Meeting Doesn’t Allay Health Fears : Residents Hear Dump Findings

Residents living near a hazardous-waste landfill in Monterey Park told state and county officials last week that they are still concerned about health problems caused by the dump, despite a recently released study that downplayed serious medical problems.

The findings of the study on the effects of pollution from the Operating Industries Inc. landfill were presented at a community meeting of 80 area residents at Schurr High School Thursday night.

The study--conducted in 1984 and released last month--concluded that residents living downwind of the site were two to four times more likely to have complained of headaches, eye irritations, sore throats, nausea, trouble sleeping and feeling tired. But the study also concluded that there were no abnormal levels of cancer, liver disease, birth defects or other serious health problems.

Residents at the community meeting questioned the effectiveness of the study because only one of every three houses was polled, while every house in the control area was queried.

“Taking a sample in no way invalidates what we did,” said Kenneth Satin, an epidemiologist with the state Health Department.

Satin said it would have been too expensive to poll every house in the study area, but added that if the survey had included every house on streets closest to the dump, “we probably would have seen higher rates of illness.”

Satin said 150 adults and 25 to 50 children in the study area had more health problems than expected when compared to the control area in Hacienda Heights. While the study concluded that those problems cannot be directly linked to the dump, Satin said, the evidence was strong that they are linked.

Resident Phyllis Rabins of Monterey Park said the study should also have included people who moved out of the area. She said she recently received a telephone call from a former longtime resident. “She wanted me to know she lived in the area for 16 years and developed lung cancer and lost one lung,” Rabins said.

A Montebello resident questioned a portion of the study that indicated people who live near the dump had made no appreciable change in the time they spend outdoors. “I have lived on Germain Drive for 25 years and I changed my outdoor habits 15 years ago,” Elliott Adelman said.

Hot Line Sought

Hank Yoshitake, chairman of Homeowners to Eliminate Landfill Problems, asked for more study on the reported cancer cases, another overall health study in five years and establishment of a hot line for residents to report medical problems.

Satin, the epidemiologist, said the Los Angeles County-University of Southern California Tumor Registry is studying the cancer cases and will determine if they are related to the dump. That report should be complete in February or March, he said.

A case of liver cancer reported in the study is of special interest to residents and health officials because exposure to vinyl chloride, which has been found at the dump, can cause liver cancer. But it is not known if the type of cancer reported is the kind caused by vinyl chloride.

Satin said the results of the study did not indicate a follow-up health study was necessary. But Dr. Paul Papanek, chief of epidemiology for the the Los Angeles County Health Department, said the county would probably conduct another study if the community continues to complain of health problems. Papanek said that while a formal hot line would not be established, questions regarding the effects of the dump would be handled by the county Health Department.

Cleanup Years Away

Residents and officials also expressed concern about the need to clean up the dump.

“The sooner we get it cleaned up, the more we will be minimizing the risk,” Montebello Mayor William Molinari said.

A U. S. Environmental Protection Agency representative in the audience said actual cleanup of the dump is still three to four years away.

EPA contractors are only performing maintenance--trucking leachate from the site and reinforcing slopes to confine hazardous materials to the site, said Alexis Strauss, chief of enforcement with the EPA San Francisco office. She said the EPA would focus its effort on the leachate and waste-gas collection in 1987.

Strauss also said the state and county health study was only the beginning of an effort to determine the effects of the dump on nearby residents. She said every site scheduled for cleanup under the federal Superfund program is required to have a health study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in Atlanta. But she said that study has not been scheduled for the Operating Industries dump.