the acreage cancer cluster
We know youre fearful of what these results mean, said Sharon Watkins, an environmental epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health. Perhaps because her tumor was only partially removed by the surgery, or perhaps because she now has fluid in her skull, she still suffers from severe headaches, vomiting and peripheral eye damage. When Stephanie Peskowitz and her husband Ira bought a home in The Acreage five years ago, they figured they had found a woodsy paradise large enough for their dreams. This map reflects data that we have collected via personal emails & phone calls. A judge heard testimony Friday about a forensic investigation that's shedding light on radioactive materials found on the campus of Pratt & Whitney and The Acreage community. But, Gallagher said, only 40 dump trucks were sent to a thermal remediation facility. The Newfields also recently installed a sophisticated water-filtration system for their well, though Tracy recently discovered that Jessica had bought and stashed away bottled water. Since then, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has overseen the cleanup of the area, a process that has involved the removal of many tens of thousands of tons of contaminated soil and thousands of gallons of fuel from the groundwater. So Hatfield and Scarola took their test results to the media. This odd fact kept troubling her, and at the suggestion of Garretts neurologist, she e-mailed the Florida Department of Health about it. Added pediatrician Shairi Turner, deputy secretary of the department: We want to find an answer to what is causing brain cancer in your children.. So reactions in the community were decidedly mixed when, in November 2010, with the battery of state and local studies having rendered their results, the Acreage investigation was officially closed. I think about it every day, says one resident, who didnt want to give her name lest she be pilloried for believing in the cluster. There are so many unknowns, and unknowns create hysteria and fear, she said. Your Photos. In recent days, state officials have promised to do more. But if the jury agrees that Pratt didn't properly dispose of radioactive materials, she could revive a class-action lawsuit, seeking compensation for the nearly 40,000 people who own property in the rural enclave. Soon, Dunsford discovered that three other youngsters in the sprawling rural community in the western reaches of Palm Beach County had recently received similarly grim news. Meanwhile, the governments investigation into the Acreage cancer cluster provided some evidence for the theory that radiation was behind it. But he also has a special outlook on life that his mother treasures and thinks may have resulted from his trauma. At various points, contaminated water escaped the dredging pits and seeped into the canal and groundwater in the Acreage, according to the plaintiffs complaint. Even the politicians in attendance were unhappy. Throughout his opening statement, Gallagher emphasized thatthe allegations Hatfield is making dont make sense. After years of litigation, their attorney, Jan Schlictmann, was left temporarily bankrupt, homeless and personally devastated. (Sharon Lerner). Attorneys claimed that the state failed to properly test for specific radioactive contamination, ignored concerns voiced by its own people and neglected to hold Pratt & Whitney accountable for not cleaning up years' worth of toxic contamination in the area. Their family menagerie includes two horses, a pony, seven dogs, goats and a pig. Consider Abernethys 2004 description of his work on the J58 engine: We built a huge swimming pool with a tall tower to centrifuge the poison out of the exhaust. (When recently deposed by attorneys in the Acreage case, Abernethy said he had trouble recalling any poison fuel.). The Law Did Not Treat Them Kindly. The case in Toms River, New Jersey, documented in Dan Fagins Pulitzer Prizewinning book Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, took place over ten years and was similar to the Woburn case in both its underwhelming financial payoff and the monumental public and private effort that led to it. I figured it was a weird coincidence, says Dunsford, a sharp-witted mother of three with glasses and shoulder-length brown hair. Gallagher asked U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra to declare a mistrial, claiming Hatfield violated a court order by telling the jury about claims that Marra had declared off-limits. After a while, we realized it was going off when our water was regenerating from our well, says Samarripa, who worried over the fact that Hannahs bedroom was closest to the well. The one kind of contamination that distinguished the Acreage, according to Hatfield, was ionizing radiation, which was not just an established cause of brain cancer but the byproduct of local industry. The agencies tested water from over seventy private wells and several of the canals that ran through the area, as well as soil samples from thirty-five homes, for more than 200 chemicals. In fact, by current standards, conclusively blaming a chemical culprit for a cancer cluster is so difficult that only three of 428 cluster investigations conducted in the United States since 1990 have established a link between pollution and illness. The verdict said that the Contamination spread to the nearby aquifer and canals, and the lawsuit blames the two companies. Each day held a new surprise for them. But, he said, state agencies found no evidence either the water or the soil was contaminated. Contact her at jmusgrave@pbpost.com. 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; Hatfield didnt say how much she is seeking. But Hatfields radiation theory also involves the operations of another, far larger company: Pratt & Whitney, one of the big three airplane-engine manufacturers in the world, whose local industrial site was separated from the homes of the sick children in the Acreage by a swampy preserve. But documents from the 1960s through the 90s show that Pratt & Whitney had licenses to use at least a dozen radioactive substances [PDF], including radium D and E, thoriated nickel and cesium-137, in Florida. I understand the fear and frustration. Now 12, he has auditory processing problems, memory issues and dyslexia, which were all diagnosed after his cancer. 8, 2022 at 3:06 PM PDT Palm Beach County families are finally getting Though it was unclear whether probing for answers would ever solve the cancer mystery, there was no question that all the attention to the risks of living in the Acreage had carried a steep financial cost. Unequivocally laying the blame on one often requires showing that no other was involved. Residents of The Acreage, a south Florida town, at a community meeting in 2010. Yesterday, the law firm of Searcy, Denney, Scarola, Barnhart, and Shipley held a news conference about lawsuits related to a cluster of pediatric brain cancer in the residential neighborhood Acreage, located in western Palm Beach County. There are many factors that make it easy for a company to pollute with impunity. There are about 10,000 houses in the area. We would also like those who are in need of medical assistance to let us know. Jane Musgrave covers federal and civil courts and occasionally ventures into criminal trials in state court. As is the case of most cancer-clusters throughout the United States, no cause was ever found. They wanted us to move on and say our water was fine, recalls Tracy Newfield, who was a member of the group. _udn = "none"; The Acreage suits which now include at least thirteen individual personal-injury and wrongful-death cases, and two class-action suits over the loss of real-estate value are no easy moneymakers. However, though the study did not find an association with workplace exposures, it did confirm the elevated brain-cancer rate at the North Haven plant. The concept of tranquility is right in our founding documents, said state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D- Wellington. Join the New Times community and help support independent Workers dressed in protective gear sometimes sprayed pesticides in the citrus groves that abut Seminole Ridge High, even as teenagers practiced on nearby sports fields in shorts and T-shirts. A mixture of chemicals that can cross the blood-brain barrier and cause cancer in mice, jet fuel was found at the Pratt & Whitney facility in Florida. A Florida man who says Pratt & Whitney created a pollution and cancer cluster told the 11th Circ. Like Samarripa, Dunsford was consumed with her own crisis first, Garretts loss of the use of his left hand and arm; then, his misdiagnosis (Garretts doctor thought he had a sore elbow); and after his brain tumor was discovered, the failure of surgery to completely remove it. (function() { The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) define a cancer cluster as a greater-than-expected number of cancer cases that occurs within a group of people in a defined geographic area over a specific period of time. In the Acreage, there were many possible hazards to consider. Convinced something in the water or the soil was making children sick, Dunsford said the familys dream home quickly turned into a prison. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines a cancer cluster as a greater-than-expected number of cancer cases that occurs within a group of people in a geographic area over a period of time. Yet because elevated numbers of any disease can occur by chance, and because cancer is relatively rare and its incredibly difficult to determine if rare events occur by chance the vast majority of investigations into suspected clusters dont confirm them. Youd need a massive amount of materials, hundreds of thousands of tons of soil, to contaminate a community of roughly 12,000 homes, Gallagher said. The plaintiffs' attorneys will appeal this week's decision and said there are other cases brought by residents that have not gone to trial. Within a few months, some of the participants felt they were being pressured to stop pursuing questions about water contamination. Seven years after the Health Department declared a pediatric cancer cluster in The Acreage another lawsuit has Prior to the cancer cluster, homes in The Acreage consistently sold at about 92% of the value of Jupiter Farms homes. WebScientists have a specific definition of a cancer cluster. The lawsuit extends to "every current or former Acreage area landowner who owns or owned an Acreage property at any time since August 24, 2009." And Joey Baratta, who moved to the Acreage with his mother and stepfather in 2004, when he was 15, spent much of his time there riding his ATV and working on his parents land, which abutted one of the areas many canals. Before you start printing and downloading, be sure you have read the article first. In October celebrity environmental activist Erin Brockovich spoke to a town hall meeting in West Palm Beach, urging community unity. Acreage cancer cluster trial underway in West Palm Beach By Linnie Supall Published: Jul. The Acreage has no sewer or water systems, but until recently at least it did offer peace and quiet. Abruzzo said he knows some of his constituents have left the area, and just walked away from their property and their mortgage. WebThe Acreage is an unincorporated Palm Beach community which has experienced significant growth in its 25 years to around 39,000 people. Most cancer clusters reside in a gray area of uncomfortable non-resolution. Still, it was a full six months later, when a doctor spotted her brain tumor during an eye exam literally seeing the growth through the lens of Hannahs eye that the 14-year-old got the diagnosis and then the surgery that saved her life. But if she successfully argues that Pratt contaminated The Acreage, she could ask him to reconsider. var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); The teenagers mysterious decline continued on to limping, vomiting, incontinence and perhaps her most disturbing symptom occasional fits of barking laughter that sounded so strange and demonic, her father wondered whether she was on drugs. WebA cancer cluster may be suspected when people report that several family members, friends, neighbors, or coworkers have been diagnosed with the same or related types of South Florida's independent _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-230305-2']); While Hannah was recovering from her brain surgery, and the boy a 5-year-old named Garrett Dunsford was undergoing his own, the parents started talking. Mike Clary can be reached at mclary@sunsentinel.com or at 305-810-5007. It found elevated levels of cancer in children in The Acreage and designated the area as a pediatric brain cancer cluster. Log in, 2010 Schechter, Shaffer & Harris, LLP, All Rights Reserved, Rori Feldman is the attorney responsible for the content of this website. I began to be concerned about the area where I lived, said Dunsford, who moved to The Acreage from Broward County. However, five years later, her youngest son was diagnosed with brain cancer. The Samarripas left the Acreage in 2010. Ditto the drinking water, which came from a well. In one sense, I would not go through what theyre going through every day of their lives, wondering if [regular testing for cancer] is going to come back positive, she says. This allows the cancer cells to divide in half and survive. The anxiety and uncertainty now haunting The Acreage began to surface months ago. Palm Beach Aggregates did not respond to a request for comment for this article, and in court documents has vehemently denied causing any environmental harm. If Al Qaeda sent a team of sleeper cells to poison our groundwater and release toxic materials into the air, people would go nuts. It takes everything in me some days not to fall apart. These include Cesium-137, Iridium-191, and Cadmium-109. He doesnt value things at all, is how Dunsford described Garrett recently, adding that hes become the family comforter. They Refused to Fight for Russia. Without a clear culprit for the cancers, some residents began blaming the families of the sick for the crisis. At the opening of Pratt & Whitneys South Florida campus in 1958, the chairman of the county commission said that Pratt & Whitneys coming to this site is considered the largest single industrial accomplishment so far in Palm Beach County. Since then, Pratt and its parent company, United Technologies, have received tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks from the county and state to encourage it to keep its operations and jobs in Florida. The family moved to Tennessee and sold their Acreage home through a short sale in 2011. Our Platform. For example, studying clusters But it would take all of the afflicted families years to connect the dots among their tragedies. When it comes to cancer, were more on the prevention side, she told me when I met with her in Palm Beach this past April. Soil tests are to follow. Whatever you find, there will be people who doubt the veracity of your findings because we dont live in an experimental setting, and you can never control all of the factors that might have contributed to that disease occurrence.. But afterward, the gap widened to 77%, he said. clicky.init(190756); var _gaq = _gaq || []; While Jessica, now 20, is attending college, Tracy has been spearheading the creation of the Garden of Hope, a place in the Acreage where people can go to honor their loved ones who have had cancer. "We're disappointed with the outcome," Mara Hatfield, an attorney with Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley, PA said. | Credit: GARY CORONADO/THE PALM BEACH POST. As they anxiously eyed the array of health officials lined up on the stage, the Acreages residents got the news that none of them wanted. We are concerned residents just like you. (function() { It is West of Palm Bch Gdns, North of Royal Palm Beach. WebThis month the county's Health Department confirmed that The Acreage is home to a cancer cluster, defined as an area with rates of brain tumors and brain cancers higher