Uranium Plant Told to Pay Cancer Victims

The owners of a uranium plant that fueled submarines during the Cold War were ordered by a jury to pay at least $36.5 million to eight cancer-stricken residents of the small town of Apollo, Pa., or their relatives. Atlantic Richfield Co. and Babcock and Wilcox Co. were found negligent in their operation of the now-closed Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp. plant. Nearly 100 residents of the river town of 1,900 people have claimed that three decades of radiation from the plant have caused an unusually high incidence of cancer. The jury will determine punitive damages next week. The companies had argued that the plaintiffs failed to prove the plant exceeded allowable releases or radiation, show any increased likelihood of cancer after purported releases or provide any estimates of radiation doses that residents received.