Paducah Workers Sue Firms
for Leaks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/sept99/paducah4.htm
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff
Writer
September 4, 1999
Workers at the Department
of Energy's Paducah, Ky., uranium plant filed
a $10 billion lawsuit
against three government contractors yesterday,
accusing them of deliberately
exposing thousands of employees to hidden
radioactive and toxic
hazards over nearly half a century.
The lawsuit represents
the first outcry by current and former plant
employees, who lined
up outside a Paducah law office this week to take
part in the court action.
It seeks one of the largest damage awards ever
claimed in a workers'
class action and accuses former managers of
misleading workers about
the presence of plutonium and other radioactive
material in the plant.
The contaminants allegedly followed workers to their
homes and posed a threat
to family members.
Targeted in the suit are
Lockheed Martin Corp. and Union Carbide
Corp., two private contractors
that operated the plant under the
Department of Energy's
supervision. It also names General Electric Co.,
producer of recycled
uranium that was shipped to the Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant in the
1950s and 1960s.
The recycled uranium contained
small amounts of plutonium and other
highly radioactive metals
that the plant was not equipped to handle.
Eventually, the materials
spread through factory buildings and into the
environment, including
public lands near the site.
"After 47 years, the time
has come for accountability, compensation and
punishment," said William
F. McMurry, one of two Kentucky lawyers
who filed the suit in
U.S. District Court in Paducah.
"When all is said and
done, this case will reveal the egregious violations of
laws designed to protect
workers, and, sadly, it will reveal the deliberate
intention to injure thousands
of atomic workers," McMurry said.
An unrelated legal claim
three months ago helped focus national attention
on problems at the Paducah
plant, which was built in 1952 to manufacture
enriched uranium for
nuclear weapons, Navy submarines and nuclear
power plants. The earlier
suit by three workers and an environmental
group was filed under
the federal False Claims Act, which is intended to
expose fraud against
the government.
The corporations named
as defendants in the new worker lawsuit had not
received copies of the
complaint and declined to comment.
The $10 billion in compensation
sought includes $5 billion in punitive
damages. The sum is based
on a class of at least 10,000 former and
current workers and their
family members.
"People are scared and
rightfully so," said McMurry, a Louisville trial
lawyer. "These people
are desperate for answers and nobody is giving
them answers."
The suit alleges that
the corporations reaped unjust profits by failing to
properly monitor and
protect workers from radioactive and chemical
hazards in the workplace.
It also accuses the companies of committing
battery by exposing workers
to "extremely and illegally high doses of
radiation, including
plutonium."
Besides posing risks in
the workplace, the contaminants attached to
workers' skin and clothing
and resulted in "increased risk of contracting
radiation-related diseases
to the spouses and members of the employees'
households," the complaint
states.
The past conduct of Paducah
contractors is also the focus of a full-scale
probe launched last month
by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson following
an investigation by The
Washington Post into conditions at the plant.
"I will hold all contractors,
past and present, responsible for their
actions,"
Richardson said in announcing
the probe Aug. 8.
Yesterday, Energy Department
investigators returned to Washington from
the plant after completing
the first phase of a fact-finding mission. Senior
manager David Stadler
said the 14 members of the team had collected soil
and water samples along
with a "tremendous amount" of data in their effort
to determine whether
current plant conditions pose hazards to workers
and neighbors.
"This information will
help us determine what actually occurred and what
must be done to protect
workers, the public and the environment," Stadler
said in a statement as
the team prepared to leave Paducah. "We will
continue to do whatever
is necessary to resolve the public and workers'
concerns."
The investigation's second
phase will focus on conditions at the plant prior
to 1990, when the worst
problems are said to have occurred. That effort
is expected to last several
months.
The increased scrutiny
has brought a steady stream of problems to light.
Earlier this week, a
plant contractor briefly suspended a construction
project after the Energy
Department team found that workers were not
being properly trained
or monitored for radiation exposure. The 25
employees had been working
at the plant since May, constructing a
storage lot for 10-ton
casks of depleted uranium, a source of gamma
radiation. Until Tuesday,
workers had not worn radiation detection
badges or taken radiation
classes.
Energy Department contractor
Bechtel Jacobs Co. attributed the lapse to
a faulty calculation,
which caused officials to underestimate likely worker
radiation doses. The
company said the problems have been corrected.
Also Tuesday, plant technicians
reported the discovery of radioactive
contamination on a surplus
computer that was marked for release to local
schools or other nonprofit
groups. Radiation readings were three times
higher than the plant's
"action" level, the limit which requires immediate
steps to protect workers.
"The radiation protection system worked
exactly as it was supposed
to," and no contaminated equipment was
released to the public,
said Elizabeth Stuckle, spokesman for U.S.
Enrichment Corp.