Danger from below?

MATT HUGHES

mhughes@timesleader.com

In February, Chuck Menichini, 58, of , was diagnosed with large B-cell lymphoma. His physician told him the cancer has an environmental cause, typically exposure to the chemical benzene.

The Butler Mine Tunnel upstream from the Fort Jenkins Bridge on the Susquehanna River in Pittston.

BILL TARUTIS/FOR THE TIMES LEADER

Additional Photos Below

When you get a diagnosis like this, it’s natural to ask why; what did I do to cause this? And when a physician tells you the disease might have an environmental cause, you start asking bigger questions.

Menichini went looking for a cause, and he thinks he has found it.

Menichini lives at the end of Carroll Street, a few hundred yards from where the Butler Mine Tunnel drains into the Susquehanna River. He believes that industrial waste dumped into the mines below Pittston that spewed from the tunnel, an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup site in 1979 and again in 1985, played a role in causing his cancer and the cancers of many of his neighbors.

In short, he thinks contaminants in the Butler Mine Tunnel have created a cancer cluster in Pittston.

Collecting data

Menichini and his family have been collecting information from neighbors, particularly on Mill Street and Carroll Street. He has documented about 80 cancer cases so far, and found what he considers alarming coincidences.

He has found three cases of brain cancer, three or four cases of esophagus cancer within a block radius, and on one block, cancer struck in 14 of 16 houses.

Menichini isn’t a scientist; he’s a plumber, but an accusation like his from a man in his situation demands consideration, and because of it, state and federal agencies and the area’s representatives in Harrisburg and Washington are taking another look at the Butler Mine Tunnel.

One of the first to listen was state Sen. John Yudichak.

Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, met with Menichini’s family then contacted the state Department of Health to request a survey of cancer rates in greater Pittston.

He also met with Bob Durkin of the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute, which has offices in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, about the possibility of conducting a more refined study of cancer in and around Menichini’s neighborhood.

He said he will introduce legislation to better coordinate government response in investigating alleged cancer clusters.

“We want to look at streamlining the process to better the response when there’s a concentrated cluster like that, in terms of the federal, state, local and county response,” Yudichak said.

Cancer clusters

Cancer clusters themselves are difficult to explain scientifically in community settings. In industrial settings, where workers are exposed to a particular substance on a daily basis and develop a particular variety of cancer in elevated rates, the link between carcinogen and cancer is much more clear than in a community setting, where exposure may be more temporary, lower, and more difficult to isolate from other risk factors.

Dr. Michael J. Thun of the American Cancer Society and Thomas Sinks of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote that more than 1,000 suspected cancer clusters are reported to state health departments every year. But they said statistical testing confirms elevated cancer rates in only 5 to 15 percent of cases, and even in these cases, results are rarely definitive.

Pa. agency review

At Yudichak’s request, the Department of Health reviewed reports of cancer between 1992 and 2008 within the 18640 zip code, which includes Pittston, Pittston Township, Port Griffith and part of Jenkins Township.

The survey found elevated rates of colorectal, pancreatic, lung and thyroid cancer in the area, but with the exception of pancreatic cancer, those cancers are found in elevated rates across the region. .

A letter from acting Deputy Secretary for Health Planning and Assessment Martin Raniowski to Yudichak also pointed out that “the observed number of lymphomas (raised as a particular concern in this community) is the same as expected based on statewide rates.”

Dr. Samuel Lesko, an epidemiologist with the Northeast Regional Cancer Institute, reviewed the letter to Yudichak.

“Looking at the cancer data, my first reaction is that those high cancer rates are on par with general cancer in the community,” Lesko said. “That doesn’t immediately start flashing lights saying there’s a problem.”

Though he added that “given the underlying history of that Butler Tunnel, it may be reasonable to look at if there may be an environmental cause. I think that is a question that is worth revisiting.”

EPA’s viewpoint

The Environmental Protection Agency has also taken another look at the Superfund site, but the agency doesn’t feel there’s a problem.

“We feel that the conditions at the site are not detrimental to human health,” said Mitch Cron, the EPA’s project manager for the Butler Mine Tunnel, adding that “the water coming out of that tunnel into the river doesn’t have contamination above drinking water standards.”

And because the EPA does not feel the tunnel presents an imminent public health threat, it doesn’t plan any additional testing in Pittston.

The number and quantities of chemicals dumped into the mines below Pittston according to the EPA’s own 2009 review of the Butler Mine Tunnel site are alarming. Testing of the oily carbon discharge that spewed from the tunnel in 1985 revealed the presence of 16 hazardous substances, and the EPA believes between 1.5 and 2.7 million gallons of waste were dumped into mines that drain into the Butler Tunnel via a borehole off State Route 315 in the 1970s.

That waste included between 330,000 and 490,000 gallons of oil and as much as 100,000 gallons of liquid cyanide, and the EPA believes between 50,000 and 90,000 gallons of it remains pooled in mines below Pittston.

The EPA also concluded, however, that those substances aren’t regularly flowing through the tunnel, though they could spill out in a flood, and because Pittston residents do not drink well water or water from the river, living near the tunnel isn’t a health risk.

The EPA also conducted remedial air-quality tests in 1979, 1982 and 1986, Cron said, and the EPA does not believe there is any present danger from mine vapors.

Those answers did not satisfy the Menichini family.

In Menichini’s years as a plumber he often found himself in basements sopping with “flood mud.”

“What about all the mines that collapsed into the sewer system,” Menichini said. “I was in houses with that. What was I touching?”

The Menichinis want the EPA to analyze soil samples in Pittston, something the EPA doesn’t feel is necessary. EPA officials met with the Menichinis on Tuesday about their concerns.

“It pretty much made me sick to my stomach that they didn’t test any of the soil or anything else, and that they don’t feel it needs to be investigated,” Chris Menichini, Chuck’s son, said of that meeting. “The EPA is supposed to be out there for us and our own protection and it doesn’t seem like they’re interested in protecting us.”

Chris Menichini said if the EPA won’t listen, he will have to seek help elsewhere in proving the family’s suspicions.

Barletta involved

Another of those who is listening to the Menichinis is U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Hazleton, who has been working with Yudichak’s office in determining an appropriate government response.

Barletta last week sent a letter to Administrator Lisa Jackson of the EPA asking the agency to again “investigate the potential environmental hazard and to provide me with a level of risk for my constituents” and “more specifically, does the Superfund site pose a hazard to Pittston? Do dangerous chemicals exist beneath the city and what steps have been taken to remedy the problem?”

Legal advocate Erin Brockovich has also responded. Shortly after testifying about Superfund sites and cancer clusters before a Senate committee on that issue two weeks ago, she responded to an e-mail message from Chuck’s wife, Barbara Menichini.

Brockovich asked to share information from the Menichinis with other attorneys and with the area’s representatives in Congress, and said she would look into the situation and possibly set up a community meeting.

“I am sure that none of this information brings you any comfort,” Brockovich wrote, “but I wanted to share with you that the problem is very large and that we are working towards some solutions… I will wait to hear back from you and will begin looking into this Superfund site. What a mess and what a shame.”

The Menichinis are glad someone is listening.

“If I have to go down to Capitol Hill or wherever else I will,” Chris Menichini said, adding, “We just lost two people in the last couple weeks that live in the area from cancer.”