Pa. Radiation Trial Nears End

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

Monday August 31 1:49 AM EDT 

APOLLO, Pa. (AP) - Christmas morning 1992, Mary Ann Hall 
cradled her grown daughter, bloated and hairless from
chemotherapy, and sang a lullaby. Then doctors removed the 
ventilator. 

Tina Hall, 24, died nine months after she was diagnosed with 
leukemia. Her mother doesn't hesitate to assign blame. 

``I'm really upset at B&W. I hate them for the way she had to die,'' 
she says. ``I want big companies to know: `Be careful.
Don't hurt people like us. Don't ruin people's lives like you've ruined 
ours.''' 

Mrs. Hall and some 90 other residents of Apollo are suing Babcock 
and Wilcox Co.; its subsidiary, B&W Nuclear
Environmental Services Inc.; and Atlantic Richfield Co. 

They are the former owners of the Nuclear Materials and 
Equipment Corp. plant, which processed nuclear fuel from 1957 to
1986 and was torn down in the early 1990s. It once supplied 
enriched uranium to power Navy missile-launching submarines. 

Mrs. Hall and the others claim three decades of radioactive 
emissions caused an unusually high incidence of cancer in this hilly
little river town. A month-long federal trial to hear eight of the cases 
is expected to wrap up this week in Pittsburgh, 30 miles to
the southwest. 

Alfred Wilcox, an attorney for the defense, acknowledges the 
emotional impact of the case. 

``We all know that cancer is a very feared, dreaded disease. I can't 
denigrate or take away from the personal difficulties that
people experience with cancer,'' Wilcox said. ``We all know people 
with cancer, including our own families.'' 

But he asserts the plaintiffs' case has ``glaring deficiencies'' 
because it has failed to prove the plant exceeded allowable 
releases,
show any increased likelihood of cancer after purported releases or 
provide any estimates of radiation doses that residents
received. 

But Mrs. Hall and her neighbors insist the numbers are too high for 
a town with 1,895 residents. 

``Every time I hear of somebody else getting sick, I think, `Holy 
cow. Again?''' Mrs. Hall said. 

Three people near the age of Tina Hall have leukemia. 

Patricia Ameno, 46, who grew up across the street from the plant, 
has been diagnosed with two brain tumors and cervical
cancer; her father has skin cancer. On her block of nine homes, 
seven families have at least one case of cancer. 

Her former classmate at Apollo High School, Bill Kerr, who is now 
superintendent of the Apollo-Ridge School District, said
six friends have died of cancer in the last few years. 

As mayor in the late 1970s and a city and county politician, Kerr 
tried to provide balanced arguments about the plant,
explaining its economic benefits to the struggling Allegheny River 
valley. Now he says he's happy the courts will decide. 

``We were a trusting community,'' Ms. Ameno said. ``This was an 
area that was economically starving. The educational level
was - well, the ones that went to college didn't stay around.'' 

Judith Johnsrud, a former Penn State geographer and now a 
member of the Sierra Club's nuclear waste task force, visited the
town in the late 1970s, when some residents were beginning to 
complain. 

In an interview last week, she recalled it as ``the single worst site I 
am aware of - on the riverbank, in town within just blocks
of the central business area with a steep-sided valley with houses 
climbing up, so any emissions from those stacks would
inevitably affect those residents.'' 

But defense attorney Wilcox, who is not related to the principals in 
Babcock and Wilcox, cites two state Health Department
studies that showed no unusual rates of cancer in Apollo. Other 
government agencies, including the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, have also performed tests, he said. 

``Uniformly, the answer is: There really is nothing different about 
this community,'' Wilcox said. ``There's nothing different about
cancer levels. There's nothing different about radiation levels.'' 

Fred Baron, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, put experts on 
the stand who contested the studies. 

Dr. James Melius, an occupational and public health specialist, 
testified that the Health Department reports should have
compared the incidence of cancer found near the plant to rates in 
surrounding rural areas, rather than to general national and
state rates. 

When he did so, he found one in five people living closest to the 
plant were diagnosed with cancer from 1990 to 1994,
compared to one in 125 outside a one-mile radius. 

In Apollo, 351 out of 1,895 people had some type of cancer, 
including 10 cases of leukemia, Melius said. Just a few miles
away in Bell Township, 28 out of 2,353 people had some type of 
cancer, including one case of leukemia. 

Several plaintiffs described a whitish gray dust that covered 
porches and backyards near the plant. 

``I was a young mother, and I didn't know anything about that stuff,'' 
Mrs. Hall said. The family lived two blocks from the plant
until Tina was 4, when they moved to a rural township several miles 
away. But Tina attended school in Apollo through the
eighth grade. 

``That dust was part of the reason we moved. It was dirty. And I 
just assumed that was city dirt,'' she said. 

The outcome of these eight lawsuits could affect more than 200 
pending cases, including more than 80 other personal-injury
claims and 129 property damage claims. 

But hopes of winning the lawsuit are little consolation for the Halls 
and their surviving daughter and son. Each time she hears
``Silent Night,'' Mrs. Hall thinks of her last moments with Tina. 

``It's just like that night: quiet, calm, mother and child,'' she said. ``I 
hate `Silent Night.''' 

------------------
Sandy Perle
Technical Director
ICN Dosimetry Division
ICN Plaza
3300 Hyland Avenue
Costa Mesa, CA 92626
Office: (800) 548-5100 x2306 
Fax:    (714) 668-3149
  
sandyfl@earthlink.net
sperle@icnpharm.com

ICN Dosimetry Website:
http://www.dosimetry.com

Personal Website:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -

The opinions expressed are solely, absolutely, positively, definitely those of the author, and NOT my employer
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