By KEVIN P. CRAVER – kcraver@nwherald.com

McCULLOM LAKE – Rohm and Haas is willing to pay for testing McCullom Lake’s air and groundwater for vinyl chloride contamination.

The manager of the company’s Ringwood plant made the offer in response to a request from County Board Chairman Ken Koehler, R-Crystal Lake. The Aug. 19 letter from Plant Manager Tom Bielas offers to cover the $50,000 projected cost of testing all of the village’s private wells for vinyl chloride, as well as pay $5,000 toward testing the village’s air.

Koehler revealed the letter at Wednesday’s meeting of the County Board Public Health and Human Services Committee. He said the tentative deal would go a long way toward giving village residents peace of mind that their air and water is safe today from contamination blamed in 31 lawsuits for causing a brain cancer cluster.

“It’s a good gesture on their part, and obviously, they would like to know, as we would like to know, if there was anything that was done to the water,” Koehler said. “It’s a nice, neighborly act.”

But plaintiffs’ attorney Aaron Freiwald said he believed that the gesture was a public relations move that had little to do with public safety and a lot to do with the fact that the first lawsuit goes to trial in a Philadelphia court in about three weeks.

“I’m very skeptical of the motives of the company and the county, as this proposal comes literally on the eve of trial and more than four years after we started with all of this,” Freiwald said. “They have always had each other’s interests in mind and have not shown any sincere concerns for the people of McCullom Lake.”

The families of three former village next-door neighbors diagnosed with brain cancer filed the first lawsuits in April 2006. They allege that air and groundwater pollution from the Rohm and Haas and neighboring Modine Manufacturing plants caused a cluster of brain and pituitary cancers in the village and the Lakeland Park subdivision in neighboring McHenry. Modine settled out of court in 2008.

Rohm and Haas also is offering another $50,000 to commission an “independent expert assessment of the various theories of vinyl chloride exposure in the village.” Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas with numerous industrial uses. It is recognized as a carcinogen by international health agencies, with some studies linking it to brain cancer.

The company’s proposal requests that either county government or the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency select certified firms to do the testing “to assure that such results are both independent and credible.” But county government’s independence and credibility in the matter is severely strained.

Within a month of the first lawsuits, the McHenry County Department of Health concluded before village residents and county government that brain cancer rates in the area were not above average and that the companies’ pollution never reached village wells.

Northwest Herald investigations since 2007 have concluded that the health department’s work was rushed, scientifically unsound and biased in favor of Rohm and Haas. The health department and county government still stand by the work, but Koehler said Wednesday that the health department would have no involvement in securing the proposed testing.

McCullom Lake Village President Terry Counley applauded Koehler’s effort to ask the company for funding. But Counley said that he would prefer for the IEPA, with the village’s input, to find the testing companies because residents do not trust the county or the health department in the matter.

Counley last month began fighting for the county to pay for well testing, but officials told him that the village needed to help pay for it. He said that he was “100 percent convinced” that Rohm and Haas’ offer was a public relations move, but he also said that he welcomed the funding.

“I’m not going to turn it down – I’d be out of my mind,” Counley said. “I’ve turned over every rock to find the money to pay for the well testing. If I had the money, I’d pay for it myself.”

Rohm and Haas spokeswoman Maureen Garrity said the company’s offer was not a public relations maneuver but a response to the county’s request for assistance and a measure of the company’s commitment to public safety. She said the company sympathized with area brain cancer victims, but that testing would back up its innocence.

“Our position all along is there has been no scientific link between the cancers and what happens at the Ringwood facility,” Garrity said.

By the numbers

$50,000 – The total amount that Rohm and Haas has pledged to test McCullom Lake’s private wells for vinyl chloride at an estimated $125 per well for all 400 homes.

$5,000 – The amount Rohm and Haas pledged to test the air in McCullom Lake for vinyl chloride.

$50,000 – The total amount the company volunteered for an independent analysis of “the various theories of vinyl chloride exposure in the village.”

31 – The number of plaintiffs since 2006 who allege that pollution from the Ringwood specialty chemicals plant caused a cluster of brain and pituitary tumors in McCullom Lake and the Lakeland Park subdivision in McHenry.

On the Net

To read and watch the Northwest Herald’s ongoing investigation of the McCullom Lake brain cancer cluster, visit NWHerald.com/mccullomlake.

Copyright © 2010 Northwest Herald. All rights reserved.

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McCullom Lake, Illinois – (April 19, 2010) This upstate village of slightly more than 1,000 residents will soon have a decision to make: how best to use hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be remaining at the end of the month in a cancer cluster, medical-monitoring settlement fund.

Philadelphia attorney Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq., who negotiated the 2008 class-action settlement with nearby Modine Manufacturing, Inc. on behalf of the residents, has been actively involved in discussions to ensure that the local citizens derive the most benefit from the funds. “There is understandably a great deal of interest in how these funds are applied to the betterment of the McCullom Lake community and its residents,” explained Freiwald. “The Federal judge supervising the case has made it clear that she wants whatever funds remain after April 30 to go toward a deserving, non-profit organization.” After receiving additional feedback from residents, elected officials and community leaders regarding prospects, he will make a recommendation in a formal petition to the Court.

Freiwald, a partner in the firm of Layser & Freiwald, P.C., is encouraging anyone with suggestions to present them to the independent settlement fund administrator at www.mccullomlakesettlement.com. Ideas may also be submitted to Layser & Freiwald, P.C. via the firm’s website, www.layserfreiwald.com.

The original settlement fund has been used to provide numerous vouchers for pre-paid medical testing to past and present village residents to screen for brain cancer and brain tumors. In fact, two of the cases were detected through MRI scans performed for residents using the settlement medical vouchers.
The first of more than two dozen cancer cluster cases against the non-settling defendants, including Rohm & Haas, a subsidiary of Dow Chemical (DOW: NYSE) is scheduled to begin trial in Philadelphia in early June.

Freiwald emphasizes that there is still time for eligible village residents to be screened under the settlement agreement. “If you lived there between January 1, 1968 and December 31, 2002, you are likely still qualified to obtain a voucher to have medical screening. But you must act before the end of April.”
The settlement agreement with Modine provides that any funds left over after a Court-imposed deadline will be directed to a non-profit organization for the benefit of McCullom Lake Village.

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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