Yet to Mara Hatfield, the attorney from the local firm who spent the most time on the Acreage cases, the unusual cancer cluster was likely caused by an unusual pollutant. But when the low times do hit, each time it hits a little bit harder and lasts a little bit longer.. But the house is basically worthless, and where are you going to go in this job market?. These include Cesium-137, Iridium-191, and Cadmium-109. (Naturally occurring means that the radioactive substances originated in the soil, water or other natural materials, but may have been concentrated by industrial activity.) I began to be concerned about the area where I lived, said Dunsford, who moved to The Acreage from Broward County. Separate personal injury lawsuits have been filed against Pratt by many of the same parents. According to The Palm Beach Post last week, U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Ryskamp recently dismissed two separate lawsuits claiming aircraft engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney was responsible for a cluster of cancer-related illnesses affecting Acreage residents. Kayes doubts proved well-founded just a few days later, when Dr. Alina Alonso, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department, told reporters that her agency wasnt planning to do any soil testing or other investigation into the causes of the cluster beyond interviewing families. But on the other hand, I envy them every day of their lives. The loss of her daughter has only become harder over time. Because the Acreage is unincorporated, the city doesnt provide services even water. As retired engineer Robert Abernethy reminisced at a 2004 reunion of Pratt employees who had worked on the J58 engine, In late 1957, Pratt & Whitney had two top-secret black engine projects that were to use poison fuels! The other camp focused on the good news, such as the FDEPs pronouncement that the local drinking water was generally good, as the letter accompanying the water-testing results put it, reassuring residents that in general, residential property in the Acreage is safe for families to enjoy outside activities in their yards.. We expect to have peace at home, and if we have 30,000 to 50,000 people that cant sleep at night, this is a problem.. 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. We are seeking answers to a long list of questions and we are hoping that this websiteprovides usefulinformation to you. Eventually, the family moved to Tennessee, but even now the comments still sting. The anxiety level of residents went up, and property values went down. Submit & Share. Their family menagerie includes two horses, a pony, seven dogs, goats and a pig. Throughout the 1980s, the EPA was preparing to designate Pratt & Whitneys South Florida location as a federal Superfund site, which would have required detailed public disclosure of the contamination and the various steps that would be taken to remediate it. I understand the fear and frustration. Today, Pratt & Whitney has more than $10 billion in defense contracts, and United Technologies is the sixth-biggest Pentagon contractor. Cancer cluster frightens Palm Beach County, Cancer cluster frightens Palm Beach County community, Widening manhunt for Texas gunman who killed five neighbors slowed by zero leads, Golden Beach police sergeant in stable condition after shooting during chase of car-theft suspects, Skies clear in South Florida as residents clean up from 130-mph tornado in Palm Beach County, Mike Shannon, who spent 50 years in the St. Louis Cardinals broadcast booth after winning 2 World Series, dies at 83. _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-230305-2']); The chances of so many childhood cancers concentrated in such a small place ranged from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1,000 -- a cancer cluster, experts determined. 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. Much of the information released by the Health Department during this period was open to interpretation. The Samarripas moved to Alabama, where Hannah, now 20 and in college, is flourishing, according to her mother. We know youre fearful of what these results mean, said Sharon Watkins, an environmental epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health. 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. And the air was often filled with smoke, which came from both the burning of sugar cane and the fires on the banks of nearby Lake Okeechobee. At various points, contaminated water escaped the dredging pits and seeped into the canal and groundwater in the Acreage, according to the plaintiffs complaint. Dycus notes that its not uncommon for defense-related companies to resist providing information because of military sensitivity, as Pratt & Whitney has done in the Acreage case. WebThe Florida Department of Environmental Protection designated a pediatric cancer cluster in 2010 in The Acreage after a spate of pediatric brain tumor cases. As the results of those studies trickled out, the community found itself divided into two distinct camps. Hatfield countered that medical experts her West Palm Beach firm hired will refute those claims. She had also gotten together with the mothers of other sick children, including Tracy Newfield, Becky Samarripa and Kaye McCann, as well as a few concerned friends and relatives, to see how they might get to the bottom of what was going on in the Acreage. One state regulator who was involved in the process that spared the company from the Superfund designation went directly to work for Pratt & Whitney after those negotiations. })(); This study was requested when it was discovered that multiple children and adultssuffered or diedfrom brain tumors and live within a close radius of one another. Florida will appeal to the federal government for help investigating the cancer cluster in The Acreage, Gov. Every day since, Ive woken up with a pit in my stomach, worrying about my children. The Florida Department ofHealth will continue to work with the people of Florida and these organizations to someday find the answer that will prevent a child from getting cancer. Acreage cancer cluster trial underway in West Palm Beach By Linnie Supall Published: Jul. The company was seeking privacy because some of its projects were classified. They wanted us to move on and say our water was fine, recalls Tracy Newfield, who was a member of the group. Becky Samarripa, too, was shaken by the cluster designation, which seemed to confirm her worst fear: that something in their surroundings was making them sick. Please note: We are not The Florida Department of Health. In 2000, when Pratt & Whitney was considering leaving its Florida site, it entered into discussions with Palm Beach County about selling some of its land as a site for drinking wells. Palm Beach County families are finally getting their time in court after years of concerns over a spike in cancer cases in and around The Acreage. WebA cancer cluster is a statistical event, which may or may not have a cause other than chance. The designation would have also alerted people in the area and those considering moving there to the potential for environmental danger. The concept of tranquility is right in our founding documents, said state Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D- Wellington. Tracy Newfield cried when she first heard the news. I think about it every time I open up the freezer and were out of store-bought ice.. Soil tests are to follow. 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. Should I be gone?, Here Peskowitz paused. 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 entire story might have ended there, in 2010, if attorneys hadnt taken up where public-health officials left off. After a five-day hearing in 2018, Marra rejected Hatfield's request to allow all Acreage property owners to be part of the lawsuit. This constitutes a huge problem, though one that, he says, seems to spur little outrage. This odd fact kept troubling her, and at the suggestion of Garretts neurologist, she e-mailed the Florida Department of Health about it. Tell us if its safe to drink the water, shouted one man in the audience. The epidemiological tools are too crude, explains Richard Clapp, an epidemiologist who has been involved in dozens of investigations into possible disease clusters in his career. In addition to TE-NORM, radionuclides have been detected in the Acreage that are not naturally occurring. In court filings, Pratt & Whitney denied having any contaminations beyond properly stored chemical compounds.. South Florida's independent Then, two years later, another study was published concluding that cancer rates among the companys workers were not elevated. The epidemiological investigation of the cluster took five years to conduct and cost taxpayers more than $10 million. The smallest plots are more than an acre, and many are larger, so houses are a good distance from one another. For many of the families whose children developed cancer, there was simply no question of staying. Half a year later, on a mild evening in early 2010, state officials called a town meeting at the local high school to tell the community what the investigation had found. We ask that if you live in the area and have a brain tumor, some form of cancer, or another diagnosed medical problem, that you call the Palm Beach County Department of Health at 561-514-5300. 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. The research found that, between 1967 and 1980, the average death rate from cancer among the companys employees had shot up from 13 per 100,000 workers to 122 [PDF] a roughly ninefold increase. 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. Jet fuel, which was the suspected cause of another cancer cluster in Fallon, Nevada, may also have played a role at the Acreage. The process involved, at various points, the CDC, the state and Palm Beach County departments of health, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP). But the details of the process arent public. A civil engineer testified about his independent forensic investigation, which determined that the radioactive materials on Pratt & Whitney's campus matched the same materials found in The Acreage. When Jennifer Dunsford, her husband and three children moved into a new house in The Acreage in 2003, they expected it to be their forever home.. They asked experts to conduct hundreds of soil and medical tests. Dunsford, along with other parents whose children were diagnosed with brain cancer, claim the aeronautics giant didnt properly dispose of radioactive waste that eventually contaminated their community. The Dunsfords created all this fear, resident Michelle James told The Palm Beach Post. If you would like your information added to this map, please email us at info@theacreagecancerstudy.com and provide us with your address, sex, age, and diagnosis. 8, 2022 at 3:06 PM PDT Palm Beach County families are finally getting Hatfield and her boss, Jack Scarola, ordered further testing of the soil and water. The plaintiffs attorneys notified both the state and county health departments of their findings in September of last year and urged them to begin larger-scale testing. ", Jury rejects Acreage families lawsuit against Pratt & Whitney, Tornado that tore through Palm Beach Gardens had winds of at least 100 mph, Trees toppled, homes damaged, cars overturned in tornado, Tornado tosses boat from cove onto lawn in North Palm Beach, Unofficial Boca Bash to draw thousands of boaters Sunday, Fort Lauderdale Air Show delayed until afternoon because of bad weather, Verhaeghe scores in OT as Panthers eliminate Bruins from playoffs, Cleanup underway after tornado rips through North Palm Beach neighborhood, Butler, Heat start semifinals with 108-101 win over Knicks, National Weather Service upgrades tornado to EF2 with peak winds of 130 mph. In June of 2009, a local reporter got hold of one of the forms Dunsford was sending around and wrote a story about her efforts. Chicago attorney Sean Gallagher said state regulatory agencies not only cleared Pratt of wrong-doing but also declared that The Acreage is safe for families to enjoy outdoor activities in their yards.. 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. He doesnt value things at all, is how Dunsford described Garrett recently, adding that hes become the family comforter. "If they can't get that verdict, it kind of dimmers where we're at here because what is it going to take here? _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', 'none']); The most likely cause the only cause is the transportation of Pratt Whitney materials to The Acreage, she said during opening statements. 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. The families are also filing individual lawsuits for damages. Hell ask for something and say, I appreciate that you bought me that, but lets go snuggle. He values spending time with people.. P2 began as a friendly collaboration based on the good working relationship between the regulatory community and industry, as one internal document put it. The companys 7,000 acres of swampland are bordered on the south by a 60,000-plus-acre wildlife preserve. ' Her husband refuses to leave, though, because they are three years from paying off their mortgage and, if they sold the house, would lose so much money that they couldnt afford to buy another. local Journalism in South Florida. However, five years later, her youngest son was diagnosed with brain cancer. In response, the company waged a fierce, years-long battle against the Superfund designation and, in 1985, it won that fight. _gaq.push(['_setAllowHash', false]); Based on the self-reported data the pediatric cancer cluster declared by the State for the years 2004-2008 would be expanded to a general brain cancer cluster from 2004-2010.". 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. The Acreage has no sewer or water systems, but until recently at least it did offer peace and quiet. If Al Qaeda sent a team of sleeper cells to poison our groundwater and release toxic materials into the air, people would go nuts. If they do have to do an investigation, they have to find the funds for it or have to get the Legislature to appropriate funds. Typically, each year, one in 30,000 to 40,000 children in the United States is expected to develop a brain tumor; but the Acreage, with a population of 39,000, had four pediatric brain-tumor cases between 2005 and 2007. For example, studying clusters By that time, home prices in the acreage had fallen to about half their peak in 2006. But the effect of confirming The Acreage as a cancer cluster was immediate. Kaye McCann, also in the auditorium, was more pessimistic. (function() { While the Florida Health Department declared a pediatric cancer cluster in The Acreage, it never found what caused the high rate of childhood cancers. Who knew what had been in the water that might be coming back to haunt residents? Seven years after the Health Department declared a pediatric cancer cluster in The Acreage another lawsuit has If you would like to print this map, you can use the print option off your web browser. This article will provide you with some guidelines on how you can obtain high-quality maps. 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. Though the investigation turned up thirteen brain tumors in Acreage kids between 1994 and 2007, the official cluster consisted of just three girls, all of whom were diagnosed with brain cancer between 2005 and 2007. Cynthia Santiago was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009 at the age of 13 while living in a South Florida community known as the Acreage. Though health officials confirmed a cluster of pediatric brain cancers, the lawsuit alleges that adults have been affected too: "According to self-reported data from the community, the 2008-2010 incidence of brain tumors for the entire Acreage population is above 30. According to a 1985 Department of Environmental Regulation update, the company had soil on its property that contained PCBs chemicals that have been linked to brain cancer at more than 200 times the maximum level now allowed even in fenced-off, nonresidential areas. None of this stuff had ever happened before, Samarripa says. The anticipated three-week trial got off to a blustery start. In 2003, Palm Beach Aggregates sold its used mining pits to the South Florida Water Management District, the local government agency that oversees water usage, for $217 million. We were moms and wives and grandmothers on a mission, remembers Newfield, who describes herself as both this little housewife and as she would come to see herself over the years of struggle that followed someone who, if necessary, could become your worst enemy.. Still, the crowd was standing-room-only on this night. (function() { But, Gallagher said, only 40 dump trucks were sent to a thermal remediation facility. 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. It would be an act of war, Dycus notes. State workers this week are taking soil samples in the Acreage, digging soil, digging for answers to what's causing the pediatric cancer cluster. Isolation was clearly part of the reason that Pratt originally chose its location in Florida. She knew and somehow understood and was OK with it, Kaye McCann said recently. Nor did it account for the fact that many of the cases were clumped in the northern part of the study area, which meant that the concentration of cancer in that particular spot was even higher there than what the Health Department had found in the larger area. Alonso emphasized the many questions about the causes of cancer: diet soda, cellphones and microwave ovens may play a role, she said, concluding that it doesnt seem practical or reasonable to start searching blindly. Instead, Alonso said, the health agency would focus on raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of brain cancer to increase early detection. Homeowners such as Stephanie and Ira Peskowitz, a law enforcement officer, are wondering how long they can wait. The way some members of the community are By the time the tumor The Newfields are one of the few directly affected families to stay in the Acreage. Your government has not done enough, said County Commissioner Jess Santamaria, who has called on Crist to find state and federal money to connect homeowners to the county water system. Located 15 miles northwest of West Palm Beach, The Acreage is an area of dirt roads, riding trails and some 35,000 residents, many who moved here to get away from big city ills. A judge on Friday heard from a Pratt & Whitney spokesperson who admitted that some of the radioactive material was disposed of in a nearby landfill but said it was inside a steel drum. 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. PCBs were also found in fish [PDF] that swam in ponds on the companys grounds, at more than 7,000 times the safe level set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for human consumption. A 2010 report from the Florida Department of Health confirmed her worst fears. A community group has counted 18 children with brain What can we do to protect the family? The couples two sons, Isaac, 4, and Ilan, 2, were born here, and they are growing up in a neighborhood where tall pines, open spaces and a variety of family pets are commonplace. A cancer Playing outside was prohibited. The plaintiffs lawyers also unearthed company correspondence indicating that some of these radioactive materials wound up outside of their proper storage places. Since Jennas death in 2006, Kaye had become less trusting. This data does not reflect data collectedby the Florida Department of Health. Instead, the Palm Beach County Health Department told Hatfield to direct further contacts to its lawyer. Before you start printing and downloading, be sure you have read the article first. A Scary Reality The Acreage Cancer Cluster. It helped start the P2 Coalition of Palm Beach County (P2 is short for pollution prevention) in 1994, along with the Palm Beach County Health Department, other local businesses and the Jupiter Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, some of the children with cancer had lived just 1,000 feet from one another. 's://ssl':'://www')+'.google-analytics.com'+'/siteopt.js?v=1&utmxkey='+k+'&utmx='+(x?x:'')+'&utmxx='+(xx?xx:'')+'&utmxtime='+new Date().valueOf()+(h? On another, two of her children, then toddlers, were shot with a paintball gun while they played in her backyard. 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. We are keeping track of all diagnosed health issues that residents report to us. 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. Our Platform. Earlier this month, the Florida Health Department confirmed that a Some residents of The Acreage have filed a class action lawsuit against Pratt & Whitney. var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); The groups efforts extend to sponsoring green-themed events, such as elementary-school poster contests on environmental topics and Earth Day Peace Jams., But the defense contractor and the county were less keen about publicizing contamination on the companys property. 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. 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. Its a gold-level sponsor of the American Cancer Associations local Relay for Life fundraiser, and its chief executive was a vice chair of the group CEOs Against Cancer. All Rights Reserved. fl.us/southeast/acreage/www.pbcgov. New Acreage 'cancer cluster' lawsuit filed. Im usually a very rational person, but that night I put on a pair of shoes that belong to someone with OCD. 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; Dalia Dippolito May Have Tried to Kill Him, But Michael Dippolito Is No Saint, Hallandale Beach Shoplifter Killed By Police Because of Dispatching Error, His Family Claims, SoFlo Born and Bred: Logan Sargeant Gears Up for Miami Grand Prix, Celebrity Cruise Ship Kept Corpse in Drink Cooler, Lawsuit Says, Brightline Train Rips Apart Car Carrier in Hollywood Rail Collision (VIDEO), Open Season: Margate's Lax Safeguards Raise Fear of Fraud and Abuse, OIG Says, Photos: Fort Lauderdale Residents Assess Damage Wrought by Historic Flooding, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. Within a few months, some of the participants felt they were being pressured to stop pursuing questions about water contamination. When she first moved to the area, Becky Samarripa was charmed by the sight of horses trotting by and people fishing in the canals that crisscrossed the neighborhood. She explains why she came: I wanted my children to play in the dirt and enjoy nature and breathe the fresh air. Tracy Newfield also liked the communitys spaciousness, which allowed ample storage for her familys boat and Jet Skis. He left out the fact that he was an engineer for Pratt & Whitney. While the frustrated participants resigned in protest, another member of the group, who had expressed doubts about environmental factors in the cluster, later received a nice surprise: a letter from the Florida Department of Health commending his efforts and offering help in finding funding for his projects. But if she successfully argues that Pratt contaminated The Acreage, she could ask him to reconsider. A cancer cluster is a high concentration of people diagnosed with cancer who all live or work within a close proximity of one another. This month the countys 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 than normal. But after two assessments of the plot in question found ubiquitous contamination, the deal quietly fell through. We are concerned residents just like you. The verdict said that the aerospace giant did not release pollution or transport radioactive materials into the community from its facility located along Beeline Highway in western Palm Beach County. The anxiety and uncertainty now haunting The Acreage began to surface months ago. A similar back-and-forth ensued when Pratt & Whitney hired epidemiologists to investigate a possible cancer cluster in its North Haven, Connecticut, jet-engine plant, where an unusual number of workers had died from an especially lethal form of brain cancer called glioblastoma the same kind that Joey Baratta and Debora Craig, another Acreage plaintiff, had. Some left that three-hour meeting feeling more frustrated than when they arrived.