The Acreage Cancer Study

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We hope you are having a nice week; luckily it is almost coming to a close. This post will be short and sweet. Below are a few articles of interest for you to review. We hope you enjoy them!

Have a great day.

State promises office in Acreage, more testing to deal with cancer cluster

By George Bennett Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 5:25 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, 2010

TALLAHASSEE — Top Florida officials today pledged more testing and better communication — including the opening of a storefront information center — as they try to determine a reason for higher-than-normal levels of childhood cancer in The Acreage.

Florida Surgeon General Ana Viamonte Ros told Palm Beach County leaders that the state will open a walk-in office this month at a Publix shopping center on Seminole Pratt Whitney Road for residents to get information and ask questions. The office will include an administrative assistant and a nurse trained in epidemiology.

Viamonte Ros, who heads the Florida Department of Health, also said she has enlisted the help ofthe federal Centers for Disease Control, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.

"We want the best minds on this and the best information possible," she said.

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New soil, water testing for The Acreage

Reported by: Tim Malloy

Email: tmalloy@wptv.com

Last Update: 7:08 pm

PALM BEACH COUNTY, FL-- The State Department of Environmental Protection will take 150 new soil samples in The Acreage and take 50 new water samples in homes in the area where a cancer cluster was detected.

It's the kind of accelerated investigation the community has been demanding.

In attendance at a Tallahassee meeting with the Florida's Surgeon General and representatives of Governor Charlie Crist and U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, was Palm Beach County Commissioner Burt Aaronson who said, "I'm not worried about the tax base I'm really worried about people. I want them to be able to sleep at night."

Local officials, long impatient for good news came out the meeting pleased. "The state surgeon general seems to be on point and we're really moving the testing along," said St. Rep. Joe Abruzzo of District 85.

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Cancer scare stalling home sales in The Acreage

March 03, 2010 By: Polyana da Costa

Steven Thibodeau

About four years after Steven Thibodeau built his dream house in the quiet Acreage community in western Palm Beach County, he suffered a seizure and was rushed to a hospital. He learned he had a brain tumor and needed immediate surgery.

At the time, he didn’t think his cancer was an environmental issue, but as area residents began questioning the high number of cancer cases in the community, the father of three daughters age 2, 4 and 15 quickly put his house up for sale.

Health officials recently confirmed the existence of a cancer cluster, whichThibodeau said is within a 5-mile radius of his house. Its cause isunknown.

Thibodeau was asking $379,000 for his house last year. Knowing he’d have a tough time selling in an already distressed market and not wanting to damage his 820 credit score, he contacted his lenders to work out a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure.

But Thibodeau said his lenders said that a “natural calamity,” such as a high concentration of cancer cases in an area, did not warrant a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure and said he should apply for a mortgage modification.

Instead, last month, Thibodeau moved out of the Acreage home he’d lived in for seven years and is renting a place in Wellington. “Wouldn’t you do the same?” Thibodeau asked, noting that his home is four lots away from a house were a child who was also stricken with cancer lives.

“This is a situation you don’t want to be in. My children come first. My wife comes first.”

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EPA adds Brooklyn canal to Superfund list

Mar 2, 2010 4:47 PM (23 hrs ago)

By DAVID B. CARUSO, AP

NEW YORK (Map, News) - For at least 120 years, New York City officials have been promising to do something about the oily, smelly mess that is Brooklyn's Gowanus canal.

Now, federal authorities will see if they can do a better job of cleaning up one of the city's most polluted waterways.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday named the Gowanusas a Superfund site, a distinction that allows the government to go after polluters and force them to pay for the canal's restoration. The EPA has said the cleanup could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The agency made the designation over the objections of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who had criticized the federal program as too slow and preferred analternative plan in which the city would supervise the cleanup itself.

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EPA Proposes to Add Dewey Loeffel Landfill to Federal Superfund List; Major PCB Problem Continues to Affect Rensselaer County Communities

Release date: 03/02/2010

Contact Information: Kristen Skopeck (518) 747-4389, skopeck.kristen@epa.gov

(New York, NY) The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) today announced that it is proposing to add theDewey Loeffel Landfill in Rensselaer County, NY, to its SuperfundNational Priorities List of the country’s most hazardous waste sites.The landfill is contaminated with hazardous substances, includingpotentially cancer-causing PCBs. Building on the cleanup work that hasalready been done by the New York State Department of EnvironmentalConservation (NYSDEC), EPA will conduct an evaluation of thecontamination and develop a plan to clean it up. The Dewey LoeffelLandfill site, located in southern Rensselaer County approximately fourmiles northeast of the Village of Nassau, consists of an area wherehazardous waste was dumped in the past and nearby water bodies thathave also become contaminated by pollutants that have migrated from thesite. EPA is inviting the public to comment on the proposed addition ofthe landfill to the Superfund list.

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EPA adds 2 Ill. sites to Superfund priorities list

BY KAREN HAWKINS and JIM SUHR; Associated Press Writers

Published: 03/03/1012:47 pm

CHICAGO – The Environmental Protection Agency has added a cluster of waste-disposal sites in Chicago and a former copper smelter in southern Illinois to its list of Superfund locations, allowing the government to go after polluters and force them to pay up for cleanup.

The 87-acre Lake Calumet Cluster in Chicago and the former Chemetco smelterin Madison County near St. Louis were among 10 the EPA added this week to its Superfund National Priorities List. The listing will enable the EPA to continue its investigation into the contamination's extent and pinpoint the best way to deal with it.

The Lake Calumet Cluster, made up of four separate parcels on Chicago's southeast side, is surrounded by wetlands, landfills and railroad tracks. The cluster site was also wetlands before industrial and chemical waste and steel millslag were dumped there from the 1940s to the 1970s, leaving behind a host of contaminants including arsenic, cyanide and benzene.

"A lot of this contamination was created before there was an EPA, state or federal," said Maggie Carson, spokeswoman for Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

"It's been an issue for literally decades," she said.

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