Be Careful Where You Live!

I met a lady about my age the other day who had Scleroderma and Pulmonary Hypertension. She was put on an IV directly into her chest and is infused with Tracleer 24 hours a day. She has been like this for two years. She lives in Rancho Cordova. That adds to my theory that something in the water or air in that general area, by Mather AFB and by Aerojet may be what triggered the two main diseases that Brian and I have. The trigger manifested in us differently reacting in different disease processes. We lived in Sacramento bordering Rancho Cordova, and used Mather’s water supply. Between 1958 and 1966, waste solvents and transformer oils were disposed in a waste disposal pipe at Mather AFB. In 1993, the State looked for the pipe but could not find it. But they found trichloroethylene (TCE) in the shallow water bearing zone in the area. Three underground storage tanks and associated contamination were removed in 1993. In 1987, two tanks, one containing diesel fuel and one containing gasoline were removed because of leakage into the area. From 1982 until 1993 when the base closed, a total of 89 areas with significant contamination were found on base property. In addition, 5 groundwater plumes were identified as contaminated.
Approximately 10,000 people live within a 1-mile radius of the site, and approximately 60,000 people within a 3-mile radius of the site depend on groundwater for their main drinking water supplies. We lived within the three mile radius. I am not saying that everyone in the area is sick or will get sick. But people like Brian and I have a susceptibility to something that triggered our disease process. Records from 1987 state: “Soil and groundwater contain various volatile organic compounds (VOCs), gasoline, diesel fuel, metals, pesticides, and other contaminants. There is the potential for human exposure to these hazardous chemicals by accidentally ingesting, inhaling, or coming into direct contact with contaminated soil or groundwater.” We lived in the area from 1980 until 1998. In 2006 a review of the hazard removal at Mather states, “Factors that can influence the health effects when human beings are exposed to hazardous materials include: the dose the person is exposed to, the frequency of exposure, the duration of exposure, the exposure pathway (route by which a chemical enters a person’s body), and the individual’s unique biological susceptibility.” Environmental investigations into Aerojet which backs up to the Mather site began in 1979. Those findings mirror Mather’s hazardous waste problems. Since 1953, Aerojet and its subsidiaries have manufactured liquid and solid propellant rocket engines for military and commercial applications and have formulated a number of chemicals, including: rocket propellant agents, agricultural, pharmaceutical, and other industrial chemicals. In addition, the Cordova Chemical Company
operated chemical manufacturing facilities on the Aerojet complex from 1974 to 1979. Both companies disposed of unknown quantities of hazardous waste chemicals, including TCE and other chemicals associated with rocket propellants, as well as various chemical processing wastes. Some wastes were disposed of in surface impoundments, landfills, deep injection wells,
leachate fields, and some were disposed of by open burning. Underlying the site are extensive 40 to 100 foot-deep dredge tailings, a remnant of past gold mining operations. Reading through the paperwork on the impact to humans and the environment in both areas, there is a rather long list of hazardous materials. Of the ones I have mentioned, trichloroethylene is known to cause brain damage, kidney and liver damage and respirtory problems among other things, including cancer and Parkinson’s disease. (My father had Parkinson’s and we lived in Orangevale, close to the Aerojet site. Perchlorate can health problems, among them, low levels of thyroid, which I have and I take Synthoid to replace my thyroid hormone. In 1990-1996 the hypothyroidism rate in Rancho Cordova was 1 case / 1300 births, where the national average was 1/4000. At this point I don’t believe I can prove my theory. We do not know the cause of Scleroderma so contamination can not be pinpointed as the cause of my disease. Many researchers feel that several factors work together to induce scleroderma, such as a genetic inclination along with exposure to a toxin or infection which triggers the illness. We don’t know the cause of Alzheimer’s either, though it is clear that it develops because of a complex series of events that take place in the brain over a long period of time. It is likely that the causes include genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. These are only two of the hazardous waste products found on the sites. I am sure if I were to look futher I would find many more coralations between the hazardous waste areas and our diseases.