FDNY Closes Brooklyn Firehouse After Tests Show Dangerously High Levels of Chemicals in the Air

March 11, 2003
The FDNY has closed a Brooklyn firehouse after years of complaints from firefighters about an unusually large number of cancer cases and other medical problems. Firefighters call the station in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn the "Cancer House."

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The FDNY has closed a Brooklyn firehouse after years of complaints from firefighters about an unusually large number of cancer cases and other medical problems. Firefighters call the station in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn the "Cancer House." And after tests revealed high levels of two dozen cancer-causing chemicals the department has shut the house down.

Many of the 50 firefighters who had been stationed at the Red Hook firehouse say there is something wrong with the entire area around it, which is a heavy industrial area. Meanwhile, test results on the pollutants in and around the firehouse are still coming in.

Philip McArdle, Union Health and Safety Officer: "The firefighters themselves had nicknamed the firehouse the 'Cancer House' for years."

The firefighters at the company in Red Hook have a number of things in common, the worst being high rates of cancer. Now the union is saying that seven of the firefighters stationed at the house have unexplained growths under their skin.

McArdle: "It's almost like pealing back the skin and taking a pebble or a marble and putting it underneath and closing the skin over and just pushing on it... And that's exactly what if feels like, a hard rock or pebble underneath the skin."

Philip McArdle is the health and Safety officer for the firefighters' union. He says that in addition to numerous firefighters being diagnosed, and in three cases, dying from cancer, many wives have had unusually high numbers of miscarriages.

Michelle Charlesworth, Eyewitness News: "On a scale of one to ten, one's not bad, ten is really bad, where would this be?" McArdle: "This problem?" Charlesworth: "Yes." McArdle: "This is about an eight."

The air quality test results conducted two weeks ago showed the existence of a number of toxins on the list at levels above EPA standards. Twenty four chemicals turned up in the air in the neighborhood surrounding the firehouse. Among them was dichloroethane, bromodochloromethane, acrylonitrate and vinyl cyanide. All of the chemicals, which are known to cause cancer, were found at dangerous levels.

Additional tests were being run around the city for comparison. But McArdle says the problem in Red Hook is not just fire department problem, it is a neighborhood-wide problem. It is just that firefighters started asking questions and having tests run.

The EPA, DEP and state department of environmental protection would not comment on these test results. The firehouse in Red Hook, again, is closed until further notice.

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