Tom's River

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

We lived for awhile in South Jersey and so was familiar with Ocean City--yes, we swam in the ocean--and the white pine sands that were so porous, it was rumored that the mob used it to bury bodies since the bodies practically buried themselves. Apparently, that's not all the sands sucked up. Chemicals from coal tar related products were being dumped and the since the sands sucked them up, it seemed like the problem disappeared. But it simply made its way to municipal wells. And as a result, there seems to be an undeniably high incident rate of cancer (especially in children) in the area. It's an interesting book, but not exactly heartening. Wherever there are profits to be made, companies will cut corners. And government oversight is so stretched, and so defined by standards and statistics (that seem frustratingly unhelpful) that they seem useless as well. Individual people can make a difference, but it is a full time job. it's a problem, but even after reading this book I can't see where to even start to change things.

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