Native American Class Action Lawsuit Filed
Against U.S. Government and Contractors
For Human Radiation Experimentation
At Hanford Nuclear Facility

At least one hundred and fifty individual Native Americans from five tribes living in the vicinity of the federally-owned Hanford Nuclear Facility in south central Washington State are suing several federal government agencies and contractors for damages resulting from wrongful human radiation experimentation based on intentional and unintentional releases of harmful radioactive materials from the various research projects conducted at Hanford.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs filed a class action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on April 2 for violations of the constitutional rights of the indigenous group under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, for infliction of radiological injuries compensable under 42 U.S.C. Section 2210 (Price Anderson Act), civil conspiracy, battery, strict liability, negligence and other torts.

According to the plaintiffs' representatives, recently declassified documents from the Department of Energy chronicle a systematic and repeated release of contaminants into the air, water, and groundwater for hundreds of miles around Hanford. The suit alleges that the defendants released radioactive iodine, plutonium, phosphorous, zinc and other toxic substances into the environment since the opening of Hanford in 1943 as a nuclear weapons research facility and for operation of plutonium production reactors and plutonium and uranium reprocessing. The Hanford Site is home to nine production reactors and four chemical separation plants.

In addition to potential harm from external exposure, the traditional culture, diet, and lifestyle of Native Americans in the region increases the risk for higher levels of exposure through ingestion of native vegetation, fish and game. Thousands of residents from the region for many years have experienced symptoms related to ingestion and exposure to radioactive byproducts. Health maladies include thyroid and bone cancers, arthritis, diabetes, blood and reproductive disorders, and autoimmune disorders.

The class of injured persons could grow to tens of thousands of people. At this time, the plaintiffs are tribal members from the Colville, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Yakama Indian Reservations. In addition to the Department of Energy and its predecessor agencies, and the Department of Defense, defendants include Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Westinghouse, General Electric, Rockwell International, DuPont, and University of Washington.

In a letter to President Bill Clinton, plaintiff Barbara Arquette Jim stated that the voice of Pacific Northwest native people has not been heard and their rights to a traditional way of life have not been respected which was the intent of treaties. Ms. Jim stated, "Now we must correct the wrongs that have been perpetrated against us through the exploitation of our ancestral land and resources, and through the violation of our people's spiritual and physical health by means of human experiments. We undertake this adversarial process in trust of the American principle of equal protection, and hope that our action may wake up those whose interest is self-serving. By this legal action, we seek not only to uphold the Constitutional rights for all, but also to address the basic need of preserving human dignity with all its implications, and the restoration of the contaminated land and water to the original self-sustainable conditions."

Currently, millions of gallons of radioactive sludge, spent radioactive fuel, and contaminated water are stored in various pools and containers at the Hanford Site. There is evidence that some of the contamination is leaking into groundwater and the Columbia River. A federal cleanup effort is underway at Hanford which will cost billions of dollars but some technical experts, Indian and non-Indian, believe some of the area is forever contaminated and will never be reclaimed.

For more information, contact: Todd M. Johnson, Chamberlain, Neaton & Johnson, (888) 254-1997, or Charles G. Walker, Baker, Donelson, Bearman & Caldwell, (901) 577-2000