Former miners file suit against Alcoa, waste dumped at the Squaw Creek Mine

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.tristate-media.com/articles/2006/11/08/warricknews/news/08miners.txt

Former miners file suit against Alcoa
Posted: Wednesday, Nov 08, 2006 - 11:03:48 am EST
By Nathan Blackford-Warrick Publishing Online

Former miners and their families have alleged for nearly three years that waste dumped at the Squaw Creek Mine north of Boonville was the cause of a multitude of physical ailments. Now, 41 people - mostly miners and their spouses - have filed suit asking for damages from the mine's owner, Alcoa.

Starting in 1965, Alcoa disposed of various waste materials at Squaw Creek, including hexavalent chromium sludge and coal tar pitch, into open pits. There are at least 12 identified waste disposal sites in the north field of the Squaw Creek Mine.

The former miners contend that the waste was toxic and that Alcoa knew or should have known the danger the material posed to those who worked near it. The suit asks for unspecified monetary damages from Alcoa for negligence, infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium.

The suit was filed with the Warrick County Circuit Court on Oct. 23. Attorney Peter Racher of the Indianapolis law firm Plews, Shadley, Racher and Braun is representing the plaintiffs.



“We feel very, very strongly that a responsible company would have exposed wastes of these types to a vulnerable population,” said Racher. “No one informed (the plaintiffs) that working with hexavalent chromium was harmful to human skin or human organs. No one told them that coal tar pitch contains many substances known or suspected of being human carcinogens.”

The suit contends that many of the plaintiffs have relatives or friends who have died from cancer as a result of exposure to toxic substances at Squaw Creek. That has caused them to worry about the “precariousness of their future health, the well being of their loved ones, and the looming imminence of premature death.”

Miners believe that they have suffered a wide range of health problems - though cancer is a main concern - from exposure to toxic waste. The suit claims that former mine workers “have been required to endure painful surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and other treatments” due to effects from toxic waste.

But Alcoa says - as it has contended from the beginning - that the materials are not toxic and did not cause the health problems the miners have had.

“We've believed all along, and according to the information we've had, that those materials would not result in health impacts,” said Alcoa spokesperson Sally Rideout-Lambert. “These are not the type of materials that would cause these health problems.”


FULL story at link above.