Published in the Ocean County Observer
By ANDREW KLAPPHOLZ
Staff Writer
A class-action lawsuit filed yesterday against Swiss chemical giant Ciba demands it pay whatever costs are necessary to provide free, periodic health screening for Toms River residents endangered by the company's toxic abuses.
Lawyers filed the suit in state Superior Court in Toms River on behalf of unnamed past and present Toms River residents. They accuse Ciba of contaminating the ocean, inland waterways and groundwater.
Although they have not been diagnosed with anything yet, plaintiffs want to be monitored and treated if they come down with an illness related to the water contaminants, said their lawyer, Norman Hobbie of Toms River.
In 1992, Ciba and two of its officials pleaded guilty to criminal pollution charges that followed a 1984 raid on the plant. Ciba at one time was Ocean County's largest employer, providing high-paying jobs to 1,400 people.
"We want them to set up a fund for medical monitoring for all those folks who may have consumed contaminated groundwater between 1952 and 1980," Hobbie said.
"This case is for people who do not have diagnosed malignancies, so they can get tested on a yearly basis," he said. "And if they do get ill, (this will ensure) that they get treated quickly."
He said many others may join the class-action lawsuit before it is heard by a Superior Court judge.
"The number can exceed 10,000," Hobbie said.
The three plaintiffs representing the class are Linda S. Breen, George D. Trustan and Laura Piccirillo.
Hobbie said if any plaintiffs come down with an illness related to the contaminants found in their water, Ciba should be responsible.
"If there is a causal connection ... we will pursue legal recourse against the responsible parties," Hobbie See Ciba, Page A2said.
The suit he filed yesterday alleges eight counts against Ciba: negligence, strict liability, trespass, gross negligence, nuisance, battery, punitive damages and exemplary damages.
According to a study by the U.S. Agency for Toxic and Substances and Disease Registry and the state Department of Health and Senior Services, Ciba "is considered ... to have represented a public health hazard because of past (chemical) exposures."
Investigators examining the childhood-cancer cluster in Dover Township already have said people who lived in Toms River in 1965 and 1966 may have been exposed to traces of aniline-based dyes and nitrobenzene from Ciba that seeped into three wells used by the local water company.
Linda Gillick, chairwoman of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, said a class-action suit can inhibit the investigation of the cancer cluster because it could add red tape.
"If there is a class-action suit, it shuts down the lines of communication of open discussion and sharing of information on this investigation," Gillick said. "I am not saying people should or should not sue, but we have all been lucky that one has not been filed up to this point, because we have been able to obtain information without the necessity of subpoenas."
According to a public-health assessment by Health and Senior Services, the former chemical manufacturing complex "represents no apparent public health hazard under present conditions," now that those wells have been capped and a federal Superfund cleanup of tainted groundwater is under way.
The end of all manufacturing work at the plant in 1996 put a halt to air emissions, and there's no danger from tainted soil at the secured factory property, the report concluded.
Margaret F. Bonafide contributed to this story.
from the Ocean County Observer
Published on May 19, 2000
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