There are anecdotal reports of elevated prevalence of ALS in Walla Walla, Washington.

Prevailing winds blow from all directions towards Walla Walla. W.W. is located in the flood plain of the Columbia River at the foot of the western side of the Umatillo National Forest with elevations reaching 8000 ft. The geography and wind patterns surrounding W.W. may create a concentration of heavy radioactive dust particles from the Hanford Site.

W. W. is 65 miles SE and downwind from the Hanford Plutionium Processing Site where the prevailing winds blow from the NW towards the Umatillo National Forest. The prevailing winds at Walla Walla blow from the south and prevailing winds in Pullman, NE of Walla Walla, blow in from the east. Moses Lake, NNW of W.W., the wind blows in from the north.

Donna C. King
Environmental Health Specialist

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Half Life—The Lethal Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste

Written by Michael E. Long

Republished from the pages of National Geographic magazine (July 2002)

http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/earth/inside-the-earth/nuclear-waste.html#page=1

....Rocky flats may be DOE's poster child for cleanup success, but a sister facility, the 586-square-mile (1,517.7-square-kilometer) Hanford Site, in Washington State, is quite another matter. Here reposes the country's greatest volume of high-level nuclear waste.

The Hanford inventory includes 53 million gallons (200 million liters) of waste from plutonium processing stored in underground tanks, nearly 2,300 tons (2,087 metric tons) of spent fuel, four and a half tons (four metric tons) of plutonium, 25 million cubic feet (707,921 cubic meters) of solid waste, and 38 billion cubic feet (1.1 billion cubic meters) of contaminated soil and groundwater. In a storage pool I look at the nation's most lethal single source of radiation excepting reactor cores—1,936 steel cylinders containing cesium and strontium covered by 13 feet (3.9 meters) of water. When a technician switches off the lights, radiation from the cylinders puts on a light show of royal blue.

Hanford reactors made plutonium for the first nuclear explosion, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945 and for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki (the Hiroshima bomb used uranium). Hanford had produced about 59 tons (53 metric tons) of bomb-grade plutonium by the time it closed in 1989.

From the earliest days, Hanford scientists observed that radionuclides—a catchall term for radioactive atoms—were entering the environment. Iodine 131, a gas by-product of plutonium processing, escaped from unfiltered stacks. Water taken from the nearby Columbia River to cool reactors was returned to the river with a burden of radioactive sodium, zinc, arsenic, even some -ium elements.

Later, waste stored in underground tanks leaked into the soil, and 45 billion gallons (170 billion liters) of contaminated liquids were dumped onsite, some near leaking tanks. Thus contaminated plumes were created underground, some threatening the Columbia. The press began reporting claims of increasing rates of cancer in people and birth defects in people and animals in farm areas near Hanford.

In September 1985 Michael Lawrence, DOE manager of the site, met the farmers to consider their concerns. That radiation causes illness in an individual is virtually impossible to prove; nonetheless Lawrence decided to release previously classified information, beginning with 19,000 pages of documents written by Hanford scientists as far back as 1943. Lawrence was the first DOE official to do such a thing, and his decision "raised some eyebrows," he remembers, back in Washington, D.C.

In Hanford other eyebrows were raising, especially those of Michele Gerber, a housewife, mother, and trained historian who was poring over the released documents. "The scientists didn't believe the texts would be read in their lifetime," Gerber told me. "I was dumbfounded at how shockingly candid they were."

During early releases of iodine 131 in the 1940s, technicians nonchalantly recorded that the radioactive gas was spreading farther than anticipated. "They just enlarged their sampling circles," Gerber said, "to 25, 50, 100, 150 miles (40, 80, 161, 241 kilometers), all the way to Spokane and Walla Walla."

http://www.union-bulletin.com/content/articles/2007/01/14/local_news/local2.jpg

Lou Gehrig's Disease victim to keep swinging away
Carrie Fernald makes a pitch to educate patients and families.

By Sheila Hagar

When Carrie Fernald was first diagnosed with her illness, the College Place resident had barely heard of it and couldn't even pronounce the name, she recalled.


Edison Elementary School students fill the cafeteria for lunch, sitting beneath the same basketball hoops used when the room functions as a gym during other parts of the day. U-B photo by Matthew B. Zimmerman

Two years later, Fernald has become well versed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

Fernald and her daughter, Olivia, traveled to Japan in November to take part in an international ALS symposium. It was an important step in reaching Fernald's self-imposed mission to educate herself as much as possible so she can reach out to others, she said.

And a step to take while she still can.

Clad in red shirt, blue jeans and white sneakers, the 52-year-old looks healthy and strong as she perches on the sofa in the home she and her husband bought 30 years ago. Her laugh, infectious and frequent, carries through the rooms of the one-level house still swathed in Christmas decorations.

For Jeff and Carrie Fernald, life has usually gone steadily forward. She worked as a hair stylist in the Walla Walla area for three decades; he wrangled paperwork and insurance estimates for Northwest Collision....

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PLM:

Carrie Fernald Female, 54 years United States WAWA, United States
legs onset: 08/02 Dx: 09/04
Type: ALS/Motor Neuron Disease

Donna, I realize it probably seems to you that on this possible link to atomic radiation, you're preaching at a brick wall. I hope you don't get discouraged.

The problems we have over here in the pew seats include:

1. The demographic evidence is weak, since reliable facts are so hard to obtain.

2. The primary theory seems to be that miniscule amounts of atomic radiation can cause ALS, which some of us have a hard time regarding as adequate cause, given that large amounts of atomic radiation exposure have apparently not caused epidemics of ALS.

3. The molecular biology stuff goes over most of our heads most of the time.

4. Doing research connecting the dots between atomic radiation and disease is a political hot potato, making research very difficult because government and the atomic industry falsify, destroy, and keep secret so much data. I wised up to the government con game on atomic stuff as a teenager by discovering it for myself without anyone having to tell me.

* * * * * * *

So, are you really onto something with this atomic radiation & ALS theory? Maybe so, but I can't tell from where I sit. I hope you'll persist until the answer becomes reasonably clear to most of us. Thank you.

--Dave J.

Walla Walla is confirmed to be "downwind" from Hanford.

Donna

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http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Hanford+likely+caused+cancer+downwind%2c+jury+decides%3b+Decision+in+2...-a0132644361

Hanford likely caused cancer downwind, jury decides; Decision in 2 cases a historic first; Medical claims of 3 others rejected.

Byline: Warren Cornwall; Seattle Times staff reporter 2005

A federal jury yesterday found that the Hanford factories that produced plutonium for the nation's nuclear arsenal probably caused cancer in two people living in nearby towns.

The decision by the jury in Spokane is a historic first for those who have accused the federal government and contractors of sickening people by secretly releasing radiation -- affirming the claims of at least some "downwinders". A jury has never before said a U.S. nuclear-bomb plant sickened citizens living downwind.

The 12-member jury found that thyroid cancer suffered by two plaintiffs more likely than not came from radiation that Hanford released, exposing them as children in the 1940s and early '50s.

The jury awarded one of the cancer victims, Steve Stanton of Walla Walla $227,508 for economic losses and pain and suffering. The other, Gloria Wise of Kennewick, was awarded $317,251....

The 12-member jury found that thyroid cancer suffered by two plaintiffs more likely than not came from radiation that Hanford released, exposing them as children in the 1940s and early '50s.

Addition to Table 1:

10) F;....age 25; 1943, 1946-49, ?-2012 in WW;.…died 2012; age 87;….63 years after 1949

Kathryn Wanda Casebolt, age 87, of College Place (SW suburb of WW) 06/22/1924-03/24/2012

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Correction: Alternative crude prevalence rate of ALS in 1949: 29.8/100,000

On the face of it, Walla Walla seems to be ( and has been ) a quite insular community of predominantly white folk ( currently nearly 84% ). These conditions would not be conducive for the development of hybrid vigor and the stage would be set for a susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walla_Walla,_Washington

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LXXYYxhHhE

Additions:

10) Kathryn Wanda Casebolt, age 87, of College Place (WW suburb) 06/22/1924-03/24/2012
11)Sarah Bechthold, age 87, dairy farmer 40 years in WW; 06/22/1913-01/29/2001
12) Bobby J Rhay, age 91; pilot in WWII; ~70 years in WW 01/29/1921–06/17/2012

The Pacific Northwest has the second highest incidence of Multiple Sclerosis in the world, with Lincoln County leading the way in cases per capita.

http://www.lincolnhospital.org/index.php/information-center/ms-seld-help-group

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Lincoln County, WA is immediately downwind from the Hanford Site similar to Walla Walla Co., WA.

http://toxipedia.org/display/toxipedia/Green+Run+-+Hanford

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http://www.medicalveritas.com/images/00030.pdf

Linkage— Multiple Sclerosis and Ionizing Radiation

Walter B. Eidbo, M.D. Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.
Merle P. Prater, Ph.D. Ames, Iowa, U.S.A.

In learning that ionizing radiation is considered the probable cause of Down's syndrome,23.24 and when in 1983 there was a considered epidemic of MS in Spokane County, Washington, Prater speculated that there might also be a connection between high MS prevalence and the contamination of eastern Washington from a very heavy 40 year downwind radiological fall-out from nearby U.S. Hanford Nuclear Reservation nuclear weapon production. In addition this area was in the path of radionuclide fall-out from Russian and U.S. nuclear bomb tests. Prater outlined these thoughts at a seminar conducted by several Spokane medical doctors who were concerned about the number of MS cases in Spokane County. Prater's contributions were taken into consideration but with little apparent further action.

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Example of Systemic Sociological Pervasive Paralysis.

The Palomares accident is back in the news, but according to the article the local folk do not seem to have developed any related illness from plutonium exposure.........so far..

http://www.theworld.org/2012/06/spain-palomares-bomb/

'Over the years there’s been no evidence that anyone has fallen sick as a result of the accident.'