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One Year Later: McCullom Lake A Town Divided

By KEVIN P. CRAVER
kcraver@nwherald.com

Next-door neighbors Bryan Freund and Kurt Weisenberger shared more than a property line in McCullom Lake.

They shared a rare form of brain cancer. A third neighbor died from another form of brain cancer. And both men shared a belief that their illnesses weren’t coincidence.

One year ago today, the two men filed suit in a Philadelphia court, accusing five Ringwood manufacturers of polluting the village’s groundwater with carcinogenic solvents.

A third plaintiff filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of current and former residents.

Since then, 15 more cancer victims joined the lawsuit, and two of the defendant companies were dropped. One plaintiff died, and cancer in at least two have relapsed over the past year. And the 1,000-strong community of McCullom Lake is split on the issue.

Philadelphia attorney Aaron Freiwald has made friends and foes over a year of filing the lawsuits.

"The lives of these individuals have been devastated by a horrible disease, and these companies had terrible practices over many years, dumping toxic waste into the ground, and the state did very little to stop it."

The lawsuits allege that a contaminant plume from Rohm and Haas Chemicals, Morton International and Modine Manufacturing Co. tainted the private residential wells, and that an effort 10 years ago to clean the contamination through an air stripping system shot the contaminants into the air that residents breathe.

But the plume maps commissioned by Rohm and Haas do not show the plume coming close to the village, a fact that the defendants and opponents of the lawsuits point out whenever new lawsuits are filed.

"There’s been no information that would indicate that there’s any relation between groundwater issues from the facilities and the village of McCullom Lake," McHenry County Public Health Administrator Patrick McNulty said.

Armed with the maps and state cancer data, the county health department published a study last May debunking the connection. But the veracity of the department’s research came under fire – for example, the state cancer data was based on ZIP code and ended the year before any of the cases at the time had been reported.

While Rohm and Haas has stayed tight-lipped on the lawsuits, the company acknowledges the contamination and regrets the illnesses, but denies any connection between the two.

Freiwald said the maps were in error and that not enough monitoring wells were drilled to adequately map the plume.

Besides brain or nerve cancers, the 17 plaintiffs all share connections, some strong and some not, to McCullom Lake. Some grew up in the village, some lived there for several years, and some lived on the McHenry side of the lake but regularly swam in the lake and visited friends in McCullom Lake. One plaintiff is a McHenry County Sheriff’s deputy who routinely patrolled the town and drank water from wells as part of his health regimen, according to the lawsuit.

Five of the lawsuits are on behalf of deceased plaintiffs, most of whom died of glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and most fatal form of brain cancer. Most other plaintiffs have oligodendroglioma, a much more survivable brain cancer that only makes up 4 percent of all brain tumors.

Freiwald said he did not know how many more lawsuits he would file. He predicts that the first six cases could go to trial next summer.

The plaintiffs are not the only casualties of the lawsuits, Village President Jeanne Hansen said. Speaking as a resident, she said others had complained that the year of coverage had hurt the community. Hansen also said residents were not worried about their water, and she too points to the Rohm and Haas studies.

"All I can say, honestly, is that I have seen nothing that indicates any contamination reached McCullom Lake," Hansen said. "I have seen no evidence of that."

Freiwald said he understood any resentment, given the scary nature of what his lawsuits alleged.

"We’ve made good progress, but it’s a long road ahead," he said. "I really feel for the people in this community ... these are good people. These are very solid, hard-working, caring people, and it really is a tragedy what’s happened."

Former defendants Huntsman and Huntsman Polyurethanes were dropped last month from the lawsuits.

Two next-door neighbors in McCullom Lake filed lawsuits against five Ringwood manufacturers, accusing the companies of causing their rare brain cancers through decades of groundwater contamination. A McCullom Lake couple a year ago also filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of current and former residents.

In the year since, 17 total cancer victims have filed suit. Five of the lawsuits are on behalf of deceased victims. Two of the defendant companies last month were dropped from the lawsuits.

A view of McCullom Lake is shown from the shore of Petersen Park. Today marks a year since residents near McCullom Lake filed a lawsuit alleging that manufacturing companies leaked toxic chemicals into the area’s groundwater, causing residents to develop rare forms of brain cancer.

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