[CPEO-MEF] Study Cites Illness in Alumni of Schools on Industrial Sites

[mervtano@iiirm.org]

March 19, 2001
Study Cites Illness in Alumni of Schools on Industrial Sites
By JACQUES STEINBERG
hile being treated for leukemia seven years ago, Kim Tolnar, a 1983 graduate
of River Valley High School near Marion, Ohio, was contacted by another
woman who had attended the same school in the late 1980's and was battling
the same disease.

The two young women soon discovered nine other cases of leukemia among the
more than 5,500 students who had attended the school since it opened in
1963. The number of cases in a population that size over that period would
ordinarily be expected to be three, statisticians said.

Though district officials knew the school had been built on the site of an
Army depot, not until the leukemia cases surfaced did they learn that part
of the site had been an Army dump for solvents and automotive lubricants.

The story of River Valley and the arguments for and against closing it are
in 1 of 15 case studies in a report to be released today by a coalition of
parent and community activists known as the Child Proofing Our Communities
Campaign. The report's authors said that serious health problems reported by
graduates of schools built on old landfills and factory sites were
increasing but that districts still relied on such sites for schools.

For more see: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/19/health/19SCHO.html


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