Cancer Free Cancer: Keyport New Jersey 2026, Landfill declared not the problem leaving cancer stricken residents demanding answers.
by Matthew Einbinder
Site Description:
Keyport New Jersey is a small borough in Monmouth county housing around 7,000 residents living near an old landfill named the Aeromarine Landfill or the Keyport Landfill. In early 2026 residents banded together to create a map showcasing how many of them at one point had cancer, survived, and or died from a cancer related illness. The residents blamed the local Aeromarine landfill due to its proximity, history of not being properly capped, and previous studies showcasing that there are still contaminants within the site. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) declared the site not at fault for the cancer residents are experiencing. This paper will look into why the NJDEP declared the site as not related to cancer and why the residents are being ignored when pushing back against this declaration. By looking at the residents’ reactions and responses to the declaration, future residents will learn how to properly fight back against a governing body that declares the problem not the problem.
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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa id. Elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla. Orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Purus semper eget duis at tellus at urna. Diam maecenas ultricies mi eget mauris. Diam ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu. Ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare massa eget egestas. Quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin. Consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant. Cras fermentum odio eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl. Lectus mauris ultrices eros in cursus turpis massa. Luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac. Porttitor eget dolor morbi non arcu. Maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque vitae. In iaculis nunc sed augue. Suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus. Sit amet porttitor eget dolor.
Felis eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus. At elementum eu facilisis sed odio. Eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed. Habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit amet. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend. Velit dignissim sodales ut eu sem integer. Morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non curabitur. Aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam. Nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit. Convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id. Turpis in eu mi bibendum neque egestas. Magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum. In cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui ut ornare lectus sit.
Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse. Eros donec ac odio tempor orci. Nullam non nisi est sit amet facilisis magna etiam tempor. Platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque elit ullamcorper. Eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam. Proin fermentum leo vel orci porta. Eget dolor morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque. Nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin sed. Nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor eu augue. Pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et. Pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque. Laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet.
Pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna. Mattis nunc sed blandit libero volutpat. Nec ultrices dui sapien eget. Gravida neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque. Aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at. Quisque non tellus orci ac auctor augue mauris. Ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue lacus. Quam elementum pulvinar etiam non. Felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas. Sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus. Ac ut consequat semper viverra. Volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque. Urna condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor. Erat nam at lectus urna duis convallis convallis. Malesuada fames ac turpis egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra. Pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas. Interdum velit euismod in pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus. Est velit egestas dui id. Pellentesque id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh. Id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl.
Primary Sources:
Walk the map – Every dot is a neighbor.
Online Webpage: https://nj-explorer.s3.amazonaws.com/nj-cancer-keyport/map.html
This source was the catalyst for the Clean up Aeromarine movement and is a direct informal collection of cancer victims within 3 miles of the Aeromarine site. This data will be used to help project the impact the people are suffering from and the exact demographics of the people.
Keyport Community Meeting September 22, 2026
Online Powerpoint: https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/keyportlandfill/docs/keyport-community-meeting-20260922.pdf
This source details the results of the investigation the EPA did when investigating the Aeromarine site. This will be useful to give the full background on the whos, what, why, when, and how the EPA determined whether or not there was a route for toxins to flow into Keyport and whether or not those toxins are causing the cancer clusters identified in the source above.
Keyport landfill test results leave residents calling for more answers
Online News Report + Video: https://lionswire.usatoday.com/story/news/local/land-environment/2026/09/23/keyport-landfill-test-raises-residents-forever-chemicals-concerns/91898757007/
This source showcases one of the leaders of the Keyport United giving a talk about why he is fighting and a news article discussing the events. This source will be helpful as it gives a direct insight into how the people are fighting against injustice and how they are fighting to be heard.
Keyport Residents Skeptical of State Findings at Aeromarine Site
Online Transcript of Print News Report: https://tworivertimes.com/keyport-residents-skeptical-of-state-findings-at-aeromarine-site/
This source is detailing public comments made by community members about the state’s findings on toxins in the site. This will be helpful in citing direct community concerns even after the investigation has concluded and will help show how the community is still fighting back even with the case closed but answers unfound.
Keyport Community Meeting Video + Q and A September 22, 2026
Online Video Recording: https://www.facebook.com/events/1656056076112396
This source is the full recording of the meeting the DEP gave concerned Keyport residents where they recounted their findings and fielded questions. This will be useful as it gives a first hand account of who was affected, how they were affected, and how individuals from the community reacted both individually and as a collective.
Analysis: Keyport Residents Skeptical of State Findings at Aeromarine Site
This article details the resident’s response to the Keyport Community Meeting on September 22, 2026 and a few of the key findings made by New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP noted that there was no pathway for water contamination nor vapor intrusion to be affecting residents. This is in spite of local residents being skeptical as previous reports from upwards of 10 years ago detail the presence of known carcinogens within the site. The source directly dictates that the DEP believes that there is no pathway for contamination to be affecting the local residents, but the local residents are skeptical due to the rate of cancer and previous reports indicating there are contaminates within the site. They believe the site is affecting them in spite of what the DEP has investigated. I believe the article describes a community that has been ignored by the DEP despite the DEP claiming otherwise.
According to paragraph 2 of the source “This unmonitored site is marked for redevelopment. This isn’t a mistake. It’s a pattern the DEP repeated in 1990, ’97, 2004, 2010 and now,” Tiffany Busby” (Prabhu). What this means is that the DEP has looked at and directly indicated that the site is in need of redevelopment and the DEP has not made any action to enforce this within roughly 30 years. The source quotes the DEP’s Commissioner Ed Potosnak as saying “While the focus of the testing has been the Aeromarine site and the landfill… …there could be other places where contamination is coming from” (Parbhu). The source then immediately adds “… The (current) owner, Bay Ridge Reality, is responsible for properly closing the site” (Prabhu). To recap, the DEP has claimed the site needs to be redeveloped but also shifts all blame onto the current owners. The current owners who, according to the final paragraph in the source, the DEP has charged the current owners over “ $1 million … …by the NJDEP. Since August 2025… ” (Prabhu). The DEP themselves have only recently stepped up to reinvestigate the site after the local community of Keyport has begun reporting cancer numbers in a large cluster. This is despite the DEP saying over and over they need to redevelop the site, the site is not contaminating areas outside of it, but the site is also not properly closed, and we are actively fining the current owners. It is clear that over the past 30 years the DEP has been ignoring that the site has been improperly closed.
Secondary Sources:
Morales, Nicholas. 2009. “New Jersey v. Environmental Protection Agency.” Harvard
Environmental Law Review 33 (1): 263–82. EBSCOhost.
https://research.ebsco.com/c/zkun6z/viewer/html/xne5442hmj
The source above describes a legal challenge raised by several states against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the new interpretation and reversal of EPA standards created by legislation passed by Congress. In short, Congress passed the legislation titled “Clean Air Act”, among one of its many newfound requirements, the EPA was legislated to create rules and regulations on the emission of mercury from power plants. After an administration change in the executive branch, the new EPA reversed its decision to label mercury as an official emission produced from power plants and actively removed regulations it had previously established to safeguard the environment. This led to New Jersey and several states successfully suing the EPA to reverse course. The reason I would like to use this article is to help establish the idea that the EPA has been influenced by the federal political system, primarily the political whims of the executive branch, and has not always taken the plight of the environment seriously, occasionally going so far as to repeal protections. This will be later extrapolated to argue that the EPA is not always trustworthy nor always acting in the best interest of the people in a historical sense. This event took place in the early 2000s and will establish a trend.
Olalde, Mark, and Chris Nakamoto. 2026. “Trump Exempted Some of the Nation’s Biggest
Polluters From Air Quality Rules. All It Took Was an Email.” Pro Publica, May 1, 1.
EBSCOhost.
https://research.ebsco.com/c/zkun6z/viewer/html/chvex5o4pz?modal=cite
The source discusses the Trump’s administration’s deregulation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) power by utilizing aspects of the Clean Air Act to go around the EPA’s authority to deregulate businesses. This includes discussing some impacts to the cleaner production of emissions, how sloppy Trump’s process of going around the EPA is, and how the EPA is unable to prevent or assist this event. The reason I would like to use this source is that it helps further the narrative established by the previous source but in modern years. This is an important distinction because I would like to establish that the EPA has been influenced by the executive branch leading to forms of deregulation.
Greenberg, Michael R. 1986. “Does New Jersey Cause Cancer?” Sciences 26 (1): 40.
https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2326-1951.1986.tb02824.x.
https://research.ebsco.com/c/zkun6z/viewer/pdf/dzdbmswu7n
The sources discuss a report created by the National Cancer Institute in 1974 that was cited as being one of the largest statistics on cancer deaths nationwide. This report concluded that New Jersey was a hotspot of cancer deaths leading to the source asking why. The source looks at new statistical analysis data and the consumption/lifestyle choices made by the people to help argue that the report was incorrect and that the way people lived not where was the direct influence on cancer deaths. I want to use this article as support for a counter argument within my report. In argumentative writing, I like an argument I can work against, and I believe incorporating the source as additional evidence for the counter argument would help strengthen my argument. I believe the source can be used as supportive evidence for a potential EPA argument as for why they declared the Keyport Landfill as not cancer causing and might give an argument as for why the EPA is seemingly ignoring the Keyport people as they could argue that their life styles are causing the cancer and not some environmental disaster/injustice .
Image Analysis:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut diam quam nulla porttitor massa id. Elementum facilisis leo vel fringilla est ullamcorper eget nulla. Orci porta non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse interdum. Purus semper eget duis at tellus at urna. Diam maecenas ultricies mi eget mauris. Diam ut venenatis tellus in metus vulputate eu. Ullamcorper morbi tincidunt ornare massa eget egestas. Quis eleifend quam adipiscing vitae proin. Consectetur adipiscing elit pellentesque habitant. Cras fermentum odio eu feugiat pretium nibh ipsum consequat nisl. Lectus mauris ultrices eros in cursus turpis massa. Luctus accumsan tortor posuere ac. Porttitor eget dolor morbi non arcu. Maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo urna molestie. Neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque vitae. In iaculis nunc sed augue. Suspendisse interdum consectetur libero id faucibus. Sit amet porttitor eget dolor.
Felis eget nunc lobortis mattis aliquam faucibus. At elementum eu facilisis sed odio. Eu facilisis sed odio morbi quis commodo odio aenean sed. Habitasse platea dictumst quisque sagittis purus sit amet. Et ultrices neque ornare aenean euismod elementum nisi quis eleifend. Velit dignissim sodales ut eu sem integer. Morbi tempus iaculis urna id volutpat lacus laoreet non curabitur. Aliquam eleifend mi in nulla posuere sollicitudin aliquam. Nunc congue nisi vitae suscipit. Convallis tellus id interdum velit laoreet id. Turpis in eu mi bibendum neque egestas. Magna fermentum iaculis eu non diam phasellus vestibulum. In cursus turpis massa tincidunt dui ut ornare lectus sit.
Non pulvinar neque laoreet suspendisse. Eros donec ac odio tempor orci. Nullam non nisi est sit amet facilisis magna etiam tempor. Platea dictumst vestibulum rhoncus est pellentesque elit ullamcorper. Eleifend donec pretium vulputate sapien nec sagittis aliquam. Proin fermentum leo vel orci porta. Eget dolor morbi non arcu risus quis varius quam quisque. Nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin sed. Nisl nisi scelerisque eu ultrices vitae auctor eu augue. Pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et. Pulvinar elementum integer enim neque volutpat ac. Vel orci porta non pulvinar neque. Laoreet sit amet cursus sit amet.
Pharetra massa massa ultricies mi quis hendrerit dolor magna. Mattis nunc sed blandit libero volutpat. Nec ultrices dui sapien eget. Gravida neque convallis a cras semper auctor neque. Aenean et tortor at risus viverra adipiscing at. Quisque non tellus orci ac auctor augue mauris. Ultrices in iaculis nunc sed augue lacus. Quam elementum pulvinar etiam non. Felis bibendum ut tristique et egestas. Sagittis nisl rhoncus mattis rhoncus. Ac ut consequat semper viverra. Volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas fringilla phasellus faucibus scelerisque. Urna condimentum mattis pellentesque id nibh tortor. Erat nam at lectus urna duis convallis convallis. Malesuada fames ac turpis egestas sed tempus urna et pharetra. Pellentesque diam volutpat commodo sed egestas egestas. Interdum velit euismod in pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies lacus. Est velit egestas dui id. Pellentesque id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh. Id nibh tortor id aliquet lectus proin nibh nisl.
Consequat semper viverra nam libero justo laoreet sit. Ornare massa eget egestas purus viverra accumsan in. Dignissim diam quis enim lobortis scelerisque fermentum dui faucibus in. Curabitur gravida arcu ac tortor dignissim convallis aenean et tortor. Erat nam at lectus urna duis convallis convallis tellus. Risus at ultrices mi tempus imperdiet nulla malesuada pellentesque elit. Turpis egestas maecenas pharetra convallis posuere morbi leo. Nulla facilisi etiam dignissim diam quis enim lobortis. Pellentesque massa placerat duis ultricies. Est ante in nibh mauris cursus. Massa sed elementum tempus egestas sed sed risus. Augue ut lectus arcu bibendum at varius. Neque viverra justo nec ultrices dui sapien eget mi proin. Non diam phasellus vestibulum lorem sed risus ultricies. Venenatis cras sed felis eget velit aliquet sagittis id consectetur. Tristique et egestas quis ipsum suspendisse. Facilisis volutpat est velit egestas dui. Non nisi est sit amet facilisis magna. Scelerisque mauris pellentesque pulvinar pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus. Bibendum at varius vel pharetra vel turpis nunc.
Data Analysis:
Taking a look at the data, we can begin to identify some problems. The population of Keyport NJ is in the 81st percentile for lead paint indicator. This is roughly 2 times the US’s average but roughly 1.4 times the state’s average. They are also in the 91nd percentile for superfund site proximity. This is roughly 2.6 times the US’s average but only 0.6 times the state’s average. What this data shows is that beyond just the newly identified cancer cluster that is developing, there is a significant number of homes affected by lead paint and by proximity to a superfund site.
The population is made up of a largely unemployed population, ranking in the 80th percentile across the US. The area is largely made up of working aged adults with about 5% of the population being under 5 years of age and 18% being above 65. The population is predominantly white, around 66% of the population. Roughly 19% are hispanic of some kind and around 7%, roughly 2.2 times the US’s average, was identified as being two or more non hispanic races. In households where English was not the primary language spoken, Spanish was the predominant language, with it being roughly 4.5 times the US’s average and 4.2 times the state’s average. The population is almost equal in terms of males to females.
Beyond the environmental concerns, the population also overlaps with housing burdened communities and food desert communities.With the former being roughly 88% of the population, which is 7 times the US’s average and 4.3 times the states. The latter being 59% or roughly 2.4 times the US’s average and roughly 4.9 times the state’s.
What the data shows is that Keyport has a population of mainly white people with a larger Spanish only speaking community who are being affected by a larger than average lead paint and superfund proximity problem. The working aged adult population is struggling with unemployment, a housing burden issue, and food desert issues.