Apollo cancer trial opens with tough case to prove

By Mike Bucsko, Post-Gazette staff writer Copyright 1998 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette August 12, 1998

For about 20 years, radiation emitted from smokestacks of a nuclear fuel processing plant and fell in Apollo. On that much there is agreement between the two sides that squared off yesterday in federal court. But considerable disagreement remains about the effect of those discharges from the plant, which opened in 1957 and closed in 1978.

A group of eight Apollo residents or their representatives contend that the series of companies that operated the plant disregarded federal regulations and spewed cancer-causing radioactivity throughout the town.

An attorney for the Apollo residents acknowledged they would have a difficult time proving a correlation between what went out the smokestacks and what went into the residents. The reason, said attorney Mike Kaeske, is "that company didn't care enough to follow the law and monitor the radiation coming out of its stacks."

Kaeske made his remark to jurors yesterday during an opening statement in a trial before U.S. District Judge Donetta W. Ambrose expected to last three weeks.

The eight Apollo residents or their survivors who are plaintiffs in the case are among dozens of Armstrong County residents who filed civil lawsuits over two nuclear fuel processing plants. The other cases are on hold until the conclusion of the case before Ambrose.

Defendants are the Atlantic Richfield Co., the second owner of the Apollo plant, the Babcock & Wilcox Co. and a subsidiary, B&W Nuclear Environmental Services Inc.

The Apollo plant was opened in 1957 by Nuclear Materials Equipment Corp., or NUMEC, a company formed by former nuclear engineers from Westinghouse Electric Corp. NUMEC operated the plant during its peak years, processing uranium for nuclear reactors and Navy submarines, until 1967, when it was sold to Atlantic Richfield.

Babcock & Wilcox bought the plant in 1971 and transferred it to its subsidiary in 1974.

One of the defense attorneys, Alfred Wilcox of Philadelphia, told jurors that there will be no evidence presented that will show conclusively that discharges from the plant's smokestacks caused cancer in the residents who lived nearby.

And, Wilcox said, some of the plaintiffs who were diagnosed with cancer were exposed to more radioactivity from medical procedures - such as X-rays and mammograms - than from the plant's discharges. Wilcox also pointed to other radiative sources as possible causes of cancer, such as radon.

Kaeske displayed for jurors 3-foot-by-4-foot exhibits that contained photographs, names, and ages of each plaintiff, along with the type of cancer diagnosed in each one.

The youngest was Tina Hall, who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 19 and died at age 24 on Christmas Day 1992.

The Apollo plant became a "flashpoint" over the years in Armstrong County for media attention and for politicians, who used the allegations of radioactive contamination to campaign for elections, Wilcox said. But he said the plant always operated within "regulatory limits" established by the federal government, and one study said it did not "pose a significant health risk."

The plant's emissions are hard to calculate because its various operators did not maintain accurate records, Kaeske said. And the defense is using the faulty records and lack of government intervention as an "excuse" as to why the plaintiffs cannot prove that the plant's radioactive discharges caused cancer in Apollo's residents, he said.

The defense position is similar to a driver who kills someone while speeding, then says he shouldn't be prosecuted because he was never stopped for speeding, Kaeske said.

The plant has since been razed. The radioactive waste in the soil was transported to another site for disposal. "It cost $ 75 million to clean up the plant," Kaeske told jurors. "It's going to be up to you to decide what it's going to cost to clean up the lives of these people."

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