Lawmakers look for action in probe of Fallon leukemia cases

Erin Neff

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001 | 11 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- After 15 hours of hearings last week on Fallon's leukemia cluster, nine of the 14 recommendations made to lawmakers simply ask them to write letters urging others to do something.

Staff suggested either passing resolutions or sending letters from the Assembly Committees on Health and Human Services and Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining.

"From my point of view, I'm more interested in action," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno. "What can we do to really move this investigation forward?"

One recommendation would be that the committee write, or have its congressional delegation write, to the U.S. Navy, asking it to disclose all contaminants used at the Fallon Naval Air Station and to disclose all instances of contamination.

Eleven Fallon-area children were diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in just more than a year, a figure extremely unusual in a community whose population typically would have just one or two cases every five years.

The Fallon Naval Air Station receives jet fuel from an underground pipeline stretching from Sparks to Fallon. A private company is charged with monitoring the pipeline for any leaks.

Assemblyman John Lee, D-Las Vegas, said he thought asking the military to disclose possible contaminants in the Fallon area was important but not enough. He said other small communities that have nearby military installations would also be interested in disclosure for their areas.

"If we find out they have certain chemicals in Hawthorne that they have in Fallon that ought to send up an alert," Lee said.

Lee said he did not intend to ask for disclosures at the Nevada Test Site or Nellis Air Force Base, only at smaller military operations around the state.

The recommendations to the committee dealing specifically with funding requests, or things the lawmakers can draft into bills, dealt largely with testing of well water.

A public education campaign in Churchill County would cost $4,000 for printing of brochures and another $39,000 for a person to man a technical assistance help desk through the Nevada Cooperative Extension.

Actually having the Extension test Fallon's 4,800 domestic wells would cost $480,000, a price legislators may recommend that the state supplement. Bottled water at the Fallon area's eight public schools would cost $80,000 a year.

The recommendations also include writing a letter to the city of Fallon, urging it to adhere to Environmental Protection Agency standards for arsenic in municipal water.

Another suggested letter would ask the state Health Division to test hair, tissue and blood samples from the infected children and to inform the public of the test results.

Marcia de Braga, D-Fallon, chairwoman of the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining Committee, convened a subcommittee to work on the recommendations and turn some into bill draft requests.

The subcommittee is composed of de Braga, Ellen Koivisto, D-Las Vegas; Leslie; Sharron Angle, R-Reno; John Carpenter, R-Elko, and Roy Neighbors, D-Tonopah.