NAPLES, Italy — A center opened Friday to notify residents of potential health risks discovered during a public health assessment being done by the U.S. Navy in Naples.
Three environmental health experts staff the center, which has an office at U.S. Naval Hospital Naples on the support site in Gricignano.
Apart from the center notifying residents, people can also call the Environmental Health Information Center at DSN (314) 629-6071.
"The public now has someone they can call who can answer their questions," said Sean Ryall, the Navy chief corpsman who manages the center.
"If I don’t know the answers I have a tremendous amount of resources I can use to find them."
Ryall, a preventive medicine technician, is assisted by two other Navy medical experts. The team began Friday to notify 32 households whose survey results were completed.
The survey was Phase I of the Naples public health assessment. A report on the phase is due out in November.
Residents who participated in the survey were initially notified by representatives from TetraTech, the Germany-based company hired by the Navy to collect the samples and carry out the testing.
The new notification process allows residents to get immediate feedback from medical personnel.
"I think it’s the right answer," said Jimmy Hodges, patient care coordinator for the base hospital.
"When you get notified of the results from the health survey, you’ll be able to talk to a medical expert right away."
The Navy sampled water and soil at 166 off-base homes as part of a larger effort to determine the health risks associated with living in Naples.
Of those homes sampled, nearly one third indicated the presence of bacteria in the water, including total and fecal coliform.
The testing also revealed traces of volatile organic compounds, which pose a greater health risk, in at least three houses in the town of Casal di Principe.
"We’ll notify everyone who was part of the survey, but the priority is to contact those whose test results showed some kind of (contaminant) exceedance," Ryall explained.
In addition to bacteria, other contaminants such as dioxins and nitrates were found in survey samples.
The sources of all contaminants aren’t yet known, but some could have come from fertilizer byproducts, Ryall said.
"I hope the center helps address some of the questions people have. I don’t want the community to think their concerns are being ignored," Ryall said.
As a result of some of the findings so far, the Navy began giving out free bottled water to residents living in off-base housing and testing water in houses before leases were signed.
