But perhaps the most moving section of the Web site produced for Toxic Environment Affects Children's Health is the family stories.

"You can read our family stories and actually learn from what we've been through," said Bruce Anderson, a township resident whose 17-year-old son, Michael, was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 10. "We're here to offer help and assistance to other families. We've been there."

TEACH was formed more than two years ago when a group of Dover families of children stricken with cancer hired Massachusetts lawyer Jan Schlictmann and Cherry Hill lawyers Mark R. Cuker and Esther E. Berezofsky to represent them.

Schlictmann represented several families in a landmark pollution case in Woburn, Mass., that is dramatized in the film "A Civil Action." The film focuses on Schlictmann's eight-year battle to prove chemical dumping caused a childhood leukemia cluster in Woburn.

About a year ago, TEACH entered into an 18-month agreement to share information with Union Carbide Corp., Ciba Speciality Chemicals Corp. -- the successor to Ciba-Geigy, and United Water Toms River.

TEACH agreed not to file suit against the three companies during that time period.

About 60 families now belong to TEACH. The Web site is another way to fulfill the group's goals to "warn and educate other families of environmental hazards that may affect their health" and to "eradicate the high instances of cancer in our communities."

On the Web site, the stories of Michael Anderson, Lauren Kotran and Michael Gillick are told.

"I looked at my child, so pale and innocent," Melanie Anderson writes about her son, Michael. "What did he ever do to deserve this?"

Anderson describes the pain her son endured while undergoing treatment for the disease. Michael, a junior at Toms River High School North, is in remission.

"Michael taught me a lot about courage and keeping a sense of humor," his mother wrote. "He rarely lost his. He held me up as I held him."

Lauren Kotran, now almost 3, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma at the age of 6 months.

"Lauren has been an inspiration and joy to anyone who has had the pleasure to know her," her parents, Joseph and Margaret Kotran, wrote. Lauren has been off of treatment for about a year now and is undergoing physical therapy.

Bruce Anderson said he and Kotran worked to set up the Web site and cleared the contents of the site with the other TEACH families. Anderson's son, Thomas, who owns a Web-design company, "The Order of Chaos," helped design and implement their ideas.

The TEACH Web site can be found at www.tr-teach.org on the Internet. The group also has a toll-free hot line, (888) 79-TEACH.

A large portion of the Web site deals with Dover's history of water contamination, including segments on the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. and the pollution at Reich Farm.

Anderson said he believes many people who live in the community are unaware that Dover has two Superfund sites, or that a pollution plume from Reich Farm has contaminated a portion of United Water Toms River's well field near the Garden State Parkway.

Schlictmann and some TEACH members have caused controversy by stating that they feel contaminated drinking water may have led to elevated levels of some childhood cancers here. An ongoing state and federal investigation into the causes of the higher cancer rates has so far drawn no conclusions.

"We're just hoping to bring some attention to these issues and educate the people about it," Anderson said. "Cancer is like any disease. Unless you're directly affected by it, you don't know that much about it."

Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: February 16, 1999