STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A report released this week by the city Health Department found no cancer link to the Fresh Kills Landfill despite higher rates among the population living near the former dump.

Officials from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene wrote in their report that a study conducted from 1995 to 2015 “found little evidence of an association between living close to the former Fresh Kills Landfill and cancer.”

However, researches did find higher cancer rates among adults for five types of the disease -- bladder, breast, kidney, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and thyroid -- in the “Fresh Kills Landfill study area” when compared with the rest of the Island, but did not find those elevated rates consistently over time, suggesting other factors were to blame.

“Variation in known risk factors and cancer detection rates across Staten Island are more plausible explanations than potential exposures from the landfill for the few elevations in rates we observed,” DOHMH officials wrote.

A map of the city's "Fresh Kills Landfill study area" shown in green. (Courtesy: DOHMH)

Overall, the city found the statistically significant elevations around the landfill in the latter half of its study from 2005 to 2015, particularly in thyroid and bladder cancers among adults. Children showed no statistically significant elevations in any part of the study.

Their report pointed to increased screening rates, and known risk factors like age, race, diet, and smoking as possible reasons for the increased rates. That echoed an October report from the New York State Department of Health that found no environmental exposures responsible for the overall borough’s elevated cancer levels.

“While it is not possible to know exact causes of individual cancer cases, smoking is the most important known risk factor for bladder cancer in the general population, and smoking rates are higher in Staten Island than in the rest of (New York City),” DOHMH wrote in its report.

“Therefore, we cannot rule out smoking patterns across (Staten Island) as an explanation for the variation we observed in bladder cancer rates,” the department added.

DOHMH published a similar study looking at incidences of cancer among people living near the landfill in 1996 with an addendum published in 2000.

OTHER HEALTH ISSUES

The latest study also looked at three other health categories -- asthma, deaths from chronic lower respiratory disease, and overall death rates excluding injuries -- for those living in the study area, finding no consistent statistical anomalies.

Asthma-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations for adults in the study area from 2012 to 2014 and children in the study area from 2014 to 2016 were lower when compared with the rest of the borough.

CLRD death rates for adults in the study area were not elevated at any point of the study. Overall death rates. excluding injuries, were lower for those in the study area when compared with the rest of the Island from 1995 to 2004, about the same from 2005 to 2009, and "slightly elevated” from 2010 to 2015.

WORLD’S LARGEST LANDFILL

The landfill operated from 1948 to 2001, and was the world’s largest landfill for much of its existence.

It became the city’s only active landfill in 1991, receiving approximately 29,000 tons of household garbage that year, according to the DOHMH report.

City officials hope to turn the former landfill into one of the city’s largest parks like it did for the Island’s Brookfield Avenue Landfill, which closed in 1980.

At 2,200 acres, Fresh Kills Park will be almost three times the size of Central Park and the largest park developed in New York City in more than 100 years, according to the city Department of Parks and Recreation.

It is scheduled to be opened in phases through 2036.