Case Study: Radiation Poisoning Affecting Two Communities
Apollo, Pennsylvania is a small town built on the shoulders of the steel industry in the early part of this century. When the steel industry declined after World War II, the town's steel mill shut down and many workers lost their jobs. In 1957, an entrepreneur arrived in town with a plan for the abandoned steel mill that would bring jobs and income back into the community.
This was during the early days of the Cold War, a time when the United States government encouraged the development of peacetime uses for nuclear power so that it would always have a steady supply of the ingredients used to build its nuclear arsenal. The plan was to prepare one of these ingredients -- weapons-grade uranium -- for use as nuclear fuel at the old steel mill. The entrepreneur's new company, called Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation or "NUMEC," set up shop in the mill on the town's main street, right across from a deli and several homes. NUMEC covered the mill's dirt floors with cement, built a few production lines, spruced the place up with a fresh coat of paint, and opened for business.
At the NUMEC plant, workers baked, shaped, cut, sanded, and molded material containing weapons-grade uranium into wafers and pellets to be used in nuclear reactors. A few years later, NUMEC built a second plant just five miles away in the small community of Parks Township. The Parks Township plant processed plutonium, an even more potent radioactive element.
From the beginning, both plants were plagued with problems. At both locations, sloppy operations and accidents resulted in releases of uranium and plutonium into the air, the water, the soil, and the surrounding community. In the first few years, the company lost so much uranium -- enough to build several nuclear bombs--that the FBI investigated whether someone was actually stealing the material and selling it to a foreign country! At the Parks Township site, the company buried tons of contaminated waste from its operations in an open, unfenced field, where children played and adults hunted, just yards away from a housing development.
Time and again, the government cited the company for violating the federal regulations that were supposed to protect the safety of the workers and the public. In fact, the Atomic Energy Commission official responsible for keeping tabs on nuclear facilities in the area described the company as "the worst offender of AEC regulations over the years." Still, the plants, which were important sources of fuel for the U.S. Navy and for the country's nuclear power plants, continued to process radioactive materials for decades. Neighbors of the plants had no idea they were in danger.
NUMEC and two companies that later took over the plants (the Atlantic Richfield Corporation and Babcock & Wilcox, Inc.), always maintained that their operations did not pose a health threat to Apollo and Parks Township residents. Only in the early 1980s, when the company announced a plan to build a radioactive waste incinerator in Parks Township, did residents begin to seriously and publicly question whether the company could run a safe operation.
Representatives of Babcock & Wilcox reassured the public -- incorrectly -- that dangerous levels of radiation had never gone beyond the fence line of its facilities and that the company had never even been fined for violating a federal regulation. Residents remained uneasy, and as they began to hear reports of unusually high rates of cancer in the area, local activists demanded more information about the plants' operations and their potential effects on the community. In 1993, in response to these concerns, scientists studied the soil in Apollo and found traces of weapons-grade uranium in several Apollo residents' yards, confirming the public's worst fears.In 1994, Baron & Budd filed the first claims in a lawsuit that grew to more than 200 people who lived, worked, or attended school near the Apollo and Parks Township fuel plants. Most of the firm's clients and their family members alleged that they developed cancer because they were exposed to radiation released from the two fuel plants. Some neighbors of the plants sought compensation for the decreased value of their property, which may still be contaminated with radiation. The lawsuit also included a class action on behalf of Apollo and Parks Township residents who were exposed to radiation and who needed medical monitoring to detect any injuries they may develop as a result of their exposure.
After combing through millions of pages of documents kept by the company and studying the plants' operations with the help of several world-renowned scientists, in October 1998 Baron & Budd won a trial verdict for eight Apollo cancer victims and their families in a test trial that focused on the operations at the Apollo facility. A Pittsburgh jury concluded the defendants operated the Apollo plant in violation of federal regulations and that the eight residents had developed cancer as a result. Baron & Budd then obtained a confidential settlement from Babcock & Wilcox, Inc., in return for the plaintiffs' agreement to drop their claim for punitive damages. Shortly afterward, however, the trial court ordered a new trial. While Baron & Budd attorneys were busy fighting to uphold the jury's verdict against the defendants' technical challenges, Babcock & Wilcox filed for bankruptcy. For the time being the bankruptcy court controls the course of the radiation victims' claims.
Results Depend on the Facts of Each Case.
