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The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah
Article Last Updated: 10/03/2005 01:07:13 AM
Mill produces cancer rumors
Monticello deals with decades-old uranium program
By Lisa Church
Special to The Tribune
MONTICELLO - Fifty years ago, people of this small southeastern Utah community saw the uranium/vanadium processing mill on the south end of town as a godsend.
The mill, originally built by Vanadium Corp. of America in 1942 and sold to the federal Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, brought year-round employment to a struggling community and helped boost the local economy.
But it also brought problems. Ash from the plant's roaster stack and dust blown by Monticello's persistent winds coated lawns and porches throughout town. Airborne contaminants crumbled metal window screens, ate holes in clothing hung outside to dry, and corroded the chrome trim and paint on automobiles, residents say. Still, they supported the mill until the day it closed permanently in 1960.
"You do what you have to to provide for your family and put a roof over your head," says Fritz Pipkin, who was a child during the mill's heyday. "They were all so dang happy to have employment that they didn't think there might be danger."
As a boy, Pipkin, now 57, and his friends played in the fields adjacent to the mill, building forts and molding pots from the soft earth. On hot summer days, they gulped water from Montezuma Creek, which cut through the middle of the mill site, and swam in the mill tailings pond.
"We spent endless hours down there, digging holes and making hideouts. For kids, it was the place to go play," Pipkin says. "We didn't know any better. Nobody warned us that it was dangerous. We used to joke that we would glow in the dark. Now some of us probably do."
Today, decades after the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission ceased operations, and years after the final structures were permanently removed from the property, the mill still casts a long shadow over Pipkin's life. Two years ago, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Pipkin and his wife, Barbara, are convinced the cancer is a direct result of exposure to uranium, radon and other toxic chemicals throughout his life in Monticello.
Pipkin is not alone. An informal community survey in 1993 of those who had lived in Monticello during the years the mill operated identified 236 people living and dead who had been diagnosed with some form of cancer and 46 with serious respiratory illnesses. Of those, 17 people had leukemia.
Between 1956 and 1965, four Monticello children developed acute leukemia, according to a report prepared by the Division of Health Assessment and Consultation, a branch of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The 1997 report was completed for the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy after cleanup of the Monticello Mill site had begun.
"On the basis of the leukemia mortality rate for the United States in 1960," the report concluded, "only one leukemia case in 30 years would be expected among children in a town the size of Monticello."
In 1960, the population of Monticello totaled 1,845 - about the size of the community today.
This year, Barbara Pipkin conducted a new survey. She advertised and inserted 2,200 questionnaires in the local newspaper and, she says, received phone calls and more than 300 completed surveys from current and former Monticello residents now scattered across the United States.
After deleting duplicate names, Pipkin charted 126 previously undocumented cancer cases, including four diagnosed with leukemia. Most of those who had leukemia are now deceased, she says.
Five members of one family died of cancer, and the remaining two family members, who no longer live in Monticello, reported they both also have cancer, Pipkin says.
"A lot of
people here feel like they were lied to and taken advantage of," Barbara Pipkin says. "It's like we were expendable." The Pipkins and other Monticello residents recently met with officials from the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency - the federal government has spent more than $250 million to clean up the Monticello Mill site - to ask for funding to conduct a scientific study of health issues in Monticello and to create a cancer treatment clinic in the community.
When Barbara Pipkin unrolled a city map marked with blue and red dots to denote the cancer and leukemia cases reported in the surveys, the mood of the meeting turned somber.
"You need to start getting scientific support for what you've documented here," said Jay Silvernale who oversees the project for the EPA. He added that neither the EPA nor the DOE has funding for medical studies beyond those conducted as part of the mill site cleanup.
Federal officials recommended that the community work with congressional representatives. But Dave Bird, state Department of Environmental Quality project manager for the Monticello site, said this week that the Utah Health Department might be able to help by conducting a cancer cluster study of Monticello.
He said he was "surprised" by the numbers cited by the Monticello residents, but scientific evidence is needed to prove that a problem exists.
"[The map] made me wonder if there is something going on that we don't realize," Bird said. "But this is purely anecdotal, and until we have a scientific study, we don't really know. But it certainly raised questions in my mind."
Recent state and regional cancer data based on the 2000 census do not show elevated numbers of cancer cases in Monticello or San Juan County, said John Contreras, manager of the state Health Department's epidemiology office. But the data only reflects cancer cases for people who currently live in Utah, he said. Former Monticello residents who live in other states would not be included in the data provided to the Utah Cancer Registry by Utah hospitals, physicians and others who diagnose and treat the disease.
"I'm not saying [the residents] are wrong," Contreras said. "I'm just saying that their numbers are significantly different from ours."
Barbara Pipkin says one problem is that Monticello residents with cancer must go elsewhere - often to Grand Junction, Colo. - for treatment. She believes the out-of-state hospitals do not accurately report those cases to the state of Utah.
"But proving that is another thing," she says. "It's frustrating. But those of us who live here know how many we've lost to cancer. There is nobody in this town that it hasn't touched."
The travel and treatment is also costly. The Pipkins were forced to mortgage their home to pay more than $50,000 last year in out-of-pocket medical costs and travel to St. George for Fritz's treatment.
"I'm damned angry. I think we all are. We were guinea pigs," Fritz Pipkin says. "These people down here gave everything to help way back then. Now, they're just forgotten."
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