[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A Native American reservation that straddles Nevada and Idaho has been left reeling after an widespread outbreak of illness and cancer diagnoses.
For years the Duck Valley Indian Reservation believed the community's health and environmental troubles were linked to two Bureau of Indian Affairs buildings where fuel and herbicides were stored, the Associated Press reported.
But the recent discovery of decades-old documents has sent shock waves through the Shoshone-Paiute tribes and raised fears the US government played a greater role in contaminating the environment than they thought.
Owyhee is the sole town on the reservation, which is home to only around 1,800 residents. Yet horrifying figures show the tribal health clinic has logged more than 500 illnesses that could be cancer since 1992 — and is currently trying to break down the data to find the most common types.
Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in Native American communities. Native Americans are more likely to get liver, stomach, kidney, lung, colorectal and breast cancers than non-Hispanic white people, according to the CDC.
But the startling number of cases on this one reservation nestled between the deep Nevada canyons and flat Idaho plains has raised major concerns.
Earlier this year members of the tribes gathered to mourn yet another loss of a loved one to cancer. Marvin Cota, a highly regarded tribal chairman, lived a healthy life for decades. When he was finally diagnosed, it was too late.
He was one of many tribal members who worked in the BIA building before falling ill.
In 1985, at the now-abandoned irrigation shop, some 8,000 gallons of heating oil leaked from a pipeline next to the highway.
Samples taken from soil and floor drains around the building revealed a mix of the hazardous chemicals that were stored inside, including waste oil, arsenic, copper, lead and cadmium, along with the two herbicides that make up Agent Orange.
Racheal Thacker, a pesticides and solid waste technician with the tribes, said residents at the time were likely unaware of the dangers related to handling the chemicals stored there.
But resident Sherry Crutcher, who's late husband Robert worked in the BIA maintenance building across from the irrigation shop, recalled how he wore a uniform that reeked of chemicals after spraying willow trees and cleaning oil wells.
Crutcher, a teacher and former natural resources director for the tribes, said employees asked for cancer screenings. She claimed the BIA did the tests and told the workers the results were negative but didn’t share the records.
She said she asked her husband if workers had any protection and was always told no. He died in 2022 from an aggressive form of brain cancer at age 58, she said.
In 1995 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned employees from dumping gasoline, batteries and other substances onto the dirt floors of the buildings - and warned that it could result in soil contamination, threaten the groundwater supply endanger community members' health.
But many believed the damage had already been done and thought this was the main reason behind the outbreak of illness and cancer in their community.
Yet documents from 1997, obtained by AP, contain a BIA employee's recollection of using at least one Agent Orange herbicide about 20 years earlier.
The employee said they used Agent Orange to clear foliage from the canals running through the reservation - the same canals where Duck Valley residents swim and use for farming. 
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