Cancer rates near White Street Landfill higher than expected

UPDATE: A copy of the report can be found here.

UPDATE 2: The NC Central Cancer Registry released a revised report yesterday with corrected disease incidence rates for the areas near the EH Glass dump and the White Street Landfill. The revised study still finds pancreatic cancer rates near the landfill to be significantly higher than expected. As the cancer registry's Karen Knight explained to the Greensboro City Council on Tuesday, the study plugged used incorrect data in the state control group. The revised study pegs the pancreatic cancer rate near the EH Glass dump at 1.81. The initial study stated that it was 2.03.

A study by the NC Cancer Registry released on Tuesday confirms what former Greensboro City Councilwoman Claudette Burroughs-White long said before succumbing to cancer in 2007 — that the residents who live near the White Street Landfill are more likely to be sick.

The cancer registry cautions that the statistical finding does not imply causation — a point that former Councilman Bob Mays, who is hoping to establish a bio-conversion garbage processing plant at the site of the White Street Landfill, emphasized to me today.

The Cancer Registry calculated an expected number of cancer cases for 2000 Census block groups in the area of the White Street Landfill and EH Glass dump site by applying "age- and gender-specific cancer incidence rates for the state to the age- and gender-specific populations of the census block groups."

The study found that incidents of pancreatic cancer from 1990 to 2006 at more than twice the expected rate, incidents of multiple myeloma at twice the expected rate and incidents of central nervous system brain cancer at almost twice the expected rate, along with incidents of non-Hodgkins disease and leukemia that were somewhat higher than expected.

“Remember our former city councilwoman, Claudette Burroughs-White, who mentioned that she was ‘a walking time bomb’ with all the exposure she had to the landfill from birth to death,” northeast Greensboro resident Mary Lou Clapp told the city council in early June. “She is only one of the many people in our area suffering from allergies, asthma, other diseases and all kinds of cancer.”

From the study:

“The results of this investigation indicate that the number of pancreatic cancer cases observed among males and females in the study area is significantly [emphasis mine] greater than expected. It is important to reiterate, however, that statistical significance does not imply causation.

“Through contact Guilford County Health Department staff, it was determined that much of the area surrounding the White Street Landfill and EH Glass dumpsite in eastern Greensboro had been converted from farmland to a residential area in 1955. Furthermore, the development of the residential property took place almost simultaneously with annexation of most of the area by the city of Greensboro, which meant that newcomers were soon using municipal water. Municipal water is supplied by lakes Townsend and Brandt, which are located far from the locations of the landfills, in a well protected watershed with no point source pollution. The number of persons who have been using well water in areas around the dumpsite and landfill, simultaneous with the operation of both, has not been determined, but is expected to be very low relative to the study area population as a whole.”