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SHIPPINGPORT (KDKA) ― A KDKA investigation finds strange, unexplained illness among the people who live in the shadow of the Bruce Mansfield Power Plant in Shippingport.

This word comes after the plant rained soot on the community three times in the past year.

It's difficult to prove, but on the surface it raises suspicions. There are quite a few people getting sick in the Beaver Valley and some with very strange conditions, including one little girl who lost all of her hair within weeks of last year's black rain.

Gracie, 4, lost all of her hair last year to a skin condition called alopecia.

"You can see in 2006, before this fallout, she had beautiful, gorgeous hair," Edith Mayhew, her grandmother, said.

Mayhew says Gracie started losing her hair just two weeks after a shower of black gunk rained down on Shippingport and surrounding towns. The sludge, which fell on Gracie and a now-abandoned pile of toys, was found to contain dangerous chemicals like arsenic and thallium, a known cause of alopecia.

"My daughter notices, 'Wow, she's losing a lot of hair.' Then a week later, 'Mom, she's getting a bald spot,'" Mayhew said. "And you could just see as a week, you know just going by, the hair just falling out. It was globs of it."

Gracie is one of a dozen people whose families believe they have developed mysterious illnesses because they live near the Bruce Mansfield Plant.

After another fallout incident in June of this year, Gracie's uncle, Wesley Mayhew, developed welts all over his body. Ralph Hysong has serious respiratory problems and says the Valley has high rates of cancer.

"The people around here don't die of old age they die of cancer," Hysong said.

But First Energy, the owner and operator of the plant, denies any connection between these health problems and the plant. In a statement the company says: "The Bruce Mansfield Plant meets the standard established by the Clean Air Act to protect the health and the environment."

As for Gracie's hair loss, the company states the presence of thallium in the black rain would, "not be sufficient to cause adverse health effects."

But what surprises Hysong is that state agencies like the State Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Health agree with the company in large part.

"The people that's supposed to look out for us, DEP, they don't care. Our politicians don't care, and of all, the PA Department of Health don't care," Hysong said.

The DEP levied two fines of $25,000 each on First Energy for the black rain incidents and called in the Department of Health which said the gunk did not pose a serious health threat.

"The Department of Health determined that the short-term exposure should not have a long-term health risk," DEP Spokesperson Helen Humphries said.

Sheehan: "Do you believe or can you say with assurity that the stack rain did not cause this young girl to lose her hair?"

Humphries: "I don't think anyone can conclude that it did or it didn't at this point."

When residents asked the State Health Department to conduct a study to address their concerns, the department declined.

"I'm very angry. This is something that she's going to have to live with for the rest of her life," Mayhew said.

An environmental group called Penn Future has sued First Energy for alleged violation of clean air standards, but the suit does not draw a connection between the emissions and these specific health problems.

A lawyer recently placed an ad in the Beaver County Times asking people with health problems to contact her about possible legal action. She says in just two short weeks, 90 people have responded.

We'll keep you posted.

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