All eyes on north St. Louis County cancer study

[pstokely]

Source: KMOV

There are now more than 2,000 cases documented, and the numbers have prompted the state to take a closer look.
The Missouri Health Department brought in the Missouri Cancer Registry to study the cases and determine if the creek is the culprit.
The Registry will compare cancer rates for six north county zip codes over a 17-year period to the average rate of cancer to see if the numbers show a pattern and could be linked to the creek.
But residents say that won’t be accurate as many didn’t get cancer till they moved away. Most former residents have moved away to different zip codes throughout the nation, which puts them outside the area the Health Department and University of Missouri plans to analyze.

Read more: http://www.kmov.com/home/All-eyes-on-north-St-Louis-County-cancer-study-195730711.html

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Here's the facebook group?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/217215444963933/56550785680135

[Mopar151]

1. Where is this in relationship to Times Beach, Mo.?

Where the roads were oiled to control dust - with PCB's.

[rwsanders]

2. Far away as those things go...

Here's a map.
http://dnr.mo.gov/env/wpp/tmdl/1706-coldwater-ck-tmdl.pdf

I lived all around it, but from the map I was further away or upstream of the airport the entire time I lived there.

My former supervisor is now regional director for MO DNR there. So I can say with certainty that they will find that there is no connection between the cancer and the stream. If you doubt it, look into their findings for Prime Tanning north of KCMO.

MO DNR (according to some of the Emergency Response personnel) is there to protect polluters from the (perceived) heavy hand (ha ha) of the EPA.

[KT2000]

4. You are so right

The ATSDR - Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry - arm of the CDC has been called into many of these sites and has never found a link to a pollutant souce for cancer clusters.

It is criminal - the fix is always in for these cases. First of all the standard is impossible high to meet and the polluters have all the power.
This is something people just don't believe until it happens to them.

[rwsanders]

6. Funny thing is I used to work for that useless group also...

I was in the Field Services Division, whose main mission is to regurgitate information from the EPA to give it the appearance of credibility by putting it on different letterhead.
I also worked on the BP spill and could give you horror stories about that too. I got a bit of inside information about how the dispersant applied underwater was declared non-toxic from a LA State employee. I got myself in trouble by not following the secret script.

[KT2000]

7. Good for you on the dispersant!

To be honest I got some really good help from our ATSDR office. We were just starting, or rather heading off a major pollution debacle and I called their office for help. A fellow there gave good advice - mostly having to do with understanding when we were being "snowed" and to not be intimidated by "science speak." He also sent us some vital information about how they were breaking the law that really helped.

When I called their office and asked for him soon after I was told he had quit!! Hope he had the chance to help others too.

But other than that, it has really been an ongoing disappointment to see how environmental dangers and catastrophes are handled - especially the ATSDR because their mission is supposed to be health. Humans and their lives are disposable to keep the "floodgates" from opening.

[Sherman A1]

3. Interesting

Coldwater Creek wanders all over North County. I recall the "discovery" of the uranium tainted land around the airport. Land that was used at the time for baseball fields near McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) just off of Lindbergh Blvd.

[KT2000]

5. Just Great

Boeing is responsible for poisoning a lot of their workers back in the 90's. The state was about to recognize their illnesses and deaths as being related to work at Boeing and give them workers comp. Boeing called in the big guns (corporate medical officers from chemical companies), threatened to leave the state (so I heard) and the workers were left high and dry - brain damage, some crippled, some died and no income.

Sorry for the people there.

[Sherman A1]

8. In this case I don't think Boeing had anything to do with it

This was the left overs from processing Uranium from the Cold War era and that was more Mallinckrodt and I think possibly Monsanto that may have been involved in the dumped the waste in the area. I know the area just North of the Lambert Airport was ballfields for many years and it eventually was declared off limits and became a clean up site. If I am not mistaken and I may be this may also be involved with a current controversy surrounding a land fill in the flood plain of the Missouri River called West Lake where I believe the material was moved. Several North County Communities want that area cleaned up as well.

http://forcechange.com/20274/clean-up-radioactive-waste-at-west-lake-landfill/

[2pooped2pop]

9. we lived outside of St. Louis for almost ten

years back in the 80's. I remember even then I said to a couple of residents that there was an awful lot of cancer cases in their area and I suspected something in the water or something like that.

I did get at least one reply of something already known about but was told not to worry that it really would only affect the long term people who lived there their entire lives. I don't remember who said that to me. Wait, I think it was a doctor at the ER. Not sure about that as my memory is swiss cheesy, but I think that is who it was.

It certainly concerns me as my children spent almost 10 years there.

I'm convinced that a lot of people's illness across the country is due to crap in our air, water, food. Crap that should never have been allowed if this really was the America we thought it was and was told it was, growing up. Crap that someone all along knew was going to have bad long term effects. But money was good, so greed won, we lost.