Why does anyone live in Spring Valley?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The neighborhood is beautiful, but it's basically a toxic waste site. I could never understand why anyone- esp anyone with small children- would ever live there any knowingly take that risk.

That is because you don't understand the pathways and exposure risk for these contaminants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pardon me, as a neurosurgeon, for weighing in here. Each year about 80,000 brain tumors are diagnosed in the country. There are believed to be about 700,000 people with a brain tumor at any given time. Assuming a population of 315,000,000, this means that 1 in every 450 people has a brain tumor.

Spring Valley is probably about 4000-5000 people. Thus, we should expect to see 10 people in Spring Valley with a brain tumor at present. Given the focality of this issue, people living elsewhere that once lived in Spring Valley may perhaps believe their tumor is a result of their previous residence. Bald statistics already suggest approximately 10 Spring Valley residents have a brain tumor for reasons completely unrelated to toxic chemicals. The misattribution of other cases to Spring Valley serves to further paint what is likely a deeply misleading portrait of ill health.

You may call me a naysayer, but these are just statistics and logic. I'm not trying to represent any side in this discussion other than facts.

You need some of idea of who the impacted population is to calculate the rates of major health events. I'm not sure anyone thinks it's all of Spring Valley, but there are clearly some areas that have a very high density of buried munitions and were likely also used for testing. Those areas, as far as I know, have not been looked at in anything like a rigorous way. Please correct me and point to the rigorous look at this if it exists.

I'm not sure you're wrong, but I don't see enough of a close look to feel that any particular take on the safety of those areas is established.

Yes and no.

I'm unaware of any study of just a select group of, say, 15 homes. But, underlying your comments is, at some level, a betrayal of our understanding of epidemiology. If you look close enough and far enough for anything, you'll find it. Take prostate cancer for example. 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with it. But, if you were to test every male at death, perhaps half would display prostate cancer. (See "Prevalence of incidental prostate cancer: A systematic review of autopsy studies," International Journal of Cancer, 2015.) Increased PSA testing, for example, will lead to over-detection (and over-treatment).

We can buttress this argument with an appeal to probability. Let's suppose there are 600 homes in Spring Valley and there are four residents per home, on average. Both estimates are likely conservative. Suppose all homes were constructed 80 years ago. While the average duration of a mortgage is between 6-7 years, suggesting homes change ownership somewhere near this range, let's continue being conservative and suppose homes only sell every 20 years on average. These numbers mean the average home in Spring Valley has housed 16 residents over its lifetime. (This is quite conservative due to the compounding of our conservative assumptions; the real number is probably something like 25.)

Upon reading the linked articles, it seems reasonable to me that all 16 residents of each home would ascribe their maladies to the time they lived in Spring Valley. Anecdotal reports like those exemplified by the Washingtonian article and the Facebook page produce a dramatic but entirely unsubstantiated picture of health.

Lastly, I return to my earlier point. We as a profession understand epidemiology. This understanding is utterly lacking in the histrionics displayed in these posts.

Well, yeah doing 'best practices' epidemiology is something that should be definitely done here. But it's also at best a reasonable minimum. This is a problem that is both novel and potentially quite serious. If you know just how provisional even the absolute best, most elegant science is, I wouldn't be content with much less than a very aggressive attempt to disprove casualty. (And as an aside epidemiology isn't even vaguely in the class of the best, most elegant science). While a back-of-the-envelope calculation might be good for intuition, it can't be the whole story.

Most of telling of all to me, is the fact that even with the vast resources of the offending party, DoD/US Govt., that there hasn't been an aggressive attempt to challenge a hypothesis of serious problems there. You can call that "histrionics", but that has yet to be even remotely established as the most likely explanation.

[Anonymous]

If there's any doubt, why buy there at all when you could buy somewhere else?

[Anonymous]

Wow, this is crazy stuff https://www.washingtonian.com/2013/02/28/the-toxic-waste-pit-next-door/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pardon me, as a neurosurgeon, for weighing in here. Each year about 80,000 brain tumors are diagnosed in the country. There are believed to be about 700,000 people with a brain tumor at any given time. Assuming a population of 315,000,000, this means that 1 in every 450 people has a brain tumor.

Spring Valley is probably about 4000-5000 people. Thus, we should expect to see 10 people in Spring Valley with a brain tumor at present. Given the focality of this issue, people living elsewhere that once lived in Spring Valley may perhaps believe their tumor is a result of their previous residence. Bald statistics already suggest approximately 10 Spring Valley residents have a brain tumor for reasons completely unrelated to toxic chemicals. The misattribution of other cases to Spring Valley serves to further paint what is likely a deeply misleading portrait of ill health.

You may call me a naysayer, but these are just statistics and logic. I'm not trying to represent any side in this discussion other than facts.

You need some of idea of who the impacted population is to calculate the rates of major health events. I'm not sure anyone thinks it's all of Spring Valley, but there are clearly some areas that have a very high density of buried munitions and were likely also used for testing. Those areas, as far as I know, have not been looked at in anything like a rigorous way. Please correct me and point to the rigorous look at this if it exists.

I'm not sure you're wrong, but I don't see enough of a close look to feel that any particular take on the safety of those areas is established.

Yes and no.

I'm unaware of any study of just a select group of, say, 15 homes. But, underlying your comments is, at some level, a betrayal of our understanding of epidemiology. If you look close enough and far enough for anything, you'll find it. Take prostate cancer for example. 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with it. But, if you were to test every male at death, perhaps half would display prostate cancer. (See "Prevalence of incidental prostate cancer: A systematic review of autopsy studies," International Journal of Cancer, 2015.) Increased PSA testing, for example, will lead to over-detection (and over-treatment).

We can buttress this argument with an appeal to probability. Let's suppose there are 600 homes in Spring Valley and there are four residents per home, on average. Both estimates are likely conservative. Suppose all homes were constructed 80 years ago. While the average duration of a mortgage is between 6-7 years, suggesting homes change ownership somewhere near this range, let's continue being conservative and suppose homes only sell every 20 years on average. These numbers mean the average home in Spring Valley has housed 16 residents over its lifetime. (This is quite conservative due to the compounding of our conservative assumptions; the real number is probably something like 25.)

Upon reading the linked articles, it seems reasonable to me that all 16 residents of each home would ascribe their maladies to the time they lived in Spring Valley. Anecdotal reports like those exemplified by the Washingtonian article and the Facebook page produce a dramatic but entirely unsubstantiated picture of health.

Lastly, I return to my earlier point. We as a profession understand epidemiology. This understanding is utterly lacking in the histrionics displayed in these posts.

Well, yeah doing 'best practices' epidemiology is something that should be definitely done here. But it's also at best a reasonable minimum. This is a problem that is both novel and potentially quite serious. If you know just how provisional even the absolute best, most elegant science is, I wouldn't be content with much less than a very aggressive attempt to disprove casualty. (And as an aside epidemiology isn't even vaguely in the class of the best, most elegant science). While a back-of-the-envelope calculation might be good for intuition, it can't be the whole story.

Most of telling of all to me, is the fact that even with the vast resources of the offending party, DoD/US Govt., that there hasn't been an aggressive attempt to challenge a hypothesis of serious problems there. You can call that "histrionics", but that has yet to be even remotely established as the most likely explanation.

I see you reposted your statement from last page. Just had to get that last word in on the thread, eh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pardon me, as a neurosurgeon, for weighing in here. Each year about 80,000 brain tumors are diagnosed in the country. There are believed to be about 700,000 people with a brain tumor at any given time. Assuming a population of 315,000,000, this means that 1 in every 450 people has a brain tumor.

Spring Valley is probably about 4000-5000 people. Thus, we should expect to see 10 people in Spring Valley with a brain tumor at present. Given the focality of this issue, people living elsewhere that once lived in Spring Valley may perhaps believe their tumor is a result of their previous residence. Bald statistics already suggest approximately 10 Spring Valley residents have a brain tumor for reasons completely unrelated to toxic chemicals. The misattribution of other cases to Spring Valley serves to further paint what is likely a deeply misleading portrait of ill health.

You may call me a naysayer, but these are just statistics and logic. I'm not trying to represent any side in this discussion other than facts.

You need some of idea of who the impacted population is to calculate the rates of major health events. I'm not sure anyone thinks it's all of Spring Valley, but there are clearly some areas that have a very high density of buried munitions and were likely also used for testing. Those areas, as far as I know, have not been looked at in anything like a rigorous way. Please correct me and point to the rigorous look at this if it exists.

I'm not sure you're wrong, but I don't see enough of a close look to feel that any particular take on the safety of those areas is established.

Yes and no.

I'm unaware of any study of just a select group of, say, 15 homes. But, underlying your comments is, at some level, a betrayal of our understanding of epidemiology. If you look close enough and far enough for anything, you'll find it. Take prostate cancer for example. 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with it. But, if you were to test every male at death, perhaps half would display prostate cancer. (See "Prevalence of incidental prostate cancer: A systematic review of autopsy studies," International Journal of Cancer, 2015.) Increased PSA testing, for example, will lead to over-detection (and over-treatment).

We can buttress this argument with an appeal to probability. Let's suppose there are 600 homes in Spring Valley and there are four residents per home, on average. Both estimates are likely conservative. Suppose all homes were constructed 80 years ago. While the average duration of a mortgage is between 6-7 years, suggesting homes change ownership somewhere near this range, let's continue being conservative and suppose homes only sell every 20 years on average. These numbers mean the average home in Spring Valley has housed 16 residents over its lifetime. (This is quite conservative due to the compounding of our conservative assumptions; the real number is probably something like 25.)

Upon reading the linked articles, it seems reasonable to me that all 16 residents of each home would ascribe their maladies to the time they lived in Spring Valley. Anecdotal reports like those exemplified by the Washingtonian article and the Facebook page produce a dramatic but entirely unsubstantiated picture of health.

Lastly, I return to my earlier point. We as a profession understand epidemiology. This understanding is utterly lacking in the histrionics displayed in these posts.

I'd wager the neurosurgeon is writing in an attempt to protect his investment in Spring Valley.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pardon me, as a neurosurgeon, for weighing in here. Each year about 80,000 brain tumors are diagnosed in the country. There are believed to be about 700,000 people with a brain tumor at any given time. Assuming a population of 315,000,000, this means that 1 in every 450 people has a brain tumor.

Spring Valley is probably about 4000-5000 people. Thus, we should expect to see 10 people in Spring Valley with a brain tumor at present. Given the focality of this issue, people living elsewhere that once lived in Spring Valley may perhaps believe their tumor is a result of their previous residence. Bald statistics already suggest approximately 10 Spring Valley residents have a brain tumor for reasons completely unrelated to toxic chemicals. The misattribution of other cases to Spring Valley serves to further paint what is likely a deeply misleading portrait of ill health.

You may call me a naysayer, but these are just statistics and logic. I'm not trying to represent any side in this discussion other than facts.

You need some of idea of who the impacted population is to calculate the rates of major health events. I'm not sure anyone thinks it's all of Spring Valley, but there are clearly some areas that have a very high density of buried munitions and were likely also used for testing. Those areas, as far as I know, have not been looked at in anything like a rigorous way. Please correct me and point to the rigorous look at this if it exists.

I'm not sure you're wrong, but I don't see enough of a close look to feel that any particular take on the safety of those areas is established.

Yes and no.

I'm unaware of any study of just a select group of, say, 15 homes. But, underlying your comments is, at some level, a betrayal of our understanding of epidemiology. If you look close enough and far enough for anything, you'll find it. Take prostate cancer for example. 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with it. But, if you were to test every male at death, perhaps half would display prostate cancer. (See "Prevalence of incidental prostate cancer: A systematic review of autopsy studies," International Journal of Cancer, 2015.) Increased PSA testing, for example, will lead to over-detection (and over-treatment).

We can buttress this argument with an appeal to probability. Let's suppose there are 600 homes in Spring Valley and there are four residents per home, on average. Both estimates are likely conservative. Suppose all homes were constructed 80 years ago. While the average duration of a mortgage is between 6-7 years, suggesting homes change ownership somewhere near this range, let's continue being conservative and suppose homes only sell every 20 years on average. These numbers mean the average home in Spring Valley has housed 16 residents over its lifetime. (This is quite conservative due to the compounding of our conservative assumptions; the real number is probably something like 25.)

Upon reading the linked articles, it seems reasonable to me that all 16 residents of each home would ascribe their maladies to the time they lived in Spring Valley. Anecdotal reports like those exemplified by the Washingtonian article and the Facebook page produce a dramatic but entirely unsubstantiated picture of health.

Lastly, I return to my earlier point. We as a profession understand epidemiology. This understanding is utterly lacking in the histrionics displayed in these posts.

I'd wager the neurosurgeon is writing in an attempt to protect his investment in Spring Valley.

I would wager that you're some nobody recent transplant from a Midwest school hoping like hell people with money start moving to your shit hole neighborhood be it hill east or brightwood or what ever area the no nothings are relegated to currently move to and you're just happy to have a little something to pick at the people you envy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pardon me, as a neurosurgeon, for weighing in here. Each year about 80,000 brain tumors are diagnosed in the country. There are believed to be about 700,000 people with a brain tumor at any given time. Assuming a population of 315,000,000, this means that 1 in every 450 people has a brain tumor.

Spring Valley is probably about 4000-5000 people. Thus, we should expect to see 10 people in Spring Valley with a brain tumor at present. Given the focality of this issue, people living elsewhere that once lived in Spring Valley may perhaps believe their tumor is a result of their previous residence. Bald statistics already suggest approximately 10 Spring Valley residents have a brain tumor for reasons completely unrelated to toxic chemicals. The misattribution of other cases to Spring Valley serves to further paint what is likely a deeply misleading portrait of ill health.

You may call me a naysayer, but these are just statistics and logic. I'm not trying to represent any side in this discussion other than facts.

You need some of idea of who the impacted population is to calculate the rates of major health events. I'm not sure anyone thinks it's all of Spring Valley, but there are clearly some areas that have a very high density of buried munitions and were likely also used for testing. Those areas, as far as I know, have not been looked at in anything like a rigorous way. Please correct me and point to the rigorous look at this if it exists.

I'm not sure you're wrong, but I don't see enough of a close look to feel that any particular take on the safety of those areas is established.

Yes and no.

I'm unaware of any study of just a select group of, say, 15 homes. But, underlying your comments is, at some level, a betrayal of our understanding of epidemiology. If you look close enough and far enough for anything, you'll find it. Take prostate cancer for example. 1 in 7 men will be diagnosed with it. But, if you were to test every male at death, perhaps half would display prostate cancer. (See "Prevalence of incidental prostate cancer: A systematic review of autopsy studies," International Journal of Cancer, 2015.) Increased PSA testing, for example, will lead to over-detection (and over-treatment).

We can buttress this argument with an appeal to probability. Let's suppose there are 600 homes in Spring Valley and there are four residents per home, on average. Both estimates are likely conservative. Suppose all homes were constructed 80 years ago. While the average duration of a mortgage is between 6-7 years, suggesting homes change ownership somewhere near this range, let's continue being conservative and suppose homes only sell every 20 years on average. These numbers mean the average home in Spring Valley has housed 16 residents over its lifetime. (This is quite conservative due to the compounding of our conservative assumptions; the real number is probably something like 25.)

Upon reading the linked articles, it seems reasonable to me that all 16 residents of each home would ascribe their maladies to the time they lived in Spring Valley. Anecdotal reports like those exemplified by the Washingtonian article and the Facebook page produce a dramatic but entirely unsubstantiated picture of health.

Lastly, I return to my earlier point. We as a profession understand epidemiology. This understanding is utterly lacking in the histrionics displayed in these posts.

I'd wager the neurosurgeon is writing in an attempt to protect his investment in Spring Valley.

I would wager that you're some nobody recent transplant from a Midwest school hoping like hell people with money start moving to your shit hole neighborhood be it hill east or brightwood or what ever area the no nothings are relegated to currently move to and you're just happy to have a little something to pick at the people you envy.

This is just weird.

[Anonymous]

Wow, I guess airplane noise isn't the biggest issue in Spring Valley.

[Anonymous]

Think nothing of the hostile neurosurgeon who lives in Spring Valley. If you had subjected your children to a superfund site, you be every bit as bitter and confrontational as he is in attempting to justify it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think nothing of the hostile neurosurgeon who lives in Spring Valley. If you had subjected your children to a superfund site, you be every bit as bitter and confrontational as he is in attempting to justify it.

Why would you possibly assume it was the neurosurgeon who replied? Your deductive reasoning skills need help.

[Anonymous]

Same reason people live near MS13 members and high crime areas like Capitol Hill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Think nothing of the hostile neurosurgeon who lives in Spring Valley. If you had subjected your children to a superfund site, you be every bit as bitter and confrontational as he is in attempting to justify it.

Why would you possibly assume it was the neurosurgeon who replied? Your deductive reasoning skills need help.

Yes, this. I have posted twice in this thread, both times with medical statistics.

Someone asked if I would live in Spring Valley with young children. I would. Based on my review of the case history, I would have few reservations. (I have read the available documents from a forensic perspective. (Attorneys frequently ask physicians to review case histories to provide expert testimony in court. I have no relationship with this "case," but I applied the same approach here.))

Obviously I don't need to further address the "protecting my home value" post. I can assure you anyway that even a few hundred thousand dollar swing in value would have no material impact upon my family. I would imagine that's the case for many of the homeowners in Spring Valley, so resort to such reductionist arguments with caution. (Besides, transactions records seem to indicate no effect on prices, though I'm pretty far afield of my expertise on this topic.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If there's any doubt, why buy there at all when you could buy somewhere else?

+1. Regardless of what the neurosurgeon states, there is more than enough anecdotal evidence from people I know who have lived in SV over the years that I'd avoid it. There are plenty of nice neighborhoods in DC that do not have munitions in the backyard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If there's any doubt, why buy there at all when you could buy somewhere else?

+1. Regardless of what the neurosurgeon states, there is more than enough anecdotal evidence from people I know who have lived in SV over the years that I'd avoid it. There are plenty of nice neighborhoods in DC that do not have munitions in the backyard.

Because as sentient beings, we are capable of making informed decisions based off of more than just anecdotes. You should hold yourself to a higher standard. At the very least, you should not cast aspersions upon those that exercise thought.