Residential History and Groundwater Modeling: Gallagher et al. Respond

摘要

We thank Schaider et al.for their interest in our research on possible environmental causes of breast cancer in upper Cape Cod, Massachusetts (Gallagher et al.2010).Our study was prompted by an earlier spatial analysis that revealed a geographic overlap between groundwater plumes in upper Cape Cod and an area of increased breast cancer risk.These plumes indicated areas of concern around landfills and waste water facilities, large point sources of contaminants to groundwater, as shown in Figure 1 of our article (Gallagher et al.2010).We determined that among these plumes, the plume associated with the Barnstable Wastewater Pollution Control Facility (BWPCF) was the only point source with the potential to impact the drinking water of our study popu lation.The BWPCF treats both residential and commercial waste from a broad geographic area.