tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23408120538460032012024-03-06T12:01:56.289-08:00Texas Instruments | Metals & Controls Cancer Victims - A Cruel Legacy....Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-90324274595436059092019-06-26T08:12:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:57:38.379-07:00Gail Balser Spreads the Word<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="name" style="color: #29aae1; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; position: relative;">
Gail Balser spreads the word:</h3>
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THE METALS AND CONTROLS CONTROVERSY</h3>
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">THE METALS AND CONTROLS CONTROVERSY</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">We now present a very intimate look inside the early nuclear fuel business through a very provocative letter written to Dr. Lee Davenport, President of Sylvania-Corning Nuclear by Jim V. There is much sordid account in this letter, and at this present date (2012) I have absolutely no idea how much of this letter is true, false, founded or unfounded. What is important here to us in our look at Sylcor is NOT the business-politics controversy at M&C (a direct Sylcor competitor) we're about to uncover, but rather what Jim tells Davenport about the implications it carries for Sylcor. Also important are Jim's assessments of Sylcor's safety controls. I hope no one alive today, or related to the principals mentioned in this letter, is offended - no harm is meant or wished by publication of this letter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">This letter is dated August 21, 1958 and is reproduced in entirety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Dear Lee:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">In the course of the past few weeks, the sordid story of what transpired at Metals and Controls has gradually been unfolded to me. The manner in which the situation apparently developed is such that I felt you should be informed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The following information is hearsay!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The major items of information were given me by an official of the Atomic Energy Commission. The inside facts are purported to have come from an executive in a competing company. We both know this man, and his integrity is unimpeachable. Further, he is a close personal associate of the principals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Rathbun Willard, Chairman of the Board of Metals and Controls, is in his late 70's; as a philanthropic gesture, he disposed of certain blocks of stock as outright gifts to various educational institutions. His legal advisers apparently did not take adequate steps to insure retention of the proxy vote on these shares. One of the colleges to whom such shares were given is purported to be Northeastern University.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The story has it that Jerry Ottmar, President of Metals and Controls Nuclear Company, was not on the best of terms with Carroll Wilson, President of the parent corporation, ex-Admiral, and close associate of Rickover. Working through friendly interests at Northeastern, Wilson obtained the proxy votes held by that college, which together with other proxy and personally held stock, gave him a sizable vote for control of the Corporation. Wilson also called a special meeting of the Board of Directors at a time when Mr. Willard was in Europe. Mr. Willard's attorneys attempted to forestall the meeting to defer action on the proposed agenda until Willard could return.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The meeting was deliberately called at such a time because Mr. Willard has a known phobia against air travel. Mr. Willard's attorneys were unsuccessful in their attempt to delay the meeting. Despite his phobia, Mr. Willard made immediate arrangements to return by air. The meeting was held on a Saturday; Mr. Willard was unable to return until Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">The following action is reported to have taken place at the meeting: Mr. Wilson presented to the assembled Board of Directors, minus Mr. Willard, documentary evidence charging Ottmar with mal-administration. By a unanimous vote of the assembled Directors, Ottmar was removed from office, and Carroll Wilson assumed the Presidency of both companies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Ottmar has not given up, and upon Willard's return, the entire mess resolved into a free-for-all in which both Wilson and Willard resigned. Wilson has been named Chairman of an advisory committee, and George L. Williams, Treasurer, has become acting President of both firms until such time as the issues can be resolved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Up to this point, the situation would appear to be typical of the machinations frequently found in the internal politics of American Corporations. The following facts, and I use the word advisedly, since they came to me from the person who is purported to have taken the action, seemed to be worthy of your careful consideration. <b><u> The documentary evidence presented to the Board by Wilson is claimed to have emanated from the Idaho Operations Office of the Atomic Energy Commission. They were reported to be letters expressing dissatisfaction with criticality control, production control, and health physics administration at M&C. The Commission deplored the lack of concern and attention by Jerry Ottmar on such matters which they maintained to be a major responsibility of his position. </u></b> It is claimed that these letters were intended to correct a situation rather than to cause personal discomfiture to Mr. Ottmar. Wilson probably played the part of an opportunist in using them as he did. <b><u>The Commission's attitude is that they do not feel sorry for Mr. Ottmar since they held him responsible for what they considered to be extremely lax and ultimately dangerous handling of the uranium administrative problems, including as the officer expressed to me, one instance of subcriticality, in which criticality was averted only by alert action on the part of the AEC.</u></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Another source has been quoted to me as saying that, "The Admiral (Rickover) is not displeased."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">I am fairly familiar with the production setup at M&C, having administered the production phase in the Core Contract Group at Bettis. The M&C system was not exemplary; but, I believe, and please forgive me for the remark, was superior to Sylcor's. The AEC has the prerogative to issue a cease operation order on any organization which it feels is not operating in the best interests of safety. Several such orders have already been issued. I am concerned that, with the influx of more and more orders, we may find Sylcor operations have extended beyond the system of controls that have worked so well in the past. The AEC's attitude, should Sylcor become involved in any unfortunate incident, would undoubtedly be conditioned by a reflection of the fact that the worst commercial accident to date happened at Bayside {a Sylcor facility}. Certain of our contacts in the west have not let me forget this fact. Perhaps my concern is groundless. Certainly you have every right to tell me to stick to marketing and refrain from comments on operations many miles removed from my sphere of action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">However, the potential load of ETR {Engineering Test Reactor, which Sylcor was making elements for} combined with the Fermi elements presents a new production situation at Sylcor. ETR is under Commission Administration by the same organization which spearheaded the internal situation at M&C, and I felt that it would be unwise if I did not immediately bring this story to your attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11pt;">Because of the personalities involved, many of whom have been associates in the past, I would appreciate your confidence with respect to the disclosure of the contents of this letter. I informed Stan Roboff that I was writing you concerning the M&C situation, and he requested a copy promising not to reveal its contents and further agreeing to destroy the copy after reading. I have a profound distaste for gossip and/or gossipers. Since what I have said represents hearsay, I may have placed myself in a position of repeating gossip. The potential significance of the hearsay appeared to me to be so important to you and to Sylcor that I can but trust you will receive its repetition as evidence of good judgment. If not, I can but ask your indulgence in view of my good intentions."</span></div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-81751775263989841832019-06-16T19:42:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:54:38.479-07:00Texas Instruments Site<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-52891938472961241862019-06-12T22:25:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:55:27.614-07:00Our Nuclear Legacy<br />
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Our Nuclear Legacy</div>
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BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF | Posted: Sunday, October 10, 2010 12:00 am<br />
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In the late 1950s, most of the young men and women who agreed to take jobs manufacturing nuclear</div>
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reactor fuel components at Metals & Controls in Attleboro were just starting careers and families.</div>
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Few apparently gave any thought to the dangers of working with or around enriched uranium and other</div>
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radioactive materials.</div>
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Now, more than 50 years later, many of those who worked long hours assembling nuclear parts or</div>
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working in test labs are battling cancer, and many - including the government - think the cancers may</div>
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have been caused by their work in the nuclear industry.</div>
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A federal program has already dispensed $7.3 million in compensation and health benefits locally to</div>
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former employees who contracted cancer.</div>
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"I thought it was a nice job, actually," said Sally, who worked in a chemical laboratory at the Perry</div>
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Avenue plant analyzing samples of metal that may have been radioactive.</div>
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Sally, who asked that her real name not be used for this article, said her job was to put specks of material <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">into a beaker and then mix them with liquid to be analyzed by a spectrograph.</span></div>
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She and other workers wore film badges that were used to measure radiation exposure and were collected <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">every day. She worked at the facility from 1956 to 1959, about the time she married.</span></div>
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Decades later, Sally discovered she had esophageal cancer after developing trouble swallowing. Tissue <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">from her lung was also removed.</span></div>
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Over the years, Sally, now 73, discovered she wasn't the only person among her former coworkers at</div>
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M&C, a predecessor of Texas Instruments, suffering from cancer.</div>
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A close friend from high school who had worked with her died. So did a former boss. Others were being</div>
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newly diagnosed with cancer.</div>
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But Sally said she never gave any thought that her cancer might be related to her nuclear work until she <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">read a report in The Sun Chronicle last January that the U.S. Department of Labor was inviting former </span><span style="font-size: 13.5px;">nuclear workers at the Attleboro plant to apply for help.</span></div>
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"It was a very scary thing to see that," she said. "I thought, wow. I had no idea my illness had anything to <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">do with that."</span></div>
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So far, the Labor Department has approved 93 claims from the Attleboro plant under the Energy</div>
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Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, established in 2001 to help workers and former <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">workers in the nuclear industry.</span></div>
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To date, more than $7.3 million has been paid out locally, mostly in compensation payments. The</div>
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program also pays medical bills related to a patient's cancer.</div>
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Nationally, compensation paid to sick employees of both government and contractor nuclear sites tops $2 <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">billion, according to Labor Department records.</span></div>
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Ex-nuclear workers can qualify for government compensation in either of two ways, said Stuart</div>
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Hinnefeld, interim director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health Division of</div>
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Compensation Analysis and Support.</div>
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Prior to this year, employees who worked at the Attleboro nuclear plant who believed they had contracted <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">cancer as a result of their jobs had to be meticulously screened under a "dose reconstruction" program to </span><span style="font-size: 13.5px;">determine whether they had been exposed to sufficient radiation during their career to cause illness.</span></div>
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However, in late 2009, the government designated the former Metals Controls nuclear workers as a</div>
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"special exposure cohort" whose cancer can be presumed to be work-related if they meet certain criteria.</div>
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To qualify, ex-employees must have contracted one of 22 specified kinds of cancer and worked a</div>
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minimum of 250 days in their occupation.</div>
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People who may have been affected have to apply in order to get benefits that can include $150,000 in</div>
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compensation, plus government-paid medical treatment.</div>
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The program is still open and workers who believe they might qualify can contact the Labor Department <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">at 800-941-3943.</span></div>
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From 1952 until at least 1967, workers at the Metals & Controls plant that later became part of Texas</div>
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Instruments worked hands-on assembling nuclear reactor fuel and doing allied jobs, such as laboratory</div>
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testing.</div>
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The company and its officials worked closely with Navy Admiral Hyman Rickover, nuclear propulsion</div>
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expert and father of the the nuclear Navy for which the fuel was intended.</div>
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At a time when the Cold War was raging and America and the Soviet Union eyed each other warily</div>
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behind phalanxes of nuclear missiles, workers supplying the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet with vital fuel</div>
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played an obscure but key role in the nation's nuclear deterrent.</div>
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Carl, who also asked that his real name not be used for this article, worked as much as 16 hours a day in<span style="font-size: 13.5px;">the lab and once passed Rickover as he arrived at the plant.</span></div>
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"We were all young and didn't know a lot about what was going on," said Carl, 75, who noted that</div>
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employees worked under tight security.</div>
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Carl still won't talk in detail about his job even today because of the requirements of his government</div>
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security clearance, which - so far as he knows - has never been rescinded.</div>
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Carl worked at the nuclear plant for five years before going on to another job and eventually his own</div>
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business.</div>
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He said he never considered the work a potential threat to his health before a fellow worker brought </div>
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The <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">Sun Chronicle article to his attention. Last summer, Carl developed a growth on his leg that was</span></div>
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diagnosed as cancerous lymphoma.</div>
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The former Attleboro worker has since applied to the Labor Department under the energy workers</div>
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compensation program.</div>
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"I have no doubt that (work in a nuclear plant) is what it's from," said Carl, who has just begun his second <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">round of chemotherapy.</span></div>
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He said his prognosis for a full recovery is good.</div>
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According to a 2001 U.S. Department of Energy report containing newly declassified information about</div>
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government contractors that processed uranium for nuclear weapons, Metals & Controls and later Texas <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">Instruments fabricated uranium fuel elements for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program from 1952 </span><span style="font-size: 13.5px;">through 1965.</span></div>
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The plant continued to manufacture fuel for the High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National</div>
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Laboratory in Tennessee until 1981.</div>
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The plant, the first non-government facility allowed to fabricate fuel for nuclear reactors, also filled an</div>
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even more historic role.</div>
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According to reports at the time, the reactor fuel used in the first nuclear reactor ever used to light a city - <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">Arco, Idaho - was furnished by the Attleboro plant.</span></div>
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The company began cleanup of uranium contamination in 1981 after nuclear operations ceased and the <span style="font-size: 13.5px;">site's government license to manufacture nuclear materials lapsed. Decontamination of the plant was </span><span style="font-size: 13.5px;">completed in 1997 according to the Energy Department.</span></div>
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However, some of the waste from the plant - as well as from the local jewelry industry - ended up in the</div>
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former Shpack landfill on the Norton-Attleboro line.</div>
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The Army Corps of Engineers is supervising cleanup of radiological wastes at the landfill, now a federal</div>
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Superfund site, in a project that is expected to be completed this fall.</div>
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Radioactive waste at the landfill have also allegedly been linked to cancer in lawsuits filed by two</div>
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residents against Texas Instruments and several other landfill users. The plaintiffs contend they</div>
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contracted cancer because of the dumping.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
Neither Sally nor Carl said they harbor any regrets today and didn't give much thought to the potential</div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
dangers during the time they worked at the plant.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
"In a way, it set me up for my future," said Carl, who noted he worked so many hours at the company</div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
that he accumulated paychecks he didn't have time to spend.</div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: 13.5px;">
"When I got married, I started with a bank account," he said.</div>
<br />
<br />Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-46623976008029857032019-05-30T06:30:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:53:53.227-07:00THE METALS AND CONTROLS CONTROVERSY<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<b><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">THE METALS AND CONTROLS CONTROVERSY</span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">We now present a very intimate look inside the
early nuclear fuel business through a very provocative letter written to Dr.
Lee Davenport, President of Sylvania-Corning Nuclear by Jim V. There is
much sordid account in this letter, and at this present date (2012) I have
absolutely no idea how much of this letter is true, false, founded or
unfounded. What is important here to us in our look at Sylcor is NOT the
business-politics controversy at M&C (a direct Sylcor
competitor) we're about to uncover, but rather what Jim tells Davenport
about the implications it carries for Sylcor. Also important are Jim's
assessments of Sylcor's safety controls. I hope no one alive today, or
related to the principals mentioned in this letter, is offended - no harm is
meant or wished by publication of this letter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">This letter is dated August 21, 1958 and is
reproduced in entirety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Dear Lee:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In the course of the past few weeks, the sordid
story of what transpired at Metals and Controls has gradually been unfolded to
me. The manner in which the situation apparently developed is such that I
felt you should be informed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The following information is hearsay!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The major items of information were given me by
an official of the Atomic Energy Commission. The inside facts are purported
to have come from an executive in a competing company. We both know this
man, and his integrity is unimpeachable. Further, he is a close personal
associate of the principals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Rathbun Willard, Chairman of the Board of Metals
and Controls, is in his late 70's; as a philanthropic gesture, he disposed of
certain blocks of stock as outright gifts to various educational
institutions. His legal advisers apparently did not take adequate steps
to insure retention of the proxy vote on these shares. One of the
colleges to whom such shares were given is purported to be Northeastern
University.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The story has it that Jerry Ottmar, President of
Metals and Controls Nuclear Company, was not on the best of terms with Carroll
Wilson, President of the parent corporation, ex-Admiral, and close associate of
Rickover. Working through friendly interests at Northeastern, Wilson
obtained the proxy votes held by that college, which together with other proxy
and personally held stock, gave him a sizable vote for control of the
Corporation. Wilson also called a special meeting of the Board of
Directors at a time when Mr. Willard was in Europe. Mr. Willard's
attorneys attempted to forestall the meeting to defer action on the proposed
agenda until Willard could return.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The meeting was deliberately called at such a
time because Mr. Willard has a known phobia against air travel. Mr.
Willard's attorneys were unsuccessful in their attempt to delay the
meeting. Despite his phobia, Mr. Willard made immediate arrangements to
return by air. The meeting was held on a Saturday; Mr. Willard was unable
to return until Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The following action is reported to have taken
place at the meeting: Mr. Wilson presented to the assembled Board of
Directors, minus Mr. Willard, documentary evidence charging Ottmar with
mal-administration. By a unanimous vote of the assembled Directors,
Ottmar was removed from office, and Carroll Wilson assumed the Presidency of
both companies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Ottmar has not given up, and upon Willard's
return, the entire mess resolved into a free-for-all in which both Wilson and
Willard resigned. Wilson has been named Chairman of an advisory
committee, and George L. Williams, Treasurer, has become acting President of
both firms until such time as the issues can be resolved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Up to this point, the situation would appear to
be typical of the machinations frequently found in the internal politics of
American Corporations. The following facts, and I use the word advisedly,
since they came to me from the person who is purported to have taken the
action, seemed to be worthy of your careful consideration. <b><u> The
documentary evidence presented to the Board by Wilson is claimed to have
emanated from the Idaho Operations Office of the Atomic Energy
Commission. They were reported to be letters expressing dissatisfaction
with criticality control, production control, and health physics administration
at M&C. The Commission deplored the lack of concern and attention by
Jerry Ottmar on such matters which they maintained to be a major responsibility
of his position. </u></b> It is claimed that these letters were intended to
correct a situation rather than to cause personal discomfiture to Mr.
Ottmar. Wilson probably played the part of an opportunist in using them
as he did. <b><u>The Commission's attitude is that they do not feel sorry for
Mr. Ottmar since they held him responsible for what they considered to be
extremely lax and ultimately dangerous handling of the uranium administrative
problems, including as the officer expressed to me, one instance of
subcriticality, in which criticality was averted only by alert action on the
part of the AEC.</u></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Another source has been quoted to me as saying
that, "The Admiral (Rickover) is not displeased."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I am fairly familiar with the production setup at
M&C, having administered the production phase in the Core Contract Group at
Bettis. The M&C system was not exemplary; but, I believe, and please
forgive me for the remark, was superior to Sylcor's. The AEC has the
prerogative to issue a cease operation order on any organization which it feels
is not operating in the best interests of safety. Several such orders
have already been issued. I am concerned that, with the influx of more
and more orders, we may find Sylcor operations have extended beyond the system
of controls that have worked so well in the past. The AEC's attitude,
should Sylcor become involved in any unfortunate incident, would undoubtedly be
conditioned by a reflection of the fact that the worst commercial accident to
date happened at Bayside {a Sylcor facility}. Certain of our contacts in
the west have not let me forget this fact. Perhaps my concern is
groundless. Certainly you have every right to tell me to stick to
marketing and refrain from comments on operations many miles removed from my sphere
of action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">However, the potential load of ETR {Engineering
Test Reactor, which Sylcor was making elements for} combined with the Fermi
elements presents a new production situation at Sylcor. ETR is under
Commission Administration by the same organization which spearheaded the
internal situation at M&C, and I felt that it would be unwise if I did not
immediately bring this story to your attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Because of the personalities involved, many of
whom have been associates in the past, I would appreciate your confidence with
respect to the disclosure of the contents of this letter. I informed Stan
Roboff that I was writing you concerning the M&C situation, and he
requested a copy promising not to reveal its contents and further agreeing to
destroy the copy after reading. I have a profound distaste for gossip
and/or gossipers. Since what I have said represents hearsay, I may have
placed myself in a position of repeating gossip. The potential significance
of the hearsay appeared to me to be so important to you and to Sylcor that I
can but trust you will receive its repetition as evidence of good
judgment. If not, I can but ask your indulgence in view of my good
intentions."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-45165852814668123602019-05-29T22:14:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:57:08.256-07:00Nuclear Power Plant Lawsuits<h1 style="color: #212121; font-family: 'Playfair Display', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 28px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 30px; margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 10px;">
Nuclear Power Plant Lawsuits</h1>
<h2 style="color: #0074b7; font-family: Cantarell, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">
Environmental Litigation Lawyer</h2>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
Did you know that approximately one-fifth of the energy produced in the U.S. is produced by nuclear reactors? According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):</div>
<blockquote cite="http://www.epa.gov/radtown/nuclear-plant.html" style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
In the United States, over 100 nuclear reactors supply about 20% of our electricity. Worldwide, over 400 reactors provide 17% of the world's electricity!</blockquote>
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A nuclear power plant is a facility that produces electricity through a process called fission, which creates large amounts of energy by splitting uranium atoms. Though this process can create a considerable amount of energy, it also produces hazardous byproducts. People living near nuclear power plants or near waste facilities where these products are stored or disposed of may be at risk of suffering from a number of health problems. The same applies if there is an accident, such as an explosion, at one of these facilities.</div>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
Many communities and individuals have suffered from serious health problems or have had their property damaged due to negligence or environmental law violations by nuclear power plants. Representing plaintiffs (injured parties) in environmental lawsuits is an important part of our firm's practice, and we pursue these cases with the level of unrelenting dedication necessary to seek the best possible result. You can learn more about our services and your rights as a member of the community, property owner, business owner or individual by contacting an <a href="http://www.napolibern.com/Environmental-Litigation.aspx" style="color: #385c9e; text-decoration: none;">environmental litigation lawyer</a> at our firm. Your initial consultation is free and confidential.</div>
<h3 style="color: #0074b7; font-family: Cantarell, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">
Recent Nuclear Fuel Plant Lawsuit</h3>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
In Erwin, Tennessee, Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group and The Atlantic Richfield Company operate a nuclear fuel plant that enriches uranium. Uranium is highly radioactive substance. The operations of this plant may have caused damage to residents in the Erwin and the surrounding area. Napoli Bern Ripka Shkolnik, working with Motely Rice, LLC and the Tennessee-based law firm Rogers, Laughlin, Nunnally, Hood & Crum, P.C., hosted a town hall meeting in March of 2011 to present educational information related to radiation contamination and the potential hazards present in the affected area. We wanted to inform residents of the dangers of contamination in that area and give them legal options to pursue.</div>
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The truth of the matter is that many people living near nuclear power plants are unaware of their rights and legal options if they are adversely affected by plant operations. Our goal is to educate people across the country, helping them exercise their rights as they seek financial compensation for the losses and injuries they have experienced.</div>
<h3 style="color: #0074b7; font-family: Cantarell, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">
Byproducts Produced by Nuclear Power Plants</h3>
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There are three radioactive materials found at nuclear power plants: enriched uranium (as mentioned above), low-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel. These must be properly stored and/or disposed of in order to protect the environment and protect the public from serious health problems. Let's take a closer look at these three substances.</div>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
<strong>Enriched uranium</strong> serves as the fuel for a nuclear power plant. A single pellet of enriched uranium, though only about one inch long, can generate as much electricity as an entire ton of coal. A single reactor at a nuclear power plant may contain as many as 100 tons of fuel pellets. This form of uranium is mildly radioactive and, according to the EPA, may be handled safely without shielding.</div>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
<strong>Low-level radioactive waste</strong> includes various items, from clothing to tools, which have been contaminated by radioactive material. There are two ways that a facility may dispose of low-level radioactive waste. The first is to allow the radioactivity in the waste to decay away and then dispose of the waste as normal trash. The second is to ship it to a low-level waste disposal site. Some examples of low-level waste include clothing, protective shoe coverings, filters, mops, rags, tools, and equipment.</div>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
<strong>Spent nuclear fuel</strong> is the most dangerous byproduct of a nuclear power plant, containing numerous highly radioactive byproducts of the fission process. It must be stored in a precise manner to avoid environmental contamination. It is stored at the plant in large pools or dry storage containers that are specially designed for this purpose to cool the fuel and act as radiation shields.</div>
<h3 style="color: #0074b7; font-family: Cantarell, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">
Radiation Contamination Side Effects</h3>
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If there is an accident at a nuclear power plant or if one of these facilities does not properly store or dispose of radioactive byproducts, this can have disastrous results. The health effects that have been linked to radiation exposure vary, but almost all are severe and even life-threatening. Long-term exposure to radiation increases the likelihood of developing cancer and may also cause genetic mutations that may be passed onto a victim's children. Acute, short-term radiation exposure may cause burns, radiation sickness (nausea, hair loss, reduced organ function, weakness and burns), premature aging and even death.</div>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
Our environmental litigation attorneys are prepared to handle nuclear power plant lawsuits related to such health problems as:</div>
<ul style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
<li>Bladder cancer</li>
<li>Brain cancer / brain tumors</li>
<li>Bone cancer</li>
<li>Renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer)</li>
<li>Leukemia</li>
<li>Lung cancer</li>
<li>Prostate cancer</li>
<li>Skin cancer, including melanoma</li>
<li>Severe burns</li>
<li>Birth defects</li>
<li>Genetic mutations</li>
<li>Radiation sickness</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="color: #0074b7; font-family: Cantarell, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 20px;">
Our Environmental Law Attorneys Can Help</h3>
<div style="color: #313131; font-family: OpenSans, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px;">
Our experienced environmental law attorneys can discuss the details of your case and help you make an informed decision about whether you want to file suit. If you proceed with environmental litigation, we will be with you at every step of the process to guide you in making important choices about your case and will work with you from the time you contact us until your claim has been completely resolved. Contact an environmental litigation attorney at our firm today for more information. </div>
Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-15919457207571983002014-12-16T21:59:00.000-08:002019-07-06T08:51:32.214-07:00Statute of Limitations Not a Bar andCourt reinstates TENORM lawsuit <br />
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Court reinstates TENORM lawsuit for deceased pipe yard workers injured by radioactive waste</h2>
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<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Posted</span> <a href="http://www.hop-law.com/court-reinstates-tenorm-lawsuit-for-deceased-pipe-yard-workers-injured-by-radioactive-waste/" rel="bookmark" style="color: #7a1501; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="7:59 am"><span class="entry-date" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">November 20, 2014</span></a><br />
<span class="meta-sep" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">by</span> <span class="author vcard" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="url fn n" href="http://www.hop-law.com/author/jim-orr/" style="color: #7a1501; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="View all posts by Jim Orr">Jim Orr</a></span></div>
</header><br />
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There is a small amount of natural radioactivity in almost everything natural. However, certain industrial practices can result in radionuclides being concentrated to such a degree that they may pose a health and safety risk to humans and the environment. “Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials” (or TENORM) refers to materials, such as industrial wastes or by-products that have been enriched with radioactive elements, such as uranium, thorium and potassium and any of their decay products, such as radium and radon.<span id="more-8106" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></div>
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Varying levels of TENORM can result from such activities as oil and gas exploration, mineral mining, phosphate fertilizer production, water treatment and purification, and paper and pulp production. There is growing concern that some workers have been or will be exposed to potentially dangerous levels of radiation from TENORM. The EPA has stated that it is concerned about TENORM because TENORM has the potential to cause elevated exposure to radiation and because people may not be aware of TENORM materials and need of more information about TERNORM materials.</div>
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The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has recently reversed the dismissal of claims by the survivors of deceased pipe yard workers in a lawsuit regarding TENORM. <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Coleman v. OFS, Inc.</em>, No. 13-30150, (5th Cir. Oct. 30, 2014), is a class action suit on behalf of pipe yard workers and surviving beneficiaries of pipe yard workers. The claims asserted arise out of the pipe yard workers’ occupational exposure to radioactive oil field waste materials including TENORM and other hazardous substances. The plaintiffs allege that, unknown to the workers, pipe cleaning, pipe maintenance, and yard maintenance resulted in their exposure to TENORM, which caused or contributed to the development of various diseases, health problems, and deaths. The <a href="http://www.hop-law.com/practice-areas/commercial-litigation/" style="color: #7a1501; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">defendants in the lawsuit are oil companies</a> who contracted with employers of the workers, including Atlantic Richfield Company, BP Products North America, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Shell and others. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants were aware of the dangers of TENORM and were aware of the workers’ exposure, but failed to warn the workers or the public of the environmental and health dangers.</div>
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Multiple defendants moved to dismiss the claims of many of the survivors based on the statute of limitations. Under applicable Louisiana law, “[i]f a person who has been injured by an offense or quasi offense dies, the right to recover all damages for injury to that person, his property or otherwise, caused by the offense or quasi offense, shall survive for a period of one year from the death of the deceased in favor of [specified beneficiaries].” La. Civ.Code art. 2315.1. The defendants argued that all survival claims filed more than one year after the decedent’s death were untimely. The district court agreed and dismissed all such claims.</div>
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The plaintiffs argued that the one-year limitations period should not begin to run until a plaintiff discovers the connection between the decedents’ deaths and the toxic tort exposure. Louisiana draws a distinction between “peremptive” and “prescriptive” periods to bring legal claims. If the period is “peremptive,” the period is not subject to tolling or interruption and runs regardless of whether a plaintiff had knowledge of his cause of action. On the other hand, if the period is considered “prescriptive,” the period does not begin to run until the plaintiff has actual or constructive knowledge of the facts which would entitle him to bring suit. The plaintiffs argued that the one-year period provided by Article 2315.1 should be considered prescriptive and thus subject to tolling.</div>
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On appeal, the Fifth Circuit initially decided that it was unclear whether Article 2315.1 was prescriptive or peremptive and certified the question to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Meanwhile, that court decided the same question in another case. In <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Watkins v. Exxon Mobil Corp.</em>, 2013–1545 (La.5/7/14), 145 So.3d 237, reh’g denied (July 1, 2014), the Louisiana Supreme Court held that the time period in Article 2315.1 is prescriptive and not preemptive.</div>
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Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit followed Watkins and held that Article 2315.1 contains a prescriptive period. <em style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Coleman v. OFS, Inc.</em>, No. 13-30150. The court of appeals reversed the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ survival claims and remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings.</div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px;">- See more at: http://www.hop-law.com/court-reinstates-tenorm-lawsuit-for-deceased-pipe-yard-workers-injured-by-radioactive-waste/#sthash.VCmgUY9c.dpuf</span>Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-35262339303554400962014-12-10T21:37:00.000-08:002014-12-18T21:37:46.467-08:00Another lawsuit accuses Mallinckrodt of dumping nuclear waste, causing cancers<div class="head" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 8px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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Another lawsuit accuses Mallinckrodt of dumping nuclear waste, causing cancers</h1>
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Sep 8, 2014, 2:03pm CDT <span class="updated" style="background-color: transparent; border-left-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-left-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 1px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;">UPDATED: </span>Sep 8, 2014, 2:33pm CDT</span></div>
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The latest of 28 related federal lawsuits filed against <strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mallinckrodt</strong> alleges that people exposed to a predecessor company’s radioactive waste sites in north St. Louis County became sick with cancers and sometimes died from them.</div>
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Mallinckrodt in the 1940s and 1950s transported radioactive materials from its downtown St. Louis facility to a 22-acre site north of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, according to the Sept. 5 suit, which names eight plaintiffs.</div>
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The areas around haul routes, including Coldwater Creek, which runs from St. Ann to the Missouri River, were contaminated, according to the suit.</div>
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The suit says two of the plaintiffs who worked near the waste sites — <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/09/stlouis/search/results?q=William%20Frazier" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">William Frazier</a> and Harold Banovz, both former McDonnell Douglas Corp. employees — contracted cancer and died. They are suing through relatives.</div>
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The other plaintiffs — Maureen Kolkmeyer, <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/09/stlouis/search/results?q=William%20Fatherton" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">William Fatherton</a>, Eric Kluempers, <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/09/stlouis/search/results?q=Bruce%20Calvin" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Bruce Calvin</a>, <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/09/stlouis/search/results?q=Stephen%20Kofron" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Stephen Kofron</a> and <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/09/stlouis/search/results?q=Kurt%20Zwilling" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Kurt Zwilling</a> — either lived or worked in the affected areas and have been diagnosed with cancer, according to the suit.</div>
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The suit also names as a defendant <strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cotter</strong> Corp., which it says transported radioactive waste in the 1960s to a property at 9200 Latty Ave.</div>
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Kenneth Brennan of Torhoerman Law LLC, Collinsville, Illinois, has filed the more than two dozen related lawsuits representing about 150 plaintiffs. The first came in February 2012. None have settled.</div>
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“The damages are significant,” Brennan said. “Virtually all involve people who are alleging cancer and/or death.”</div>
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Nearly all of those cases have been consolidated, and continue to be heard before U.S. District Judge <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2014/09/stlouis/search/results?q=Audrey%20Fleissig" style="color: #334e91; padding-right: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Audrey Fleissig</a>.</div>
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A Mallinckrodt spokeswoman said the company would not comment.</div>
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Mallinckrodt has gone through many ownership and name changes since it was founded in the 19th Century.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-1319807056440743932014-12-03T21:15:00.000-08:002014-12-18T21:16:20.569-08:00Gearing Up for Toxic Tort Litigation<div style="text-align: center;">
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<strong>Toxic Torts:We are all affected and involved</strong></div>
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<strong>By Lawrence Landskroner</strong></div>
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As we all know, the wealthy corporations can take care of themselves. Money enables them to hire very large law firms to take care of all their legal needs. Unfortunately, the common person cannot afford a lawyer unless the lawyer agrees to be paid from a portion of any recovery.</div>
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Recognizing a new group of aggrieved victims, there has been a revolution occurring in the law concerning the responsibility for injuries sustained from exposure to hazardous substances or environmental contamination. This new theory of law has been labeled the toxic tort. The critical question is whether a producer of hazardous chemicals is responsible for the reasonable use or misuse of its products beyond the immediate purchasers or people exposed to them. Fortunately, for the innocent victims, an affirmative answer is evolving.</div>
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I just returned from the American Trial Lawyers Convention in Seattle, Washington, where I spent a week studying the latest state of the law concerning toxic torts. The up-and-coming new area of responsibility will be the poisoning and the abuse of the public by large corporations concerning the irresponsible dissemination of their products and/or wastes. Most lawyers fail to recognize where the responsibility lies regarding the misuse and use of hazardous products because of their failure to look to the manufacturer, marketer, and retailer of the culprit chemical or product.</div>
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Cleanup of hazardous wastes and the legal liability from exposure to such hazardous substances is unquestionably the major environmental problem of our times. There has been much furor over this problem on the federal and state level as a result of the number of lawsuits regarding toxic tort product liability claims.</div>
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We all know that corporations, because of improper disposal of hazardous wastes, are contaminating the atmosphere, rivers, and streams. In addition, corporations are causing innocent members of the public to contract a variety of fatal diseases. Recently, the negligent cleanup of a train derailment and the resulting chemical spill caused a jury to render a verdict of $11.3 million compensatory and punitive damages. The award against the railroad was for the terminal lung cancer suffered by a 63 year old man and the damage to his property because of chemical contamination resulting from a train derailment.</div>
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Very recently a federal court rendered a judgment against the United States government and all of its agencies for cancer caused by fallout due to a toxic testing in Utah more than 30 years before. Prior to this ruling, one could only go back in time several years before the statute of limitations would terminate the right of recovery. The people downwind of the atomic testing sued in federal court proving that the federal government and its agencies had concealed the facts surrounding their knowledge of the dangers of the radioactive fall out. Investigation showed that the government actively concealed the dangerous nature of the radioactive waste from the public and gave the medical false information concerning the dangers in order to conceal the hazard that they had created. The innocent victims who sustained cancer due to their exposure to the radioactive wastes, dying more than 30 years after the exposure, were able to recovery from the government for its abominable activities.</div>
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One of the new dangers arising that is considered to be ultrahazardous is the use of fire-retardant building materials, furniture and fire extinguishers. The fire-retardent chemicals found in these products have been shown to cause extremely toxic effects to people who are exposed to these chemicals. These chemicals are just as deadly as the highly publicized Agent Orange (the most deadly and potent synthetic known to man), which has now been found to cause many side effects. There will be a new stream of litigation in the areas of cancers, birth defects, and other injuries arising from the use of these products.</div>
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Billions of dollars are in the process of being disseminated to people injured from contamination by dioxins ranging from accidental spills, domestic herbicide spraying, and other contamination. Some include not only standard claims for medical problems but claims for "cancerphobia." Some 2,300 Vietnam veterans who opted out of a class action over the dioxin-contaminated herbicide are filing separate lawsuits. Some 12 million gallons of the defoliant were sprayed in Vietnam from 1965 to 1970. One of the important considerations raised at the ATLA seminars was that, because of rapid scientific advances in developing human epidemiological studies, more and more diseases are being tied to toxic materials.</div>
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The long latency periods for the discovery of cancer and other injuries can no longer be used as a basis for denying legal responsibility. In response to the atomic bomb testing of the 1940's, 2,400 people banded together and brought suit against the U.S. government. Those people had been exposed to the radioactive fallout in the 1940's, but the recognition and extent of their injuries had only recently been discovered. The Court permitted the case to proceed even though the statute of limitations had already lapsed. A statute of limitations sets the time period in which a claim remains valid; once the statute has run, the claim is barred. The court's decision had a great impact in this area in that it decided that the government could not escape liability by invoking a statute of limitations defense, but that the Court would look at the date at which time the injury was discovered.</div>
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There are now a number of experts available who have testified that the medical injuries caused by the dioxins were the result of the contamination by this chemical. Many people have different symptoms and susceptibility to these types of chemicals and pesticides, and the harm manifests itself in different ways. Testing done and reported in cases such as the Love Canal case in Niagara Falls, New York, and the Times Beach, Missouri case pinpoint the cause and effect and make more certain the responsibility for the dissemination of these dangerous substances.</div>
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The Environmental Protection Agency has cited 19 states where herbicide manufacturing processes created a high probability of dioxin contamination. What is interesting about these cases is that where the company knows, should have known, or conceals testing that shows a danger, and evidence indicates that there was a concealment or knowledge of the hazard, one can obtain punitive (punishment) damages that will penalize the company in favor of the plaintiff or people injured. These awards encompass injuries from people suffering from lung disease, cancer, and other side effects of dangerous toxic agents. One illustrative case is Atkins vs. Monsato Chemicals where 127 plaintiffs asked for damages amounting to over $700 million for the concealment of 2, 4, 5,-T hazards (deadly type toxin) from workers and the continued use of the unsafe products and manufacturing process for over two decades. There is evidence to show in those cases that punishment damages should be awarded.</div>
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At the trial, all one has to do is to show the jury that the product was dangerous, that it caused the injury, that the side effects from those exposed were concealed, and then allow a jury to contemplate its award of compensation and punishment. In a case I recently tried. (David L. Shumaker vs. Oliver B. Cannon & Sons, Inc.) decided by a Lake County jury in May of 1984, the jury awarded half a million dollars for lung damage and $250,000 for punishment damages for a carpenter in CEI's atomic reactor in Perry, Ohio, who was sprayed with a substance containing methylene chloride. The jury felt that the company should be punished for failing to exercise the appropriate level of care and as such awarded punitive damages.</div>
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Unfortunately, most lawyers overlook the probabilities of an action for personal injuries arising out of exposure to pollutants. Part of the reason for this is the fact that perhaps the area was not previously identified. Now the American Bar Association and the American Trial Lawyers Association have both set up sections on "toxic torts." With the increased amount of litigation to be set forth in the subsequent court cases and settlements, an awareness will generally permeate the trial bar, and more litigation will hopefully cause more polluters and companies manufacturing dangerous chemicals and drugs (because of the economic adversity resulting from the verdicts) to shape up their act. Only through such actions will we all be protected in some way against the further abuse of ourselves and our progeny.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-28076065628349038502014-11-25T22:11:00.000-08:002014-12-18T22:11:54.364-08:00US sailors “have won the major battle” in Fukushima lawsuit<br />
<span style="font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 1.3;">US sailors “have won the major battle” in Fukushima lawsuit — Now 200 young Navy and Marines with leukemia, organs removed, brain tumors/cancer, blindness, more — Gov’t: Fukushima a terrible tragedy… Navy ships under threat and didn’t know where to go, some ‘very interesting’ moments… That radiation will kill you like a nuclear weapon (VIDEO)</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif, verdana, tahoma; font-size: 14px;">Oct. 30, 2014: A US federal judge has ruled that a class-action lawsuit filed by about 200 Navy sailors and Marines can proceed against [TEPCO, GE, EBASCO, Toshiba & Hitachi]…. “It is not over, but we have won the major battle,” lawyer Charles Bonner wrote… “THANK GOD!!!!!” responded Lindsay Cooper, the first USS Ronald Reagan sailor to come forward… [The] ruling was a bit of a surprise… [Sailors] alleged that TEPCO’s misinformation coaxed US forces closer… More ailing servicemembers came forward citing exposure-related ailments such as unexplained cancers, excessive bleeding and thyroid issues… [Attorneys] said additional plaintiffs are continuing to come forward with “serious ailments from radiation”</span></h2>
Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-55461788968882438442014-11-10T22:07:00.000-08:002014-12-18T22:07:38.669-08:00Coldwater Creek Litigation Team Update<h3 style="border: 0px; color: #7c7930; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: 200; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 10px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Coldwater Creek Litigation Team Update</h3>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: Arial; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It certainly looked innocent enough, a creek running through a Missouri town located near soccer fields, golf course and schools. It was beloved by the neighbors and the children that enjoyed their summer swims. But, the secrets that this creek held for many years have come to light and the injuries that arose from it are staggering. </span></div>
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The legacy of nuclear waste in the St. Louis area began when Mallinckrodt Chemical Works (which is now Covidien Pharmaceuticals) was invited to prepare refined uranium for secret work on a war project. Mallinckrodt became the sole supplier for the Manhattan project experiments and then continued to be a leader in the field of uranium ore refining during and after World War II.</div>
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When Mallinckrodt’s downtown site ran out of space to store its radioactive waste, it was transported to a site at Lambert International Airport to be stored in bulk on the open ground. Thereafter, the radioactive waste was transported from the Airport site to another site on Latty Avenue in Hazelwood, MO. Sadly, we now understand that the storage, handling and transportation spread the radioactive waste along the haul routes, contaminating the nearby properties including Coldwater Creek.</div>
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Residents of communities bordering along Coldwater Creek thought nothing of their proximity to the uranium dump site and had assumed they had only historical connections to uranium. But some perceptive graduates of McCluer North High School dug a little deeper into the unfortunate number of strange health problems that seemed to plague their hometown. With the help of Facebook and other social media tools, these perceptive residents believed there may be a pattern to the “cancer cluster” surrounding Coldwater Creek - this was just the beginning of an impressively organized community effort to learn the truth behind their Coldwater Creek.</div>
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Residents of the communities bordering along Coldwater Creek, including Florissant, Hazelwood, Black Jack, Spanish Lake, St. Ann, Berkeley and Ferguson continue their advocacy on behalf of those injured in their neighborhoods and have since filed lawsuits on behalf of those injured. </div>
Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-89178929522357528212014-10-15T22:04:00.000-07:002014-12-18T22:05:11.869-08:00Getting Ready for Trial -B&W case one of the very few even to reach the trial stage<h1 class="headline" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 29px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px;">
B&W case one of the very few even to reach the trial stage</h1>
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<span style="color: grey; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">By</span> Mary Ann Thomas</div>
<small style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Saturday, April 25, 2009 </small><div style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; width: 360px;">
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The Babcock & Wilcox recent payout of $52.5 million to several hundred claimants in the Kiski Valley is among a handful of nuclear contamination cases throughout the country to even be tried, let alone reach settlement for personal injury and wrongful death, according to scholars and attorneys. </div>
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The defendants, B&W and the Atlantic Richfield Co., collectively have cut checks totaling more than $80 million to about 365 claimants over the course of the 14-year lawsuit. A $27.5 million settlement with ARCO came in in February 2008 and other lesser settlements that reached into the millions. </div>
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The case was filed in federal court in 1994 alleging that radioactive emissions from two nuclear fuel processing plants in Apollo and Parks Township caused illness, death and property damage. </div>
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The plants were operated by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) and its successors, the Atlantic Richfield Co., and then Babcock & Wilcox to produce nuclear fuel and other products used in nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons from 1957 to 1986. </div>
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"These cases have always been hard to litigate and go on for a long time," said Bob Alverez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. Alverez also is a former senior policy advisor to the Department of Energy's secretary and a deputy assistant secretary for National Security and the Environment. </div>
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Louise Roselle, lead attorney for the plaintiffs for a case in Washington state, explained a common problem in getting cases such giant cases to trial. </div>
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"Normally, the cost of the litigation is a factor that the defendant considers," said Roselle, whose firm is based in Cincinnati. "At some point, they say, 'This is costing too much money. Why don't we settle it?' </div>
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"When the public goes up against the federal government, with it's ability to spend taxpayer dollars to fight taxpayers, you don't have the normal (financial) constraints on the litigation." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
The Apollo lawsuit is unique because it's a case "where taxpayers weren't put on the hook," Alverez said. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
For most such lawsuits, the contractors are exempt from liability because of their contracts with the federal government. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Wrongful death claim unusual </strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
The Apollo case is unusual because in addition to property damage, some claimants alleged wrongful death and personal injury. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
A famous personal injury case involves Karen Silkwood, who worked for the Kerr-McGee plutonium fuels plant in Crescent, Okla. She complained of lax safety controls at the plant and was working with her labor union to document and expose alleged dangerous plant conditions. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
When she died in a car crash, her estate sued the company for plutonium contamination in her body. They eventually settled for $1.38 million. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Personal injury cases caused by nuclear contamination are hard to prove, according to Steve Wodka, Silkwood's representative at the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union and an attorney in Little Silver, N.J. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Wodka visited Apollo in the 1990s. </div>
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"The thing that struck me when I came out there was that there was that plant at the bottom of a valley and people lived on the hillsides going up the valley," Wodka said. "There was a very logical pathway for these emissions, for people to be exposed to the emissions. </div>
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"This was not a plant way out in the countryside like Kerr-McGee in Oklahoma, with nothing around it." </div>
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When Leechburg environmental activist Patty Ameno contacted Karen's father, Bill Silkwood for advice, he sent her to Wodka. Wodka realized that the case was far too big, with too many plaintiffs. So he called in Dallas attorney Fred Baron, who had the resources to take on the lawsuit. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Tough to prove a link </strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"I can't think of any case quite like it," Wodka said. One of the problems with personal injury cases claiming cancer from nuclear contamination is that there isn't a unique, "signature" radiation cancer. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"There's a whole host of cancers that are linked to radiation," Wodka said, "but they all have known causes other than radiation. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"So it's the job of the attorneys and experts to demonstrate more likely than not that a particular cancer for a particular person was caused by his and her exposure to emissions from a plant. It's an uphill climb." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Arjun Makhijani, an expert witness for the Apollo case plaintiffs who reviewed the data on uranium releases from the Apollo plant, said reconstructing exposures to the public is difficult. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"The records for these plants in the 1950s and 1960s are quite poor," he said. "When we looked at the data, we were able to say that emissions were more than this number, but the data was not there for upper boundaries," he said. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Regardless of the rigors of trying the case, Wodka said, "That's a tremendous outcome for the people out there. The people out in Western Pennsylvania are awfully patient." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Baron, the attorney most responsible for negotiating the $54.5 million settlement, did not live to see the final settlement with B&W approved by a federal judge April 16. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Baron died in October, of cancer. </div>
<div class="subheadrule" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
'Loudmouth' became the voice of the workers </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
She's crazy. She's an alarmist. A loudmouth who doesn't know when to shut-up. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Those are the gentler descriptions that some Kiski Valley residents have reserved for Patty Ameno. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno is the Leechburg environmental activist who brought in high-powered attorneys who marshaled settlements totaling more than $80 million for residents for wrongful death, personal injury and property damage from the former nuclear fuel works in Apollo and Parks. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Last week, Babcock & Wilcox settled the 14-year lawsuit, while its co-defendant, Atlantic Richfield Co. settled with the several hundred plaintiffs last year. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
The companies and their predecessor, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. (NUMEC) operated two plants in Apollo and Parks from 1957-86, producing nuclear fuel to power submarines and nuclear reactors and other nuclear products. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"I think it is crystal clear that this outcome would not have happened without Patty," said Steve Wodka, an attorney who first came to Apollo in the early 1990s and referred the case to Dallas attorney Fred Baron. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Before he was an attorney, Wodka was a representative for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, where he represented Karen Silkwood, the activist worker at a nuclear fuels plant that led to recognition that workers were exposed to harmful doses of radiation. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"To have a community activist willing to spend that kind of time on an issue is absolutely critical to the ultimate success," Wodka said. "Lawyers simply don't have the contacts and don't know the area. I know that if Patty hadn't made that phone call to me, I don't think anything would have happened out there." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno fought for, and won, special status from the federal government to compensate former employees who became ill from working in those plants. Former NUMEC workers have since received more than $28 million from the government and still counting. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno grew up across the street from the Apollo plant with her parents operating a deli frequented by the workers. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
A 1969 graduate of Apollo High School, Ameno's classmate Bill Kerr, now Armstrong School District superintendent, remembers. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"Whether you agree with her or not, she is a fighter and has always fought for what she believed to be right and good. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"I have to applaud her for her determination," said Kerr, former Apollo mayor and Armstrong County commissioner. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"In the end, the settlements with ARCO and B&W speak for themselves." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Leaving Apollo </strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno left Apollo in 1971 to join the Navy. She served for a decade and was honorably discharged with a service-connected disability. Among her military duties, she served with the Armed Forces Courier Services and the Naval Investigative Services. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno suffered severe injuries — including shattered knees and ankles and other factures — after she jumped to escape a helicopter crash while on a search and rescue mission when the USS Kennedy collided with the USS Belknap on Nov. 22, 1975, off the coast of Sicily. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
After Ameno was discharged, she used the G.I. Bill to take undergraduate classes at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for criminology and English. She went on to work as a federal criminal investigator for the Defense Department in Long Beach, Calif. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Concerns in Apollo </strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
She returned home in 1998 "to find my father asking questions and making me promise to look into the plant across the street. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"If I hadn't screamed at those meetings or called (attorneys), we'd still sitting here doing nothing," said the 57-year-old Ameno. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno's activism has been colorful, from getting arrested in September 1993 for disrupting a public meeting on the Apollo nuclear fuels plant to clogging up U.S. Rep. John Murtha's fax machines — at several locations, including his Washington, D.C. office — for a "fax-a-thon" demanding help for area former nuke workers who became ill several years ago. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
A plaintiff in the residents' lawsuit, Ameno's settlement with B&W, less attorney fees and other expenses, is expected to be about $250,000. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
She has had two brain tumors, one that left Ameno deaf in one ear. She is a survivor of uterine cancer. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"Patty went from activist to champion," said state Rep. Joe Petrarca, D-Vandergrift. "I think a lot of people wrote Patty off many times." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
He recalled a meeting several years ago between Ameno and Kathleen McGinty, then-secretary for the state Department of Environmental Protection. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"Patty approached it very professionally, but she was tough and straight-forward," Petrarca said. "In my opinion, the secretary of DEP was with someone on her level who could talk the talk and walk the walk. You don't see that often. She is a tiger." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">On to a new cause </strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Last fall, Ameno became junior vice commander of the VFW Post 330 in Leechburg. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
She's making it her next mission. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Amid a host of problems, Ameno accepted the position to try to improve conditions at the financially strapped club that she described as in "deplorable condition." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno says she personally cleaned up raw sewage in the basement loaded with mold. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
She occasionally serves as a disc jockey and books blues, country, rock and jazz bands, and now opening up the gigs to the public. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
But again, Ameno finds her detractors. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno tells a story about being stuck in a room with club men yelling at her, "hoping I would cry and quit." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"I just throw it back at them," she said with a laugh. "I know that disco move." </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
With two decades of dealing with the environment and seeing nothing but disease and death, according to Ameno, the work at VFW has given her a chance to resurrect a local asset. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"This is much needed in this community, for it honors the dead by serving the living," she said. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Nuclear waste dump remains </strong></div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
Ameno says nuclear concerns in the Kiski Valley remain, and so her efforts in that area continue. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
She challenges the cleanup plans for the nuclear waste dump along Route 66 in Parks. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
And she promises a few more surprises. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"What she has done is bigger than life," said Nedra Ameno, her partner of 21 years. "People have reaped the benefits from her toil. It speaks for itself. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
"And people can see it." </div>
Additional Information: <h4 style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 0px;">
Other large cases </h4>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
The amounts of court awards in nuclear contamination lawsuits can be staggering. </div>
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Last year, two contractors were ordered to pay about $925 million to homeowners claiming that their property values were diminished by contamination from Rocky Flats, one of the country's major nuclear weapons production facilities outside of Denver, Colo. </div>
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The court decision is under appeal. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
The time its takes to win the awards or to settle are equally as mind-blowing. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
At the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, another government weapons site, two plaintiffs won damages totaling $550,000 alleging that radiation releases from the site caused their thyroid cancer. </div>
<div style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.231; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px;">
About 2,000 other personal injury cases are pending in the case that is almost 20 years old, according to Louise Roselle, lead attorney for the plaintiffs based in Cincinnati, Ohio.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, helvetica, clean, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Read more: <a href="http://triblive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_622294.html#ixzz3MJxl9iC3" style="color: #003399; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://triblive.com/x/valleynewsdispatch/s_622294.html#ixzz3MJxl9iC3</a> <br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" />Follow us: <a href="http://ec.tynt.com/b/rw?id=d-D-nM8emr4ALpacwqm_6l&u=triblive" style="color: #5b99e3; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@triblive on Twitter</a> | <a href="http://ec.tynt.com/b/rf?id=d-D-nM8emr4ALpacwqm_6l&u=triblive" style="color: #5b99e3; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">triblive on Facebook</a></span>Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-31491447148163057822014-07-09T22:00:00.000-07:002014-12-18T22:01:21.037-08:00United States Announces $5.15 Billion Settlement For Environmental And Toxic Tort Liabilities<div align="center" style="color: #242424; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px;">
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United States Announces $5.15 Billion Settlement With Anadarko To Pay For Environmental And Toxic Tort Liabilities</h1>
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<strong>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</strong></div>
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Thursday, April 3, 2014</div>
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<em>More than $4.4 Billion To Be Available for Environmental Clean-Up and Claims</em></h3>
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<em>Largest Payment for the Clean-Up of Environmental Contamination in History</em></h3>
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James Cole, Deputy Attorney General of the United States, Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (“SDNY”), Robert G. Dreher, the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resource Division (“ENRD”), and Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, announced today that the United States has entered into a settlement agreement with the Kerr-McGee Corporation and certain of its affiliates (“New Kerr-McGee”), and their parent Andarko Petroleum Corporation, in a fraudulent conveyance case brought by the United States and co-plaintiff Anadarko Litigation Trust (the “Trust”) in the bankruptcy of Tronox Inc. and its subsidiaries (“Tronox”). The bankruptcy court had previously found, in December 2013, that the historic Kerr-McGee Corporation (“Old Kerr-McGee”) fraudulently conveyed assets to New Kerr-McGee to evade its debts, including its liability for environmental clean-up at contaminated sites around the country. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, the defendants agree to pay $5.15 billion to settle the case, of which approximately $4.4 billion will be paid to fund environmental clean-up and for environmental claims. This is the largest payment ever for the clean-up of environmental contamination.</div>
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Deputy Attorney General James Cole said: “Kerr-McGee’s businesses all over this country left significant, lasting environmental damage in their wake. It tried to shed its responsibility for this environmental damage and stick the United States taxpayers with the huge cleanup bill. Through a lot of hard work, we uncovered this fraud and recovered over $5 billion dollars for the American people. This settlement demonstrates the Justice Department’s firm commitment to preventing and combating all forms of fraud and to securing environmental justice.”</div>
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Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “If you are responsible for 85 years of poisoning the earth, then you are responsible for cleaning it up. That’s why this case was brought. And that’s why the defendants are paying a record $5.15 billion -- to fund that colossal cleanup and to make things right. The company tried to keep its rewards and shed its responsibilities by playing a corporate shell game, putting its profitable oil-and-gas business in a new entity and leaving behind a bankrupt shell holding the environmental liabilities of the defunct, polluting lines of business. The company tried to cleanse its valuable business from its toxic legacy liabilities. Now the defendants will pay to cleanse the land and water.”</div>
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Acting Assistant Attorney General Robert G. Dreher said: “Today’s settlement is a just resolution of an historic injustice to the American people and our environment. The money recovered will result in clean-ups of a toxic history the Old Kerr-McGee unsuccessfully tried to walk away from.”</div>
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EPA Assistant Administrator Cynthia Giles said: “EPA’s vigorous pursuit of this case will have a big return for communities across the country. Companies that pollute can’t escape their responsibility to pay for the cleanup. EPA will continue to fight for those affected by pollution.”</div>
<div style="color: #242424; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16.799999237060547px;">
The Fraudulent Conveyance</div>
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According to the complaints of the Government and the Trust and the December 12, 2013, written opinion of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper:</div>
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Old Kerr-McGee operated numerous businesses, which included uranium mining, the processing of radioactive thorium, creosote wood treating, and manufacture of perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel. These operations left contamination across the nation, including radioactive uranium waste across the Navajo Nation; radioactive thorium in Chicago and West Chicago, Illinois; creosote waste in the Northeast, the Midwest, and the South; and perchlorate waste in Nevada.</div>
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In the years prior to 2005, Old Kerr-McGee concluded that the liabilities associated with this environmental contamination were a drag on its “crown jewel” business, the exploration and production of oil and gas. With the intent of evading these and other liabilities, Old Kerr-McGee created a new corporate entity – defendant New Kerr-McGee – and, through a scheme executed in 2002 and 2005, transferred its valuable oil and gas exploration assets to the new company. The legacy environmental liabilities were left behind in the old company, which was re-named Tronox, and spun off as a separate company in 2006. As a result of these transactions, Tronox was rendered insolvent and unable to address its environmental and other liabilities. In 2009, Tronox went into bankruptcy.</div>
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The United States and the bankruptcy estate (now represented by the Trust) brought this lawsuit to hold the defendants accountable and require them to repay the value of the assets fraudulently conveyed from Old Kerr-McGee.</div>
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In its decision, the Court found that Old Kerr-McGee transferred assets with the intent to hinder or delay creditors, including particularly environmental creditors, and also transferred those assets for less than their fair value, which left Tronox insolvent, unable to pay its debts when they came due, and undercapitalized. Among other things, the Court concluded that:</div>
<ul style="color: #242424; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px;">
<li>“[T]here can be no dispute that Kerr-McGee acted to free substantially all its assets – certainly its most valuable assets – from 85 years of environmental and tort liabilities.”</li>
<li>“[O]verhelming” evidence demonstrated that “Defendants devised, carried out and had complete knowledge that [the transfer of Old Kerr-McGee’s oil and gas exploration and production assets was] part of ‘a single integrated scheme’ to create a ‘pure play’ E&P business [referring to the ‘crown jewel’ oil and gas exploration and production business] free and clear of the legacy liabilities.”</li>
<li>“[T]here is no credibility to the uniform testimony of the inner circle [of Old Kerr-McGee management] that isolation of the oil and gas assets from the chemical business had nothing to do with an effort to cleanse the E&P assets from the legacy liabilities.”</li>
<li>“The record is replete with evidence that Kerr-McGee misapplied [the] standard [for setting reserves for environmental claims under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles] and thereby understated its liabilities for GAAP purposes.”</li>
<li>Statements by former Old Kerr-McGee employees that the cost of this environmental pollution would decline after the spin-off were “not rooted in reality.”</li>
<li>Kerr-McGee had failed to conduct any “contemporaneous analysis of the effect of [its] transactions on the legacy liability creditors,” including the effect it would have on the United States’ environmental claims.</li>
</ul>
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The Settlement</div>
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Under today’s settlement agreement, the defendants will pay $5.15 billion to the Trust to settle the fraudulent conveyance case. Pursuant to a 2011 settlement between the United States, certain state, local, and tribal governments, and the bankruptcy estate, approximately 88% of the net proceeds of this litigation will be distributed by the trust to the United States, certain state governments, the Navajo Nation, and environmental trusts created to clean up Tronox’s contaminated sites. The 2011 settlement agreement provides specific percentages of this funding that will be made available to each site.</div>
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As a result of these agreements, some of the key recoveries for environmental claims and for clean-up of environmental sites are estimated to be the following:</div>
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<li>$1.1 billion will be paid to a trust charged with cleaning up two dozen other contaminated sites around the country, including the Kerr-McGee Superfund Site in Columbus, Mississippi.</li>
<li>$1.1 billion will be paid to a trust responsible for cleaning up a former chemical manufacturing site in Nevada that has led to contamination in Lake Mead. Lake Mead feeds into the Colorado River, a major source of drinking water in the Southwest.</li>
<li>Approximately $985 million will be paid to U.S. EPA to fund the clean-up of abandoned uranium mines on land of the Navajo Nation, where radioactive waste remains from Kerr-McGee mining operations.</li>
<li>Approximately $224 million will be paid to U.S. EPA for clean-up of thorium contamination at the Welsbach Superfund Site in Gloucester, New Jersey.</li>
<li>Approximately $217 million will be paid to the federal Superfund in repayment of costs previously incurred by EPA cleaning up the Federal Creosote Superfund Site in Manville, New Jersey.</li>
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Additional amounts will be paid to the United States, states, the Navajo Nation, and environmental trusts for other environmental claims and contaminated sites at issue in this case.</div>
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The settlement agreement will be lodged with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York for a period of at least 30 days before it is submitted for the Court’s approval, in order to provide public notice and to afford members of the public the opportunity to comment on the settlement agreement.</div>
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Mr. Bharara thanked the Trust, its trustee John C. Hueston, and its counsel, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, for their critical work on this case. Mr. Bharara also thanked the many federal, state, and tribal officials who worked tirelessly on this matter. The litigation of this case was assisted by EPA personnel from around the country; the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce; the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the U.S. Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as numerous state governments and the Navajo Nation.</div>
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This case was handled by the Environmental Protection Unit and the Tax and Bankruptcy Unit of the SDNY’s Civil Division. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert William Yalen and Joseph Pantoja, along with Alan S. Tenenbaum, Katherine Kane, Frederick S. Phillips, Marcello Mollo, and Erica Pencak of ENRD, are in charge of this case.</div>
Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-15255749706429635782013-09-08T06:07:00.000-07:002013-09-08T06:07:20.916-07:00Spreading the word on TI fund<br />
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<span class="blox-headline entry-title" style="color: #222222; font-weight: bold; line-height: 38px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Spreading the word on TI fund</span></h1>
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Law clerk's article details father's illness</div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">PAWTUCKET</strong> - Lou Wims worked for years at the Metals and Controls division of Texas Instruments Inc. in Attleboro, rising from a plumber's helper to a facilities manager responsible for maintaining the local plant.</div>
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When he died from lung cancer in 1998, his family had no reason to suspect his cancer might have stemmed from his employment at the plant, which manufactured fuel for nuclear reactors.</div>
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Now his daughter, Jenna Wims Hashway, 49, is using her legal background to spread the word to lawyers, cancer victims and their families that help is available.</div>
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As a judicial law clerk to Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell of the Rhode Island Supreme Court, the Pawtucket resident cannot perform legal work on behalf of clients. But recently Wims penned a detailed article for the Rhode Island Bar Journal about her father's and other nuclear workers' cases explaining how to access a federal program designed to help defense workers afflicted with cancer.</div>
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The Attleboro plant manufactured nuclear fuel for the Navy from 1952 to 1967 and continued fabricating nuclear fuel for government research reactors until 1981. The TI complex later underwent a massive environmental cleanup and was converted into an industrial park.</div>
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Former TI workers who contracted certain types of cancer and meet other criteria can qualify for compensation and medical payments under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.</div>
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However, few workers knew about the program until The Sun Chronicle began publishing stories about the former nuclear site and U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy, D-Brookline, raised questions about the company's response.</div>
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According to the U.S. Labor Department, which administers the program, at least 400 claims from former TI workers have been approved with payments totaling more than $35 million.</div>
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Hashway said neither she nor any members of her family suspected that her father's cancer might be work-connected until they received a letter from Texas Instruments Inc. in February alerting families to the availability of a federal program to aid former atomic workers with cancer.</div>
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"I don't think it had occurred to any of us that his employment had put him at risk," Hashway said. "In fact, until the letter arrived from TI and I did some independent research, I had no idea TI worked with nuclear fuel. I thought they made watches and calculators."</div>
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Hashway's article explains the working of the federal program set up to compensate defense workers who toiled at dangerous jobs, often without adequate knowledge, on vital Cold War-era weapons projects. The federal law offers compensation up to $150,000 to employees of government contractors, whose illnesses are as likely as not caused by exposure to radiation.</div>
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In 2010, the federal government designated the Attleboro plant as a "special exposure cohort" for anyone who worked at the location at least 250 days between 1952 and 1967, making it easier for those workers to obtain compensation.</div>
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Hashway and her siblings applied for and obtained approval on a claim they filed on behalf of their late father.</div>
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Cancer victims and their families do not need to hire a lawyer to apply for compensation or medical benefits. But Hashway said some families may choose to seek legal advice and guidance from a lawyer. She said she wrote the article to put information about the program into the hands of families and their attorneys.</div>
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"My hope is that everyone who qualifies for the fund is made aware of its existence, so that they can decide whether to pursue a claim," she said. "The process is pretty straightforward, but it can be complicated by the passage of time - medical records and other documentation may no longer exist. I hope local attorneys will assist those who may need help in submitting a claim, and I hope my article will provide a useful guide to the process."</div>
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Former workers and their families can apply for benefits by contacting the Department of Labor's New York Resource Office.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-25682905685694579702013-09-05T06:45:00.000-07:002013-09-08T06:45:38.180-07:00Compensating Life Downwind of Nevada<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #666633; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Priscilla, a 37-kiloton atom bomb, was detonated June 24, 1957, at the Nevada Test Site. It was one of a hundred atomic bombs detonated at the site, exposing communities across the United States to radioactive fallout. </span><br />
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<b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 22px;">Compensating Life Downwind of Nevada </b><br />
<img border="0" height="10" src="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/images/shim.gif" style="background-color: white;" width="1" /><br style="background-color: white;" /><span class="Text" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">By Miki Meek<img border="0" height="10" src="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/images/shim.gif" width="1" /><br /><br />Claudia Peterson has a vivid memory from her 1950s childhood in southern Utah. She remembers watching a glowing orange ball move off the western horizon while she rocked back and forth in her swing set the summer she was four, and walking past piles of dead lambs during lambing season. Some had two heads, and others had no legs.</span><span class="Text" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
Peterson remembers men in tidy, black suits visiting her classroom at East Elementary School in Cedar City with Geiger counters—and feeling a sense of pride that she lit up the counter when they waved it in front of her face. They told her it was from dental x-rays, but she knew she had never had one. She recalls sixth grade when one of her schoolmates died of leukemia, and eighth grade when bone cancer took first her friend's leg and then his life.<br />
But there's one thing that doesn't come to mind—the government ever warning communities like hers in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and much of the United States that they would be heavily exposed to radioactive fallout from atomic bombs detonated at the Nevada Test Site. Between 1951 and July 1962, a hundred atomic bombs were detonated above ground there, 23 of them were larger than the one dropped on Hiroshima.<br />
And nobody told Peterson that the government would one day compensate her family for her father's death from brain cancer, but wouldn't extend that same apology to her sister and her own six-year-old daughter. They didn't get the "right" cancer. Neither melanoma nor neuroblastoma, a rare nervous-system cancer, made the government's list.<br />
After years of failed lawsuits and legislation, the government finally offered compensation to downwinders—radiation victims downwind of the test site—with the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). However, since Congress passed the act, in 1990, it has been hotly criticized by those living in states surrounding the site for limiting compensation to certain illnesses, years, and counties. For claimants to pick up their $50,000 compensation check, which barely covers medical bills for some, they must have been physically present in areas around the test site for at least two years between 1951 and 1958, or during 1962. They must also have one of 20 eligible diseases, which are mostly cancers of primary organs.<br />
"It's a slap in the face to think that money will bring back a loved one or a breast after being treated like a guinea pig. But it's a bigger slap in the face to the brother, cousin, or neighbor across the street whose illness didn't qualify," Peterson says.<br />
Dennis Nelson, director of Support and Education for Radiation Victims, has helped downwinders file their RECA claims with the Department of Justice for the past ten years and has seen it become a point of frustration for many families, including his own. Born and raised in St. George, Utah, Nelson was seven when atomic bombs with names like "Charlie" and "Baker" began exploding less than 120 miles from his home. But with safe assurances from the Atomic Energy Commission, his family thought they were unaffected.<br />
They continued to eat vegetables from a garden irrigated with water polluted from fallout dust and drink fresh milk from the farmer up the street. They were unaware that scientists would eventually show that radioactive iodine 131 often entered the food chain through milk from cows that ate contaminated grass or feed, and increased the risk of thyroid cancer.<br />
The Nelsons' health eventually began to unravel. In a family of seven, seven different kinds of cancers were diagnosed, including colon cancer, which claimed his sister Margaret two years after RECA was passed. But it wasn't on the list of compensable diseases at the time. And when Congress did amend the list, adding six other diseases to RECA in 2000, the Department of Justice still had nothing to offer Nelson but a rejection letter. He is ineligible because the law permits only parents, spouses, children, grandparents, grandchildren, and survivors to file. Nelsons' mother died of a brain tumor and his father of lung cancer before his sister, who never married or had children.<br />
"RECA is too little, too late," Nelson says. "They can call it compensation, but people are dying before they can even get it."<br />
Salt Lake City resident Mary Dickson did not die after she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, but she still won't get compensated. Although it's an eligible cancer, Salt Lake County isn't among 21 qualifying counties in Utah, Arizona, and Nevada, even though fallout hit it harder than some counties within RECA's boundaries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<br />
"I'm glad that some type of legislation passed, but RECA was still a huge compromise," Dickson says. "The fallout didn't just hit a confined geographic area around southern Utah and stop. You can't put a fence around it."<br />
The first federal reports mapping fallout paths over Salt Lake did not emerge until seven years after RECA passed. However, when the number of eligible counties was increased slightly by the amendments in 2000, Salt Lake County was not added.<br />
Fred Allingham, executive director of the National Association for Radiation Survivors, believes it's because these reports also showed that fallout drifted all over the United States, making room for congressional arguments that expanding the program further would be too costly. The year after the amendments were enacted, 3,828 claims flooded in, compared with 854 in 2000. These new claims quickly exhausted funds, and the Department of Justice issued IOU letters for several months until Congress appropriated more money.<br />
Anyone who has lived in the contiguous United States since 1951 has been exposed to radiation, according to a CDC report. Fallout from the Nevada Test Site, combined with nuclear tests conducted overseas by the U.S. and other countries, could ultimately be responsible for an additional 17,000 cancer deaths. The National Cancer Institute also estimates that the Nevada Test Site alone may be responsible for up to 212,000 cases of thyroid cancer.<br />
The Cold War-era nuclear bombs were only detonated at the test site when the wind was blowing north-northeast, away from major cities in California and toward sparsely populated regions in states like Utah, Montana, and Wyoming.<br />
But fallout wasn't the Cold War's only hazard. Many Americans were left sick and dying of lung cancer and other diseases after working in poorly ventilated uranium mines, contaminated with high levels of radon gas and toxic dust. These miners are eligible for $100,000 under RECA if they have one of six lung diseases linked to radiation exposure and worked between 1942 and 1971 in one of 11 qualifying states.<br />
However, some miners, particularly Navajo, are having difficulty supplying necessary documents, even though declassified reports show that the Atomic Energy Commission knowingly sent them into hazardous conditions. Since the beginning of 2002, Melton Martinez, director of Navajo RECA Reform Working Group, has helped 200 uranium miners file for compensation, but only nine have received it so far.<br />
He says the act "culturally discriminates" against Navajo because it requires claimants to provide detailed medical and work history records that many just don't have. From the 1950s through the ‘70s, many did not utilize Western medicine nor did they receive pay stubs, because employers paid them under the table.<br />
"The government never told us about radiation and now they are making us jump over these hurdles," Martinez says. "But that's hard for these miners to do when they're carrying an oxygen bottle, confined to a wheelchair, or taking 15 different pills a day to keep themselves going."<br />
He also feels that the law is flawed because it doesn't compensate other populations that were exposed to uranium dust. Martinez's own family has been plagued with health problems from living near a uranium mine in Haystack, New Mexico, that remained open for 30 years.<br />
The National Research Council, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, is studying whether there is scientific evidence to support expanding illnesses, populations, and geographic regions in RECA, and the report is due on June 30, 2003. However, Claudia Peterson is skeptical that the government will take responsibility for her sister's and daughter's death anytime soon.<br />
It took 39 years after "Able"—the first bomb to go off at the Nevada Test Site, in 1951— for the government to acknowledge some fault. And it took ten years after RECA passed to add amendments that included a few more counties, populations, and diseases. Peterson says she doesn't know how much longer some of her elementary school classmates, family, and friends will be around to wait.<br />
"We've watched how quickly the government has put together compensation for 9/11 victims, and that has been a tough one to swallow," Peterson says. "What happened that day was horrible, but they are so quick to recognize what someone else did and shove under the rug what they've done to their own people. We were considered a low-use segment of the population then, and we still are now."<br />
<b>RELATED LINKS</b>Radiation Exposure Compensation Program<br /><a class="" href="http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/" target="_blank">www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/</a><br />Go to this site to learn about RECA and download claim forms.<br />
National Cancer Institute: About Radiation Fallout<br /><a class="" href="http://rex.nci.nih.gov/INTRFCE_GIFS/radiation_fallout/radiation_131.html" target="_blank">rex.nci.nih.gov/INTRFCE_GIFS/radiation_fallout/radiation_131.html</a><br />This website lists the full 1997 report on exposure to iodine 131 from atomic bombs detonated above ground at the Nevada Test Site, along with fact sheets, a dose calculator, and state and county exposures.<br />
A Feasibility Study of the Health Consequences to the American Population From Nuclear Weapons Tests Conducted by the United States and Other Nations<br /><a class="" href="http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallout/default.htm" target="_blank">www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/fallout/default.htm</a><br />Download the report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from this site.<br />
National Association of Radiation Survivors<br /><a class="" href="http://www.radiationsurvivors.org/" target="_blank">www.radiationsurvivors.org</a><br />This website offers a summary of issues and legislative history regarding radiation victims.<br />
Nevada Test Site<br /><a class="" href="http://www.nv.doe.gov/news&pubs/publications/historyreports/default.htm" target="_blank">www.nv.doe.gov/news&pubs/publications/historyreports/default.htm</a><br />Visit this site to read detailed, historical reports on nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site.<br />
<b></b><b>BIBLIOGRAPHY</b>Gallagher, Carole. <i>American Ground Zero.</i> MIT Press. 1993<br /><br />Miller, Richard L. <i>Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing. </i>Two-Sixty Press. 1999.<br /><br />Miller, Richard L. <i>The U.S. Atlas of Nuclear Fallout From 1951-1962 Vol. I: Total Fallout. </i>LEGIS Books, 2002.<br /><br />Ward, Chip. <i>Canaries on the Rim: Living Downwind in the West.</i> Verso Books. 2001<br />
Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-411151417375485562013-09-03T06:49:00.000-07:002013-09-08T06:49:13.897-07:00Iodine-131 Fallout From the Nevada Test Site<table bgcolor="#ffffff" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 500px;"><tbody>
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<b>Iodine-131 Fallout From the Nevada Test Site</b></h2>
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In 1997 the National Cancer Institute (NCI) released the first nationwide study on exposure to radioactive iodine 131 (I 131), from 100 atomic bombs tests detonated above ground at the Nevada Test Site during the 1950s and 1960s.</div>
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Rain, wind, and the food supply spread I 131 from these tests across the United States, with the largest deposits immediately downwind of the test site and the lowest on the West Coast, upwind of the site. Exposure to released iodine occurred mainly during the first two months following a test. After that I 131 disintegrated to harmless levels.</div>
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Because I 131 accumulates in the thyroid gland, the NCI estimates that the fallout may have caused up to 212,000 cases of thyroid cancer in people who were exposed. The average cumulative thyroid dose to approximately 160 million people who lived in the country during testing was about two rads, about five times the radiation dose emitted by a mammogram. A rad is the measurement unit for the amount of radiation the body absorbs. The federal government recommends medical monitoring for people who have been exposed to ten rads or more.</div>
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Americans were exposed to varying levels depending on their residence, age, and food consumption. People who lived in Western states to the north and east of the site, such as Colorado, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, and Utah, had the highest per capita thyroid doses, ranging from 9 to 16 rads. And children between three months to five years old in these high fallout areas probably received three to seven times the average dose for the population in their county because they had smaller thyroids and tended to drink more milk than adults.</div>
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Milk was a major exposure vehicle because I 131 fell on pasture grasses and then was consumed by cows. But an estimated 20,000 people who drank goats' milk during testing were at an even greater risk because it concentrates I 131 more than cows' milk. Thyroid doses to these individuals could be 10 to 20 times greater than to residents of the same county, who were the same age and gender, and drank an equal amount of cows' milk. Other pathways included inhaling contaminated air or ingesting tainted leafy vegetables, cottage cheese, and eggs.</div>
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However, the relationship between I 131 and thyroid cancer still isn't fully known. It makes up less than one percent of cancer cases nationwide each year and cancer registries do not indicate that fallout has caused an epidemic, although record keeping didn't start until the early 1970s.</div>
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— Miki Meek<br /> </div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-15416227956900876542013-08-22T19:24:00.000-07:002013-10-15T19:24:43.612-07:00Cancer claims from Attleboro atomic work growing<span class="paragraph-0" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"></span><br />
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<strong style="margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">ATTLEBORO</strong> - Hundreds of former Metals & Controls and Texas Instruments employees who may have gotten cancer as a result of working at a nuclear fuel plant are pursing claims for compensation under a federal program.</div>
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More than 900 claims have been filed on behalf of ex-workers or survivors of those who worked at the Attleboro plant during the 1950s and '60s under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.</div>
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The Department of Labor-run program provides compensation and medical coverage to atomic workers who believe they developed cancer as a result of their jobs.</div>
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The total does not include another 252 cases referred to the National Institute of Occupational Science and Health under a separate category.</div>
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So far a total of $35 million has been disbursed to employees with one of 22 types of cancer who worked at the plant from 1952 to 1967. That includes $1.2 million in government-paid medical benefits.</div>
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An additional $3.7 million has been paid under the NIOSH program to those who worked at the plant in later years, but whose cancer was judged likely to be job-connected.</div>
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Many of the workers labored in close proximity to radioactive materials on Cold War military projects at a time it was feared conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union might erupt in nuclear war.</div>
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Some have compared the nuclear workers to the Rosie the Riveters of World War II, who kept ships, tanks and planes flowing to the front despite workplace hazards, housing shortages and little sleep.</div>
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Of compensation cases decided so far, about two-thirds of claims received from those who worked at the plant in the 1950s and '60s have been approved.</div>
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Under the parallel NIOSH program, which carries a higher standard of proof, only about 20 percent of those who filed claims were approved for compensation.</div>
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The former Metals & Controls plant manufactured nuclear fuel for the Navy and for government reactor programs beginning in the early 1950s and ending in 1981, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.</div>
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About 90 percent of the compensation paid to date went to workers or family members of employees who worked in the 1950s and '60s, when atomic energy work was at its height.</div>
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A division of Engelhard Industries in Plainville conducted similar work during the 1950s and early '60s.</div>
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Texas Instruments, which purchased Metals & Controls in 1959, sold its Attleboro manufacturing campus in 2006.</div>
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The property, parts of which underwent extensive decontamination, was eventually turned into an industrial park.</div>
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As many as 6,000 people worked at the complex in its heyday.</div>
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The bulk of nuclear-related work was centered on a few buildings, but the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health was unable to find documentation confining the work to any one section of the factory comlex.</div>
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The Department of Labor classified the former TI property an "atomic weapons employer" site.</div>
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The federal government stepped up efforts to aid local atomic workers in 2010 by designating those who worked at the Attleboro plant from 1952 to 1967 a "special exposure cohort." The designation afforded them easier access to benefits without having to document precisely how much radiation exposure they received.</div>
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However, some former workers have complained that neither Texas Instruments nor the government adequately informed them they might be subject to work-related cancer or that there was a program available to help them.</div>
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Following a series of news stories in The Sun Chronicle and prompting by U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, the company sent letters to thousands of former workers informing them about the compensation program.</div>
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"My office is thrilled with the steady uptick in claims filed by former employees of Texas Instruments and their families," Kennedy said in a statement. "These workers deserve any compensation we can provide. We remain committed to working with any individual who needs help navigating the claims process and encourage folks to call our Attleboro office with any questions or concerns."</div>
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According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Metals & Controls and later TI made nuclear fuels used by the Navy, Air Force and civilian government reactors, as well as switches for Navy submarines that contained radioactive radium 226.</div>
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TI cleaned up the property in 1997 and received sign-offs from federal and state officials.</div>
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But the number applications for federal compensation from former employees has continued to climb as a result of publicity and mailings.</div>
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In January, the Department of Labor reported it had approved 301 claims by former workers and paid out a total of $26.2 million in compensation related to the Attleboro site. Another $768,000 went to pay medical bills of affected workers.</div>
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According to the most recent statistics, a total of 407 claims have been approved, with payments totaling $34 million. That doesn't count an additional $1.2 million in medical care.</div>
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In addition the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health portion of the program, which had paid $3.4 million on 29 individual claims as of January, has seen those totals rise to $3.7 million on 31 claims.</div>
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Since surviving family members, as well as former workers, are permitted to file claims, the total number of claims reported by the Labor Department exceeds the number of former workers whose cases are connected with them.</div>
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According to statistics published by the Labor Department, the 1,198 claims submitted to date under both programs represent a total of 883 workers.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-59421366080362069732013-08-21T06:52:00.000-07:002013-09-08T06:52:51.539-07:00Half Life—The Lethal Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste<br />
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<b>A tank farm at Hanford, Washington, built in the 1940s, uses only single-wall tanks to store radioactive sludge from plutonium processing. Many of the tanks have leaked, tainting groundwater.</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 2.125em;">Half Life—The Lethal Legacy of America's Nuclear Waste</span></h2>
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Written by Michael E. Long</div>
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Republished from the pages of <em>National Geographic</em> magazine</div>
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World War II was still being fought in the Pacific during the first week of August 1945, a time when my father and I were vacationing in Atlantic City, New Jersey, eating softshell crabs and lazing by the ocean. In a games arcade I fed nickels to a toy machine gun and fired at Japanese Zero fighters flitting across a screen. On the boardwalk, rifles shouldered, platoons of United States soldiers marched and sang:</div>
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<em>The Stars and Stripes will fly over Tokyo,</em></div>
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<em>Fly over Tokyo, fly over Tokyo,</em></div>
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<em>The Stars and Stripes will fly over Tokyo,</em></div>
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<em>When the 991st gets there̴.</em></div>
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One morning my dad showed me a newspaper with red headlines that said a huge bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, and Japan surrendered. The bombs were so big that the boys of the 991st wouldn't have to go to Tokyo after all.</div>
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The strong nuclear force, the binding energy that makes atomic nuclei the most tightfisted entities in all creation, had been sundered, unleashing enormous power—the equivalent of 15,000 tons (13,608 metric tons) of TNT in the Hiroshima bomb—as well as a race to create bigger weapons. Seven years later our first hydrogen device, code-named Mike, yielded a blast equal to 10.4 million tons (9.4 million metric tons) of TNT. Mike would have leveled all five boroughs of New York City.</div>
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By the mid-1960s, the height of the Cold War, the U.S. had stockpiled around 32,000 nuclear warheads, as well as mountains of radioactive garbage from the production of plutonium for these weapons. Just one kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of plutonium required around a thousand tons (907 metric tons) of uranium ore. Generated from uranium bombarded by neutrons in a nuclear reactor, the plutonium was later separated from the uranium in hellish baths of acids and solvents still awaiting disposal.</div>
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A long-deferred cleanup is now under way at 114 of the nation's nuclear facilities, which encompass an acreage equivalent to Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Many smaller sites, the easy ones, have been cleansed, but the big challenges remain. What's to be done with 52,000 tons (47,174 metric tons) of dangerously radioactive spent fuel from commercial and defense nuclear reactors? With 91 million gallons (344.5 million liters) of high-level waste left over from plutonium processing, scores of tons of plutonium, more than half a million tons (453,592 metric tons) of depleted uranium, millions of cubic feet of contaminated tools, metal scraps, clothing, oils, solvents, and other waste? And with some 265 million tons (240 million metric tons) of tailings from milling uranium ore—less than half stabilized—littering landscapes?</div>
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For an idea of scale: Load those tailings into railroad hopper cars, then pour the 91 million gallons (344.5 million liters) of waste into tank cars, and you would have a mythical train that would reach around the Equator and then some.</div>
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In a decade real trains and trucks carrying high-level waste may head to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the government's choice, and a controversial one, for a permanent repository.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-15113864821792864312013-08-13T06:02:00.000-07:002013-09-08T06:05:18.323-07:00Texas Instruments Telephone Directly 1963 - Where is the Attleboro Directory?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-33711558650353628712013-08-10T06:04:00.000-07:002013-09-08T06:05:28.852-07:00Cancer claims from Attleboro atomic work growing<br />
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Cancer claims from Attleboro atomic work growing</h1>
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<strong style="float: none !important; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow: visible !important; padding: 0px; position: relative !important;">BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF | Posted: Friday, August 9, 2013 3:15 am</strong></div>
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<strong style="float: none !important; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow: visible !important; padding: 0px; position: relative !important;">ATTLEBORO</strong> - Hundreds of former Metals & Controls and Texas Instruments employees who may have gotten cancer as a result of working at a nuclear fuel plant are pursing claims for compensation under a federal program.</div>
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More than 900 claims have been filed on behalf of ex-workers or survivors of those who worked at the Attleboro plant during the 1950s and '60s under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.</div>
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The Department of Labor-run program provides compensation and medical coverage to atomic workers who believe they developed cancer as a result of their jobs.</div>
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The total does not include another 252 cases referred to the National Institute of Occupational Science and Health under a separate category.</div>
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So far a total of $35 million has been disbursed to employees with one of 22 types of cancer who worked at the plant from 1952 to 1967. That includes $1.2 million in government-paid medical benefits.</div>
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An additional $3.7 million has been paid under the NIOSH program to those who worked at the plant in later years, but whose cancer was judged likely to be job-connected.</div>
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Many of the workers labored in close proximity to radioactive materials on Cold War military projects at a time it was feared conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union might erupt in nuclear war.</div>
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Some have compared the nuclear workers to the Rosie the Riveters of World War II, who kept ships, tanks and planes flowing to the front despite workplace hazards, housing shortages and little sleep.</div>
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Of compensation cases decided so far, about two-thirds of claims received from those who worked at the plant in the 1950s and '60s have been approved.</div>
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Under the parallel NIOSH program, which carries a higher standard of proof, only about 20 percent of those who filed claims were approved for compensation.</div>
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The former Metals & Controls plant manufactured nuclear fuel for the Navy and for government reactor programs beginning in the early 1950s and ending in 1981, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.</div>
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About 90 percent of the compensation paid to date went to workers or family members of employees who worked in the 1950s and '60s, when atomic energy work was at its height.</div>
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A division of Engelhard Industries in Plainville conducted similar work during the 1950s and early '60s.</div>
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Texas Instruments, which purchased Metals & Controls in 1959, sold its Attleboro manufacturing campus in 2006.</div>
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The property, parts of which underwent extensive decontamination, was eventually turned into an industrial park.</div>
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As many as 6,000 people worked at the complex in its heyday.</div>
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The bulk of nuclear-related work was centered on a few buildings, but the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health was unable to find documentation confining the work to any one section of the factory comlex.</div>
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The Department of Labor classified the former TI property an "atomic weapons employer" site.</div>
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The federal government stepped up efforts to aid local atomic workers in 2010 by designating those who worked at the Attleboro plant from 1952 to 1967 a "special exposure cohort." The designation afforded them easier access to benefits without having to document precisely how much radiation exposure they received.</div>
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However, some former workers have complained that neither Texas Instruments nor the government adequately informed them they might be subject to work-related cancer or that there was a program available to help them.</div>
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Following a series of news stories in The Sun Chronicle and prompting by U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, the company sent letters to thousands of former workers informing them about the compensation program.</div>
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"My office is thrilled with the steady uptick in claims filed by former employees of Texas Instruments and their families," Kennedy said in a statement. "These workers deserve any compensation we can provide. We remain committed to working with any individual who needs help navigating the claims process and encourage folks to call our Attleboro office with any questions or concerns."</div>
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According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Metals & Controls and later TI made nuclear fuels used by the Navy, Air Force and civilian government reactors, as well as switches for Navy submarines that contained radioactive radium 226.</div>
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TI cleaned up the property in 1997 and received sign-offs from federal and state officials.</div>
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But the number applications for federal compensation from former employees has continued to climb as a result of publicity and mailings.</div>
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In January, the Department of Labor reported it had approved 301 claims by former workers and paid out a total of $26.2 million in compensation related to the Attleboro site. Another $768,000 went to pay medical bills of affected workers.</div>
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According to the most recent statistics, a total of 407 claims have been approved, with payments totaling $34 million. That doesn't count an additional $1.2 million in medical care.</div>
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In addition the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health portion of the program, which had paid $3.4 million on 29 individual claims as of January, has seen those totals rise to $3.7 million on 31 claims.</div>
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Since surviving family members, as well as former workers, are permitted to file claims, the total number of claims reported by the Labor Department exceeds the number of former workers whose cases are connected with them.</div>
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According to statistics published by the Labor Department, the 1,198 claims submitted to date under both programs represent a total of 883 workers.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-7091948997882060192013-08-06T07:47:00.000-07:002013-09-08T07:48:12.334-07:00U.S. Can’t Track Tons of Weapons-Grade Uranium, Plutonium<br />
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U.S. Can’t Track Tons of Weapons-Grade Uranium, Plutonium</h1>
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<li class="author" style="display: inline; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">BY <a href="http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/author/noah_shachtman/" style="color: #333333; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">NOAH SHACHTMAN</a></li>
<li class="entryDate" style="display: inline; list-style-type: none; margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">09.16.11</li>
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President Obama has repeatedly said his top counterterrorism goal is to prevent terrorists from acquiring the building blocks to make nuclear or “dirty” bombs. In April of 2009, Obama announced a new international effort to “<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-By-President-Barack-Obama-In-Prague-As-Delivered/" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years</a>.” Since then, the Department of Energy has dispatched scientists around the globe to collect hundreds of pounds of the stuff.</div>
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But according to a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), issued late last Friday afternoon to little fanfare, <a href="http://gao.gov/products/GAO-11-920" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">thousands</em> of pounds of highly-enriched uranium and separated plutonium remain</a>. American officials may never get a chance to ensure its security.</div>
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That’s because the U.S. can’t track or fully account for 5,900 pounds of “weapons usable” nuclear material that it once shipped overseas. Instead, U.S. officials have to rely on foreign governments’ assurances that the potentially cataclysmic stuff is safe. And when those officials occasionally visit the sites holding the nuclear material, nearly half the places “did not meet International Atomic Energy Agency security guidelines,” according to the GAO, Congress’ investigative arm.</div>
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“It’s amazing how completely cavalier the Department of Energy has been at tracking this. They’ve got nobody who worries about this on a day-to-day basis,” says <a href="http://armscontrolwonk.com/about" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Jeffrey Lewis</a>, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Monterey Institute of International Studies (and occasional contributor to this blog).</div>
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The Energy Department, not surprisingly, has a different perspective. Foreign governments have pledged to report on the security of the their fissile material. There are international inspectors to keep those governments honest. And the GAO hasn’t reported that any uranium or plutonium has gone missing — just that certain guidelines may not have been yet.</div>
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“Between the International Atomic Energy Agency inspections and the reporting requirements, we think those safeguards are effective and internationally sanctioned,” Josh McConaha, a spokesman for the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, tells Danger Room.</div>
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Starting in the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. sold 17,500 kilograms, or 38,5000 pounds, of fissile material overseas, mostly to help with civilian nuclear energy programs. Those sales came with conditions, however: countries had to keep the dangerous material safe; they couldn’t use it for weapons; and the U.S. had the option of taking back the radioactive stuff — someday, somehow.</div>
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But 12,400 of those 17,500 kilograms can’t be returned. It’s mostly in the hands — and reactors — of close allies like Germany, France, and Japan. 1,160 kilograms have been accounted for, and another 1,240 kg have been secured by the Energy Department’s “<a href="http://nnsa.energy.gov/aboutus/ourprograms/nonproliferation/programoffices/officeglobalthreatreduction" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Global Threat Reduction Initiative</a>,” an effort to covert nuclear power facilities from highly-enriched to low-enriched uranium, which is far less dangerous.</div>
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Still, don’t assume that just because the nuke material is at our friends’ houses means it is completely secure. One source familiar with the report’s development says, “If this was in some former Soviet republic, we’d be there in a heartbeat.” Some of America’s closest allies may be the ones with the poorest nuclear security precautions.</div>
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And there’s just one other problem. Subtracting all the nuke material that’s been accounted for and secured still leaves 2,700 kg — nearly three tons — outstanding. And that’s enough material to make dozens of nuclear weapons.</div>
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Where that uranium and plutonium is located — or, where it’s <em style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">supposed</em> to be located — the GAO report doesn’t say. That information was considered too sensitive to disclose in a public document, and was instead laid out in a classified report sent to Congress over the summer. But it’s worth noting that the U.S. currently has 27 so-called “Nuclear Cooperation Agreements” with 27 countries, from China to Ukraine to Colombia. America previously had similar deals with 11 other countries — including Israel, Pakistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Iran.</div>
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“Theoretically, we know [where the nuclear material is kept]. But we don’t have a good accounting of where it all is. We’re relying on them. We’re not, to coin a phrase, trusting but verifying,” the source says.</div>
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Occasionally, American inspectors will travel to these sites, to make sure these sites have the proper fences and surveillance gear needed to keep their nuclear material safe. The track record wasn’t particularly encouraging. Of those 55 visits conducted between 1994 and 2010, “physical protection teams found the sites met IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] security guidelines on 27 visits, did not meet IAEA security guidelines on 21 visits, and the results of 7 visits are unknown because the physical protection team was unable to assess the sites, or agency documentation was missing,” the report notes.</div>
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Partially, this alarming GAO report is an outgrowth of shifting standards. The U.S. is demanding more security and more accountability, to cope with a world in which terrorists have nuclear ambitions — and<a href="http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/international-wire/mi_8131/is_20110903/destruction-war/ai_n58112788/pg_34/?tag=mantle_skin;content" style="color: #007ca5; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">20 major atomic smugglers has been caught in the last two decades</a>. Many countries haven’t caught up with those changes.</div>
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“The old way of doing business was: You bought it. We have some rights, but it’s fundamentally not our problem,” Lewis says. “Now, things are different.”</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-60797812620217755202013-07-23T07:39:00.000-07:002013-09-08T07:39:40.742-07:00FISSILE MATERIALS IN THE US<br />
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FISSILE MATERIALS IN THE US</h1>
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Countries: United States</h1>
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The United States is a nuclear weapon state member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In May 2010, the United States declared a stockpile of 5113 warheads as of the end of September 2009. This stockpile included almost 2000 strategic warheads deployed on about 800 missiles and bombers, 500 non-strategic warheads and 2,600 warheads in reserve. Additional 3500-4500 warheads are awaiting dismantlement. Taking into account the warheads in the dismantlement queue, the size of the U.S. weapon arsenal is estimated to be 9,400 nuclear warheads.</div>
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The current stock of fissile materials in the United States is estimated to include 94.8 tonnes of plutonium (80.7 tonnes of which is weapon-grade) and 686.6 tonnes of highly-enriched uranium (some of which is in irradiated naval fuel). Of these amounts, 49.3 tonnes of separated plutonium and 194 tonnes of HEU have been declared as excess to military requirements. The United States has no separated civilian plutonium.</div>
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The United States is not producing fissile materials for weapons. Production of HEU for weapons ended in 1964. Additional HEU was produced for naval-reactor fuel through 1992. All U.S. production reactors were shut down in 1987.</div>
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Highly-enriched uranium</h3>
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The United States was the first country to produce enriched uranium. During 1945-47, a little over a tonne of HEU was produced by electromagnetic separation at the Manhattan Project's Y-12 plant near Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Then the HEU production shifted to two large gaseous diffusion plants, one at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and one at Portsmouth, Ohio.</div>
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The Oak Ridge gaseous diffusion plant produced HEU for weapons during 1945-1964 and thereafter produced only low-enriched uranium for nuclear power-plant fuel until 1985. The Portsmouth plant started production in 1956 and also produced HEU for weapons until 1964. Then it shifted to producing mostly low-enriched uranium for power-reactor fuel and HEU enriched to an average of 97.4 %, for naval-propulsion reactor fuel. There are several new commercial uranium enrichment facilities that are being built in the United States (see<a href="http://fissilematerials.org/facilities/uranium_enrichment.html" style="color: #ad8168; outline: none;">Facilities: Uranium enrichment</a>). None of them will be producing highly-enriched uranium.</div>
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Cumulatively, the United States acquired 751.9 tonnes of uranium-235 (835 tonnes of 90% HEU equivalent). As of the end of September 2004, about 180 tonnes of HEU had been consumed in nuclear reactor fuel, nuclear tests, transfers to foreign countries, and down-blending to low-enriched uranium (LEU). The measured HEU inventory was declared as 590.5 tonnes of U-235 in 686.6 tonnes of HEU as of September 2004 (656 tonnes 90% HEU equivalent). By the end of 2012, with about 141 tons of material either downblended or sent for downblending, the United States had a remaining stockpile of 604 tonnes of HEU.</div>
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Of the total HEU stock, about 100 tonnes had been fabricated into naval fuel that is to be disposed of in a geological repository after use. Another 159 tonnes have been designated for the naval-fuel reserve, and 20 tonnes have been reserved for use in space and research reactors.</div>
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Weapon plutonium</h3>
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The first significant amounts of plutonium produced in the United States were used in the nuclear explosive that was tested in New Mexico on 16 July 1945 and then the bomb based on that design that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. This plutonium was produced by the first three graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactors built on the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Hanford site on the Columbia River in Washington State. Later, an additional six such production reactors were built at Hanford and another five, moderated and cooled by heavy water, were built on the DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The primary mission of the Savannah River reactors was to produce tritium for U.S. nuclear weapons but they produced a great deal of weapon-grade plutonium as well.</div>
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U.S. production of weapon-grade plutonium peaked in the 1950's and early 1960's. During the 1960s, nine of the fourteen U.S. production reactors were shut down. Five continued to operate into the 1980s, primarily to produce tritium. All U.S. production reactors were finally shut down in 1987.</div>
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According to the <a href="http://fissilematerials.org/library/2012/06/the_united_states_plutonium_ba.html" style="color: #ad8168; outline: none;">official plutonium balance reselased by DoE in 2009</a>, the United States produced and acquired 111.7 tonnes of plutonium. As of the end of September 2009, the United States had used and otherwise removed 14.0 tonnes of this plutonium. Measured inventory in 2009 was declared to be 95.4 tonnes, leaving 2.4 tonnes as inventory difference. Of the 95.4 tonnes, 81.3 tonnes is weapon-grade plutonium, 12.7 tonnes is fuel-grade, and 1.4 tonnes is power-reactor grade plutonium. These numbers do not include 3.8 tonnes of weapon-grade plutonium that had been disposed of as waste as of 2009.</div>
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In its 2011 INFCIRC/549 declaration, the United States reported that 61.5 tonnes of government owned plutonium has beed declared as excess for national security needs. This amount includes 44.7 tonnes of separated plutonium, 4.6 tonnes of plutonium in unirradiated MOX fuel, and less than 0.05 tonnes held in the fuel fabrication process. In addition, 7.8 tonnes of the plutonium declared as excess is in irradiated fuel and 4.4 tonnes was disposed of as waste.</div>
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Taking into account that 7.8 tonnes of the plutonium inventory is in irradiated fuel and the 4.4 tonnes has beed disposed of as waste, the amount of separated plutonium is 87.0 tonnes (95.4 tonnes declared in 2009 minus 7.8 tonnes and minus additional 0.6 tonnes disposed of as waste between 2009 and 2011). However, this amount includes contaminated material, residuses and other forms. </div>
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<span style="font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.62;">Civilian plutonium</span></h3>
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The United States has no separated civilian plutonium. At the end of 2011, an estimated 546 tonnes of plutonium was contained in spent fuel stored at civilian reactor sites and 12 tonnes of plutonium in spent fuel stored elsewhere. These 12 tonnes include the 7.8 tonnes of government owned plutonium that was declared as excess to national security needs that is accounted for in the weapon plutonium section.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-23881562900267379602013-06-27T07:52:00.000-07:002019-07-06T08:52:52.135-07:00Shpack Landfill (FUSRAP Site) Norton, MA (5 acre site)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: #e7eaef; border-color: rgb(102, 153, 255); color: black; font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial; font-size: 12px; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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Shpack Landfill (FUSRAP Site) Norton, MA<br />
(5 acre site)<br />
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The Shpack Landfill is located about 65 kilometers (40 miles) southwest of Boston in the towns of Norton and Attleboro, Massachusetts. The landfill began operating in the 1960s as a landfill for both industrial and domestic wastes. The landfill was closed under court-order in the mid-1960s. In the late 1970s a concerned citizen who detected elevated radiation levels at the site contacted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It was confirmed that there was radioactivity present that was above acceptable limits and probably originated from activities performed by Texas Instruments (formerly known as M&C Nuclear, Inc.). The landfill contains wastes that are contaminated with high-enriched uranium, low-enriched uranium, natural uranium, depleted uranium, radium and various chemicals. Macroscopic amounts of high-enriched uranium and other radioactive materials were removed during a 1980�s survey by Oak Ridge personnel. The site was part of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). The FUSRAP Program was transferred to the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in 1997 in accordance with the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act for FY 1998.</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-77320146444444643102013-05-04T06:37:00.000-07:002013-05-04T06:37:48.847-07:00Congressman Joe Kennedy sponsored town hall style meeting for Former TI employees<br />
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<span class="author vcard" style="margin: 8px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: right;"><span class="fn" style="margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">BY STEPHEN PETERSON SUN CHRONICLE </span></span></div>
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<strong style="margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">ATTLEBORO</strong> - More than 100 former Metals & Controls and Texas Instruments workers and family members attended a forum Friday night to continue to deal with a legacy from the Cold War.</div>
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The session, held at Bristol Community College on the site of the former Metals & Controls plant, was intended to inform those who gathered about federal compensation programs available for workers and families of workers who may have contracted cancer from working with radioactive materials.</div>
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Thousands worked at the industrial complex, which manufactured nuclear fuel for the Navy and other customers, from 1952 to 1967, and hundreds have been diagnosed with cancer.</div>
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While only a small part of the plant was used for nuclear manufacturing, the Attleboro site has been classified by the federal government as a former "atomic weapons employer." Fuel manufactured at the site was used in nuclear submarines and government research reactors.</div>
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U.S. Rep. Joseph Kennedy III, D-Newton, and the U.S. Labor Department spearheaded the forum, and there was also a representative of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.</div>
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Lance Lanier from the Cleveland office of the Department of Labor detailed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program.</div>
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A program for contractors and subcontractors of the Department of Energy that pays up to $150,000 to victims of 22 cancers was created in 2000.</div>
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Larry Darcey, a former TI manager who lives in Rehoboth and who helped spark awareness of the cancer issue, said he runs across many ex-workers with multiple cancers.</div>
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Mathew Savastano, 82, of Attleboro, said he worked for the company from 1956 to 1966, beginning in his mid-20s, and began suffering from asthma at age 40. He said he has had blood clots in his lungs and several bouts of pneumonia and been "in and out of the hospital."</div>
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"I worked on nuclear reactors, did the wiring," Savastano said, adding he was in contact with radioactive enriched uranium and once broke out in a rash that led him to being written up in a medical journal. "I got all of these residual medical problems. It doesn't seem fair they only cover" cancer.</div>
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Another program that provides money for any condition linked to exposure to toxic substances went into effect in 2004, Lanier said.</div>
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While nuclear work at TI stopped in 1967, residual radiation is believed to have remained until 1997, when the site was cleaned of contamination, officials said. They said there was no monitoring of radiation levels during the nuclear years but there was afterward.</div>
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Lanier acknowledged many workers likely became sick from working with toxic metals and chemicals as well.</div>
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Texas Instruments sold its Attleboro-based business in 2005, and Darcey said he would like to see coverage extend up to that time.</div>
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"We will investigate to see what we can do to broaden some of these categories" for coverage, Kennedy said.</div>
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Kenneth Collins, 75, of Swansea, said he worked at the plant in the early 1960s and his father William worked from 1954 to 67, dying of mouth and nose cancer in 1988. "Why did the government wait so long?" Collins asked, highlighting the lack of medical records.</div>
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One woman said her father is suffering from bone cancer and wondered if the application would go through before he died. "If it is terminal, we try to speed up the claims," Lanier said.</div>
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William Bourque, 82, of Taunton, worked at the plant from 1953 to 1989, and was in contact with nuclear materials for eight years from the mid-50s to mid-60s. He said he once had a piece of uranium stuck in him for months. "I did every job in a highly contaminated area," Bourque said, adding he was "proud" to do the work for the U.S.</div>
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The Sun Chronicle documented in a series of reports that more than 300 former workers suffering from cancer received about $30 million in payments and medical benefits under the Labor Department compensation program.</div>
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However, the newspaper found little was done to reach out to ex-employees. Kennedy raised the issue at a congressional hearing and received a pledge by Texas Instruments to contact former workers, and the company sent out more than 2,000 letters about the compensation program.</div>
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Although a representative from TI was not available for Friday's forum, Lanier said his department has been getting good cooperation from the company. "That is very rare," he said, adding they have employment records.</div>
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"We have gotten quite a few claims the last few months," Lanier said.</div>
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For more information, workers and families are advised to visit the Department of Labor online, and/or call 1-800-941-3943 or Kennedy's Attleboro office representative Lisa Nelson at 508-431-1110</div>
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Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-7736946162240594672013-05-01T17:43:00.000-07:002013-05-01T17:43:00.563-07:00Where did the list of 22 "specified cancers" for the SEC come from?<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><strong>Where did the list of 22 "specified cancers" for the SEC come from? </strong></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><strong><br /></strong></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><strong>Did NIOSH develop this list?</strong><br /><br />Neither NIOSH nor the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health developed the list of 22 "specified cancers," and neither can modify the list. The list is part of the EEOICPA statute, and only Congress can modify the list of "specified cancers." The origin for the list of "specified cancers" began in the Radiation-Exposed Veterans Compensation Act (REVCA) of 1988. The Radiation-Exposed Veterans Compensation Act's original list included 13 cancers that were based on published reports from National Research Council Committees that identified elevated risks of contracting these cancers after exposure to radiation. This list of 13 cancers was then incorporated into the original enactment of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in 1990. In 2000, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act was amended to incorporate a variety of changes, including the addition of 6 more specified cancers. The list of "specified cancers" for inclusion in the SEC is comprised of 22 cancers: 19 cancers specified in RECA; renal and bone cancers as specified in EEOICPA; and male and female breast cancers, which are considered separately under EEOICPA.<br /><br />The following table shows a comparison of the "specified cancers" under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, the Radiation-Exposed Veterans Compensation Act, and EEOICPA.<br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"></span><table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; width: 500px;" summary="The table shows a comparison of the "specified cancers" under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, the Radiation-Exposed Veterans Compensation Act, and EEOICPA. "><caption><div align="left">
<span style="color: black;"><strong>Comparison of "Specified Cancer" Lists<sup>1</sup></strong></span></div>
</caption><tbody>
<tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="top"><th scope="col" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid none; border-width: 1px;" width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">Cancer site</span></div>
</th><th scope="col" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid none; border-width: 1px;" width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">REVCA<br />and<br />RECA (1990)</span></div>
</th><th scope="col" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid none; border-width: 1px;" width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;"><strong>RECA (2000)<sup>2</sup></strong></span></div>
</th><th scope="col" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: solid none; border-width: 1px;" width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">EEOICPA</span></div>
</th></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Bile duct</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td height="24"><span style="color: black;">Bone</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Brain</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Breast (female and male)</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Colon</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Esophagus</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Gall bladder</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Kidney</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Leukemia (exc. CLL)</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Liver</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Lung</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Lymphoma (NHL)</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Multiple myeloma</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Ovary</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Pancreas</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Pharynx</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Salivary gland</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Small intestine</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Stomach</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Thyroid</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr><td><span style="color: black;">Urinary bladder</span></td><td width="95"><div align="center">
</div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td><td width="95"><div align="center">
<span style="color: black;">X</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br style="background-color: white; color: #660000; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;"><sup>1</sup>This table is provided for comparison purposes only and does not include other requirements that might apply, such as latency period and primary and tumor status (i.e., primary or secondary).<br /><br /><sup>2</sup>This list is specifically for those cancers covered by RECA under open- air nuclear testing.</span>Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2340812053846003201.post-62984473568660801162013-04-30T17:17:00.000-07:002013-04-30T17:17:00.219-07:00Out in the Cold - America's Cold War Veterans<br />
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Out in the Cold - America's Cold War Veterans</h2>
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They are America's Cold War veterans, who forged weapons from a fearsome energy source and bravely endured years of radiation for a country that pledged to take care of them. Instead, government loopholes and evasions are making sure those promises are never kept.</div>
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EEOICPA's purpose is to recognize that nuclear weapons workers with any of 22 kinds of cancers (among them breast, colon, bladder, brain, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) are likely to have gotten their illnesses on the job, and that poor record keeping or gross health-safety negligence make it difficult to know exactly who was exposed, and to what extent. EEOICPA says that former weapons workers who are "at least as likely as not" to have gotten cancer from radiation are entitled to medical benefits and a lump-sum payment of $150,000. The law is an antidote to the legal action that workers might otherwise have to take, at their own expense, if they believe they are entitled to worker's comp. A hundred and fifty grand's not exactly pay dirt for people who've drained their bank accounts, taken out loans, or gone bankrupt fighting cancer. But, if nothing else, the measure was a gesture of appreciation. EEOICPA let workers believe that the government's heart was in the right place.</div>
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Seven years after the law passed, the crowd of Rocky Flats workers at the Westin saw a government that was heartless. As far as the Flats brothers and sisters were concerned, their piece of star-spangled legislation had been designed with loopholes and engineered to fail them. By now they had learned that EEOICPA was undermined by "dose reconstruction," a procedure that seemed more black magic than sound science.</div>
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Dose reconstruction is the responsibility of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH. To reconstruct a radiation dose, NIOSH digs up whatever it can about a claimant—urinalysis, nasal swab results, medical files, DOE "incident" reports, dosimetry records, and personal histories. And therein lies the problem: Like Judy and Tom, everyone has a story. The more time I spent talking to former Rocky Flats employees, the more anecdotes I heard about faulty dosimeters and dubious orders. Two former government officials insisted that medical records "disappeared" during the 1989 FBI raid. A former administrative assistant says she was ordered to illegally shred workers' medical records in the 1990s. Some people I spoke to were still shackled by the culture of secrecy; when I'd press them for details, they'd clam up. One man simply quit talking to me the moment I opened my notebook. Despite overwhelming consistencies among workers' stories of questionable health safety, only a fraction of what they say can be corroborated. It's their word. None of them had the foresight to build a case history while they were producing bombs, cleaning up an environmental disaster, and tending to their lives. And the government's dose reconstruction program dismisses almost any anecdote that a worker cannot prove.</div>
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When a claimant's records are missing or incomplete, NIOSH will use "coworker data"—records from a colleague who performed a similar job at a similar point in time. NIOSH also refers to a "site profile"—a multipage report that the agency has created for some of the 79 weapons facilities in the United States, that summarizes which parts of a site were most radioactive, and when. (Site profiles do not exist for all facilities.) In the end, the hard data get sent to the Department of Labor, plugged into a "matrix," and tallied to determine a figure known as "probability of causation," or POC. The POC is the claimant's final score; it informs Labor if the claimant was "at least as likely as not" to have gotten cancer due to work at a nuclear weapons facility. Claimants with a POC of 50 percent or higher are compensated. Claimants with a POC of 49.99 percent or lower are not.</div>
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Judy Padilla applied for compensation in August 2001—and waited nearly four years for a response. Her dose reconstruction score was 42.19; she was denied. She appealed the decision to the Department of Labor, explaining that she'd worked around ionizing radiation for the better part of 14 years, and that six of those years were spent chest-to-glove box, handling plutonium. Seven of her remaining eight years, she reminded the DOL, were spent working with thorium-equipped welding gear and completing tasks in the process areas. Like her coworkers, she'd seen or been near more fires and spills and accidents—some reported, some not—than she could count. She was a healthy, exercising nonsmoker, and two genetic tests showed no history of breast cancer in her family. Judy's appeal was denied.</div>
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Tom Haverty applied in July 2006. DOL still hasn't issued a decision, but a NIOSH worker recently told him that his prospects weren't good. Speaking by phone, the representative, Brian, told Tom he couldn't give specifics, but he indicated that Tom's score was less than 50. He said that Tom's final answer from DOL could take another eight months. Tom matter of factly stated that he'd likely be dead by then. Brian delivered news to Tom with the detached aplomb of an airline gate agent telling a passenger that his flight's been cancelled. It was clear that Brian had done this before.</div>
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Nearly 3,000 Rocky Flats workers have applied for compensation under this portion of EEOICPA; only 626, or 20 percent, have been paid. More than 69,000 weapons workers (or their families) across the country have submitted claims; at least one-third of them have been denied. The reason for their denials boils down to the dose reconstruction results—meaning they couldn't prove that they were "at least as likely as not" to have gotten cancer from radiation. They were given the burden of proof.</div>
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Larry Elliott oversees NIOSH's dose reconstruction program, and he defends his agency's work. "What most people don't understand is that dose reconstruction is an accepted scientific program to fill data gaps," he recently told me. "A high percentage of Rocky Flats workers have monitoring records, and NIOSH has those records." But, he went on, not all people were monitored. "We do not have individual monitoring records for every worker." He spoke of "unknown primaries" and "upper ranges." He assured me that dose reconstruction was set up to be as "claimant favorable" as possible.</div>
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Outside of NIOSH, it's tough to find anyone who supports the way the agency applies dose reconstruction. Richard Miller has worked as a senior policy analyst for the D.C. watchdog group Government Accountability Project and as a staff representative for DOE employees. Just last year, testifying before a House Judiciary Subcommittee, he said glove-box workers handling radiation at Rocky Flats (and other sites around the country) "were not adequately shielded for many years...[dosimeter] readings did not necessarily capture the neutron dose from leaky glove boxes, since the badges were not positioned near the parts of the glove box that leaked radiation." Tom Haverty's translation: "Radiation can blow up your skirt. It can radiate your skull. We wore dosimeters around our necks, not on our heads."</div>
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Even champions of the EEOICPA law acknowledge that the process of dose reconstruction is debatable. They point out that this particular brand of science was originally modeled to study large, unmonitored populations, like survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who were exposed to a single big blast, or atomic veterans who were involved in early weapons testing—not individuals who were exposed to low levels of radiation over long periods of time.</div>
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"When the bill was written, people on the Hill knew that any kind of science was imperfect—the law was even amended a few times to try to address that," Cindy Blackston, a former Judiciary staffer intimate with EEOICPA, recently told me. "But science is only as good as the perspective of the individual interpreting it. Some people within the system have interpreted the law so that claimants are placed on the defensive—which is exactly what the law was supposed to remedy. In many cases, the good intentions of EEOICPA have been abandoned."</div>
Personal Injury/Federal Workers Comp Laywerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01744170447873033190noreply@blogger.com0