HAMPDEN, Maine — Despite concerns raised by some residents, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention found no evidence of a higher-than-normal cancer rate among residents of Coldbrook Road, according to its final report on the matter.
Town councilors voted in October 2013 to ask Maine CDC to investigate concerns expressed by resident Jim Barrows about what he believed was an abnormally high rate of cancer on a roughly mile-long stretch of Coldbrook Road, near the now closed Pine Tree Landfill.
The final report was delivered to town officials late last month. It was presented to Town Council members during an Oct. 26 meeting of the council’s infrastructure committee.
“As one of this town’s councilors, I think this is good news, and I hope that the residents are reassured,” Town Councilor Dennis Marble, who is chairman of the committee, said Tuesday evening.
Mayor David Ryder could not immediately be reached for comment.
Barrows, who could not be reached for comment Tuesday, said at that time that he has three different types of cancer and several members of his family have been diagnosed with cancer. He first brought the matter to the attention of town officials in July 2002. Despite their efforts to get answers, neither he nor town officials saw anything much in the way of a response until the fall of 2013.
Barrows said that he knew of 15 people with some form of cancer residing, or who formerly resided, on the section of Coldbrook Road that runs from H.O. Bouchard Inc. to Coldbrook Equestrian. There are 20 households within that span, he said. Nearby are the now closed Pine Tree landfill and several large transportation companies.
Barrows’ list of people diagnosed with cancer eventually grew to more than 40, he said previously. He said he suspected the cases could constitute a cancer cluster.
As of June 2014, however, state health officials had not found anything unusual about the number and types of cancer cases found along Coldbrook Road, Dr. Molly Schwenn, director of the Maine Cancer Register, said during a meeting at that time with then Town Manager Susan Lessard and Barrows. Also on hand were Dr. Sheila Pinette, who at the time was director of Maine CDC, and Debra Wigand, director of the state center’s Division of Population Health.
“There is no peak in any cancer. There is a broad spectrum of many cancers,” Schwenn said of the cases she found in the state cancer registry database. She also said there were not any unusual occurrences of rare cancers or cancers found in unusually young victims.
In its final report, Maine CDC said that it looked at 15 years worth of cancer data — from 1997 through 2011 — for the town overall and for 19 people who live or have lived in the Coldbrook Road neighborhood, which also included residents of Emerson Road and Wilbur Drive.
The 19 cases from the Coldbrook Road neighborhood were verified in the Maine CDC’s cancer registry database. They were among a longer list of names provided by Barrows and two other informants.
“There are certain findings that must be in place in order to define a cancer cluster,” Maine CDC said in its final report. “A cancer cluster is when more cancer cases of a certain type occur in a population than would normally occur or be expected within a group of people in a certain area over a defined period of time.
“Of the 19 individuals in the analysis, there were no children or adolescents; the youngest age was 24. Six of the 19 individuals had more than one cancer. The total number of cancers was 27,” the report stated.
“Similar to the distribution of cancer types in Hampden as a whole, there were five prostate cancers, three breast cancers, three melanomas, two lung cancers and two colorectal cancers. There were also three lymphomas (all different types) and two malignant brain tumors. All other cancer types occurred once. All cancers occurred in expected age groups. None of these findings are supportive of a cancer cluster,” state health officials concluded.
With regard to environmental concerns involving the former Pine Tree Landfill, Maine CDC noted that there have been documented instances of leachate spill and some increases in arsenic levels in monitoring wells.
“The test results indicated that following the 2007-2010 closure, the landfill is affecting groundwater in the area. In some places around the landfill, aspects of the water quality appear to be deteriorating, including residential wells. A methane gas extraction system is in place.”
Coldbrook Road neighborhood residents who depend on well water were encouraged to test their water quality, including arsenic levels.