CO'S SAY RIKERS ISLAND IS KILLING THEM BECAUSE IT WAS BUILT ON A LANDFILL!

Four cancer-stricken Rikers Island correction officers and the widow of a fifth are suing the city, claiming they contracted the disease from working at the prison.

The ailing officers believe they were sickened by toxic chemicals buried on Rikers, which is mostly built on landfill.

"That island is toxic and it's killing people," said Correction Officer Vanessa Parks, 49, of Queens, who was diagnosed with uterine cancer two years ago.

"I spent 20 years being exposed to what's in the ground and the air there. My life won't ever be the same."

Parks and other officers say a strong chemical odor often covers Rikers and mysterious smoke plumes rise from the ground.

The stench causes vomiting, and the smoke is thick enough to set off gas detectors on the prison island in the East River, the officers said.

"That place has killed so many of my brothers and sisters," said Correction Officer Jacqueline Bede, 51, of Queens, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2009. "Every few months, someone got sick."

The suits against the city claim officials knew workers were being exposed to cancer-causing agents. Victims say they know of many other cancer victims who have not yet decided whether to sue.

Ingrid Mitchell, whose correction officer husband, Anthony Mitchell, died of bladder cancer in 2008, blames the prison for killing him.

"His doctor told him his cancer was caused by inhaling carcinogens," said Mitchell, whose husband was a guard at Rikers for 20 years. "Rikers did that to him."

The city denies the claims. More than 8,000 correction personnel work on Rikers Island.

"There is no support for these allegations," said Ken Becker, the city lawyer who is fighting the lawsuits in Bronx Supreme Court.

A 2009 Health Department investigation found "no evidence that suggests a cancer cluster exists" at Rikers.

But researchers didn't determine how many DOC workers had cancer, according to a copy of the report obtained by the Daily News. The researchers only examined cancer rates in neighborhoods near Rikers Island, rather than on the island itself, the report shows.

"Their investigation was a joke," said Seth Harris, a lawyer representing the sickened guards.

Two-thirds of the land at Rikers Island is made up of landfill, the contents of which the city has never disclosed, Harris says.

"We need an honest accounting of what that waste is doing to people's bodies," he said.



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