...My family’s lived on 204th street, formerly Maple Ave from about 1947 to 1958. Our house backed up to a dirt path the the local dairy farmers would herd their milk cows. Then there was the railroad tracks and then the chain link fence of the plant.

we never knew, until the mid 80’s that our house was in a DDT superfund site. My mother had a vegetable garden in the back yard and a clothes line. There were my parents and four children ages 10 to 2.

My father also had a steel mill up the street on 204th street on the same side of the street four houses closer plant to home. Normandie was several blocks west of us.

Long since iving in that neighborhood, my mother, sister and I have all had breast cancer. My sister and I were tested for the BRCA gene. We did not have it. I then told the genetics doctor that we lived very very near a plant that produced DDT. His response was, that’s probably where the breast cancer comes from. I am now 78 and have been diagnosed 10 years ago with a blood disorder that eventually becomes full blown bone cancer...multiple myeloma.

uve driven by the property that still stands but beginning two doors from our old house the neighborhood has been raised all the way to Vermont.

id like to find out if any of our neighborhood childhood friends have had some of the things my siblings and I have experienced. My brother is in touch with one of the White children. I’m going to check with him.

do you have records if similar illnesses in residents from that time period??

joan Revell Ryan

pslm Desert, CA

jryan1004@gmail.com