Showing posts with label troops sue KBR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label troops sue KBR. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

OEF OIF Veterans Burning For You

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
May 21, 2014

Burn Pits have been making troops sick and Congress was fixing it in 2008. If you think any of what is going on with our troops and veterans is new, it isn't. It has been one long nightmare for all of them.

This is another reminder of what Congress did not take care of. Aside from the troubles with the VA, there are so many other things Congress could have fixed but they played politics with the troops the same as they played politics with our veterans. It is like a game to them but the men and women serving this country had to pay for it.
Seven members of Congress have added their names to a growing list of legislators concerned about service members who say burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have made them sick.

“It has come to our attention that a growing number of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are becoming sick and dying from what appears to be overexposure to dangerous toxins produced by burn pits used to destroy waste,” reads a letter from Rep. Tim Bishop, D-N.Y., to Eric Shinseki, the new secretary of veterans affairs. “Further conversations with other veterans have revealed that the armed forces have not investigated this threat adequately.”

That piece of news didn't come out last year or the year before. It came out in 2009.

What did Congress do? They wrote a bill.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., would amend Title 38 of the U.S. Code, which deals with veterans benefits, by adding a passage stating that a veteran exposed in the line of duty to “an occupational and environmental health chemical hazard of particular concern” is eligible for hospital care, medical services and nursing home care for any disability, even if there is “insufficient medical evidence to conclude that such disability may be associated with exposure.”

The bill comes in the wake of a series of hearings about troops being exposed to carcinogenic material at Qarmat Ali water treatment plant in Iraq; a sulfur fire in Mosul, Iraq; and burn-pit smoke throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.

The veterans felt they had no other choice but to sue KBR in 2010.
Some 241 military personnel and contractors who became ill after serving in Afghanistan and Iraq are suing a Houston-based firm, claiming they were poisoned by smoke from trash fires, the Washington Post reported Friday.

The claimants, who are from 42 states, are suffering from a range of conditions including cancer and severe breathing problems, which they blame on the thick, black smoke. The symptoms were reportedly nicknamed "Iraqi crud" by troops.

They are taking legal action against Kellogg Brown & Root, which operated more than two dozen burn-pits in the two countries, the Post reported. It used to be a subsidiary of Halliburton, which is a also a defendant in the case.

Veterans Returning Home From Iraq, Afghanistan Point To Open Air Burn Pits As New ‘Agent Orange’
CBS News
Ken Bastida
May 20, 2014
They’ve filed class action lawsuits, alleging the operator of the pits KBR and its former parent company Halliburton acted negligently. KBR denies that, and argues as a military contractor it shares the same immunity as the government from lawsuits over war related injuries.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Hundreds of veterans coming back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are falling ill and many are dying of what’s being called the new “Agent Orange”: open air burn pits.

There’s no proven cause but vets and their families say they know why.

Lieutenant Colonel Gwen Chiaramonte is proud to have served her country. At Balad Air Force Base in Iraq she was a combat stress therapist, familiar with exposure to danger off base. “You worry but you think you just have to live,” she said.

Now she believes there was danger from within too: An open air pit where the base’s garbage was burned. “They they just threw everything in. Vehicles, tires, plastic bottles, trash, medical waste, dead animals. Then they would pour jet fuel on it and just light it,” she said.

Chiaramonte says the burn pit spewed columns of ashy smoke that often blew right into her nearby housing unit. “It would smell like it would be on fire,” she said.

She started getting constant nose bleeds. Then when she got home, the really bad news: A rare form of aggressive ovarian cancer.
read more here
This makes all of this seem even worse since this is what came out in 2008

Monday, December 1, 2008


Senator Akaka wants answers on burn pit toxins

Akaka wants DoD, VA to review war-zone toxins

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 1, 2008 19:08:25 EST

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has asked that the co-chairs of the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs Oversight Committee begin a review of environmental toxins — including those coming from burn pits — at bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Reports of possible exposure to smoke from burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have come to the committee’s attention,” Akaka wrote in a letter dated Dec. 1. “Concerns about such exposure would appear to be an ideal opportunity for focused efforts to track the location of service members in relation to the possible exposure sites.”

The letter was addressed to Gordon England, deputy defense secretary, and Gordon Mansfield, deputy VA secretary.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

KBR found guilty wants tax payers to pay again for Iraq veterans

KBR, Guilty In Iraq Negligence, Wants Taxpayers To Foot The Bill
Ryan J. Reilly
Posted: 01/09/2013

WASHINGTON -- Sodium dichromate is an orange-yellowish substance containing hexavalent chromium, an anti-corrosion chemical. To Lt. Col. James Gentry of the Indiana National Guard, who was stationed at the Qarmat Ali water treatment center in Iraq just after the 2003 U.S. invasion, it was “just different-colored sand.” In their first few months at the base, soldiers were told by KBR contractors running the facility the substance was no worse than a mild irritant.

Gentry was one of approximately 830 service members, including active-duty soldiers and members of the National Guard and reserve units from Indiana, South Carolina, West Virginia and Oregon, assigned to secure the water treatment plant, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Sodium dichromate is not a mild irritant. It is an extreme carcinogen. In November 2009, at age 52, Gentry died of cancer. The VA affirmed two months later that his death was service-related.

In November, a jury found KBR, the military's largest contractor, guilty of negligence in the poisoning of a dozen soldiers, and ordered the company to pay $85 million in damages. Jurors found KBR knew both of the presence and toxicity of the chemical. Other lawsuits against KBR are pending.

KBR, however, says taxpayers should be on the hook for the verdict, as well as more than $15 million the company has spent in its failed legal defense, according to court documents and attorneys involved with the case.

KBR's contract with the U.S. to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure after the 2003 invasion includes an indemnity agreement protecting the company from legal liability, KBR claims in court filings. That agreement, KBR insists, means the federal government must pay the company's legal expenses plus the verdict won by 12 members of the Oregon National Guard who were exposed to the toxin at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant.
read more here

Saturday, November 13, 2010

KBR knew of exposure in Iraq

Documents: KBR knew of exposure in Iraq
By Tim Fought - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Nov 12, 2010 21:38:25 EST
PORTLAND, Ore. — Months after arriving on the job in 2003, a U.S. defense contractor trying to restore Iraq’s oil fields had blood and urine tests showing personnel with “significant exposure” to a toxic, cancer-causing industrial chemical, according to federal court documents.

The documents, first disclosed Thursday by The Oregonian newspaper, are part of a lawsuit National Guard troops filed in federal court in Portland against the contractor — Kellogg, Brown and Root of Houston. The troops allege they have health problems and increased risk of cancer and were exposed well after the dangers of sodium dichromate were known.

The company had a no-bid contract from the Bush administration, which hoped Iraqi oil revenue would help pay for the war.

Guard soldiers from Oregon, Indiana and West Virginia who provided security at the Qarmat Ali water plant are involved in suits against KBR. Their lawyers cite minutes of an Oct. 2, 2003, meeting, held at the request of Iraqi oil officials, to discuss an investigation by health, safety and environmental staff members of KBR.

“Urine and blood sample showed elevated levels of chromium, meaning that there was a significant exposure,” said the notes attributed to a KBR official, Chuck Adams. “Cannot allow personnel to be exposed, company will be liable if let this happen.”

read more here
KBR knew of exposure in Iraq

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth’s parents will get day in court

Lawsuit against KBR over soldier's electrocution to go forward
By Lisa M. Novak
Stars and Stripes
Published: August 18, 2010

A lawsuit against military contractor KBR for the 2008 death of an Army Special Forces soldier will go forward, according to a ruling Tuesday by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.

The federal appeals court rejected KBR’s request to dismiss the wrongful death suit, brought by Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth’s parents in 2008. Maseth was electrocuted in January 2008 while showering at the Radwaniyah Palace Complex in Baghdad, a facility maintained by KBR.

A Defense Department investigation concluded KBR did not properly ground the water pump which led to Maseth’s electrocution.

Prior to Maseth’s death, the company said it was never directed to perform repairs or upgrades in the building where he lived.
go here for more
Lawsuit against KBR

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

New lawsuit filed in shower electrocution

New lawsuit filed in shower electrocution

The Associated Press
Posted : Tuesday Dec 22, 2009 8:39:02 EST

PITTSBURGH — The mother of a soldier electrocuted in an Army barracks shower in Iraq has filed a second lawsuit targeting another military contractor.

Cheryl Harris on Monday sued Washington Group International of San Francisco, which allegedly did electrical work in her son’s barracks from 2003 to 2005.

Army investigators say a water pump shorted out, electrocuting Harris’ son while he showered. Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, is one of 18 people electrocuted at Iraq military facilities since 2003.
read more here
New lawsuit filed in shower electrocution

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia National Guards, cancer and KBR

Did KBR know Iraq locale was polluted, putting soldiers at risk?

By SHARON COHEN AP National Writer
UNDATED - Larry Roberta's every breath is a painful reminder of his time in Iraq. He can't walk a block without gasping for air. His chest hurts, his migraines sometimes persist for days and he needs pills to help him sleep.

James Gentry came home with rashes, ear troubles and a shortness of breath. Later, things got much worse: He developed lung cancer, which spread to his spine, ribs and one of his thighs; he must often use a cane, and no longer rides his beloved Harley.

David Moore's postwar life turned into a harrowing medical mystery: nosebleeds and labored breathing that made it impossible to work, much less speak. His desperate search for answers ended last year when he died of lung disease at age 42.

What these three men - one sick, one dying, one dead - had in common is they were National Guard soldiers on the same stretch of wind-swept desert in Iraq during the early months of the war in 2003.

These soldiers and hundreds of other Guard members from Indiana, Oregon and West Virginia were protecting workers hired by a subsidiary of the giant contractor, KBR Inc., to rebuild an Iraqi water treatment plant. The area, as it turned out, was contaminated with hexavalent chromium, a potent, sometimes deadly chemical linked to cancer and other devastating diseases.
go here for more
http://www.katu.com/news/national/49006416.html

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

5 more burn-pit lawsuits filed against KBR

5 more burn-pit lawsuits filed against KBR

By Kelly Kennedy - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jun 16, 2009 17:12:49 EDT

Lawyers for veterans who believe they became sick after exposure to the smoke from open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan have filed five more class-action lawsuits against KBR, the contractor that operated many of the burn-pit sites for the military.

The new lawsuits — filed in Florida, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina and Utah federal courts — accuse KBR of exposing troops to toxins from giant burn pits used to dispose of garbage on bases. At Joint Base Balad, Iraq, 250 tons of garbage were burned every day at one point, including 90,000 plastic bottles each day. Troops have also documented the burning of petroleum products, amputated limbs of Iraqis, benzene and Styrofoam, as well as other materials known to produce cancer-causing toxins when burned.

The lawsuit in Florida includes the family of Air Force Maj. Kevin Wilkins, who died of brain cancer five days after a tumor was discovered. He had served at Balad, and when his doctor asked if he had been exposed to any toxins, Wilkins immediately suggested the burn pit.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/military_burnpit_lawsuits_061609w/

Thursday, June 4, 2009

6 soldiers sue KBR, Halliburton over burn pits

6 soldiers sue KBR, Halliburton over burn pits

The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jun 4, 2009 18:37:26 EDT

SAN ANTONIO — Soldiers are among six Texans suing Houston-based KBR and Halliburton over burn pits at U.S. camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The suit filed in a San Antonio federal court alleges the military contractors burned everything from trucks and tires to human corpses in the large war-zone pits. Plantiffs say the burning waste released toxins that harmed at least 10,000 people.
go here for more
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_army_burn_pits_060409/