Northampton's proposal to expand its landfill over a portion of the Barnes Aquifer has become a controversial and contentious issue. While the most vocal opposition may come from residents who live near the landfill, the decision to expand it or not will have much farther-reaching implications. The landfill's impact on drinking water is not solely a Northampton issue; similarly, a decision against the expansion would have consequences not only for Northampton, but for the many neighboring towns that use the landfill.
The public deserves an accurate assessment of the project's risks as well as its benefits. As the debate continues, it is important to distinguish between the environmental and public health aspects of the issue and the economic considerations in play.
Unfortunately, the local paper of record has been less than helpful in this regard.
A recent editorial in the Daily Hampshire Gazette ("The Health of the Landfill," Sept. 30) argues that the city has "done its due diligence with regard to studying the health aspects of the landfill." The assertion is, at best, misleading.
According to the editorial, a recent Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) study "concluded" that Northampton's regional landfill is "not responsible for any health problems, including cancer, among the city's residents." In fact, the study draws no such conclusion.
Moreover, the Gazette describes the MDPH report as being "in line with a previous study by Gradient Corp.," implying that MDPH corroborates an earlier, independent study. In fact, the two reports are based on exactly the same data.
The study, narrowly described by the MDPH as "an evaluation of readily available health outcome data," did fail to find "unusual patterns" in the incidence of nine cancer types. There were exceptions. The study found, for example, "statistically significant" elevations in kidney cancer, breast cancer and leukemia among women in Northampton, though MDPH could conclusively link none of them to the presence of the landfill.
The report reveals that the small size of the population studied resulted in lower confidence in the accuracy of disease rate calculations. The two census data tracts studied didn't form a large enough sample to return conclusive statistical results.
The Gazette accurately notes that Boston University's Dr. Richard Clapp, founder of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, has taken issue with the report's methodology. "There's no evidence, though, that the state or Gradient Corp. used any kind of improper research methodology or minimized the risk of cancer," the editorial continues. But Clapp was not making such an accusation. Rather, he was emphasizing the limitations of the study's sample size, which reduces certainty about rates and increases the possibility that risks have been understated. Clapp pointed to the four examples of non-Hodgkins lymphoma reported in the study area between 1982 and 2004—around twice as many as expected. It is MDPH policy, however, not to calculate rates when fewer than five diagnoses are found. Only an extremely elevated rate would be red-flagged.
In effect, the editorial impugns the motives of concerned residents. "At some point," opined the Gazette, "landfill opponents have to acknowledge that the city has done due diligence… . They can't continue lobbying for studies until they get one that agrees with them."
Given the limitations of the Gradient and MDPH studies, and in view of much larger, more sophisticated studies of landfills throughout the nation that found significant increases in cancer rates, among other health problems, the concern being expressed by landfill opponents in and around Northampton should be expected. And given the unusual nature of Northampton's proposal to become the first municipality in Massachusetts allowed to expand a landfill over an aquifer, the stakes are surely too high to blithely accept anything short of the best, most reliable scientific study available.
