COAL TAR: How Corrupt Politics and Corporate Greed Are Killing US with Cancer

Book Synopsis: "This is a classic story with very good good-guys and very bad bad-guys, a tale of corporate greed, lethal pollution and sick children and the heroic people who fought to make things right. A wonderful read." --Scott Turow

Author Bill Clutter is a private investigator who tells the story of his investigation of a rare childhood cancer epidemic. This story is also about the corruption of government by powerful corporations, like the villain of the story, Central Illinois Public Service Company (CIPS). To avoid liability under Superfund, CIPS remained silent about the coal gasification plants that the company had abandoned during the Great Depression that polluted the environment with coal tar. Similar waste sites were abandoned by utility companies in thousands of other communities across the country.

After the discovery of coal tar in Taylorville, Illinois by the county health department, the Illinois EPA required CIPS to develop a cleanup plan. Environmental engineers working for CIPS predicted that an open-air excavation of coal tar posed an unacceptable risk of cancer to the people living nearby. But CIPS deleted this risk assessment from the engineering documents it filed with the IEPA.

The company rejected a proposal by the EPA to cover the excavation with a containment dome, to prevent the release of toxins. Instead, more interested in saving money than protecting public health, CIPS chose a cheaper and riskier method of controlling dust and vapors.

Any cancers that might develop, they thought, would appear years down the road. The latency period in adults takes decades for cancer to develop after an exposure to carcinogens. What the company failed to consider were children and pregnant mothers. For this vulnerable group, cancers develop soon after a child or fetus is exposed. The children became the canaries in the coal mine.

This epidemic of neuroblastoma, a rare childhood cancer, started with three children who were born within a year. As a candidate for the Illinois senate, the author assisted the families with their investigation. While the state health department sided with CIPS. A civil case was filed. At trial, the families were represented by a lone attorney who went up against one of the largest law firms in the world, Jones Day, that later defended Donald Trump in the Mueller investigation. The case was tried in the Christian County courthouse, where Abraham Lincoln once practiced law. By the time the case went to trial, 7 children had contracted this rare cancer. The case became an important Illinois Supreme Court precedent, Donaldson et. al v. CIPS et. al. The lesson from this story is, we need to protect our children by protecting our environment.