According to the report, more studies are needed to validate the numbers and names of cancer cases provided by VMTE based on its 2005 health survey of current and former residents. VMTE's list includes many names of people diagnosed prior to the Cancer Registry, as well as people who were diagnosed outside Utah.

The UDOH report noted that it would have to determine whether former residents who moved out of state were not later exposed to other cancer agents elsewhere. According to Grant, it will also be difficult to determine how many cancer patients there were prior to the beginning of the Cancer Registry in 1973. The UDOH will have to decide whether such studies are feasible.

The report did acknowledge that "residents of Monticello were exposed to numerous chemical and radioactive contaminants due to activities of the uranium-processing mill."

The mill operated on the south side of town from 1943 to the beginning of 1960, processing both vanadium and uranium; the uranium was believed to have been used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Project.

The uranium ore, trucked in from hundreds of mines in the area, was pulverized into fine yellow dust that was blown by the prevailing winds across the town, and was tracked home by workers to unsuspecting family members.

The current residents want the federal government, which owned the mill, to tell them, as Jackie Steele says, "what came out of that smokestack," by performing a "dose reconstruction" if necessary. Her husband Pete, a former uranium miner, has multiple myeloma and pulmonary fibrosis. Once 6-feet-3-inches, Pete has lost 8 inches in height because of the bone cancer. Jackie's sister has two sons diagnosed with cancer.

The federal government abandoned the mill in 1960, but did nothing to protect townspeople from what was left behind — including tailings piles that became a favorite playground for children, and provided "sand" for sandboxes, brick mortar and road base.

The government has nearly completed its clean up of the mill site. City officials point out that the town is now safe.

The town first noticed what might be cancer clusters in the 1960s when seven young people living within blocks of each other died of leukemia. Since then, there have been at least 18 other leukemia cases, according to the VMTE health survey. One more leukemia case was added on yesterday.

VMTE's list includes more than 416 cancers; the UDOH's study included 141.

The cases are now reaching into the fourth generation, possibly because of genetic effects of earlier exposure, says Jackie Steele.

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E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com