[CPEO-MEF] Fallon pipeline "OK"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Fallon pipeline, drinking water OK'd by feds

Frank X. Mullen Jr.

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
5/29/2002 11:20 pm 

FALLON ? Two federal agencies investigating this town?s childhood
leukemia cluster gave clean bills of health Wednesday to the Fallon jet
fuel pipeline and said there are no chemicals or fuels in Churchill
County?s drinking water.

?We pretty much put the pipeline to rest this evening,? said Randall
Todd, Nevada State Epidemiologist. 

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry concluded:

?The Fallon pipeline does not pose a current or future public health
hazard. Information regarding the pipeline was evaluated from 1970 to
the present. Based on the information provided, the pipeline did not
pose a public health hazard during that time period.?

Also on Wednesday, the United States Geologic Survey released a report
showing drinking water wells tested in the county have no traces of
solvents, pesticides or jet fuel. The report mirrors the USGS well tests
done in 1989, which showed high levels of naturally occurring arsenic
and radiation, but no man-made chemicals or fuels.

Officials said it?s unlikely those long-standing impurities could have
caused a sudden spike in childhood cancer.

The reports reassured some residents that jet fuel, among the suspected
causes of the area?s cancer cluster of 15 children, isn?t a danger to
the community. But others said that because the ATSDR pipeline report
relies only on information from the pipeline company, the U.S. Navy, and
a surface survey by the state, it can?t be reliable. 
...

For the entire story, see
http://www.rgj.com//news/stories/html/2002/05/29/15545.php

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/96I-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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