KENTUCKY’S
KING
and dozens of other area residents
that argued the plant had rendered their properties essentially
worthless. The complaint alleged
that “massive” discharges of radioactive materials and heavy
metals had spread to their land,
“causing and threatening severe
property damage and health problems.” The complaint further alleged that the flow of hazardous
waste continued unabated. That
case was settled in 2010 for an
undisclosed amount.
Ruby English, a West Paducah
resident whose well was shut off,
says her husband Ray had also
written to McConnell without success. English had thyroid and colon
cancer. Ray worked in the nearby
wildlife refuge bordering the plant,
she says, and he’d come home with
stories about seeing the creek water turn purple and yellow. He’d
drink from the well and wash in
the creek. He died a few years ago,
his immune system a wreck. “The
damage is done. I feel sorry for the
workers the most,” English says.
“They’re right in the middle of it.
... It’s pathetic, it really is.”
“Once full of aquatic life,” the
court complaint filed on behalf of
residents stated, “the Little Bayou
Creek is now void of any meaning-
HUFFINGTON
08.11.13
ful plant or animal life.” A pair of
deer were found near the plant in
the early ’90s with trace amounts
of plutonium in their systems, according to the Associated Press.
A 1990 Department of Energy inspection report noted that hazardous contamination had spread to
rabbits, squirrels and apple trees.
The inspection highlighted
management deficiencies and
evidence of contamination at the
Paducah plant. In multiple areas,
management acknowledged the
plant lacked the tools to measure
such contamination or had not
put adequate safeguards in place.
Four years later, the Environmental Protection Agency declared the
facility a Superfund site, adding it
to the agency’s official list of ecological cleanup priorities.
Michael Buckley remembers the
very room where they had held
worker meetings had to be cordoned off; the room was found
to be full of contaminants. Drum
Mountain, he says, was no secret.
“I didn’t consider it a joke,” he remembers. “Everybody knew the
residue in the barrels was contaminated. You know that runoff’s gonna get into the u