The Ohio Department of Health said in federal court documents it cannot provide the cancer records sought by local residents suing current and former contractors at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers, in the Southern District of Ohio, gave the plaintiffs until Friday to file a motion in opposition to the state Health Department’s request to quash a subpoena for the documents.
In its March 5 subpoena, the plaintiffs requested information on some types of cancer and cancer rates in specific counties near Portsmouth. The subpoena seeks information based upon age, sex, year of diagnosis, and census tract of residence, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office reply for the agency
The Ohio Health Department, which is not a party to the case, said March 26 the records sought by Ursula McGlone and the other plaintiffs do not currently exist and would have to be compiled.
In addition, the Health Department argued it cannot provide certain records because it might violate federal healthcare privacy laws. The agency said it cannot release information that can be “triangulated down to a level that would result in the identification of an individual.”
McGlone and a couple other Pike County families who live within 7 miles of Portsmouth filed a potential class action suit came last May after public disclosure of potential contamination at the middle school. In January, the magistrate ruled that a second, essentially identical, case brought in June 2019 by other local residents, would be bound by results of the McGlone lawsuit.
The plaintiffs are trying to establish that DOE contractors at Portsmouth failed to contain radioactive and chemical contaminants on-site and contributed to health problems off-site.
Once the plaintiffs file their motion, the state Health Department will have until May 15 to reply, Deavers said in an April 8 order.
The magistrate is also taking under advisement, based on briefs filed by the plaintiffs and the defendant contractors, on whether an on-site inspection should be allowed at the former federal uranium enrichment complex.
The defendants argued an inspection for radiological contaminants in the vicinity of the On-Site Waste Disposal Facility now under construction would be largely meaningless. That is because contamination inside the Portsmouth facility is not necessarily proof of any off-site contamination on their property or at the school, they argued.
Other defendants listed in the complaint are United States Enrichment Corp., Uranium Disposition Services, BWXT Conversion Services, Mid-America Conversion Services, Bechtel Jacobs Co., LATA/Parallax, and Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth.
