Bittersweet Deal in 22-Year Fight Over Toxic Site in Bronx

Michael Nagle for The New York Times
Patricia Nonnon, whose daughter died at age 10, at the Pelham Bay landfill. She created a coalition and was a leading voice for those affected by the site.



By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM

Published: August 11, 2013




Kerri was 4 when she started having trouble walking. Justin was 5 when he got a nosebleed that would not stop. Danielle was 7 when her legs began to ache.


 

Michael Nagle for The New York Times
A picture of Kerri Nonnon, who died of leukemia at age 10.




During the 1980s, the children all lived, played and swam in the shadow of the Pelham Bay landfill, a towering city dump in the Bronx on the shores of Eastchester Bay. For well over a decade, it was a vast environmental crime scene, where bribes to city workers opened the gates to an estimated 1.1 million gallons of illegally dumped toxic waste. By 1991, the three children were dead, taken by childhood leukemia a few years after their symptoms had appeared.

Their families — and the families of nine surviving children who also lived near the landfill and contracted childhood leukemia — sued the city, citing the incidence of disease in the area, and blaming the city for failing to halt the dumping and for taking years to clean up the site. Since then, three mayoral administrations, despite acknowledging the dump’s ugly history, stubbornly fought the suits for 22 years.

But with the cases now consolidated into a single lawsuit and a trial date next month looming, lawyers for the city have agreed to settle the claims for a total of about $12 million, Jeff Korek, one of two lawyers representing the families, said.

The agreement to settle, which was confirmed by the city Law Department on Friday, came as a bittersweet resolution for Kerri’s mother, Patricia Nonnon, and the other parents who lost their children. And for the children who survived, it is little recompense for being stricken with the disease and the loss of much of their childhood.

“This is not a victory for me at all,” said Ms. Nonnon, who, in a gentle but firm voice, recalled seeing Kerri die in a hospital bed at age 10. “Nothing is going to bring back my daughter.”

Ms. Nonnon, 58, has battled the city for a quarter-century, creating a coalition and becoming a leading voice among those affected by the 81-acre site.

The landfill was transformed in the 1960s and 1970s into a toxic cesspool of sludge, byproducts from oil processing, and hazardous chemicals, as illegal dumpers — some, according to state reports, with ties to organized crime — paid bribes so that city workers would look the other way. The city closed the dump, meant for household refuse, in 1979.

Shortly after her daughter’s diagnosis in 1985, Ms. Nonnon set up a hot line for other parents whose children contracted the disease, acute lymphocytic leukemia, and other cancers. She led the fight that in 1990 resulted in the landfill’s classification as a Superfund site, clearing the way for federal money for a long-delayed cleanup.

In an interview last week, Ms. Nonnon said that she viewed the settlement as an admission of guilt by the city, proof that she and the other plaintiffs have shown there is a direct connection between the landfill and the children who contracted leukemia. The plaintiffs’ epidemiologist, who has done complex studies and was to testify at the trial as an expert witness, would have told the jury that between 1988 and 1996, the incidence rate for those who lived within a mile and a half of the landfill was four times higher than for those three or four miles away.

But the city had its own expert, as well as studies that city officials said showed otherwise. Indeed, the city’s top lawyer on the case, Fay Leoussis, the chief of the Law Department’s tort division, made clear in a statement released on Friday that the city was not admitting guilt.

“The city believes that it managed the landfill lawfully and in accordance with accepted industry practices and that nothing emanating from the landfill caused plaintiffs to become ill,” the statement said. “However, these individuals, three of whom tragically died, undeniably suffered greatly from their disease. In light of the uncertain outcome in front of a jury of a complicated scientific case, the city concluded that it was in the best interests for all concerned to enter into this settlement.”

The case, which involved thousands of documents and complex issues, had dragged on, in part because the city had three times unsuccessfully asked appellate courts to dismiss it.

Mr. Korek and the other lawyer for the families, Mitchel Ashley, said the outcome was a testament to their clients’ “determination and spirit.”

“While the settlement does not replace their losses, the time was ripe for closure,” they said in a statement that praised the city’s lawyers and the judges who presided over the case.

The city’s denials notwithstanding, there is little question for Ms. Nonnon as to what caused her daughter’s death.

“I would sit in a meeting with the department of health — it was the same people all the time — and I said to them, and it was a legitimate question, I asked who had children,” she recalled. “And they raised their hands. And I asked how many of their children had friends that had leukemia.”

“And they said, ‘None.’ And I said, ‘There are multiple children in the Catholic school and the public school that have leukemia, and you don’t think there is anything wrong with that?’ ” she said of the area near the landfill.

“And they didn’t say anything.” 




A version of this article appeared in print on August 12, 2013, on page A13 of the New York edition with the headline: Bittersweet Deal in 22-Year Fight Over Toxic Site in Bronx.


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