Jayne Lorusso-Kaht retired from Bellport BOCES after years of working at the Bixhorn Technical Center, located at 350 Martha Avenue in Bellport, in 2018. After hearing of the recent death of 13-year-old Javien Coleman, a former student of South Country School District’s Frank P. Long Intermediate School, who died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Lorusso-Kaht made the possible connection to her illnesses and decided to tell her story, in hopes others might become aware as well.

She worked in the school for 26 years, starting in 1987, until she was transferred to the Oakdale BOCES Milliken Tech Center, where she retired after 31 years, in 2018. She taught in the Early Childhood Education Department and at the time lived in Huntington. She has since moved to Patchogue in her retirement with her husband.

Now 65, her illness started about 15 years ago. In 2007, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, leading to a double mastectomy; in 2009, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, undergoing surgery; and most recently she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Due to her illnesses, she now suffers from epilepsy and found the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which according to her doctors, she said, was most likely present for years before she was diagnosed.

According to Lorusso-Kaht, none of her cancers run in her family and, in fact, her father died at 99 from a fall and her mother at 93 from heart failure, never diagnosed with cancer. All her three sisters also currently live healthy lives.

“I never made the connection to all of my illnesses to the landfill, until I started seeing all the articles,” she said of her illnesses and Javien’s story. “I said, ‘Wow, we were right near the landfill, too.’ I wonder. It seemed too coincidental.”

The Bixhorn Technical Center is 1.4 miles from South Country School District’s Frank P. Long Intermediate School, located on Brookhaven Avenue in Bellport, which is about a mile from Brookhaven Town’s landfill.

Lorusso-Kaht also recalled her time at the school, which she enjoyed working at, but remembered odors during rainy and foggy days.

“It was unbearable; I had to cover my face and run into the building,” she explained.

As for other teachers, she hopes maybe her story will help them in their own discovery of their illnesses, though she only recalled a few other teachers who suffered from cancer during her time there, also noting, admittedly, it is hard to make the connection for certain.

“There was less camaraderie in trade school,” she said of the “keep to yourself” nature of the job. “I am very fortunate to be here now to talk about this.”

However, she said, she did reach out to one of the local activism groups, BLARG, which mentioned several other BOCES teachers who were affected.

“The reason I came out with this is because I feel there has to be a connection to our campus, and it needs to get out to the greater community,” she said, hoping to impact positive change. “We need accountability.”
She ultimately hopes the community groups will work together and coalesce for the betterment of the area.

Brookhaven Town Landfill Action and Remediation Group (BLARG) was formed by a group resident from North Bellport to monitor and seek action against those live near it.

According to Hannah Thomas, co-founder of BLARG, she is a community advocate for the area for over 50 years. She said they started the organization around the time of the murder of George Floyd to not only advocate the Black Lives Matter movement, but also stand up for the Bellport community, which, she said, is disproportionately treated and plagued by the landfill.

“Landfills are usually put in Black, indigenous and Latino communities, in low-income areas,” she said, noting the increased toxins and poor air and water quality. “BOCES and the homeless shelter and the school [Frank P. Long] and everyone within a few miles of the landfill are part of our [movement],” she added, hoping to continue to speak up for the eventual betterment of the area. “We want everyone to be heard, but they are not listening.”

Frank P. Long has been a point of community complaints referencing odors and emissions, in an effort to have the school shut down. There have been several lawsuits filed over the years after multiple deaths, including two teachers. A health study was done at the school and a documentary called “Sick School” was released.

In 2019, the New York State Health Department released a study that deemed the cancers found in teachers at Frank P. Long Intermediate School “do not appear unusual.” The study looked at 31 people with diagnoses of cancer, some of whom had multiple tumors. The earliest date of diagnosis was in 1980, and the latest was in 2017. But 80 percent of the cancers were diagnosed after 2000. Thirteen different types of cancer were noted in the study. Breast cancer was the most common, with 11 cases. Others were colorectal, lung, endometrium, malignant melanoma of the skin, bladder, ovarian, and other types, according to the report. Six people could not be confirmed as being diagnosed with a cancer.

The report compared the statistics provided by the cancer diagnoses with the expected rate of cancer development for employees at the school, using information provided by the district. It was calculated that 29.9 cases would be expected. Twenty-two cancers were actually confirmed among comparable employees, according to the findings. The department found that the differences in statistics were not significant.

The landfill, according to the town, is slated to close in 2024 and has since been capped in phases. In 2020, the town began performing better monitoring of the gases.

Eastern Suffolk BOCES confirmed Lorusso-Kaht’s employment from 1987 to 2018 and that she indeed worked at both the at Bixhorn Technical Center and then the Milliken Technical Center as an Early Childhood Education teacher; however, officials could not comment any further.