West Virginia residents reflect on life in contaminated town

MINDEN, W.Va. –– Since it was declared an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site in the 1980s, the tiny township of Minden has experienced heightened cancer rates that are thought to be directly related to PCB exposure from a local coal business, Shaffer’s.

Two decades before the 250-people-town became synonymous with PCBs and cancer studies, Shaffer’s was just part of life for 72-year-old Percy Fruit and other neighborhood children in the 1960’s.

“We grew up around coal. It was a tipple right down the road there. They had trains that came all the way up here, on the other side of them was woods, and it was just a playground for us.”

Fruit grew up in a historically black neighborhood in Minden. His manicured lawn and well-maintained home is within a quarter mile of the old Shaffer site.

“When the EPA came here last time when they put the dirt down and said they were sealing everything they just did one side of that creek,” he said. “They didn’t do the side of the creek. Both sides had contaminated equipment in it.

When Fruit was a child, the Shaffer site was a playground and a campsite.

“I played in it, which you’ll probably hear that story from a bunch of people, and it’s the truth,” Fruit said Friday. “It was a playground…tag, camping, staying there all night.

“We used to have picnics in there,” he remembered. “Get in there and make a shelter.”

Fruit and his friends would get sodas, cookies and sandwiches at a nearby store and go inside the mine to eat.

The owner of Shaffer’s would put neighborhood kids to work on small jobs like cleaning the office or carrying equipment, according to Fruit.

“I worked for Shaffer as a kid…you know, nothing real big, but it was always something he had you doing,” Fruit recalled. “I didn’t call it work, but he would give you a little bit of change here and there.

Fruit’s father and mother, who reared their family in Fruit’s current home, both died of cancer. His grandmother, who also lived near the Shaffer site, died of cancer. At least nine neighbors have died of cancer. Fruit’s brother, Eddie Fruit of Fayetteville, was diagnosed with skin cancer, Fruit said.

Lucien Randall, a neighbor who lived at Fruit’s house and was part of the 1980’s citizens’ watchdog group that pushed for EPA responsibility in the 1980s, also died of cancer.

“I’m not a doctor,” Fruit said, declining to say whether the prevalent number of cancer deaths among his family and neighbors could be attributed to PCB exposure.

He said he was unsure of what the current testing for PCB levels on Minden properties will mean for residents.

“They’ve been here three times, and I don’t know what more they can accomplish,” he said. “They know what’s going on here.”

He added that Randall had collected information on the PCB contamination prior to his death, and that he planned to locate Randall’s documents and to turn them over to Dr. Hassan Amjad, who is conducting a study on the link between PCB contamination and cancer among Minden residents.

Since May, Amjad has studied medical records and spoken with hundreds of cancer patients who live or have lived in Minden, a Fayette County town where Shaffer Mine and Johns Hopkins University dumped transformers laden with PCB oil at Shaffer’s mine site.

“We are seeing something very unusual,” Amjad said. “I think there is a new type of cancer, of lymphoma, that is due to PCB, but it needs further confirmation.

•••

For Faye Buckland, the tale of Shaffer’s involves a creek.

She once thought it was a gift. When she was a little girl, it flowed right past the backyard of her family home. Summer days in Minden were muggy and hot. Most families didn’t have air-conditioned homes, and, by that time, there were no parks or skating centers or shopping malls in the once-booming coal town.

The Buckland children felt lucky to have a cold stream that rippled just steps from their back door.

“We had fun! I’ve got five sisters and one brother, and we all played in this creek down here,” Buckland said Friday, standing on the porch of her family home, where she now lives with her son, her sister and her sister’s two sons. “When it was really hot, we had a ball.

“That’s the only thing we really had to do, down here.”

Her mom and dad “didn’t like” to hear the news that the stream was possibly contaminated with PCBs stored in transformers at the old Shaffer site, Buckland recalled, but EPA crews had reassured everyone that the site had been cleaned and that there was no threat to Minden residents.

The Buckland children continued to enjoy their creek.

In 2001, the creek didn’t stop for anyone. It raged past the banks and overtook the land and everything on it.

Floodwaters destroyed most of Buckland’s neighbors’ homes, and the area was declared a federal disaster. Once the waters had receded and the creek was flowing in its bed again, the small Buckland house was still standing.

There have been several minor floods since 2001, though none have been as devastating. The floodwaters are oily with what Buckland and other residents say is PCB-contaminants flowing from the old Shaffer mine.

“Every time it floods, it gets us real bad,” said Buckland. “Oil always comes down through here all the time.

Around two years ago, Buckland’s doctor diagnosed her with uterine cancer. She said she’s currently in remission.

Buckland’s nephews Aaron and Dylan Collins, 8 and 4, ask to play in the creek that flows past their backyard.

They’re not allowed to play in the yard, because of the threat of PCB carried in the creek, Buckland said, and a governmental buy-out of Minden properties doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

“My sister really wants out of here,” she reported. “It would be very hard. We’ve been here since we were Dylan’s age.

•••

Megan Naylor, 32, grew up in Minden and thirteen years ago moved to a home located about 500 feet from the old Shaffer mine site.

“When it rained, you could see all the oily-looking stuff on top of the water, sludge, everything,” Naylor reported Friday. “You can go down there, right now, and see the oil floating.”

Two years ago, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she reported.

When Naylor began hearing from neighbors that PCBs was still a risk in the community, she decided to leave.

She moved from Minden six months ago.

Her father, Richard Naylor, grew up in Minden, she said. Two months ago, doctors diagnosed him with stage-four lung, liver and bone marrow cancer.

“It’s really scary, because I’ve got four daughters,” she said. “Now, I’ve got to worry when they get older, are they going to have any effects from it?”

According to Amjad, over 30 percent of current residents have been diagnosed with a form of cancer, and 100 people who have lived or live in Minden have reported that one or more family members have been cancer patients.  

On Friday, former Shaffer’s employee Frank Ward admitted to dumping PCB-laden transformers in Minden, spreading oil containing PCBs on the roads and dumping roughly 150 gallons of oil very few days over an 18-month period.

Farrish writes for the Beckley, West Virginia Register-Herald.

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