Ex-workers: Tainted water led to illnesses

LAKE MARY — More than three dozen former workers at a defunct telecommunications plant say they were poisoned by contaminated water they unwittingly used for everything from making coffee to washing their hands.

The water came from the ground below them, polluted by toxic chemicals used to make phone equipment but then dumped on the property, according to a series of lawsuits.

The chemicals worked their way into the drinking-water supply that was pumped back into the building, according to the suits.

The employees became seriously ill, all but a few with cancer. At least four have died during the plant’s 35-year history.

So far, 13 workers or their survivors are suing, but they are not suing the suspected polluters. They are trying a different legal tactic, one designed to get money without assigning blame.

Their lawyers say that is necessary because several companies operated the plant through the years.

One of those companies made them seriously ill, but they don’t know precisely which, their lawyers say.

“You can’t really prove on which day which exposure caused them to get cancer,” said Steve Eichenblatt, a lawyer representing the group.

So, the suits target the current landowners — two development companies that have built nothing on the property and aren’t accused of polluting it.

Someone, the workers say, should pay for what they’re going through.

The now-idle plant, at 400 Rinehart Road, was run by at least five companies or business ventures after General Dynamics Corp. built it for subsidiary Stromberg-Carlson Corp. in 1968 in a former orange grove.

Successors include United Technologies Corp., Marconi Communications Inc. and Siemens AG. Siemens operated the plant for more than a decade before closing it in 2003, according to court records, though about 200 employees still work in an office building on the edge of the site.

Although the owners changed, the work force of about 2,000 at any given time manufactured the same thing through the years: telephone-network switches.

Illnesses strike workers

Nearly all of the 13 who are suing were diagnosed with cancer, including kidney cancer and leukemia, said Paul Byron, a partner of Overchuck, De Marco, Byron, Overchuck, P.A., one of the Orlando-area law firms representing the employees.

They are among 40 ill former workers from that plant who have hired the firm, which specializes in environmental-health claims.

Wallace Brottem, 52, of Eustis, is one of them. He worked at the plant for 26 years, for every company that ran it, including Siemens.

While on the job, he developed myelodysplastic syndrome, a condition similar to leukemia.

Brottem’s body stopped producing red-blood cells and, after years of treatment and blood transfusions, he had a bone-marrow transplant two years ago.

For a time, he didn’t associate his illness with the plant. Then one day in February 2001, according to state environmental records, Siemens officials ordered employees to stop drinking the water.

“That’s when it went, ‘Ding,’ ” Brottem said.

The company had discovered two potentially dangerous chemicals — trichloroethene (TCE) and dichloroethene (DCE) — in its tap water, according to Siemens’ memos. Both chemicals have been linked to cancer in laboratory animals and are suspected of causing cancer in humans.

Plant employees from 1968 to 1986 had used TCE, an industrial solvent, to clean grease and dirt from parts, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

It’s unclear how, but the chemical seeped through the soil and into the groundwater, according to the agency

Said Brottem, “I was up to my elbows in that.”

Brottem said he never suspected it would harm him or anyone else. In fact, he sometimes dumped it down the drain. Plant managers never told workers it was dangerous, he said.

Brottem said he’s grateful to be alive.

“At least I can function,” he said.

That’s not always true for Gladys Elder, 65, of Sanford, who worked at the plant for 32 years. Doctors found cancer in her left kidney and removed it six years ago.

“I have days I don’t even get out of bed, I feel so bad,” she said. “I feel like giving up.”

Chemicals enter aquifer

Environmental engineers have found four groundwater hot spots containing high levels of TCE or DCE on the 200-acre site. Both chemicals have penetrated the Floridan Aquifer, the major source of drinking water for the region. The greatest concentration is beneath the plant.

The amount of TCE in the water there is more than 500 times what the government says is safe, according to measurements taken in March. DCE — in this case, TCE that has broken down — exceeds standards by 2,600 times.

The tainted water is not a threat to public safety, environmental officials say. It has moved very little. And though the chemicals are drawn into the Lake Mary municipal water system by a well near the plant, Siemens paid $2.1 million for a filter that cleans that system, said John Litton, Lake Mary’s city manager.

The contaminants also are drawn into the system supplying the Siemens office building on the site, but it, too, is being scrubbed clean, according to Paula Davis, a Siemens spokeswoman.

State environmental officials won’t discuss the cancer cases. They are working solely on a cleanup, and they are doing that by focusing on two former owners: Siemens and Marconi.

Marconi operated the plant in the 1980s and owned or had an interest in the land until the mid-1990s, according to court records.

Siemens had operated the plant since 1990 but never used TCE, Davis said.

FDEP and employees agree that Siemens did not use TCE, but because it owned the land when toxins turned up in tap water in 2001, it is still responsible, along with Marconi, for the cleanup, said George Houston, an FDEP geologist and wastewater specialist.

Siemens is cooperating with the state, according to FDEP records. Marconi has since been disassembled and sold. The division that operated the plant is now part of Telent PLC, based in London. Company officials would not comment.

Neither would spokespeople for General Dynamics and United Technologies.

Legal tactics change

The sick employees, though, are not going after Siemens or Marconi.

The employees were in August, when the first six plaintiffs sued in state Circuit Court. Also originally named: General Dynamics and Stromberg-Carlson.

The workers’ approach then was conventional: sue the parties that might have caused the pollution.

But that would be a tough sell. They would have to prove the defendants knew exposing workers to TCE was dangerous.

So in February, lawyers adopted a new strategy.

The lawyers dropped the companies as defendants and instead named Crescent Resources LLC, a subsidiary of Duke Energy Co., which bought 140 acres in 2000, and Rinehart Development & Investment Group LLC of Sanford, which bought the most badly polluted tracts, 67 acres, in July.

The workers claim they are due damages under a Florida law designed to make property owners clean up pollution, even if it was put there by a previous owner.

State environmental officials did not explain why they have not ordered Crescent to clean up the toxins.

The officials said they didn’t know Rinehart also now owns some of the land.

By going after the landowners, the workers must prove only that the tainted groundwater beneath the plant is what made them sick, attorney Byron said.

“There’s no need to get into this whole donnybrook over who did what,” Byron said.

If the current landowners want to make the real polluters pay, Byron said, then they can sue former plant operators.

Ten of the 13 plaintiffs tried that earlier through workers’ compensation claims, but they had little success.

Only four wound up with settlements, Orlando lawyer Lee Bernbaum said.

Lawyers for Crescent and Rinehart Development argue their clients are not liable.

“There’s not one of these [sick] people that your heart doesn’t go out to,” said Alfred “Bud” Bennington Jr., Crescent’s lawyer.

“All we’re saying is, ‘Sue the party that caused the problem,’ ” Bennington said.

Brottem and the other former employees have a Web site, and some meet every few weeks to check on one another. It can be a grim task. In March, three died.

Brottem’s health is up and down, he said.

“Hopefully,” he said, “I’ll be around to see the finish of it.”