Letter from longtime citizen of Downey, California

[Guest guest]

le Cerone Buckley says

Hi Everybody!!

My name is le Marie Cerone-Buckley and I lived on the 8600 Block of

Boyson St. Downey, California about 5 blocks away from the Rockwell from

1973 to 1990 my parents owned the house since 1971. In the beginning of

August 2009 my husband came home from work and was telling me about some

workers

from Downey Studios who had become injured from toxic chemicals that were

found on the site that was formerly the Rockwell site. I suppose he thought

this was very interesting considering that I lived there and that I am

chronically sick…I was busy with my activities of housework and taking care

of

my kids and I kind of brushed it off. My mom had also mentioned several

months ago that she had be researching some toxic chemicals that cause

Thyroid Dysfunction and that might be why I have had Thyroid problems since I

was

about 30. I guess I just sorta shrugged it off at the time because I

really didn’t see the whole big picture…I couldn’t really wrap my head

around

it, I guess you could say and at that time I didn’t really think much could

be done about it anyway. Then about 2 weeks ago, I met my friends from High

School at a restaurant that is located on the site that was formerly

Rockwell. I spent some time shopping in the stores that are also located at

that

site and I spent some time thinking about the history that I knew from

living nearby about that site and I started to think about those poor Downey

Studios workers and wondered if they were so injured by close contamination

did those contaminates travel out into the community through the air, water

and earth, could this be the reason why I have been so chronically sick. It

’s a pretty overwhelming thing to think about and I really didn’t know if

there would be much way to prove it so, I sorta let it go from my mind and

tried to enjoy my time with my friends but I thought that I really needed

to do some research before I could really say for sure. I generally don’t

ever feel very good especially since I have gotten older but it was strange

after hanging out on that site for a few hours how horrible I felt all last

week. That prompted me to start looking on the internet and this is where I

came into contact with Leonard and after hearing his story and speaking

with Vicky about the extent of the contamination at that site I am

very convinced that this is the source of my health problems as well as that

of my family and I am equally concerned that this issue is not over and has

the potential to keep causing health issues for people who live or work on

or around that land for a long time to come because of the heavy population

of the use of that land and the poor clean up job.

In my particular case, I have been very chronically ill since I was 17 but

looking back I am not so sure that we ever really felt very good living in

that house. We were always tired and mildly sick, always had headaches and

respiratory problems, swollen lymph nodes that I still struggle with today

and my brother always had terrible allergies that nobody ever really

understood, he just learned to live with it as have we all through the years.

He

passed away about 12 years ago from type one diabetes at the age of 28.

Which seemed very strange and we always questioned why he became sick to this

day. Interestingly enough my brother was fascinated with the space program

and spent lots of time at Rockwell open houses and rummage sales where

people were interested in buying stuff that Rockwell was liquidating…but my

brother always joked that we should wear hazmat suits for living in that

area!! I think people always suspected but nobody really knew for sure till

now!!

I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, chronic sinusitis

and when I was 17 I suffered from a blood disease that damaged my spleen and

had to be removed, I am still always tired, I currently have a benign tumor

that I have probably had since I was a child that needs to be removed and

get worn out very easy and haven’t worked in 5 years cause I have just not

been well. I now believe that the source of this was all from the toxic

chemicals that we were exposed to over many, many years from the Rockwell

superfund site. We need to work together on this issue though to create

awareness because I believe that a lot of this has been covered up but also due

to

technology of that time they didn’t have the public laws and the resources

to test for chemicals like they do now and they will try to say they just

didn’t know it was going on. But there are also much documented reports of

things that actually happened on site and from that we can try to figure

out how it affected the community around. But we need to start demanding that

the government come clean about what really happened we are going to

continue to be sick because they are treating us for illnesses that might be

close to the symptoms but does not really treat the real illness and there are

conditions that will never be reversed by any medical treatments and people

will still be dying from their exposure and lives have been destroyed

because of living with these health conditions.

I am so sorry to anybody who has been affected by governmental toxic waste

and the way it has been handled, I believe that there are many illnesses

and conditions that could have been prevented if they had taken the

precautions at the time to protect the community from these horrible

circumstances.

We always think that it is other places other people we never want to

believe that it could or did happen to us but this is real and I believe that

it is time for answers.

Thank you Leonard for providing a space where people can come together for

information, resources and a place for self-expression and understanding.

I have been told for years that they just don’t know what is wrong with me,

why I never feel good and after years hearing so much of this it gets hard

to believe that I would just be making myself sick cause they can’t figure

out what’s wrong with me. Please join with us in demanding these answers

together!!

Thanks for taking the time to read my story,

le Marie Cerone-Buckley

Best Regards,

Leonard J.