Posted on Sunday, September 09, 2007
Cancer cases scare grads of old Bayshore
By CARL MARIO NUDI and DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writers
MANATEE --
For years, alumni and former staff have feared their cancers and other illnesses are linked to suspected contamination at the old Bayshore High School. But the state has found no evidence to support their claims. State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, has heard the Bayshore group's concerns that there was a hazardous fuel spill, asbestos or some other toxin at the school that caused their cancers. And he vows to continue the investigation into potential connections and whether the school district is cooperating fully. "I don't feel there is anything conclusive one way or another," Galvano said.
His staff held a conference call last week with health officials, who say they have no evidence that indicates a cancer cluster. "That's the frustrating part," Galvano said. "There seems to be an inordinate number of cancers. We need to look further and have conversations with the school board and superintendent. "
An alumni group, led by Cheryl Lumsden Jozsa, contends that 63 people have been diagnosed with cancer and 27 of them have died because they attended the old Bayshore school. It was torn down in 1999. Jozsa's sister, Terri Jewel, mother of two, died Nov. 19, 1999, of chronic myelogenic leukemia. She was 38 and graduated from Bayshore High School in 1979.
Samantha Irizarry, mother of three young girls, died July 12 of a gastric cancer. She was 28 and graduated from Bayshore High School in 1997. Irizarry's father, Herb Colmorgan, said his daughter's cancer was unusual. "The doctors said this is something that happens later in life, not at such a young age," Colmorgan said. "It seems strange."
But no one has supplied a complete list of other names and medical data. Without that, the state can't investigate, said Prakash Patel, an epidemiologist with the Florida Department of Health. A cancer cluster is "a greater-than-expected number of cancer cases that occur within a group of people in a geographic area over a period of time," Patel said. And they must be primary cancers, not secondary cancers that occur as the disease spreads through the body. "For different cancers, there are different factors that affect the progression," Patel said."We have not been provided with any specific information," he said. "And without names or exact information about the cancers, there is nothing to investigate. The information has to be verified."
Was there fuel contamination?Environmental records do not back up the claims of a hazardous fuel spill. Government officials say two underground diesel fuel tanks were removed from the school property, one in 1989, the other in 1995, and no dangerous contaminant levels were detected. "It doesn't look like there is anything from these tanks that should be causing health issues," said Karen Collins-Fleming, director of the Manatee County Environmental Management Department. According to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's tank closure report for the 350-gallon fuel tank removed in 1989, no petroleum contaminants were found in the soil.
But mistakes were made when the tank was abandoned, according to a Herald report published June 7, 1989.Maintenance workers used an out-of-date method to drain and close the tank, the Herald reported. The mistake was not caught until Manatee County Pollution Control observed maintenance workers removing two heating-oil tanks behind the school administration building on Manatee Avenue. The Herald quoted Rob Brown, Pollution Control's laboratory manager: "The procedure they were using - which called for puncturing holes in the bottom of the tank - does not guarantee removal of oil residue or sludge and could lead to contamination." The correct method called for venting the tanks under pressure to allow petroleum vapors to escape.
After investigating the mistake, Pollution Control learned that underground fuel tanks at both Bayshore High School and Manatee High School were removed using the same outdated method. That discovery led to soil tests to see if the ground beneath the tanks had been contaminated. Traces of methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, toluene and xylene were found in the groundwater around the area where the tank was buried. The levels of these chemicals were well below the state standards, according to the DEP report.
In 1995, a 10,000-gallon fuel tank was removed from the Bayshore campus. Testing indicated the organic vapor levels "were below the 50 ppm (parts per million) state regulatory standard for diesel fuel in soil," according to the DEP report.
Organic vapors are various chemical gases around the grains of soil that can be measured. Four years later, the old Bayshore High School was torn down. In April 2001, the Manatee County Health Department evaluated the area around Bayshore High School and no potable wells were identified with any contamination within 1 mile of the facility, according to a DOH report.
Was there asbestos or mold? Despite the lack of evidence, Jozsa and relatives of other cancer victims who went to Bayshore High are adamant there is some kind of connection."Somebody needs to look into this," Jozsa said. "What about possible asbestos problems?" "Many of our older schools may have had asbestos," said Forest Branscomb, risk manager for the Manatee County school district, "but we used licensed contractors to remove it back in the 1970s." Jozsa also said there was a problem with mold in the school. Branscomb said the air-conditioning system had met its age limit."The building had some air-quality issues," he said, "but that was the last couple of years it was being used and would not have been a factor in the 1970s." Since Jozsa created a Web site and made some contacts, alumni and families of those who attended the old Bayshore High have logged 47 messages on the site's guest book. Many of those messages link adverse health ailments, including respiratory and auto-immune disorders to the suspected contamination.
Getting to the bottom of whether there is a connection with the high school and people getting cancer is all that Liz Reed wants. Her 19-year-old son, Rick Speed, was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, in May 1996. He died in April 1997, after 11 months of treatment. There are only 250 cases of Ewing's sarcoma diagnosed a year in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society Web site. "I know there is no way to get my son back, and if there's nothing there, it's not there." Reed said. "But I would like to know if there is something going on."
Reed's concern extends to the new Bayshore High School, especially because she has a daughter attending the school. "If there is something there, they need to clean it up so no other parent has to go through what we did," Reed said.
And that is what troubles Galvano. "I have to ask myself, would I be comfortable sending my children to that school?" Galvano said. "I want the answer to that question." Jozsa and other Bayshore alumni think the school district has information it has not shared. Galvano said he intends to make sure all records are made available.
"I don't want to be an alarmist, but I think we need to look at having an independent, third-party analysis," he said.