Another federal lawsuit has been filed against current and former contractors that have performed either uranium enrichment or environmental operations at the Energy Department’s Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio.
The class action complaint filed Sept. 3 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio seeks almost $10 million in damages for an alleged “pattern of corruption and flagrant disregard for human life.” The action is being brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
Earlier this year, one of two class action lawsuits filed by local residents around the Portsmouth Site was allowed to go forward by a federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of Ohio. The two cases were so similar that plaintiffs in both will be bound by the results, according to the magistrate’s decision.
The Sept. 3 lawsuit alleges the “poisoning” of Portsmouth workers, their families, schoolchildren, and others in Ohio’s Pike and Scioto counties, as well as pollution of local air and water. The suit was first reported Sunday in the Columbus Dispatch.
An initial group of roughly 20 plaintiffs alleges the contractors failed to take proper safeguards to protect people in and around the sprawling 3,777-acre complex originally used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, and later for atomic power plants. The Portsmouth Site is undergoing decontamination and decommissioning.
The contractor defendants engaged in “negligent, reckless, and criminal operation” of the former gaseous diffusion plant property, according to the lawsuit. The plaintiffs allege that Portsmouth workers and individuals who live, work, or attend school within 30 miles of the facility have suffered serious illness over the years due to negligence and unsafe actions by the defendants.
This is the result of a “consistent pattern of failures” in plant safety and environmental protection, according to the complaint.
The suit also said failure to contain contamination inside the fence at Portsmouth caused neptunium to be detected by an air monitor near Zahn’s Corner Middle School in May 2019. Education officials closed the school shortly thereafter.
Lead plaintiffs include Jeffery Walburn of Greenup County, Ky., who worked 31 years in security at Portsmouth, and Charles Lawson of Lucasville, Ohio, who worked 15 years in security there and served as a union safety representative. The 76-page complaint also lists unknown “John Doe and Jane Doe” plaintiffs, and says ultimately more than 100 people who will join in the class action.
According to the suit there are many like Walburn who suffered significant injury to his lungs from various toxic material at Portsmouth. In addition, Walburn’s wife, son, and brouther-in-law, all developed various types of cancer. Each of them either worked at or lived near the DOE facility.
Defendants are listed as the U.S. Enrichment Corp., Centrus Energy, Lockheed Martin, Uranium Disposition Services, BWXT Conversion Services, Mid-America Conversion Services, Bechtel Jacobs, LATA/Parallax Portsmouth, Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., and Martin Marietta.
Several parent companies of the joint ventures this week either did not respond to requests for comment or said they did not comment on ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit, which requests a jury trial, does not appear to name the Energy Department as a defendant. The suit does allege that certain defendant companies and individuals submitted false records to the federal agency about environmental health and safety issues at Portsmouth.
