A forlorn stretch of fenced-in grass along the Kiskiminetas River in Apollo is all that's left of a Cold War relic.
The Nuclear Materials and Equipment Co., which once made nuclear fuel for ships and submarines, is a bad memory for many residents who say the facility gave them cancer and ruined their property values.
Now their dormant class-action suit over its legacy, 16 years old and millions of documents long, is about to start all over.
Texas tort king Fred Baron, the lawyer for Karen Silkwood in the Oklahoma radiation case made famous by the 1983 movie "Silkwood," represents hundreds of Kiski Valley people who claim they or their relatives developed 32 kinds of cancer related to the Apollo plant and a subsidiary in nearby Parks Township.
In addition to 240 personal injury complaints, the suit contains 60 wrongful death complaints and another 120 property damage claims arising from home values that have dropped to almost nothing.
The plaintiffs got a boost last month when one of the corporate defendants, Atlantic Richfield Co., settled for $27.5 million, which includes payments of up to $600,000 to each of a half-dozen families.
But the second defendant, Babcock & Wilcox, has dug in its heels and is headed to trial again, even though it already settled part of the case 10 years ago before a judge overturned the $37 million verdict.
Atlantic Richfield owned NUMEC's stock from 1967 to 1971, when Babcock & Wilcox bought it and began operating the two plants until they shut down in 1983.
The legal action has such a convoluted history that it's hard to keep track of it all without a flow chart.
First filed in 1994, the suit has also been delayed at every turn, most recently by the seven-year Babcock & Wilcox bankruptcy case in New Orleans that itself was disrupted when Hurricane Katrina flooded the bankruptcy court.
The whole thing has been further complicated by a separate proceeding in a New York state court in which American Nuclear Insurers, the insurance company for both corporations, has balked at paying damage awards.
In fact, ANI previously blocked a global settlement for $87 million, according to court papers.
But with Babcock & Wilcox emerging from bankruptcy last year, the case is finally moving forward again here.
Read the rest of this lengthy but fascinating article here
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