNETT NEW JERSEY

Experts disagreed whether electromagnetic fields from power lines cause cancer or other health problems, as they testified at the final state Board of Public Utilities hearing on Public Service Electric and Gas Company’s proposed line upgrade.

Shortly after the discussion of EMFs, the utility and opponents of the $750 million, 47-mile Susquehanna-Roseland project wrapped up five days of testimony Monday in front of BPU Commissioner Joseph Fioraliso. The entire board is expected to decide Jan. 15 whether PSE&G should be allowed to add 500-kilovolt lines to the corridor, which passes through Morris County.

No studies have proven that EMFs from power lines cause leukemia or other health issues, testified PSE&G’s expert, William H. Bailey, a scientist, although he did say some studies have found an association between the fields and childhood leukemia.

Martin Blank, an expert for eight municipalities, two school districts, environmentalists and a citizens group opposing the project, said there is much evidence that fields at lower levels than those expected on the new line could lead to leukemia, breast cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Because of the wide range of biological systems affected, the low response thresholds, the possibility of cumulative effects by repetitive stimulation and the inadequacy of exposure standards, it is urgent that the proposed power line be moved to a distance where the anticipated magnetic fields will not pose a hazard to the community,” Blank, a professor at Columbia University, said in his written testimony.

In response to a lawyer’s question, Blank said there has not been enough research to determine what a safe distance from EMFs is.

“All I know is, the farther away you can get, the better off you are,” he said. Blank cited studies that found correlations between cell phone use and head cancers, and between an electrified railroad and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dueling statistics

PSE&G’s lawyer, David Richter, asked Blank about the criticisms several international groups have made against a report Blank referred to in recommending safe exposure levels of no more than 4 milligauss. That’s less than one tenth the maximum of 48.6 milligauss expected at the edge of the line’s right of way when using monopole structures, which PSE&G plans to install exclusively on the eastern portion of the line.

Kyle G. King, the utility’s EMF expert, testified that the median field measurement is expected to be 19.3 milligauss, but it would be as high as 120 milligauss directly beneath the 500-kilovolt lines.

Bailey said even that maximum level would be below the limits recommended by two international bodies. Based on numerous studies that looked for a link between EMF exposure and cancer, Bailey said, “the evidence does not support a cause and effect.” He said, though, that there is a “statistical association” between long-term exposure and childhood leukemia.

Saying he has not seen any proof that power lines are responsible for any cancer clusters, Bailey also discounted the suggestion by the lawyer representing the eight municipalities that the current line is to blame for the cancers that have struck every family living on one street along the line in East Hanover, saying, “Based on the weight of the scientific evidence, I do not see a basis for that allegation.”

“It’s not a coincidence,” countered East Hanover Mayor Joseph Pannullo, who attended the morning session. “Why not err on the side of caution? We’ve given them an alternate route, out of Troy Meadows and away from the homes. They’re more worried about a delay.”

PSE&G recently offered to abandon plans for a new switching station in East Hanover, but still supports its chosen route along the current 230-kilovolt lines, from Pennsylvania to Roseland, as minimizing environmental impacts.

The line — on towers as tall as 195 feet — would pass through Jefferson, Rockaway Township, Kinnelon, Boonton Township, Montville, Parsippany and East Hanover in Morris County.

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By Barbara Anderson / The Fresno Bee

KETTLEMAN CITY — Five babies with cleft palates or other grave disabilities were born over a 15-month span in this small farming community off Interstate 5. Three died.

Many parents worry that poisons in the air, water and land are to blame. Their town of 1,500 is wedged in among agricultural fields, two highways and a hazardous-waste landfill.

Environmental-justice groups, who oppose a proposed expansion of the landfill, call it a “birth-defect cluster” — a surge in birth defects unlikely to occur by chance. They want an investigation.

But experts say parents may never know what hurt their babies. Apparent spikes in birth defects or cancer cases are notoriously difficult to verify, especially in small communities — and linking them to a specific cause is even harder.

Kings County health officials point out that different types of birth defects are involved, so it’s not yet clear whether the birth-defect rate was high enough to qualify as a cluster. But at least four of the babies had cleft palates.

Nationally, very few reports of elevated birth-defect rates are statistically out of line enough to be identified as clusters, experts say.

Even such instances do qualify as a cluster, an investigation likely would find no clear underlying cause: Birth-defect clusters sometimes happen randomly, they say. And many factors — genetics, nutrition, infections, the environment — can contribute to an increase. Untangling one factor from another to find a cause can be nearly impossible, they say.

The debate in Kettleman City has taken on fresh urgency as a hearing approaches on whether to allow an expansion of the Waste Management landfill three miles southwest of town.

On Dec. 7, the Kings County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to consider the company’s expansion request. The hearing is a result of an appeal by environmental groups after the county Planning Commission approved the expansion in October. Parents and environmental activists say the plans should be stopped until the birth defects have been investigated.

But investigations of possible clusters often take months, even years, said Lisa Croen, an epidemiologist who helped probe birth defects during 14 years at the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program.
“I know it’s very frustrating for families who have concerns, but that’s the challenge to scientists,” said Croen, who now is in charge of autism studies at Kaiser Permanente’s division of research in Oakland.

The landfill question
For about two decades, families in Kettleman City have voiced concerns about the nearby hazardous-waste landfill. It handles things like paints, batteries, solvents and pesticides, among other hazardous materials.
Now, they wonder whether there’s a connection between the landfill and the birth defects.

“I don’t say it’s the plant itself, but what else could it be?” Magdalena Romero said in Spanish through an interpreter. Romero’s daughter, America Romero, was born in September 2007 with a cleft palate and other problems from trisomy 13, a chromosome disorder. She died after 41/2 months.

Ivan Rodriguez, 28, said he and his wife, Daria Hernandez, both speaking through an interpreter, took walks in the hills near their home while she was pregnant with their son, Ivan Yhoel. “Once in a while, there would be some bad odors,” Rodriguez said.

Their baby was born with a cleft palate. Now he’s 1, but he can’t eat solid food and must drink formula through a special bottle. Hernandez, 23, said her doctor asked whether she used drugs or worked around pesticides that could have caused the birth defect. She had not, she said.

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CLYDE — Warren and Wendy Brown are in Washington, D.C., this week to make sure money is being appropriated for childhood cancer research.

“We’ve attempted to make contact with the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations committee members,” Warren Brown said several days before he left.

The Browns’ daughter, Alexa, died in August at age 11. Brown had been fighting medulloblastoma — a common brain tumor in children that also can affect the spine. She was diagnosed in May 2006, when she was 8.

Alexa was one of 38 children in the Eastern Sandusky County cancer cluster investigation, which is being investigated. She was the third in the cluster to fall victim to the disease. Medulloblastoma also claimed the life of a 6-year-old boy, Kole Keller, in April 2007. Shila Donnersbach, 20, was the second death in the cluster in December 2007. She was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma at age 18.

Several days before the Browns left for D.C., they had three confirmed meetings with committee members, and the other 12 members either declined or hadn’t given a response.

“We’ll still be knocking on their doors and dropping off a letter from Sen. Sherrod Brown and a DVD on childhood cancer,” he said. “Hopefully someone will look at this and realize this is a population that has been affected. I’m hoping doors will open, and we’ll have to stay.”

Brown says the emphasis of this trip is to make sure money is being appropriated to children with cancer and their families through the Caroline Pryce Walker Conquer Childhood Cancer Act of 2008. According to the Web site curesearch.org, the act promises to significantly increase federal investment into childhood cancer research. The act is named in memory of Caroline Pryce Walker, who is the daughter of Congresswoman Deborah Pryce R-OH, who succumbed to neuroblastoma in 1999 at age 9. The bill authorizes $30 million annually over five years.

During their trip to D.C., the Brown’s will be delivering some letters that fifth- and sixth-graders from Green Springs Elementary wrote in support of research.

A 51-page progress report from the Ohio Department of Health, Sandusky County Health Department and Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, which was released Oct. 30, states, “However, it is possible that a cause may never be known for the higher-than-expected number of childhood cancer diagnoses in Eastern Sandusky County.”

State and local agencies will continue to work together, and additional information gathered in the investigation will be shared with the community as it becomes available.

Brown said representatives of the ODH and Ohio EPA met with the affected families to present the information in the report.

“I don’t expect concrete answers,” Brown said, noting he’s beyond frustration. “My biggest concern is money on the federal level (to be available for research).”

The report also gave a detailed history of Whirlpool Corp., Clyde Division and Vickery Environmental Inc., and the emissions they give off and the hazardous waste that has been generated. The report also detailed information on dumps and landfill areas around Clyde and Green Creek Township.

Dina Pierce, spokeswoman for the Ohio EPA, said the investigation now includes a portion of Ottawa and Erie Counties.

“We are continuing air monitoring until the end of the year, along with an analysis on water quality monitoring (from samples this past summer),” she said, noting hopefully by next spring the water monitoring will be finished.

“This is our top priority,” Pierce said, noting the bodies of water tested were the two Clyde reservoirs Raccoon and Beavercreek, along with Buck, South, Green, Pickerel and Strong creeks. But, if everything checks out at normal levels, there’s not much more the EPA can do, though they’ll still be involved.

Sandusky County Health Commissioner David Pollick said they’ve done radiation testing in area schools, which also included Fremont, and will be doing so in the homes of the children affected. However, in the schools, there were no significant findings, Pollick said.

Robert Jennings, spokesman of the Ohio Department of Health, said they also are continuing their research on reproductive outcomes, which includes low birth weights and mortality rates among other factors.read article online

By MITRA MALEK
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

THE ACREAGE — After months of debate about a potential cancer cluster in The Acreage, three law firms have begun signing up clients and considering whom they could sue.

The clients are all families of cancer patients in the semi-rural community, who think that environmental contamination may be to blame.

The key question — what caused the pollution, if any? — remains unanswered. One New York City law firm, affiliated with environmental crusader Erin Brockovich, says it could take months to figure out whom to target in court.

But the Romano Law Group in Lake Worth expects to identify “likely defendants” within six weeks, attorney John Romano said today.

“Most cases that come into a law firm, you know right away who is the plaintiff and who’s the defendant,” Romano said. “In a case like this, you often don’t know that.”

The state Health Department is still studying whether a cancer cluster even exists in The Acreage, and leaders have said the inquiry might not be done until February or later.

Worried families in The Acreage started contacting lawyers shortly after the Health Department began its investigation in June. Preliminary findings released in August showed potentially higher-than-expected levels of brain tumors or brain cancer in children, although the department cautioned that outdated population figures may have skewed the findings.

Brockovich’s New York firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, has teamed up with Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, a law firm based in West Palm Beach. The two declined today to share how many clients have retained them.

Romano Law Group has signed up six young adults with different types of cancer, Romano said. The Lake Worth practice is waiting for more definitive scientific information from a Colorado-based environmental expert, he said.

Weitz & Luxenberg and Searcy Denney, on the other hand, have keyed in on radiation, which is known to cause brain tumors or brain cancer. The state Department of Environmental Protection said last month that some homes in The Acreage have well water with elevated levels of radium and other radioactive substances, which could result from natural causes.

But Weitz & Luxenberg said it drew different conclusions from its own tests of 10 wells of families affected by brain tumors.

“Some of this can’t be explained by naturally occurring sources,” said attorney Lemuel Srolovic. He said additional tests pointed to man-made manipulation of radium.

Meanwhile, state officials have said since early October that they haven’t found any man-made form of contamination in The Acreage based on their analysis of 50 random private well-water samples. But the state has not tested specifically for radiation caused by man-made activity.

“Our bigger point was you can’t just assume all radioactivity in the community is naturally occurring,” Srolovic said. “That’s something you actually have to think about and do some testing to know definitively one way or the other.”

Weitz & Luxenberg and Searcy Denney are considering contamination theories that would involve more than three defendants, none a “government entity,” said Mara Hatfield, an attorney who works with Searcy Denney. She wouldn’t elaborate.

The clients don’t have to pay anything to the law firms unless they prevail.

“They wouldn’t be putting all of this time and effort into the situation out here if they didn’t think something was wrong,” said Jennifer Dunsford, the mother who requested the state study.

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A series of recent deaths of New York police and fire officers who took part in the rescue operation at Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks has prompted fears of a delayed epidemic of cancer-related illness.

Five firefighters and police officers, all of whom were involved in the rescue and clear-up following the terrorist attack, have died of cancer in the past three months, the Guardian reports. Three died last month within a four-day period.

Those three were Robert Grossman, a Harlem-based police officer who spent several weeks at the emergency site and died of a brain tumour aged 41; fellow police officer Cory Diaz, 37; and firefighter Richard Mannetta, 44.

In addition, John McNamara, a 44-year-old firefighter, died in September; and Renee Dunbar, a police officer in her late 30s, died in August.

The cluster of deaths comes as Congress is under pressure to pass legislation that would provide federal help to emergency workers who have contracted illnesses since 9/11.

Up to 70,000 people took part in the massive operation at the site of the fallen Twin Towers, including police, firefighters and construction workers who came to New York voluntarily from all over the US. Many worked for months amid a toxic haze of dust and chemicals.

Amid the pollutants within the giant pile of 1.8m tons of debris and the surrounding air were 90,000 litres of jet fuel from the two stricken planes, about 1,000 tons of asbestos that was used in the construction of the Twin Towers, pulverised lead from computers, mercury and highly carcinogenic by-products from the burning of plastics and chlorinated chemicals.

No official tally is available for the number of those who have died as a result of the 9/11 clear-up. The New York state health department has recorded 817 deaths of emergency workers but it cannot confirm categorically how many of those were directly linked to the site.

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Pollutants near Clyde not a factor, state says

By TOM HENRY
BLADE STAFF WRITER

State environmental and health officials acknowledged yesterday they are no closer to determining the cause of the childhood cancer cluster in the vicinity of Clyde, Ohio, and conceded in a new report it “is possible that a cause may never be known.”

The report, discussed privately Monday with families of area cancer victims who have been part of the ongoing study, listed trace amounts of pollutants that have been detected and provided an inventory of what has been gleaned from file reviews of major industries, such as the Whirlpool Corp. and Vickery Environmental Inc.

But it showed nothing out of kilter. Pollutants in water wells, public water supplies, air, and soil were found at levels within U.S. Environmental Protection Agency safety guidelines.

In fact, the Clyde area’s numbers for air pollutants so far in 2009 are below those in more industrialized areas such as Cleveland, East Toledo, and Cincinnati, said Dina Pierce, a spokesman for the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. “Most of our work is now concluded,” she said.

The report can be accessed at www.epa.ohio.gov/pic/clyde.aspx. A copy is available at the Clyde Public Library.

The Ohio EPA will continue taking air samples through the end of the year and will produce a report based on water sampling from area streams this year, she said.

The Ohio Department of Health, with assistance from the Sandusky County Health Department, has scoured health records, radiation sources, industry practices, spills, and other potential sources.

The two health agencies likewise have hit a roadblock.

“We may never find a smoking gun,” said Robert Jennings, the state health department’s public affairs director.

He said it is continuing with research into the area’s birth weights, infant mortality, and other reproductive outcomes.

Officials have ruled out many possible causes, which they said has some value.

But they remain baffled.

“They’re running out of places to look,” said Dave Hisey, whose son Tanner, 11, is among the area children being treated for cancer. The boy got his latest chemotherapy treatment injected through his spine yesterday at Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo.

“I’m hopeful, but I’m pretty frustrated. It tends to get to you,” said Mr. Hisey, manager of a Clyde grocery store.

Warren Brown, Sandusky County clerk of courts, said he and his wife, Wendy, will meet with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) and U.S. Rep. Bob Latta (R., Bowling Green) in Washington next week.

The couple, who live in Clyde, will make presentations to key officials and aides involved with appropriations committees. The Browns want to get the federal government to release more money for childhood cancer research.

The couple lost their 11-year-old daughter, Alexa, to cancer in August.
“We have a whole bunch of [new] data. But they’re no closer to determining the cause,” Mr. Brown said of the new report.

He said he believes the agencies have done their best but “have an extremely difficult uphill battle.”

“Unfortunately, I just don’t feel there will ever be a smoking gun in this case,” Mr. Brown said.

Contact Tom Henry at:
thenry@theblade.com
or 419-724-6079.

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NDCA is delighted to announce the hiring of new Executive Director Terry Nordbrock, MLS, MPH. Terry brings with her seven years of environmental health activism and a wealth of resources to this position.

Terry completed a Masters in Public Health degree at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, with a focus on Environmental and Occupational Health.

Terry became concerned about environmental health when her two-year-old son was diagnosed with leukemia. In 2003, Terry and several other mothers of children with cancer met to discuss their frustrations about the Sierra Vista childhood leukemia cluster, and agreed to form a group to encourage more investigation into the cluster, Families Against Cancer & Toxics (FACT). CDC overturned their decades old policy of non-involvement in cancer cluster investigations to respond to the childhood leukemia clusters in Fallon, Nevada and Sierra Vista, Arizona. Terry gave up a beloved career as a reference librarian to work full-time to improve environmental health.

In 2004, FACT held a weekend conference for people affected by disease clusters. Advocates came to Sierra Vista from across the country from places like Fallon, NV; LeJeune, NC; and Sacramento, CA to explore ways of working collectively to address shortfalls in the nation’s public health system.

Please join us in welcoming Terry to this position.

Jim Wilson/The New York Times
The fortunes of the Chevron oil refinery fortunes and the city of Richmond have diverged in recent years, creating friction.

By MALIA WOLLAN
Published: October 31, 2009
Competing tours offer two very distinct ways to see the industrial city of Richmond in the East Bay.

This article is part of our expanded Bay Area coverage.
The Bay Area Blog features coverage of public affairs, commerce, culture and lifestyles in the region. We invite your comments at bayarea@nytimes.com.

The New York Times
Chevron is Richmond’s biggest employer and taxpayer.

A “Toxic Tour,” led by an environmental justice group, circles Chevron’s Richmond Refinery and passes through what the group’s local members call the city’s “petrochemical corridor.” On Chevron’s newly offered refinery tours, visitors don hard hats and safety glasses and hear of strict emission standards, exemplary safety records and jobs, jobs, jobs.

Chevron is the city’s biggest employer and taxpayer, but in recent years its fortunes and the city’s have diverged. The slowing economy trounced Richmond, while the oil price spike helped Chevron turn record profits.

The city and the corporation exist on entirely different scales — Richmond, with a population of 102,120 people, is lost among its larger neighbors, Oakland and San Francisco; Chevron is a global corporation with 62,000 employees operating in more than 100 countries.

That prosperity gap helped galvanize segments of the population against the company that has dominated the physical, economic and psychic landscape here for more than 100 years.

Gayle McLaughlin, rode the anger into City Hall in 2006. Ms. McLaughlin, the city’s first Green mayor, is now Chevron’s avowed antagonist. As Chevron’s profits climbed, it provided more fodder for her attacks.

Until recently, Chevron had been doing well. The second-largest oil company in the United States, it earned $23.9 billion last year, topping off five consecutive years of record profits. Though Friday’s third quarter earnings report showed profits down 51 percent, Ms. McLaughlin still brandishes Chevron’s financial statements like weapons.

They contrast starkly with the poverty in this city, which has an unemployment rate of 18 percent and the third-highest crime rate per capita in the state.

“It always seems really obscene to me that we have such growing profits experienced by this large oil company while people here are struggling to pay for food and rent for their families,” the mayor said in an interview .

A series of lawsuits and a key ballot measure passed since Ms. McLaughlin’s victory show a city torn between the generally liberal, anticorporate politics of the Bay Area and its own history as a loyal company town. Environmental groups have so far been able to block a retrofit of the Chevron refinery while the city has tried to raise the company’s taxes. Chevron, which says the changes to the refinery will reduce pollution, has appealed the ruling.

The taxes paid by the Richmond refinery account for 33 percent to 50 percent of the city’s $144 million general budget this year. The refinery employs some 1,300 people, making it unclear what the city would do without Chevron.

But between the low profit margins for refineries across the country and the new taxes levied on the refinery, company leaders say they are considering doing without Richmond. While residents might not want anything that drastic, they do seem to want the corporation to do more for the city. Last fall, they passed a ballot initiative, Measure T, whose backers adopted the slogan “A Fair Share for Richmond.”

The measure charged businesses an additional tax of a quarter-percent of the value of the raw materials used in manufacturing. For Chevron, that additional tax was $21 million this year. In February the company filed suit in Contra Costa County Superior Court arguing that the measure violated state and federal law.

The suit remains unresolved, but Chevron paid the additional $21 million in April. The city kept the money, though it refrained from spending it after the judge in the case warned not to. In February the company also agreed to pay the city $28 million as part of a legal settlement after a city audit concluded that the refinery had underpaid utility taxes.

Then, in July, another county judge halted Chevron’s effort to retrofit the refinery, saying the company’s environmental review was unclear on a crucial issue: whether the upgrade was designed to process a heavier grade of crude oil.

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