What's it like living in a potential cancer cluster?

Sal Liguori has watched cancer close in around him. Every dot on his map represents multiple cases of cancer near his home in Keyport and the Bayshore area. These are Sal's neighbors, friends, family, and the numbers keep growing. I never thought I could get cancer, you know. I'm just one of those guys that never thought I could get cancer. I just really did. I felt scared and lonely for the first time, you know, and I was seeing all the people around me that are sick. It just really scared me. Sal was diagnosed with leukemia just four months after NJ.com launched an investigation in the Keyport area. So far, close to 500 cancer cases have been reported. The suspected source of the problem is the Arrow Marine landfill, a former industrial dump, and Sal lives right outside the front gates. You wouldn't know it from the lush greenery and mature trees, but buried out of sight are decades of trash that recent tests reveal as leaching harmful chemicals including benzene, vinyl chloride, and cobalt, to name a few. We always knew that there was a dump site here from the township and there was always rumors of something being developed here with an issue of contamination. We've always known the story. You have this decommissioned dump sitting on the beach break of a bay with a creek that runs through it in a coastal community that floods consistently and you're saying there's no way that anything up there could have reached anyone down here. It's just, I don't buy it. There's still chemicals found on this site that are above levels that cause concern for health problems. A pathway to exposure is basically anything that allows a contaminated site to affect the surrounding area and not stay contained to that site. And this isn't just a key port problem. There are many communities statewide dealing with old landfills and pollution legacies. There's more than 12,000 contaminated sites with 115 federal super funds. That makes the Garden State home to one of the nation's largest legacies of industrial pollution. In 2022, reports of more than 100 brain tumors tied to Colonia High School sparked fears of a cancer cluster in Woodbridge Township. But investigators found no environmental cause and that's often the story with these cases. The illnesses are real even when a definitive answer isn't. We have many people here that have no idea if they're sick. So I asked, is there a certain number that we have to hit that people have to die before you wake up? My daughter was diagnosed when she was 12 years old of Ewing sarcoma, which is a rare bone cancer. And thinking that we live in a community that could potentially make her sick is a scary thought for any parent. You know, we really need to be working together and find long-term sustainable solutions when it comes to cleaning up dirty sites, cleaning up legacy landfills, and there needs to be accountability. My response to them saying that there is no pathway for exposure is, that's great, now prove Four years ago, Sal lost his son Anthony to cancer. He lived in the same house. You know, he was 35 in March when he got diagnosed. May 25th, he turned 36 and it just progressively kept getting worse and come December 15th of 2022 was his last breath in his house and his last goodbye to all of us on that day, which was, you know, the most heart-wrenching anybody could ever have to go through. But Sal's mission extends beyond his own loss. He's become a community advocate, keeping his neighbors informed and leading the charge to push for answers and actions from the state and local officials. Who would have thought four months ago when I stood up here and I was speaking to you to help you, the community, from my heart, not even for Anthony, and when all the facts started coming in and all started adding up and I knew that I was the person to step forward and help start this charge. Sal is the poster child for Keyport right now. He has, his family has been through so much, so, you know, this is personal for him, but he, I think this is, you know, made him aware that he now has a huge purpose in fighting this and protecting Keyport. For him organizing this, getting the word out more so, doing everything, having cancer, it's amazing. Sal often speaks about his son coming to him in a dream and what Sal's bigger purpose is here. Anthony's message to me was change. He said, Dad, everybody complains all the time, but everybody is scared to make a change. If you're really not happy with something in life, promise me you'll change and make a change and help people make a change. Can you deliver that message? God gave me this for a reason, and I really believe that the reason is to go ahead and fight this fight even more and to prove that we have something going on here that's wrong.