The Acreage Cancer Study

By Jane Musgrave

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 8:12 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011

Posted: 7:51 p.m. Monday, Sept. 12, 2011

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THE ACREAGE — A fourth lawsuit has been filed in connection with a cancer cluster in The Acreage, this one claiming actions by Pratt & Whitney and Palm Beach Aggregates caused a young man to develop a brain tumor that killed him in 2009 at age 20.

In the latest lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, the mother of the late Joey Baratta claims the aeronautics giant and the rock-mining company caused radioactive materials and other hazardous chemicals to contaminate surface and ground water that flows into the community of roughly 35,000 people who rely on private wells.

Baratta regularly rode his ATV and did yard work along the polluted canals, his mother Joyce Featherston claims in the lawsuit filed last week by attorney Jack Scarola. First diagnosed with a rare benign brain tumor in 2005, Baratta had surgery and was told he was cured. Three years later, he developed the cancerous brain tumor that killed him.

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