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Back in April, NJ.com first reported on an investigation into more than 40 cancer cases in the Keyport community near the site of the former Aeromarine facility, which closed in 1979 and is now a dormant landfill. But in just two months' time, the number of documented cases uncovered has risen almost 10-fold. Concerns of a possible cancer cluster are growing in the community, and they're calling on the state and the owners of the Aramarine site for answers.
The woman behind this investigation is Karen Price Mueller, investigative reporter for NJ.com. Karen, it is so great to have you on the show. Uh, I know you've been investigating the suspected cancer cluster in Keyport that's around the site of the Aramaarine dump. The latest numbers that you just reported are simply astounding. Can you tell us what you found and what you released today since you started the investigation?
Sure, and thanks for having us. We started with 41 cases when we published our first report in April. And since that time, we've reached out to the community and community members have come to us with concerns about cases in their families or even their own case. So, as of publication this morning, we were up to 370 cases that we considered confirmed or verified, which means we did some extra digging to try to uh get more information about the person who supposedly had cancer. Then we still have a couple of dozen more that we have not yet verified. So it wasn't a question of somebody saying, "Oh, my neighbor down the block had it." We had to have the person's name and the diagnosis and where they lived and more information to count them as part of the entire report.
370 cases in what span of space? What stretch of land does this cover?
So it, if you're familiar with the Aramarine site, it is surrounded by the bay on one side and a creek that separates the landfill from Union Beach. And then you have the Keyport part that's close to the landfill. So what we considered for the study portion of this was everybody within 6/10 of a square mile around um the landfill to all sides. We did have cases that fell outside of that area and we are still keeping track. Those are included in the 370. But as you know, we had done this study taking a look at the incidence of cancer and for that we only included the people who were within that that uh 6/10 of a square mile.
When we talk about cancer cases, can you give us some examples? Who is sick? What are they struggling with?
It's really astounding because we have had pretty much every kind of cancer that you could name. We've had blood cancers. We've had kidney and liver and lung and you name the body part. And people have come to us with the cases. But what I find most interesting is so many of the people who have reported to us said that they had genetic testing done and they were told that no, it's not a genetic cause, it's environmental. Now, that of course doesn't mean it came from the landfill. A person over their lifetime can come into many different environmental uh contaminants. And so the work that we're doing doesn't show that it's necessarily from the landfill, but it is such a remarkable number of cases that everybody seems to think it deserves further study.
And there seems to be this increased percentage if you live in this very small radius, right, of getting cancer as compared to living anywhere else in the state of New Jersey.
Yes. So the researcher who analyzed our data, what we did was take all the cases that were reported to us, which of course was not every single house in the area. Then we had what we called non-reporting houses and we added those sort of as a blank slate. And to assign a a cancer rate to those unreported houses, the researcher looked at the average for Monmouth County. And after she analyzed the data, it showed that people who were within that landfill proximity in Keyport and Union Beach had a higher incidence of cancer um than the rest of Monmouth County.
I know that that Aramarine landfill has been found to have benzene, arsenic, vinyl chloride, lead, polycllorinated bifenols, if I'm saying that correctly. also methane which doesn't fall into the same category but is an explosive um and yet at the same time I know that the threshold for the state of New Jersey to assign or or designate a space as a cancer cluster is very, very high. We saw that with Colonia. Um, they did not give the designation or the classification there. What has the state said in terms of whether it will or when it will investigate this site and these cancer cases?
So there are several steps that the state has to go through and the first one is ongoing as we speak. The Department of Environmental Protection is doing a new study alongside with the potential buyer for the site um who had finally received a permit to do the testing after our story ran the first one in April. So they're doing similar testing to what was done in 2010. So right now we're looking at 16 years where there really wasn't additional testing. Once those tests are completed and the data is analyzed, they're going to determine whether or not there is a so-called pathway for human exposure and that is supposed to tell people whether or not whatever chemicals may be found there could have uh gotten to people. At that point, the data then goes to the health department who will do its own independent analysis to see if they see a pathway. And they're the ones who would take the next steps to determine if something could actually be a cancer cluster. But it does take years and years to do that research.
Something else that I think is really important that the residents have said to me that area because of all the water surrounding surrounding it often floods not just Sandy and nor'easters before that but there's regular flooding and people question whether or not the water flooding could actually be a pathway bringing toxins into neighborhoods from the landfill which we know was never properly cleaned up and had been leeching uh different chemicals. And could that have been a pathway to bring some contaminants to people's homes?
So, that's a big question. Yeah.
Has the state indicated whether they'll consider flooding as a pathway?
They haven't really answered that question when I've asked it. It's um I guess we'll see. Open-ended.
Um, Aramarine has been fined, I think, close to $900,000 at this point. Those fines, it's actually more than $1.2 million.
More than $1.2 million. So we had this testing in 2010. Prior to 2010, there were inspections, there were violations, there were no fines. When the 2010 study happened, somebody was interested in potentially buying it. So DEP said that they didn't proceed with fines at that time because they wanted to see if a purchase could go through. And time went on and time went on and that deal fell through. I don't know exactly when that deal was ended, but there were inspections, but there were no fines until the first one in 2021, which was just uh $15,000. And then it escalated. Finally, there was a $230-something,000 fine and then the $900,000. So, we're now at more than $1.2 million. And the owner of the site, Bay Ridge, is actually trying to fight those fines in court. So, as of right now, no one is responsible. No one's paid. It's a there's a community suffering.
In the end, what are local residents asking for?
They want it to be cleaned up and they want answers. You know, it's because it is so difficult to determine an actual cancer cluster. We may never know exactly what caused all of these people's cancers, but it's understandable that they're worried, they're concerned, um, and they just want it cleaned up. So, if the current prospective buyer does go through with the purchase, they would be doing all the cleanup, but the responsibility at this point is still on the current owner. And yes, not a penny has been paid in those fines.
Well, incredible reporting. Great job. And I know your investigation continues even as we speak right now. Karen Price Mueller, investigative reporter with NJ.com. Great work and thank you.
Thank you.