Toms River : a story of science and salvation

Resource Information

The work Toms River : a story of science and salvation represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Bryn Athyn College, Swedenborg Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Toms River : a story of science and salvation

Title remainder

a story of science and salvation

Statement of responsibility

Dan Fagin

Creator

• Fagin, Dan

Subject

• Cancer -- New Jersey | Toms River Watershed
• Chemical Industry -- New Jersey -- Popular Works
• Drinking water -- Contamination | Health aspects -- New Jersey | Toms River Watershed
• Groundwater -- Pollution | Health aspects -- New Jersey | Toms River Watershed
• Industrial Waste -- adverse effects -- New Jersey -- Popular Works
• Air Pollution -- adverse effects -- New Jersey -- Popular Works
• Toms River Watershed (N.J.) -- Environmental conditions
• Water Pollution, Chemical -- adverse effects -- New Jersey -- Popular Works
• Water quality -- New Jersey | Toms River Watershed
• Neoplasms -- epidemiology -- New Jersey -- Popular Works

Genre

• Popular Works

Language

eng

Summary

Recounts the decades-long saga of the New Jersey seaside town plagued by childhood cancers caused by air and water pollution due to the indiscriminate dumping of toxic chemicals. One of New Jersey's seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest legal settlements in the annals of toxic dumping. A town that would rather have been known for its Little League World Series champions ended up making history for an entirely different reason: a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town's namesake river. Here the author, a journalist, recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary example for fast-growing industrial towns from South Jersey to South China. He tells the stories of the pioneering scientists and physicians who first identified pollutants as a cause of cancer, and brings to life the everyday heroes in Toms River who struggled for justice: a young boy whose cherubic smile belied the tumors that had decimated his body from birth; a nurse who fought to bring the alarming incidence of childhood cancers to the attention of authorities who didn't want to listen; and a mother whose love for her stricken child transformed her into a tenacious advocate for change. A gripping human drama rooted in a centuries-old scientific quest, it is is a tale of dumpers at midnight and deceptions in broad daylight, of corporate avarice and government neglect, and of a few brave individuals who refused to keep silent until the truth was exposed

Cataloging source

DLC

Index

index present

LC call number

RA592.N5

LC item number

F34 2013

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography