Published in the The New York Times
By IVER PETERSON
A group of parents in Toms River, N.J., whose children were stricken with cancer have reached a monetary settlement with two chemical companies and a water utility that they accused of causing the disease through pollution, lawyers for the two sides announced yesterday.
The agreement, in which the companies did not acknowledge any responsibility for the cancers, ends four years of negotiations in a case that contributed to the national lore about New Jersey as an environmentally damaged state. None of the parties would disclose the size of the settlement, or how it would be divided among the families.
In all, 69 families, each with a member who developed cancer in childhood, will share the payments from the companies: Union Carbide Corporation, Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corporation and United Water Resources Inc., a private company that distributes water in the area. Sixteen of the ill young people have died since the first alarms about a high incidence of childhood cancer were raised in Dover Township more than 10 years ago.
"The way I look at it, if we can just prevent one other child from getting cancer, it will have been worth it," said Bruce Anderson, a computer specialist whose 20-year old son, Michael, was found at 10 to have leukemia. "We mustn't just look at our own families."
Hundreds of other Dover residents are suing the chemical companies over pollution or cancer. Those cases are not affected by the settlement.
The Toms River agreement is unusual not only in the cooperative way it was reached — through negotiation and mediation rather than a lawsuit , but also in the way the companies settled without the existence of proof that pollution they caused or distributed through the water system was responsible for the cancers.
While the companies stressed today that no concession of responsibility was made, Linda Gillick, whose 22-year old son, Michael, developed a neuroblastoma at three months, maintained that the settlement was nevertheless about guilt.
"Even though the companies will not admit liability, if they make a payment, that says something to the rest of us," Ms. Gillick said. Donna Jakubowski, a spokeswoman for Ciba Speciality Chemicals, maintained that her company had settled to give the families some peace, not as an admission of responsibility.
"There has been no evidence that we were responsible," Ms. Jakobowski said. "Ultimately everyone agreed that by settling this case, we would bring closure for everyone. For Ciba, it means that we can focus on our ongoing remediation here at the site."
So far, only a 1996 report by the State Department of Health and Senior Services found an increased incidence of certain childhood cancers in the Ocean County area, without attributing responsibility to the water company or to two Superfund sites tied to the two chemical companies. But the final results of a more rigorous study will be released by the health department on Tuesday.
Steven Fineman, a lawyer who helped the parents, said the settlement was reached without regard for what that report might say, but the prospect of the state settling the question of the companies' responsibilities, once and for all, did hang over the negotiations, he said.
"Surely, when we were negotiating we knew there were people working on the study, but we didn't have any knowledge of what they were going to find," Mr. Fineman said. "But even if the study comes back and shows a positive relationship between certain children's cancers and certain chemicals, that doesn't necessarily mean that it would have advanced the cases of all 69 families, because different children experienced different kinds of cancers at different times."
Mr. Anderson, one of the parents, was philosophical about the importance of the money settlement.
"Am I satisfied?" he said. "I look at it as relative. We are a mixture of families: some have lost children, some are undergoing treatment, some have other medical problems coming in the future. So you really can't put a price on it."
Published on December 14, 2001
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