Oregon Guard suit against KBR goes forward on hexavalent chromium exposure

[maddezmom]

Source: Oregonlive.com

A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit by Oregon Army National Guard veterans against war contractor Kellogg Brown & Root can proceed.

The decision makes the federal court in Portland the apex of a legal battle that stretches from Oregon to West Virginia, and from Indiana to Texas, over who is responsible for exposing American soldiers to a known cancer-causing chemical early in the Iraq war.

Already, the Oregon case has opened a window into the government's unprecedented use of private companies in Iraq and the lucrative contracts that have remained secret until now.

Beginning in May 2003, hundreds of U.S. and British troops guarded KBR workers as they worked to restore Iraqi oil flows. At a decrepit Qarmat Ali water treatment plant, piles of a toxic orange-yellow powder stained the soil, water and walls.

The powder was a rust-fighter, sodium dichromate, which contains hexavalent chromium. Exposure to 40 micrograms of hexavalent chromium per cubic meter -- about the size of a grain of salt in about a cubic yard -- has shown a high increase in lung, stomach, brain, renal, bladder and bone cancers.


Read more: http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2010/08/oregon_guard_suit_against_kbr.html

[Hekate]

1. KnR

:kick:

[midnight]

2. K&R

[Norrin Radd]

3. kr

[LawnKorn]

4. I don't understand why Halliburton hasn't been run out of business in the courts

Everything the company does is detrimental to those around them. They pollute the environment with oil production, get soldiers killed in war zones, and steal money from the Government.

Kellogg, Brown, and Root (or what ever incarnation Halliburton is in now), needs to be prosecuted and its assets confiscated to pay for the evil they have brought us. And they can take Dick Cheney with them.

[molly77]

5. It was easy with Acorn

Make a fake video. Have the NYTimes write about it. Bam. Our righteous congress people cut off funding.Did they get the funding back when it was found out the video was fake? Did the "boys" who made it have to go to jail?

[Javaman]

6. but since halliburton is a right wing corporation...

I seriously doubt any negative story about them would get any exposure.

[LawnKorn]

8. It is documented that Halliburton incorrectly wired hot water heaters that killed solders in Iraq

How much more of a 'story' do we need. Last time I checked, getting people killed was criminal.

[Javaman]

10. While that is true. how many people besides us and the families of those electrocuted

know about this?

Not many I would gamble to say.

[crim son]

7. And Halliburton just won another contract in Iraq.

This is one sucky news day.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. Who is the vets' Erin Brockovich?