--- product_id: 14460998 title: "Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation" brand: "dan fagin" price: "189.91 DT" currency: TND in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.tn/products/14460998-toms-river-a-story-of-science-and-salvation store_origin: TN region: Tunisia --- # Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation **Brand:** dan fagin **Price:** 189.91 DT **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by dan fagin - **How much does it cost?** 189.91 DT with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.tn](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/14460998-toms-river-a-story-of-science-and-salvation) ## Best For - dan fagin enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted dan fagin brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • Winner of The New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award A new classic of science reporting.”— The New York Times The true story of a small town ravaged by industrial pollution, Toms River won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize and has been hailed by The New York Times as "a new classic of science reporting ." Now available in paperback with a new afterword by acclaimed author Dan Fagin, the book masterfully blends hard-hitting investigative journalism, scientific discovery, and unforgettable characters. One of New Jersey’s seemingly innumerable quiet seaside towns, Toms River became the unlikely setting for a decades-long drama that culminated in 2001 with one of the largest environmental legal settlements in history. For years, large chemical companies had been using Toms River as their private dumping ground, burying tens of thousands of leaky drums in open pits and discharging billions of gallons of acid-laced wastewater into the town’s namesake river. The result was a notorious cluster of childhood cancers scientifically linked to local air and water pollution. Fagin recounts the sixty-year saga of rampant pollution and inadequate oversight that made Toms River a cautionary tale. He brings to life the pioneering scientists and physicians who first identified pollutants as a cause of cancer and the everyday people in Toms River who struggled for justice: a young boy whose cherubic smile belied the fast-growing tumors that had decimated his body from birth; a nurse who fought to bring the alarming incidence of childhood cancers to the attention of authorities who didn’t want to listen; and a mother whose love for her stricken child transformed her into a tenacious advocate for change. Rooted in a centuries-old scientific quest, Toms River is an epic of dumpers at midnight and deceptions in broad daylight, of corporate avarice and government neglect, and of a few brave individuals who refused to keep silent until the truth was exposed. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Dimensions | 6.13 x 1.4 x 9.25 inches | | Edition | Reprint | | Isbn 10 | 1610915917 | | Isbn 13 | 978-1610915915 | | Item Weight | 1.85 pounds | | Language | English | | Print Length | 576 pages | | Publication Date | April 7, 2015 | | Publisher | Island Press | ## Images ![Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81r2HOIo19L.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Toms River: When Better Living Through Chemistry Met Its Reckoning *by on Reviewed in the United States January 31, 2026* Toms River by Dan Fagin is one of those rare books that manages to be part detective story, part scientific case study, and part moral reckoning. It is no surprise that Fagin won the Pulitzer Prize for this work. This is investigative journalism at its absolute peak—meticulous, humane, and relentless.The book resonated deeply with me because my early career ambition was shaped by chemistry and its promise. I became a chemical engineer believing in DuPont’s famous motto, “Better Living Through Chemistry.” As a kid at the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens, I stood mesmerized inside the DuPont pavilion. Forget the singing and dancing...the real magic was watching a man on stage make nylon before our eyes. In that moment, chemistry felt like pure wonder.I declared to my parents that I was going to be a chemist when I grew up, locked myself in the bathroom, and mixed a formulation of iodine, hydrogen peroxide, and talcum powder. The blend produced a violent reaction…not chemically, but when I dropped it on my mother’s brand-new bath mat, her response was pretty reactive. After grounding me for two weeks, my parents wisely redirected my ambitions by giving me a chemistry set to focus my curiosity on more controlled experiments.Toms River shows what happens when childhood wonder collides with adult reality, and when chemical companies bury their heads in the sand by outsourcing responsibility for their own waste. Fagin painstakingly documents how industrial effluent streams were shunted into so-called solutions: open lagoons—liquid landfills—and “containerized lagoons” of 55-gallon drums and tanks, all managed under the convenient assumption that dilution would take care of everything. But as every water professional knows, dilution is not the solution to pollution.What Toms River ultimately reveals is not a failure of any single individual, but a systemic one. The contamination unfolded within a regulatory culture that was reactive rather than precautionary, constrained by high evidentiary thresholds and persistent deference to industry assurances. Scientific uncertainty became a convenient shield behind which responsibility could be deferred. Outsourced waste management blurred accountability, while institutional compartmentalization allowed pollution to persist long after community warning signs were visible.Fagin brings scientific rigor to life by following pollution plumes through groundwater, tracking clusters of data, and showing how causality in environmental health is established not through a single smoking gun, but through accumulation: patterns, persistence, and proof over time. His work echoes the wisdom of Paracelsus, who reminded us centuries ago that “the dose is the poison.”Equally compelling is the human story: a citizenry unwilling to accept reassurances from powerful institutions when lived experience tells them otherwise. Families, scientists, and advocates press forward not with certainty, but with questions refusing to be silenced by complexity, delay, or doubt.In the end, Toms River is not anti-chemistry. It is anti-complacency. It is a reminder that science, when untethered from accountability, can quietly harm the very communities it claims to serve. For anyone who believes water professionals are health professionals and that data, courage, and persistence matter, this book is essential reading. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very Interesting Despite Its Flaws *by on Reviewed in the United States December 31, 2013* The book seemed to be written in two very distinct parts. The first, a fascinating, highly informative, somewhat troubling but generally even-handed examination of many aspects of our vast industrial expansion of the previous century and a half. The second, a somewhat cumbersome, sad and harder to digest probe into the minutiae of a massive class action lawsuit built upon statistically weak data.As a former resident of both the industrial northern tier of NJ in the 1960's-1970's and of the seemingly more "pristine" Toms River, NJ for a short period in the mid 1980's, the first part of the book held me spellbound as it not only recalled events and attitudes that I personally remember vividly but also illustrated well the inherent flaws of lax regulatory oversight on entities whose sole existence is predicated on the absolute maximization of financial profit. Fagan does a commendable job in both his facts and his prose in relating the events that led to the polluting of Toms River.I thought however that the subsequent extensive focus on litigation based primarily upon the existence of chemical agents at the parts per billion concentration in the public water supply weakened the overall "cautionary tale" effect that the author claims as motivation for writing the book. Clearly, had the specific laboratory analyses been done decades earlier the toxicity of the water (and probably the air) would have been evident, but here's the rub, they weren't done because there were little to no regulations in place and no means of enforcing them if they had been in place. As laws changed so too, begrudgingly, did the practices of industry. And obviously, with time the water became less contaminated as fewer pollutants were introduced to the surrounding soils. By the time the extensive water testing was done, pollutant levels were much lower than in the past, and these results are what the regulatory agencies reported to the public and what the lawyers worked with in the lawsuit. The author's implication that a significant part of the blame for Toms Rivers' health problems rested with lax or arrogant regulatory agencies seems weak based upon the evidence he presents. It also seems to be pointing the finger in the wrong direction, and may provide encouragement to the many today who have been conditioned to believe that government is ineffective and therefore unable to regulate for the common good--an ironic viewpoint which if acted upon would likely return us to a similar state of affairs that led to the health and environmental problems encountered in Toms River and thousands of other unnamed places throughout this country. With respect to the industrial dumping of the past it would seem that the best we as a society can do is to clean up what we can, learn from our mistakes and not make them again. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Engaging Remarkable *by on Reviewed in the United States January 3, 2015* Toms River is a story about the environmental impact on a community from 1952 through 2001. It is about corporate negligence, scientific investigation, community activism, science and medical history, and personal tragedy. It is a very complex, tragic story with many characters that are conveyed in a very engaging manner. The book follows Toms River as a growing community that transitions over time and is impacted by carcinogens in its drinking water and air.The first two chapters of the book are slow reviewing the origins of Toms Rivers dating back to the Colonial period. One interesting approach is Dan Fagin provides a sub narrative throughout the book on a history of chemistry dating back to the Greeks, and other scientific developments that eventually lead to the chemical industry. There are no breaks in the text to indicate a change in topic. It took me a couple of chapters to become accustomed to the shift in the discussion. There should be subtitles or a series of asterisks *** to indicate the narrative change.The book builds its narrative first focusing on decisions and neglect taking place at the chemical plant and the water company. There was an additional location where a scrupulous waste company deliberately dumped waste on private property to save money that became a significant source of pollution.The third section reviews growing community concerns, contentions within the community, struggles between the local community and the companies, arguments with local and state officials, grassroots political activism, media attention, and eventually the EPA becoming involved with the pollution cleaned up as a Super Fund project.All through the book the community wants answers as to what is causing cancer within its community. This looming question is not addressed until the cleanup had begun. There are many people in the community with cancer, particularly children. Here Fagan does an excellent walking the reader through the history of cancer research and what the disease actually is. Throughout the book there is liberal use of quotations, particularly from community meetings that I found very effective. Causes for the cancer are complex and not easy to explain. Some of the families received compensation, but how cancer hit the community was never truly answered and no apologies given. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.tn/products/14460998-toms-river-a-story-of-science-and-salvation](https://www.desertcart.tn/products/14460998-toms-river-a-story-of-science-and-salvation) --- *Product available on Desertcart Tunisia* *Store origin: TN* *Last updated: 2026-08-30*