In January 1999, the legal thriller, A Civil Action, hit movie theaters across the United States. The film documented the fight of residents in Woburn, Massachusetts to protect their families and communities from toxic pollution that seeped into their drinking water wells and caused high rates of leukemia. Unfortunately, the Woburn tragedy was not an isolated incident—not in Massachusetts, not in Connecticut, nor in any other state in the country. As this report documents, the Connecticut landscape is littered with hazardous waste sites, incinerators, and other dangerous industrial and waste facilities.

Along with the startling volume of these numbers, it is important to recognize three points—lessons which were actually learned from the Woburn tragedy and countless others like it.

The first point is that toxic pollution in the environment can poison and even kill us. Woburn itself starkly established the link between toxic contamination and health impacts. In Connecticut, a Mansfield pharmacist recently discovered that in nearly half of the homes on one road abutting the University of Connecticut landfill and chemical waste pits, one person had or had died from cancer.

Today there is growing evidence of links between toxic pollution and health problems such as asthma, cancer, and reproductive disorders. For example, dioxin, which is emitted by incinerators and fossil fuel power plants has been linked to endometriosis, a painful female reproductive disorder, levels of which have soared in recent decades. Air pollution kills at least 400 people each year in Connecticut, with thousands of other respiratory conditions made worse by smog and soot.

The second point is that companies, as a rule, do not voluntarily take responsibility for their pollution. In fact, they often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid liability for their toxic messes. Connecticut's own Woburn, the Yaworski landfill, a national priority list Superfund site located in Canterbury, should have been cleaned up years ago. However, Yaworski, Inc., the corporation responsible for creating what is arguably the state's most toxic dump, has spent over a decade and millions of dollars on legal fees and public relations to clean up their image rather than their pollution. Today, in communities across the Nutmeg State and in Hartford, companies like Yaworski, Inc. continue to exercise the power of money to shape public policy and influence decision-makers.

The third point is that residents must join together to make their concerns heard, to make polluters accountable, and to make government take action. Last year, Mansfield families forced the Connecticut DEP to ensure that the University of Connecticut cleaned up and closed their toxic landfill. And, it was residents in Middletown, Portland, East Hampton, Montville, New Haven, and Mansfield that convinced their local town governments to call on Governor Rowland to clean up the state's dirtiest power plants.