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2 Men With Brain Cancer Sue Chemical Plants

Posted on: Thursday, 27 April 2006, 12:00 CDT

By Jeff Long, Chicago Tribune

Apr. 27--Two McHenry County men got brain cancer because companies near Ringwood "have been spilling, leaking, and dumping into the air, soil and groundwater massive quantities of highly toxic chemicals" for five decades, two lawsuits said.

Filed this week in state and federal courts in Pennsylvania, the lawsuits target Rohm and Haas Chemicals, based in Philadelphia. Its plant near Ringwood makes plastics, adhesives and sealants.

"These are serious allegations and serious illnesses, and we're treating it very seriously," Rohm and Haas spokesman Syd Havely said Wednesday.

The cleanup of groundwater near the plant has been under way for about 20 years, said Havely, who added that the plaintiffs live more than a mile away.

"We see no basis for linking the illnesses in any way to operations at our facility," he said.

The lawsuits allege that chemicals including trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride "invaded" the air and water of the men's homes.

The men argue that vinyl chloride has been shown to cause brain cancer.

The Web site of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry notes that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has determined that vinyl chloride is a carcinogen.

Also named in the suit is Morton International, which was based in Chicago and once ran the Ringwood plant, which Rohm and Haas purchased in 1999.

The other defendants are Huntsman Corp. of Salt Lake City, which owns the Huntsman Polyurethanes plant near Ringwood, and Modine Manufacturing Co., of Racine, Wis., which has a plant near Ringwood.

"We take our environmental responsibility very seriously," Huntsman spokesman Don Olsen said.

But Olsen said he could not respond to specific allegations because the company had not been served with the lawsuit.

A Modine spokesman declined to comment.

One lawsuit filed in state court in Pennsylvania on Tuesday is on behalf of the plaintiffs who allegedly developed brain cancer because of the companies' actions. They are Bryan Freund, of the 4800 block of West McCullom Lake Road, McCullom Lake, and Kurt Weisenberger, of the 7300 block of Beach Court, near Wonder Lake.

"The statistical likelihood of three super-rare cancers side by side is astronomical," said their lawyer, Aaron Freiwald of Philadelphia.

A neighbor died of brain cancer in June 2004, the suit said.

Freiwald also filed a federal class-action suit in Philadelphia on behalf of the nearly 500 residents of McCullom Lake, a village north of McHenry and south of the plants.

jjlongtribune.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Chicago Tribune

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Source: Chicago Tribune

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