St. Michael Area Resident’s Cancer Concerns Date Back to 2004

Marylin DeMars is having a bad case of déjà vu.

The rural St. Michael resident, who now lives within the borders of Otsego, has been watching cancer take friends and family over the last two decades like never before.

She, too, has wondered if it was something environmental, or construction-based, that caused more than a handful of neighbors, friends, and even her husband to battle cancer. Some lived through it all. Some, like good friend Bob Berning, did not.

“It’s just something I always wondered then,” she said in a phone call recently. “I still wonder now.”

Residents here share her concern, in Monticello and as deep into the suburbs as Fridley, where more than 2,500 people have joined a Facebook group that discusses Fridley cancer cases.

where Erin Brokovich, the now-famous legal assistant who helped a small town win millions in a civil action suit, has turned her attention to the Twin Cities.

Brokovich is planning a town hall in Fridley in May.

Yet, while the Minnesota Department of Health acknowledges there is a “higher than normal” cancer rate in the Fridley area, that’s not the case here in the St. Michael-Albertville-Otsego community. State cancer reasercher John Soler told DeMars back in 2004, and another resident recently, that St. Michael’s rates are at or near the state normal.

“The simple fact is, 50 percent of people are going to be confronted with some sort of cancer,” Soler said. “I know that’s shocking. I didn’t believe it when I first started researching. But that’s the trend.”

Soler said the question, on a broader scale, is what people statewide are doing to contribute to that. Is it something we’re doing to the environment, he asked? Or is it a byproduct of people living to an older age?

None of that is of comfort to DeMars, who has watched her husband, Ed, battle colon cancer for more than a decade, and surived her own lumpectomy. In all, she said, more than 30 neighbors in her “neck of the woods,” which near the intersection of 80^th Street and County Road 19 in Otsego.

Questions about cancer-causing radon gas

One historical thing DeMars notes: Wright County has been active as of late (since 2000) addressing levels of radon in homes.

According to the county: In the year 2000, 178 Wright County homes were tested for elevated radon levels. Of the homes tested, 52 percent were found to contain radon concentration levels higher than 4 picocuries per liter. On a nationwide level, Wright County sits on the very edge of the zone considered to have the highest potential for elevated levels of indoor radon gas.

However, in Minnesota, radon is not regulated so it is up to homeowners to decide for themselves how much radon is acceptable for their home. Radon is released from the natural breakdown of uranium and radium in our soil, rock, and water. Elevated levels of radon have been found in homes in every state. Radon is able to get into any type of building and build up to high levels. Homes new or old, drafty or air-tight, big or small, and with or without a basement are all just as likely to have a radon problem.

Scientists and researchers categorize radon as a Group A carcinogen meaning that there is no known acceptable level of exposure and that it has been demonstrated to cause cancer. Other Group A carcinogens include tobacco smoke and asbestos. It is believed to be the second leading cause of lung cancer.

Anyone can use a "do-it-yourself" test kit to check his or her home, the county states. There are short-term and long-term test kits available. Short-term test kits should remain in the building from two to seven days, depending on the device. Weather conditions and opening and closing of windows will affect radon levels within a building. Using the short-term test will give the homeowner a snapshot of the home's radon level.

Short term ($6) or long term ($12) kits can be purchased through the county. Stop in to the Wright County Human Services Center, 1004 Commercial Drive, Buffalo, MN 55313-1736, between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Or, check out the WOW Wellness Van the next time it stops at D.J.’s in Albertville.