Port Clinton residents worry about possible cancer cluster

PORT CLINTON

Less than 20 miles from where the Ohio Department of Health verified a childhood cancer cluster in Sandusky County, Port Clinton residents are wondering if they’re living in a cancer cluster of their own. 

Maria Claus Konoff, 43, of Ottawa Hills, graduated from Port Clinton High School in 1985. 

Since then, she said half her class has either been diagnosed with cancer, or has a family member with the disease. 

Her own diagnosis of thyroid cancer inspired her to look into what toxic remnants of Port Clinton’s industrial past might be lurking in the soil or water. 

She poured through land holdings records, looked at reports on old industrial dumping sites and called for help from the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. 

“I don’t know what’s there, I just know the ground is not safe,” Konoff said at a meeting Wednesday night at Our Guest Inn in Port Clinton. 

 She invited concerned residents to the meeting to talk about the cancer issue. Teresa Mills, the Ohio Organizer for the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, also attended the meeting to answer questions. 

Konoff said she’s done the research alone so far, but she’d like to form a group called the Port Clinton Community Action Team to provide a local voice to cancer concerns. 

About a dozen residents who attended the meeting offered personal stories about friends and families who battled with cancer. Some worked at Standard Products, a rubber and plastic part manufacturer that closed its Port Clinton facility in the 1990s. 

Many expressed an interest in establishing a group to look into possible carcinogens left behind by the plant, and to raise concerns about soil testing at the site of the new middle school. 

The Ohio Department of Health is working on a survey into the number of cancer cases in Ottawa County. 

Konoff said she recently talked to Robert Indian, a lead researcher at the Ohio Department of Health, and learned the results of the survey will be released to the local health department come August. 

Indian pointed out during public meetings in Clyde that one in three Americans will get cancer in their lifetimes. 

The high number of cases people notice in communities can often be attributed to the high rate of cancer in the U.S., he said. 

Yet, if researchers find a rate of cancer significantly higher than state or national averages, it warrants additional investigation, he said. 

That’s what happened in Clyde in 2006 after school nurses raised the alarm about the high rate of cancer of area school children.

Though researchers have verified a higher-than-normal rate of cancer in eastern Sandusky County, answers about the cause of the outbreak have been elusive. 

Mills warned Port Clinton residents at the meeting they might not get answers, but encouraged them to try. 

A second meeting for the Port Clinton group will be scheduled soon, Konoff said. 

Anyone interested can find out more by searching Port Clinton Cancer Cluster on Facebook.com.