Cancer-Plagued Town Investigates Questionable Dumping

Around the coalfields, rumors have been circulating for years, stories that seem more the stuff of horror film than life: Unmarked tanker trucks rumble under the cover of night into dark hollows where they dump mysterious loads.

For the past 16 years, Chauncey, WV, has harbored its own memories of just such an incident in their small Logan County town. This winter, increasingly alarmed by rising cancer deaths, residents decided to get to the bottom of it.

Carlene Mowery, who has spearheaded the investigation, began knocking on doors and community members rallied to help her. She has documented 111 cancer deaths in Chauncey in the last 40 years. In addition to those deaths, 72 people who either live in Chauncey now or spent a significant portion of their lives there have been diagnosed with cancer. All these cases have developed since 1987, the year of the suspected illegal dumping.

That Chauncey, a town of 300 people, has an incredibly high rate of cancer can’t be disputed. The reason for the rate is unclear. The community has several possible sources. One is an old power plant that may have contaminated the ground and water with PCBs. Another is a place called "the slate dump" where oil and gas were dumped and buried for many years. But residents seem especially alarmed by November 1987 truck convoys into Chafin’s Hollow behind their community.

For three weeks, an average of 25 to 27 tanker trucks a night roared through Chauncey and up into the hollow. No one in the community was told what the trucks were doing. They were hauled by bulldozer up the steep hill, and after they dumped, at least some were washed in the creek, causing a major fish kill.

Resident Gail Ferrell actually walked up the hollow and witnessed the dumping. She claims she and her sister saw white trucks parked in a circle and men running hoses from the trucks into a hole in the ground about the width of a telephone pole. "The guys had on white hazardous uniforms. Their faces, everything, was covered. And a man jumped down off the side of the hill and said, ‘Don’t you know you ladies can get y’all’s asses shot off?’ That’s what he said."

This snapshot, taken by a Chauncey, WV, resident in 1987, shows one of the many convoys of tanker trucks that went up Chaffin's Hollow for three weeks. Their purpose and intent are unknown at this time.

Some trucks had "Halliburton" written on them. At least one truck was blue and white and said "Allegheny Nuclear Systems." (This truck in particular frightened the community, but they have since learned that the truck could have been for nuclear imaging, not dumping nuclear waste.)

"You could see a creamy-like substance dripping down from the back of the trucks," Ferrell remembers. "Oh, did it ever stink. We had to take off our jackets and put them over our nose and mouth to breathe, it stunk so bad."

Some agencies have suggested the trucks were used to fracture a gas well, but Mowery’s research indicates that fracturing a gas well requires 13 truckloads of liquid nitrogen. Records at the Department of Oil and Gas report that 13 trucks did run up the hollow that November. The community, though, saw hundreds of trucks within three weeks.

Carlene Mowery says the community has asked for help for years from the state Division of Environmental Protection, but with little response. Finally Mowery convinced the EPA's Philadelphia office to investigate. During the week of April 21st, the EPA set up a command post in Chauncey, asked residents to visit them with comments and questions, and took soil and water samples from around the community.

Within six to eight weeks, the EPA says it should have some results. However, they don’t seem optimistic that these results will be definitive. And some Chauncey residents are not confident that the EPA spent much time testing up Chafin’s Hollow.

As Carlene says, "There are just a lot of unanswered questions." When the EPA does return with its results, there will be a public meeting at Omar Elementary School.