A group of Coloradans has sued Union Carbide, saying the firm failed to protect them from deadly radiation when they lived near a company uranium mine.
No one from Union Carbide, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical, had seen the suit after it was filed Friday and the company couldn't immediately comment on it, said Dow spokeswoman Myra Dean.
The 28-page suit filed in U.S. District Court in Denver accuses the company of causing the death from radiation exposure of four people and illness among more than 70 others.
Union Carbide took over a uranium mine and mill in Uravan in 1928 and ran them until 1984. By 1986, contamination forced evacuation of the town south of Grand Junction along the Dolores River.
While the mine was in operation, the company promoted Uravan and a second company town - Long Park - as safe and family-friendly places, the suit said.
The suit describes poor living conditions, with mining families renting poorly constructed shacks from the company.
"When a shack was not available for a family moving to Long Park, families resided in the uranium mines surrounding Long Park until a shack became available," the suit said.
Heating the shacks, mainly with wood-burning stoves, was difficult, and residents scavenged spoils from the uranium mines and piled them around the base of their fragile homes to provide insulation, the suit said.
Since there was no electricity in the shacks, the company permitted residents to store food in the coolness of the mines, the suit said. Union Carbide didn't provide a supply of uncontaminated water for residents, so they drank from contaminated wells and other water supplies near the mine, the suit said.
The plaintiffs ask for unspecified monetary damages.
source: http://www.denverpost.com/cda/article/print/0,1674,36%257E33%257E1911572,00.html 24jan04
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