Cancer city
By Paul Schneidereit 

Staff Reporter
Halifax Herald, Sunday, July 26, 1998
    The only thing missing from disaster is the bodies on the streets of Whitney Pier.
    On a drive through the neighborhood, the quiet homes reveal no clues about the hundreds who have died prematurely over hte years.
    But those who live here can tell you how cancer and heart disease have stalked this area for decades.
    "Heart attack and cancer in these houses here," says Eric Brophy, 65 pointing to a group of homes along Lingan Road.
    "My wife, who died 2-1/2 years ago, this was her grandfather's home.  Her aunt who lived in this house died of cancer.  Her dad died of a heart attack.  He was 58."
    Pointing a stubby finger down the road, Mr. Brophy indicates yet another home.
    "The Hotter girl that I mentioned, she lived in this house.  That was cancer."
    He continues to drive, hooded eyes focused on memories.
    "Cancer through there.  I know there was cancer here, I don't know the years.  This is where my wife grew up.  My wife was 56 when she died.  She died of cancer."
    House after house.  Street after street.  Block after block
    Why?
    Finding the answer is what drives the health studies working group of the Joint action Group, a community-driven effort to clean up the largest toxic waste site in North America.
    For almost 90 years, smoke stacks at Sydney Steel belched carcinogens daily over Sydney, blanketing Whitney Pier and adjoining neighborhoods.
    The mill's coke ovens were torn down a decade ago, but the pollution stayed.
    Leachate from a hilltop municipal dump still flows into the 50- hectare coke ovens site, mixing with the heavily contaminated soil and bedrock.
    The resulting chemical cocktail - a witch's brew of heavy metals, poisonous hydrocarbons and other toxins - creeps steadily downhill, finally draining into the infamous tar ponds, two pools holding 700,000 tonnes of hazardous goo, including 50,000 tonnes of PCBs.
    Since the tar ponds are actually a tidal estuary, every day the ocean flushes more contaminants out to sea.
    "Last week I buried a second family member in a year from cancer," says Michelle Gardiner, a young, expectant mother and interim chair of the health studies group.  "I live with the same things that people in this community do, but I want the truth."
    Ms. Gardiner, who lives in Ashby, bordering Whitney Pier, leans forward, her voice weary yet earnest.
    "What a legacy to pass on to this baby I'm carrying right now.  'You were born int he cancer capital.'  I'm sorry, there's so much else at risk here.  There's a future."
    Despite dozens of studies done through the years, scientists and JAG officials agree there's not enough evidence to conclusively identify what's causing the health problems.
    Only one report has ever been published in the scientific literature, a 1985 study by Health Canada scientist Yang Mao on mortality in Cape Breton County.
    Using death certificate data from 1971 to 1983, Mr. Mao's team found rates of cancer and circulatory disease higher than the provincial average among both men and women, particularly in Sydney.
    While the link between environmental factors and health remains largely unstudied, a 1987 provincial study of lifestyle factors associated with cancer and heart disease found many Cape Breton County residents smoked too much, had poor diets, were overweight and did not exercise enough.
    That report is derisively known in Sydney as the Broccoli Study because of a perception the study concluded local residents needed to eat more broccoli.
    Meanwhile, studies in other parts of the world -- Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Ontario -- have established a link between coke oven emissions and cancer, especially of the lungs.
    But, explains Don Ferguson, Health Canada's director general for the Atlantic region, more studies are needed to determine the precise role that pollution played in the Sydney area.
    "Exposed to what?  Through what conditions?  For what period of time?" Mr. Ferguson said.  "In order to get to 'what happened,' you need to know these three things."
    Even when all the studies are complete, he said, the best you'll be able to say is that there's a high probability that exposure to hazardous waste contributed to the high rates of cancer and other diseases.
    "The reality is you will probably never find the smoking gun because health is impacted by genetics, it's impacted by lifestyle and, clearly, environmental and occupational exposures."
    JAG members acknowledge that scientifically proving a connection between pollution and disease might be extremely difficult.
    Still, they're determined to try.
    At JAG's request, two Health Canada scientists launched a multiyear study in May, reviewing cancer mortality and incidence rates over a 30-year period, as well as reproductive health outcomes, including birth defects.
    The first results, to be released in late September, will show some diseases are definitely more common in Sydney than the rest of the province, says team co-leader Pierre Band.
    Other disease rates are higher in Cape Breton County than Nova Scotia, and higher still in Sydney, he said.
    "At the end, we'll have a reasonably complete picture of what stands out," Mr. Band said.  "And based on that, one would then need to develop other studies to try and answer why."
    Finding answers will likely take three to five years, he said.
    "I have no problem with three to five years, if it's done right," Ms. Gardiner said.  "We deserve to know what the hell is going on."
    The coke ovens site, bordering Whitney Pier, is largely barren today.
    Two towering smokestacks still rise from the ground like bleached ribs.  A rusting warehouse stands in the distance.
    On the northwest corner of the site, a large steel tank -- similar to those used at refineries -- sits beside a gravel ramp once used by dump trucks.
    Inside are some 4,000 tonnes of toxic liquid and sludge, including lead, mercury, various hydrocarbons and PCBs.
    When the coke ovens were demolished in 1988, 16 other tanks belonging to the coal tar company Domtar were torn down and their contents transferred to the largest remaining tank.
    "It's full, right to the top," said Mike Britten, JAG's overall program coordinator.  "Every time it rains and the wind blows, the material blows over the side.
    "You can see the black staining down along the side of the tank from the hydrocarbons."
    The tank's structural integrity is unknown, he said.  Removing the tank's top in 1988 -- to simplify dumping -- weakened the structure.  And the tank was not designed for its current contents.
    Discussions on removing the tank and its contents are under way, he said.  "I'd say this fall that tank would be gone."
    But what if the tank ruptured?
    There would be a public outcry and an emergency cleanup, say both Mr. Britten and Germaine LeMoine,  public information officer for JAG.
    But it's Mr. Britten's frank assessment of the relative impact of the contamination that speaks volumes about the size of the overall problem.
    You'd be adding 4,000 tonnes to literally millions of tonnes of contaminationa lready in the ground, he said.
    "In the big picture, given a couple of days, you probably wouldn't even see it."
    Conveying the immensity of the problem to the public is a challenge, say JAG members.
    "The tar ponds are barely one-fifteenth of the problem," said Francois Sirois, a member of JAG's environmental data gathering and remedial options working group.
    Including the heavily contaminated soil at the coke ovens site and surrounding areas, "you're looking at up to 10 million tonnes of potentially contaminated sediment."
    The tar ponds have been extensively tested, but officials say they know little about the rest of the site.
    That problem is compounded by the roughly 13 kilometers of steel pipe, used to carry byproducts like benzene, still buried underground.
    "If you were operating a high hoe (used for excavating), would you want to start digging in the coke ovens (site) not knowing what's down there?" asks John Steele, a member of JAG's environmental group.
    "And (if) you run into a benzene line or possibly a pocket of coke ovens gas that might be in there -- Boom!"
    JAG must also evaluate various methods for cleaning up the mess, Mr. Sirois said.
    People are already sending in ideas for disposal, including firing the mess into space aboard a rocket, Ms. LeMoine said.  "For every idea, there are 10 behind it."
    The cleanup will take decades, Mr. Sirois said, and afterwards the area will only be suitable for industrial use, not housing.
    "You can't, with the fact the bedrock is contaminated.
    "You can't dig into that bedrock forever.  It would be prohibitive.  You'd have to be blasting in the middle of Sydney to break up the rock.
    "Not possible."
1998 Cancer Mortality Rates
 
Men
Rnk
Women
Rnk
Alberta
211
9
143
8
BC
201
10
143
8
Manitoba
228
6
154
5
New Brunswick
255
5
158
3
Newfoundland
273
2
149
7
Nova Scotia
281
1
168
1
Ontario
223
7
151
6
PEI
264
3
167
2
Quebec
260
4
157
4
Saskatchewan
217
8
139
10
CANADA
232
 
151
 
 
1998 Cancer Incidence Rates
 
 
Men
Rnk
Women
Rnk
Alberta
453
7
338
5
BC
447
9
332
8
Manitoba
549
2
360
2
New Brunswick
532
3
335
6
Newfoundland
390
10
286
10
Nova Scotia
563
1
384
1
Ontario
493
5
350
4
PEI
478
6
354
3
Quebec
511
4
334
7
Saskatchewan
451
8
329
9
CANADA
501
 
346
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