Study Links N.J. Cancers, Pollutants

A six-year, $10-million government study of high cancer rates among children in this central New Jersey community found that contaminated well water and air emissions from a chemical factory were linked to some leukemia cases.

The study, released Tuesday by state and federal health officials, was commissioned after 90 children in Dover Township were diagnosed with cancer from 1979 to 1995, 23 cases more than researchers would normally expect to find.

Leukemia, brain cancers and central nervous system cancers all occurred at higher-than-normal rates, state officials said.

The report acknowledged uncertainty in some findings because of the statistically small number of people involved.

It also pointed out that “no single risk factor evaluated appears to be solely responsible for the overall elevation of childhood cancer incidence” in the township.

The findings were disappointing but not surprising, said Linda Gillick, who has led the charge by victims’ families for an investigation.

“I didn’t come into this expecting a smoking gun,” said Gillick, whose 22-year-old son suffers from neuroblastoma.

The study examined the lifestyles of the victims and their families, including how often they drank tap water and how much exposure they had to wells contaminated by waste from Reich Farm, a federal Superfund site where more than 4,500 drums of Union Carbide waste were dumped in 1971.

Public health assessments released earlier labeled Reich Farm and a site formerly occupied by Ciba-Geigy Corp. as public health hazards because chemicals from the sites had seeped into drinking water supplies.