Raytheon jerking around town of Andrews

"United Technologies Automotive was in the town of Andrews in Huntington County for

18 years.

During that time, the town claims a local factory dumped chemicals that wound up in their groundwater. Thirty years later, the chemicals still taint the water below Andrews. It’s something that even Raytheon admits, as their response to Andrews, “Raytheon also admits that there are two plumes of contamination in the groundwater in the Town of Andrews, Indiana.”

And those chemicals have been the focal point of a number of lawsuits.

There are at least three separate court cases that include over 150 plaintiffs all alleging “independent personal injury, property damage and/or nuisance claims against Raytheon and the other defendants,” according to a document provided by the Raytheon defendants. The three main cases (referred to as the Asher, Zidar, and Coffield cases).

 

Former UTA employee Samuel Avalos testified that he dumped barrels of Trichloroethylene (TCE) while working in Andrews. 

A motion that Andrews filed against Raytheon and other companies stated:

“He was required to clean out the used TCE from the factory’s vapor degreaser at least once a week. When Avalos cleaned out the degreaser, he collected ‘at least a couple of barrels’ of used TCE. Avalos testified that for a one-to-two year period, upon instructions from the UTA Facility’s engineering manager, he would wheel the barrels of used TCE to the edge of a loading dock, and ‘we’d dump them on the ground’ into the grassy area behind the factory.”

 

TCE breaks down into dichloroethylene isomers and vinyl chloride which, according to the CDC, can cause “permanent liver injury and liver cancer, neurologic or behavioral symptoms, and changes to the skin and bones of the hand.”

Because of those adverse effects, the EPA says that any more than two parts per billion of Vinyl Chloride makes water unsafe to use.

According to a test taken by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in 2014, there was as much as 532 ppb in the groundwater.

In other words, 266 times the limit you can safely drink.

 

 .....in 2020 when residents were instructed not to use their water.

Due to smell and taste complaints, Andrews had previously shut off the first of their three wells that provide public drinking water to the town. However, when wells two and three were no longer producing enough to cover the city’s water needs, they turned pump one back on.

That’s when Andrews became the site of a crisis.

 

Ahead of the actual trial, a status conference was scheduled to be held in Adams County Court on July 27th.

However on July 26th, a day before the status conference on the case, Raytheon submitted a motion and memorandum to change how the case is processed.

In short, the defense is trying to condense the number of plaintiffs. You can read the document in full here.

In response, the plaintiffs requested a continuation that would push back the status conference until August 25." WANEtv