ABC 7 Uncovers: Why was Bayshore High torn down?
November 30, 2005 BY: MONICA YADAV
BRADENTON - Cheryl Jozsa is just looking for some answers.
She is trying to find out why her sister died six years ago and what role the high school they both attended, played in her death. The 1981 Bayshore High graduate believes that is the only way she will ever get complete peace in her life.
“This is all for her,” Jozsa says of her efforts to determine whether or not the conditions at her old school adversely affected her sister’s health problems. “This is in her memory. . . this is so it doesn’t happen to anybody else, so her death was not in vain. I truly believe in my hear there is a connection.”
In 1999, Terri Lumsden Jewell - Jozsa’s sister - died of chronic Myelogenic Leukemia. She passed away just seven months after being diagnosed with this rare form of cancer.
The 38-year-old 1979 Bayshore graduate left behind a husband and two young children. Before she became ill, Jewell had no warning signs. There was no family history of the disease.
According to documents obtained by ABC 7 Uncovers reporter Monica Yadav, the building that housed Bayshore High School back then did have some issues. Several air quality tests conducted at the facility indicate that some employees complained of breathing difficulties.
Other tests conducted at the building also show elevated levels of formaldehyde and asbestos. ABC 7 Uncovers also came across an internal Manatee County School District memo discussing a 10,000-gallon underground storage tank at the south end of the school that was used to store diesel fuel.
The memo says that district officials thought the tank might have been leaking. Diesel fuel contains Benzene, which can cause Leukemia. There were no records on how much of the fuel may have leaked or how long it might have been occurring.
Environmental reports obtained by ABC 7 Uncovers indicate that the leaking diesel fuel did contaminate the soil around it. Those levels were below state standards and not considered to be ‘excessively contaminated.’
Jozsa is worried that the leaking diesel fuel may have played a role in her sister’s leukemia and she’s not the only one. Erin Bell, another Bayshore graduate, is also concerned. Her brother graduated in 1979 with Jewell and he too died from a form of Mylogenic Leukemia.
“It was just too great of a coincidence,” Bell says of her brother’s death.
And there’s more. Jozsa has found at least eight other people who either went to or worked at the old Bayshore campus who have died after contracting some form of cancer. Four others tied to Bayshore have either had cancer or are currently fighting it.
Tracey Granata Fowinkle, a 1980 Bayshore grad, became ill about a year ago.
“I started to feel fatigued,” Fowinkle said.
After several trips to her doctor, the mother of three found out that she had an inoperable condition in her brain called Central Nervous System Lymphoma. Fowinkle and her husband Robert, who also attended Bayshore, are now looking for some answers.
As it stands right now, the Fowinkles say there isn’t a clear understanding of what caused it or how it came about.
Researchers at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa are constantly working with study groups of people living in the same area who develop a form of cancer. These are referred to as ‘cancer clusters.’
Epidemiologists say each year that Federal, State and local health departments get approximately 1,000 calls from the public each year about suspected ‘cancer clusters.’ In reality, only five to 15 percent of those actually turn out to be statistically significant.
“In general, cancer is pretty common,” says Dana Rollison, an Epidemiologist with the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. “It’s the second leading cause of death behind cardiovascular disease.”
Former Bayshore graduates feel strongly that something at the old campus contributed to the illnesses suffered by them and their classmates. ABC 7 Uncovers obtained minutes from a Manatee County School Board meeting from 1998 where the Bayshore issue is discussed.
School Board members made the decision that the building in question should not be occupied or given to any other group and that use of the building in the future could create a significant liability for the district. A member of the student advisory council at Bayshore even went so far as to label the structure as a ‘sick building.’
In 1999, 926 Bayshore students and members of the school’s staff and faculty signed a petition asking the School Board to tear the building down due to it being ‘an environmental hazard.’
The board followed the advice and chose to tear down the old buildings at the school instead of renovating them. Larry Simmons, a current school board member who took part in that decision, says that decision was not based on health concerns.
“I can tell you my children went there and I never had any fears of them going there,” said Simmons, who once represented the district that includes the school. “They both graduated from there and if I’d thought there was a problem with that building, I wouldn’t have sent my children there.”
Simmons adds that the new school was constructed because the students needed an ‘updated facility.’ Former Bayshore graduates are still worried and still concerned.
“We want to help other [former Bayshore students] realize that if you’re not feeling well you need to get yourself checked out,” said Jozsa. “We also want answers. What was there and why did they tear the school down? I think everybody who ever went to school there, that ever worked there, that ever worked in the community, lived in the community, have a right to know.”