STATEMENT OF FACTS

Jarrod Aufiero, a two-year-old boy suffering from leukemia, stopped breathing as his parents raced him to the hospital on a Monday morning. The Sunday before, Lauren Aufiero had called the hospital, worried about her son=s sluggishness. The nurse told her to wait until Monday to bring him in. When Lauren and her husband Richard checked on Jarrod that Monday, he was barely breathing. When he stopped breathing in his parents' car on the way to the hospital, his father pulled off the highway and performed CPR for several minutes. Unsuccessful, he sped to a nearby fire station, where the firefighters continued CPR and called an ambulance. Jarrod Aufiero died on the way to the hospital.

From 1972 to 1983, leukemia struck the quiet town of Woburn, Massachusetts, population 50,000. Although leukemia is a rare form of cancer, affecting only 1 out of 40,000 people, between 1972 and 1983 twelve people in Woburn contracted leukemia. Six of these victims lived in the Pine Street neighborhood. The victims had little in common. They were not related. They worked different jobs in different cities. Leukemia struck both children and adults. All that the victims shared were their sense of community, the air they breathed, and the water they drank and bathed in.

From 1964 to 1979, the Pine Street neighborhood drew their water from two recently-dug wells. As soon as the wells started , the water quality on Pine Street deteriorated. The water smelled and tasted of chemicals. It ruined dishwashers and washing machines. It ate through plumbing.

The two wells drew from a water table under an industrial area where the JJ Riley tannery and the WR Grace factory were located. For decades, these factories dumped their industrial waste directly on the ground, above the water table. This industrial waste included TCE, a powerful chemical used to strip grease off of machinery. TCE is highly toxic. TCE causes cancer.

In addition to leukemia, the residents of Pine Street suffered from a variety of illnesses. They had irregular heart rates, headaches, nausea, dulled reflexes, and rashes. These are all symptoms of TCE poisoning. In 1979, tests revealed the water from the two wells were heavily contaminated by TCE.