Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- Watch the shoes.
That was the way state and federal health and environmental officials learned to gauge Linda L. Gillick's likely approach during the nearly six-year childhood cancer investigation here.
"When it came down to doing what needed to be done, my reputation stood on sneakers or high heels," said Gillick, 53, who since spring 1996 has chaired the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, a citizens group charged with overseeing the investigation.
"If I came in and I had on sneakers, people didn't want to come in the room with me because they knew I was ready to kick ass. If I came in in high heels, it was a reminder to me that I had to act like a lady. Every now and then, I'd come in in sandals and boots and totally confuse them," she said with a laugh.
Linda Gillick has had plenty of chances to wear both types of shoes over the past six years. At times calm and collected, at times stubborn and scolding, she dedicated countless hours to the investigation, remaining steadfastly convinced that researchers would find a connection between Dover's history of environmental contamination and the high incidence of childhood cancer.
When a draft version of the final study, released last week, drew associations between leukemia in girls and exposure to contaminated water from the parkway well field and polluted air, Gillick said she felt vindicated, and called the results "a victory."
But she also felt a deep disappointment: Researchers were unable to explain elevated levels of brain and central nervous system cancers, and were unable to pinpoint any single environmental factor that might have been solely responsible for the elevated levels of cancers.
The disappointment also has a more personal side.
Gillick's son, Michael, whom she calls her inspiration, has battled neuroblastoma, a cancer of the central nervous system, since he was 3 months old.
The final study did not draw any association between past pollution and Michael's type of cancer, even though both Linda and Michael, who is now 22, remain convinced pollution contributed to his sickness.
Also, state and federal officials said the small size of the study group makes it possible that the associations that were found were the result of mere chance.
At the conclusion of a public meeting Tuesday at which the study's findings were presented, Gillick urged parents whose children were diagnosed with cancers other than leukemia to "stand proud," even though the study did not draw a connection between pollution and their children's sickness.
"This does not mean that your child was not impacted," Gillick said. ". . . We know what has happened here. Do not let the ball drop now. Continue to try and find answers."
Something to build on
Michael Gillick said he was not disappointed by the study results, and believes they could be a jumping off point for future investigations.
"I'm happy that we proved there is a connection," Michael Gillick said last week. "It still proves that contamination caused cancer, which is what we've been pushing for."
He said his mother's dedication and determination should be an inspiration to others.
"When she knows she's right, she's like a pit bull, she won't let go," Michael Gillick said. ". . . If you look at New Jersey now as opposed to six years ago, when it all started, you cannot tell me that the water is not safer to drink now. . . . That just goes to show you, what a difference one person can make. Mom is living proof that one person can make a huge difference."
Even those who sometimes questioned Gillick's methods have always admired her resolve.
"Sometimes you can't accomplish all that she has without stepping on a few toes," said Richard Henning, a spokesman for United Water Toms River, Dover's public water utility and a frequent target of Gillick's wrath. "We have certainly, over the last few years, had more than our share of difficulties at times, and disagreements, but I think, through it all, when you look at the ultimate goals she was looking to achieve, we were all on the same page."
Kim Pascarella, a member of the citizens committee whose 14-month-old daughter, Gabrielle, died from neurological cancer in 1990, said the community owes Gillick a debt of gratitude.
"She gets criticism at times, but the simple fact is, she single-handedly did so much for this community to make it safer," Pascarella said. "Most people would have given up. She kept up the pressure and got enough people on board on this thing."
Dover Committeeman John F. Russo Jr., who has known Gillick since 1986, was at first skeptical that there was any connection between environmental contamination and childhood cancer.
"Initially I really thought Linda was off-base with her theory, back in the early '90s" Russo said. "Right now I think she probably was more on target than anybody else at that time."
Public scolding
Unafraid to publicly chastise officials, Gillick sometimes harked back to her former job as an elementary school teacher when dealing with people she thought were not responsive enough to the public's questions and concerns. At one stormy meeting in the sultry summer of 1997, she scolded now-retired United Water General Manager Edward A. Hughmanic, who was attempting to sit down after making a presentation that Gillick felt was incomplete.
"Don't you sit down, Mr. Hughmanic," Gillick said loudly, making Hughmanic walk back to the front of the room to face more questions.
Some in the audience winced at her tone.
Even her close friends admit Gillick can be difficult to deal with at times.
"It's not that every time I deal with Linda it's 100 percent roses," Pascarella said. "She's opinionated and she doesn't back down. But her heart is always in the right place."
At first, Gillick's conviction that something was making Dover's children sick was questioned by many residents of the community. Some members of the business community at first criticized her, saying negative publicity from the childhood cancer investigation would lower property values and drive people away from Dover. Some people called her power-hungry.
She received nasty letters and threats. "One of them was a recipe for how to make chili which then described where I should stick it," Gillick remembered.
In 1996, then-Township Committeeman Joseph G. "Jerry" Geoghegan was accused by a former Democratic opponent of claiming that Michael's illness was not cancer, but a genetic abnormality.
Geoghegan denied saying Michael did not have cancer and said he had asked a question about Michael's illness. "My question was misunderstood and for that I apologize," he said at the time.
Sometimes disturbed by the criticism, Gillick was not deterred. For inspiration, she needed to look no further than her own home.
Michael was not expected to live beyond infancy. His body has been wracked with tumors, which have severely stunted his growth. He must take pain medication to get through the day, and frequently suffers from severe headaches. No one can explain why he is still alive.
"I think God has kept him around here, I really believe, for this, to help us make it a safer place," Gillick said, "and for people to be able to connect a face and a voice with this whole mess, with what has been done here."
From the beginning
It was Michael's illness that first prompted Gillick to begin looking more closely at Dover's environmental problems in the early '80s. And it was after attending a stormy 1988 public hearing on the former Ciba-Geigy Corp.'s plans to build a pharmaceutical plant at its Route 37 site that she decided to form Ocean of Love, a support group for families of children with cancer.
At the time, part of Ciba's property had already been declared a Superfund site, and Gillick attended the hearing with several cancer-stricken children, including Michael, and handed out red roses tied with black ribbons to state officials.
For years, Gillick lobbied state officials to update the New Jersey Cancer Registry, which by 1996 had a seven-year backlog of unrecorded cancer cases. She also pushed for Ocean County to be included in federal epidemiological studies of childhood cancer.
Nothing happened until March 1996. That was when a state health department report became public, and residents learned that the rate of leukemia, brain and central nervous system cancers among township children was three times higher than expected.
More than 1,200 people packed Toms River High School North for a meeting with state and county health officials. Gillick remembers the meeting vividly.
"That was the thing that was the most powerful of all," she said of that night. It was Michael, then 17, who climbed slowly onto the stage that night, to speak to the officials gathered there.
"Is it a waste of time to save lives? Is it a waste of time to save children's lives?" Michael Gillick asked. "I ask you to honestly think of the answer, not with your brains but with your hearts. I've battled this infestation of the body and soul for 17 years. I know what it is like to live in pain and fear, not knowing when you are going to die."
"That challenge set the tone for the evening," Gillick remembered. But what made her decide she had to take control of the meeting that night was watching two fathers whose children had died of cancer turn and quietly leave the room.
"They said they left because they weren't going to get any answers," she said. "That was what made me snap. It was looking at the faces of those two fathers and seeing what was in their eyes and in their hearts."
It was Gillick who stood up and asked that the crowd be quiet, after 90 minutes of shouts, accusations and anger. It was Gillick who was able to calm the crowd as state officials laid out an ambitious plan for a study of Dover's elevated levels of childhood cancer, and announced the creation of the citizens committee, which Gillick would chair.
Those who knew Linda before that night were not surprised that she took charge.
"She's a true leader, she really is," said Dover resident Bruce Anderson. He first met Gillick through Ocean of Love in 1991, when his then-10-year-old son, Michael, was diagnosed with leukemia. Michael is now in remission. "She has a lot of foresight, and she can get things done where a lot of other people couldn't."
Gillick's life changed forever after that night at High School North.
"My life was abnormally normal before," she said. "Then it became out of control for my poor family." Her husband, Rusty, stood steadfast as his wife began attending a constant round of meetings, and answering telephone calls until all hours of the night.
"He wanted answers, too," she explained.
Leaked information
During the first few weeks that the citizens committee was in existence, Gillick's house was flooded with phone calls from people with information to relay.
"I had people call me at 2 o'clock in the morning, saying, go out to your car, there is something on your windshield. They were afraid to bring it by during the day," she said.
People dropped off documents and leaked information that illuminated Dover's long history of water contamination, and, in many cases, government agencies' failure to do anything to prevent the pollution from affecting residents.
In addition to her duties as chairwoman of the citizens committee, Gillick became a lobbyist, traveling to Washington, D.C., every year to argue for continued federal funding for the steadily expanding childhood cancer investigation.
The barrage of criticism from business leaders, real estate agents and township officials that followed the investigation's early days did not faze Gillick, although it did confuse her. "You would think that I was the polluter," she said. "That's the part I didn't understand."
She persevered, all the time inspired by Michael and the other children with cancer.
"As I sat in those meetings, looking out at the faces of the families and the children, watching the children gradually disappear, I lived with that reality every single day."
Her low point came in May 1998, when she announced at a citizens committee meeting, in response to a resident's question, that five new cases of childhood cancer had been diagnosed in Dover that year. When state health officials at first said they could not confirm that the cases existed, Gillick faced a barrage of criticism from township officials and business leaders, one of whom accused her of fueling "hysteria" here.
Health officials confirmed the five cases a short time later.
"Having worked with me for the period of time that they had, they knew I didn't lie," Gillick said of state health officials. "But when they didn't confirm it right away, it was as though I wasn't telling the truth."
Six years after it all began, Gillick said the conclusion of the childhood cancer investigation does not mean the end of Dover's environmental concerns. Public hearings on plans to clean up pollution source areas at Ciba are ongoing, and Gillick said residents need to remain vigilant about any changes at the parkway well field.
She intends to remain active, hopefully continuing to chair citizens committee meetings that will be held a bit less frequently. And she hopes to write a book about her experiences.
"I'm not going away," she said. She plans to lobby for legislation that would force wells off-line if they are deemed health hazards, even if the well water meets state and federal drinking water standards.
She said she believes Dover is a safer place than it was six years ago, and will be a better place for her twin 9-month-old granddaughters, Morgan and Madison, to grow up in. The children are the daughters of her older son, Kevin, and his wife, Leigh, who live about a quarter-mile from her Somerset Drive home.
Gillick said she's learned that "tenaciousness and honesty will help you accomplish your goal. If you know something is true in your heart, then just don't ever give up."
Published on December 23, 2001
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