In response to claims of cancer clusters forming near the Chiquita Canyon Landfill, L.A. County 5th District Supervisor Kathryn Barger wrote a letter Thursday asking for support in investigating those claims.  The letter, attributed to Barger and Barbara Ferrer, head of the county’s Department of Public Health, asks the county’s Cancer Surveillance Program to evaluate “potential cancer clusters” in those communities.  “The concerns regarding cancer clusters are serious,” the letter states. “Identifying increases in cancer cases and identifying a definitive cause can be challenging. Given your expertise in analyzing cancer trends, we believe your insights will be invaluable.”  In a news release announcing the letter, Barger stated that residents in those communities and surrounding neighborhoods “deserve real solutions.”  “Since this crisis began, I have led our county’s efforts to provide real-time response and action to the impacted communities,” Barger said in the release. “Residents in Val Verde, Castaic, and surrounding neighborhoods deserve real solutions. I will continue to take every concern seriously and remain committed to investigating all concerns raised by the community.”  Residents of both Castaic and Val Verde have been complaining for more than a year of potential health risks involved with a subsurface reaction at the landfill that has created inordinate amounts of leachate and a nauseating smell.  The Cancer Surveillance Program’s mission is to monitor and identify cancer disparities by delivering high-quality, complete, and robust data to reduce morbidity and mortality, according to the release. The program has existed since 1972 and is operated by the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California.  Thursday’s letter comes just two days after Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, D-Chatsworth, held a press conference at Hasley Canyon Park, along with about 40 residents of the surrounding community, calling on Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a state of emergency and for the county to support that action. The office of Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, had a representative at the park on Tuesday as he stood with Schiavo in calling for further action to be taken regarding the landfill.   The two legislators were the co-authors of a letter sent to Newsom last week, co-signed by 15 other California legislators, requesting assistance with helping residents. In that letter, it was stated that Schiavo had spent one night at a house in one of those “cancer clusters,” experiencing “difficulty breathing, burning eyes and skin, a headache, and the next  morning she had a nosebleed,” while of the 14 homes closest to the landfill, four people have been diagnosed with cancer in the past year.  That letter also called for a “longitudinal health study to collect appropriate data and fully understand the impact of the toxic landfill on the health of the community.”  The federal Environmental Protection Agency has collected data that shows an unhealthy amount of airborne chemicals coming from the landfill, which has led to “extreme precautions” being taken at excavation sites, though no such precautions have been granted to neighborhoods in close proximity to the landfill, the bipartisan letter states.  “We simply cannot wait as these residents’ health and well-being continue to deteriorate and  be threatened,” the bipartisan letter to the governor reads. “Every day we delay is another day their lives are put at risk by this crisis. We must act now to protect public and environmental health. We are asking you visit the neighbors and landfill, declare a state of emergency, request a federal emergency declaration, and bring the full resources of the state to address this public health and environmental disaster.”  Residents also complained Tuesday of difficulties in receiving the benefits administered by Waste Connections, which owns the landfill.  The landfill continues to deny the existence of any health impacts and cited studies that have showed “no anticipated short- or long-term health impacts due to emissions.”   “Chiquita fully recognizes and regrets that neighboring communities are suffering odor-related impacts as a result of the reaction,” according to an email Tuesday afternoon from John Musella, spokesman for Chiquita Canyon Landfill. “Chiquita is working hard to address and mitigate these impacts. Adjacent neighbors participating in the Chiquita Community Relief Program have thus far directly received nearly $9 million from Chiquita. In addition, Chiquita has distributed over 1,700 air purifiers to local residents and ensured every school classroom around the landfill has been outfitted with carbon filtration devices.”  Garcia recently introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that “ensures that current and future payments will not be considered taxable income, providing much-needed relief to families impacted by this disaster,” according to a release from Garcia’s office.  County officials have repeatedly cited all of the resources that have been deployed to help residents, including a pair of joint county, state and federal task forces.  There’s currently scrim work under way mandated by a “unilateral administrative order” issued by a Multiagency Critical Action Team, which is supervising the situation in concert with a Response Multi-Agency Coordination Group, according to an August response from Michael Brogan, press officer for the EPA, which is now supervising the task force response.  The post Barger pens letter calling for probe into ‘cancer clusters’ near Chiquita  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.