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Document 25 of 45.

The Associated Press State & Local Wire

The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press.

February 20, 1999, Saturday, PM cycle

SECTION: State and Regional

LENGTH: 690 words

HEADLINE: Health department says conclusions of high cancer rates faulty

BYLINE: By HAL SPENCER, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: OLYMPIA

BODY:
Reports of comparatively high death rates from cancer and other illnesses at Port Angeles are at best preliminary and perhaps wrong, state Department of Health officials said Friday.

The officials were responding to Health Department data used to suggest that deaths in Port Angeles from cancer, heart disease, strokes and hemorrhages were about twice the statewide average in 1997, and that deaths due to chronic obstructive lung disease were almost three times as high.

The information, used by environmental groups as ammunition to argue for a federal cleanup of a now closed Rayonier Inc. pulp mill, was included in year-end statewide statistics the department compiles on causes and rates of death.

Teresa Jennings, director of the agency's Center for Health Statistics, said use of those "crude death numbers" to compare death rates "can be very misleading and unlikely to be anywhere near as extreme as the crude comparisons seem to show."

Two vital elements are missing in such comparisons, she said.

First, the rates have not been adjusted to reflect the ages of people who died from various diseases. As a result, there is no way to know if a significant number of deaths from cancer and other illnesses in Port Angeles occurred among older people more susceptible to the maladies.

"Without the adjustment for age, the comparisons are meaningless," she said.

Secondly, the data examine only one year. To be statistically valid, health data must be gathered over several years.

The crude death numbers for 1997 showed the average for deaths due to chronic obstructive lung disease was 41.9 per 100,000 statewide, compared with 105.9 for Port Angeles. Deaths due to cancer statewide occurred at an average of 179.5 per 100,000, compared with 328.2 per 100,000 in Port Angeles.

Jennings said the department has no "age-adjusted" data from previous years' crude death numbers.

State epidemiologists Steven Macdonald and Lillian Pensley said Friday that - at the urging of environmental groups - they are working to pull together reliable information on death rates and causes in Port Angeles and elsewhere for comparison purposes.

The analysis - which the department hopes to complete in a few weeks - will cover deaths in 1995, 1996 and 1997. It also will be adjusted to reflect the ages of those who died from the various diseases.

Clallam and Jefferson counties have become meccas for retirees, and people older than 55 have contributed to much of the recent population growth on the North Olympic Peninsula. Jefferson County is the second-fastest growing county in the state and now has about 26,500 residents. Clallam County grew 18.7 percent, to 66,700 residents, between 1990 and 1998.

Eloise Kailin, president of Protect the Peninsula's Future, a Sequim-based environmental group seeking to have the Rayonier site declared a Superfund site eligible for federal cleanup, told the Northwest edition of the Wall Street Journal that the 1997 numbers showed "something that's particularly wrong with the environment" in Port Angeles.

"The kinds of contaminants from the pulp mills are capable of giving these high numbers," Kailin said.

But Macdonald, the state epidemiologist, said it is too early to blame mill pollution for any deaths. Pinpointing a cause would require extensive investigation, he said.

The Seattle office of the Environmental Protection Agency has proposed the Rayonier site for Superfund listing. The listing would provide federal funds for a cleanup program managed by the federal government.

But local business interests want the state Department of Ecology to manage the cleanup. They fear a Superfund listing might put a stigma on the land that would limit its resale potential.

The EPA, which is expected to decide in about five months whether it or the state will do the cleanup, said recently that it found evidence on the property of "numerous hazardous substances," including elevated concentrations of metals, dioxins and furans in the tissue of crabs and geoducks.

The pulp mill on the waterfront site of about 75 acres was operated for 68 years until it closed in 1997.

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

LOAD-DATE: February 20, 1999

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