Book Response Chapter 1

The first chapter of the book "Protecting New Jersey's Environment" by Thomas Belton, called The War on Cancer, presented many points that stuck me as I was reading. I think the overall point that was most shocking to me was the struggle that lawmakers had so that the public could be informed about "what materials were used in their neighborhoods" (Belton 13). This means that prior to the laws put into place people didn't know about the chemical that were being leaked into the environment around them. Acts such as New Jersey Safe Drinking Water, Community Right to Know Act and several others were highly fought for so that the public could be made aware of what they were coming in contact with. Additionally another point that stuck out to me was the cancer cluster that was noted in Toms River. It was shocking to read about how the water wells have been contaminated and how this (along with other environmental events) could have been linked to an outbreak of cancer.

The main reason that the Toms River event stuck out to me was because when I was younger and even now I grew up at my grandparents house in Toms River. My cousins and I would run barefoot down the street and swim in the lagoon in the back yard, filled with black water that my Grandma would always yell at us to keep out of out mouths. However, after this reading, those are not what stick out to me about those memories. I mostly remember how my mom would bring cases of water with us and never let us drink the tap water. When I was little I never really paid attention to it however, since this reading I really made me think about why my mom did this. Did she know about the history of the cancer cluster? When I recently asked her why she used to do that she told me that she didn't know about the cancer cluster and she did it because she didn't like the way the water tasted. Overall, I thought that this chapter was very thought provoking and I enjoyed reading it.

Written by: Katie