The following commentary was presented at the 1999 Long Island town meetings, which were part of the National Cancer Institute's Long Island Breast Cancer Study Project. The writer is a resident of Farmingdale and environmental activist.

I recently came across an Oct. 14, 1985 issue of Time Magazine where the lead story was, "The Poisoning of America '85 -- Toxic Wastes." The picture on the cover showed a human head submerged in a pond, up to its eyes, and all that was below the water line was skeleton. Above the water line was a pair of staring eyes, upper parts of ears and the top of the head. The magazine went on to say they had run this same cover five years earlier, in 1980, and went on to explain, "We wanted to show that aboveground, things may look OK, but underneath it's death."

It is now 15 and 20 years later, and whereas their reporters covered three of the most contaminated sites of the time, today it would be difficult to make that choice. We have so many more toxic dumps where steel drums have been left to rust and leak, letting poisons seep into the earth for decades and they are scattered in virtually every county of every state. They present a potentially irreversible threat to water supplies, and the public health.

The article was most critical of the Environmental Protection Agency and went on to state that "an umbrella group of grassroots activists, claims that less than 10 percent of the 850 sites on EPA's 1985 priority list have received any remedial attention at all in the program's first five years. At that pace, millions of Americans will wait decades for the EPA to clean up their poisoned communities."

That was then, this is now, and unfortunately, not much has changed on the cleanup front. We know we have a lot more to be concerned about. In the '70s, on Long Island we were drinking water from contaminated wells. Today toxic plumes threaten our neighborhoods, and toxic waste has been dumped into public storm drains, sewers, and into our waterways. The noted environmentalist Rachel Carson said, "Water contaminated anywhere is water contaminated everywhere."

I live near a superfund site, Liberty Industrial in Farmingdale that has been around for about 60 years, contaminating earth, air, and water with Cadmium, Chromium 111 and VI, PCBs, etc. The list is long. This, after many, many years of bungling, inaction, and lack of skills in the hands of state and county agencies. In 1990, EPA became the lead agency for this site and for most of those years we have argued with EPA, as to the kind of cleanup that would best protect our drinking water. Because Long Island is unique in that our drinking water comes from underground acquifers, hazardous waste cleanups have to be much more stringent than the human health-based, commercial/industrial one offered by the Environmental Protection Agency. For years monies and time have been wasted, as our neighborhoods became more riddled with cancer and friends died.

I once read that 90 percent of cancers are environmentally induced, and this I believe. You can't put cancer-causing agents into the air, onto the ground and into the water and then wonder where all the cancer is coming from. For years we were fed the fable that nicotine and tobacco do not cause lung cancer. Have we now become the victims of another fairy tale?

I have tried to seek answers as to the part Liberty and its hazardous waste might play in the cancer problem we have on Long Island. I was appalled to learn that this hazardous waste from the site has been piped into public storm drains and sewers, and into a local creek which ran through our neighborhood, in which our children played. We thought it was water. This same creek (Massapequa Creek) flowed past a school, through wetlands and a preserve. Also seeping into this creek a plume with all its toxics, emanating from Liberty. The state also stocks Massapequa Creek with fish, claiming they post advisories warning of the limits on eating these fish. Some of the contaminants found in these waters and others similarly stocked are Cadmium, Chlordane, PCBs and DDT.

In July Newsday did a four page spread extolling the virtues of fishing called "The Reel World." The pictures were ethereal with lush foliage, serene waters and happy fishermen casting their lines. There was only one thing wrong, 'neath all this beauty are uncertified shellfish beds, closed year-round because of coliform contamination. There could be other toxics also lurking there as some of these waters are only tested for coliform.

I obtained a map showing the uncertified shellfish beds in Suffolk County, and a map of the sewer treatment plants in Suffolk County. I figured if the shellfish were contaminated by coliform, these treatment plants would be nearby, and they were. After heavy rains many of these beds are closed for a few days or so, to permit the fish to cleanse themselves. If they can cleanse themselves in a few days, why are so many of these beds closed year round? These sewer treatment plants also cannot handle the heavy inflow of rainwater which causes an overflow or they use an outfall pipe, dumping sewage and all it denotes directly into the waters holding these shellfish. Since industry also has used our public storm drains, sewers, creeks and other waterways to dispose of their hazardous waste I repeat, these waters could contain more than just coliform.

The receiving body waters for some of these sewer treatment plants have a stream classification such as SA--The best usages of class SA waters are shellfishing for market purposes, primary and secondary contact recreation and fishing. These waters shall be suitable for fish propagation and survival. How can you keep these waters pristine when you're putting raw sewage from an outfall pipe into them or allowing the sewage plant overflow and hazardous waste into these waters? Perhaps there is a contributing factor here to the lobster problem also.

I think Sag Harbor is an example of a small area on Long Island which is bombarded by hazardous waste. It has three or four hazardous waste sites including a landfill, it has toxic plumes which emanate from these sites, it has contaminated shellfish beds closed year round, it has a sewer treatment plant and an outfall pipe that feeds directly into water classified SA and it has a cancer cluster.

I posed the question in my title, 'Is Hazardous Waste in Our Backyard?' because back in the early '90s we were told that Liberty contained 70,000 cu. yds. of contaminated soil. In 1998 we were told, after retesting, the number was now 7,000 cu. yds. of contaminated soil, eligible to be cleaned up under the commercial/industrial label. The contributing contaminating factor has gone somewhere, into our backyards perhaps?

We also now have a new phenomenon to worry about, the reclamation of some of these hazardous waste sites, and the sham of the process involved to again allow these sites to be reused.

It is my hope that a learned panel will investigate some of the information submitted, because somewhere in there might be an answer to the question, "Where is all the cancer coming from?" I know there are tremendous efforts being made to find a cure for this horrible disease, as there should be. But until we put an equal effort in trying to discover where it is coming from and prevention, our cures can never catch up with its victims.