Fridley Cancer Cluster Roundup: A Blaine Employee Speaks Out

The , a discussion board started by a former resident in order to explore the possibility that Fridley’s could be due to environmental causes, gained its 2,400th member over the weekend.

The group’s membership is actively sharing anecdotes about friends, family and neighbors who contracted cancer after living in the city, and the group’s cohesion has , who plans to visit Fridley in May.

Here’s Fridley Patch’s rundown on recent developments and topics of discussion within the group:

• A utility department employee for the city of Blaine caused a stir when he said that since all Fridley’s water comes from wells more than 600 feet below ground level, surface water “is and was fine to swim, play and fish in.”
  
  “Do people think just because they swam, walked around or touched the water from a stream or creek that runs through or around fridley that they are going to get cancer?” the employee asked.
  
  One group member responded by saying that TCE contamination had been found in Long Lake, which feeds Rice Creek, and another group member told the utility department employee that he didn’t “know the fear and questioning that come with [cancer].”
  
  “For me,” that group member wrote, “I'm a 17 year survivor, so it doesn't really matter why or what caused it. I still don't think it hurts to check things out for future generations.”
• Group members discussed a Star Tribune letter to the editor by Clean Water Action state director Deanna White that argued that Fridley cancer worries should be placed in a larger conversation about chemicals in Minnesotan communities.
• A group member posted a link to a CDC report on the Naval Industrial Reserve Ordnance Plant, one of four National Priorities List Superfund sites in Fridley. The member quoted part of the report:

Soil samples from the dry well indicated the presence of VOCs, primarily TCE and tetrachloroethylene (PERC). Maximum soil concentrations associated with Storage Area C were 6,300 µg/kg for TCE and 500 µg/kg for PERC. More than 200 cubic yards of contaminated soil were excavated and disposed off site. Remaining soils with TCE concentrations of 100 µg/kg were treated with an in-situ soil vapor extraction system. The site included approximately 4,750 cubic yards of potentially contaminated soil.