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Fallon, Nevada
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Fallon is a city in Churchill County, located in western Nevada, United States. The population was 7,536 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Churchill County and is located in the Lahontan Valley.
Fallon is primarily an agricultural community. Although the area is arid, approximately 50,000 acres (200 kmē) of farmland are irrigated with water supplied by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District.
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Encyclopedia
Fallon is a city in Churchill County, located in western Nevada, United States. The population was 7,536 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Churchill County and is located in the Lahontan Valley.
Fallon is primarily an agricultural community. Although the area is arid, approximately 50,000 acres (200 kmē) of farmland are irrigated with water supplied by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District. The principal crop is alfalfa. Fallon Heart O' Gold cantaloupes were once distributed throughout the nation, but are now mostly grown for local consumption. Naval Air Station Fallon also provides a significant employment.
U.S. Route 50 is the main road through town. Fallon is one of the westernmost cities on the Loneliest Road in America, the stretch of Route 50 through Nevada famed for its remoteness. Eastbound travelers must go 110 miles to find the next town, Austin, Nevada.
Geography
Fallon is located at (39.472792, -118.778826).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.1 square miles (7.9 kmē), of which, 3.0 square miles (7.9 kmē) of it is land and 0.04 square miles (0.1 kmē) of it (0.65%) is water.
Climate
Fallon, NV climate is warm during summer when temperatures tend to be in the 90's and very cold during winter when temperatures tend to be in the 30's. The warmest month of the year is July with an average maximum temperature of 92.10 degrees Fahrenheit, while the coldest month of the year is December with an average minimum temperature of 17.40 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperature variations between night and day tend to be relatively big do to low humidity. During summer with a difference that can reach 39 degrees Fahrenheit, and moderate during winter with an average difference of 28 degrees Fahrenheit. The annual average precipitation in Fallon is 5.30 Inches. Rainfall in is fairly evenly distributed throughout the year. The wettest month of the year is May with an average rainfall of 0.71 Inches. Fallon gets around 7 to 8 inches of snow a year. It also can experience heavy fog in winter, also known as pogonip.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 7,536 people, 3,004 households, and 1,877 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,474.1 people per square mile (954.0/kmē). There were 3,336 housing units at an average density of 1,095.2/sq mi (422.3/kmē). The racial makeup of the city was 81.32% White, 2.04% African American, 3.40% Native American, 5.00% Asian, 0.37% Pacific Islander, 3.40% from other races, and 4.47% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.89% of the population.
There were 3,004 households out of which 35.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.7% were married couples living together, 15.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.5% were non-families. 30.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.45 and the average family size was 9.06.
In the city the population was spread out with 28.4% under the age of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 29.7% from 25 to 44, 19.4% from 45 to 64, and 12.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females there were 95.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.5 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $35,935, and the median income for a family was $41,433. Males had a median income of $35,356 versus $22,818 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,919. About 9.5% of families and 12.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.6% of those under age 18 and 10.3% of those age 65 or over.
Cancer cluster
Fallon is also the epicenter of a noted pediatric cancer cluster.
Over a three-year period, 11 cases of childhood leukemia were diagnosed in rural Churchill County, Nevada: population 23,982. Five other cases occurred during roughly the same time period among children who had previously lived in the county. Analysis by Steinmaus, et al. suggested that such a geographic cluster would occur by chance alone in the United States every 22,000 years (2004). The proximity of a naval air station increased suspicions that an environmental exposure might be responsible for the unique temporal and spatial juxtaposition of leukemia diagnoses. It is also crucial to note that some of the diagnoses occurred after health officials began investigating the possibility of an environmental cause (Steinmaus 2004).
Numerous hypotheses were proposed and later discarded for lack of evidence. Some theories (benzene from jet fuel, for instance) have a proven role in the pathogenesis of leukemia but increased exposure in cases over controls could not be confirmed. Additionally, benzene exposures were not at the level occupationally known to cause acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), and in Churchill County, all except for one case were acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Others, such as arsenic in drinking water, were found at levels two times higher than outside Churchill County; however, arsenic has never been shown definitively to cause leukemia (Steinmaus 2004). The metal tungsten also has been found in high levels in the air, water and people of Fallon and Churchill County (CDC, 2003). Scientists at the University of Arizona are studying the potential role tungsten may have played in the cluster (Witten and Speppard, 2002-2007).
Population mixing due to the influx and efflux of military personnel and the subsequent spread of an infectious agent offered a different etiology for the leukemia cluster. In other studies, a recent large influx corresponded to an increase in the rates of leukemia; however, in the Fallon cluster, the time period for large-scale population mixing did not uniquely correlate with the three-year window of increased leukemia diagnoses (Steinmaus 2004). Unlike other hematopoietic cancers such as Burkitt lymphoma and Hodgkin lymphoma, a specific viral etiology has not been proposed for the acute leukemias. This highlights the difficulties of linking cancer with a causative agent (and therefore, of stimulating changes in policy): tumorigenesis is an incompletely understood process taking months or years to present itself. Prenatal exposures may even be risk factors. Although leukemia is most common type of childhood cancer, it is still quite rare, with an incidence of approximately three per 100,000.
Grimes Point
Seven miles east of Fallon, adjacent to Highway 50, is the The Trail features rocks with carvings as much as eight thousand years old, created by native peoples who were drawn to the shores of ancient Lake Lahontan. The Trail is approximately one-half mile long on a level path. Free brochures explaining the native art are available.
Sister cities
Vani, Georgia
Nuevo Casas Grandes, Mexico
See also
External links
- Timeline and detailed stories regarding the Fallon Cancer Cluster can be found in the Reno Gazette-Journal's dedicated page on the topic: http://www.rgj.com/extra/cancer.php
- web page, with pictures of the carvings
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