Fear a neighbor of tainted plant
Contamination from old Gates site worries residents
By Stuart Steers
Rocky Mountain News (CO)
January 1, 2005
When David Metsch moved in 1976 into the Platt Park neighborhood with
its century-old bungalows and towering ash trees, he thought he had
found a nice place to raise a family.
Metsch wasn't too concerned with the sprawling Gates rubber factory that
loomed along Broadway, just a few blocks away.
"Gates had been there long before me," he said.
When his daughter, Sarah, was born four years later, the family was
devastated to learn she had spina bifida, a major birth defect in the
formation of the spine. Sarah, now 24, has been in the hospital
repeatedly and had a leg amputated below the knee.
"I would say there haven't been two months in a row where she hasn't
found herself in the hospital," Metsch said.
He knew that three other families within a half-mile radius also had
children born with spina bifida within a few years of Sarah's birth. He
thought it a coincidence until he read news reports in December about
Gates' disclosure that the company had found high levels of
trichloroethylene, or TCE, in groundwater underneath the former factory.
...
For the entire article, see
http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3438591,00.html
--
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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