Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE, PATRICIA A. MILLER and KIRK MOORE
STAFF WRITERS
TOMS RIVER -- Kim Pascarella is looking for justice. John Cardini is searching for answers. William Coar is seeking information and support.
All three Dover Township parents have at least one thing in common -- a child who has been sickened by cancer. Now these parents have another common link.
They've joined forces with 37 other Dover families to form the group "Toxic Environments Affect Children's Health," or "TEACH."
"Really, we want to lend assistance to each other and lobby together as a group," said Pascarella, a Toms River lawyer whose 14-month-old daughter, Gabrielle, died of neurological cancer in 1990. "We seek justice. We feel some parties are responsible for what has happened here."
Those parties include chemical giants Ciba Speciality Chemical Corp., formerly Ciba-Geigy Corp., and Union Carbide Corp., along with United Water Toms River, the company that provides water to the majority of Dover's homes.
To help them find answers, the group has hired several lawyers, including Jan Schlichtmann, a Massachusetts lawyer who represented eight families in the Woburn, Mass. pollution case made famous by the best-seller, "A Civil Action." Cherry Hill Township lawyers Mark A. Cuker and Esther Berezofsky also are representing the Dover parents.
Last spring, Cuker won a $4 million settlement for 200 Manchester Township families who said their water had been tainted by two nearby industrial plants.
The lawyers and the TEACH families say they have no plans to file a lawsuit against any of the companies at this time. Instead, Schlichtmann said the families can work with the companies "to open up lines of communication."
"We want to work together as partners to determine what happened here," he said.
If that approach does not work, however, the families will consider filing a suit, Pascarella said.
"We cannot rule that out," Pascarella said.
Indeed, the threat of going to court is the big stick that compels defendants to negotiate, said Edward Lloyd, director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Rutgers University and lawyer for the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, a nonprofit organization that takes up environmental causes.
"Something like 97 percent of all cases settle. The other 3 percent of the people can't agree, and so it goes to the end of a trial," Lloyd said. "It's not unusual for a toxic tort (pollution lawsuit) case to settle."
Last summer, for example, chemical manufacturer DuPont settled with a group of 427 people from Pompton Lakes for $38.5 million, to satisfy the group's claim that pollution from a defunct munitions factory led to illnesses among children.
Residents charged that DuPont's Pompton Lakes Works ammunition factory improperly disposed of industrial wastes during its century of operation that ended several years ago. Waste, including heavy metals and solvents, were burned in open pits or discharged into a brook, which during seasonal floods would deposit mercury and lead residue on residents' yards, they said.
While denying responsibility for injuring anyone, DuPont officials said they decided to pay settlements ranging from $20,000 to over $200,000 to end the costs of further litigation.
"More often than not, there's talk of, 'Hey, can't we talk about this?'... because the court costs are so high for both sides," Lloyd said.
Dover has had its share of pollution problems.
The former Ciba-Geigy plant, off Route 37, has been on the federal Superfund list of hazardous waste sites for more than a decade. Dover's other Superfund site, Reich Farm, off Route 9, was contaminated in the early 1970s when trucker Nicholas Fernicola dumped drums of chemical waste from Carbide's Bound Brook plant.
A plume of underground contamination from Reich Farm had seeped into United Water's parkway well field by 1987, when trichloroethylene and other organic solvents were found in three wells near Dugan Lane. Last year, an ongoing state and federal investigation into the elevated cancer rates discovered fragments of a chemical compound linked to the manufacture of plastics in another parkway well.
Saying there could be a link between polluted drinking water and elevated cancer rates, researchers at the federal Agency for Toxic Substance and Disease Registry in Atlanta are designing a computer model of Dover's water system, to learn if families of children who contracted cancer ingested more contaminated water than families of children who did not contract the disease.
Treatment systems are in place to remove all pollutants from the parkway well field before the water enters United Water's system. But many of the parents who have joined TEACH believe there is a link between contaminated drinking water and their children's illnesses.
"Without question, that's our suspicion," Pascarella said. "There seems to be some scientific data as well."
Schlichtmann agreed.
"It is very significant that the highest concentrations of cancers are blood and brain cancers," he said. "We know that industrial solvents can cause these types of cancers."
Coar, whose 6-year-old son, Sebastian, was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year, said his family moved from Bay Avenue in Dover to nearby Beachwood because so many children in their Dover neighborhood had contracted cancer.
"We are concerned about the problems with toxic waste in the community," Coar said. "We want to find answers."
United Water officials have repeatedly pointed out that the township's drinking water continues to meet all state and federal standards for drinking water.
Cardini, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jessica, has been fighting leukemia for the past three years, said he doesn't put much stock in such statements.
"That statement does not carry a lot of weight with me," he said. "They (chemicals) are not going to cure cancer, I'll tell you that."
But Carbide spokesman Craig A. Wilger said there has never been any strong connection made between contaminated well water and elevated cancer levels. Wilger said Carbide has been cooperating with the state and federal investigation.
"As far as we know, there is no connection that's been drawn between contamination of well water ... and the childhood cancers by any of the regulatory agencies," Wilger said last week.
Many parents whose children have contracted cancer, however, remained convinced that there is a connection between Dover's past pollution and their children's illnesses. Several said they have channeled their anguish and anger into a determination to find answers.
Patti Wilderotter's 5-year-old daughter, Nicole, died of leukemia three years ago. She still frequently wears a button bearing her daughter's picture.
"When your child passes away, there is this intense questioning," she said. "'Why me? What did I do wrong?' If chemicals played a part in my daughter contracting cancer, I need to know."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Published on December 14, 1997
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