No Safe Place: Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action 9780520920484

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No Safe Place

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Safe lace -

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Toxic Waste, Leukemia, and Community Action

Phil Brown and Edwin J . Mikkelsen With a New Foreword by Jonathan Harr and a New Preface by Phil Brown

U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES L O N D O N

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Q 1990 by T h e Regents of the University of California First Paperback Printing 1992

Foreword and Preface (1997)

O 1997 by T h e Regents of the University of California T h e Library of Congress has cataloged the previous printing of this book as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Phil. No safe place : toxic waste, leukemia, and community action / Phil Brown and Edwin J. Mikkelsen. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-520-07034-8 (alk. paper) 1. Leukemia in children-Massachusetts-Woburn. 2. Hazardous wastes-Environmental aspects-Massachtlsetts-Woburn. I. Mikkelsen, Edwin J . 11. Title. RJ416.L4B76 1990 618.92'99419'0097444-d~20 90-3399 1 ISBN 0-520-21248-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) Printed in the United States of America

T h e paper used in this publication meets the m ~ n i m u mrequirements o f American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984

In recognition of their suflering, and as testimony to their importance beyond the bounds of their community, we dedicate this book to the children of Woburn.

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Contents List of Tables and Maps

ix

Foreword

xi

Preface (I 9 9 7 )

xiii

Preface (1 9 9 0 )

xix

Acknowledgments

1.

2. 3. 4.

5.

Introduction Town in Turmoil: History and Significance of the Woburn Cluster The Formation of an Organized Community The Sickness Caused by "Corporate America": Effects of the Woburn Cluster Taking Control: Popular Epidemiology Making It Safe: Securing Future Health Notes

Bibliography Index

xxiii

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List of Tables and Maps

Maps 1. Contaminated Wells and Nearby Industrial 9 Contamination Sites 2. Twenty-eight Leukemia Cases, 1964- 1989, Identified by FACE (For a Cleaner Environment) 3. Twelve Leukemia Cases, 1969-1979, Identified by Massachuset~sDepartment of Public Health

12 13

Tables I . Characteristics of Childhood Leukemia Cases,

1969- 1979 2. Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes in Areas of High and L,ow Exposure before (1977-1979) and and H after (1980- 1982) Closure of GWells 24

15

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Foreword

I spent eight and a half' years researching and writing my book A Civil Action, which recounts the saga of the Woburn case. During that time, as I spoke with the parents in Woburn whose children had been stricken with leukemia, and with Jan Schlichtmann, the lawyer who represented the families and who became the central figure in my book, I learned that there was another writer hard at work on the same subject. This was not, I admit, welcome news. Most writers I know are exceedingly, almost insanely, possessive of their subjects. T h e specter of someone else coming up behind you-and swiftly gaining ground at that-is ample cause for mental derangement. This jealousy was, of course, a churlish reaction on my part. T h e Woburn story didn't belong to me. If it "belonged" to anyone, it was to the Woburn families, and they had made abundantly clear their desire to have the story told and disseminated as widely as possible. I'd been working on my book for almost four years before I finally made Phil Brown's acquaintance. We shared some of our experiences-me as wary as a poker player and Phil, as far as I could tell, wonderfully open and engaging. It quickly became apparent to both of us that we were writing very different and yet entirely compatible books. I now regard them as brother and sister, as companioris to each other. Together they give the fullest

xii

Foreword

picture of what happened in the Woburn toxic waste case. My narrative strategy was to use the tragic events in Woburn as the germ from which the lawsuit against Beatrice Foods and W. R. Grace sprang, and to examine in detail the inner workings of the law. Phil and his coauthor, Edwin Mikkelson, chose to keep their focus largely on Woburn--on the families and their efforts to cope with personal tragedy and to organize a concerted response. I confess that in some ways I regard No Safe Place as a more important book than my own. It provides a virtual blueprint for community action by offering a detailed, lucid, and highly readable analysis of the significance of Woburn for countless other communities across America. By using examples taken from other contaminated communities, as well as from Woburn, it develops the concept of "popular epidemiology," which explains how laypeople can gather information to make a case for deleterious environmental health effects. T h e Woburn families exhibited incredible energy, courage, and resolve in their investigations, and No Safe Place does a wonderful job of telling that part of the story. It offers a clinical, yet compassionate glimpse into the minds of people for whom environmental contamination meant severe illness and often death. It traces the opposition the families faced from the polluting corporations and from the state and federal agencies that were supposed to protect them. And yet, despite the suffering and the difficulties it documents, No Safe Place holds out the hope that through communal support and political action we can make the world a safer place. Jonathan Harr Northampton, MA March 1997

Preface (1997)

As you read this preface, the Woburn case will have been going on for one-quarter of a century, since Jimmy Anderson was diagnosed with leukemia in 1972. For the 1997 printing of No Safe Place I am taking this opportunity to update some material: the incidence of leukemia, the litigation, the Department of Public Health reanalyses of data, the cleanup, and the larger impact of the Woburn case. Richard Clapp and Gretchen Latowsky have been very helpful in this task. Leukemia Incidence

Only two new cases of childhood leukemia were diagnosed in Woburn from 1985 to the 1990s; this incidence is slightly lower than what would be expected by chance (that is, lower than the background rate) and represents a significantly smaller number of cases than was recorded when Wells G and H were operating. This additional piece of data, available in retrospect, provides evidence that the closure of the contaminated wells removed the cause of the leukemia cluster.

xiv

Preface (1997)

The Litigation T h e book ends with the rejection of an appeal of the case against Beatrice by a three-judge panel of the appellate court. Following that, the full Court of Appeals turned the case away. Jan Schlictmann asked the Massachusetts Superior Court for depositions and a bill of discovery from Mary Ryan, who had been involved in withholding Riley tannery documents. Taking the case to its final possible location, Schlictmann sought a hearing at the U.S. Supreme Court but was turned down.

Department of Public Health Reanalyses T h e Department of Public Health reanalyzed the Woburn Environment & Birth Study (WEBS) but then kept the record under wraps for several years. In 1994 the DPH reported only on reproductive disorders and birth defects and said it was still working on the leukemia reanalysis. T h e officials claimed they found no excess of reproductive disorders and birth defects for Woburn. However, the FACE activists, Harvard biostatisticians, and various scholars in the natural, life, and social sciences examined the DPH report. They found that the most intensive study period for the DPH was a prospective study for 1989-1991-long after the wells were closed. As a result, the citizens and their supporters believe the state continues to deny the health effects of Woburn's past contamination. They are working to obtain the DPH's data set and conduct a new reanalysis themselves. In May 1996 the DPH released the report that detailed their reanalysis of the leukemia data: "Woburn Childhood Leukemia Follow-Up Study." The officials concurred with the Woburn activists that there was a significant doseresponse relationship (p