Taryn Thompson

Five years ago, Ken Deschere was diagnosed with a very rare disease: stage IV tonsillar cancer.

He underwent three different surgeries in just over two weeks, and over the next two months was subject to 33 doses each of two types of radiation therapy - at 50 minutes a pop.

A South Hill resident since 1981, Deschere and his wife Regina live about one block downhill from Emerson Power Transmission, a polluted compound listed on New York's State Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal sites.

More than three million gallons of wastewater from natural gas drilling have been accepted by the Village of Cayuga Heights since May 2008. Cayuga Heights' Publicly Owned Treatment Works - known to most as a water treatment plant - has temporarily suspended this practice, however, effective April 2.