North Brooklyn Residents Dying & Waiting for Health Studies

There is a certain fatalism that many North Brooklyn residents express when it comes to the health effects of the Greenpoint Oil Spill and other toxic problems. After all, these are communities where a half-century after some 30 million gallons of oil were spilled along the banks of Newtown Creek, and much of it is still sloshing around underground. Government only recently began trying to force a faster cleanup and that is only because organizations like Riverkeeper have worked hard to litigate and force action.

It is not a stretch to say that the Greenpoint Oil Spill is one of the nation's greatest known environmental horrors, yet an astounding lack of information surrounds it and--just as seriously--all of its smaller cousins in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. No one knows the exact parameters of the spill, for instance, since it has moved on the water table over the decades and the state hasn't done any testing to definitively track it. Some residents fear that is has spread far south of its original boundaries, traveling deeper and deeper into residential areas including areas that are now sprouting luxury condos. Nor has anyone analyzed the health problems from which residents are suffering. No comprehensive studies have been done, despite indications of frightening cancer clusters that experts believe are related to industrial pollution. The problem is far wider than the Greenpoint Oil Spill. As of several years ago, more than 160 businesses in Greenpoint alone were engaged in activities that could cause toxic problems. The issue is just as serious in Williamsburg.

We received a copy of an email written by Laura Hofmann, a lifelong Greenpoint resident who has been trying to get attention for the health problems afflicting residents and demanding that public officials conduct thorough studies to determine the extent of contamination-related health problems.

It is written with the voice of someone who is not a public health expert, but who knows what she sees in her community. Here is some of what she writes:

I've lived in Greenpoint all my life and my family medical history reads like an Area 51 report. Besides that, it just struck me that I knew of too many people with autoimmune diseases, too many people with brain tumors or brain cancer and so on. I always thought that brain cancer was pretty rare. I found that I was correct. I found plenty of info on the internet showing that brain cancer is indeed a rarer form of cancer when it's a primary type and not metastatic. Health and environmental officials have never thought very much of my concerns.

Well, a couple of weeks ago we learned that my own mother has primary brain lymphoma. (confirmed at Sloan Kettering hospital.) Now that we are getting an education about types of cancer, we learned that it is pretty rare (even for brain cancer) for someone without an altered immune system to have this type of brain cancer. It's more common in folks with HIV, organ recipents and rare birth immuno disease. I then got curious about folks I knew with brain tumors. Turns out that our friends wife, who died over 7 years ago, died of the same type of brain cancer. And his sister also has this same rare brain cancer. They all live in Greenpoint. There are others we know who've had brain cancer. We're presently looking into what types...Make no mistake, that I will get a preliminary view complete and I'll do everything I can to get the story into the press and embarrass the hell out of health & environmental agencies for not doing their job here.

I think it is nothing short of manslaughter to knowingly encourage folks to move into the community without adequate warning about community environmental offenders.

And guess what? Brain cancer can be caused by benzene, pvc and dioxin exposure as well as other chemicals. We've been exposed to all of that and then some. And I'm not surprised. It's common sense. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that bananas are good for you and benzene is not.

There must be other folks in the area, who suspect the same as I. And there must be others who have loved ones suffering with brain cancer/tumor.

Ms. Hofmann is collecting information on her own. (She can be reached at bargeparkpals (at) webtv (dot) net.) The Federal, state and city governments have not conducted any comprehensive studies of the health of residents.

While many of the illnesses are likely connected to the Greenpoint Oil Spill (and carcinogenic vapors have been detected in homes), there are also cancer clusters in locations that are a distance from the spill. There is, for instance, a cluster of very, very rare bone cancers on Devoe Street that is a significant distance from the oil spill. In fact, a group named Neighborhood Roots says that health problems are as great or greater in Williamsburg. The group says that public officials like Sen. Charles Schumer that only want to study the oil spill area are "ignoring a potentially very serious health disaster in the Williamsburg community...The State DEC is aware of toxic industrial sites in Willliamsburg near Devoe Street that could potentially be the cause of these rare cancers, but no one is calling for that study."

The issue of North Brooklyn's environmental "hot spots" and their effect on the health of residents will only become greater as time goes on, especially as large numbers of formerly industrial sites sprout new residential buildings. Unfortunately, it will likely be another 20-30 years before the impact on thousands of new residents are known, assuming someone in the public sector thinks it important enough to pay attention in a systematic way.

Related Posts:
A "Generation of Cover-Up" on the Greenpoint Oil Spill?
A Short Greenpoint Oil Spill Primer