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Published: Monday, August 30, 2010,
Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian

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

In 2009, 26 Oregon Guard veterans sued KBR, claiming its managers downplayed or dismissed the presence of the chemical.

U.S. District Magistrate Paul Papak denied KBR’s second motion to dismiss the suit. His fact-finding refutes three of KBR’s long-time assertions. He found:

KBR brought additional sodium dichromate to Qarmat Ali in June 2003, stored and worked with it. KBR has consistently claimed the chemical was left by Iraqis after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.

KBR knew of the sodium dichromate before most of the soldiers ever arrived, warning a subcontractor — but not the U.S. military or soldiers — that areas of the water plant were contaminated. The Oregon Guard weren’t notified of the chemical until August 2003, two months after they had guarded employees at the plant.

KBR was contractually obligated to provide an environmental assessment at Qarmat Ali and report hazards. KBR says the Army was responsible for the assessment.

David Sugerman, the Portland consumer attorney representing the veterans, said, “We are very pleased.”

KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said in an email, “We are disappointed with the ruling and we are in the process of reviewing the decision.”

Troops from four states and Britain claim they suffer health problems as a result of the exposure. At least two soldiers who were exposed to the chemical have died of cancer.

Earlier this summer, KBR attorneys moved to dismiss the Oregon case for lack of jurisdiction. They argued that the contractor was “merely executing the will of the United State.” They also claimed that KBR was acting as a combatant during wartime, and should receive the same legal protection the military.

But in a 29-page opinion, Judge Papak found that KBR’s work restoring Iraqi oil was a foreign policy goal rather than a combatant activity.

“The defendents operations were more akin to restoring the battlefield to productive use after the battle has ended than to aiding warriors to swing the sword,” Papak wrote, citing another case law in denying KBR’s claim.

Details of the 2003 Restore Iraqi Oil contract have already raised congressional concern. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., has written the Secretary of the Army demanding details of the agreement because American taxpayers — and not KBR — would pay if the war contractor is found to have harmed Oregon veterans.

Occupational Health News Roundup

Category: Confined Space @ TPH • Occupational Health & Safety
Posted on: July 22, 2010 4:42 PM, by Liz Borkowski

The Oregonian’s Julie Sullivan has been following the story of the National Guard troops who were exposed to the carcinogen hexavalent chromium at the Qarmat Ali water plant in Iraq – which contracting giant KBR was tasked with rebuilding. (Oregonian stories are here; also see our past posts on the subject here, here, and here.) Now, Sullivan reports, US Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon has sent a “sharply worded” letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates asking for details about an immunity deal that KBR reportedly struck with the Department of Defense. Twenty-six Oregon Army National Guard veterans who were stationed at Qarmat Ali are suing KBR in the US District Court in Portland, claiming the company knowingly or negligently exposed them to a carcinogen; word of KBR’s immunity agreement came from a deposition in the case:

But during a June 22 deposition in the Portland case, Chris Heinrich, a Texas attorney for KBR, revealed his company had performed contingency planning in 2002 that identified hazards in the Iraqi oil fields, well before the invasion.After KBR had signed its no-bid Restore Iraqi Oil contract and as the coalition invasion was taking place in March 2003, Heinrich said he went to the Pentagon himself to demand immunity for KBR’s restoration work. Heinrich told Army officials that KBR refused to do the job unless granted “broad coverage.” KBR required that the U.S. Treasury — taxpayers and not the contractor — pay for any property damage, injury or death of any soldier or civilian working at a KBR site. That applied even if the harm resulted from KBR negligence.

“We proposed some language that we preferred to have in terms of the indemnification,” Heinrich said, adding that the agreement was typed up during that single meeting with an Army attorney. Heinrich said an amended contract was signed shortly afterward by the secretary of the army — at the time Tom White — or someone at the “secretariat level.”

In his letter to Secretary Gates, Blumenauer requests that DoD provide a copy of its contract with KBR, a list of other contractors granted indemnification, and information about the taxpayers’ financial burden resulting from indemnity agreements. He also asks “whether Congress was notified when the Department entered into contracts that burdened US taxpayers with the risk and legal responsibility for the actions of private contractors.” (Full text of the letter is here.)

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Published: Thursday, July 22, 2010, 8:23 PM     Updated: Friday, July 23, 2010, 7:52 AM

Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian

The Department of Veterans Affairs is launching a Qarmat Ali registry to aggressively track and treat veterans exposed to a cancer-causing chemical in Iraq in 2003.

The national surveillance program will register hundreds of National Guard members who served at the Qarmat Ali water- treatment plant, looking for health problems associated with hexavalent chromium exposure, such as asthma and lung cancer.

The monitoring is a victory for nearly 300 Oregon Army National Guard members and for Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. Wyden proposed such a registry March 22 after veterans with breathing and skin problems told him in an emotional meeting in Portland that VA staff did not understand the hazards of their assignment.

Ross William Hamilton/The Oregonian Senator Ron Wyden reacts as former Oregon Guard Sgt. Larry Roberta (cq) begins to cough at a February press conference. Wyden said he was so distressed by the veterans' concerns he asked the VA in a March letter to create a registry.

“This is a concrete step forward,” Wyden said. “But it is only a step.” He wants the VA to go further and presume a service connection that will increase access and benefits.

The program is more a medical monitoring program than a confirmation of health problems. The VA does not presume a veteran who served at Qarmat Ali is ill — nor that any specific diseases are linked to serving there.

But the Qarmat Ali Medical Surveillance program will standardize medical exams nationwide, focusing doctors’ attention on lung cancer and other related problems and help direct treatment. Among the steps: ear, nose, throat, lung and skin exams as well as regular chest X-rays, said Dr. Victoria Cassano, director of radiation and physical exposure for the VA’s Office of Public Health and Environmental Hazards.

Cassano said the registry connects veterans to a local coordinator and creates a long-term study group. She outlined the details to congressional staff and others Thursday, though the VA has not formally announced the program.

Oregon Democrats Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Kurt Schrader, and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, all issued statements praising the new registry.

UK troops join former US Guards in ‘toxic’ exposure lawsuit against KBR

By Rajini Vaidyanathan
Reporter, BBC Radio 4’s PM

Sodium dichromate has been linked a range of illnesses

Seven former British soldiers are suing an American defence firm, accusing it of exposing them to dangerous levels of toxic chemicals in Iraq.

The men were providing security at a water plant near Basra where sodium dichromate was discovered.

They claim that its operator, Kellog Brown and Root (KBR), failed to protect them from the substance.

The men join 98 US soldiers suing KBR. It denies the allegations, saying necessary precautions were taken.

“If I’d have known what I now know, I would not have gone on that site and I would not have made my men operate on that site,” says Andy Tosh.

The former regiment sergeant served in several combat zones but it is his time in Iraq in 2003 which has left him worried for his future.

“I’m used to risking my life or defending the right cause if you want to call it that. But again that’s against things you would expect.

“You join the military to do a job, not to get exposed to a toxic chemical through a contractor,” he adds.

The lawsuit he and his former colleagues have joined relates to the time they spent providing security at the Qarmat Ali water plant, which was pumping water to nearby oil wells.

‘Rashes and nosebleeds’

The plant was run by the defence contractor KBR, a company which until 2007 was part of the Halliburton oil corporation.

When the men began working on the site in May 2003 they noticed a reddish orange powder, some of it in bags, some of it in the drains and in the sand.

Former Sergeant Andy Tosh developed nosebleeds and other illnesses

Initially they thought little of it, but Sgt Tosh says he became concerned when he and some of his team developed rashes, nosebleeds, and breathing problems after coming into contact with the substance.

“In August I had a severe rash on my forearms and hands. I’ve operated all over the world, from South America to the Arctic, I’ve never had any rash like that before,” he says.

“I was that concerned that I did go and see the station medical officer in Basra.”

A few months after the men arrived, notices started to appear around the plant, explaining that the coloured powder was in fact a highly toxic substance – sodium dichromate, the same chemical which was brought to attention in the film Erin Brockovich.

“At the time the warning signs went out around a pump room where this sodium dichromate had been stored in bags previously, and then they said that the orange powder…was actually sodium dichromate.

“Later on, they moved us from where we were operating, but not very far, only 100 metres away from the site.

“Once the warning signs went up, we never saw any US national guards again, we were told that there was nothing to worry about, it’s all fine.”

Sgt Tosh says he believes the US guards left in fear for their safety.

During the time he remained on the site he says he saw KBR workers there, many of them wearing protective clothing.

Chemical exposure?

Sodium dichromate is a highly carcinogenic substance, used as an anti-corrosive.

Medical experts say it can cause nosebleeds, damage to the septum, breathing problems and even in some cases lung cancer.

In the 36-page lawsuit, the soliders claim that KBR “disregarded and downplayed” the dangers of being exposed to the chemical.

In response, KBR says the sodium dichromate was left at Qarmat Ali by Iraqi workers under Saddam Hussein’s regime and that it took action to make the site safe.

It adds that it notified the US Army Corps of Engineers of the presence of the substance and its dangers.

A statement from KBR goes on to say: “Air sample tests performed by the US Army Center for Health Promotion Preventative Medicine and the British Military and KBR showed no dangerous levels of airborne chromium hexalvelant.”

The defence contractor further contends that no medical data support the claims that soldiers and KBR workers suffered from nosebleeds and respiratory problems caused by sodium dichromate.

This is something almost 100 soliders in the United States dispute.

Ninety-eight former members of the US military are already suing KBR, claiming they have contracted serious illnesses from their time at the plant.

“I have a laundry list of health problems,” explains Larry Roberta, who served with the Oregon National guard.

“I only have 60% lung capacity, I have very low testosterone, I have two types of inhalers, I can’t walk a block with passing over.

“To me there’s no doubt the cause is sodium dichromate. That was the turning point exactly, that was when my health went like a car over a cliff.”

Mr Roberta says the orange dust was everywhere at the plant, and he even ended up eating it when it landed on his food.

“It’s just a real horrible, disgusting taste. It’s a real heavy metal taste. It’s like if you were to run outside and lick the lampost.”

Side-effects

The issue of chemical exposure at the Qarmat Ali water plant has been the subject of a number of hearings in the US Senate.

Dr Herman Gibb, an expert on sodium dichromate who gave evidence to those hearings, says it can take years for the side-effects of the chemical to manifest.

And that is the concern among the British troops who have filed the lawsuit.

“We just want our day in court,” explains John Gledhill, from Retford in Nottinghamshire.

“I want to know we can get some medical screening because there have been numerous national guardsmen over in America who were at the water treatment plant at the same time as us who’ve got symptoms.

I’ve got no symptoms at the minute, but it’s a carcinogenic compound so we don’t know what the future holds.”

In a statement, the Ministry of Defence says it takes “very seriously” any suggestion that troops may have been exposed to levels of sodium dichromate in Iraq in 2003.

But it goes on: “This was examined at the time and there was no cause for alarm…the results of sampling showed that levels of sodium dichromate were significantly below UK government and US Army guidance levels and should not have had any effect on the patrolling guard force.

“Should any new evidence come to light, we will obviously consider it.”

The ex-servicemen on the lawsuit are also calling for an enquiry into the matter at Westminster.

“It’s a bit of a silent risk,” says Jim Garth. “It’s something we knew nothing about.”

“Granted it wasn’t a British installation, but we were tasked with guarding this installation by our superiors – and it looks like this could be a killer as well as the other things in a war zone that can kill you.”

_____________________

Original BBC Report

_____________________

Please visit Oregonlive.com for full story

By Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian
Originally Published Oregonlive.com on May 19, 2010, 9:17PM

Photo by: Torsten Kjellstrand, The Oregonian - David Sugerman represents 21 Oregon Army National Guard soldiers in their lawsuit against KBR.

Oregon Army National Guard veterans suing the largest war contractor in Iraq today in federal court in Portland acknowledge they’re waging an improbable fight.

In February, the war contractor squashed a similar lawsuit by Indiana Guard who also claimed they were knowingly exposed to a cancer-causing chemical in Iraq in 2003.

Last June, the war contractor even knocked out a suit by 10 of its former employees — the people Oregon troops were guarding.

The 21 Oregon veterans suing Kellogg, Brown and Root include a postal clerk, a security guard and a soldier just back from a second tour to Iraq where he guarded KBR convoys. The men say they suffer breathing, stomach and other health problems from being exposed to hexavalent chromium at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant.

They face a large and experienced defense team who’ve handled hundreds of personal injury claims filed against KBR since the invasion of Iraq over its burn pits, accidental electrocutions and alleged assaults.

Photo by Beth Nakamura, The Oregonian - Rocky Bixby is one of the veterans in the KBR lawsuit.

On the vets’ team: one tall Texan and a Portland trial lawyer in a solo firm.

Houston attorney Michael Patrick Doyle, who’s won millions suing corporations for negligence, is working with David Sugerman, who’s taken class-action suits and consumer cases. They took the case on contingency. After months of unpaid work, one soldier felt so guilty he gave Sugerman the only bill in his wallet: an Iraqi dinar.

Today, KBR’s attorneys will argue it’s not responsibile. They blame the Army Corps of Engineers, which was in charge at Qarmat Ali. KBR’s local attorneys Jeffrey Eden and Stephen Deatherage will ask Magistrate Judge Paul Papak to stop discovery. They want Papak to rule — yet again– on whether the case should go forward in his U.S. District courtroom.

The case pits the Oregon veterans against the very Army they served in. For instance, the Army won’t release some records to their attorneys — only KBR.

“It’s overwhelming to know we’re going up against a company that has a lot of power and that the military seems to want to keep on their side, to work with in the future,” said former soldier Rocky Bixby, 43, a public safety officer at Oregon Health & Science University.

“It’s like stepping onto a freeway. You don’t know if you’re going to get run over or even make it out of there.”

The Oregon case against KBR offers a portal into the unprecedented privatization of war.

Since 2001, the government has paid private companies at least $150 billion to do work the military once did, from folding laundry to driving fuel trucks. Civilians working for contractors now outnumber military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last month, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction reported just how radical the shift is. During World War II, the ratio of contractors to military was 1-to-7. In Vietnam, 1-to-6. In Iraq and Afghanistan, 1-to-1 or fewer.

Court documents, government reports, Congressional testimony and reporting by the Center for Public Integrity and U.S. newspapers describe KBR’s ascent:

Three weeks before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Corps of Engineers contracted with KBR to fight Iraqi oil fires, without the usual bidding process or notification to Congress.

KBR was well connected.

Ties to Lyndon Johnson had helped the vintage Texas road-building firm, Brown and Root erect dams, military installations and off-shore oil platforms before it was acquired by oil giant Halliburton in 1962.

After the Persian Gulf war, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney ordered a study to turn military support operations such feeding and housing troops to a private company. Brown and Root did the study, and was then chosen to carry out its plan for $2 billion. Cheney went on to Halliburton from 1995 to 2000, when he became vice president.

KBR lost the bid for the logistics contract in 1997 but won it back in late 2001, a 10-year contract worth $23 billion. In November 2002, KBR was asked to plan how to restore oil production in Iraq. Five months later, it won the no-bid contract to carry out its own plan. Three weeks later, the U.S. invaded Iraq.

But details of the contract remained secret until the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity sued the government and a year later, got the paperwork. They found 10 tasks had been added onto KBR’s original oil restoration contract. One task had ballooned in cost from $24 million to nearly $900 million in just six months. KBR eventually billed the government 2.5 billion.

Within weeks of the invasion, contractors reached the decrepit Qarmat Ali plant near Basra in southern Iraq. The plant provided the critical water pressure needed to extract oil from nearby fields. KBR moved swiftly to repair it.

National Guard soldiers from four states were ordered to protect the contractors traveling to Iraq oil sites. From April to June 2003, teams of Oregon soldiers accompanied KBR employees to pipelines, oil fields and Qarmat Ali. Just weeks after the Indiana Guard replaced the Oregonians, a new KBR safety officer arrived at the plant and was immedately concerned about the fine orange powder piled several feet deep that blew constantly in the desert wind. The corrosion fighter contained hexavalent chromium, one of the most potent carcinogens. Most of the soldiers and staff had sinus problems and bloody noses. KBR managers at first dismissed complaints, then inspected the plant wearing protective suits. The military immediately pulled out. KBR closed the plant, and the contamination was eventually paved over.

Still, the exposure and the men’s health problems remained hidden until KBR’s own employees told Senate Democrats about the hexavalent chromium during contractor oversight hearings on waste and abuse in 2008. The Senators concluded “the Bush Administration failed to follow long-established regulations for awarding contracts, mismanaged the performance of contracts it did award, and allowed contractors and Iraqi government officials to engage in fraudulent and wasteful conduct.”

Soldiers from across the country, learning the extent of the danger, also testified before Congress and began filing suit.

The Senate Democrats also concluded that KBR “knowingly” exposed troops and its own employees to sodium dichromate/hexavalent chromium.”

KBR, which spun off from Halliburton in 2007, become synonymous for poor performance: serving spoiled food, using contaminated water and burning trash in pits. The company also outraged the public by hiring workers through two shell companies in the Cayman Islands to avoid federal Social Security and Medicare taxes.

KBR denies harming troops or employees in Iraq and said it is proud of its work there.

“Ethics and integrity are the foundation of our business. The company in no way tolerates or condones illegal or unethical behavior. When questions about our work have been raised, KBR has provided information requested of us and worked to resolve the issues. We remain committed to providing the Army with high-quality, cost effective service,” spokeswoman Heather Browne said in a statement Wednesday.

____________

For Full Story

]]> http://www.kbrlitigation.com/522/suit-against-kbr-by-oregon-national-guard-goes-forward-in-portland/feed/ 0 http://www.kbrlitigation.com/510/kbr-files-motion-to-dismiss-hexavalent-chromium-lawsuit-filed-by-oregon-soldiers/ http://www.kbrlitigation.com/510/kbr-files-motion-to-dismiss-hexavalent-chromium-lawsuit-filed-by-oregon-soldiers/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:57:41 +0000 Doyle Raizner http://www.kbrlitigation.com/?p=510

By Julie Sullivan, The Oregonian
April 26, 2010, 8:12PM



Attorneys for Kellogg, Brown & Root have filed a second motion to dismiss an Oregon Army National Guardsmen lawsuit against the war contractor, saying the Oregon court lacks jurisdiction over the federal government’s military and foreign policy decisions in wartime.

Friday’s filing comes three weeks after U.S. District Judge Magistrate Paul Papak denied an earlier motion to dismiss, ruling that the case should go forward.

Twenty-one current and former Oregon Army National Guard soldiers, mostly from the Portland area, are suing the Houston-based firm and four of its subsidiaries saying they were intentionally exposed to the cancer-causing chemical, hexavalent chromium after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Troops from Oregon, Indiana and West Virginia were ordered to guard KBR employees working to restore oil production in southern Iraq. Soldiers from all three states have filed lawsuits. They claim that at the Qarmat Ali water plant near Basra, KBR ignored and downplayed the health risks of a corrosion-fighter scattered across the facility that contained hexavalent chromium. Soldiers allege breathing, stomach and other health problems as a result. At least two soldiers, including one in Oregon, died of cancer after serving at the plant.

According to the 41-page memorandum, KBR attorneys wrote the firm won the Army Corps of Engineers’ contract to “Restore Iraqi Oil” 17 days before the United States invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Restoring oil flow from the dilapidated and heavily looted Iraqi facilities was one of the United States’ most pressing goals, attorneys said. The circa-1970s water plant at Qarmat Ali was particularly important, as it provided the needed water pressure to all the oil wells across southern Iraq.

KBR attorneys Jeffrey Eden  and Stephen Deatherage  wrote that under its contract, KBR was not required to conduct an environmental assessment at Qarmat Ali. U.S. soldiers who did conduct an initial assessment shortly after the invasion noted the orange stains on the soil, but did not ask for further investigation. Instead, they recommended a new plant be built altogether.

The Corps of Engineers decided not to rebuild the plant, but rather repair it and decided not to conduct a full environmental assessment due to the wartime conditions.

KBR attorneys also said that the U.S. and British military, not KBR, were responsible for notifying soldiers of the potential exposure and determining whether and to what extent they were exposed.
The attorneys further claim that the same Federal Tort Claims Act which prevents individuals from suing the government in all but very limited circumstances, should apply to the contractor.

“KBR performing a common mission with the military under military command in a military theater.’

KBR has been barraged with lawsuits ranging from soldiers’ who claimed they were injured by burn pits the to families of drivers killed in Iraq.

The soldiers attorney, David Sugerman,  vowed to go forward.

“We want Oregon soldiers to have their day in court.”

A hearing has been scheduled for 10 a.m. June 7 in federal court in Portland.

Houston Chronicle Website

By MARY FLOOD | Houston Chronicle

More than 50 Indiana National Guardsmen have filed a lawsuit in Houston claiming KBR failed to warn them about exposure to carcinogenic chemicals at an Iraqi water facility they were guarding.

An Indiana judge tossed out the same lawsuit over cancer-causing hexavalent chromium at the Basra-area water plant, saying that Midwestern court did not have jurisdiction over the Houston-based company.

Houston lawyer Mike Doyle, who has also filed cases in Oregon and West Virginia for other soldiers claiming exposure to the chemicals,said “KBR management absolutely knew that soldiers were being exposed and management absolutely did not share the information so they could protect themselves.”

KBR has denied that they kept any contamination secret and said there is no known illness connected to the facility.

The lawsuit filed last week alleges the guardsmen from Tell City, Ind., and others working at the site were subjected to “months and months of unprotected, unknowing, direct exposure to one of the most potent carcinogens and mutagenic substances known to man.”

“The Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen were repeatedly told that there was no danger on site, even after KBR managers knew that blood testing of American civilians exposed on site confirmed elevated chromium levels,” the suit alleges.

KBR was hired to get the Iraqi water plant working through a no-bid U.S. government contract in 2003 as part of Operation Restore Iraqi Oil.

The dangerous hexavalent chromium was part of a chemical compound called sodium dichromate used by Iraqis as an anti-corrosive for clearing pipes. The soldiers who are suing, along with some family members, were guarding the facility while KBR civilians worked on restoring it.

Congress held hearings on the question of the chemical exposure at this Iraqi plant in June 2008.

Doyle said one soldier’s death has been directly linked to exposure to the orange dust with the carcinogen and others are sick with related respiratory illnesses, many have related rashes or other problems and all have higher risks of getting cancer.

Mark Lowes, KBR’s vice president of litigation, said any contamination KBR found at the site was properly reported.

“Based on testing by both the military and KBR we believe there was no hazardous exposure, and there has been no documented illness related to the facility. More importantly, our Statement of Work with the Army obligated them to provide us with a facility that was free from ‘all environmental and war hazards,’ ” Lowes said.

Lowes said some KBR employees also went into arbitration over possible chemical exposure at the Qarmat Ali water facility and that “resulted in a finding of no illness and no liability to the employees.”

For full article at the Houston Chronicle

KBR: Private Military Cancer (PMC) Provider?

David Isenberg, Author, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq

Yesterday Doyle Raizner LLP, the legal team for the Indiana National Guardsmen, whose claims against KBR were recently dismissed in Indiana federal court, refiled for the Guardsmen in Houston federal court.

The suit alleges that KBR knowingly allowed exposure to the toxic chemical sodium dichromate. This chemical, sometimes called hexavalent chromium, was widely present as an orange-colored dust that soldiers assigned to guard the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant in southern Iraq could not avoid inhaling. Sodium dichromate or hexavalent chromium is a powerful carcinogen known to cause lung, nasal and other cancers, other severe respiratory problems and other medical problems.

Here are some excerpts from the 32-page lawsuit…

FACTUAL OVERVIEW OF THE CASE

1.1 KBR, a private company, and its operating subsidiaries (including Cayman Island subsidiaries set up by KBR for various purposes described further below), received billions of dollars worth of no-bid contracts for work in Iraq in 2003. This lawsuit arises from one of the projects KBR was charged with safely completing — a project involving the restoration of the Qarmat Ali water plant in southern Iraq so the facility could resume pumping water into the Iraqi oil wells for more consistent oil flow. After major combat operations ceased in southern Iraq, KBR, a self-proclaimed expert in overseas infrastructure projects, was paid by the United States government to get the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant back online. The project necessarily required KBR to take ordinary and necessary safety precautions to protect those working at the site, including proper surveys of the site before and as work progressed. KBR was incentivized to get Qarmat Ali back online as quickly as possible without interruptions because it received not only base contract payments but also retrospective “award” payments for expeditious completion of the project.

1.2 Instead of doing what KBR promised and was paid to do for the Qarmat Ali project, KBR managers based in Kuwait City; Houston, Texas; Alexandria, Virginia; and elsewhere disregarded and downplayed the extreme danger of wholesale site contamination by sodium dichromate, a toxic chemical used at the site as an anti-corrosive and containing nearly pure hexavalent chromium. KBR managers knew about both the site contamination and the extreme danger of hexavalent chromium.

What these knowing acts and omissions meant to the Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen providing security for the actual work at Qarmat Ali, along with the British troops and the American civilians actually carrying on the work at Qarmat Ali, was months and months of unprotected, unknowing, direct exposure to one of the most potent carcinogens and mutagenic substances known to man: hexavalent chromium. When the Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen and American civilians actually working at Qarmat Ali began experiencing the most characteristic symptom of acute hexavalent chromium poisoning, nasal excoriation (bleeding from the nose) known to toxicologists as “chrome nose,” KBR managers told men onsite that their symptoms were simply an effect of the “dry desert air” and they must be “allergic to sand.” The Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen were repeatedly told that there was no danger on site, even after KBR managers knew that blood testing of American civilians exposed onsite confirmed elevated chromium levels. What was not revealed until Congressional Hearings in June 2008 was the extent of knowledge of KBR managers about the danger onsite and the ongoing concealment of the exposures to the Tell City Guardsmen and others.

On the classic question of what did they know and when did they know it:

There is no doubt that KBR’s managers knew before the Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen ever arrived at Qarmat Ali about the dangerous sodium dichromate contamination at the site. According to the sworn statement of KBR’s southern Iraq Health Safety Environment (HSE) manager Johnny Morney:

Q. How did you learn Sodium –

A. Jake Duhan was making a round as a safety professional. He made a round and he observed this.

Q. Mr. Duhan –

A. Right.

Q. — this observation that was conveyed to you -

A. Right.

Q. — in May 2003 –

A. Right.

Q. — how was it conveyed to you in May 2003? In what manner? Did

you get a memo, did you get a email?

A. In a conversation. He came in and it was in his daily report and we had a discussion, which was a requirement of all our HSE coordinators…

THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION – FRAUD

7.1 The Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen re-allege and incorporate each allegation contained in Paragraphs 1 to 6.2 of this Complaint as if fully set forth herein.

7.2 KBR was in contact with the United States Army regarding the dangers present at Qarmat Ali and materially misrepresented those dangers to the United States Army by denying any knowledge of site contamination until July 2003, failing to inform the United States Army of the dangers at Qarmat Ali while the Army was of the understanding that such dangers would be conveyed, and otherwise concealing evidence of sodium dichromate exposure even though KBR managers were aware of the sodium dichromate contamination in May 2003 and the dangers associated therewith.

7.3 The Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen were exposed to sodium dichromate despite the afore-referenced representations from KBR officials that falsely conveyed the impression and explicit understanding that Qarmat Ali was safe.

7.4 KBR had reason to expect and was substantially certain that its representations would be directly and indirectly communicated to the Tell City Guardsmen and that these misrepresentations would substantially increase the danger to the Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen by allaying any fears that they or the United States Army might have had about their exposure to such a potent carcinogen.

7.5 Had KBR not made these misrepresentations, actions would have been undertaken to protect the Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen from the sodium dichromate contamination and/or to otherwise remove this threat to the Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen.

7.6 The Tell City, Indiana Guardsmen suffered significant physical pain and mental anguish as a result of KBR’s above-discussed conduct and misrepresentations.

Full Story from Huffingtonpost.com

INDIANAPOLIS — After their lawsuit was dismissed in Indiana, attorneys for a group of National Guard soldiers have refiled it in Texas.

The lawsuit against a defense contractor claims the company knew of the presence of a deadly toxin at a site the soldiers were guarding in Iraq but waited before telling anyone.

The lawsuit against KBR was filed Tuesday in a federal court in Houston.

Brought by a group of attorneys led by Houston-based Mike Doyle, the lawsuit was dismissed in February by a federal judge in Indiana. The judge ruled the court lacks “personal jurisdiction” to take up the matter and did not consider the merits of the lawsuit.

The soldiers, about 140 from Indiana, say they were exposed to sodium dichromate, an anti-corrosive that was likely dusted across the wind-swept desert near Basra when Iraqis cut open storage containers as they fled the site at the beginning of the 2003 American-led invasion.

Known carcinogen

The soldiers were guarding Qar-mat Ali, a plant being operated by Houston-based KBR where water was pumped underground to boost oil production.

Sodium dichromate contains hexavalent chromium, a known human carcinogen. Exposure to the toxin, experts say, can cause nosebleeds and severe respiratory problems, as well as heightened risks of cancer, and kidney and liver diseases.

The soldiers’ lawyers charge that KBR was aware of the risk but kept it secret. KBR has said it collected air samples that showed low levels of the chemical. Doyle’s team also is representing soldiers in cases pending in Oregon and West Virginia.

One of the exposed soldiers, Lt. Col. James Gentry, 52, of Mitchell, Ind., died in November. Gentry, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed in 2006 with a rare form of lung cancer. Military doctors say it most likely was caused by the exposure.

“Only the good Lord knows what happened at that site,” said Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger, Indiana’s top-ranking National Guard general, at the funeral of Gentry, who commanded the group including soldiers from a battalion based in Jasper, Ind., and Tell City, Ind.

Another soldier, David Moore, 42, of Dubois, Ind., died in 2008.

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