The result was a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution.įagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary tale.

For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town’s namesake river. One of New Jersey’s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest environmental legal settlements in history. ' Now available in paperback with a new afterword by acclaimed author Dan Fagin, the book masterfully blends hard-hitting investigative journalism, scientific discovery, and unforgettable characters. The true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, Toms River won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize and has been hailed by The New York Times as 'a new classic of science reporting.

Winner of The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book AwardĪ new classic of science reporting.”- The New York Times.

Toms river by dan fagin