Bowcock led a roundtable discussion Monday with local, state and Patrick Air Force Base officials in a closed-door meeting at City Hall about recent and past drinking water and groundwater pollution concerns.
Brockovich and Bowcock plan to return to Satellite Beach on Sept. 29, Bowcock said, to hold a community meeting about the local cancer concerns.
Catino told them it was a private meeting, because fewer than three elected city officials were there at any given time.
Three years after her son’s diagnosis, as he recovers, she wants answers about the safety of what they drink and breathe in their home.
"It was because we were drinking swamp water," Altman said of Lake Washington, a primary supply for the utility.
Local cancer concerns reemerged in the Satellite Beach area after Dr. Julie Clift Greenwalt, a Jacksonville oncologist, cancer survivor and Satellite High School grad, began questioning whether local environmental exposures contributed to her rare cancer (of the appendix) and the cancers of about 20 fellow SHS grads.
Recent city groundwater tests at three wells also found fluorinated chemicals linked to the foams (as well as other sources), as did recent groundwater and wastewater tests by the city of Cocoa Beach.
In response to the concerns, Brevard Public Schools tested tap water at its 13 beachside schools, finding nine schools on Melbourne’s drinking water system tested at trace levels of a fluorinated compound called perfluorobutanoic acid, or PFBA.
Followup tests at three schools found similar levels, which city utility officials have said.
She coordinated independent testing for the fluorinated chemicals in canals and residences in the Satellite Beach area, results she’d planned to present Monday.