Common ground

OROVILLE – Judy McInturf is making a list of the sick and the dead.

On it are old friends, her son's former co-worker, her daughter's friend, family acquaintances, their adult children. And, of course, her late husband, Haskel.

In hindsight, McInturf wonders if there could be a connection: Were her family and friends caught up in some sort of toxic web – and if so, what's the deadly thread that connects them?

State and county health officials are asking similar questions. Soon, they'll descend upon this industrial city in central Butte County to investigate an unusual concentration of pancreatic cancer diagnoses and deaths – 23 people in 2004-05, more than twice what would be expected. They will interview the patients still living and the families of the dead, looking for environmental clues.

It's rare for the state to go to such lengths in pursuit of a possible cancer cluster – a signal there could be cause for alarm. It's even rarer in such cases for researchers to identify a single toxic culprit.

In the meantime, McInturf and dozens of other Oroville-area residents are left to worry and wonder. In a city with a history of toxic contamination and three shuttered businesses at some point designated federal Superfund sites, there is plenty to consider.

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Sitting in the cozy living room of the adobe home she shared with her husband for more than 50 years, Judy McInturf ticks off the names.

Only some of them are reflected among the 23 pancreatic cancer cases logged in 2004 and 2005 on the California cancer registry. Others on her list were diagnosed before or after the spike.

There was her husband – friends called him Hack – who died in January 2006, at age 77, after a career as a wood shop teacher and two terms as a Butte County supervisor. There was Hack's friend, Delmas Whittier, a former tree faller, dead in 2007 at age 72; and fishing buddy Ray Gregory, who died in 2006 at age 78.

There was Whittier's high school friend, Pat Henley, dead in 2006 at 71; and Ron Bortz, whose son once rented a home from McInturf. He died in 2004, at age 69. Longtime Oroville resident Roberta Tennigkeit, 75, was diagnosed in 2006 and is in the final stages of the disease.

Judy McInturf's list also includes younger men and women, like firefighter Marlon Jones, who worked with her son at the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. He died at age 47 in 2005. There was her daughter's friend, Pam Davis, 51, diagnosed in 2004. She's back at work as a school secretary after surgeries to remove her stomach, spleen and parts of her pancreas and liver. Teri Witzsche, who grew up two blocks from Davis, died in September at age 50.

Beyond the circle of family and neighbors was Dave Sarey, an asphalt contractor who once worked for the Whittier family and succumbed at age 59 in 2006. There was Michael Ann Rossi, 63, a friend of Davis who, despite a poor prognosis, continues her work as an education consultant in Butte County.

"And this is just the people I know," said McInturf. "It's mind-boggling. How many are out there I don't know?"

Besides sharing a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, the people on McInturf's list at some point all lived in the greater Oroville area, which takes in about 55,000 residents.

Many worked in the shadow of Koppers Industries Inc., a now-shuttered wood treatment facility a quarter-mile south of Oroville's city limits.

Contamination from the plant was noted as early as 1973, when the pesticide pentachlorophenol (PCP) was discovered in groundwater underneath the 40-acre site and nearby residential wells. In addition to PCP, chemicals detected included benzene, copper, chromium and arsenic. The plant was designated a Superfund site in 1984 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

After a 1987 fire, concerns were raised about potentially dangerous exposure to dioxins, highly toxic industrial byproducts, which were found in high concentrations in the soil. The plant was closed in March 2001.

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• Call The Bee's Dorsey Griffith, (916) 321-1089.