Report: 7 New Castle communities at greater risk for cancer, respiratory illness

Environmental pollution has left seven communities in New Castle County — whose residents are mostly poor and predominantly people of color —  at much greater risk for cancer and respiratory illnesses than affluent, white towns in the county, a new report said.

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy group, said Thursday in its report "Environmental Justice for Delaware" that Belvedere, Cedar Heights, Dunleith, Marshallton, Newport, Oakmont and Southbridge face more "substantial cumulative" health risks than wealthy suburbs such as Greenville. 

The authors of the report, several of whom grew up and currently live in Delaware, decided to focus on those neighborhoods along the Del. 9 corridor after hearing personal anecdotes of residents suffering from chronic conditions for decades. 

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"If you're from Delaware, been around and lived in Delaware, you know something is going on," said Michele Roberts, a national co-coordinator of the Environmental Justice Health Alliance, who was involved in the creation of the report.

"This is our justice," said Roberts, a Wilmington native, who began to cry. "This is the story that is not being told."

Those seven communities are close to major polluting sources, contaminated hazardous waste sites and facilities that use large quantities of dangerous chemicals which "pose a high risk of a major chemical release of catastrophic incident," the report said. 

The authors created the report by compiling data from the Census Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency and the National Center for Education Statistics. The nonprofit also worked with Delaware Concerned Residents for Environmental Justice, the Delaware Sierra Club and the Environmental Justice Health Alliance. 

From the data, the researchers found that: 

• Marshallton faces the highest risk of health issues. The chances of the neighborhood's residents being diagnosed with cancer or a respiratory illness is 33 and 71 percent higher than in Greenville.
• Dunleith, Oakmont and Southbridge have cancer risks that are 19 to 23 percent higher than Greenville. The respiratory risks are 32 to 43 percent higher.
• Newport, Belvedere and Cedar Heights have cancer risks 21, 15 and 12 percent higher than Greenville, and respiratory risks 44, 30 and 24 percent higher than the affluent area.

In 2008, state public health officials said residents of eight areas in Delaware get cancer at a rate of 10 percent to 45 percent higher than the rest of state, but they did not look at small communities. They cited large swaths upstate from Wilmington to New Castle and from Bear to Glasgow and Middletown, as well as Kenton and Millsboro downstate. Roughly four in 10 Delawareans lived in areas with cancer clusters, the state said then.

The authors of the study released Thursday decided to compare the seven communities to Greenville, one of the whitest and wealthiest communities in the area, to contextualize how large the health disparities can be in the county.

Even though many of the communities are only a few miles from the affluent area, residents have a dramatically different life experience, the report said. 

The communities along the Del. 9 Corridor are all within one mile of the Delaware Memorial Bridge, which faces a large amount of traffic every year and runs over a Dupont chemical plant, the report said. The areas are also near the Cherry Island landfill.

Ron White, a senior fellow with UCS's Center for Science and Democracy, said the authors wanted to look at communities in the county that are within a one-mile radius of EPA designated brownfields and superfund sites, polluting facilities listed in EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory and high-risk facilities a part of the agency's Risk Management Plan program.

That's why areas such as those near the Delaware City refinery aren't included, he said   

More:Delaware's cancer death rate still higher than U.S.

The report says the seven areas' health woes date back to segregated housing that located communities, several of which are predominately black, in areas exposed to large amounts of pollution.

During the 1940s and 1950s, black Wilmington residents could only find housing in these neighborhoods. Even years after the Civil Rights movement, there were lines "of demarcation black people knew you didn't cross" in the city, Roberts said. 

The buildings, including a public housing community, were on top of a filled marsh, where chronic flooding and mold still remain issues to this day, the report said. The houses were built with substandard and cheap materials, and lead paint was used on interior surfaces. 

A "thriving" black middle class once lived where the chemical company Chemours, formerly DuPont, is headquartered in Wilmington. But many relocated to Belvedere and Cedar Heights. 

The report identified 10 chemicals in all seven communities that contributed to the increased health risks. 

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Formaldehyde — commonly emitted by cars, trucks and incinerators — contributed most to the cancer risk, accounting for about half, the report said. Other toxic chemicals included benzene, acetaldehyde, carbon tetrachloride, and 1.3-butadiene. 

The five chemicals associated with respiratory hazard are acrolein, acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, diesel particulate matter and chlorine. 

At the end of the report, the authors included seven recommendations that they believe could improve the safety and health of residents living along the Del. 9 Corridor. It included:

• Require chemical facilities to use safer chemicals and technologies.
• Make these facilities share their emergency response plans with the nearby communities.
• Ensure that large chemical facilities constantly monitor and publicly report their emissions and health hazards. 
• Prevent the construction of new or expanded facilities near homes and schools. And conversely, avoid building new homes and schools near chemical facilities.
• Require the reporting of health-impact assessments that look into the effect hazardous chemical exposures have on the communities. 
• Strengthen the enforcement of current environmental and workplace safety regulations.
• Create and enforce stricter car emission standards and limit heavy-duty traffic and idling in residential areas. 

Delaware Division of Public Health officials said Thursday that the report contradicts the department's analysis of cancer rates in Delaware. 

Spokeswoman Andrea Wojcik said in a statement that the department is "concerned that people in those communities may well get the impression that their cancers are a result of environmental factors and not other factors."

Cancer is caused by a variety of reasons, particularly lifestyle choices and genetics. Environmental exposures presents little threat to residents, she said.

The state has found that none of the communities listed in the report had "a consistently elevated cancer incidence rate" and of the cancers that were elevated none of them are related to the environment. 

Department Director Dr. Karyl Rattay said in a statement that there is "no question that disparities in cancer rates exist." Yet she believes promoting healthy lifestyle choices – such as no tobacco use, regular exercise and a healthy diet – will help create equal health outcomes for Delawareans. 

"The report suggests that direct exposure to environmental toxins is the cause of cancer in these communities," she said. "This is not consistent with our analysis and does a disservice to individuals in these communities."

Other officials believe the report shows more environmental legislation is needed in the county. 

New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer commended the environmental groups for putting the report together and said it will be "very helpful" for policymakers.

Meyer said the county is aggressively increasing efforts to produce renewable energy. Officials also need to continue to look at zoning in order protect all residents from environmental pollution, he said. 

"There's more that needs to be done," Meyer said. 

Wilmington City Councilman Sam Guy, who attended the environmental groups' press conference on Thursday, said the city was, at one time, actively trying to address the environmental concerns in many of these neighborhoods.

When Guy was a councilman in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he said City Council passed legislation and created committees, such as the Children's Environmental Hazards Education Committee, that looked into environmental issues in the city. Those laws are still on the books, but are not being enforced, he said. 

"The folks here say they want somebody to work with," he said of the environmental groups. "I'm saying now they got somebody to work with," he said. "But it's a fight."

Shawn Garvin, secretary of Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said in a statement that the department looks "forward to analyzing and possibly making use of the report's findings in the hopes that it can help" Delawareans.  

Octavia "Penny" Dryden, a Wilmington native and member of Delaware Concerned Residents for Environmental Justice, said the authors plan to meet with elected officials about turning these recommendations into legislation in the 2018 session of the General Assembly. 

The most important step, she said, is to inform residents of these health risks.

"They have the right to know," Dryden said. "They need to get involved and get engaged and have the obligation to take action and understand the real impacts of all of this."

The Delaware Sierra Club will host a forum from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday that addresses the issues raised in the report. It will be held at the Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew & Matthew, 19 N Shipley St. in Wilmington.

For more information and registration, go to delaware.sierraclub.org/EJsolutions. 

Contact Meredith Newman at (302) 324-2386 or at mnewman@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter at @merenewman.