Please Stand By: New Reporters Coming Soon
Hello Maryvale, we have built a nice website that we can report the news and events focused on Maryvale Village in Phoenix AZ. We are expecting to employ two reporters to produce the news soon.
Did You Know?
Maryvale Village is one of fifteen Urban Village Districts in the City of Phoenix. We have the highest population and have the youngest average age of all the districts.
Plans for Maryvale began to take shape in the 1950s, when developer John F. Long designed a master-planned community for the western side of Phoenix, The idea was to turn the industrail area and farming land into a suburb for middle-class Phoenicians.
It was the first master-planned community in Arizona and one of the first planned communities in the country. Maryvale was designed to include space for parks, schools, and the fulfillment of other community services.
The community was named after Long’s wife, Mary Long, and its initial master plan was drawn up by architect Victor Gruen. By 1956, Long was selling 125 homes a week in Maryvale.
Demographic changes came to the area in 1980’s, as residents began moving to the North Valley because of the discovery of a cancer cluster. As a result property values began to fall.
Maryvale was noted as being built on farmland at a time when the pesticide DDT was in regular use. Maryvale is also the location of a state Superfund site known as the West Central Phoenix Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund (WQARF), which was caused by the dumping of chemicals, including TCE, by a number of industries in the area. As a result, the water under the area is not used in the public drinking water system.
The Cancer Cluster
In 1987, community residents became aware of the fact that Maryvale was part of a cancer cluster. From 1970 to 1986, newborns to 19-year-olds died of Leukemia at a rate twice the era’s national average. In addition, a study that began in 1983 and was released in 1987 revealed that, in the same general area of the cancer cluster, elevated rates of birth defects were identified.
The state’s Department of Health Services (ADHS) was reportedly aware of the cancer cluster problem at least five years prior to the report and repeatedly refused to launch a substantive investigation. In addition, the agency also told the principal of a parochial school in the area – who first discovered that children were dying – to not talk about the issue.
