Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- Eight Dover Township children have been diagnosed with cancer in 1997 and 1998, a state health official said last night.
James S. Blumenstock, acting senior assistant commissioner for the state Department of Health and Senior Services, said two township children were diagnosed with cancer in 1997, and six have been reported diagnosed with cancer so far this year.
Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, Blumenstock said the children range from under age 1 to the late teens. They have a wide variety of cancers, including lymphoma, leukemia and bone cancer.
Because the cases were diagnosed in 1997 and this year, they would not be included in the massive study of elevated childhood cancer cases now under way. Only two of the eight cases -- both leukemia -- are the types of cancers targeted in the huge state and federal study, Blumenstock said.
State officials said earlier this year that no new cases had been diagnosed in 1997. Blumenstock said the two 1997 cases were recently identified by the department.
The multiyear study seeks to explain why the incidence of certain cancers in Dover is higher than elsewhere.
Also last night, an official from the state Department of Environmental Protection said Gov. Whitman has allocated $50,000 to produce engineering plans for installing carbon filtration systems on two United Water Toms River wells.
Gerald P. Nicholls, director of the department's Division of Environmental Safety, Health and Analytical Programs, said state officials have set a June 9 deadline for installation of the filtration system on United's wells 22 and 29. The two wells are located in the parkway well field, off Dugan Lane.
Nicholls said the $50,000 will be turned over to United to begin the engineering and modeling studies necessary before the carbon filtration system is installed.
In late October, the governor ordered a carbon filtration system placed on the two wells after researchers found that a contamination plume from the nearby Reich Farm Superfund site had seeped into Well 29 when that well was pumped at high rates to meet summer demands for water.
Trace amounts of trichloroethylene, a suspected carcinogen, were found in the well, along with small amounts of styrene acrylonitrile trimer, a chemical compound related to plastics production. No trimer has been detected in Well 29 since Sept. 10, and trichloroethylene has not appeared in the well since Sept. 17.
Carbon filtration systems and an air stripping system are already in place on United's wells 26 and 28, which capture most of the contaminants from the Reich Farm plume.
Union Carbide Corp., which has taken responsibility for the pollution at Reich Farm, paid for the installation and pays the maintenance costs for the treatment systems already in place at the well field.
The estimated cost of installing carbon filtration on wells 22 and 29 is $1.5 million. It is still not clear who will pay, although U.S. Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert G. Torricelli, both D-N.J., have said Union Carbide should foot the bill.
Nicholls said officials from the federal Environmental Protection Agency have written to Carbide to ask that the company refurbish Well 26, which captures most of the Reich Farm plume. The well's pumping capacity has dropped recently as screening around it has become clogged, EPA officials said.
The EPA also has asked Carbide to pay for installation of an "interceptor well," which would intercept water from the contaminated plume before it reaches the well field. Nicholls said the EPA also has asked for Carbide to work with United Water on a management plan for the well field that would help prevent contaminants from migrating to other wells in the parkway field.
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: : December 15, 1998
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