Cases Against Nuclear Plant Finally Heard
FAIRFIELD, Wash. — It all began for wheat farmer Ralph Hein with a finger gliding down his neck one cold morning in 1952. The finger, his doctor's, came upon a lump just below the Adam's apple. The lump was a malignant tumor on his thyroid.
Later, Hein's wife, Dolores, and three of their four daughters developed thyroid problems. Then neighbors -- all farming families in this rolling grass country between Spokane and the Columbia River -- began to fall ill, and many died.
Emma Crabtree was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she and her husband, Harley, died of Hodgkin's disease. Their son Gordon survived bladder cancer. James Hahner died of pancreatic cancer; two of his children died of brain tumors. Mona Zehm also fell victim to a brain tumor. Down the road, Ed Brewer succumbed to pancreatic cancer, and his son David developed leukemia and died at 13.
The Heins counted 15 cases of cancer in their rural neighborhood.
"It seems important for you to realize this is every single house within this square-mile area," said Dolores Hein in a court deposition.
Nobody knew what to make of the slow devastation until 1986, the year that the Hanford nuclear reservation, 100 miles southwest of here, was forced to reveal some of its secrets.
Today, the Heins are among 2,300 plaintiffs who say their illnesses were caused by radioactive clouds that blew out of Hanford's smokestacks and blanketed much of eastern Washington over several decades. The plaintiffs are suing the contractors that ran Hanford in the 1940s and 1950s as part of the government effort to build up the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal.
After nearly 15 years of delays, the first trial involving Hanford "downwinders" got underway in Spokane last month. A jury in U.S. District Court is to begin deliberations today to decide whether the plaintiffs were "more likely than not" harmed by the plant's discharges.
If the plaintiffs win, jurors would determine damage awards, which both sides say could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. Damages would be paid by the U.S. government, which indemnified the contractors. The government is also paying for the contractors' defense, a legal bill that has already exceeded $60 million.
The trial focuses on several bellwether cases, a method used in toxic tort litigation that involves large numbers of plaintiffs. Six people with thyroid illnesses were chosen as representative cases in the Hanford lawsuit (the Heins were not chosen as bellwethers). The verdict would become a standard that lawyers could use to settle the other cases.
