The Alliance For A Clean Environment

ACE survey to map illnesses in area

By Evan Brandt
Mercury Staff Writer

The Alliance for a Clean Environment is looking for patterns. That’s the essential reason behind the group’s latest initiative, a health survey and mapping project that aims to map illnesses known to be related to pollution in the Pottstown area.

"This is a major initiative which will go on for several years," ACE President Lewis Cuthbert said at a Tuesday press conference.

"Hopefully, this will allow us to turn the corner on continuing to allow more and more pollution when we know there is an increase in illnesses known to be related to environmental exposures," he said.

In addition to cancer, the survey will ask about problems with kidneys, livers, bladders, miscarriages, birth defects, fibromyalgia, epilepsy and learning disabilities, just to name a few.

The questionnaire will be distributed throughout the community, can be obtained by calling ACE at 610-326-6433 and will also be available to download at ACE’s Web site -- www.acereport.org/survey.html

ACE has made headlines opposing numerous projects it views as being harmful to the environment and the health of area residents.

And it’s no secret that the group believes three entities -- the Pottstown Landfill in West Pottsgrove, the Occidental Chemical PVC plant in Lower Pottsgrove and Exelon's Nuclear Limerick Generating Station -- create what they call a "Toxic Triangle" that is slowly poisoning area residents.

ACE insists those three are largely to blame for what it asserts is a sharp increase in illnesses that are known to have links to chemicals in the environment, particularly among children.

All three have rejected ACE’s claims, saying there is no proof they are a factor and pointing out they comply with all applicable environmental laws.

But ACE has been relentless in its campaign, particularly as it concerns children’s health.

In September 2002, a statistician updated an earlier study by the Montgomery County Health Department and ACE announced his findings showed childhood cancer rates as being 92.5 percent above the national average.

A Penn State graduate class also compiled statistics from which they concluded that learning disabilities have jumped by 90 percent in Montgomery County during the past 10 years.

"Children are the most vulnerable to chemical and radiation pollution," said Fred Winter, a retired radiologist who has worked hard with ACE to convince other area doctors that this threat should be taken seriously.

"We may just be seeing the beginning of an epidemic," Winter said, referring to the long life-span and pervasive health effects of many of the chemicals emitted into the region’s air.

"The children tell the tale," said ACE member Donna Cuthbert.

She said because children "don’t smoke, drink, work in polluted industries, or engage in other risky behaviors," they are often the best indicator of a region’s environmental health.

Children in this area "don’t eat 92.5 percent more potato chips and french fries, get their homes and yards sprayed that much more with pesticides, have their homes cleaned and schools cleaned that much more with hazardous cleaning products than children across the nation, state or tri-county," said Cuthbert.

She was referring to the other potential causes of illness often offered up in opposition to ACE’s position that the area’s increase is health is due to area polluters.

The 1998 study by the county health department found elevated levels of lung cancer, cervical cancer and leukemia in the greater Pottstown area, but not enough to be "statistically significant."

Last year, state Rep. Mary Ann Dailey, R-146th Dist. and former state Sen. Jim Gerlach, R-44th Dist., announced a two-year, $290,000 cancer study to try to answer the question once and for all.

ACE immediately denounced the study as a waste of taxpayer money because it is too narrowly focused, calling instead for a more comprehensive health survey that looks beyond cancer.

Tuesday’s announcement of the survey’s launch was part of that effort.

The announcement was timed to coincide with the Tuesday being Earth Day, and Pottstown Mayor Anne Jones, also an ACE member, was sure to make note of it.

"It’s time for us to start thinking about the Earth right here," she said.

"We do think we have pockets of illness and this survey will show that and give us the ammunition we need to go after the (Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection), so we can fight Washington and Harrisburg to get on the right track," said Jones.

"We have to get busy and complete this health questionnaire for our children’s sake," Winter said.

"Enough is enough," said Lewis Cuthbert. "We have been over-burdened for so many years with known pollutants and carcinogens."

He added, "we can’t afford to wait any longer for help from our state officials which will never be forthcoming," he said. "We have to turn the tide and reverse this trend."

Reprinted with permission by
The Pottstown Mercury
March 4, 2003