Laura Sturza
BURBANK -- Lockheed Martin Corp. will pay $1.25 million to settle a
lawsuit with 40 residents who allege the company's chemical runoff
contaminated Burbank water, causing illness, death and property damage.
While the firm said it was able to "scientifically prove that we
didn't harm anyone," Lockheed spokeswoman Gail Rymer said solvents did
enter the ground water as the result of 60 years of operations. But she
said "there is no cause and effect."
"There is no scientific evidence linking those chemicals or solvents
to the claims of the plaintiffs," Rymer said.
The attorney for the plaintiffs maintain that their clients'
allegations were sound, but that past rulings, including claims dismissed
based on the statute of limitations, made it difficult to prove in court.
"If you're exposed to a chemical that causes an illness and you get
the illness, then you might conclude it was a result of that exposure,"
Attorney Steven N. Williams said. "There's a lot of things that can be
thrown at you in the courtroom to confuse that."
The trial was postponed when Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer broke her hip,
which meant the case could have been declared a mistrial, and that the
parties might have had to wait as much as a year for a new trial.
"When we considered everything we had already invested with the
prospect of waiting another year, we felt the amount of $1.25 million was a reasonable settlement to close out the litigation," Rymer said.
The company has already spent more than $265 million to clean up
drinking water, and expects to spend up to another $100 million by 2022,
officials said.
The firm paid $60 million in 1996 to 1,350 residents and $5 million in
2000 to 400 residents in out-of-court settlements related to
cancer-causing chemicals first found in 1980 in Burbank.
