Exxon Hid Radiation Risk to Workers, Witness Says

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. energy company, “knew or should have known” that drilling pipes it sent to a Louisiana pipe yard were contaminated with dangerous radioactive material, a trial witness testified.

Paul Templet, a former secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Environmental Quality, told jurors yesterday in a lawsuit trial in state court in Gretna, Louisiana, that internal Exxon memos showed the company had information beginning in the 1930s about cancer-causing radium in the residue, or “scale,” that built up inside its pipes.

Templet was the first witness for 19 former pipe workers who are suing Exxon, claiming they were exposed to radiation and now fear they may get cancer. He said Exxon failed to report the contamination to his former agency until as late as 1988, endangering workers who cleaned the pipes at a Louisiana site.

“If you keep the information from the workers, you’re creating a big problem,” Templet told the 12 jurors and four alternates.

Exxon denies it did anything wrong and says none of the 19 plaintiffs has suffered any radiation-related health problems.

Templet took the stand for a second day today, as Exxon lawyers tried to discredit his testimony. In response to cross- examination, Templet said that he has been an expert witness on 16 matters since 2000, hired exclusively by plaintiffs.

The workers are all former employees of Intracoastal Tubular Services, or ITCO, at a site in Harvey, Louisiana, near New Orleans.

Hazardous Water

The workers claim Exxon delayed disclosure of the risk to prevent federal authorities from reclassifying as hazardous waste the radioactive water it pumped from wells.

“Exxon knew about this hazard,” Timothy J. Falcon, a lawyer for the workers, said yesterday in his opening statement to the jury. “They didn’t tell.”

After Templet’s testimony today, the plaintiffs called Ian Waldram, an occupational health and safety expert, who testified that radium contamination of drilling pipes was discovered in a North Sea oil platform in 1981.

Waldram said he tested pipes for BritOil, his employer at the time, and found contamination.

Radium, when inhaled or ingested, can cause lung cancer and other diseases, Waldram said. He called the external radiation- detection badges given to the ITCO workers after Exxon disclosed the radiation problem “scientific nonsense.”

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