Published in the Asbury Park Press
By Andrew Gannon
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
THEY DON'T LIVE in Dover Township, but about 30 first-year students at Wagner College on Staten Island probably know more about elevated rates of some childhood cancers than many of the residents who live there.
Bruce Anderson and his wife Melanie (second from right), of Toms River, who have a child with cancer, meet with Wagner College students Courtney Meyers (left) and Rosemary Poirier.
But like many of the federal and state experts who have gone before them, the students who embarked on the multidimensional study at the start of this semester found that it left them with lots of questions, but no clear answers, they said yesterday.
"What they have learned is not that one side is right and one side is wrong. That's a reality lesson for all us," said Donald Stearns, chairman of the college's biological sciences department.
For instance, take the day that Jonathan Peters, an economics professor at Wagner, and three of his students took part in a conference call with officials of Union Carbide Corp.
The meeting was arranged so that students studying Toms River and its so-called "cancer cluster" could question the company about its role in the illegal dumping of chemical wastes there during the 1970s. Here was a meeting they thought would yield some definite answers.
During the interview, students learned that an independant hauler, hired by Union Carbide to dispose of certain chemicals, used the Dover Township Municipal Landfill, and later Reich Farm, now a Superfund site, to dump barrels of waste.
When one of the students asked officials what was in those barrels, the answer Peters said, was,"We wish we knew". And that question may never be answered, they learned.
That lesson about the complicated nature of real-world problems is an important part of the program called "Learning Community," which all Wagner College freshmen must take.
Peters and Stearns chose to study Dover Township's environmental issues.
Between 1979 and 1995, 90 children in the Toms River section of Dover Township were dignosed with cancer - an abnormally high number, according to state officials. Leukemia, brain cancers and central nervous system cancers all occurred at higher - than - normal rates.
State officials said in July that two sites where chemical contamination took place decades ago were health hazards in the past, but aren't any longer.
Peters and Stearns divided their students into groups to study different aspects of the cancer investigation and its effect on Dover, including human health, political and environmental issues.
Many were amazed at the lack of knowledge by the Dover residents.
"Even some of the people there aren't aware of it," Gloria Morin, 18, said after asking some patrons of a Toms River diner about the topic during a visit there.
Morin of Carmel, NY, whose job was to study environmental issues dealing with cleanup, said she was impressed with the effects taken on the part of the companies to prevent further spread of the contamination.
But she was also concerned that many new homes had been built immediately next to Reich Farm and that the people moving into those homes might not know the history of the areas.
London Jones, an 18-year old from Baltimore, studied the effects on housing development in Dover Township. She said the childhood cancer rates weren't stopping people from moving to the area.
One of the families interviewed by students was also on hand yesterday. Bruce and Melanie Anderson, whose 18-year old Michael survived a battle with childhood leukemia, said they were thankful for the students' honest feedback in their conversations.
"I think it was a great learning experiance for all of us," Bruce Anderson said.
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: December 11, 1999
|
