No causes of cancer found at Lawrence school

Study gives site overall clean bill of health.

By: Lea Kahn
   The Lawrence Intermediate School has been given an overall clean bill of health, based on a study by an environmental consultant hired by the Lawrence Township Board of Education, after fears of a cancer cluster had surfaced at the school.
   Environmental Connection Inc. of Trenton was awarded a $7,500 contract to sample the air, water and surfaces at LIS, located on Eggert Crossing Road, after a teacher’s aide was found to have a brain tumor last fall. The teacher’s aide, who died in November, was the eighth person to have been diagnosed with cancer at the school in the last 12 years.
   School district officials plan to meet with the faculty and staff at LIS, which handles students in grades 4-6, to review the consultant’s report within the next 30 days, schools Superintendent Max Riley said. Officials are waiting for the consultant to return from vacation, he said.
   JoAnn Lupo, president of the Lawrence Township Education Association, said she received a copy of the report Tuesday and she is in the process of reading it. The LTEA represents teachers and staff members.
   "I hope that whatever recommendations are made, the school district will honor them," Ms. Lupo said. "I am confident that whatever recommendations are made, the school district will follow them."
   Environmental Connection Inc. tested the school for electromagnetic field levels, bacteria, fungi, contaminants in the drinking water and mercury. The school’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system also was tested for carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, humidity and temperature.
   The results of the other tests were generally acceptable — except for slightly elevated levels of carbon dioxide in some parts of the building. But that situation will be rectified when the school district installs a new HVAC system over the summer, Dr. Riley said.
   Also, one location in the school was found to be in need of additional shielding from electromagnetic field levels, Dr. Riley said. An electric control panel inside a wall in a classroom was found to be emitting a level of EMF that was "just barely" over the maximum level permitted, he said.
   To correct the situation, the students who were sitting in the area near the electric control panel were moved to another part of the classroom, he said. The district’s maintenance staff will put in additional shielding, he added.
   Dr. Riley said the school was tested for potential carcinogens two years ago, but school district officials decided to test the school again after the teacher’s aide was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The earlier test revealed no contaminants, he said.
   "Nevertheless, to be safe, we decided to test the school again," Dr. Riley said.
   When school district officials consulted the state Department of Health, Dr. Riley said, officials there said they did not think there was reason to believe there was a "cancer cluster" at the school. A cancer cluster is an unusually high number of cases of the same type of cancer in a geographic area, he added.
   "The state Department of Health told us that there are more than 100 diseases that are called cancer," Dr. Riley said. "They said that what has happened at LIS is not unusual. The faculty and staff are not coming down with the same disease. This is not an unexpectedly high number of cases over a 12-year period, with 100 staff and faculty members."
   Environmentally caused cancers require many years of exposure to carcinogens, Dr. Riley said. Some of the staff and faculty members who became ill had not worked at the school for enough years to be exposed to something in the environment that would cause cancer, he said.