CINCINNATI, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Residents around the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant ("Piketon"), a former Department of Energy Nuclear facility located in Piketon, Ohio, will have a jury trial of their claims. In an opinion issued on August 23, 2007, Judge Walter Rice ruled that the case will proceed to trial on nonradioactive hazardous chemical releases.
"We are pleased that we will have a trial of our claims. This will be an opportunity for the public to learn the truth about what happened at Piketon," said attorney Stanley Chesley of the law firm of Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley in Cincinnati. "Our clients have been waiting for many years for this day," he added.
On September 4, 2007 there will be a telephone conference with Judge Rice for the purpose of setting a trial date for a jury trial. "We are going to press for an early trial date," Chesley said.
According to Chesley, the Piketon plant case is similar to the Feed Materials Production Center at Fernald, Ohio, in that both government facilities released radioactive and nonradioactive chemicals into the air, water and soil over many decades, but the truth was not told to the neighbors. In July 1989, a residents' lawsuit involving the Fernald plant was settled for $78 million.
According to a Public Health Assessment of Piketon by ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services) materials released from the Piketon plant include chromium, fluorides, trichloroethylene (TCE), nitric acid, asbestos and chlorine. Reports have also said that the Piketon plant released radioactive materials including uranium and technetium into the environment.
Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley Co. L.P.A.
