Cancer-cluster theory on paper, rage in father's heart

Because carcinogens have contaminated wells, "A lot of people still get bottled water delivered to them by the Army," Rice said.

White's family used the city's water system, so it shouldn't have consumed contaminated tap water. But scientists determined that vapors rising through the ground from the discarded chemicals had seeped into the Whites' home.

"Vapor intrusion, dioxins, Agent Orange," White said.

Enraged, he formed the Kristen Renee Foundation, named for his late daughter. In the past two years, he has plowed about $200,000 of his own money into the effort to link the chemicals dumped at Fort Detrick to decades of deaths in the community.

He hired researchers, doctors and chemists to prove his hunch that his home town is host to one of America's largest cancer clusters. Over the years, cancer has been found in 400 people within two miles of White's former home in Frederick, he learned.

Some of them have shown up at community forums, sharing their stories, comparing notes, demanding that the U.S. Army help pay their medical bills and clean up their land.

Now Barbara Brookmyer, Frederick County's health officer, is investigating whether there is a cancer cluster near Fort Detrick. A community forum will be held Thursday to hear residents' stories.

Chuck Gordon, a spokesman for Fort Detrick, said the base is cooperating with her efforts.

"It's not Fort Detrick's place to delve into public-health issues," he said. "We fully support the Frederick County Health Department as lead agency for public health and are urging anyone who approaches us with any such info to follow the proper chain and work with Dr. Brookmyer."

White, however, thinks the Army, rather than a county doctor, should step in.

A charismatic megachurch pastor with spiky blond hair and funky eyeglasses that proclaim him hipper than most men of the cloth, White holds up reams of reports when he talks about the research he's done. He stands beside a huge picture of his smiling, champagne-blond daughter, Kristen.

"This is an environmental disaster much larger than the gulf spill," said White, who is considering a class-action lawsuit against the Army.

But even if he's able to prove that the cancer cluster exists, and even if he succeeds in holding the Army accountable, it can't change the terrible health consequences for hundreds of devastated families. Including his own.

E-mail me at dvorakp@washpost.com.