July 26, 2006   Cancer Stalks A Toxic Triangle - July 26, 2006

Any good real estate agent, and I live with one, will tell you it is location location location.  In other words, where we chose to settle down influences value, quality of life, stress levels, environmental health, and long term well being.  Raise a family in Guatemala City, Santiago, Beijing, Mexico City or Houston and Los Angeles and you are automatically penalizing yourself and your children.  Science is now confident that air quality is a detriment to quality of life in many parts of the world.  Beijing residents wear masks, Mexico City officials alternate the days one can drive one’s automobile, and LA and Houston announce smog alert days on the news with the attending ‘kids and the elderly should stay indoors.’  This is the reality of modern living for millions, but this story out of San Antonio Texas that I read last March made me take notice about what is really happening in some places.

From the Los Angeles Times, March 30, 2006

“On nearly every block surrounding the former Kelly Air Force Base, small purple crosses sprout from front lawns, marking the homes where cancer has struck.  The residents call their neighborhood the ‘toxic triangle,’ alleging that the Air Force poisoned it with an industrial solvent, trichloroethylene or TCE.  It was casually dumped at the base for decades and spread for miles through a shallow aquifer under 22,000 nearby houses.”

“We are dying day by day.  I have kidney failure, my wife has thyroid cancer, and my neighbor just died of breast cancer.” Texas authorities have found elevated rates of liver cancer among residents, as well as higher than normal rates of birth defects.’

Let’s not argue the merits of the paper, writer, Air Force or the Texas health department that refuses to definitively make the link to TCE, but rather just listen to the cries of the people in the small blue collar community. 

I do not read every newspaper in the US, but it is not without a big stretch of the imagination that this story is not an isolated anomaly, but rather indicative of a widespread problem for many communities. I can remember the story of Love Canal in New York where a whole community was forced to relocate.  We certainly have heard of chemical alley in Louisiana and the high incidence of cancer near those chemical plants.

The bottom line is that the precautionary principle needs to be utilized when selecting where we live today.  It is wise to choose not just by curb appeal, the number of closets, etc. - rather more serious selection criteria such as: is the home down wind of chemicals, what is the nitrate count in the drinking water, is the vacant land nearby zoned for industry – wow!  Can you believe an honest assessment of where we lay our head at night must include questions we never dreamed of asking!

Granted the more affluent have an easier time of it, but air pollution does invade Shaker Heights PA, Short Hills NJ, Grosse Point MI, Buck head GA, Weston MA, or Beverly Hills CA – just to name a few of the "tonier" spots to live.   Aquifers that provide drinking water are under rich and poor neighborhoods alike.  In other words, cancer causing chemicals are everywhere and just because we have the good fortunate to be able to live in places other than Delano and McFarland (high cancer clusters in these agricultural communities) does not mean we abdicate responsibility for cleaning up the whole.

PS – Here in our little town of Harwichport, Massachusetts and our even smaller section called Wychmere Pines we have had an inordinate amount of people come down with cancer.  Why, I do not know. But, it is time to get some answers.