A parent’s wrongful death suit against current and former Department of Energy contractors at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio will be overseen by the same federal judge hearing a radiation contamination case brought by residents near the shuttered gaseous diffusion plant.
An order Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio said the June 8 case brought against the contractors by Brad Allen Lykins, whose 13-year-old son lived close to the plant before dying of cancer in March 2021, will be assigned to the docket of U.S. District Judge Alegnon Marbley.
Marbley is already in charge of a lawsuit against DOE contractors by Ursula McGlone and other residents who blame the industry for failing to keep radioactive contamination inside the fence at the former uranium enrichment complex.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers has assisted Marbley in the McGlone case, brought by residents within five miles of the plant, and is also named in the two-page order moving the case to Marbley’s docket from U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus’ docket. This week’s order was signed by Sargus who said the judges conferred about the case.
Brad Allen Lykins filed suit last month in federal district court, accusing contractors of violating the Price-Anderson Act and effectively causing the death of his son, Braden Aaron Lee Lykins.
As administrator of the child’s estate, the father claims Braden Aaron Lee Lykins was exposed to radionuclides by virtue of living his entire life around Piketon, where the plant is located. The child was also a student at the Zahn’s Corner Middle School, which remains shuttered after evidence of radioactive contamination was publicly reported in May 2019.
“Following the closure of the Zahn’s Corner Middle School, fencing was placed around the school property warning of radioactive material,” according to the Lykins suit. “Anyone who goes beyond the fencing is required to wear protective gear.”
The Lykins suit alleges the census tracts surrounding the Portsmouth Site recorded a “60% excess rate for all cancer types between 2011 and 2016, based on national and local cancer data.”
The wrongful death suit names the following contractors as defendants: Centrus Energy; U.S. Enrichment Corp.; Uranium Disposition Services; BWXT Conversion Services LLC; Mid-America Conversion Services; Bechtel Jacobs Co.; LATA/Parallax Portsmouth; and Fluor-BWXT Portsmouth.
Representatives of Fluor, Bechtel and BWX Technologies declined to comment on the case. Emails to spokespeople for some of the other companies generated mostly automatic out-of-office responses.
The parent seeks damages for funeral and medical expenses for the deceased child along with various unspecified damages for pain and suffering and the loss of companionship as a result of the child’s death.
