Study Blames Casmalia Toxic Site for Illnesses

A medical study of 167 residents in this small town where a major toxic waste dump is located has found abnormally high occurrences of respiratory and central nervous system problems and elevated white blood cell counts, researchers and attorneys said here Saturday.

The tests also indicated the presence of toxins in residents’ blood and urine and evidence of attempts by their immune systems to cope with a chemical assault, the researchers said.

The study was paid for by attorneys representing Casmalia residents in their class-action lawsuit to close the Casmalia Resources hazardous waste dump.

“This town, which is as defenseless a town as you could come across, is sick. To say it isn’t is to ignore the evidence,” Santa Monica attorney Robert H. Sulnick told reporters. Sulnick called the study unprecedented, and blamed the conditions it found on the presence of the dump.

The conclusions come at a time when the state Department of Health Services is poised to open public hearings on the controversy over the hazardous waste dump later this month.

Casmalia residents have been critical of Santa Barbara County health officials, charging that they have been slow to respond to the health threat posed by the dump.

Dr. Lawrence Hart, director of Santa Barbara County Health Care Services, said Saturday that he welcomes the new study and is willing to work with Casmalia residents and their attorneys to resolve health problems.

But, he added, “Without looking at the study, without seeing its specifics . . . it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make any comment.”

No comment was available from the dump operator, Casmalia Resources, which Sulnick said has been provided with the preliminary conclusions.

The study was conducted by toxicologist Jan Schienle of California State University, Northridge, and four physicians.

It involved three phases--a questionnaire given to Casmalia residents in which they were asked to describe their medical symptoms, a physical examination and blood and urine tests.

Schienle said that 167 of Casmalia’s 200 residents participated. Forty-nine adults from Arroyo Grande, 15 miles away, served as a control group.

Steve Williams, a Santa Maria physician who participated in the study, called the differences between Casmalia residents and those in Arroyo Grande “statistically significant.”

Among the findings:

- Sixty percent of Casmalians, as opposed to 2% of the control group, show chronic respiratory problems.

- The incidence of abnormal neurological symptoms among Casmalians was 15 times higher than among the Arroyo Grande residents. Those symptoms included loss of memory, depression, irritability and abnormal fatigue.

- Eighty-five percent of the Casmalia residents examined exhibited abnormal pulmonary function, ranging from a loss of 30% to 90% of lung capacity.

- Eighty-five percent had respiratory tract irritations, such as shortness of breath and coughing.

- Two-thirds had elevated liver enzymes, which indicates that their livers were trying to detoxify the blood.

“People used to tell us that our clients were imagining the symptoms, that they were not real symptoms, that they were being hysterical and there was absolutely no problem whatsoever,” Sulnick said.

“We have firm data,” Santa Maria physician Daniel Ducoffe told reporters.

While researchers said the study will not be completed for two months, they said they were convinced that the final results will not only confirm preliminary findings, but might well point to more serious problems.

However, attorneys refused to provide the data from which the conclusions were drawn, saying that it was evidence that would come out in court.

“These results are not by chance,” attorney Sulnick said. “But for the dump the symptoms would not exist.”

The 252-acre dump opened in April, 1973, and is in the center of 4,700 acres owned by Casmalia Resources. In 1985, the county estimated that the dump received 132,000 cubic yards of solid wastes and 66.1 million gallons of liquid wastes.

Beginning in 1984, residents began complaining of odors and blamed the dump for widespread reports of headaches, nausea and eye irritation.

The three-room Casmalia Elementary School, located over a hill from the dump site, was forced to close temporarily last October and in November, 1984, when students and teachers were overcome by noxious odors.

In July of 1985, the nearby Orcutt Union School District reported that 40 of its principals and teachers and 680 of its 3,050 pupils reported similar symptoms on a single day.

About that time, 67 physicians in the area placed a full-page advertisement in the Santa Maria Times charging that the dump was “a threat to our health and our children’s future.” Several weeks later, the state Department of Health Services ordered operators of the dump to stop accepting virtually all liquid hazardous wastes. That prohibition is still in effect.

In addition, the county ruled in April that the dump’s operators had violated their original operating conditions by expanding disposal activity beyond site boundaries and had exceeded permitted levels of operation. As a result, Casmalia agreed to limit the number of trucks delivering waste to 85 a day and promised to limit the site’s expansion.

The only previous medical survey was conducted in November, 1984, when the county conducted a door-to-door survey of residents, asking whether they were experiencing any medical problems and whether a physician had diagnosed their conditions.

“Most of the symptoms (headaches, nausea and eye, nose and throat irritations) were transient and most of the people did not go for follow-up to a physician,” said Jayne Brechwald, spokeswoman for the Santa Barbara County Department of Health Care Services.

She said the county attempted to conduct a long-term health study, but abandoned the idea when attorneys for the residents, who had filed a class-action suit to close the dump, advised townspeople not to cooperate. Only six of 120 medical questionnaires sent out by the county last fall were returned, Brechwald said.