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Maine's problems with sludge and incinerator ash (containing dioxin)
Date Posted: 10/26/1999
Posted by: ravanesi@mediaone.net
================================
This chilling article was not posted on-line by the Boston Globe, and
was rather buried in Section F of the Boston Sunday Globe (10/24/99).
According to the article, a Maine town is overcome by cancer (mostly
brain, in both children and adults) where residents blame the
landfill--run by Central Maine Disposal Corp. The landfill sits atop
of a large aquifer. Sludge and incinerator ash (containing dioxin)
from Scott Paper were dumped there. As well, there were many illegal
dumpings (toxic fly ash) in a nearby town dump.
What follows is a scanned version of the original article.
Bill
***************************
By Donna Gold
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
Boston Sunday Globe Section F page 16 October 24, 1999
The Killer among them
Inside cancer cluster, little doubt about culprit
FAIRFIELD, Maine - She fought for the recognition for years, but
Deanna LaBrie felt no relief when the state Bureau of Health recently
declared her town had the state's first and only verified cancer
cluster.
'What I felt," said the woman who has battled three forms of cancer
for 17 years, "was a horrible, immense fear: My God, it's true. Even
though we've known it's true, I felt like I was hit with a 50-pound
ball right in my stomach."
From LaBrie's yard, golden fields drift to the meandering Fish Brook
stream. Deer wander through in the mornings; an eagle nests nearby.
As LaBrie talks. a heron wings its slow, long way overhead. But such
moments of pastoral beauty are small solace amid the circle of
illness and death surrounding the community.
"It's not just me and my family," LaBrie said. "There's so much
sorrow, so much illness, so much death. People are just waiting out
their time."
There's a woman of 25 who has a tumor in her brain and no medical
insurance; she's dropped from sight. There's a 14-year-old girl with
a brain twnor; she's now legally blind. A man, 35, has brain seizures
and a tumor in his sinuses.
In the house across from LaBrie, Joseph Marchetti has been unable to
work for six years because brain cancer left him with a baseball-size
tumor.
At 45, he spends $1,000 on drugs each month and waits. He counts six
people with brain tumors in the 15 homes on his street.
Dr. Dora Ann Mills of the state Bureau of Health uses more
conservative numbers, but she has discovered that in people ages 15
to 44, the rate of brain cancer in Fairfield (population 7,200) is
five times the state average. This rare form of cancer, most common
in elderly people, is too prevalent to be likely due to chance alone,
Mills said this month when she announced the cancer cluster.
While proof is hard to come by, residents suspect their illnesses
come from up the road, where in 1976 William Hapworth turned gravel
pits bordering his dairy farm into a landfill disposal site.
The landfill, now closed, sits on top of a large aquifer.
The locations of the brain cancer combined with community concern has
led the state to monitor the landfill, but recent tests are
inconclusive, say officials from the state Department of
Environmental Protection. Although there are elevated amounts of
arsenic in the monitoring wells, as well as high levels of magnesium
and silver, not much was discovered from tests of several domestic
wells downstream of the landfill.
State toxicologist Andrew Smith called the cause of the cancer
mysterious. "There's no idea of what is responsible for the increased
rate of brain cancer in Fairfield," he said. "Even with a hazardous
waste dump in the vicinity you have to ask, what is the likelihood of
exposure?"
Marchetti and other residents have little doubt about the source of
the illnesses. Most of the cancers can be found in homes about three
miles downwind
CANCER, Page F17
* CANCER Continued from Page F16
and downstream of the landfill.
"I don't think it's a coincidence," he said.
In the years the site was open, Michael Wood, whose Central Maine
Disposal Corp. ran the landfill, was cited numerous times for illegal
disposal of hazardous substances. Though the dumping ceased in 1985,
the landfill was not capped until 1993. Neighbors point to a ridge of
black ash and to seepage throughout the now-green field and say it
still is not fully capped, allowing toxic substances to rise to the
surface.
Sludge and incinerator ash from the nearby Scott Paper Company were
dumped at the landfill; both are known to contain dioxin. Also dumped
were petroleum and numerous chemicals, according to Department of
Environmental Protection records. For years, the substances formed
hills of dirt in what had been a gravel pit. In rural communities,
children frequently ride their dirt bikes in such spots. This one was
no different.
The landfill had no warning signs, no gates, no covers.
So residents fear there were plenty of opportunities for exposure:
uncovered fly ash blowing from the top while unprotected pits leached
into the ground water below.
Children also fished the br.ook that began at the dump, the same Fish
Brook that runs through LaBrie's land. She recalls swimming with her
children and grandchildren in the ponds that the brook forms as it
winds its way around the region.
Some of the cancers can be found in the homes that border the brook a
few miles downstream. Others lie downwind of the dump which burned,
day and night, for three years, according Richard Mosher, whose home
borders the dump.
Despite their proximity, Mosher's family has been healthy. Though he
doubts the state will find a connection between the landfill and the
illnesses, he also states that the prevailing winds blew any toxins
away from his house.
The landfill opened in early 1977; complaints began that August.
Records from the Department of Environmental Protection show that
serious violations were found during more than a dozen inspections
between 1978 and 1983. One inspector received caustic burns when he
took a water sample. Animals leaving the landfill had similar burns.
Although the owner was licensed for only two pits, more were filled.
These, located nearer the water table and lacking necessary linings,
were even more likely to have leached toxic substances into the
ground water, state officials say.
The illegal dumping also went beyond the landfill, according to the
Department of Environmental Protection, which found caustic fly ash
in a nearby town dump. Other loads were found spilled at the side of
the road.
After six years of meeting with representatives of Scott Paper and
Wood to seek voluntary compliance, in 1985 the state went to court.
Wood was fined $4,000 and although he was still allowed to operate
the landfill, he stopped using it.
The landfill was not officially closed or capped until seven years later.
A relative of Wood said this week he has undergone bypass heart
surgery and is unable to talk. When reached by phone, Hapworth would
not comment. Scott Paper Company has since ceased to exist.
At a recent meeting between the state Bureau of Health and the
community, shock an anger ruled. Paul Otis spoke about a family o
six, all of whom were dead or dying from brad tumors, other cancers,
and the autoimmune disease lupus. Then he spoke of his own rare
disabling respiratory disease, diagnosed in 1993 as Crone's disease
of the lungs.
"The doctors say my lungs were burned by toxic air. From where? The
dump?" said Otis who worked as a shuttle driver for a nearby hospital
and lived downwind of the dump. "It burned every night for three
years."
As residents wait for answers that may never come, the worries mount.
"My son dirt-biked that dump for years,' said Kim Quirion, who lives
up the road from LaBrie. "He's healthy now, but I'm concerned."
Marchetti's children, too, played in the dump. He would like to leave
the neighborhood he blames for making him too ill to have much of a
life.
But he wonders: "Who will buy my home now?"
Bill Ravanesi MA, MPH
Boston Project Director
Health Care Without Harm
52 Washington Park
Newton, MA 02460-1921
1-617-244-2891
http://www.noharm.org
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