On her deathbed, Sue asked her sister for one
thing: to write about the connection between the industrial
pollution in their hometown and the rare cancer that was
killing her. Fulfilling that promise has been Nancy Nichols
mission for more than a decade.
Lake
Effect is the story of her investigation. It reaches
back to their childhood in Waukegan, Illinois, an industrial
town on Lake Michigan once known for good factory jobs and
great fishing. Now Waukegan is famous for its Superfund
sites: as one resident put it, asbestos to the north, PCBs
to the south.
Drawing on her
experience as a journalist, Nichols interviewed dozens of
scientists, doctors, and environmentalists to determine if
these pollutants could have played a role in her sister s
death. While researching Sue s cancer, she discovered her
own: a vicious though treatable form of pancreatic cancer.
Doctors and even family urged her to forget causes and
concentrate on cures, but Nichols knew that it was
relentless questioning that had led to her diagnosis. And
that it is questioning by government as well as individuals
that could save other lives.
Lake
Effect challenges us to ask why. It is the fulfillment
of a sister s promise. And it is a call to stop the
pollution that is endangering the health of all our
families.
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