News Release 475

DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR CHILDERS WILL VISIT CAMERON,
DISCUSS ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION

Volume 36-475

Contact: Larry Archer

(For immediate release)

573-751-3807

JEFFERSON CITY, MO., AUG. 12, 2008 -- Missouri Department of Natural Resources Director Doyle Childers will be in Cameron Aug. 21 for the presentation of findings of the most recent round of environmental testing related to health concerns in the community.

Childers, who has had a long-scheduled town hall meeting in Cameron the afternoon of Aug. 21, plans to remain in town that evening for a presentation of the findings of soil and water sampling taken at the Rockwool facility in Cameron in July.

Childers has conducted more than 100 town hall meetings involving more than 1,600 Missourians in communities throughout the state since 2005. He said he plans to keep the emphasis at the town hall meeting focused on the many areas in which the department interacts with the city of Cameron and neighboring communities and will address the environmental investigation under way at the evening meeting.

"I think it's important that the community understand that Department of Natural Resources, working with our partners at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and EPA, have taken significant steps to investigate possible environmental causes of the health issues that are causing so much concern," Childers said.

On July 14 and July 15, the Department of Natural Resources took more than 50 surface soil, subsurface soil, groundwater and waste rock and slag samples on the site of the former Rockwool Industries and tested them for more than 185 chemicals and metals. Additional surface water, sediment and waste rock samples were taken from a quarry 2 1/2 miles from Rockwool where the company often dumped waste rock.

"We tested every place at Rockwool that we were able to," said Julieann Warren, chief of the Department of Natural Resources Superfund site assessment unit. "That included the field directly south of the plant, on airport property, where we were informed that items had been buried." The test results are being analyzed by the Department of Natural Resources and have been provided to the Department of Health and Senior Services for a health-based analysis. The Department of Health and Senior Services will have a representative at the August 21 meeting to present the results of this analysis. The analysis is in addition to the cancer inquiry already under way by the state health department. The state health department conducts a cancer inquiry to determine if there is an unusually high number or cases of a specific type of cancer in a community. Information is gathered and reviewed to determine if a certain type of cancer is occurring more than expected in a specific area. The Department of Health and Senior Services gathered patient information from members of the community to conduct the cancer inquiry and that information is currently being evaluated. The state health department's next step is to examine additional hospital data that we recently requested. The results of this study will not be available for this meeting. Another public meeting will be held to present the cancer inquiry results.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also collected samples from the Rockwool and related sites, including the Burlington reservoir and irrigation pond located on the Cameron Memorial Golf Course, at the same time in July and is conducting a separate analysis. Those results will also be provided to the Department of Health and Senior Services and to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Test results from water samples taken by the Department of Natural Resources on May 15 showed that the water produced by the city's drinking water treatment plant met all drinking water standards. The tests looked for 180 possible pollutants and found none that were in excess of the standards set by the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act or Missouri Water Quality Standards.

Childers' town hall meeting, one of nine to be conducted in northwest Missouri Aug. 21 and Aug. 22, will be held from 4 to 4:45 p.m. at the Cameron City Hall, 205 N. Main St. His Cameron town hall meeting will be preceded by visits to Liberty, Platte City, Plattsburg and Maysville. The evening community meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Cameron United Methodist Church, 201 N. Pine St.

The Department of Health and Senior Services and the Department of Natural Resources will remain in close contact, and both agencies will continue collecting information about this situation and will respond to any new developments that arise. The Department of Natural Resources has established a Web site at http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/hwp/sfund/cameron.htm. The Department of Health and Senior Services Web site on Cameron is at http://www.dhss.mo.gov/CancerInquiry/CBCI.html.

The Department of Natural Resources can be reached by phone at 800-361-4827.

For department news releases on the Web, visit http://www.dnr.mo.gov/pubs/communications.htm.

For Department of Health and Senior Services news releases on the Web, visit http://www.dhss.mo.gov/NewsAndPublicNotices/index.html.

EPA news releases on the Web are available at http://www.epa.gov/region07/news_events/index.htm.

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