Cancer From The Landfill?

In the first chapter we described several clusters of childhood cancers discovered by concerned residents of Woburn, Massachusetts, of Toms River, New Jersey, and of the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx, New York City. The residents in Pelham Bay blamed the cluster on a landfill nearby, in which hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals, including waste oil sludges, metal plating wastes, lacquer, cyanides, ethyl benzene, toluene, and other organic solvents had been illegally dumped. This had been reported by an employee of the chemical company responsible, in testimony before a Congressional investigation of crime, and was never directly confirmed. Residents of the community had obtained a court order that stopped dumping in 1978, before the testimony about toxic wastes had been given. The story of this cancer cluster—both how it was discovered and what conclusions were reached about its causes—is typical of thousands of clusters reported each year to health authorities throughout the United States. After the alarm in Pelham Bay was sounded by the mother of a child with leukemia, ten years after dumping ceased, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP) made measurements of hazardous chemicals in the air around the landfill, but found no significant amounts. The drinking water of the community came from the general New York City water supply system, so seepage from the landfill into the groundwater was not a possible route of exposure. It was concluded that by the time the measurements were made the landfill was no longer a threat to health. What the situation may have been in the past, during the time of dumping and just after, could no longer be known. After dumping had been stopped in 1978, the NYCDEP had covered the 150-foot-high mound of garbage, refuse, street sweepings, construction debris, and household and commercial waste, along with whatever may have been illegally dumped there, with a thin layer of soil. It was a hasty job, and it did not last. The soil cover cracked and eroded, washing away all the faster because of the steep slopes of the mound.