Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU BOSTON -- If she had to give some words of advice to Dover Township residents searching for reasons why so many Dover children are getting cancer, Donna Robbins knows just what she'd say.
"I'd tell them to keep up the fight," said Robbins, a Woburn, Mass., mother whose son, Robbie, was 9 years old when he died of leukemia in 1981. "Don't ever give up."
That was the message given by Robbins and other environmental activists last week, at a forum in nearby Boston in conjunction with the world premiere of the film, "A Civil Action," which tells the story of Robbins and other Woburn families who fought an eight-year court battle to prove that polluted drinking water had caused their children's leukemia.
"Woburns are happening all across the country today," said Lois Gibbs, who helped form the Love Canal Homeowners Association 20 years ago after discovering that her child's elementary school was built on top of a toxic chemical dump. "The only way we can fight this is by working within the system and outside the system in an organized choir of voices."
Dover resident Linda L. Gillick, who chairs the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, attended the movie screening with her son, Michael, 19, who has battled neuroblastoma, a form of cancer, almost since birth.
Gillick stayed to participate in the forum, which drew a crowd of about 200 to a ballroom in the Tremont Hotel.
"It's encouraging because we're seeing citizens taking the actions necessary to make the changes needed to protect our children," Gillick said after the forum. "Before you might only have seen a few people in the audience for an event like this."
Robbins, who grew tearful and struggled to compose herself at several points during the forum, said last week awoke difficult memories for her.
"The movie has the Hollywood effect to it, but it really gets the point across," she said. "The judicial system -- it really didn't work for us."
Robbins' emotions were shared by Gillick, who believes the Woburn families' struggle to find the reasons for their children's illnesses is very similar to the ongoing efforts of Dover families.
"It is so parallel with Toms River, that it's almost scary," Gillick said. "I cried throughout the movie."
Even some of the players are the same in Woburn and Dover.
The film stars John Travolta as Jan Schlictmann, then a brash young Massachusetts lawyer who filed suit on behalf of the families against W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods, claiming pollutants from their properties had contaminated Woburn's well water and caused a leukemia cluster.
By the time the legal battle was over, Schlictmann had won about $9 million in settlements for the families and driven himself into bankruptcy. The money was far less, he has said, than what the families deserved for their children's illnesses.
Years later, in 1996, the Massachusetts Department of Health issued a report concluding that water from two Woburn wells had probably caused the children's deaths.
Schlictmann and Cherry Hill lawyers Mark R. Cuker and Esther Berezofsky were retained more than a year ago by dozens of Dover families of children who have contracted cancer. The families formed the group "TEACH," which stands for Toxic Environment Affects Children's Health.
"Oh my goodness, yes, the parallels are striking," Schlictmann said of similarities between Woburn and Dover elevated childhood cancer levels. "You have a contaminated water supply, with some of the same kind of chemicals that were found in Woburn."
Schlictmann and many Dover family members see a link between Dover's long history of water contamination to the elevated childhood cancer levels. Trichloroethylene, which was found in Woburn's water supply, was also found in some United Water Toms River wells in 1987. An air stripper was later installed to remove the pollutants.
State and federal health and officials, who are in the midst of an extensive study of the high childhood cancer rates in Dover, have said it is too early to draw any conclusions about the water supply.
Instead, they have stressed that Dover's drinking water meets all state and federal standards, which has frustrated Gillick and many other residents, who believe drinking water standards are not stringent enough to safeguard the health of fetuses or very young children.
One of the lessons Schlictmann learned from Woburn is that "going to war" with corporations like W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods is not the best way to get answers.
In February last year, Schlictmann, Cuker and Berezofsky agreed not to sue Union Carbide Corp. or Ciba Speciality Chemicals Corp. -- the two companies that have taken responsibility for Dover's two Superfund sites -- for 18 months, while the investigation into the elevated cancer rates continues.
"We had Woburn to learn from," Schlictmann said. "We learned to do things in a different way. I have no doubt that Toms River has valuable lessons to teach us. We will learn something important from Toms River."
Dover resident John Cardini, a member of the group TEACH, also traveled to Boston last week with his wife, Lori, and 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, to "see if there is anything more we can learn," from the Woburn investigation.
Jessica is in remission after battling leukemia, and the Cardinis admitted they are often frustrated by what they perceive as the slow pace of the Dover investigation, and the lack of answers provided by state and federal officials at monthly citizens committee meetings.
Robbins said she can understand the anger of families like the Cardinis.
She said Woburn families at first met a lot of resistance from politicians and other townspeople who thought their action threatened Woburn's reputation and property values.
"Every time you turned the corner, you never knew who was going to take a shot at you," she said. "We went through a period of time where we became very paranoid. A few of us even thought our phones were being tapped."
But Robbins said she has no regrets about the lawsuit.
"It was successful," she said. "The families, outside of a couple of people, really feel like they had their day in court. It was never about the money. It was about justice."
In Dover, Michael Gillick, for one, plans to keep pushing to find answers.
"My peers didn't have a choice as to what they had and why they got it," Gillick said. "The more support we get, the more likely we are to find the problem and get rid of it. . . . We're not going to go away. We're never going to go away."
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: January 10, 1999
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