Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- The chairwoman of a citizens committee studying elevated childhood cancer levels here yesterday urged four lawyers who have filed their second lawsuit against Ciba-Geigy Corp. to share any information they find that could assist the ongoing cancer investigation.
"My hope is that these attorneys doing this investigating, that anything they find that would be helpful, I hope they would share," said Linda L. Gillick, who chairs the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster.
The citizens committee was formed more than four years ago to monitor the childhood cancer investigation being conducted by the state Department of Health and Senior Services and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Gillick spoke one day after lawyers Norman M. Hobbie, Christopher Placitella, Michael Gordon and Angelo Cifaldi filed their second lawsuit against the former Ciba-Geigy Corp., as well as United Water Toms River, which provides public water service here.
The latest suit alleges 201 people lost loved ones, suffered severe emotional distress or live in fear of contracting cancer because Ciba was negligent in disposing of hazardous wastes from its dye manufacturing operations, while United Water failed to protect the purity of the public water supply.
In May, the same team of lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Ciba, claiming the chemical company contaminated Dover Township's drinking water and should pay for long-term medical monitoring for residents exposed to polluted water.
Donna M. Jakubowski, a spokeswoman for Ciba Specialty Chemical Corp., the successor to Ciba-Geigy, said Tuesday that the company intends to vigorously defend its position that Ciba is not responsible for people's illnesses.
Michael Rodburg, Ciba's corporate counsel, said yesterday that he could not comment on the latest lawsuit because he had not yet had a chance to review the massive document, filed late Tuesday afternoon in state Superior Court, Toms River.
The four lawyers say their initial investigation has discovered damaging documents, including a 1961 memorandum by J.A. Meier, a former employee of Toms River Chemical Co., Ciba-Geigy's predecessor.
Meier toured the plant with a newspaperman and several representatives from the New Jersey Fish & Wildlife Commission on Aug. 8, 1961. The men observed a fungus condition in the Toms River that manifested itself in a slimy, brownish, organic matter that floated in chunks and became attached to the river bank, according to the memo.
"I feel that we are constantly skirting on the thin edge regarding our wastewater treatment problems," Meier wrote following the tour. "Furthermore, these problems will get greater in the future, as the population of the area increases and presumably our plant operations become more extensive."
Meier's memorandum is attached to the lawsuit as "Exhibit B." "Exhibit A" is the Feb. 29 public health assessment on the Ciba site, completed by state and federal health officials as part of the ongoing childhood cancer investigation.
The health assessment concluded people who lived in Dover 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 Toms River Water Co., now known as United Water Toms River. About 35,500 people used public water in Dover in the 1965-66 time period.
The centerpiece of the childhood cancer investigation -- a massive epidemiological study that will compare family histories and contaminant exposures of families whose children developed cancer with those whose children did not develop the disease -- is slated for completion by December 2001.
Both the lawsuits against Ciba seek payment from the company for medical monitoring to detect potential health problems in people exposed to polluted water.
The latest lawsuit, in addition to seeking the monitoring fund, adds another defendant -- United Water -- and seeks compensatory and punitive damages for the 201 people, who include those who have lost family members to cancer and other illnesses.
The suit also names as defendants officials who worked for Ciba-Geigy, including William P. Bobsein, manager of the environmental technical department at the Toms River plant, and James A. McPherson, of Toms River, the plant's former supervisor of solid waste processing.
The timing of the second lawsuit, coming in the midst of the ongoing childhood cancer investigation, has again raised concerns among members of the group Toxic Environment Affects Children's Health, or TEACH, a group of nearly 70 local families of children with cancer.
TEACH members have been represented for more than two years by lawyers Jan Schlichtmann, Mark Cuker and Esther E. Berezofsky, but the group has chosen to enter into agreements to share information with Ciba, Union Carbide Corp. and United Water Toms River, and has agreed not to sue the three companies while information is being exchanged.
TEACH's second 18-month agreement with the three companies does not expire until January.
"We certainly feel we're in the same boat, so to speak, as those plaintiffs," said TEACH spokesman Kim Pascarella. "I certainly wouldn't deny their right of access to the courts, but hopefully the dialogue we've felt we've had with the responsible parties doesn't break down because of this action."
Staff writer David P. Willis contributed to this report.
Published on August 3, 2000
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