Where child cancer rose, some want polluted land left empty

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — The former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant in Toms River, New Jersey, is one of America’s worst toxic waste sites, poisoning the drinking water of the Jersey Shore community where childhood cancer rates rose significantly in the 1980s and 90s. With that pain still fresh, many residents want New Jersey to scrap a proposed settlement with the site’s current owner, BASF Corporation, that would create walking trails, a boardwalk and an education center on the site. Some suggest the land be permanently abandoned and kept off-limits to people forever due to contamination there. New Jersey says the deal is designed to have BASF restore natural resources that its predecessor polluted.