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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
A New Jersey Health Department study has found that women in Pompton Lakes were hospitalized 38 percent more times for cancerous tumors than the rest of the state.
The study is being conducted to determine whether elevated rates of cancer are have any relation to contamination from the former DuPont munitions facility in Pompton Lakes, which closed in 1994.
NorthJersey.com reports that mid-1980s tests found the contaminants of the DuPont facility had mixed with groundwater to a nearby neighborhood, creating contamination below about 450 homes. In 2008, further testing found the solvents were vaporizing into some basements. DuPont has been installing vapor mitigation systems on homes in the neighborhood.
There were 169 hospitalizations of Pompton Lakes women for tumorous cancers, 47 above statewide projections. A mortality study looking at causes of death in Pompton Lakes from 2004 to 2006 found that cancerous tumors caused 29.6 percent of deaths, compared to 24.1 percent for New Jersey and 22.3 percent for six nearby communities.
The two solvents involved in the contamination, trichloroethene and tetrachloroethene, had been used at the factory, and have been linked to cancer in humans. But the New Jersey Health Department could not conclusively link the higher cancer rates because the rates were not elevated for both men and women.In April, according to NorthJersey.com, a federal judge barred 113 Pompton Lakes residents from participating in a suit against DuPont, seeking to force the company to clean up the contamination and pay for a drop in property values. U.S. District Court Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh in Newark ruled that releases signed by the residents when settling an earlier case against DuPont in 2004 prevented a new lawsuit.
NorthJersey.com reported that Senators Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, and Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. have asked the U.S. environmental agency to review whether the Dupont plant is adequately protecting residents from contaminants.
"We live in constant fear that someday our kids are going to become ill," said Pompton Lakes resident and president of an advocacy group called ‘Citizens for a Cleaner Pompton Lakes,’ according to Fox News.
