Residents of a small New Jersey waterfront town are demanding answers after nearly 400 cancer cases were identified near a long-closed landfill where new testing detected alarming levels of toxic chemicals.
The growing health scare is unfolding in Keyport, a community of just over 7,000 people located about 30 miles south of Newark.
Residents fear they may be living in a cancer cluster, although state health officials have not formally declared one or confirmed that contamination from the former Aeromarine Industrial Park caused anyone’s illness.
The reported diagnoses include cancers of the lungs, prostate, brain, stomach, colon, thyroid, breast, appendix and kidneys.
The investigation began gaining attention in February after former resident Rusty Morris, 46, started mapping cancer cases in his hometown. His mother, Ginger, had repeatedly called him in Florida with news that another person she knew had been diagnosed.
Morris’ father, Richard, was among those affected.
He began placing red Xs on a map for each person diagnosed with cancer. He initially identified 41 cases throughout Keyport, including a staggering 28 connected to First Street alone.
The number of reported cases has since climbed to nearly 400.
Alexis Mraz, an associate professor in The College of New Jersey’s Department of Public Health, described the original map as “insane” and said it appeared to show a “crazy high percentage” of cancer patients.
A later analysis commissioned by NJ.com reportedly identified 370 cases and found that people living near the former landfill were 15 percent more likely to develop cancer than other Monmouth County residents. The findings raised serious concerns but did not establish that the landfill caused the illnesses.
Many residents believe the possible source is the 50-acre Aeromarine Industrial Park, which began as an aircraft operation in the early 20th century before being converted into a landfill in 1962.
The landfill operated during an era when waste-disposal regulations were far less restrictive than they are today. It was ordered closed by New Jersey environmental officials in 1979 after years of operating violations.
“Everything just went in a hole in the ground,” environmental engineering professor Craig Benson told NJ.com while discussing waste disposal during that period. “There were no rules. Hazardous waste went right in with everything else.”
A 2010 environmental investigation found contaminants above groundwater standards at the site, including benzene, arsenic and PCBs. State officials have acknowledged that the first major step is determining whether contamination migrated beyond the landfill and created a route through which residents could have been exposed.
Sixteen years after that assessment, independent testing reportedly found many of the same dangerous chemicals still present.
Thirteen monitoring wells at the Aeromarine site were tested, and every well reportedly contained at least one metal at a concentration exceeding New Jersey standards.
The substances detected included arsenic, lead, aluminum, cobalt, iron, manganese and sodium.
Arsenic is a known carcinogen, while lead can damage the brain and nervous system, with children facing particular risk. High levels of several other metals can also create serious health concerns depending on the dose and duration of exposure.
Benzene was reportedly detected above state standards in five of the 13 wells. Long-term exposure to benzene has been associated with blood disorders and cancers such as leukemia.
Vinyl chloride was also found above acceptable levels in five wells. The known carcinogen has been linked to liver cancer and has also been associated with cancers of the brain and lungs, as well as lymphoma and leukemia.
Four of the wells reportedly contained both benzene and vinyl chloride at levels exceeding state standards.
Independent environmental tester and former EPA contractor Scott Smith also collected soil samples beyond the landfill and from a homeowner’s property.
Smith said the Environmental Protection Agency’s threshold for triggering additional human-exposure testing for the mixture of PCBs and dioxins he examined was 4.8 parts per trillion.
His sample reportedly measured 31 parts per trillion, which he described as 546 percent above that threshold.
Despite those results, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has said available information does not currently show a completed path through which contamination reached local residents.
“To date, DEP’s review of existing and new data does not indicate a pathway for human exposure to contamination,” the department said.
That does not mean the state has declared the area safe or ended its investigation. New Jersey environmental and health officials are continuing to examine whether chemicals have moved beyond the site and whether further public-health analysis is needed.
Some experts argue that the possibility of exposure through soil or floodwater cannot yet be dismissed.
Judith Zelikoff, a toxicology professor at New York University, reviewed the testing data and said some of the carcinogens can move readily through soil.
Keyport’s frequent flooding has also raised questions about whether contaminated groundwater or stormwater could reach residential streets and backyards.
“That area is known for flooding,” NJ.com reporter Karin Price Mueller said. “Storms come in, tides change and the residents say that they have a lot of flooding on their streets and in their backyards.”
“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 state is conducting its own sampling and is expected to release additional findings, along with an analysis of the private testing, in September.
The property has faced repeated environmental violations, while its owners have accumulated nearly $900,000 in allegedly unpaid fines for failing to properly close and secure the landfill, according to Rep. Frank Pallone Jr.
Pallone has called for an urgent state and federal investigation, additional environmental testing, a review of local cancer data and enforcement of the outstanding penalties.
New fencing and warning signs were installed around the landfill on June 26 as scrutiny of the property intensified.
Pacer Partners is under contract to redevelop and clean up the waterfront site. The company has reportedly ruled out building residential waterfront properties there.
For families touched by cancer, however, the cleanup debate has already become deeply personal.
Morris’ original map included his father, relatives, friends and former neighbors. What began with 41 red Xs has expanded into a far larger effort to document hundreds of diagnoses across the community.
Officials have stressed that cancer is common and can have many causes. Proving that cases constitute a cluster—and determining whether environmental exposure caused them—requires a detailed review of cancer types, diagnoses, locations, time periods and other risk factors.
New Jersey health officials confirmed in April that they were investigating the potential connection between the reported illnesses and the former landfill.
For now, no direct link has been established between the contamination and the nearly 400 reported cancer cases.
But with carcinogens still being detected near the long-troubled site, frightened Keyport residents say they are no longer willing to wait quietly for answers.
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