Coal ash contamination in North Carolina leads to EPA protest in Washington set for September 20, 2022
We’ll send a message to the EPA
that they need to do a better job!
By Pat Elder
July28, 2022
Susan Wind, right, and her daughter, Taylor in Mooresville, NC in 2017. - Denise Bardsley Photography
Susan Wind became a nationally known firebrand environmental activist after her teenage daughter was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2017.
After two years of painful headaches, body temperature problems, weight fluctuations, and constant fatigue, Susan’s 16-year-old daughter, Taylor, was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer on June 28, 2017. - USA Today
Their lives changed forever.
After her daughter's cancer diagnosis, Susan discovered her town is a cancer hot spot. “I was going to accept my daughter's thyroid cancer diagnosis as just the cards we were dealt, but I realized things were not normal in my hometown.”
Susan’s words are so cliché. It’s the same story all over the country. A child becomes seriously ill from completely preventable causes and a mother becomes seriously angry at a system that allows such cruelty.
Join us at EPA Headquarters
in Washington on September 20, 2022.
It wasn’t like someone tapped Susan Wind on the shoulder and said, “Hey girlfriend, your town is contaminated with coal ash and thyroid cancers may be expected to develop in children.” Susan learned it was a common practice in North Carolina to use coal ash as a substitute for soil in construction projects. This included structural fill and landscaping. More than forty-thousand tons of toxic soil were buried next to Taylor’s high school.
Taylor’s surgery in 2017
Taylor had been sick since she was 14. The doctors said she was “hormonal,” that she had allergies, while the state failed to require doctors to submit cancer cases. Taylor developed a pea-size lump on the side of her neck. Susan and Taylor went back to the doctor to have it checked out. They were told, “It’s a swollen gland. You folks have allergies, right?” Susan thought yes, we all have allergies, but none of us have ever had a small hard lump protrude out of our necks. On June 28, 2017, Taylor was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Imagine the horror.
Word spread around Mooresville about Taylor’s diagnosis. Susan was shocked when she discovered three neighbors down the street also had thyroid cancer. Taylor was #4. Susan shared the horrible news on Facebook and mothers from around the region began contacting her with their upsetting stories. A mom of a 9-year-old girl in the immediate area had thyroid cancer.
The questions tormented Susan. Was this area safe? Was my home safe? Could it be the water? The air? What is happening here, she thought. No one with the town or the state had answers for Susan. The determined mom approached Taylor’s doctor to say, “I need a study, what do I do? She then referred me to a colleague at Duke University to possibly help.”
Susan held a 5K event and appealed to people on social media. She eventually raised $109,000. Dozens nearby got in touch with Susan and began reporting their children were afflicted with multiple varieties of cancer: thyroid, leukemia, lymphomas, testicular, brain, lung, etc.). Huntersville, the town south of Mooresville on the lake, had an ocular melanoma (eye cancer) cluster.
Not only were young girls being afflicted by thyroid cancers, but through her own data collection work, Susan saw that many people had cancers, including extraordinarily rare cancers. Their ages ranged from 9-55.
The drinking water source in the area was Lake Norman, built in the early 1960’s by Duke Power. On the south side of the lake sits the McGuire Nuclear Station. Duke Energy’s Marshall Steam Station, a coal power plant, occupies the north side of the lake.
Susan met with the local mayor and her state representatives in Raleigh and they discussed the potential of coal to cause health issues, but they took no action to protect human health. Susan spoke with local health department officials who initially offered little insight and no help. Their reporting on cancers hadn’t been updated since 2014.
In 2018 the chemist Susan commissioned managed obtain the most current data showing the zip code she lived in had a thyroid cancer cluster. NC Policy Watch obtained documentation that revealed 28115 and 28117 were suspected cancer clusters. Taylor and her family lived in 28117.
Susan was enraged. “They had all of this data and did nothing with it. They failed to notify the medical community in the area!” she said. Taylor’s aggressive cancer went undiagnosed for years.
Susan methodically documented the stories of those afflicted with cancer who contacted her. Builders and landscapers also became ill, and they pointed to the coal ash and described the practice of using the material as fill dirt in communities surrounding Lake Norman in Mooresville. None of the residents knew of this practice.
Coal ash is the residue left behind when coal is burned to generate electricity. It contains heavy metals, including arsenic, boron, lead and mercury. Coal ash should be treated as a hazardous waste, but it is not. Instead, it is in people’s yards and neighborhood playgrounds. More than forty-thousand tons of toxic dirt were buried next to Taylor’s high school.
The EPA has found that living next to a coal ash disposal site can increase our risk of cancer or other diseases. The EPA is great on the science end of things, but the agency is a tragic failure in actually taking steps to protect human health.
The heavy metals from coal ash may be in drinking water and they may be inhaled. These toxins can cause cancer and nervous system impacts such as cognitive deficits, developmental delays and behavioral problems. They can also cause heart damage, lung disease, respiratory distress, kidney disease, reproductive problems, gastrointestinal illness, birth defects, and impaired bone growth in children. Physicians for Social Responsibility
Radioactive elements are found in coal ash. “I had moved to a town that used deadly radioactive dirt to landscape flower beds, build homes, fill parks and schools, build roads and shopping centers,” she says. Susan added, “With the EPA on the sidelines, well-connected companies with lots of cash have the final say regarding what is safe in your backyard. No studies were done on these cancers and coal ash, although the utility company has come out and said this publicly on media outlets.”
Taylor’s cancer returned in 2021 and she underwent additional surgery. More surgery is planned. Taylor is 21 now.
Susan says she is organizing a peaceful national protest in Washington DC on September 20, 2022 because the federal government is failing to protect the public from various sources of environmental contamination. “We are partnering with many scientists, doctors, and families across the country to focus attention on preventing cancer in communities nationwide,” she explained.
The protest in Washington will focus on communities across America suffering from a host of deadly toxins, including per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances, (PFAS), trichloroethylene, (TCE), mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), formaldehyde, lead, benzene, and pesticides to name a few of the largely unregulated killers.
Please see the Website: https://www.safeprotestepa.org/
And the Facebook page: Safe EPA Protest
All of the stories match up – polluters say the chemicals are safe. Health departments say there are no health impacts, while people are getting sick and dying.