Hometown Hazards

A comment on local cancer rates and the environment

2009-07-08T20:22:00.000-07:00

The Times News has a story in today's paper titled "Rare blood disease hits home" about one man's experience with polycythemia vera and the public meeting slated for July 9 in Tamaqua about the plans for more research on the local cluster of that disease. I shared a comment at the paper's website that I also wanted to share with Hometown Hazards readers. Here it is in full.

Thanks to Mr. Wertman for having the courage to talk publicly about his illness, to Donnie Serfass for his reporting, and to the Times-News for publishing this story, which helps give a human face to a serious problem affecting the anthracite coal region.

I'd like to share my thoughts about one particular point, to wit: "Some believe the problem is based on industrial pollution, past or present. At the very least, environmental factors are considered a suspect."

That's true. But it's important to keep in mind who that "some" includes, because it's not only those of us who've lived in the area with open eyes and basic common sense who believe environmental pollution is a likely factor behind the unusual cancer patterns. The independent and government scientists who studied the local incidence of the disease also reached that conclusion.

"The close proximity of this cluster to known areas of hazardous material exposure raises concern that such environmental factors might play a role in the origin of polycythemia vera," the researchers said in their published study.

And that was not an easy thing for them to say. As study author Dr. Ronald Hoffman of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine revealed in his sworn testimony earlier this year during a U.S. House subcommittee hearing, ATSDR's management first tried to discourage that research and then tried to prevent the publishing of findings suggesting an environmental connection.

"My sense is that if the agency was left to itself, it would have preferred to ignore the problem," he said.

Hoffman also told Congress that ATSDR misrepresented the study's findings at the October 2007 community meeting in Hazleton (a meeting that lead ATSDR researcher Dr. Seaman missed because his bosses had dispatched him to Africa not long before), demanded that Hoffman not exhibit the maps showing a geographic relationship between PV cases and pollution sources at a national hematology meeting and -- when he refused -- pestered him with repeated phone calls demanding that he either withdraw the abstract of his research, tell the conference that the agency disagreed with him, or present an abridged version of the data.

He called it an "obvious attempt at intimidation."

Also keep in mind that polycythemia vera is not the only cancer that occurs in the tri-county area at an unusually high rate: The Pa. Department of Health Study of cancer rates from 1996 to 2002 also found statistically significantly elevated rates of other cancers:

* In Schuylkill County, buccal cavity and pharynx cancer for males and overall; colon and rectum for males, females and overall; liver cancer overall; pancreatic cancer for females and overall; bronchus and lung cancer for females; cervix and uterine cancer; prostate cancer; and Hodgkin's lymphoma overall.

* In Luzerne County, stomach cancer for males, females and overall; colon and rectum cancer for males and overall; larynx cancer for males and overall; bronchus and lung cancer for females and overall; uterine cancer; thyroid cancer for females and overall; and leukemias for males, females and overall.

* In Carbon County, melanoma of the skin overall.

Some of those cancers could probably be blamed on unhealthy lifestyle choices, sure -- but not all of them. The fact is, too many people in this area are suffering from serious diseases because of the unhealthy choices of polluters and the government.

Federal officials to hold Tamaqua public meeting July 9 about polycythemia vera research plans

2009-07-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the troubled Centers for Disease Control and Prevention subdivision that's investigating a Hometown-area cluster of the rare blood cancer polycythemia vera, will hold a public meeting this Thursday, July 9 to discuss how it plans to spend the $5.5 million Congress allocated for the official study into the problem, which researchers believe is environmental in origin.

The meeting will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Tamaqua Area High School auditorium. The ATSDR's press release about the event, posted below in full, says it will provide "an overview of the PV research and other activities that will be funded by a special appropriation. In addition, the principal investigators of three already-identified projects will be on hand for more detailed discussions of their work. The projects include: the Drexel epidemiological study, the McAdoo Superfund Site Water Outflow Study, and the ATSDR JAK2 screening project."

Please note that while the headline says the test indicating whether a person has the JAK2 genetic mutation associated with polycythemia vera is "to be available for area residents," blood draws will in fact be done in August and not at this week's meeting.

* * *

ATSDR Slates July 9 Public Meeting on Polycythemia Vera Issues - JAK2 Testing to Be Available for Area Residents

Carbon, Luzerne, Schuylkill County County, Tamaqua, Pennsylvania

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

ATLANTA - The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) will hold a public meeting in the Tamaqua High School auditorium, 500 Penn St, Tamaqua, PA., on Thursday, July 9, 2009 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. to inform area residents of recent efforts regarding polycythemia vera (PV).

At the meeting ATSDR officials will present an overview of the PV research and other activities that will be funded by a special appropriation. In addition, the principal investigators of three already-identified projects will be on hand for more detailed discussions of their work. The projects include: the Drexel epidemiological study, the McAdoo Superfund Site Water Outflow Study, and the ATSDR JAK2 screening project.

The JAK2 genetic marker was discovered in 2004 and found to occur in more than 95% of PV patients. Many experts believe people with PV and related blood disorders may test positive for the JAK2 marker for a number of years before ever exhibiting symptoms of PV. It is not known at this time if the JAK2 marker always leads to PV or another blood disease.

Since the rates of PV are higher in this area of Pennsylvania than other parts of the state, ATSDR will offer free blood tests to the community for the purpose of screening for the JAK2 gene marker. By volunteering for this testing, residents can learn if they carry this marker, even though they are currently without symptoms of PV. Early diagnosis and treatment of PV can prevent or delay complications.

Individuals aged 40 or older are deemed most likely to test positive for the JAK2 marker; however, anyone living in Carbon, Luzerne or Schuylkill County is eligible for the screening. Blood draw clinics will be set up in Hazelton, Tamaqua and Pottsville from August 3-6 and August 10-13, 2009. Individuals are encouraged to make an appointment ahead of time by signing up at the public meeting or by calling 1-877-525-4860.

MEDIA NOTICE: A media availability session with the presenters and ATSDR officials will be held on site prior to the start of the public session from 6:00 to 6:45 p.m.

ATSDR, a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, evaluates the human health effects of exposure to hazardous substances.

Goodbye to Cancer Valley: In remembrance of John Soley

2009-06-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

After a long struggle with cancer, my friend Mr. John Soley died at his home in Carbon County, Pa. on Saturday, June 20. He was only 62, which is too young to die of natural causes. But then, neither John nor I believe he got sick from natural causes. We believe he and many of his neighbors were poisoned by pollution, and that the perpetrators should be held to account.

Outspoken in the local grassroots struggle against environmental injustice, Mr. Soley was a resident of Quakake Road north of Hometown, the rural Appalachian village where I grew up and where my mom still lives. Located where Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties converge in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal mining region, Quakake Road is a continuation of Ben Titus Road, where residents have reported an unusual number of cases of the rare blood malignancy polycythemia vera as well as other cancers and chronic illnesses. Last year, researchers with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry confirmed a cluster of polycythemia vera in that area and believe it is caused by something in the environment.

Indeed, the valley where Mr. Soley lived lies below what may be the most toxic mountaintop in America. Broad Mountain is home to McAdoo Associates, a former Reading Co. coal mine that in the 1970s became an illegal chemical waste incinerator and dump used by some of the most prominent corporations in America, including BASF, Johnson & Johnson and a company that today is part of petroleum giant BP. The property is now a Superfund toxic waste site that was once considered one of the country's most dangerous. The first federal investigators on the scene reported finding massive sheets of cancer-causing benzene on the property and dead animals and birds scattered around chemical drums. The smell from the place was so sickening that we used to roll up the car windows and hold our breath when driving past.

Today that Superfund site sits next to the heavily polluting Northeastern Power cogeneration facility, one of seven such power plants in the tri-county area that burn waste coal and waste fuel. Adjacent to the cogeneration plant is what's known as the Big Gorilla -- an old strip mine that since 1997 has served as a dump for the toxic combustion waste created at the power plant. In the photo at left, the cogeneration facility can be seen through the gates of the Superfund site.

To give you a sense of how close Mr. Soley lived to this toxic mess, see the Google Earth image below, where his property is marked with the square in the upper right. The large water body in the center is the Still Creek Reservoir, which provides drinking water for Hometown and the nearby borough of Tamaqua; the black area in the upper left is the old mine site; the lighter-colored area to its right is the Big Gorilla; the white triangle between the black ash pit and the road is the Superfund site; and the industrial facility on the lower edge of the ash pit is the cogeneration plant. The road running along the left edge of the image is Pa. Route 309. The highway roughly follows the Little Schuylkill, the Schuylkill River's northernmost headwaters, which originate on the mountaintop:

The community also lies a a couple of miles northeast -- that is, downwind -- of the Air Products plant, a manufacturer of electronics specialty gases and one of the few domestic producers of toxic fluorine gases. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory, the facility reported emitting to the air in 2007 alone more than 3,400 pounds of toxic hydrogen fluoride as well as more than 2,300 pounds of dichloromethane or methylene chloride.

Methylene chloride is a solvent known to cause cancer in humans, and it has a characteristically sweet odor. Coincidentally, during my last visit with Mr. Soley at his home this past October, he noted a weird smell coming from Air Products that he likened to bubble gum.

Welcome to Cancer Valley

I first met John Soley several years ago at a borough council meeting we attended in Tamaqua. It turned out that he knew my father, Dan Sturgis, as they worked together at the former Atlas Powder Co., where Mr. Soley was an electrician. My dad, a draftsman by training and an explosives expert, was first diagnosed with kidney cancer in the mid-1980s and died from it in 1998. The experience of helping care for him in his final months and seeing how many of our neighbors were also sick inspired me to undertake a research project that eventually led me to start this blog.

When I visited him last fall, Mr. Soley had been on kidney dialysis after years of suffering from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood plasma cells that are formed in bone marrow and that play an important role in immunity. He wanted to walk with me along the Still Creek Reservoir to show me the areas along the shore where the vegetation was dead. Those areas reportedly coincide with springs coming off the mountain, one of several pieces of evidence that suggest the toxic chemicals dumped into the mine on the top of the hill are seeping into the wider ecosystem. But he was too sick to go walking on that day, so instead we sat at his kitchen table and talked.

"We need our story to be told," he said. "Welcome to Cancer Valley."

Mr. Soley told me harrowing stories about his own long battle with cancer as well as the health problems of others in his community. One of his neighbors was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer at age of 18. In another nearby home, two people were both suffering from brain tumors. Another neighbor had stomach cancer. And Mr. Soley knew of at least one child in the area who had leukemia, and whose uncle lived nearby and died of leukemia as a teenager.

Mr. Soley first moved to Quakake Road in 1978 from Tamaqua's Dutch Hill neighborhood. An outdoorsman and hunter with a deep love for Brittany spaniels, he got a good deal on the land, where he soon opened a kennel. It was only a few years after Mr. Soley moved in that his young neighbor was diagnosed with the rare liver tumor. About a year after that, Mr. Soley's own health problems began.

Suffering from chronic fatigue that began soon after the move, Mr. Soley was being treated by his doctor for Epstein-Barr syndrome but wasn't getting any better.

He eventually saw an Epstein-Barr specialist who did additional testing and discovered problems with his T cells, key parts of the immune system. The tests also turned up serious problems with Mr. Soley's blood cells, which he described as looking like "tapeworms ... all stuck together."

It was in 1997 that Mr. Soley was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

After his diagnosis, he went through a four-month round of chemotherapy and later received a bone marrow transplant from his sister, Joan Yacobenas of Hometown. He was in the hospital at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore for a couple of months and then lived for a few more months in nearby lodgings for cancer patients so he could be close to his doctors.

Three days after he finally got home, he started bleeding from his bladder -- a reaction from one of his cancer drugs. This required operations to clear up blood clots.

When Mr. Soley returned home from that ordeal, he found he couldn't eat and started losing weight, dropping from 205 pounds to 145.

"I got so skinny when I looked in the mirror I cringed," he recalled. "I wanted to cry. I could only manage to eat one cookie a day."

As if that weren't awful enough, he then started bleeding from his rectum and had to be flown from the Lehigh Valley Medical Center to Johns Hopkins, where doctors diagnosed him with an infected bowel. They wanted to cut out a section but were afraid the operation would kill him. With no other options, they treated him with antibiotics but were not particularly hopeful about his chances.

He recalled how one morning three doctors came into his room and announced -- incredulously -- that somehow his bowel infection had cleared up.

"They told me I must have had a lot of people praying for me," Mr. Soley said. "They called it divine intervention."

After that ordeal, Mr. Soley was able to eat again, and his health gradually improved. But then in June of 1998, tests revealed there was still cancer in his body. He underwent an experimental therapy at Johns Hopkins that involved taking lymphocyte cells from his sister's body and infusing them into his own intravenously. When that treatment ended in January 1999, he finally felt good again for the first time in a long time.

"I was a completely different person," he said. "I felt 150 percent."

His relatively good health lasted until October 2006, when he woke up one morning with a strange feeling in his chest. A neighbor drove him to the hospital in Hazleton, where they found blockages necessitating heart surgery.

While Mr. Soley was undergoing rehab for the surgery, blood tests showed he had abnormally high creatine levels, indicating his kidneys were shutting down. In May 2007, he went on dialysis.

'This isn't normal'

When he first got sick, Mr. Soley told me, he figured it was just bad luck on his part. It was only later that he started noticing the patterns, with many neighbors all around him also sick -- with cancers of the liver, brain, prostate and blood, as well as thyroid disorders and other chronic illnesses. He lived not far from Betty and Lester Kester, a husband and wife who both died of polycythemia vera within the past two years.

"I said to myself, 'What in the hell is going on?' This isn't normal."

He soon began noticing strange things in the environment. The reddish-brown dust from the power plant that gathered on people's cars overnight. The strange chemical odors on the wind. The smell of sulfuric acid emanating from the hill leading up to the Superfund site. The thick white slime that coated the pump on his drinking water well.

A couple of years earlier, on the hillside close to his house, Mr. Soley also discovered what looked like spider webs of some sort of oily substance oozing out of the earth. He called his neighbor and friend, Ricky Johnson, who took photographs. They had a sample of the stuff analyzed at Wilkes University and found they were indeed petroleum products of some sort. The Pa. Department of Environmental Protection eventually sent out someone to take a look at the situation, but the person didn't even bring digging tools. Mr. Soley provided him with a spade to take samples, which according to DEP showed nothing unusual.

During our conversation, Mr. Soley expressed some bitterness toward local elected officials, who he felt failed to take adequate action to help area residents deal with the various environmental threats they're facing. For example, there's never been thorough independent testing of the water and sediment in the Still Creek Reservoir despite the obvious toxic threats. Nor has there been any widespread testing of people living along the reservoir for chemical exposures.

"It's been a joke," he said of official efforts to address the problems. "A farce."

Since Mr. Soley and I met, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) announced that he secured a $5.5 million federal grant to explore the cause of high rate of polycythemia vera in the area. But like me, Mr. Soley was already growing uneasy about officials' focus on polycythemia vera to the exclusion of all the other health problems suffered by local residents.

What about the people with multiple myeloma? Leukemia? Brain cancer? Prostate cancer? Thyroid disease? Would they be forgotten?

I know I won't forget my friend and what he went through. Perhaps the best way to honor yet another life lost too soon after great suffering would be to keep a question in mind as we continue our work seeking environmental truth and justice for the people of the Hometown area: What difference would our actions have made to John Soley?

(To read Mr. Soley's online obituary with details about his viewing and funeral, please click here.)

Polycythemia vera reported in vet exposed to war-zone burn pits

2009-06-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

Private contractors working for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan were confronted with mounds of trash they needed to dispose of, but they lacked the proper incinerators to burn it in a relatively safe manner.

So they came up with a simple solution to their problem: They simply burned the trash -- which included batteries, plastics, motor oil, pesticide containers and medical waste -- in big, open-air pits.

Now some of the veterans and others who were exposed to the toxic smoke are complaining of serious health problems. They're also suing the companies behind the toxic burn pits -- Houston-based KBR and former parent company Halliburton -- for their actions, as I reported this week for Facing South.

Among the health problems being reported in association with the burn pits are respiratory disorders, chronic infections and cancers including polycythemia vera. A cluster of the relatively rare blood malignancy has been confirmed in the Hometown area, which also has the nation's heaviest concentration of power plants that burn waste coal and other waste fuels.

As TheHill.com reports:

Anthony Roles, an Air Force veteran, was stationed in Balad from November 2003 through March 2004. There, he says, he experienced the burn pits on a daily basis, living less than a mile from them. In April of 2004, after serving his tour, he was diagnosed with essential thrombocythemia, a disease that causes the body to overproduce platelets. He was later diagnosed with polycythemia vera, a very rare, incurable cancer that affects 1 in 100,000 people. This condition requires him to take a chemo pill daily and to undergo bloodletting once to twice a month. Roles also had a heart attack at the age of 30 due to complications from the medication.

Roles' personal story is posted at the Burn Pits Action Center website, which was created by the office of U.S. Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.), Kerry Baker from Disabled American Veterans and Kelly Kennedy from Army Times as a central information clearinghouse on the pits. This week, Bishop introduced the Military Personnel War Zone Toxic Exposure Prevention Act (H.R.2419) requiring an investigation into the effects of burn pits and prohibiting their continued use.

I've reported on the link between polycythemia vera and exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, particularly the PAH benzo(a)pyrene. PAHs are formed during the incomplete burning of coal, oil and garbage. They're also a pollutant of concern with the fluidized bed combustion systems used in waste-coal-burning power plants.

(Photo of smoke from a burn pit from Burn Pits Action Center)

Feds' attempt to kill polycythemia vera investigation shows need for change

2009-03-31T13:33:00.000-07:00

The following op-ed ran in the print edition of the Lehighton (Pa.) Times News on Saturday, March 28. It's based on a longer article that originally appeared at Facing South.

By SUE STURGIS Special to The TIMES NEWS

U.S. Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), chaired a hearing earlier this month on failures of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to protect public health from environmental contaminants.

The hearing revealed numerous problems at ATSDR including the fact that it tried to bury research on the polycythemia vera epidemic in the anthracite coal region.

Problems at ATSDR first came to the attention of Miller's Science and Technology Investigations and Oversight subcommittee after the agency's badly flawed health assessment for formaldehyde exposure in Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims living in FEMA trailers. Through a series of hearings, Congress learned that ATSDR had honored a request from FEMA which was facing litigation over the trailers' formaldehyde levels to calculate the risk posed by formaldehyde by assuming storm victims were exposed for less than two weeks, even though many had already been living in the units for more than a year.

"Government at all levels failed the victims of Katrina and Rita in many ways, but ATSDR's failure was perhaps the most unforgivable," Miller said in his opening statement. "ATSDR's health assessment certainly failed any test of scientific rigor, but ATSDR's failure was worse than just jackleg science. ATSDR's failure was a failure not just of the head but of the heart."

In the wake of its investigation into formaldehyde in FEMA trailers, the subcommittee heard about other problems with ATSDR's work. It also heard about what Miller referred to in his opening statement as the agency's "keenness to please industries and government agencies that prefer to minimize public health consequences of environmental exposures."

The hearing featured testimony from a number of sources who pointed to serious failings by the ATSDR that are putting people's health in danger. They included Dr. Ronald Hoffman, a blood cancer expert and professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York (pictured in photo above, a still from the hearing webcast). He was part of the team of researchers who discovered a statistically significant cluster of polycythemia vera, a relatively rare blood cancer, in Schuylkill County and the fact that it might be related to the area's extensive environmental contamination.

Under oath, Hoffman told the Congressional subcommittee how ATSDR's management first tried to discourage his research and then to prevent the publishing of findings that suggested an environmental connection.

"My sense is that if the agency was left to itself, it would have preferred to ignore the problem," he said.

'An obvious attempt at intimidation'

Concerns about polycythemia vera first came to widespread public attention in 2006. That year, the Pennsylvania Department of Health released a public health assessment in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties that found Schuylkill and Luzerne counties had unusually elevated rates of polycythemia vera, a relatively rare malignancy marked by the overproduction of red blood cells.

The specific genetic mutation involved in polycythemia vera has been linked to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons chemicals released during the burning of fossil fuels. The area in question has the nation's highest concentration of waste-coal-burning power plants, a significant source of PAHs. It is also home to numerous toxic waste sites, abandoned mines, coal ash dumps, and polluting industries that are also sources of health-damaging chemicals.

ATSDR got involved in the investigation at the state health department's request. Dr. Vince Seaman, an ATSDR epidemiologist and toxicologist, contacted Dr. Ronald Hoffman, who agreed to evaluate blood samples from subjects thought to have the disease using a new molecular test.

But to Hoffman's surprise, ATSDR's management was not only unwilling to provide funds for the tests but was resistant to having them done at all. He proceeded with funding from a private foundation.

Through his own research, Hoffman confirmed that there seemed to be an unusually high rate of polycythemia vera in the study area including an unusual number of cases along Rush Township's Ben Titus Road, which runs near a site that's home to an abandoned mine, an old toxic waste dumping and incineration site, a waste-coal-burning power plant, and a massive dump for waste-coal ash.

The two doctors wrote an abstract about their findings for a 2007 meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Despite the fact that the abstract had been reviewed by numerous ATSDR staff, the agency objected to its submission because it had not gone through a formal clearance process. Then amidst the controversy, ATSDR sent Seaman on a months-long assignment to Mozambique a move that angered study participants and that Hoffman thought "showed poor judgment."

Even more surprisingly, at an October 2007 community meeting in Hazleton to discuss the preliminary findings, an ATSDR spokesperson presented conclusions that in Hoffman's words "seemed at odds with the results summarized in our abstract." For example, the ATSDR claimed polycythemia vera cases were scattered throughout the study area in no predictable pattern, and it downplayed the extraordinarily high rate of the disease.

"As I drove back to New York that evening with my scientific colleague Dr. Mingjiang Xu we talked about the experiences of the day," Hoffman said in his written testimony. "We commented how we felt that the ATSDR had misinterpreted and prematurely drawn conclusions about the data that we had participated in generating. ... Also we questioned if there was some outside constituency who ATSDR was responding to that made them act like they just wanted this whole matter to go away."

Soon after, Hoffman learned that the abstract of his research paper with Dr. Seaman had been accepted for a presentation at the hematology meeting which led to more problems with ATSDR management. Agency officials made repeated requests that he not exhibit his maps suggesting a geographic relationship between the polycythemia vera cases and pollution sources. When he refused, the agency issued a press release disavowing the findings.

When Hoffman showed up at the meeting, he got repeated cell phone calls from ATSDR officials asking him to either withdraw the abstract, make a statement before his presentation that the agency disagreed with its conclusions, or present an abridged version of the data.

"I was intimidated by these frequent calls by government officials which created a great degree of stress and anxiety for me," Hoffman said. "I was also outraged at this obvious attempt at intimidation."

'Scientific nihilism'

However, Hoffman was not intimidated enough by ATSDR's pressure to change course. His presentation was well received at the hematology meeting and his fellow scientists accepted the possibility that environmental contamination was a likely factor behind the unusual rate of polycythemia vera in the study area.

Hoffman and Seaman continued to refine their research. As part of that effort, ATSDR biostatisticians performed a sophisticated analysis that confirmed a statistically significant cluster of polycythemia vera in the study area. It includes Ben Titus Road, where multiple cases of the cancer were identified, as well as the borough of Tamaqua.

Hoffman's manuscript describing the cluster findings was eventually accepted by a peer-reviewed journal titled Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention and published last month.

But even then pressure to scuttle the reported findings continued. PADOH's chief epidemiologist, Dr. Stephen Ostroff who came to the agency from the CDC while Hoffman's study was underway was angry that the manuscript had been altered without his approval during the peer-review process.

Hoffman reports that Ostroff made "numerous calls" to top ATSDR officials to try to get them to discredit the manuscript. So far ATSDR has not done that.

"The scientific nihilism and lack of respect for the integrity of scientific investigation initially displayed by members of the agency surely compromises the stated mission of this agency," Hoffman said in his written testimony. "Their unwillingness to look objectively at the compelling data generated by our investigations is puzzling and disturbing to me."

This month, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) announced that the Senate has approved an appropriations bill with $5 million for further study of the polycythemia vera cluster. But President Obama has yet to name a permanent head of the CDC to oversee ATSDR. After former CDC Director Julie Gerberding stepped down after the election, Obama appointed as a temporary replacement Richard Besser, a CDC insider and bioterrorism expert.

No word yet on when a final appointment will be made or what it might mean for the integrity of ATSDR's future scientific research. But as Hoffman's testimony made clear, changes are needed at the agency if it's to live up to its mission of safeguarding communities.

"We hope the new Obama administration will take a hard look at ATSDR," Miller said at last week's hearing. "The American people deserve better, and so do the many scientists at ATSDR who have dedicated their lives to protecting the public's health."

"100 Ways to Save the World"

2009-02-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

The first book I worked on is out!

Titled "100 Ways to Save the World," it was authored by Johan Tell for a British audience, and I did the American adaptation. The foreword is by the great environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben.

I know I'm not the most objective source, but it really is a fun and lovely little book! Check for it at your local bookstore or order online.

Deadline nears for comments on Pa. fly ash regulation

2008-11-17T07:06:00.000-08:00

Environmental advocates are urging Pennsylvania citizens to weigh in on the need for enforceable regulations of coal combustion waste disposal at mine sites. According to the Sierra Club:

The major point to be made is that ENFORCEABLE REGULATIONS are essential for the placement of Coal Combustion Wastes at mine sites, NOT technical guidance

These ENFORCEABLE REGULATIONS should include:
* Characterization of all CCW.
* Isolation of ash from all water sources.
* Long-term, comprehensive monitoring of all ash sites.
* Clear standards for corrective actions written into all permits.
* Bonds for monitoring and clean up.
* True public involvement in all CCW permitting decisions.

Citizens are asked to submit brief comments by the close of the business day on Wednesday, Nov. 19. Comments should be sent to Keith Brady (kbrady at state dot pa dot us) as well as Acting DEP Secretary John Hanger (jhanger at state dot pa dot us).

For more information, contact Lisa Graves Marcucci (lisagmarcucci at gmail dot com).

Environmental advocates ask Pa. to reconsider coal waste dumping plans

2008-11-10T17:40:00.000-08:00

A group of environmental advocates recently sent a letter to the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection protesting the state's decision to resume dumping of coal combustion waste into Lehigh Coal & Navigation's massive Springdale pit, part of an old mining operation near the anthracite region towns of Tamaqua, Coaldale and Summit Hill. The waste would come from Dynegy's Danskammer Station in Newburgh, N.Y., which burns coal imported from South America.

The Springdale pit lies on the border of Schuylkill and Carbon counties in the eastern part of the state. This area was mined into the 1990s by Lehigh Coal & Navigation Co., leaving behind enormous black holes in the hillsides that occasionally swallow locals who wander too near. Federal authorities recently confirmed a cluster of a rare blood cancer in the area, which researchers suspect is probably environmental in original. This part of the state is heavily polluted from centuries of mining, coal burning, waste dumping, and emissions from various industrial facilities.

With help from the state's mineland reclamation program, LC&N has been filling the massive Springdale Pit with on-site spoil as well as coal ash from several power stations. A now-defunct local citizens' group called the Army for a Clean Environment successfully fought plans to add Delaware River dredge to the mix.

Pennsylvania is pushing a plan to fill the massive Springdale Pit near Tamaqua with coal combustion waste, which has been linked to widespread surface and groundwater contamination across Pennsylvania mining country. (Photo from DEP provided by Army for a Clean Environment, from Impacts on Water Quality From Placement of Coal Combustion Waste in Pennsylvania Coal Mines, a Clean Air Task Force report.)

On first consideration, it might seem to make sense to fill mine pits with the stuff left left over after burning coal. However, burning coal frees up toxins locked inside: aluminum, arsenic, lead, radiation. When rainwater and snowmelt runs through the ash, impurities leach out -- and there is no liner to keep them from seeping into the earth. In the latest issue of Rachel's Democracy & Health News, environmental reporter Peter Montague likens the leaching of coal combustion waste to brewing coffee:

If you pour water over a few coffee beans, you don't extract much coffee. The result looks pretty much like a cup of hot water. The good stuff remains locked up in the beans. But if you grind up the beans into a finely divided powder, then pour water over them, presto! You get a rich, thick cup of coffee. What has happened is that the surface area of the coffee beans has been enormously increased by grinding them up -- thus exposing a much larger surface to the water, allow the good stuff to be leached out into your cup.

Coal is the same. Coal underground is like coffee beans. Water filtering through a solid seam of coal does not extract much of those toxic metals. But once you mine, crush and burn the coal, turning it into a finely divided ash (like grinding up the beans, vastly increasing the surface area that can come into contact with water), then filter rainwater through it year after year after year -- presto! You get a rich, thick, toxic waste capable of poisoning your underground water supply.

There's evidence this poisoning-via-leaching is already occurring across the state: A 2007 Clean Air Task Force study of coal combustion waste dumping that found widespread contamination of surface and groundwater at Pa. minefill sites, with degraded water quality at 10 of the 15 locations examined. (The Springdale Pit was not among those studied.) The contaminants found included lead, cadmium, arsenic, and chromium -- some at levels exceeding water quality standards many times over. Groundwater contamination is a serious concern near the Springdale Pit, since residents of the rural areas immediately downstream of the towns draw their water from wells.

Here's the full text of the letter to DEP as posted at Dante7.com, the website of local environmental health advocate Dante Picciano:

Mr. John Hanger, Acting Secretary
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP)
Rachel Carson Office Building, 16th Floor
P.O. Box 2063
Harrisburg, PA 17105-2063

Re: Coal Combustion Waste Moratorium

Dear Mr. Hanger:

On October 9, 2008, you afforded us the opportunity to meet with you to discuss our concerns about the PA DEP's coal combustion waste program. At that time, we asked you, among other things, to consider a statewide moratorium on new coal combustion waste mine filling/mine reclamation projects until the safeguards proposed by the National Research Council, the Environmental Integrity Project and other experts have been adopted into final Technical Guidance now pending before the Department. We also asked you to stop the out-of state importation of coal combustion waste.

We stated that we sincerely hoped that the leadership changes at the PA DEP would mean a new direction for citizen and environmental participation. We were under the impression that you wanted us to meet with the department's mining staff once more to address our requests for safeguards and the factual basis for adopting them and that you would conduct an internal review and that you would provide us with your decision and the basis thereof.

Thus, we were very disappointed to learn that the Pottsville Mining Office of the PA DEP has subsequently renewed a permit reauthorizing the placement of large volumes of coal combustion waste at the Springdale Pit of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company (Surface Mining Permit No. 54733020). The Pit is located within the boroughs of Summit Hill, Coaldale and Tamaqua.

We were further disappointed to learn that the coal combustion waste will be imported from Dynegy Northeast Generation - Danskammer Station in New York.

We were particularly disappointed in your decision since PennFuture was and is monitoring the notorious 309 discharge from the Springdale Pit. The repeated violations of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit have been well documented by PennFuture during your tenure as president and CEO of the organization.

At some point, we are hoping that there will be at least a modicum of attention paid to the public health and the environment by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Thus, we would respectfully request that you reconsider the decision to reauthorize the placement of coal combustion waste at the Springdale Pit as well as the need to adopt and enforce substantive safeguards for the PA DEP's placement of coal combustion waste in mines before any further decisions to place this waste without these safeguards becomes binding on the department.

Respectfully submitted,

Lisa Graves Marcucci
Jefferson Hills, PA

Cathy Lodge
Bulger, PA

Beverly Braverman
Mountain Watershed Association

Robert Gadinski, P.G.
Ashland, PA

Dante Picciano, Ph.D., J.D.
Tamaqua, PA

TOXIC DISCONNECT: While calling for action on cancer cluster, Specter pushes project that would increase local cancer risk

2008-10-07T09:17:00.000-07:00

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter held a meeting in Hazleton yesterday to call for action on behalf of local residents suffering from polycythemia vera, a rare blood cancer that occurs at an unusually high rate in Schuylkill and Luzerne counties. But at another meeting held earlier that day, he called for construction of a waste coal-to-oil refinery in Schuylkill County -- a project that will significantly increase the carcinogenic burden on area residents.

The senator's clashing calls suggest a fundamental disconnect in his thinking. While the cause of the high PV rate has not yet been pinpointed, it's certainly safe to say that building a significant new source of toxic pollution will not help people already suffering from high rates of cancer and other chronic illnesses -- never mind the insult of using cancer victims' tax dollars to help pay for a project that will further damage their health.

Specter's meeting about PV took place at 4 p.m. yesterday at the Genetti Best Western in Hazle Township and involved about 20 local PV patients, physicians and public health advocates, the Pottsville Republican Herald reports:

The purpose of Monday’s meeting ... Specter said, was to get answers, and to map out a PV cancer cluster battle plan.

“I want to get a handle on this and develop an action plan to move ahead with a sense of urgency,” he said.

Among the strategies reportedly discussed at the meeting was research to examine similar health issues in West Virginia, another coal mining area that like Schuylkill County is also a center of heavily polluting waste-coal-burning power plants. In addition, there was discussion of investigating contaminants in the confirmed cluster area. Local oncologist Dr. Paul Roda will write up the "battle plan" and deliver it to Specter’s office by the end of the week.

But at the same time the senator is claiming he wants to help area residents who are suffering disproportionately from cancer, he's pushing a project that will increase his constituent's likelihood of getting the disease.

Interviewed after a town hall meeting held earlier yesterday afternoon at the Penn State Schuylkill campus, Specter told the Republican Herald that he wanted to boost Schuylkill's economy through government support of John W. Rich Jr.’s proposed waste coal-to-oil refinery in Mahanoy Township near Gilberton. The plant would be a new source of cancer-causing pollution in a county that already has a serious toxic pollution problem due to the numerous waste-coal-burning power plants. Schuylkill County has more of these dirty facilities than any other county in the nation.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has permitted Rich's refinery to annually release up to 99.9 tons each of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter, as well as 49.9 tons of carcinogenic volatile organic compounds, according to the Energy Justice Network. The facility would also dump into the air each year hundreds of tons of other health-damaging air pollutants -- including 38 pounds of mercury, a known carcinogen and neurotoxin.

Why is Specter pushing for a new heavily polluting facility despite the local area's serious health problems? Campaign finance records offer a clue. The Rich family is a generous contributor to the senator's campaign fund, having donated $10,200 to Specter in 2007 and 2008 alone, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Polycythemia vera patient-activist passes, furthers research even in death

2008-10-04T11:44:00.000-07:00

When U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter convenes a meeting with local polycythemia vera patients and their advocates on Monday, an outspoken leader in the effort to get public officials to recognize the problem will be missing from the room -- but she and her work will not be forgotten.

Betty Kester passed away last month at the age of 80. After Kester and her husband, Lester, were diagnosed with the rare blood cancer, she played a key role in drawing attention to the alarming number of cases of the disease along Ben Titus Road where they lived. Lester Kester died earlier this year at the age of 84. The couple had been married for 59 years.

Even in death, though, Kester will continue to play a key role in advancing understanding of the disease and why it's occurring at such a high rate in the area around Hometown. Before her passing, Kester asked that samples of her body tissues be collected post mortem for future testing -- and that wish was carried out with the important help of her friend, Hometown resident and public health advocate Joe Murphy, as well as Dr. Vince Seaman with the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

To learn more about Kester's life, read her obituaries published here and here.

(Photo of Betty Kester from her Morning Call obituary)

Specter calls meeting on polycythemia vera

2008-10-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

From the website of U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter:

Specter to Hold Meeting on Cancer Cluster

Patients, Doctors, Health Officials to Participate in Roundtable

Hazelton, PA
Monday, October 6, 2008 - 04:00 PM

EVENT: Senator Arlen Specter will meet with community members and officials who have directly dealt with the blood cancer cluster in Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill counties.

DATE/TIME: 4pm on Monday, October 6th

LOCATION: Best Western - Genetti Inn & Suites
1441 N. Church St.
Hazleton, PA 18202

Senator Arlen Specter will meet with community members and officials who have been directly involved with the higher than usual incidence of polycythemia vera in the Carbon, Luzerne and Schuylkill tri-county area. Participants will include residents who have advocated for attention and study of the region's health problems. Several community members who are suffering from the rare blood cancer, and the doctors that treat them, are expected to attend. Officials from Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry will also be on hand.

In June, Senator Specter, ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, announced the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved $262,000 for Drexel University School of Public Heath in Philadelphia to investigate the polycythemia vera cluster in Northeast Pennsylvania. Senator Specter, after consultation with the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Drexel University, requested the federal funding.

Senator Specter has closely monitored the occurrence of polycethemia vera in the community. After learning of the concerns, Senator Specter requested that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assist the Pennsylvania Department of Health in studying the community’s health problems. On October 6, 2006 Senator Specter visited the McAdoo Superfund site to formally announce that the CDC and Pennsylvania Department of Health would partner to perform a statistical analysis of the region’s health data. Upon the study's conclusion, Senator Specter has written several letters to the agencies urging them to hold public briefings for the community, as well as to continue to monitor the cases of polycythemia vera.

Considering the polycythemia vera - coal combustion waste dumping connection

2008-09-13T09:31:00.001-07:00

The first graphic below, from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's recent study on polycythemia vera in the Hometown area, shows the distribution of the cases of the rare blood cancer that agency researchers were able to confirm in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties. The second graphic from the Pa. Department of Environmental Protection shows the statewide location of former mine sites where coal and waste coal ash dumping has occurred. Burning coal and waste coal produces ash contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which in turn cause the specific mutation associated with PV.

Covering up a cause of polycythemia vera?

2008-09-09T06:15:00.001-07:00

In my previous post about the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry's confirmation of clusters of polycythemia vera in Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties, I raised a number of questions I wanted to examine further. One was why the agency says in its report confirming the clusters that the "cause of PV is not known."

Of course, as the ATSDR itself acknowledges, scientists do know what environmental contaminants have been linked to an excess risk of PV: They are benzene and related hydrocarbons, formaldehyde and other solvents, petroleum refinery pollution, and radiation. Of course, saying a pollutant has been associated with a higher risk of a disease and saying it "causes" a disease are not the same thing. However, people living in the high-rate PV communities might want to avoid and mitigate those risky exposures as best they can. More on that to come.

But it turns out that scientists don't only know what's been associated with a higher risk of the cancer: They know of at least one type of pollutant that causes the genetic mutation associated with PV and similar blood disorders.

I'm no toxicologist -- just a reporter trying to understand what's happening to the environmental health of the Hometown area through people's stories and the public record. And the fact is, the public record on the local polycythemia vera problem to date does not offer a great deal of information about the toxicology of the disease. For example, the ATSDR's final findings do not once mention the word "toxicology" or "toxicologist," and no toxicologists made presentations during the two public meetings to discuss the study.

So I was surprised to receive via e-mail an anonymous tip recently about that very subject: the toxicology of PV. It opened by noting that most PV patients have a specific mutation that substitutes the amino acid phenylalanine for valine in position 617 of the JAK2 gene. The e-mail went on to explain that the DNA mutation that produces this amino acid substitution is a G->T transversion. It also said that this particular transversion is known to be associated with exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- most notably the PAH benzo(a)pyrene. Formed during the burning of coal, oil, gas, garbage, and organic substances like tobacco or charbroiled meat, PAHs are a pollutant of concern with the fluidized bed combustion systems used in the waste-coal-burning power plants that are concentrated in the areas of Pennsylvania with unusually high PV rates.

But do PAHs actually cause PV? Let's break down the e-mailer's claims.

We'll start with the amino acid substitution typical of PV. An article titled "A Gain-of-Function Mutation of JAK2 in Myeloproliferative Disorders," which appeared in the April 28, 2005 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, confirms that patients with PV "had a homozygous G->T transversion, causing phenylalanine to be substituted for valine at position 617 of JAK2 (V617F)."

We find the same information in a paper presented at last year's American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, which reported that "the molecular pathogenesis of the myeloproliferative disorders (MPDs) polycythemia vera, essential thrombocythemia, and myelofibrosis with myeloid metaplasia has been strongly linked to an activating mutation of JAK2 (Janus Associated Kinase 2). A G-T transversion event in exon 14 that translates into a substitution of phenylalanine for valine at amino acid residue 617 leads to constitutive activation of JAK2V617F in a majority of these MPD cases."

So a G->T transversion is involved in PV. But do PAHs cause such a transversion? Let's turn to a report by Andreas Luch in the February 2005 issue of Nature Reviews Cancer titled "Nature and Nurture - Lessons From Chemical Carcinogenesis." On Page 121 of the article, Luch discusses the action of PAHs -- particularly benzo(a)pyrene (BP) -- on DNA, noting that it can "induce mutations, such as G->T transversions, during DNA replication."

Thus the e-mailer appears to be correct: PAHs -- and particularly benzo(a)pyrene -- cause G->T transversions, and G->T transversions cause PV. So it seems we can logically conclude that PAHs are a cause of PV.

Yet the ATSDR says the cause of PV is not known.

Why?

(Image of benzopyrene bonded to DNA by Zephyris)

Feds confirm Hometown-area blood cancer cluster, but no urgent action taken for public health despite obvious risks

2008-09-08T16:20:00.000-07:00

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) held a public meeting in Hazleton, Pa. last week to deliver the final findings of its study into polycythemia vera (PV) rates in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties. I wasn't able to attend because of other work obligations, but I had a chance to talk with people who were there, read the news reports, and review the materials publicly released earlier this week. I wanted to share my initial thoughts about what I've heard and read.

In short, ATSDR confirmed what it first reported last October: The tri-county area of Schuylkill, Luzerne and Carbon counties in eastern Pennsylvania's anthracite coal mining region has a significantly elevated incidence of the rare blood cancer -- about four times the state's rate, according to data from the state cancer registry. The agency also found three PV "hotspots" within the tri-county area where the PV incidence rate was even higher than the tri-county rate.

Unfortunately, it's not possible to directly compare the PV rate in the hotspots to that of the rest of the tri-county area or the state. That's because the researchers calculated the hotspots based only on those cases they actually confirmed as PV via JAK2 genetic testing and a medical records review by an expert panel. There's no such requirement for registry cases.

The confirmation process dramatically reduced the number of PV cases the researchers included in their study. Of the 97 tri-county cases reported to the cancer registry at the survey's start in December 2006, only 38 patients agreed to participate. The remaining 59 people either declined to participate, had died, or could not be found. The researchers also added another 24 people who were not in the registry but were found in other ways. (As it turns out, doctors in some parts of the area were less likely to admit PV patients to the hospital for diagnosis, and the registry relies on hospital reports.)

Of the 62 PV patients who agreed to participate in the study, 33 were confirmed to have PV. Seventeen others were determined not to have the disease, while 12 people did not have enough information in their medical records to determine what illness they're suffering from. It is those 33 confirmed cases of PV that the ATSDR focused on. The first map below shows how the individual confirmed cases are distributed throughout the tri-county area, and the following one shows ATSDR's designated PV hotspots (click on images for a larger version):

The PV hotspot that runs roughly from Tamaqua north to Hazleton encompassing Hometown (Area 2) was the only one with enough cases to be determined statistically significant. The other Schuylkill County hotspot (Area 1) lies north and west of the county seat of Pottsville, from the Frackville area in the north to the area around Minersville in the south. There's also reportedly a hotspot in eastern Carbon County, in the Penn Forest Township area east of Jim Thorpe (Area 3).

How elevated are the rates in these hotspots? Since the researchers couldn't directly compare the confirmed cases to the registry cases because of the differing criteria used for counting, they used two other methods to calculate comparative rates for the cluster area. Here is how ATSDR researcher Dr. Vince Seaman described the process in an e-mail to me:

1. Compare cluster area to the REST of the tri-county area:

Cluster area Rate: 15 cases in cluster area (approx. 86,000 people) over 5 years = 3.5
Outside cluster area = 18 cases (414,000 people) over 5 years = 0.87
Ratio = 3.5/0.87 = 4.0

2. Compare the cluster area to the ENTIRE tri-county area:

Cluster area Rate: 15 cases in cluster area (approx. 86,000 people) over 5 years = 3.5
Entire tri-county area = 33 cases/ 500,000 people over 5 years = 1.3
Ratio = 3.5/1.3 = 2.7

Seaman noted that these are only approximations since they're not adjusted for age or gender, and men and older people are more likely to have PV. He also pointed out that these numbers are conservative, since there are 66 registry patients who were not interviewed -- and six of them are in the identified high-rate area. Nor did the researchers account for historical addresses, which would help shed light on whether something happened during a certain time frame to influence PV rates.

The researchers state that they did not find a link between the PV cases and reported chemical exposures, or any pollution sources common to all of the high-rate areas. At the same time, they also noted that the study "was not designed to look for environmental exposures or other factors that could explain the high rates of PV." However, the researchers did acknowledge that there are serious environmental threats in the area studied, and shared this map at the public meeting:

"Still a lot of questions to be answered," Seaman concluded in the e-mail.

I agree. Some of the questions on my mind:

* Why do the researchers say in the summary of their investigation that the "cause of PV is not known"? Scientists know what environmental contaminants have been linked to an excess risk of PV -- namely, benzene and related hydrocarbons, formaldehyde and other solvents, petroleum refinery pollution, and radiation, as ATSDR acknowledges on its own PV investigation website. They also know of at least one class of chemicals that causes the specific genetic mutation found in PV -- namely, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). At the same time, there are likely sources of these pollutants in the communities studied, since PAHs are among the toxins produced by the fluidized bed combustion systems used in seven waste-coal-burning power plants located across the tri-county area.

* Now that we know people living in certain communities have a dramatically elevated rate of a disease that's been associated with environmental contamination, what are the government regulators, public health authorities and elected officials going to do about it? Test the air? The water? Chemical levels in people's bodies? Offer some advice on avoiding toxic exposures? Not so far. The only official response to the study has been U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's announcement that he is seeking $262,000 for the Drexel University School of Public Health to investigate possible environmental causes -- in a press release that still had not been posted on the senator's newsroom website as of today. Of course, he probably isn't eager to publicize the fact that the continuing failure of Pennsylvania's leaders to protect the environment and public health from pollution has literally sickened residents.

* What exactly does Pennsylvania's senior senator hope to learn by spending $262,000? One government scientist told me that he estimates a study of the scope needed here would cost at least $2 million a year over the course of several years. Other important questions about Specter's role have been raised by local environmental health advocate Dante Picciano, who noted in his recent letter to the Times News that it's a bit disconcerting that the same politician who was so eager to jump to the incorrect conclusion that there was no environmental link to the PV epidemic is now making critical decisions about how the problem will be studied.

* While politicians focus on finding research dollars, what about the people who were actually made sick by a combination of corporate irresponsibility and government negligence? How many of them need assistance with medical bills, or household bills because they're unable to work? Why is there no initiative to allocate public funds to help affected people?

* Why are researchers and public health officials still focusing solely on PV when other health problems are also occurring at unusually high rates in the tri-county area? According to a study by the state health department, Luzerne's thyroid cancer rate is 45 percent higher than the state's, and the county also has significantly elevated rates of stomach, colon/rectum, larynx, bronchus/lung, uterine, prostate, and uterine cancer, as well as leukemia, another cancer of the blood. Schuylkill County has significantly elevated rates of cancer of the buccal cavity/pharynx, colon/rectum, liver, pancreas, cervix, uterus, and prostate, as well as Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes. There are also anecdotal reports of localized clusters of other illnesses including thyroid disease and autoimmune disorders. Why aren't officials paying attention to the area's broader public health concerns, especially since there's now clear evidence something's amiss?

* Why are public health officials showing no interest in the other counties of Pennsylvania where polycythemia vera has been found to occur at an unusually high rate? A statistical analysis of state cancer registry data that I conducted last year with the help of Dr. Samuel Lesko at the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute found that Blair and Cambria counties in south-central Pennsylvania also have an unusually high rate of polycythemia vera rate -- not to mention three waste-coal-burning power plants along their shared border. Don't the public health authorities think this is significant?

More to come. Please stay tuned.

Federal health officials to discuss polycythemia vera study in Hazleton on Monday

2008-08-22T15:55:00.000-07:00

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry will hold a public meeting in Hazleton on Monday, August 25 to discuss the final findings of an investigation into the unusually high rate of polycythemia vera in the anthracite coal region. ATSDR will also outline areas for future research. The meeting will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. at Genetti's Best Western Hotel, 1441 N. Church St.

In an e-mail sent earlier this week to local environmental health advocates, ATSDR researcher Dr. Vince Seaman said that their "hard work and perseverance has not been fruitless." He also said he believes concerned citizens will be "encouraged" by the recommendations that will be presented.

The investigation's results will be published in a major scientific journal in the near future, which may bring more attention from national and international medical researchers.

Also attending Monday's meeting will be national experts on the rare blood cancer and representatives from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Department of Environmental Protection.

Check back next week for more details on the findings.

Public meeting Tuesday to discuss third nuke planned for cancer-plagued Luzerne County

2008-08-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public meeting in Bloomsburg, Pa. this Tuesday, Aug. 19, to discuss its review of the application it expects for a new reactor at PPL's Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County near Berwick, about 28 miles northwest of Hometown.

"We're going to work with residents to help them understand the process and how they can participate, because they can provide valuable information," said David Matthews, director of the Division of New Reactor Licensing in the NRC’s Office of New Reactors.

PPL -- which is also planning to boost the generating capacity of the plant's two existing reactors over the next two years -- wants to build and operate a new kind of nuclear reactor there known as a European Pressurized Reactor or Evolutionary Power Reactor. The EPR is designed by the French state-owned firm AREVA, a company under fire for uranium spills from its Socatri nuclear waste processing facility that have contaminated rivers and groundwater in Provence. Nuclear safety advocates in Europe and the United States are calling for the plant's closure.

"There has been a cascade of nuclear accidents in France over the last two months," said Linda Gunter, spokesperson for the Maryland-based group Beyond Nuclear. "The fact that in both incidents at the Socatri plant there was a delay before the public was informed, raises some serious questions about the corporate behavior of AREVA, a company that has multiple nuclear contracts in the U.S."

This month brought yet another potentially hazardous incident at AREVA's Socatri plant: an "anomaly" during receipt of a shipment from the French radioactive waste management agency. AREVA said the incident did not threaten public health or the environment; however, it did cause the facility to exceed a yearly emissions limit for radioactive carbon 14.

AREVA is also the maker of the experimental mixed-oxide fuel assembly that had to be removed recently from one of Duke Energy's nuclear power plants in South Carolina after it underwent potentially hazardous physical changes, apparently due to problems with a proprietary experimental alloy called M5.

But as the Union of Concerned Scientists points out, dozens of AREVA conventional uranium fuel assemblies using M5 are currently in the cores of several other U.S. reactors -- including Three Mile Island-1, which also lies along the Susquehanna River.

* * *

PPL's plans to put an AREVA EPR near Berwick come as Luzerne and neighboring Schuylkill counties are already suffering unusually high rates of many cancers, including the rare blood malignancy polycythemia vera. A team of government-affiliated and independent scientists who studied polycythemia vera locally concluded that the high rate locally is probably due to environmental factors -- although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disavowed that finding.

Among the environmental factors the medical literature (pdf) associates with an excess risk of PV is low-level ionizing radiation. And despite the nuclear industry's claims that its power is "emissions-free," normally operating nuclear reactors do release low levels of radiation to the environment. That's why they're required to file annual annual radiological environmental operating reports with the NRC.

PPL filed its latest radiological emissions report for the Susquehanna reactors (pdf) in May. The company reported finding various radioactive pollution around the plant, but for the most part blamed it on other sources. The radioactive Iodine-131 activity detected in 13 of 36 surface water samples taken around the plant? Medical waste discharges upstream. Cesium-137 in sediment samples taken nearby? Nuclear weapons fallout.

The company did acknowledge that Iodine-131 was present in ambient air samples, but said the levels were so low they're hard to measure reliably. It also acknowledged detecting tritium -- a radioactive form of hydrogen created in reactors -- "in the aquatic pathway to man," but below regulatory limits.

Of course, those limits don't take into account the other sources of radiation to which the people of Luzerne and nearby Schuylkill counties are exposed, which include naturally occurring radon as well as radionuclides from burning coal and coal combustion waste-dumping. Nor do they consider the many other toxic exposures, from historic waste dumping (including the notorious Butler Mine Tunnel case) to current industrial emissions.

* * *

Though any increase in radioactive pollution due to the addition of another normally operating reactor would presumably be small, a growing body of research suggests that exposure to any amount of radiation -- even at levels far below regulatory limits -- increases people's risk of cancer. In 2005, for example, the National Academy of Science released the latest in a series of reports on health risks from radiation exposure, which found that the preponderance of scientific evidence shows exposure to radiation at even barely detectable doses can cause DNA damage leading to cancers.

"The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," Richard Monson, a Harvard epidemiologist and chair of the research committee, said at the time. "The health risks -- particularly the development of solid cancers in organs -- rise proportionally with exposure."

Polycythemia vera is not the only cancer that occurs at an unusually high rate in Luzerne County: The Pennsylvania Department of Health's own official 2005 study into cancer rates in Luzerne, Schuylkill and Carbon counties found that Luzerne's thyroid cancer rate is 45 percent higher than the state's rate -- which in turn is the nation's highest. In fact, the Pennsylvania counties with the highest rates of the disase are generally close to and downwind of four nuclear power plants, according to an analysis by epidemiologist Joe Mangano with the nonprofit Radiation and Public Health Project. Though that doesn't prove a causal relationship, it does seem to suggest the need for a closer examination of reactors' public health impacts.

(Map from the Radiation and Public Health Project website)

Besides polycythemia vera and thyroid cancer, the state health department study also found a number of other malignancies occurring in Luzerne County at rates significantly higher than the state's: cancers of the stomach, colon/rectum, larynx, bronchus/lung, uterine, prostate, and uterus, as well as leukemia, another cancer of the blood. In Schuylkill County, the study found significantly elevated rates of cancer of the buccal cavity/pharynx, colon/rectum, liver, pancreas, cervix, uterus, and prostate, as well as Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

It will be interesting to see whether and how the NRC's reactor licensing process will address the obviously serious cancer problem already facing Luzerne and Schuylkill counties.

* * *

Tuesday's meeting will take place at Bloomsburg University's Kehr Union Ballroom, 400 East Second St. from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Click here for a map and directions.

I'll be on the radio tomorrow discussing the myth of "clean coal"

2008-07-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

This Thursday afternoon, July 17, I'll be on Doug Henwood's "Behind the News" show on New York City's WBAI radio, discussing so-called "clean coal" technology. Henwood is the editor and founder of Left Business Observer and a frequent contributor to The Nation. The show starts at 5 p.m., and I'll be on from about 5:10 to 5:30 p.m. You can tune in live over the Internet here, or listen to the archived edition here.

"Coal makes us sick"

2008-07-02T14:12:00.001-07:00

This isn't news for those of us from mining communities, but it's still nice to hear a politician say it:

Court decision expected soon on local sludge ban

2008-06-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

From an article in yesterday's Allentown Morning Call:

Just weeks after receiving letters in 2006 from the state Department of Environmental Protection that a local tree farm would be spreading sludge on hundreds of acres, residents of East Brunswick Township in Schuylkill County responded by lobbying their supervisors to enact a no sludge ban, which they approved that December.

But the tree farm, J.C. Hills, complained to the state attorney general, who filed suit against the township claiming the ordinance violated a 2005 state law that prohibits municipalities from regulating sludge.

A decision on the suit, now before the Commonwealth Court, is expected within weeks if not days. But whatever the verdict, the question of who decides on the use of sludge -- commonly known as biosolids -- is an emerging controversy in Pennsylvania and one that is gaining traction with its municipalities.

Other Schuylkill County communities that have enacted similar bans or announced support of East Brunswick's ordinance include the borough of Tamaqua and the townships of Mahanoy, Packer and Rush, where Hometown is located. Elsewhere across the state, communities in Lancaster and York counties have also taken action against sludge dumping.

Video documents local coal combustion waste hazards

2008-05-27T09:27:00.000-07:00

There's a new video documenting the hazards of coal combustion waste in the Hometown area. It's by Davin Hutchins of the American News Project and Suemedha Sood, who reported on this issue for The Washington Independent. The video features people and places I've written about before on this blog, including Betty Kester, Dante Picciano, Dr. Paul Roda, the Northeastern Power Co. waste-coal-fired power plant, and the Still Creek Reservoir.

The seven-minute video necessarily simplifies a complicated story. For example, it focuses solely on coal combustion waste, neglecting to mention that NEPCO is built next to a former toxic waste dump-turned-Superfund site that also probably impacted local health. Nor does it address the issue of air pollution from NEPCO and the many other waste-coal-fired plants (and other industrial facilities) in Schuylkill County. Nevertheless, it provides a valuable glimpse into a very serious problem impacting the area.

To watch the video, click here.

Comments sought on Pa. plan to subsidize untested carbon-capture technology

2008-05-15T08:59:00.000-07:00

The following is from the Web site of Dante Picciano:

RENDELL AND MCGINTY PROPOSE TO USE PUBLIC LANDS FOR COAL AND UTILITY INDUSTRIES

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty are at it again. This time they want to try to store waste carbon dioxide underground on state-owned forestlands. The waste carbon dioxide will come from private coal-burning power plants and other private industrial sources. Carbon dioxide is believed to be a major cause of global warming.

As previously reported, Pennsylvania has no money for bridge and road repair or property tax reform and yet Rendell and McGinty are proposing to be the first in the nation to fund and build Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) "demonstration" projects. McGinty said the state will OFFER PUBLIC LANDS and ASSUME ALL LIABILITIES: health, property, insurance and funding, for this totally unproven technology! CCS is technology that Wall Street, venture capitalists and bankers won't fund and scientists are not certain will work.

Many concerned citizens and groups, including the Sierra Club, are reporting that they do not believe that public lands should be used as dumping grounds for industrial wastes from utility companies. They also question why the state should provide another subsidy to the coal and utility industries.

Why would Rendell and McGinty be in favor of subsidizing the unproven technology for the coal and utility industries? It is our opinion that both are seeking appointments in the next administration should the Democrats take back the White House in November.

It is our belief that Rendell would like to be Secretary of Energy and McGinty would like to be the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Both positions would require confirmation by the U.S. Senate and Rendell and McGinty are hoping to use our tax money on unproven technology in order to gain industry support for any confirmation hearings.

We can do something to stop this abuse of power and taxpayer money. The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources has issued a one-sided report on the CCS technology and will accept public comments on the report until June 15, 2008. We will be sending a copy of this story to the DCNR. Please send your comments on this unproven technology to:

DCNR
Office of Legislation and Strategic Initiatives
Rachel Carson State Office Building
400 Market Street
P.O. Box 8767
Harrisburg, PA 17105-8767

Officials say sludge is no concern for drinking water

2008-04-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Jerry Pillus of the state Department of Environmental Protection has assured the public that the sewage sludge being dumped next to a feeder creek for Tamaqua's drinking-water reservoir is not a problem. Furthermore, he's tired of citizens raising concerns about the water. Read all about it in the April 17 post at DANTE7.com.

Sludge dumped near Hometown's drinking water reservoir

2008-04-16T14:32:00.000-07:00

Tamaqua Borough Council member Cathy Miorelli has raised concerns about the dumping of sewage sludge on land drained by a stream that feeds the Still Creek Reservoir, the local drinking water supply, according to the Times News. The land in question is in Carbon County's Packer Township.

Miorelli's experience in trying to bring the problem to the attention of the proper authorities illustrates why many area citizens have little faith in government regulators.

After she learned about a "brown substance" piling up on the land in question, Miorelli called the state Department of Environmental Protection's complaint hotline and spoke with Tim Craven, according to the paper. Asked whether the dumping was permitted, Craven -- who is DEP's Northeast regional biosolids coordinator -- said he didn't know, and that "it would be difficult for him to find out," she said.

Craven eventually called the farmer, who reportedly said the material was lime. Craven then told Miorelli to call the farmer and verify that it was in fact lime. She told him she didn't think that was her job and requested an inspection. He said he would "really hate to do that," she told the paper.

Then on April 2, Miorelli got a phone call from Craven, who told her that it was in fact "biosolid material," and that it had come from Phillipsburg, N.J. On April 10, officials with the DEP and Tamaqua Borough and Water Authority met at the property in question but declined to check the feeder stream. The paper reports:

Mayor Christian Morrison took issue with the fact that the DEP officials apparently lied and did not perform the appropriate inspections.

"This community has lost faith in DEP and this just doesn't help,'' he said.

It would be interesting to know where specifically in Phillipsburg the material comes from. The town is home to Hydropress, a company that processes sewage sludge from New York City and elsewhere into materials spread on farmlands. In 2003, the company sued Pennsylvania's Upper Mount Bethel Township over an ordinance requiring sludge dumpers to pay a fee for road improvements and a substantial bond to ensure compliance with local regulations; the Pennsylvania Supreme Court eventually ruled that townships do not have the authority to impose such regulations.

Despite the high court's ruling, Tamaqua as well as neighboring Rush Township, where Hometown is located, have passed similar restrictions on dumping. So has nearby East Brunswick Township, which is now having its regulations challenged by State Attorney General Tom Corbett, who formerly served as an attorney for sludge hauler Waste Management Inc.

Teach-in targets depleted uranium weapons manufacturing in Scranton

2008-04-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, April 22, the same day as Pennsylvania's presidential primary, there will be a teach-in about the depleted uranium weapons and ammunitions produced by General Dynamics in Scranton, 50 miles northeast of Hometown. The event is organized by We the People, a New Hampshire-based organization that promotes campaign finance reform, and the New York-based No DU Coalition of the Hudson Valley. The event will take place at noon at General Dynamics' Scranton headquarters, located at 135 Cedar Ave.

Invitees include presidential candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mike Gravel and Ralph Nader, along with senior executives from General Dynamics and the Pentagon. Confirmed speakers include Herbert Reed, an Iraq veteran contaminated by depleted uranium.

A byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, depleted uranium is a very high-density metal used to make anti-tank munitions and armor-plating for tanks. DU is chemically toxic as well as slightly radioactive, and its main exposure route is thought to be inhalation of dust formed when DU munitions hit targets. The British government has attributed health problems and birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War veteran to DU poisoning, and scientific studies have suggested a link between chronic DU exposure and leukemia as well as other genetic, reproductive and neurological problems.

To date, most of the opposition to DU weapons has focused on their impact on veterans and civilians in war zones. But what about DU's impact on the communities where the weapons are manufactured? Could the DU weapons facility in Scranton be a factor in the unusually high cancer rates in Northeastern Pennsylvania?

Listed in the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory as the "U.S. Army Scranton Army Ammunition Plant," the facility in 2006 reported releasing to the environment 13 pounds of toxic chemicals -- the metals chromium, copper, manganese and nickel. However, uranium and depleted uranium are not included among the chemicals covered by the TRI.

(Photo of Iraqi baby believed to be have been deformed by depleted uranium contamination by Dr. Jenan Hassan courtesy of Mindfully.org. For more photos of babies believed to have been impacted by DU, click here -- but please be warned that these images are quite graphic and disturbing. For more about Dr. Hassan's work, click here.)

New study confirms coalfields' health threats

2008-03-27T09:08:00.000-07:00

This probably won't come as a great surprise to residents of the anthracite region, but people living in coal mining communities have a significantly higher risk of developing serious health problems, according to a new study by West Virginia University scientists. Compared to the average American, residents of West Virginia's coalfields are 70 percent more likely to develop kidney disease, 64 percent more likely to suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and 30 percent more likely to report high blood pressure.

And the problem isn't limited to West Virginia: The researchers say premature death rates suggest similar health problems afflict the entire Appalachian coal mining region, which stretches from Pennsylvania to Alabama and encompasses parts of Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee. They believe environmental pollution from coal-processing chemicals, diesel equipment, explosives, toxic impurities in coal, and dust from uncovered coal trucks are probably to blame.

"Residents of coal-mining communities have long complained of impaired health," said author Michael Hendryx, associate director of the WVU Institute for Health Policy Research. "This study substantiates their claims. Those residents are at an increased risk of developing chronic heart, lung and kidney diseases."

Coal isn't the sole culprit behind the region's poor health, of course. As public health authorities have been eager to point out to Hometown-area residents concerned about an unusual incidence of disease, other factors include higher-than-average rates of smoking, poverty and poor education. But when the researchers controlled for those factors they still found elevated disease rates. They also looked at hospitalization rates in relationship to coal production and found that the risk of hospitalization for COPD increases 1 percent per every 1,462 tons of coal produced and for hypertension by 1 percent per every 1,873 tons.

Hendryx and co-author Melissa Ahern of Washington State University used data from a 2001 WVU Health Policy Research telephone survey of more than 16,400 West Virginians. They correlated that with data from the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey, which shows volume of coal production in each of the state's 55 counties. The study, "Relations between Health Indicators and Residential Proximity to Coal Mining in West Virginia," will appear in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health. Other detailed reports on mortality rates in coal-mining communities will be published in national journals this spring.

"People in coal-mining communities need better access to healthcare, cleaner air, cleaner water, and stricter enforcement of environmental standards," Hendryx said. "Our study helps open the door for further explorations of community health and coal mining. We owe it to people in those communities to start protecting and repairing their health."