Coal Ash, Cancer Panel For Mooresville Realtors Stirs Controversy

MOORESVILLE, NC — A panel discussion by state lawmakers and a county health department official that convened Thursday to discuss coal ash and thyroid cancer fears in Mooresville is now facing intense criticism from members of the community due to its narrow focus discussing a community health issue as an information session tailored for real estate agents.

"Update with facts, not fake news," read a notice posted on the Town of Mooresville's Facebook page Monday advertising the Jan. 9 "Coal Ash & Thyroid Cancer Realtor Information Session" event at the Charles Mack Citizen Center in downtown Mooresville. The online flyer notice included the town seal and promoted appearances by North Carolina Sen. Vickie Sawyer, Rep. John Fraley and Brady Freeman of the Iredell County Health Department.

The event came just days after a national NBC News report aired Jan. 4, detailing the struggle former Mooresville resident Susan Wind and her family have endured seeking answers related to the existence of a cancer cluster in Mooresville after her teenage daughter was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2017. The causation for her daughter’s and neighbors’ cancers, Wind believes, is connected to the use of radioactive coal ash as fill dirt used throughout the Lake Norman community.

For a community looking to its leaders for insight into finding answers, the tone of Thursday’s event was insulting, she said.

“We have a health crisis going on and it was disgusting when it said, ‘Facts not fake news,’ and the facts are coming to you from politicians,” Wind said. “There were no experts there on coal ash, no chemists, no scientists, no doctors or experts.”

“I’m A Bit Suspicious”
Event organizer and Mooresville Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Qualls — who is also a loan officer — told Patch earlier this week that while the meeting was geared for real estate agents, the public was welcome to attend.

The meeting was not planned as a result of the NBC report, she said. "This event was created to keep the real estate community in the loop with information they can share with potential clients," she said in an email. "As a town, county and state - all elected officials take this seriously and will continue to support scientific testing and data gathering to see if any correlation can be made for any of the information and guide the next steps."

The Town of Mooresville provided the space for the event, but was not officially sponsoring it — a detail that led to some confusion in the community.

“I’m a bit suspicious,” a person responded to the Town of Mooresville’s Facebook page. “It’s being held by a Realtor... whose main goal is keeping property values high.”

One community member took issue with the wording of the notice promoted on an official town social media page. “Fake news? Do we have to include that divisive rhetoric on official town notices? Do better.”

Others said they felt shut out from attending. “Seems to be a bad time of day to have a meeting on something so serious .....when most people are working kinda seems they didn’t want many to attend so there's not a lot of questions or resistance,” wrote another.

“I’m sorry, how are real estate agents the “bad guys” here?” said a man who identified himself as a real estate agent. “Is it possible that we 'Realtors' as ambassadors of our communities may want to be educated and informed about this very serious issue? I’m pretty sure everyone, including Realtors, have been left in the dark on this.”

By Wednesday, however, reservations for the event had reached capacity, and there were no plans to record or livestream the proceedings, the town said on social media. When asked by Patch Thursday when the town would hold a similar event open to residents, a town spokesperson said they “didn’t know of anything at the moment.”

A town spokesperson provided Patch with a statement from Sawyer’s office that alluded to upcoming community meetings, however no hard dates were offered. “The Department of Environmental Quality plans to host a public comment meeting on the Marshall Steam Station in February 2020,” the statement said. “State and local government officials in Iredell County also plan to host a communitywide meeting in March.”

Iredell’s Cancer Cluster
State health officials have validated that new thyroid cancer diagnosis are higher in Iredell County, particularly in the southeastern and southwestern part of the county, over a period when diagnosis also increased around the state and nationally.

"The reasons for higher rates of thyroid cancer diagnosis in southern Iredell County are not known," the report said. "Radiation is the only environmental exposure that has been clearly linked to thyroid cancer; our review found no evidence of increased exposure to radiation based on routine monitoring of the area around the McGuire Nuclear Site during the past 40 years.”

The rate of thyroid cancer diagnosis in Iredell County is about double the statewide average, NBC News reported late last week. While rates appear higher, state health officials have not officially designated the county as a cancer cluster, citing the need for more research because the clusters "can appear or disappear depending on the parameters used," Kelly Haight Connor, a Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, told NBC.

Wind said she would like to see aggressive testing in the area to determine where coal ash hotspots are located, and said she feels that state health officials have downplayed the impacts of coal ash and relaying information to the public. “There are two cancer clusters here in Lake Norman so far — so far — and that’s because mothers brought it to the attention of the media. No health department has.”

It was this very issue that prompted Wind's family to sell their house in Mooresville and move out of state.

“My daughter got cancer. A bunch of people on my street got cancer, I learned I lived in a cancer cluster," she said. "I learned that our town had coal ash all over it that was never reported or regulated. The list could go on. I had to move because I was not going to have another child get sick or my husband or me.”

The NBC News report may be found here.