Current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio have until Aug. 30 to file a reply to a federal lawsuit filed by a father who claims offsite radioactive contamination contributed to the cancer that claimed the life of his 13-year-old son.
The deadlines for the answers to the complaint was cited in a one-sentence online notice Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio.
Brad Allen Lykins filed the wrongful death suit June 8 on behalf of his son Braden Aaron Lee Lykins who died in March 2021 after living his life within the vicinity of the former Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant. The Lykins child also attended a middle school that closed in 2019 after public disclosure of radioactive contamination at the school.
Federal judges in Ohio recently agreed the Lykins case should be heard by U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley and U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers, who are already overseeing a suit by Portsmouth area residents against many of the same DOE contractors at the site.
