When people think of Durango, Colo., they usually think of the scenery, or the tourist attractions, or the disproportionate number of healthy, spandex-clad bicyclists, runners and raft guides. Rarely do they think of cancer.
Perhaps they should.
...Since the mid-1960s, when four young residents died of leukemia, various studies have shown that Monticello and surrounding San Juan County have higher cancer rates than the rest of the state. The latest study, released by the state’s health department this spring, found that Monticello has experienced an unexpectedly high rate of lung cancer over the last 35 years. Although the study stopped short of linking the cancers to the mill, it may have lent some weight to residents’ continuing efforts to get federal funding for early detection and treatment facilities. (Currently, the feds are supposed to compensate people who got sick from working in mines and mills, or from living downwind of nuclear tests, but not those who lived near uranium mines or mills.)
(...)Even though the findings of the new studies are preliminary, they are important: They warn us that we still don’t know all the costs of the West’s last big nuclear push. And until we do, we may want to proceed very cautiously with the next one. (Emphasis mine...SB)
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