Alleged Conspiracy at Paducah Plant

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Alleged Conspiracy at Paducah Plant

PADUCAH, Ky. (AP) Aug. 8 - Former workers at an Energy 
Department plant in Kentucky are seeking billions of dollars in 
damages for an alleged conspiracy between the government and 
plant managers to expose employees to radiation. 

Attorneys filed two lawsuits Monday on the behalf of workers at the 
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in western Kentucky. 

The named defendants are former managers at the plant dating 
back to 1952; companies that once operated it; federal agencies; 
and Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. 

The defendants exposed workers to ``radiation and substances that 
were known to be harmful to humans,'' according to one suit, filed 
in U.S. District Court in Louisville. 

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of about 10,000 former plant 
workers, said attorney William F. McMurry. It seeks $5 billion each 
in compensatory and punitive damages. 

The second suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Paducah, was filed 
on behalf of specific workers who sustained rare pituitary tumors 
``as a result of excessive, unlawful and non-consensual exposures 
to radioactive substances including plutonium and neptunium.'' 

It seeks $2 billion each in compensatory and punitive damages. 

The lawsuits seek help from Richardson to locate the names of 
former federal employees involved in the alleged conspiracy. 

Richardson's spokeswoman declined to specifically comment on 
the suits. 

``We have not yet been served with the lawsuits that were filed 
today, but they in no way affect the department's commitment to 
follow through on working to get compensation for sick nuclear 
workers and continuing the investigations that will shed light on 
what happened many years ago at Energy Department sites 
across the county,'' she said. 

The lawsuits were filed a day before the one-year anniversary of a 
Washington Post article that the plant had unknowingly been 
handling highly radioactive metals for several years. That puts the 
lawsuits within the one-year statute of limitations when workers 
first learned about the alleged exposure. 

Earlier lawsuits have sought money from the companies to clean 
up radioactive waste from the plant. The new suits speak to the 
alleged conspiracy by the government and others. 
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Sandy Perle					Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   				    	
Director, Technical				Extension 2306 				     	
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