Firms Settle With Parents of Ill Children

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New York Times Article

December 14, 2001

Firms Settle With Parents of Ill Children

By IVER PETERSON

A group of parents in Toms River, N.J., whose children were stricken with

cancer have reached a monetary settlement with two chemical companies and a

water utility that they accused of causing the disease through pollution,

lawyers for the two sides announced yesterday.

The agreement, in which the companies did not acknowledge any responsibility

for the cancers, ends four years of negotiations in a case that contributed

to the national lore about New Jersey as an environmentally damaged state.

None of the parties would disclose the size of the settlement, or how it

would be divided among the families.

In all, 69 families, each with a member who developed cancer in childhood,

will share the payments from the companies: Union Carbide Corporation, Ciba

Specialty Chemicals Corporation and United Water Resources Inc., a private

company that distributes water in the area. Sixteen of the ill young people

have died since the first alarms about a high incidence of childhood cancer

were raised in Dover Township more than 10 years ago.

" The way I look at it, if we can just prevent one other child from getting

cancer, it will have been worth it, " said Bruce , a computer

specialist whose 20-year old son, , was found at 10 to have leukemia.

" We mustn't just look at our own families. "

Hundreds of other Dover residents are suing the chemical companies over

pollution or cancer. Those cases are not affected by the settlement.

The Toms River agreement is unusual not only in the cooperative way it was

reached - through negotiation and mediation rather than a lawsuit - but also

in the way the companies settled without the existence of proof that

pollution they caused or distributed through the water system was responsible

for the cancers.

While the companies stressed today that no concession of responsibility was

made, Gillick, whose 22-year old son, , developed a

neuroblastoma at three months, maintained that the settlement was

nevertheless about guilt.

" Even though the companies will not admit liability, if they make a payment,

that says something to the rest of us, " Ms. Gillick said. Donna Jakubowski, a

spokeswoman for Ciba Speciality Chemicals, maintained that her company had

settled to give the families some peace, not as an admission of

responsibility.

" There has been no evidence that we were responsible, " Ms. Jakobowski said.

" Ultimately everyone agreed that by settling this case, we would bring

closure for everyone. For Ciba, it means that we can focus on our ongoing

remediation here at the site. "

So far, only a 1996 report by the State Department of Health and Senior

Services found an increased incidence of certain childhood cancers in the

Ocean County area, without attributing responsibility to the water company or

to two Superfund sites tied to the two chemical companies. But the final

results of a more rigorous study will be released by the health department on

Tuesday.

Fineman, a lawyer who helped the parents, said the settlement was

reached without regard for what that report might say, but the prospect of

the state settling the question of the companies' responsibilities, once and

for all, did hang over the negotiations, he said.

" Surely, when we were negotiating we knew there were people working on the

study, but we didn't have any knowledge of what they were going to find, " Mr.

Fineman said. " But even if the study comes back and shows a positive

relationship between certain children's cancers and certain chemicals, that

doesn't necessarily mean that it would have advanced the cases of all 69

families, because different children experienced different kinds of cancers

at different times. "

Mr. , one of the parents, was philosophical about the importance of

the money settlement.

" Am I satisfied? " he said. " I look at it as relative. We are a mixture of

families: some have lost children, some are undergoing treatment, some have

other medical problems coming in the future. So you really can't put a price

on it. "