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ST. PETERSBURG — For more than a year, Nancy Sher has been holding her breath to see what a federal judge would say about the lawsuit she and four neighbors filed against Raytheon over chemical contamination spreading beneath their homes.
On Wednesday she got an answer. U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington ruled that the case could go forward as a class-action suit. That means Raytheon now could face claims for damages from more than 1,000 property owners in the Azalea neighborhood where its factory stood.
"I really feel like it's a blessing,'' Sher said. "The people have all stood shoulder-to-shoulder on this."
Raytheon spokesman Jonathan Kasle noted that this is just the first step in the case, and in the meantime the company is working with state environmental officials to clean up the contamination.
Kasle pointed out that the Azalea residents dropped their claims that the toxic chemicals are damaging their health, and instead focused on showing the plume damaged property values.
"Nobody will say there's no risk" from the chemicals, said Joseph Saunders, one of the attorneys representing the residents. "But the science doesn't rise to the level that we can prove in court."
However, Raytheon lost on another front. The judge's 44-page ruling uses the estimate by the plaintiffs' expert, not Raytheon, about how large the plume is now: a mile long and up to 1.7 miles wide.
Workers discovered the contamination in 1991 during construction of the Pinellas Trail. It originated from a drum storage area when it belonged to a previous owner, E-Systems. When Raytheon bought E-Systems in 1995, it inherited the pollution headache.
In February 1999, Raytheon told state officials the plume was dissipating naturally, so it posed "no imminent ...risk." But six months later, in August 1999, state and Raytheon officials met to discuss the fact that the plume had begun spreading. No one notified residents of the problem until 2008.
Raytheon has submitted a 2,200-page cleanup plan to the state. State officials have until next month to decide whether to approve it.
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