Word: silkwoods
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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That bit of morbid humor refers to possible resentment by the Kerr-McGee Corp., a major energy conglomerate, over testimony Smith has given in a bitter trial. It is the celebrated $11.5 million negligence suit brought by the heirs of Karen Silkwood, a former employee at a Kerr-McGee plutonium-processing facility in nearby Crescent (pop. 1,568). She accused the company of being cavalier about worker safety, and then died at 28 in a still mysterious car accident in 1974. The trial, however, focuses on charges that Kerr-McGee was negligent in a series of plutonium contaminations that took...
Three Mile Island also comes at a time of renewed interest in the case of Karen Silkwood, who was killed in 1974 when her car ran off a road as she was on her way to meet with a reporter to discuss the unsafe handling of highly radioactive plutonium at a Kerr-McGee Corp. plant in Oklahoma. The trial in an $11.5 million suit filed by Silkwood's family against the company is now under way in Oklahoma City...
...turn, the family will produce witnesses who will contend that Silkwood had been too horrified by the contamination to have possibly caused it herself. The family concedes that it cannot prove who planted the poison, but suggests that someone was out to scare Silkwood-and had certainly succeeded. The Silkwood lawyers will also try to turn Kerr-McGee's argument against itself. If Silkwood could have slipped lethal quantities of plutonium out of the plant, they will ask the jury, does not that mean that any employee could do so? And would not that prove that the "highest...
...family intends to show that the papers Silkwood was carrying on the night of her death would have demonstrated the company's carelessness. Lawyer Gerald Spence claimed in court that Silkwood wanted to "tell the public" that a startling 40 Ibs. of plutonium was missing from the plant. Spence also said she had X rays of fuel rods that had been retouched by the company to conceal faulty seals. Her point: a defective rod could cause a catastrophic accident. The family also intends to call former company employees, including a plant manager, to testify to these and other mishandlings...
...closed in 1976, 14 months after Silkwood's death, when Westinghouse, which had been buying its fuel rods, complained of their poor quality and refused to re new its contract. Nevertheless, the entire nuclear power industry, increasingly embroiled in controversy over its handling of radioactive materials, is watching the suit closely. If the judge and jury accept the claims of the company's liability made by the Silkwood lawyers, the case could force the industry to make drastic and costly revisions in its process of producing the highly radioactive metal that is used in breeder reactors...