Pensacola News Journal

Editorial series, part 5: A Call to Action

Measuring pollution’s impact
So how do scientists try to measure the impact of pollution?

They look at broad areas — such as ZIP codes — and try to draw conclusions about what they find. They use “models” that tell them what they might find given the presence of certain levels of various pollutants.

Related

* Four cancer hot spots in our area
* Editorial series, part 5: Sins of the past will haunt our future

In 2008, the first results of a University of West Florida study begun in 2002 and funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control reported that health problems scientists would expect to find from the kinds of air pollution found in this area match the kinds of health problems found here.

For example:
• Infant deaths from birth defects occur at a much higher rate — 1 in 432 cases — in Escambia County than in the rest of Florida, where the rate is 1 in 728.

• Escambia County has more hospitalizations from asthma than the state average, and that number is rising. In most of Florida it is falling.

• People in three areas of Santa Rosa County and one in Escambia were at risk of elevated cancer rates because of industrial emissions.

But, the study found, the people at the highest risk of health problems from pollution across the two-county area are those in areas along busy roadways, where a chemical laundry list of ground-level pollutants from car and truck exhaust are heaviest.

The worst area? Blue Angel Parkway near its intersection with U.S. 98 in Escambia County.

The findings match projections from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that vehicle exhaust is surpassing industry as the greatest air pollution threat in the area.

But the findings present a challenge that comes from comparing our health problems with those of other communities. If pollution causes disease, and pollution is widespread, how do you tell what is normal?

For example, if the national level of cancer is elevated by pollution, what does it tell you if the level in the Pensacola Bay Area is close to it? If we don’t know what cancer rates would be like in a pristine world, it’s hard to say if pollution raises risks here.

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Pensacola News Journal

A study of air quality in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties calculated elevated cancer risks based on cumulative lifetime exposure to air pollutants in four areas.

Here are the areas of highest risk attributed to nearby industries.

1. Northeastern Santa Rosa County along County Road 191 centered on Florida Gas Transmission Co.’s operation.

Maximum risk: An additional 48 cases of cancer per 1 million people. But because the area is nearly entirely forested and rural, the study indicates there may be no one who has the chronic, lifetime exposure necessary to hit that risk level.
Related

* Editorial series, part 5: A Call to Action
* Editorial series, part 5: Sins of the past will haunt our future

Pollutant: Primarily formaldehyde emissions from a natural gas compressor station that operates natural gas-fired combustion engines. (A spokesman said improvements had cut those emissions by 15 percent.)

2. Northwestern Santa Rosa County centered on the Quantum Resources Management (formerly Exxon-St. Regis) petroleum and natural gas extraction operation about two miles west of Jay.

Maximum risk: An additional 23 cancer cases per 1 million people, but the area is surrounded by forested, rural land so exposure is assumed to be minimal.

Pollutants: Formaldehyde and toluene emissions from the petroleum/natural gas extraction operation. (Company officials said process improvements had cut formaldehyde, carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.)

Update: Quantum Resources halted production from the Jay field in December. In June Gov. Charlie Crist signed legislation providing tax incentives designed to restart production.

3. Pace community surrounding the Sterling Fibers plant.

Maximum risk: An additional 36 to 45 cancer cases per 1 million people.

Pollutant: Acrylonitrile emissions from acrylic fiber manufacturing. (Company officials said emissions of acrylonitrile were cut to zero in 2006. They also noted two studies of acrylonitrile that dispute findings that the chemical increases cancer rates among employees exposed to it.)

4. Cantonment community near the International Paper Co. plant.

Maximum risk: An additional 5.4 cancer cases per 1 million people.

Pollutants: Methanol and acetaldehyde used as chemical solvents in the pulping operation. (An IP spokeswoman said controls added in 2001 and 2004, plus a production change and mill reconfiguration in 2007, have reduced emissions, including methanol.)

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The so-called cancer cluster at The Acreage in Palm Beach County may be claiming animals as victims in addition to people.

BY KRISTINA WEBB
Beacon Blog
Miami Herald

Acreage resident Gail Bass never expected what she saw from her window five months ago.

The creature perched on her bird feeder looked like a squirrel, but it was covered with tumors.

“It was strange because I noticed the one and it kept getting worse,” Bass said.

The tumors covering the squirrel varied in size and the number of tumors increased over the next three months. Then, Bass said, the cold snap came and she hasn’t seen the squirrel since.

The Acreage, a pastoral community in western Palm Beach County, is the focus of a state investigation into whether a pediatric cancer cluster exists in the area.

Bass wonders whether there is something making animals in The Acreage sick.

Dr. Vanessa Rolfe, a veterinarian with the Bird and Exotic Hospital in Greenacres, said the tumors on the squirrel were probably caused by myxomatosis — a disease usually seen in rabbits and very rare in the United States — or one of several bacterial or fungal infections.

“Chances are not great that is a noninfectious neoplastic condition, but certainly possible,” Rolfe said.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, neoplasia is “the uncontrolled, abnormal growth of cells or tissues in the body.” The resulting growths are not always malignant.

`ALWAYS IN THE POND’

Bass’ two Chesapeake Bay retrievers both had cancer by the time they were 2 years old, and both died after suffering from autoimmune disorders for several years — one from thyroid problems, the other from Cushing’s disease.

“They were always in the pond [on my property] swimming and drinking,” Bass said. The dogs did not come from the same litter, she said.

The veterinary medical association reports cancer is the cause of death in almost half of pets over 10 years old. The proportion is higher among dogs than among cats.

Susan Coffman saw the signs of a potential cancer cluster years ago.

Coffman, vice president of Doberman Rescue Concern in West Palm Beach, lives near the intersection of Seminole Pratt Whitney Road and Okeechobee Boulevard in The Acreage.

In her home, Coffman keeps urns of all the dogs who have died under her care.

“This is Eli,” she said. “Eli had head cancer.”

Coffman noticed a large number of dogs with cancer coming out of The Acreage when she began working with Doberman Rescue in 1985. She said “warning sirens” began to go off in her head when she tried to adopt several dogs from Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control.

“They were euthanizing any dog that came from The Acreage and had a tumor,” Coffman said.

Coffman said she understands the need for doing that.

“They did not want to house and spend money on animals that are not adoptable,” Coffman said.

Animal control officials could not be reached for comment on their euthanization policy.

Before long, Coffman began to notice other warning signs in The Acreage.

CAUSE OF DEATH

According to the Doberman Pinscher Club of America, cardiomyopathy — weakened heart muscle — is the No. 1 killer of Dobermans nationwide.

However, Coffman has kept records for almost 15 years that show cancer as the No. 1 cause of death among Dobermans in The Acreage.

“Cancer has always been a problem out here,” Coffman said.

Several of her dogs have died and one is undergoing treatment to remove a malignant tumor.

Coffman said she has also noticed an increase in autoimmune problems in Acreage dogs.

“I have tried to tell people about this for so long, but they seemed resistant,” Coffman said. “You can look at it as dead Dobermans or you can look at it as a warning.”

According to state investigators, there are many potential causes for the cancer cluster, including pesticide runoff from farms and orange groves.

The area is also surrounded by several industrial sites, including Pratt and Whitney to the north and the Palm Beach Aggregates to the west.

A lawsuit dismissed in federal court last month accused Pratt and Whitney of causing the cancer cluster. According to a Palm Beach Post article from 1999, the Pratt site on Beeline Highway just north of the J.W. Corbett Wildlife Management Area has been the focus of federal environmental clean-up efforts since the 1980s.

Corbett and the Pratt property are directly north of the affected area in The Acreage.

Lake Worth resident Brandon Zapf goes hunting and fishing at Corbett a few times a month. According to Zapf, he was hunting at Corbett about a year ago when he encountered a “strange” deer.

“I shot the deer, and between the skin and the meat there was green slime,” Zapf said. “I started to dress the deer and ended up just leaving it there.”

Zapf said he has also run across deer with growths.

A spokeswoman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission could not comment on sightings of abnormal animals at Corbett because, she said, none had been reported to her.

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by GREG ALLEN, National Public Radio (NPR)

In Florida’s Palm Beach County, residents of a rural community find themselves caught in a medical mystery. Over the past 16 years, at least 13 cases of brain cancer have been diagnosed among children living in an area called The Acreage.

State and federal health officials have designated it a “cancer cluster” — meaning they’ve found a higher-than-expected number of one type of cancer in a single area.

As resident Michelle Damone noted at a recent residents’ meeting, that designation hasn’t brought any answers.

“Is there a contaminant out there? Do we need to do more testing? Have we not looked at something? Is there more to look at?” Damone said. “We need to review statistics together. We all need to ask, what do the statistics mean?”

For residents who have been packing into the meetings here in The Acreage, the issue is not statistics but the health of the community’s children.

A Chance Meeting

The Acreage is a sprawling area, with about 40,000 residents spread out over more than 100 square miles northwest of West Palm Beach. Homes are on acre-plus lots with septic systems and well water.

Jessica Newfield had a malignant brain tumor. Doctors successfully operated, and nearly five years later, Jessica is healthy and cancer-free.
Tracy Newfield says she moved here with her family in 2002 because of the area’s beauty and the large lots. The extra land gave her family room for Jet Skis, a boat and ATVs. But about two years after they arrived, her young daughter, Jessica began complaining of headaches. Newfield says doctors conducted tests and prescribed medicine but couldn’t identify the problem.

“Finally, as the tumor grew, in sixth grade, she came home from school one day and couldn’t stand the headache. And so I took her directly to the hospital. We did an MRI. We started to drive home and they told me to come back, come back to the hospital,” Newfield says.

Newfield’s daughter had a malignant brain tumor. Doctors successfully operated, and nearly five years later, Jessica Newfield is healthy with no recurrence.

For years, Newfield says, she thought her daughter’s cancer was an isolated — and rare — incident. That changed in 2008 with a chance meeting at Miami’s Children’s Hospital.

“Two families ran into each other in a hospital when they were getting the same exact surgery. They go to the same church and you’re told by the surgeon, you’ll never see one of these in your neighborhood. Little by little, when those two mothers found each other, and word got out in the neighborhood, we then found there were many of us,” Newfield says.

More Question Marks

After months of prodding, Florida’s health department began investigating. This year, the agency concluded that The Acreage was the site of a cancer cluster.

The finding was a vindication for some, but what followed infuriated many: A state health official said there was no plan to search for an environmental cause. Residents and elected officials protested, and that position was quickly reversed. But many residents in The Acreage remain suspicious about the state’s commitment to the investigation.

Stephanie Peskowitz is a nurse and a mother, with two kids younger than 5. Like many here, she’s frustrated that state investigators haven’t told residents exactly what they plan to do.

A cancer cluster is a statistical increase, but that does not mean there is one single cause for all the cancers in the cluster.
- Lauren Lewis, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

“They’ve just started on the soil testing, and there are a lot of questions about that. So they really haven’t educated us enough about what their plan of action is. We haven’t seen actually even a plan of action, so, we don’t know where it’s going to go from here,” Peskowitz says.

The department hasn’t released a plan of action for its Acreage investigation, officials say, because it’s a process that unfolds step by step.

Carina Blackmore, the state’s environmental epidemiologist, says she can’t say how long the investigation will take or even what the next step will be.

“We will evaluate the data that the Department of Environmental Protection is collecting. And then we will get together with our partners in the state and the Centers for Disease Control and based on those results determine what the most prudent next step is,” Blackmore says.

All along, Florida’s health department has been upfront with a basic truth about cancer-cluster investigations — that they rarely pinpoint a cause, environmental or otherwise.

Peskowitz says she’s heard that a lot.

“I don’t want to hear that anymore, I really don’t, because that was the first thing that was said when they did the confirmation,” Peskowitz says. “And as far as I’m concerned, you can’t start being on the negative before you’ve done any investigating, before you know what’s going on. We want to hear that you are actively looking to see what the problem is, and you are going to do everything to the extent of your power to try and rule out what it is.”

While state health officials are investigating, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has also been involved, advising the state and monitoring the results. Lauren Lewis, an environmental epidemiologist for the CDC, says that in decades of cancer-cluster investigations, the CDC has never yet been part of one that pinpointed a clear environmental cause.

She says cancer-cluster investigations are difficult for a number of reasons: People move, cancers take years to develop and the numbers of cases are usually small.

“A cancer cluster is a statistical increase, but that does not mean there is one single cause for all the cancers in the cluster. And because there may be a cluster or there may be an increase in the number of cancers, it doesn’t mean those cancers are linked,” Lewis says.

Staying Or Leaving

In The Acreage, for every resident like Stephanie Peskowitz, a mother concerned about the health of her children, there are also residents like Sean Foster. Foster is a 35-year resident who helped build the neighborhood. He’s a homebuilder who put in many of the wells that are now being tested as part of the state investigation.

What worries Foster about the cancer-cluster designation is not just what it means for the health of residents but also what it means for the future of his community. He says that real estate agents tell him that some Acreage residents are talking about moving at the end of this school year.

I have to heal and make sure I can look at my daughter and say, ‘I don’t think it’s an environmental cause.’ I don’t feel that right now.
- Tracy Newfield

“And we need some leadership that puts out this positive news that defends our community and lets people know that with every good test, that there may be more and more reason to stay,” Foster says.

Realtors are unhappy that they’re now required to add a cancer-cluster disclaimer to homes sold in The Acreage. Some residents have already moved, including one of the families who prompted the cancer-cluster designation.

That decision — whether to move or to stay — is one Tracy Newfield says many families in The Acreage are wrestling with, including hers. She says she and her husband want the facts before they make any decision. If all the tests come back negative, she says, with time, she may eventually feel comfortable staying in the community.

“I have to heal and make sure I can look at my daughter and say, ‘I don’t think it’s an environmental cause.’ I don’t feel that right now,” Newfield says.

Officials with Florida’s Departments of Health and Environmental Protection seem to be getting the message. They’ve opened a special office in The Acreage to answer residents’ questions and to share information about the ongoing cancer-cluster investigation.

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Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

A study that identifies the bottom third of Florida as a massive brain cancer cluster has set off a firestorm among Acreage residents worried about their community’s reputation.

They insist the report, which surfaced on the Internet last month, is proof that cancer isn’t a problem solely for their central Palm Beach County community, where health officials last month declared a cluster of cases among children and teenagers.

They have besieged state legislators, health officials and anyone else who could change the local designation or spread word of the report.

But in interviews, the study’s authors say their findings don’t discredit the state’s cluster designation in The Acreage.

What’s more, The Acreage’s cluster is part of what’s pushing up rates throughout southern Florida in the new study, said Richard Clapp, an epidemiologist and professor of environmental health at Boston University.

The state Department of Health declined to discuss the study, due to be published next month in the scholarly journal Pediatric Blood & Cancer. The authors include researchers from the University of West Florida in Pensacola and the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research in Delaware.

The study has swiftly grabbed attention in The Acreage.

“Our community has been labeled as the poster child for ‘Pediatric Cancer Clusters’ in the State of Florida,” Acreage residents Carl and Debra Garcia wrote to state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo last week in an e-mail seeking answers about the new report. “We want the truth both for those directly stricken by health issues and the community at large.”

The study, which compares childhood cancer rates throughout Florida ZIP codes from 2000 through 2007, wasn’t meant to challenge or conflict with state findings, its authors said.

The report doesn’t address causes of the elevated cancer rates but says the findings “are suggestive of environmental factors or common risk factors in the areas.”

The study found that in 2006 and 2007, southern Florida had more than twice as many childhood brain tumors and cancers as would be expected in that size population: 52 cases instead of 24.

“This may be an area of concern for the health authorities to look deeper into — that’s pretty much where the results in the article end,” said study author Raid Amin, a statistics professor at the University of West Florida.

Based on maps accompanying the study, the region with elevated cancer rates appears to include the Glades and other parts of western Palm Beach County, as well as barrier islands along the Atlantic, but not the bulk of the county’s cities and suburbs. It also includes parts of Broward and Miami-Dade counties, the Gulf Coast and sites north of Lake Okeechobee.

Researchers declined to provide more detailed geographic data.

The study has its acknowledged shortcomings, chief among them its population counts.

The authors used 2000 U.S. Census data to estimate the region’s overall population, which they then compared with numbers of cancer cases taken from a state registry.

“You have to wonder as you get further away from 2000 whether that rate is influencing the results,” said Kimberly J. Johnson, a postdoctoral research fellow with the University of Minnesota’s Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research. Johnson peer-reviewed the study, titled “Epidemiologic Mapping of Florida Childhood Cancer Clusters,” for its publication in the journal.

To ensure that nearly decade-old population figures hadn’t skewed the results, the researchers examined census estimates and state demographic data for later years. Those estimates made them reasonably confident that southern Florida’s population did not rise significantly faster than other parts of the state, Amin said.

Still, “you could have small-area migration that could really influence the rates,” Johnson said. “They did the best they could.”

Population, as well as age breakdowns within the population, could skew the results, agreed Babette Brumback, an associate professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.

“The validity of the results would depend on the validity of those projections,” Brumback said.

In verifying The Acreage’s cluster, state health officials used multiple methods to estimate population and age, including school district data and customer counts from Florida Power & Light.

The study’s five authors used statistical analysis software known as SaTScan, which Harvard biostatistician Martin Kulldorff developed more than a decade ago. The program, which the National Cancer Institute also uses, compares cancer rates in adjacent ZIP codes. The study’s authors used the patients’ addresses at their times of diagnosis. They obtained cancer data from the state’s cancer registry and considered children up to 19 years of age.

The Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research initiated the study almost two years ago. The center is part of the Nemours Foundation, which was formed through industrialist Alfred duPont’s estate in 1936 and owns several children’s clinics and hospitals in Florida. It is building a new facility in Orlando and hoping to attract patients and philanthropy from the entire state.

The online version of the study was circulated around the same time that state health officials last month declared the cluster in The Acreage.

Health officials said in early February that five pediatric cases of brain tumors or cancer had occurred from 2002 through 2007 among The Acreage’s estimated 39,000 residents, when only two to three cases should have occurred.

At the same time, county health director Dr. Alina Alonso told reporters that a broader area of South Florida likely had an elevated rate of pediatric brain cancer as well. She didn’t cite a study and did not respond later to requests for comment on the West Florida findings.

At the health department’s main offices in Tallahassee, a spokeswoman responded with only a few comments this week.

“The data analysis methods by the University of West Florida Report are relatively new and untested,” spokeswoman Susan Smith wrote. She added: “The authors indicate that their findings cannot be used to determine health impacts in small geographic areas. Independent researchers will use this report to identify areas that require additional study using more traditional methods to verify the University’s hypothesis.”

State health officials hadn’t contacted the study’s authors since they released their findings, Amin said Wednesday.

On Thursday, Brian J. Calkins, director of the Florida Association of Pediatric Tumor Programs, which collects state cancer registry data, said he had just gotten word that state health officials were trying to coordinate a meeting with the study’s authors.

Staff writer Stacey Singer contributed to this report.

Number of childhood brain and central nervous system tumor and brain cancer cases from 2006-2007 in southern Florida, according to new study:

Expected: 24

Observed: 52

Number of cases the Florida Department of Health’s investigation of The Acreage showed for 2002-2007:

Expected: 2-3

Observed: 5

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by Al Pefley
CBS12.com

Tonight, an I-Team Investigation reveals there was possible ground contamination discovered years ago in the Acreage.

It happened long before the pediatric cancer cluster was ever confirmed.

A new report shows state health officials likely knew about environmental contamination in the Acreage decades ago.

We just got our hands on a report that shows authorities knew there was a problem.

They were asking about contamination then, and they are asking about it today.

The report is dated October 1988.

And it basically says investigators determined that Pratt and Whitney, located just miles from the Acreage, had contaminants that posed a human health threat. This week, health officials are taking soil samples, looking for the cause of the Acreage cancer cluster.

But this report points the finger at Pratt and Whitney as one possible source.

The report, prepared in October 1988 by the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services, says Pratt produced a number of hazardous wastes that it stored and buried on its property.

Even back then, 22 years ago, authorities found Pratt was a potential threat to public health.

As this aerial map shows, Pratt and Whitney, a major defense contractor, is only about 7 miles from the Acreage in northern Palm Beach County.

The report says: “…this site is considered to be of potential public health concern because of the risk to human health caused by the possibility of exposure to hazardous chemicals in the ground water and air…”

Among the stuff that Pratt disposed of in landfill and incineration trenches on its site were solvents, sludges, pesticide and herbicide residue, fuel, mercury, asbestos and unnamed commercial and laboratory chemicals.

The report says: “Human exposure to contaminated ground water is of concern.”

And it also says: “Surface water runoff and flooding may introduce contaminants to the wetlands and canals that drain the site.” It also says contaminated, wind-blown dust is a concern at the Pratt site. Again, that was in October 1988.

Richard Cotromano and his wife live have lived in the Acreage for almost 8 years and they have a 6 year old girl, Elizabeth, with an inoperable brain tumor.

“They should’ve cleaned it up. I mean, that to me is unacceptable.”

It angers him he says, to know that Pratt was identified as a concern 22 years ago.

“Being the area was not very heavily populated at that time…who knows what could’ve been dumped out there.”

We just received a statement from Pratt and Whitney.

It says in part “We maintain a comprehensive network of groundwater monitoring wells at this facility, overseen by state agencies, that shows our past and current operations pose no threat to human health. We continue to cooperate fully with all regulatory agencies in their investigation of health concerns in The Acreage.”

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By MITRA MALEK
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

THE ACREAGE — Outrage erupted among residents and politicians Wednesday after state health officials announced they don’t plan to search for an environmental cause of The Acreage’s cancer cluster — and instead will mount a campaign to raise “awareness” about childhood brain cancer.

The announcement came from Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department, who noted that brain cancer is thought to be rising across the industrialized world, with potential contributors including cell phones, microwave ovens, artificial sweeteners and genetics.

Alonso said the state’s investigation hasn’t pointed to a cause of the central Palm Beach County community’s elevated levels of childhood brain cancer and brain tumors. And she doubts it will, even after investigators wrap up the second phase of their work in mid-March.

“From what we have right now, it does not seem practical or reasonable to start searching blindly,” said Alonso, whose agency is part of the state Department of Health.

“It’s frustrating for me not to give them a cause,” Alonso said. “I can’t make up science.”

In response, some residents scoffed at what they called the department’s “complete mishandling” of the cluster, whose existence the agency confirmed this week.

“That infuriates me,” said Greg Dunsford, whose 7-year-old son had a brain tumor removed two years ago. “It’s like, ‘Hey best of luck to you.’”

Some elected leaders were equally upset.

“To ask us to accept the unknown is ridiculous and unacceptable,” said Michelle Damone, president of Indian Trail Improvement District, which governs some aspects of The Acreage. “There will be no comfort for anyone in those terms.”

Tying the Acreage cluster to a general brain-cancer rise worldwide is “speculation,” said state Sen. Dave Aronberg, D-Greenacres, who is running for attorney general.

“It’s unreasonable to simply say there is no known cause, when many factors could have contributed to environmental contamination in The Acreage,” he said. Among them: large groves and farms, as well as the nearby Pratt & Whitney plant, which has spilled chemicals on its property over the years.

Alonso told reporters that she has “nothing saying these cancers are a result of Pratt & Whitney.”

State Rep. Joseph Abruzzo said he was “deeply disturbed” with Alonso’s general reasoning.

“These are all hypotheses until we do a certain level of testing,” said Abruzzo, D- Wellington.

Since June, the state Health Department has been investigating whether the 32,000 to 39,000 residents of the semi-rural Acreage are experiencing higher rates of brain tumors and cancer than normal. Results released Monday confirm that they are. They show “significantly elevated” pediatric brain and central nervous system cancers, particularly for girls, in those up to 19 years old.

It’s unclear what exactly causes brain cancer, but excessive radiation is a known contributor. Brain cancer is the second most common type of cancer in children, behind leukemia.

Epidemiological experts acknowledge that a specific cause isn’t necessarily linked to a cluster — which the National Cancer Institute defines as a higher-than-expected number of cases within a certain group of people in a geographic area over a period of time.

Sharon Watkins, a state Health Department environmental epidemiologist involved with The Acreage study, wrote to a worried parent this week that a cluster “does not mean or imply that this elevation is related to one particular cause or that it must be linked to a contaminant.”

“I think that people automatically assume that any increase in cancer must be linked to an environmental cause and that is not always true nor can it be proven,” Watkins added. She wrote: “It is unlikely that all types of pediatric brain cancers have exactly the same risk factors.”

Both Watkins and Alonso said pediatric brain cancers might be elevated in other parts of the county as well, but no one would know without an investigation.

Health officials pinned assurances that well water in The Acreage is of good quality based on random samples that the state Department of Environmental Protection took at 50 wells last year. A few of those tests, however, showed elevated levels of radiation, which could have been from natural causes.

Through a spokesman, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson reiterated his call for environmental tests to start quickly and said he would “insist” that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention help state health officials “in getting to the bottom of this concentration of cancer cases.”

Alonso said she would welcome federal help but plans to put energy into public awareness and pushing for large-scale research.

“Our best way of trying to help children is to have early detection,” she said. She said the health department is not planning to take soil samples, do genetic testing or go beyond the interviews it has conducted with patients’ families.

Calling for more awareness is absurd, said Tracy Newfield, whose 15-year-old daughter had a brain tumor removed in 2005.

“We’ve been focusing on awareness for the last nine months,” Newfield said. “I don’t know where she’s been.”

The CDC isn’t expected to step in, nor does the state health department plan to ask the agency to investigate anything at this point, county health department spokesman Tim O’Connor said.

“They’ve been with us from the beginning,” O’Connor said. “They know what’s going on.”

Staff writer Stacey Singer contributed to this story.article online

NorthEscambia.com
December 13, 2009

Pensacola has the worst drinking water of any American city, according to the results of a national survey released Saturday.

In the study, there were 21 chemicals found in Pensacola’s water that exceeded health guidelines, including radium, lead, benzene and carbon tetracholride.

In an unprecedented analysis of 20 million tap water quality tests performed by water utilities between 2004 and 2009, Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that water suppliers detected a total of 316 contaminants in water delivered to the public. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set enforceable standards for only 114 of these pollutants.

Another 202 chemicals with no mandatory safety standards were found in water supplied to approximately 132 million people in 9,454 communities across the country. These “unregulated” chemicals include the toxic rocket fuel component perchlorate, the industrial solvent acetone, the weed killer metolachlor, the refrigerant Freon and radon, a highly radioactive gas.

Pensacola’s worst water ranking was among 100 of the nation’s largest water systems in cities over 250,000 in population. In North Escambia, water systems are operated by small independent water companies such as Walnut Hill Water Works, Molino Utilities, Central Water Works, Bratt-Davisville Water System and the Town of Century. These smaller water systems were not part of the worst water results. Only the water provided by the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority (ECUA) in the Pensacola metro area was part of the water study. The smaller North Escambia water systems were not included in the study by EWG.

“The nation’s tap water has been compromised by weak federal safeguards and pitiful protection of drinking water supplies,” said Jane Houlihan, Senior Vice President for Research at EWG.

“Utilities do the best job that they can treating a big problem with limited resources,” said Houlihan, “but we must do better. It is not uncommon for people to drink tap water laced with 20 or 30 chemical contaminants. This water may be legal, but it raises serious health concerns. People expect better water than that, and they deserve it.”

Federal law does not require tap water to be safe for long-term consumption; the long-term risks of cancer and other health threats are balanced against the cost and feasibility of purification. As a result, health officials acknowledge that legally binding contamination limits typically allow exposure to levels of pollutants that present real health risks. For hundreds of other contaminants there are no legal limits at all — any amount is legal.

Some communities have made the commitment to deliver safer water, with dramatic results. Boston had a serious contamination problem that peaked in 2004-2005. After installing a new filtration system and changing treatment techniques, the regional water system now delivers some of the highest-rated big city water in the country. It has also committed to a well-protected reservoir system, a key to preserving the long-term effectiveness of the new techniques.

Tap water contaminants come from a wide variety of sources. EWG’s analysis revealed 97 agricultural pollutants, including pesticides and chemicals from fertilizer- and manure-laden runoff; 205 industrial chemicals linked to factory discharges and consumer products; 86 contaminants that originate in polluted runoff and wastewater treatment plants; and 42 byproducts of water treatment processes or pollutants that leach from pipes and storage tanks.

“In most U.S. households, pouring a glass of tap water means exposing families to hundreds of distinct chemicals and pollutants, many of them completely unregulated,” said Houlihan.

Chemicals detected in Pensacola’s water supply from 2004 to 2008 were: Barium (total), Chromium (total), Cyanide, Mercury (total inorganic), Nitrate, Nitrite, Selenium (total), Trichlorofluoromethane, 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene, cis-1,2-Dichloroethylene, 2,2-Dichloropropane, Monochloroacetic acid, Dibromoacetic acid, Chloroform, Xylenes (total), p-Dichlorobenzene, 1,1-Dichloroethylene, 1,1-Dichloroethane, 1,1,1,2-Tetrachloroethane, Monochlorobenzene (Chlorobenzene), Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Alpha particle activity (incl. radon & uranium), Combined Uranium (pCi/L), Cadmium (total), Lead (total), Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, Heptachlor epoxide, MTBE, Total haloacetic acids (HAAs), 1,2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane (DBCP), Bromoform, Bromodichloromethane, Dibromochloromethane, Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), 1,2-Dichloroethane, Carbon tetrachloride, 1,2-Dichloropropane, Trichloroethylene, 1,1,2-Trichloroethane, Tetrachloroethylene, Benzene, Alpha particle activity (excl radon and uranium), Radium-226, Radium-228.

Pictured: The nation’s best and worst water systems in cities over 250,000 population, according to a study released Saturday by the Environmental Working Group.

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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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April 17, 2008 4:15PM

The Kind of Story I Wish Was Fiction

By Alexis Glick

Remember that book that I told you I was reading over vacation — The Appeal by John Grisham? The story about a cancer cluster caused by a plant that was dumping toxic waste in the ground and throughout the water system? The class action suit filed against a publicly-traded company?

This morning, I interviewed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papantonio, both very well known lawyers. Kennedy, a big defender of the environment and considered a trailblazer for his fight to help clean up the Hudson River. Papantonio, a partner at one of the largest plaintiffs’ law firms in the country.

They came on the show to talk about a class action lawsuit that they filed on April 11th against Raytheon (RTN: 64.71, +0.13, +0.20%), a huge defense and aerospace systems supplier. The lawsuit concerns a facility in St. Petersburg, Fla. which residents believe has released toxins into the water and its neighboring environment. The toxic chemicals — trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride and dioxane — are all believed to be responsible for cancer, birth defects and death. It’s a very sad story about what has happened to this area in Florida. The damages are estimated to be between $250 and $400 million. The case could take two years to settle.