In February, a man started plotting out cancer cases in his hometown of Keyport, NJ, about 30 miles south of Newark. He recorded as many as 28 people with cancer on a single street.
Now nearly 400 cancer cases in the area have been identified, including people with cancers of the lungs, prostate, brain, stomach, colon, thyroid, breast, appendix and kidneys.
Locals fear they could be living in a cancer cluster, where an unusual amount of cancer cases appear within an area within a certain period of time. The American Cancer Society estimates there are nearly 1,000 in the country.
So far, no such official designation has been made in Keyport. But more residents are reporting serious illnesses.
Locals say the cause is toxins from the nearby Aeromarine Industrial Park — a landfill that has been closed since 1979 — getting into the water and soil.
The NJ Department of Health did test the site in 2010 and found an abundance of carcinogens.
Despite repeated violations and nearly a million dollars racked up in unpaid fines, cleanup has remained incomplete, says Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.
Now, 16 years after the last official state test, independent testing showed much of the same chemicals are still there.
How bad is the contamination in Keyport?
Thirteen wells were tested at the Aeromarine landfill, NJ.com reports. All of the wells showed at least one metal at levels above state standards.
These metals include arsenic, lead, aluminum, cobalt, iron, manganese, and sodium.
Arsenic is associated with cancer risk, while lead can harm the brain and nervous system, especially in children. Aluminum in water can increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s, while iron can accumulate in the body, affecting organs.
Cancer-causing benzene was also found in five of the 13 wells above standards. Benzene is associated with blood cancers like acute myeloid leukemia.
Vinyl chloride was also found in five of the 13 wells above acceptable levels. This chemical is also a known carcinogen, associated with liver, brain, lung cancers, lymphoma and leukemia.
Four wells had both benzene and vinyl chloride above standard levels, the report said.
Another test was done by EPA whistleblower Scott Smith, who tested outside the landfill and at a homeowner’s property for carcinogens PCB and dioxin.
To trigger follow up testing for human exposure, the EPA’s threshold is 4.8 parts per trillion for a mix of toxins in soil, he told News Nation. He found 31 parts per trillion — 546% above the threshold in the soil he tested.
The future of Keyport
While there are still alarming amounts of toxins on the site, the state’s department of health still says they haven’t confirmed that humans have been exposed.
“To date, DEP’s review of existing and new data does not indicate a pathway for human exposure to contamination,” the department said.
This means they haven’t found a way for the toxins to get from the landfill and into the bodies of local residents.
That said, experts have some ideas of how it might be happening.
Judith T. Zelikoff, a toxicology professor at NYU, reviewed the data and told NJ.com some carcinogens can move readily in the soil.
Experts also suspect contamination in local water.
“That area is known for flooding. Storms come in, tides change and the residents say that they have a lot of flooding on their streets and in their backyards,” said journalist Karin Price Mueller, who helped break the story for NJ.com.
“Some of the scientists we’ve spoken to say, ‘Well, how can you say definitively that the water is not a pathway?’ And I don’t have an answer to that question yet.”
The department is expected to release their own findings as well as analysis of the private report in September.
Pacer Partners is under contract by the site and hopes to clean and develop the waterfront area. They’ve ruled out residential waterfront properties on the site.
Cancer horrors unearthed
Rusty Morris, 46, was behind the initial cancer revelations. He’d begun digging when his mom, Ginger, started calling him in Florida and telling him about more and more people she knew with a diagnosis. That included Rusty’s dad, Richard.
He started plotting names on a map — all with red Xs — ultimately finding 41 across Keyport and 28 on First St. alone.
Alexis Mraz, an associate professor at the College of New Jersey’s Department of Public Health, called the map “insane” and said it appeared to have a “crazy high percentage [of cancer patients].”
Many people became convinced that the 50-acre Aeromarine Industrial Park was to blame. Aeromarine started off as a small aircraft hub in the early 20th century, converting to a landfill in 1962.
Craig Benson, an emeritus professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Virginia, told NJ.com that legal waste disposal back then was “a Wild Wild West.”
“Everything just went in a hole in the ground. There were no rules. Hazardous waste went right in with everything else,” he said.
Seven years later, it closed entirely. But in the intervening years, the owners of the land have been cited several times — to the tune of almost $900,000 by the New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection as recently as last year — for allegedly failing to seal it off properly.
