Published in the The New York Times
By IVER PETERSON
A long-awaited state and federal study of the high incidence of childhood cancers in Toms River, N.J., says that air and water contamination from chemical plant pollution appears to be responsible for at least some of the cancers, people familiar with the report said yesterday.
Congressional staff members and lawyers and family members who were briefed yesterday on the five- year, $10 million health study - which is to be released tonight - said that the epidemiological report did not conclusively link all of the unusually high levels of childhood cancers in Toms River and surrounding Dover Township to the pollution, however.
Instead, they said, the report cautioned that the levels of pollution and the number of cancers were so small that an overall indictment of two Superfund sites in Toms River could not be made.
Still, lawyers for the families that had campaigned for years to have polluted wells shut and additional studies conducted reacted with joy at the news that their years-long suspicions had been confirmed.
On Thursday, lawyers announced a cash settlement between 69 Toms River families and three companies: the Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corporation, the Union Carbide Corporation and a private water utility, United Water Resources.
They did not disclose the amount of the settlement, or how it would be divided, and none of the companies acknowledged responsibility for the cancers. Other suits are pending against Ciba and the water company, but not Union Carbide.
"This is big," said Jan Schlichtmann, a lawyer helping the families who won fame for helping to force a similar study for Woburn, Mass., that in 1996 also found links between chemical pollution and cases of childhood leukemia. "This is an earthquake because this is the second time they have found the connection, and it was done with a much smaller parts per million than they found in Woburn."
Dover Township families and members of New Jersey's Congressional delegation were briefed on the study in private sessions yesterday evening, and the report is to be made public at a meeting for Ocean County residents tonight.
One person who heard the briefing said, "The study did say there were some links to water and air pollution and the cancers, but it could not put the finger on any single factor to be solely the cause."
This person said the study pointed to several specific wells, closed since 1996, as well as to air emissions as the sources of chemical compounds linked to cancer in the town. "But it was not able to say, `It was this location and at this time,' " the person said. "It was more about evidence that pointed in the directions of pollutions in air and water from the Superfund sites."
The study was conducted by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services and by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
It sought to draw hard conclusions from mountains of data, including the rate at which plumes of pollutants moved in underground aquifers, the number of glasses of tap water expectant mothers consumed, the personal habits of parents - did they use electric blankets, for example - and even the nature of the dust in their attics.
From the outset, officials cautioned against hoping for conclusions that answered every question and calmed every fear. Indeed, officials have spoken of trying to draw inferences, rather than concrete proofs, from the study.
The study was given new importance in 1997, when researchers found 90 cases of childhood cancer in Dover Township, when the statistical distribution of the disease said there should have been only 67.
The chemical companies said last night they could not comment on the new study because they had not seen it. Donna Jakubowski, a Ciba spokeswoman, cautioned against looking for black-and-white answers.
"Just because there is some contamination that exists," she said, "it doesn't mean that there was an actual exposure link, and that exposure link caused the cancer."
Published on December 18, 2001
|
