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A common thread linking Old Fort cancer cases?

Man's year-long search yields many leads, but few answers

By Britt Combs | The McDowell News

Published: June 8, 2009

For over a year now, McDowell County's Omar McCourry has been digging into the history of Old Fort industry and of environmental protection in the community.

Spurred by the tragic death of his brother, Curtis, to brain cancer in 2004, he learned that his brother's illness was not unique in Old Fort, despite the condition's relative rarity among the greater population.

Word of mouth led him to suspect that an alarming number of folks in Old Fort had succumbed to the same illness. He has been lobbying public health officials to investigate ever since.

His quest has been a frustrating one. Information is difficult to obtain, and, he believes, the health of a few folks in a small community is not high on the state's list of priorities.

What he has learned, though, is that Old Fort had been noted by EPA investigators as having high quantities of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the late 1980s. This pollution apparently stems from spills and storage of waste products dating back to Old Fort's days of thriving textile mills.

In 1987, he explained, state heath officials sampled a well used to supply tap water to Old Fort. They found TCE (trichloroethene) and PCE (tertachloroethene) in levels that "exceeded N.C. groundwater quality standards."

The state advised Old Fort against further use of the well; it was capped.

The state took a few more samples in Old Fort, McCourry continued. They found three domestic wells exhibiting PCE, TCE and other substances.

In 1989, more than 100 barrels of industrial waste were located buried on the site of the former Old Fort Finishing. These were excavated and found to contain dozens of chemicals as well as metals including lead, mercury, arsenic. EPA documents McCourry obtained said that 70 of the barrels had been crushed or decayed when they were unearthed.

As far as he can determine, much of that contamination remains in the ground at the site or washed into the Catawba River.

As recently as 2006, he continued, four wells sampled contained PCE and TCE at levels "exceeding standards."

But what was the impact of all this on the community?

Throughout the past year, he has learned more. There were a number of deaths due to cancer of the brain stem in Old Fort, he explained, although they often do not show up in government statistics for the area. The reason?

The data is collected from death certificates, he learned, which go on record at the place of death, not the deceased's place of residence. One Old Fort victim died in a nursing care facility in Buncombe; another in the hospital at Wake Forest. Thus, the state does not record these as Old Fort cancer deaths.
He compiled all this data and brought it to the attention of health and elected officials, also alerting them to his concern; that the documented contamination may be linked to the illnesses of specific cancer patients. He has asked that the state investigate that possible link by thoroughly testing wells, groundwater, soil and air quality in the town.

Mary McGuire, manager of the Occupational and Environmental Health Hazards unit of the state Division of Public Health, said the state is aware of Old Fort as an "inactive waste site." That means, she explained, a site that has been and may still be polluted, but the source of the pollution is gone.
She said her office, limited to a staff of two, is interested in McCourry's concerns, but can't launch a full-scale investigation based on those concerns alone.

"When someone sees something and brings it to our attention," she said, "we look at records and evaluate it" from their office, to determine if more investigation is warranted.

When a full-scale investigation is launched, she added, it is usually at the request of the local health department.

Asked if she was aware of the Old Fort residents who had died elsewhere, she said yes, but: "There is a limit to what can be done (in evaluating and cross-referencing) every death and how it is tracked."

As McCourry had been told when he brought his findings to the attention of state authorities, in any given population group, if they live long enough, a great number of them would be diagnosed with cancer. It is very difficult, they said, to identify a "cluster" of cancer cases that might indicate a pattern, or implicate an environmental toxin.

Senator Joe Sam Queen echoed that theme in his comments to The McDowell News.

"Cancer is a condition that touches every family eventually," he said. "We are all interested in a situation that may involve or jeopardize the health of children.

"I'm not alarmed, but I am concerned," he stated. "I am advocating for Omar to get the information he needs and to address his concerns."

Queen said it was his understanding that the state DENR would "perform a round of tests" in Old Fort.
Last month, McCourry said it looked like state officials would test indoor air quality at the school, but that was soon ruled out. As McGuire said, the limited staff in the division makes it difficult, but the state's travel freeze in response to the budget crisis makes it impossible.

The budget crisis is a concern, he conceded, but the cost of chronic illness can be greater than the cost of locating a problem.

"Has anyone considered the fact that the sewage lines that run to the school also run by the contaminated pits?" he asked. "My brother and his co-worker (another victim of brain cancer McCourry's research found) were custodians and routinely cleaned the bathrooms.

"The state should test, not once, but periodically, as long as the levels of VOCs in Old Fort remain high," he said. To him, the most frustrating thing of all is that no one has accurate data about the current risk. It can't be known or ruled out without testing. And as far as he knows, no tests are planned in the near future.