HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. -- A major movement in a long fight involving a cancer cluster near Hopewell High School has finally seen some progress.
Parents have been battling CMS for years to allow scientists on the property to see if they can figure out what's going on. Now, after two long years, that testing is finally underway.
“Keenan was the perfect daughter and she was beautiful and fun-loving and kind, did everything right,” Sue Colbert says, clutching a picture of her daughter.
Keenan Colbert Koll was just 28 when she died. She'd battled a rare form of cancer called ocular melanoma for five years.
“We miss her every day,” her mom says, tearing up.
Keenan graduated from Hopewell, which seems to be ground zero for an unexplained cancer cluster. Keenan is one of more than a dozen known cases of people in or near the school who suffered from the cancer, even though statistics show it only strikes five in every million people a year.
Dr. Kathleen Gordon is one of the leading experts in the field and says, “It’s very interesting outside of the norm, outside of what we expect to see when we look at the demographics.”
So Kenny and Sue colbert and other impacted families have been trying for two years to get cms to let them do environmental tests on the land at Hopewell.
“I now know what it feels like to fight city hall, to fight big government and its not an easy road,” Sue says.
This week, CMS agreed and the testing is now underway.
Kenny says, “Finally it looks like somebody is willing to stand up and say yes we we’ll take the lead on this.”
His wife adds, “We think we're making progress we just want someone to take a look and make sure our community is safe.”
That environmental testing is just phase one and started on Wednesday. CMS hired a firm that is taking soil samples and a history of the area. That report is due back to cms in a couple of weeks