Environmental Law

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Environmental Law

It was past midnight on July 27th, 1979 in the woods of a small southern New Jersey town named Atco. "Get down!" yelled Mr. Hazal "I see lights coming." Just then a small yellow pick up truck drives by. "That was close, Joe." says Mr. Grouche as the truck drives off not paying any attention to the work truck pulled off to the side of the trail. "Okay, lets get back to work", Mr. Hazal sighs. "Down the trail there is a creek, we can bury the barrels near there." Mr. Grouche said, not even worrying about the truck that had just passed. This was nothing new for Mr. Grouche, he has been making this run for his boss, Nate Whalen, for years now but this was the first time for Mr. Hazal, he was new to the job. They both work for the Southern New Jersey Chemical Factory and once each month Mr. Whalen would give Mr. Grouche and now Mr. Hazal a truck full of barrels filled with toxic waste to take to the woods and get rid of. The trips were to be as secretive as could be and always were to be done well after midnight. There would always be a couple of cars that drove by but they never stopped. Mr. Grouche never ran into problems in the three years he was dumping the barrels in and around old Johnson creek, which runs through one of Atco's biggest residential areas, and he didn't suspect Mr. Hazal would be a problem he was just trying to make a few extra bucks.

Many years later, October 16th, 1992

"Well Mrs. Jones, I don't like to be the one who tells you this but the test are back for your son Chris and it is not good news. It seems he is full of cancer and he doesn't have very long to live." Dr. Holly says very concerned. Mrs. Jones in a state of disbelief knew something was wrong because Chris has been sick for some time now but she never thought her son would be dying at the young age of twelve. In her head she realizes that this is the eighth child in their neighborhood that has been diagnosed with cancer over the past year and a half and worst of all this is her child.

Mrs. Jones who works for a local grocery store in town can't believe that no one has noticed that there might be some link in the eight cases.

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