ST. JOSEPH, Mo. -- The EPA held a public meeting in St. Joseph, Mo. to discuss soil tests in Northwest Missouri deemed not cause for concern despite a recent surge in the number of tumors of area residents.

Although attendance at this meeting was less that those held in recent months, those who attended still had serious concerns.

"We want to know what they're gonna do to help us," Cameron, Mo., resident Heather Shields said. "I don't know how these people can sleep at night."

During the meeting, EPA spokesman Bill Rice tried to explain the soil sample study results to the crowd.

"This means that based on limited testing, we haven't found hex chromium above levels where we'd expect to see adverse health effects," Rice said.

The EPA reiterated the levels of chromium 6 found in eight soil samples on three farms in northwest Missouri are not cause for concern.

A lawsuit against Prime Tanning Corp. of St. Joseph has been filed. The business used a sludge since the early 1980s as fertilizer on 116 farms across four counties. The EPA said there have been a total of 776 separate distributions of the sludge over the past two decades.

The meeting was to give people who live in that area a chance to ask questions about the test results. Some that attended the meeting said it didn't offer much in the way of clarity.

"We live in Dekalb County and there were vague answers about farms that've been tested, but not as much details as I'd hoped to learn," Michelle Peterson, a Dekalb County resident, said.

The EPA says an additional 15 areas will be tested in the coming weeks.