Headlines
A State of Limbo
12/19/2007
Some McCullom Lake residents worry, others are skeptical
By KEVIN P. CRAVER
kcraver@nwherald.com
Almost two years after three McCullom Lake neighbors with brain cancer sued Rohm and Haas and Morton Manufacturing, residents still are trying to figure out who’s right and who’s not.
Days after the neighbors filed suit, their attorney told worried villagers at a town-hall meeting at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in McHenry that decades of contamination from the Ringwood manufacturers fouled their groundwater and air with carcinogenic vinyl chloride. The companies maintained that the groundwater contamination that they had been charting since the mid-1980s had never reached the village’s private wells.
A month after the lawsuits, the McHenry County Department of Health told worried villagers at a town-hall meeting that local cancer rates were not above average, and that the defendant companies’ contamination had nothing to do with any brain tumors.
Thirty-year residents Julian and Joan Seifert attended both meetings. And while their well has tested clean and they still use its water to cook, drink and bathe, they still are unsure what’s going on.
"We’re in, what do you call it, a state of limbo," Joan Seifert said while sitting at her dining room table. "We don’t know what to believe. But you can’t just sell your house, either."
Some residents are worried. Others, like next-door neighbor Serfin Aguilar, a 12-year resident of town, are not concerned – Aguilar has heard of the ongoing cases, but considers his well water safe. Other residents, including many community leaders, don’t want to talk about it at all, while others blame plaintiff attorney Aaron Freiwald for stirring up trouble.
Freiwald now represents 22 plaintiffs with ties to the area. To the 1,000 or so residents of McCullom Lake village, the brain cancers and litigation over it can be either a hot topic or taboo.
"I think most of the people are concerned," said plaintiff Irene Suchor, who has lived in the village for almost 40 years. "But I think it’s like everything else – if it doesn’t affect you, you put it in the back of your mind."
No Comment
Attorneys for both sides have been waging battle in court over lawsuits filed on behalf of current and former village residents, sick or not.
It’s a fight that village government has gone to great lengths to avoid.
Village President Jeanne Hansen has kept her distance from the litigation – when she does comment, she repeatedly stresses that she is speaking as a 20-year resident and not as an elected official. She said she has seen no data that conclusively links the activities at the Rohm and Haas and Modine Manufacturing Co. factories to brain cancers.
Rohm and Haas inherited the facility when it bought long-time occupant Morton International in 1999.
"It’s not the village that is involved in the lawsuits. We don’t have a municipal well. There’s not much I can say," Hansen said. "To be honest, I hear more complaints about the police department than I do about the water."
The remaining six village trustees are keeping quiet – two declined comment and the remaining four did not return the newspaper’s phone calls.
Amy Destache, owner of The Cullom Knoll, the community’s restaurant and bar, likewise declined comment, aside from stating that the eatery’s wells have not tested positive for any contaminants in the lawsuits.
Some of the plaintiffs, such as current resident Bryan Freund, can sympathize. Freund filed the original lawsuits with former neighbors Kurt Weisenberger and the late Franklin Branham – all three were diagnosed with brain cancer within eight months of each other.
"It’s not a very delightful topic," Freund said.
As of today, five of the plaintiffs still live in McCullom Lake – three have lethal glioblastoma multiforme, Freund has oligodendroglioma, and Suchor has cirrhosis of the liver.
Spreading Fear?
Some residents, like village zoning board chairman Tom Bitterman, have concluded that Freiwald is a big part of the problem. Bitterman, a 21-year resident whose wife is a village trustee, said the Philadelphia attorney set out from the start to create an "atmosphere of fear" that has succeeded all too well.
Bitterman, like Hansen and other skeptics, point to the fact that no tests of village wells have come up positive for the chemicals listed in the lawsuits. His private well, and his son’s private well two doors down, likewise have tested clean. While he acknowledges that local brain cancer rates are significant, he said he is not ready to blame the Ringwood factories until he sees more evidence.
"You know what, if you show me the problem, I’ll jump on the bandwagon, but I will not contribute to the fear [Freiwald] spread at the VFW," Bitterman said.
Freiwald said his goal has not been to spread panic, but to hold the Ringwood companies accountable for their alleged vinyl chloride contamination. His lawsuits and commissioned reports claim that contamination from the plants made it to the village by air, and through a deep aquifer.
"Even in our culture today, when we’re used to seeing violence on TV and all the things that we’re exposed to, I think something about brain cancer is still awfully scary to people," Freiwald said. "It should be. It’s a rare disease. It’s a devastating disease."
While the companies’ studies acknowledge that contaminants seeped into shallow groundwater near the plants, company officials are vigorously fighting the idea that it made people sick.
"The company has not done anything wrong here, and has not caused any contamination [in the village] or any illness," Rohm and Haas attorney Ralph Wellington said.
Bitterman said the residents he talks to are divided. He said some believe the lawsuits have no merit, others are scared, and that many people are more cautious about what they do with their tap water.
In addition to community well tests since the lawsuits, Hansen and Bitterman also point out that the county health department’s epidemiology analysis concluded that no problem exists.
Freiwald said that the problem is not that there is no contamination detected today – Morton closed its chemical landfill in 1977 and Modine closed its disposal pit in 1982. The issue, he said, is where contaminants used to be in past decades, when no one was looking for them.
And although Bitterman said he had "quite a bit of faith" in the county’s epidemiology study, his stance wavered a bit after learning some of the details of the Northwest Herald’s analysis of the county study. The analysis, published Tuesday, Dec. 18, concluded that the county study was incomplete and hastily executed.
Class Action
Besides the individual lawsuits, long-time residents Glenn and Donna Gates have filed a class-action lawsuit to ensure that past and present village residents get access to medical monitoring, and to ensure village property values.
"[People] need to be protected, and the only way they can be protected is the class-action lawsuit," Donna Gates said. "A lot of people think this is just a bunch of crazy people looking for money."
Bitterman and the Gateses said they have heard complaints from other residents that their home values have decreased significantly. But at least one local expert said the village’s property values and sales do not appear to be in peril.
The village was due for a re-assessment about the same time that the lawsuits were filed, said McHenry Township Assessor Carol Perschke. After consulting with real estate experts, she decided to wait a year.
Perschke, a former McCullom Lake resident, said residents will instead see a significant increase due to rising land values, and because the village has been under-assessed in previous years. So while residents might be upset because their property taxes will jump, their home values for now are safe, she said.
"The newspaper headlines do not appear to have made any impact on the market values," Perschke said.
While home values are an important part of the class-action lawsuit, Freiwald said, he is more worried about the long-term health impacts on residents.
Among Freiwald’s expert reports submitted for the class-action suit is a DNA analysis of tissue samples from six of the brain cancer plaintiffs from the McCullom Lake area. All six, according to the report by pathologist Dr. Sydney Finkelstein, share similar genetic mutations that he concluded can be associated with exposure to chlorinated solvents such as vinyl chloride.
"That’s a big part of why we have the class action for medical monitoring," Freiwald said. "Exposure to these chemicals, even 5, 10, 20 years ago, can have a cancer-causing impact. I believe that’s why we’re seeing this cluster of brain cancers today."
But critics have a question regarding the cancers – if air contamination is a factor, why are there no plaintiffs from neighboring towns?
"If this is the case, and I don’t know that it is, why has it not affected people in Ringwood, or Wonder Lake, or Johnsburg?" Hansen asked. "Does the wind only blow that contamination here, over McCullom Lake?"
Freiwald said it’s a question he has heard a lot. He said that there are indeed brain cancer cases in neighboring towns that may or may not be incorporated into litigation.
The reason we have focused particularly on McCullom Lake village is not to say that there’s no effect anywhere else," Freiwald said. "It’s not to say that there are no brain cancer or brain tumor cases anywhere else. It’s to say that in this area, there is an overlapping of these two pathways – groundwater and air – that is significant."
Attention
Many of the residents interviewed, including the plaintiffs, describe McCullom Lake’s small-town feel in glowing terms.
"McCullom Lake used to have fireworks," said Nichole Baird, 38, a former resident who lived several doors down from Freund and now is struggling with two pituitary tumors. "You’d go down there, or to The Cullom Knoll for a fish fry. You’d see [your neighbors] and you knew each other. How bizarre 10 years later that we’re all ill."
Some residents said that small-town charm is in jeopardy, either from the alleged contamination or from the attention that the brain cancer lawsuits have brought to the village.
Bitterman neighbor Kathy Boyle, also on the zoning board, said she has not yet made up her mind if the brain cancers can be blamed on Rohm and Haas/Morton and Modine. She has lived in town 23 years and does not use her well water for cooking or drinking – not because of safety concerns, but because of its taste.
"If [the litigation] forces somebody to find out what’s going on, that’s a good thing," Boyle said.
Bitterman said Freiwald is motivated by ego and money, not the village’s best interests. He defended Hansen and the village board for staying out of the matter.
"I will not take an action that will lend credence to something I think is baseless," Bitterman said.
Gates likewise defended Freiwald’s motives, and said the problem in town is the cancers, not the lawsuits.
"He didn’t start anything up," Donna Gates said. "It was all of the tumors that started all of this up."