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Elected officials to discuss multiple cases of rare cancer in the Canon-McMillan School District
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
April 6, 2019
Area: Pittsburgh
News of multiple student cancers in the Canon-McMillan School District has led a Washington County legislator to schedule an April 24 meeting for local elected officials to get information and determine if action is necessary.
State Rep. Timothy O’Neal, R-South Strabane, said the meeting will be closed to the public and at an undisclosed location, so UPMC and state Department of Environmental Protection officials can provide elected officials information about potential causes, if any, of the multiple cancers within school district boundaries.
But news of the closed meeting brought local concern that expertise about the health impacts of shale gas drilling and fracking will be lacking.
Jane Worthington, a Robinson, Washington County, resident involved in environmental issues, and whose family experienced environmental health impacts possibly related to fracking, said the meeting should include the likes of Raina Rippel, director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project in neighboring Peters.
Ms. Rippel said the center supports the efforts underway to address the issue in a timely fashion. Given the health project’s local expertise, she said, she would welcome an invitation to “bring our specific knowledge of local health impacts to the table.”
On March 28, the Post-Gazette reported that, in the past decade, six cases of Ewing sarcoma - a rare cancer - occurred within district borders, including two diagnoses in 2018. The report also noted at least 10 other children of school age or younger have various cancers, with the Post-Gazette now confirming two cases each of leukemia, osteosarcoma and liver cancer, and one each of neuroblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and liposarcoma.
One girl died in February from astrocytoma. In addition, a 21-year-old North Strabane man was diagnosed in early January with leukemia. The district includes Cecil, North Strabane and Canonsburg.
The Post-Gazette also reported 12 cases of Ewing sarcoma in southeastern Westmoreland County since 2011. It’s now clear there have been multiple Ewing sarcoma cases in other southwestern counties and multiple student cancers in other school districts in Washington and Greene counties.
During the meeting, Mr. O’Neal said, environmental risks will be discussed, but most notably a long defunct chemical plant in Cecil Township and the uranium mill tailings disposal site in North Strabane just below Canon-McMillan High School, where the U.S. Department of Energy continues reporting radiation levels at or below background levels.
The most immediate sources of pollution are multiple shale gas drilling and fracking operations in and upwind of the school district, including the state’s largest natural gas cryogenics plant - a major pollution source - situated on a hilltop in neighboring Chartiers, immediately west of the district, along with upwind well sites and compressor stations.
“Personally, the little I know about it, I find it an unlikely potential cause [of the cancers] but I have a limited perspective,” Mr. O’Neal said of fracking. “But we should be concerned of all environmental factors throughout the region. If this leads to research needing to be done about the uranium site or the chemical site [in Cecil], we need to go down that path.”
Campaign documents show that Mr. O’Neal’s campaign received more than $30,000 in contributions from energy companies including $9,000 from Washington County fracking operators or their employee political action committees - $5,500 from EQT, $2,750 from Range Resources Corp. and $750 from Chevron Corp. During his campaign, he criticized Gov. Tom Wolf for wanting to “tax the growth industry out of business,” referring to shale gas development.
Once the meeting is completed, he said, he would announce results and any strategy the group decides to pursue.
“If we can send a message at this point,” he said, “it is simply that we do want people to know that we have concerns as well and are trying to figure out what we know and what we can do.”
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