Contamination at old nuclear plant results in legal melee

HEMATITE, Mo. -- Over decades, a string of companies made nuclear fuel rods at a plant in Jefferson County. Since the plant closed two years ago, the current and past owners of the plant have been pointing fingers at each other, claiming the others are responsible for cleaning up the contamination left behind.

The current owners, Westinghouse Electric Co. LLC, and former owners Mallinckrodt and United Nuclear Corp. of Waterford Corp. have all made claims in federal court that the other party, and in some cases the federal government, is liable for the contamination at the plant in Hematite, 35 miles southwest of St. Louis.

All parties claim they are not to blame.

Joseph Bindbeutel, chief counsel for the Missouri attorney general's environmental division, expects a legal melee to figure out who is at fault.

"Everybody's going to claim every defense possible under the sun," Bindbeutel said. "They will bring other potentially responsible parties into the litigation. We're going to go through the whole nine yards."

From 1956 to 2001, the plant turned uranium into fuel rods under a parade of owners. The first was Mallinckrodt, which built the plant in 1956 and ran it until May 1961.

After that, United Nuclear owned and operated it until 1971. Combustion Engineering Inc. bought the plant in 1974 and ran it until April 2000, when Westinghouse purchased the nuclear operations of Combustion Engineering's parent company, ABB Ltd.

Westinghouse finally closed the plant in June 2001, days after the purchase was finalized.

60 pounds of uranium

Last month, the state of Missouri got involved by filing a federal lawsuit in St. Louis seeking damages from the companies and the federal government.

The state's lawsuit claims radioactive material -- including nearly 60 pounds of potentially dangerous radioactive uranium-235 -- was dumped in 40 unlined pits from the late 1950s through the early 1960s.

The threat to humans was not found until December 2001, when tests found trichloroethylene -- a cancer-causing chemical used as a solvent -- in the first of eight private wells used for drinking water.

In response, Westinghouse supplied neighbors with bottled water and filtration systems. It has spent more than $2 million to connect about 25 families to a public water system, the company says.

But the company thinks the federal government and former owners are responsible. Kevin Hayes, an environmental manager for Westinghouse, said the government is responsible because the plant made fuel rods for the military and the Atomic Energy Commission for about two decades, ending in the mid-1970s.

Hematite residents are also looking for someone to blame. Several have filed lawsuits saying the companies fouled their land and water while failing to inform them.

"It's something that's been neglected for a long time, and now I don't think they know how to handle it," said Clarissa Eaton, who has filed a lawsuit.

"They kept playing hot potato. Someone would move in and sell the stuff and make a lot of money. Well, the music stopped, and Westinghouse ended up with the hot potato."