2023-05-07 01:44:00
WICHITA, Kansas — Kansas health officials have identified elevated levels of liver cancer in residents of several historically black neighborhoods in Wichita, where groundwater was contaminated by a chemical spill at a rail yard.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment released a study Friday that found a diagnosis rate for liver and bile duct cancer of 15.7 per 100,000 people in the smog zone, more than double the statewide rate of 6.4 per 100,000. 100,000, The Wichita Eagle newspaper reported.
Among non-Hispanic black residents, the rate was even higher at 23.9 per 100,000.
Experts believe that the spill of trichlorethylene (TCE)—a common solvent used to remove paint and grease—may have happened as early as the 1970s, though it was not identified until 1994. It created a 4.67-kilometre stream of contaminated groundwater. (2.9 miles) from the Union Pacific Railroad yard site.
TCE can cause cancer in humans, “particularly kidney and possibly liver cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
However, epidemiologist and state environmental health official Dr. Farah Ahmed cautioned that there is no way to definitively know whether TCE is responsible for the high number of liver cancer diagnoses. “The study can only report whether an increase was observed, not the cause of the increase,” Ahmed said.
All but one, the report said, of the nearly 2,800 properties in the contaminated area were connected to municipal water service before the alleged spill, meaning it is unlikely that people would have drunk directly from the contaminated underground wells. . But there are other risk factors for TCE exposure, which occurs when a person breathes in, swallows, or touches the chemical.
According to the EPA, water is contaminated if it contains more than 5 parts per billion of TCE.
Two-thirds of 66 water tests conducted in May 2021, 40 to 50 years following the chemical spill, found samples with levels above what was acceptable, including samples with up to 823 parts per billion of TCE.
Sedgwick County Sheriff Ryan Baty was critical of health officials at a briefing Friday.
After hosting a forum on the contamination site in 2003, the state did not hold another public meeting on the subject until November 2022, when community members first learned of the TCE’s presence and called for a health study.
“This is really a systematic communication failure,” Baty said.
The company already must pay $13.9 million for the cleanup, which began nearly a decade ago.
1683462173
#Cancer #cases #due #water #pollution #Kansas #double #USA
