Small town gripped by fear as cancer cases pile up - including 28 on just one street

Published: 07:07, 21 April 2026 | Updated: 07:22, 21 April 2026 A suburban, coastal town in New Jersey has been gripped by fear as an astounding number of residents continue to get diagnosed with cancer. Ginger Morris, 72, told NJ.com she first noticed all the illnesses on First Street in Keyport about a year ago when her husband, Richard, started his own chemotherapy treatments for prostate cancer. Soon, every call she made to her son, Rusty, who grew up in Keyport but now lives in Florida, seemed to come with the mention of someone else battling cancer. Concerned about what he was hearing, Rusty, 46, pulled up a Google map with an overhead view of the Monmouth County neighborhood in February and started drawing red X's on each of the houses where someone had been diagnosed with cancer. Then he started calling friends he grew up with in the neighborhood. 'It just kept freaking snowballing,' Rusty said, reporting cases of residents in the town of just over 7,000 people being diagnosed with prostate, brain, lung, stomach, colon, breast, appendix, kidney and intestinal cancers. His map of Keyport now has 41 red X's on it, 28 of which are concentrated on and around First Street, he said. Many of the X's are also cluttered around the old Aeromarine site - a shuttered dump that tests show has leached toxic waste and harmful chemicals into the air and water for at least 50 years.  The site has been cited multiple times over the last five decades for being improperly sealed off and leaching at least five known carcinogens, as well as other toxins in the area. Many of the cancer cases in the town of about 7,000 people are clustered around the site of the former Aeromarine site (pictured) 'It looks like you have a crazy high percentage [of cancer patients],' said Dr Alexis Mraz, of The College of New Jersey's Department of Public Health. 'When you're looking at a map like that. That looks insane. 'The other side of that coin is the reality [that Rusty] probably has not gotten everyone in that neighborhood, so there are likely more cancer cases,' the doctor warned. 'I think it's definitely worth looking into.' Residents are now questioning whether they might have found a 'cancer cluster,' defined by the American Cancer Society as 'patterns of cancer cases' in 'people who live or work in the same area.' But without more information - like collecting the ages of the patients and the timing of their illnesses - it is impossible to say how many cancer cases would be typically expected in the area. It is also hard to prove whether the cancers could be linked to pollution from the old dump, which has been cited multiple times over the last five decades for being improperly sealed off and leaching at least five known carcinogens, as well as other toxins in the area. The site was originally used to house a small aircraft firm that provided airplanes to the US Army and Navy in the early 20th century. It was then a landfill for about 17 years, starting in 1962, but was shut down in 1979 by the New Jersey State Department of Environmental Protection, citing 'numerous operating/engineering deficiencies and overall exhaustion of capacity.' The whole development was then razed in stages, and the vacant lot became a hangout spot for generations of teenagers. It has been owned by New York-based Bay Ridge Realty since the 1990s, and in 2010, a California developer proposed building a solar panel farm and residential development at the site, NJ.com reports. The site was originally used to house a small aircraft firm that provided airplanes to the US Army and Navy in the early 20th century before becoming a landfill At that time, the company hired an environmental consulting firm, Excel Environmental Resources Inc, to study the land. It found problems in a large section of the landfill next to Raritan Bay, where proper engineering controls were missing and solid waste could easily flow onto the shore and into the bay, according to a 2021 lawsuit the town of Keyport filed against Bay Ridge Realty in an effort to force a cleanup of the site. The 2010 study also found that heavy metals that could be harmful, as well as chemicals and carcinogens, leaked into the soil and groundwater from the dump. Those contaminants then made their way to Chingarora Creek, a tributary that surrounds the landfill, and into the groundwater, according to the analysis.  Part of the old landfill is also a 'hot spot' of toxic, elevated levels of methane gas that 'requires immediate mitigation,' per the lawsuit. The analysis ultimately concluded that the entire site was not properly capped, which would have helped prevent the spread of the pollution. Even though the site was not found to have impacted the local drinking water sources, those who live nearby could have come into contact with contaminants by walking on the grounds in and around the site, swimming or fishing in the nearby water or just breathing in potentially harmful air. A new environmental study of the area has not been conducted in 16 years, residents said, and it is unclear what soil and water tests - if any - have been conducted at the former landfill recently.  An environmental study in 2010 found that solid waste could easily flow onto the shore and into Raritan Bay More than 20 people have been diagnosed with cancer on First Street in Keyport, New Jersey In the lawsuit, the town accused Bay Ridge Realty of 'inflicting irreparable harm upon the environment, public health, public safety and visitors to the property.' But a judge dismissed the case in 2022, finding that the responsibility to manage the former dump - and force a cleanup - lies with the state's Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP, meanwhile, issued its first fine to the company for $15,000 in 2021, and the state in August 2024 once again fined the real estate company over $300,000 over pollution concerns. The citation then noted the property owner still had not properly closed off the landfill. By January 2025, the DEP raised the fine to nearly $900,000 after the company failed to address the citations. Bay Ridge Realty is now challenging the fines and will go before an administrative law judge in June.  But amid the uproar the DEP told NJ.com it is 'committed to ensuring proper closure of the landfill to protect the environment and public health.' It said it 'has begun initial discussions to determine next steps,' which could include 'requesting a public health assessment to evaluate the potential for public health implications from potential exposures' to contaminants at the old dump. The state noted that the former Aeromarine site is a 'legacy landfill' because it dates back to before the 1980s when more comprehensive environmental protections were put in place. At that time, legal waste disposal was like the 'Wild, Wild West,' said Craig Benson, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Virginia. 'Everything just went into a hole in the ground. There were no rules. Hazardous waste went right in with everything else.'  The state said it is working with both Bay Ridge and Pacer Partners, a prospective buyer hoping to build more housing on the site, to iron out an agreement that would clean up the contaminants at the site and cap it the right way. Pacer, the state said, would conduct soil, groundwater, soil-gas and geotechnical testing on property 'to help facilitate the proper closure of the landfill.' The Daily Mail has reached out to Bay Ridge and Pacer Partners for comment.  No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. 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