COURTESY OF GAO
KENTUCKY’S
KING
accidents caused by intentional negligence or misconduct at
plants like Paducah.
McConnell’s opposition to trial
lawyers became his justification
for inaction on worker health.
After coming out against another
provision aimed at assisting workers in high-risk jobs, he complained that the bill would simply
“stimulate personal injury and
worker compensation litigation
on a scale far beyond our present
imagination.”
Back in Paducah, however, the
litigation was just about to begin.
In the late ’80s, wells near the
plant were showing signs of possible contamination. Ronald Lamb
helped run a mechanic shop on his
family’s old farmland a few miles
from the plant. He and his father
and mother all drank from the
same well and started getting sick.
“We thought we were dying,” Lamb
told HuffPost. “I lost the hair on my
arms. It looked like I had chemo.”
On Aug. 12, 1988, government
officials contacted 10 households
with an ominous directive: Stop
drinking and bathing in the water
from their wells. The Department of
Energy began sealing off wells near
the plant and re-routing the water
supply for roughly 100 residences.
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
Lamb says he repeatedly wrote
letters to his local elected officials,
including McConnell, but didn’t
get much more than a form letter
in response. “They felt your pain
but felt like you were being taken
care of,” Lamb recalls.
Lamb didn’t think so and spoke
up around the country, including
two trips to Washington in the
early ’90s on his own dime. He
and his family also filed a lawsuit.
Even though that case was unsuccessful, it led to a January 1997
class-action lawsuit with Lamb
The Paducah
plant’s
hazardous
“Drum
Mountain,”
a scrap heap
that bled
contaminants
into the soil.