(The following story by Brendan M. Case appeared on The Dallas Morning News website on January 7.)
DALLAS — One of many lawsuits against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. claiming a railroad tie factory poisoned residents in the small town of Somerville, causing cancer and birth defects, is set to go to trial in Fort Worth this week.
The suit was filed by Linda and Donnie Faust, two of the dozens of people living in the Central Texas town who have sued the Fort Worth-based railroad company over a railroad tie factory owned by a predecessor firm until 1995.
The Fausts say creosote and other dangerous substances released by the factory helped cause Ms. Faust’s devastating stomach cancer. Donnie Faust has worked at the plant near the Fausts’ home since 1974.
The couple is seeking at least $6 million in damages from a unit of BNSF, BNSF Railway.
Jury selection is scheduled for today, with opening statements on Tuesday.
In their suit, the Fausts claim the operator of the railroad tie plant “knew the grave, and sometimes fatal, consequences to the plaintiffs and persons of the general public in and around the wood treatment facility.”
Their lawyer, Jared Woodfill, said last week: “The railroad had a dirty little secret, and they buried it in a place where they thought no one would look, listen or care. That place was a little town deep in the heart of Texas.”
BNSF Railway said through a spokesman that it is sympathetic to Ms. Faust but that there is “no reliable scientific evidence to support her claim.” As likely causes of the cancer that led to removal of the woman’s stomach, the railroad instead cited Ms. Faust’s longtime smoking habit, as well as a bacterium it said was found in her stomach and has been categorized as a carcinogen.
“BNSF believes that this litigation is based on lawsuit-driven junk science,” the company said in a statement.
The Fausts’ lawsuit is one of multiple suits from Somerville residents against BNSF. The railroad has denied the allegations since the first cases were filed several years ago but settled with one former employee for an undisclosed amount.
Other Somerville residents are also targeting the company that now owns the factory, Koppers Inc., a Pittsburgh-based producer of chemicals, carbon compounds and treated wood products.
One of the lawsuits, which is seeking class-action status in federal court, calls on BNSF and Koppers to pay to relocate the entire town of about 1,700 people.
“There are so many people who are sick and dying as a result of the contamination from the facility,” said Grover Hankins, a Houston-area lawyer representing some of the plaintiffs. “They don’t deserve to live there and stay there and die there.”
Koppers called the allegations unfounded and without merit.
“Koppers believes there is no credible scientific or medical evidence linking the Somerville plant to the occurrence of cancer,” the company said in a statement.
About 90 miles northwest of Houston, Somerville is named for Albert Somerville, the first president of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway.
That railroad became the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, which bought the railroad tie factory in the early 20th century and owned it for 90 years. The storied railroad sold the plant to Koppers in 1995; it also merged with Burlington Northern later that year to create BNSF.
The plant still treats more than a million railroad ties a year. BNSF maintained control of the property after selling the plant. The railroad is cleaning up groundwater contamination, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
In an open letter published in Somerville-area newspapers last month, Koppers vice president and general manager Thomas Loadman said air and soil tests in Somerville had acceptable results.
Mr. Loadman also cited a study saying that working at a wood treatment plant does not increase a person’s risk of dying from cancer or other causes.
Mr. Loadman’s letter appeared shortly after the Houston Press, a weekly newspaper, published a long article about Somerville’s health problems.
According to the Houston Press article:
•Stomach-cancer rates in Somerville are far higher than the national average, according to a toxicologist retained by plaintiffs’ lawyers.
•Improper handling and disposal of hazardous substances were common at the factory, while safety training and equipment were scarce.
•Some documents related to the plant’s handling of dangerous substances are missing.
One longtime factory employee watched his uncle and brother die of cancer, and his granddaughter had serious birth defects, according to the article. The employee himself was diagnosed with cancer in 2006.
Meanwhile, BNSF and Koppers cite state health studies that have found no increased incidence of cancer in the Somerville area.
Experts hired by plaintiffs’ lawyers say those studies are flawed because they relied on potentially inaccurate information contained in death certificates and may have excluded people who moved away or died elsewhere.
As for the Fausts, their lawsuit went to trial last year, but a mistrial was declared after one of their lawyers mentioned the other suits against the railroad despite a judge’s warning not to do so.