In February 2001, the State Health Officer for Nevada convened an Expert Panel to review this investigation and
other literature about leukemia among children. As a follow-up to the recommendations from this Expert Panel, the
State of Nevada formally requested assistance from ATSDR in March 2001, to further evaluate environmental risk
factors that might be linked to the childhood leukemia cluster in the Fallon area. ATSDR was asked to evaluate
contaminant releases in Churchill County and provide an assessment of completed exposure pathways for the case-
families.
In 2001, ATSDR provided technical assistance, program support, and training for community stress interventions to
address the community stress issues created by the childhood leukemia cases.
ATSDR has reviewed environmental data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cross-
sectional exposure assessment and additional past and current environmental data provided by various local, state and
Federal sources. Data included contaminant levels in soil, ambient air, indoor dust, surface water, sediments, ground-
water, drinking water, and wildlife in the Fallon area. Public health consultations on these environmental media
evaluated any potential human exposure pathways to
contaminants at
levels of
public health concern, with a
focus on
the childhood leukemia cases.
ATSDR has also performed an environmental public health assessment related to potential human exposure path-
ways from contaminant releases related to activities at the Naval Air Station Fallon (NASF). Due to community
concerns related to JP-8 fuels used by the Navy, ATSDR evaluated operations by the NASF related to fuel usage and
releases and also evaluated the Kinder Morgan fuel pipeline.
In February 2003, ATSDR will meet with the Fallon community to discuss the results of its public health evaluations
of exposures pathways in the Fallon/Churchill County area and how those results relate to the childhood leukemia
case families. The fuel pipeline health consultation, which was released to the public for review in 2002, will be
presented as a final document. The public health assessment on NASF and health consultations on other exposure
pathways are scheduled to be released for public comment in February 2003. Further coordination with the commu-
nity will include discussions on a completed health education needs assessment to determine any future educational
activities.
Sierra Army Depot - Another example of a site where several site-specific activities are ongoing is Sierra Army
Depot (SIAD). The SIAD is located in Herlong, California, and is surrounded by the tribal lands of the Paiute
Tribe. The SIAD operates as a
military maintenance and storage facility of
munitions and explosives classified as
both
product and hazardous waste. The facility also demilitarized hazardous waste munitions and explosives by
disassem-
bly, incineration, and open burning/open detonation (OB/OD). Past large scale operations have been discontinued.
Area residents have expressed concerns about possible health effects that might be associated with plumes of dust,
smoke, and contaminants resulting from the detonations, and about suspected elevated levels of
cancer in
the area.
ATSDR is
conducting a
health consultation to
determine specific environmental contamination sources and routes of
potential exposure from the site. The consultation will evaluate two areas: the potential health hazards from site-
related air contamination and the community's concerns about cancer and health effects related to
other site-related
contaminants.
ATSDR is reviewing descriptive data gathered from the California Cancer Registry, the California Registry of
Northern California, and the Nevada Central Cancer Registry. The Nevada and California state cancer regis-
tries have a cancer data sharing agreement, and the Cancer Registry of Northern California has responded to
several community concerns about cancer incidence in northeastern California.
To evaluate whether people in the area are being exposed to airborne contaminants, ATSDR is reviewing informa-
tion from atmospheric monitoring - or modeling - of past OB and OD activities. Investigators under contract to the
Sierra Army Depot
collected that data and information. ATSDR is
currently reviewing the report and evaluating the
information. A document describing ATSDR's evaluation is anticipated to be released in the summer of 2003.