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CDC Can't Weigh in on Pollution Allegations

By KEVIN P. CRAVER

WOODSTOCK – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention won’t weigh in on environmental pollution maps sent to it regarding whether industrial pollution caused a brain cancer cluster in McCullom Lake.

The CDC reviewed county and state health departments’ epidemiology work and last month echoed their conclusions that county brain cancer rates were normal. But the CDC told County Board Chairman Ken Koehler in a March 3 letter that its role in cancer investigations was to review research methods – state and local health agencies did not do any independent analysis of the maps.

The maps, which tracked a plume of contaminated groundwater from Ringwood manufacturer Rohm and Haas, were commissioned and paid for by the company, which is blamed in 30 lawsuits to date for causing the brain and pituitary cancers. They were part of an information packet sent in November 2009 to the CDC.

"Although the environmental data was included in the binder provided, neither the McHenry County Department of Health nor the Illinois Department of Public Health conducted an analysis of the environmental data. Therefore, no methods were available to review," wrote Michael McGeehin, director of the CDC’s Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects.

Koehler could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Three former McCullom Lake next-door neighbors with brain cancer sued Rohm and Haas in April 2006 alleging that decades of exposure to vinyl chloride in their air and groundwater sickened them. Weeks later, the county health department concluded that brain cancer rates were not above average and that the groundwater contamination never reached the village.

County government kept quiet regarding the cancer cases over the next three years despite Northwest Herald investigations since 2007 that concluded that the county health department’s work was flawed, reliant on incomplete data, and biased in favor of Rohm and Haas. Koehler, R-Crystal Lake, finally asked the CDC for assistance in 2009 under pressure from County Board member Tina Hill; the plaintiffs include her older sister and three of her childhood friends.

Hill, R-Woodstock, said the CDC letter summarized the problem that plagued the investigation attempts – every analysis since the lawsuits relied on pollution data supplied by the company blamed for the brain cancers. Hill said she wanted an outside agency to investigate the pollution allegations from scratch and planned to work with state Sen. Pam Althoff, R-McHenry, to talk to U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Barrington, whose district includes McCullom Lake.

"I think that our county health department has exhausted the resources they have to pursue this matter, and I think the best course of action is [for] Chairman Koehler and I to reach out with the senator to Congresswoman Bean," Hill said.

Koehler first met last month with the board’s Public Health and Human Services Committee for advice on how to proceed, or whether the county should drop the matter and let the courts handle it. The first lawsuit goes to trial June 7.

Committee members again discussed the matter at their Wednesday morning meeting. Committee Chairwoman Lyn Orphal, R-Crystal Lake, said she was not ready to give up. But she and others questioned how any agency could determine the extent of the contamination in past decades – it first was reported to the state in the early 1980s but had been ongoing for at least two decades prior.

"It’s tough. You kind of feel like you’re between a rock and a hard spot. What do you do?" Orphal said.

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