Jury rules for only two Hanford downwinders

A Spokane jury today ruled that two people living downwind of the Hanford nuclear weapons factory were probably sickened by radiation leaked from the plants, and awarded them a total of nearly $500,000 in damages.

It's a decision that could have widespread ramifications for the 2,300 other people suing over illnesses. The ruling is the first verdict involving lawsuits that began in 1991, five years after it was revealed that Hanford had quietly leaked radiation into the surrounding region for years.

The jury also ruled against three plaintiffs, and couldn't reach agreement on one.

The defendants in the case were General Electric and DuPont, the contractors that operated Hanford for the federal government during the height of the airborne releases in the 1940s and 1950s. But any damages would be paid by the federal government, which agreed to indemnify contractors running the plants.

Beginning in 1944, Hanford converted uranium into plutonium for the core of nuclear bombs. First built as part of the World War II-era Manhattan Project, it produced the plutonium for the first nuclear explosion during the Trinity test in New Mexico, and for the bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

The factories also spewed radioactivity into the air and water. Most notably, it sent off radioactive iodine, I-131, which is linked to increased risks of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. The six cases before the jury all involved people suffering thyroid problems who were children during the height of the iodine releases in the 1940s and early 1950s.

Hanford continued producing plutonium for decades, but that work stopped in the 1990s. The facility is now largely the site of a massive cleanup effort in response to years of pollution from radioactive and toxic materials.