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“As we explained to plaintiffs’ lawyers before they filed this case, these suits have no basis in science or law, and IBM will defend itself vigorously,” company spokesman Michael Maloney said in a statement.
Read more in the Poughkeepsie Journal (NY).
In early January, the first of several anticipated lawsuits was filed against IBM. 94 plaintiffs filed suit in NY State Supreme Court in the County of Broome, all asserting that IBM was responsible for vapor intrusion by TCE that caused them harm. Nearly 1,000 plaintiffs are expected to file in the coming months. Read the full story in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY).
Along with the story, the paper has a handy PDF link to the complaint (aka lawsuit document) that was filed. From the complaint, we learn that a number of different attorneys and firms are representing the plaintiffs. They include (profiles and homepages linked where available):
LEVENE, GOULDIN & THOMPSON, LLP
By: Philip C. Johnson. Esq.
450 Plaza Drive
Vestal, New York 13850
(607) 763-9200
WEITZ & LUXENBERG, P.C.
Ellen Relkin, Esq.
180 Maiden Lane – 17th Floor
New York, New York 10038-4925
(212) 558-5500
FARACI LANGE, LLP
Stephen G. Schwarz, Esq.
400 Crossroads Building
2 State Street
Rochester, New York 14614
(585) 325-5150
WILLIAMS CUKER BEREZOFSKY
Gerald J. Williams, Esq.
1617 J.F.K. Boulevard – Suite 800
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103
(215) 557-0099
LAW OFFICES OF HENRY GLUCKSTERN
Henry Gluckstern, Esq. (outdated profile)
41 Park Road
Maplewood, New Jersey 07040
(973) 763-0998
BEEMER & BEEMER
John Barry Beemer, Esq.
114-116 North Abington Road
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania 18411
(570) 587-0188
MASRY AND VITITOE
Nancy S. Eichler, Esq.
5707 Corsa Avenue – Second Floor
Westlake Village, California 91362
(818) 991-8900
A recent story on Cadillacnews.com reminds us that the lawsuit filed by the state of Michigan DEQ against AAR Manufacturing is still lumbering through the court system:
The list of groundwater contaminants in a state of Michigan lawsuit against a Cadillac manufacturer can increase, Wexford County Circuit Court Judge Bill Fagerman ruled Wednesday.
Assistant attorney general Kathleen Cavanaugh sought an amendment to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s complaint against AAR Manufacturing in Cadillac.
The lawsuit, which has been ongoing for years, attempts to comply AAR to investigate two releases of trichloroethylene, or TCE, from degreasing units.
The amended complaint includes a list of contaminants along with an obsolete gasoline additive, MTBE, and other petroleum products.
The complaint also sought to enforce investigation of any other chemicals that might be discovered between now and when the lawsuit is settled should the court rule in favor of the DEQ.
AAR attorney Joseph Kuiper argued it’s late in the game to add new complaints.
“It’s always been about TCE,” Kuiper said.
Big day in the TCE world today, marked by 1 word: LEGISLATION.
Okay, maybe two words: PROPOSED LEGISLATION
Today, Senators Clinton, Dole, Boxer, Lautenberg, and Kerry introduced a bill that proposes to:
Amend the Safe Water Drinking Act to protect the health of susceptible populations, including pregnant women, infants, and children, by requiring a health advisory, drinking water standard, and reference concentration for trichloroethylene vapor intrusion, and for other purposes.
Cited formally as the “Toxic Chemical Exposure Reduction Act of 2007″ (get it? “TCE Reduction Act”?) the Senators have proposed that EPA revise the national standard for allowable TCE levels in public drinking water, create a national standard for allowable TCE in indoor air, and enforce nationwide monitoring and cleanups based on these new standards. All of this is proposed to occur within the 3-18 months of the bill’s enactment.
Since the details of the bill are interesting and worth comment, we’ll post them here shortly. For now, we’ll say this: We think this bill, if passed and enforced, could go a long way towards better protecting the public from TCE.
Of course, if the EPA chooses to or is forced to play politics, we also envision ways that they could still stagnate change even if the bill is passed…
As we said, more to come from us on this. Meantime, you can download the full bill here.
Lastly, we are in the process of contacting Senators from our home state, Connecticut, to ask for their support for this legislation. We strongly urge readers to contact their state Senators as well.
(If any readers do contact their Senators for support, please consider letting us know the kind of feedback you receive. If we’re able to keep track of whom has pledged their support, we’ll keep readers posted by running updates on this blog. What could possibly be more exciting?)
UPDATE: For the official press release from Senator Clinton announcing the proposed legislation, see here.
From two Friday’s ago, the Lodi News-Sentinel (CA) ran this story:
As litigation from Lodi’s groundwater contamination case comes to a close, cleanup has already begun.
News-Sentinel reporter Matt Brown recently discussed the status of the remaining litigation and the cleanup with City Attorney Stephen Schwabauer.
In 1989, officials discovered that the groundwater in some areas of Downtown was contaminated with the chemicals PCE and TCE, which are used as industrial solvents and in dry cleaning. The chemicals spread out to five different plumes in the city’s groundwater.
In the mid-1990s, the city’s outside attorney, Michael Donovan, crafted a plan to sue insurance companies of local businesses, including the News-Sentinel, for their role in the contamination. After a number of negative court rulings, the City Council in 2004 fired Donovan and City Attorney Randy Hays.
The city has since sued Donovan for fraud and malpractice, and Donovan has countersued, claiming the city owes him millions in legal fees.
The city has sought to settle out of court with the parties responsible for the contamination.
Read the interview here.
The Houston Chronicle (TX) reports:
A jury will resume deliberations Monday in a criminal air pollution case that accuses Citgo Petroleum Corp. of knowingly breaking federal air quality laws at its Corpus Christi refinery.
Lawyers presented final arguments on Friday after a grueling and technical trial that began May 18. Jurors deliberated Friday afternoon, then went home for the weekend.
The case specifically involves allegations that open-air storage tanks at Citgo’s East Plant refinery emitted illegal amounts of benzene, which research has linked to cancer. More broadly, however, the case tests criminal enforcement of the Clean Air Act.
Although other criminal indictments under the act have resulted in guilty pleas, the Citgo case is the first to go to trial alleging emissions violations, prosecutors said.
“The question is whether companies like Citgo, who blatantly violate the law over a period of time, will be held accountable,” said Justice Department lawyer Howard Stewart, lead prosecutor in the case.
The Bradford Era (PA) reports:
The Department of Environmental Protection has named a third responsible party in the contamination of the ground near drinking water sources in Lewis Run.
The Control Chief Corp. signed the agreement that it will pay a total of $110,000 to the state’s Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act Fund that settles their liability in the contamination.
[...]
This is the third company the DEP has reached settlements with – the others are McCourt Label and Tronox, formerly known as Kerr-McGee.
[...]
From 1978 to 1998, Control Chief, which has its headquarters in Bradford, owned property in Lewis Run and operated an electronic equipment manufacturing facility.
When another company bought the property and an environmental assessment was conducted, chlorinated solvents typically used as degreasing agents were found in the soil and groundwater. The chemicals included tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE) and cis-1,2-dichloroethylene. The situation has resulted in the borough having to hook up to Bradford City water to supply its residents with safe drinking water.
Tarbell said the DEP is not actively pursuing additional responsible parties at this time.
Read the full story here.
As a result of Tuesday’s press and hearing, we’ve received a number of emails from affected Marines and their families, all asking the same question: How can I learn more?
As we’ve posted previously, at least two websites have emerged that are run by former Camp Lejeune marines and their families:
Also, the attorneys at Anderson Weber & Pangia have agreed to represent exposure victims and their families in a lawsuit against the responsible parties. Certainly, they know much more about the situation. (Note: Those of you who arrived here looking for information about the Camp Lejeune class action lawsuit should contact them.)
Of course, the ATSDR maintains a Camp Lejeune website with answers to Frequently Asked Questions and the Marines have their own website as well (note: As of this posting, it appears the Marines website is offline – maybe too much CL traffic?).
In addition, we’ve been covering developments in the CL story for the past two years now. You can read our entire history of Camp Lejeune posts here (click link, keep scrolling down).
Finally, in case these links don’t provide the necessary information, we are attempting to determine who is best positioned to field specific questions about CL and the water contamination there. We will either report back here, or email privately to those folks who have contacted us. To be alerted when we determine a better point of contact for Camp Lejeune information, please feel free to contact us directly.
June 14, 2007 Update: For folks looking to complete a Form 95 or looking for assistance with it, please see here.
Rita Beamish from the Associated Press has written three articles that are running in papers around the world today:
Camp Lejeune Water Under Scrutiny
The former residents, who together seek nearly $4 billion, believe their families were afflicted by water containing industrial solvents before the Marines shut off the bad wells in the mid-1980s.
Dates Important in Water Contamination
Key events in the contamination of drinking water at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.
Solvents in Water Present Perils
Industrial solvents known as TCE and PCE are known health hazards, but the amount of exposure that can cause harm is subject to debate.
Update (June 13):
Congress investigates tainted water at Marine base by Kimberly Hefling
The government Tuesday disclosed results from a new study the same day lawmakers listened to emotional testimony from families about cancers and other illnesses they blame on tainted tap water at the sprawling base.
The Camp Lejeune hearing begins tomorrow. You can watch/listen via webcast here. It appears the witness list for the hearing has been revised. The updated witness list includes:
Panel I
Mr. Jerome Ensminger
North Carolina
Dr. Mike Gross
Texas
Mr. Jeff Byron
Ohio
Panel II
United States Marine Corps
Major General Robert C. Dickerson, Jr.
Commanding General
PSC Box 20005
Camp Lejeune, NC 28542-0005
Accompanied by Ms. Kelley A. Dreyer
Environmental Restoration Program Manager
Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps (I&L)
2 Navy Annex
Washington, DC 20380-1775
United States Navy
Ms. Pat Leonard
Director
Office of the Judge Advocate General
Claims, Investigations, & Tort Litigation (Code 15)
1322 Patterson Avenue, Suite 3000
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5066
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease registry
Thomas Sinks, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
National Center for Environmental Health/ATSD
Mail Stop E-28
1600 Clinton Road
Atlanta, GA 30333
Accompanied by Frank Bove, Sc.D.
Senior Epidimiologist (sic)
and
Morris Maslia
Environmental Engineer
Panel III
Mr. Peter J. Murtha
Director
Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics, and Training
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
U.S. Enviornmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvanie Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
Accompanied by Mr. Tyler Amon
Special Agent
Criminal Investigation Division
Mr. Franklin Hill
Director, Superfund Division
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Region 4
61 Forsyth Street, SW
Atlanta, GA 30303
Maria G. Crosse, Ph.D.
Director, Public Health and Military Health Care Issues
U.S. Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW, Room 5K21
Washington, DC 20548
Recently we have been advised of new contact information for the law firm that is serving as national legal counsel for claims arising from water contamination and exposure to VOC’s at Camp Lejeune:
Anderson Weber & Pangia, PLLC
Offices in Washington, DC and Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro Contact information:
PO Box 4405
Greensboro, NC 27404
Office number: 336-299-7735
Fax: 336-299-7740
E-mail: Jweber@awplawfirm.com
JAN 22, 2008 UPDATE: We are told this info is outdated. We are seeking confirmation of new contact details and will post them as soon as we have them
From The Citizens Voice (Wilkes-Barre, PA) on May 11:
A class-action lawsuit against Foster Wheeler Corp., stemming from a trichloroethylene contamination in Mountain Top groundwater, has been tentatively settled, according to legal notice advertisements running in the Citizens’ Voice this week.
The preliminary approved settlement requires the company to pay $1.64 million for administrative costs, attorneys’ fees and to class members, the legal notice says. More than 50 property owners could have been affected by the contamination, which was discovered in 2004.
TCE, which was used as a degreaser by the company at it’s Crestwood Industrial Park plant, has been linked to cancer as well as kidney, liver and nerve damage, according to various studies.
Homeowners in the contaminated area have fought for tax relief on their now contaminated property. The Luzerne County Board of Assessment Appeals recently gave the homeowners an abatement of a third of their property taxes through 2010.
Anyone living in the contaminated area in Wright Township from Aug. 1, 2004, to April 16, 2007 qualifies to receive part of the settlement.
Members of the class action suit did not want to comment on the case at this point. Their attorney could not return repeated phone calls to his Philadelphia-based office.
The terms of the settlement still have to be approved by the District Court at a hearing scheduled August 6.
For more information call the class action help line at 1-866-963-9976 or visit the Web site, www.martinfosterwheelerclassaction.com. The site has not worked the past two days, but should be functioning by the end of the week, administrators said.
Thanks to Charles Veilleux, the attorney handling the recently-approved class-action lawsuit in Quebec on behalf of Shannon residents, we have learned there will be a press conference regarding the case this week:
When: March 28, 2007 at 10:00 a.m.
Where: MORENCY, SOCIÉTÉ D’AVOCATS
400-3075, Chemin des Quatre-Bourgeois,
Québec (Québec) G1W 4X5
For more information: Charles Vellieux, by phone at (418) 651-9900 or email at cveilleux@morencyavocats.com.
Thanks for keeping us posted, Charles. Congratulations on the recent class certification. Best wishes to you, your team, and residents of Shannon.
Thanks to CPEO for this tip:
Montreal Gazette (Quebec, Canada)
March 25, 2007
A Quebec Superior Court judge has allowed residents of Shannon to launch
a class-action lawsuit against the Department of National Defence and
SNC Tech over drinking water that was contaminated with
trichloroethylene, or TCE.
Residents are seeking several hundred million dollars in damages for
health problems they blame on the industrial solvent.
The residents charge that during the 1950s, Shannon’s underground water table was contaminated with TCE used at the adjacent Canadian Forces Base Valcartier. Health Canada says TCE is a potential carcinogen.
Read the full story here.
A reader recently sent us the following question:
Were there any class action lawsuits brought against the DOD around 1983-1986 for TCE poisioning at Hill AFB, Utah?
While we are unaware of any such lawsuits being filed, others may know more. If so, please contact us…or leave a comment.
The Jersey Journal reports
With the consent of the court, the state Department of Environmental Protection can now enter a Bayonne industrial property to check out suspected contaminants such as trichloroethylene, chloromethane, methylene chloride and acetone whose source is still a mystery to the DEP.
But DEP says it’ll likely take until December before it’s ready to tackle the job.
The DEP sought judicial help after it alleges it tried – since late last year – to get an OK from the owners of the 14-acre Duraport Realty site on East Second Street to get onto the property.
The two sides were due in court earlier this week, but the hearing was canceled after they reached an agreement to allow the DEP to inspect the site.
Read the full story.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) has released a video about the brain cancer investigation/study of Pratt & Whitney workers in CT.
Though the video suggests various chemicals may have been at play, the investigation has focused on exposure to TCE.
See the video here. Also be sure to visit Worked to Death for more on the P & W investigation and study.
We’ve learned that the solvents at issue in both the Williams and Hensley cases against CSX Railroad were trichloroethylene (TCE),
trichloroethane (TCA), perchloroethylene a.k.a. tetrachloroethylene (PCE), mineral spirits, and carbon tetrachloride.
Thanks to Ken Sales of the Sales and Slattery Group (attorneys for the plaintiffs in both cases) for this confirmation.
The Jersey Journal (NJ) reports:
The state Department of Environmental Protection is taking a Bayonne property owner to court tomorrow to clean up the site of suspected contamination.
Deputy Attorney General Adam Phelps will ask state Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Olivieri, sitting in Jersey City, to give the DEP the green light to access a 14.5-acre site on East Second Street, between Hobart and Ingham avenues, owned by Duraport Realty One, Two and Three, LLC.
The property supports a bulk receiving and trans-shipment facility, according to a city official who asked not to be named.
The complaint, filed Aug. 21, alleges that the property owner’s “unwillingness to give DEP and its contractor(s) access to the Duraport property is delaying DEP’s performance of a site investigation, the completion of which is essential to remediating the contamination at and from the Duraport property.”
Toxins found at the site and in surface water runoff in the Kill Van Kull, as listed in the complaint, include trichloroethylene (TCE), perchloroethylene (PCE), vinyl chloride, arsenic and thallium, all in amounts that exceed DEP’s cleanup criteria.
DEP’s Ed Putnam, assistant director of remedial response, said yesterday that under a 1998 agreement the property owner had agreed to do a remedial investigation, but he said, DEP terminated that agreement last November after the owner failed to live up to the agreement.
Putnam said the Duraport land is adjacent to the old Standard Tank parcel, where contaminants have also been found in the groundwater, and “we’ve always been back and forth as to where (the toxins) were coming from.” Even now, Putnam conceded, “we don’t know the source.”
Read the full story.
The Chattanoogan (TN), which was launched Sept. 1, 1999 and bills sitself as “as one of the first full-service web-only daily newspapers in the country”, provides this breaking news report:
A Hamilton County Circuit Court jury has returned a $5 million verdict for a former CSX Railroad employee.
The jury in the courtroom of Judge Jackie Schulten deliberated two and a half hours before bringing in the verdict in favor of Thurston Hensley, 67.
The jury found that Mr. Hensley had contracted both asbestosis and toxic encephalopathy through his work for 33 years as an electrician at the railroad yards at Corbin, Ky.
It was claimed that he had to handle both asbestos and was around dangerous solvents during his time with the railroad.
The plaintiff said he suffered lung damage from the asbestos and brain damage from the solvents.
He was represented by attorney Doug Nichol of Knoxville and attorney Joe Satterley of Louisville, Ky. The case was originally filed by attorneys from St. Louis, Mo.
The case was filed in January 2002.
Attorney Nichol said it was brought under the Federal Employees Liability Act, which allows for compensatory damages but not punitive damages.
He said that type suit can be brought either in federal or state court and in any place where the defendant railroad has a railyard.
Trial of the case lasted three weeks.
See the original article here. Thanks to Ken Sales of the Sales and Slattery Group for the tip.
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