A group of descendents and former residents of two now-defunct uranium mining towns in southwestern Colorado are suing Union Carbide Corp., blaming the company's "utterly intolerable" environmental practices for a host of suspected mill-related illnesses and genetic disorders.
The lawsuit, filed in Denver federal court Friday by a Wyoming law firm headed by renowned personal injury attorney Gerry -Spence, lists 82 plaintiffs, many of whom were raised and schooled in Uravan and Long Park before the towns were leveled and declared Superfund cleanup sites in the mid-1980s.
Many road maps no longer show the two neighboring ghost towns in Montrose County, where the discovery of radium established Standard Chemical's Joe Junior Mill in 1914. In the 1950s, Union Carbide - now a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. - took over the mines, which produced uranium for the bombs that ended World War II and later stocked America's nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.
The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages and a medical monitoring plan for the plaintiffs and their families "who have suffered and continue to suffer a significantly increased risk of contracting serious latent diseases, including, but not limited to, cancer."
A Dow Chemical spokeswoman, reached at the company's headquarters in Midland, Mich., was notified late Friday of the lawsuit. She said the company was not prepared to immediately comment on the allegations and would likely issue a statement early next week.
The complaint accuses Union Carbide of negligence in the processing, transportation, storage and disposal of vast quantities of radioactive materials and other hazardous substances at the Uravan uranium milling facility and mines.
According to a recent report from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, Uravan's toxic cleanup is 92 percent completed. In 1986, all of Uravan's residents were evacuated, and most of the town's 260 buildings were removed.
But the lawsuit cites "nuclear incidents" that occurred between 1936 and 1984, when the mine operations generated 42 million pounds of uranium oxide - called yellowcake - and 222 million pounds of vanadium oxide.
It describes a steady convoy of trucks laden with tailings and uranium ore rumbling nonstop through the town's unpaved Main Street, kicking up dirt and dust.
During the boom years, Uravan was advertised by Union Carbide as "a family friendly place," said the suit. A boarding house, community center, medical clinic, swimming pool and school facilities were located on both sides of the street.
The complaint charges that "hazardous substances, both radioactive and non-radioactive, were spread throughout the town," and children played on the tailings along the banks of the San Miguel River, where residents swam and fished.
As late as the mid-1950s, liquid wastes were discharged directly into the river until Union Carbide built a series of unlined containment ponds, the suit said.