[CPEO-MEF] Nevada explosives factory waste

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Child's play at toxic site has family struggling for answers

Martha Bellisle

RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 2/15/2003 09:03 pm 

When Justin Frasure received a new kidney in 1992, his health turned
around - he became the rambunctious, energetic 12-year-old his parents remembered.

He would hop on his bike and ride the dirt hills by their Sparks home,
sometimes stopping to dig for yellow crystals he often found buried. He
proudly displayed an especially large one on his bedroom dresser.

“He thought they were his treasures,” his mother, Lisa Kemp said. “He
thought he was rich.”

Justin continued playing like a normal pre-teen for more than a year,
but early in 1994, his health suddenly crashed, and he was rushed to the
University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, she recalled.

“Within 24 hours, all his hair was gone and he lay curled in a fetal
position,” she said. “His skin was literally melting off. The stench of
blood was so bad, they had to bring in pine cones (to mask the smell).”

“The doctors kept saying, ‘Your son has been contaminated. … Do you live
near a waste dump?’” she said. But she was baffled, she said. The
family’s house was in a residential area in Sparks — not next to an
industrial park or waste dump.

Within a few years the family learned, in fact, they did live near a
site littered with toxic waste: the former Monite Explosives Factory,
where so much TNT and DNT was found that it later became the largest
hazardous waste cleanup the Bureau of Land Management has ever conducted.

For the entire story, see
http://www.rgj.com//news/stories/html/2003/02/15/34633.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: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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