Showdown looming in Pittsburgh over nuclear plant

Copyright 1998 Pennsylvania Law Weekly
August 17, 1998



   Residents of a small Armstrong County community say that radiation leaks from a now-defunct nuclear fuel processing plant prompted an unusually high cancer rate in their town. For the next month in federal court in Pittsburgh, attorneys for eight people from Apollo, about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, will argue that those leaks caused eight plaintiffs or their relatives to get cancer. Attorneys for the companies that operated the plant, which stopped producing uranium in 1986 and has since been razed, say any radioactive material that escaped from the plant was unlikely to cause cancer. Andrew Roman, a Pittsburgh attorney who teaches a class about environmental and toxic waste claims, said the lawyers must pinpoint the cause of the illnesses, but cancer cannot easily be attributed to any one cause. "Here, the plaintiffs have to prove that their cancers were caused by exposure to that uranium," and a typical defense tactic would be to cast doubt on that, Roman said. The outcome of the current trial could affect more than 200 related cases that are pending. More than 90 personal injury claims, 120 property damage claims and a class-action lawsuit were filed in 1994 against B&W Nuclear Environmental Services, Inc., Atlantic Richfield Co., and Babcock and Wilcox Co., the successive operators of the plant. The plaintiffs want medical monitoring, compensation for medical tests and full disclosure of all company documents regarding release of radioactive and toxic waste. More than 800,000 cubic feet of soil and debris were shipped to a radioactive waste dump site when it was razed in the early 1990s. During its years of operation, Apollo residents say the plant's more than 100 stacks released a white dust that floated in the air and settled on plants and cars. Residents say the 1,900-population of Apollo developed an abnormally high cancer rate. Three state health studies and a federal health studies showed no unusual rates of birth defects or cancer.

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