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Path for EPA suit cleared

A federal judge Thursday allowed former workers from the Air Force's secret Groom Lake base in Lincoln County to use fictitious names in a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency.

The order by Judge John Garrett Penn, chief of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., allows a lawsuit by six former workers at the Groom Lake base to proceed, clearing the way for additional legal action, said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who filed the complaint.

"It's a very significant event for us," Turley said in a telephone interview.

The citizen-action lawsuit names EPA Administrator Carol Browner as defendant because Turley claims her agency failed to inspect the secret base, 35 miles west of Alamo. Citizen-action complaints are filed when citizens believe the government has failed to carry out its duties.

Former base workers have said they were exposed to toxic smoke from hazardous wastes that were routinely burned in open trenches.

Turley had asked the court to allow his clients to sue under fictitious names because they fear reprisal from authorities at the base, where secrecy fostered abuses of the government's own hazardous waste laws, he said.

The six John Does filed affidavits that say the burning or burying of waste "occurred almost daily and certainly weekly" at the Groom Lake base.

"The series of trenches used in the incineration process were approximately 12 to 20 yards across and at least 100 yards long and 12 to 20 yards deep," the affidavits say.

"Most workers had access to the trenches except during periods when armed Air Force security troops would be stationed around the trenches for the disposal of secret waste," according to the plaintiffs' sworn statements.

"I was given no protective gear in the handling of waste or respiratory gear in working in the smoke-laden environment," one plaintiff said.

"The smoke from the burning made workers sick and caused them to complain, but there was no effort to protect them from the continued disposal of waste in the trenches," he said.

The lawsuit says, "No effort was made by either the Air Force or the companies operating under contract at the Groom Lake base to protect the plaintiffs orthese other workers, nor was any effort made to respond to their complaints."

The 17-page complaint says Lockheed Corp. was one of several contractors that conducted top-secret activities at the base in concert with the Air Force.

"Among other activities, the Air Force is developing, testing and operating new generation, experimental reconnaissance aircraft at the Groom Lake base," the lawsuit says.

The suit notes that planes that were tested at the base are made of new composite materials and use new fuels and aeronautical systems.

"Hazardous substances, including plastics, solvents, sealants, and paint wastes" have been used at the base, the complaint says.

Wastes from these materials consist of dioxins, methyl ethyl ketone, trichloroethylene and dibenzofurans _ some of which are suspected cancer-causing agents.

"In trenches, other materials including rubber, plastics and vinyl were also deposited. A black cloud would often rise from the area" where the materials were doused with flammable liquids and ignited, the complaint says.

EPA officials in Washington, D.C. have declined to comment on the case.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that the EPA failed to perform its duties.