EXCLUSIVE: EPA Conducting More Testing In Delaware County Neighborhood That's Seen Unusually High Number Of People With Cancer
NORWOOD, Pa. (CBS) -- More testing is underway in a Delaware County neighborhood that's seen unusually high numbers of people with cancer and autoimmune diseases. Is there something in this Norwood soil that has driven cancer rates through the roof, as some have alleged?
The EPA is conducting a second round of testing as some in this Delaware County town are convinced dumping from decades ago sowed toxins that have sickened hundreds.
However, Liz Halliday has had a change of heart. This mother who lost her two adult children to cancer no longer believes it was something in the environment that sickened her son and daughter.
Eyewitness News first introduced you to the Hallidays exactly one year ago today, when CBS3 uncovered the EPA investigation in the Wenonah neighborhood in Norwood.
On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency was drilling at intervals of 2, 5 and 10 feet down for soil samples. It's an ongoing analysis that will touch on more than five dozen residential properties.
"People were concerned about the instances of cancer and other autoimmune diseases and the prevalence of it in their neighborhoods," Joe Vitello, with the EPA, said, "and they thought, perhaps, it could be something in their environment."
Investigators continue to probe if there's something below the surface that's driving what some believe are high rates of cancer and autoimmune disease from dumping or backfilling 60 years ago.
"There's multiple areas that EPA has been investigating, which include the former Norwood landfill itself, an area we're calling the old Norwood dump," Vitello said, "and then the soil conditions across the Wenonah Holmes neighborhood."
This is the EPA's second round of testing after results announced last November turned out to be inconclusive.
For Halliday, she now believes there just may be no answers to why both her children are no longer here.
"I think looking for somebody to blame and realizing that there isn't really anybody to blame," Halliday said.
Dozens of others are confident something in the environment has caused hundreds of cases of rare cancers in this area.
The EPA expects results by the spring.
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