SENATE ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE RESOLUTION No. 81

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED: MAY 8, 1997

      The Senate Environment Committee favorably reports Senate Resolution No. 81.

      This resolution memorializes the Congress of the United States and the United States Environmental Protection Agency to supplement federal safe drinking water standards to include acrylonitrile-styrene.

      The presence of acrylonitrile-styrene was recently found in groundwater underlying Toms River and Dover Township. Although acrylonitrile, through scientific analysis, has been associated with certain brain and central nervous system cancers, and styrene is listed in the federal regulations as a substance that must be tested for in public drinking water supplies, there are no drinking water standards for the various compounds created when these two independently hazardous substances are combined.

      Because of the abnormally high incidence of cancer, especially in children, in the Toms River area of Ocean County, there is a significant concern that acrylonitrile-styrene may have contributed to these health problems and should be regulated and controlled in drinking water. Additional testing is necessary to determine the effects of acrylonitrile-styrene on human health and to establish a federal standard, the exceedance of which would result in immediate remediation efforts.