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McCullom Lake Settlement will Help Pay for Screenings

By KEVIN P. CRAVER
kcraver@nwherald.com

Almost 700 people qualified for vouchers to pay for medical monitoring under the settlement with one of the companies named in the McCullom Lake brain cancer lawsuits.

Vouchers for medical screening for up to $2,020 started being mailed last week to 695 current and former village residents under a $2 million settlement with Modine Manufacturing Co. in neighboring Ringwood. Modine and neighboring manufacturer Rohm and Haas are named in a class-action lawsuit and 23 individual lawsuits blaming groundwater and air pollution from their Ringwood plants for brain and nerve cancer cases in McCullom Lake.

Philadelphia attorney Aaron Freiwald, who sued in April 2006 on behalf of three former next-door neighbors diagnosed with brain cancer over an eight-month period, said he was pleased that so many people wanted monitoring.

"I’m very excited that these funds are now becoming available for these many people," Freiwald said. "This is a huge response, and demonstrates that people in this community really want this benefit, and I think it’s extremely important that the people in the community get this benefit."

Rohm and Haas, also based in Philadelphia, continues to fight the class-action lawsuit in federal court. A judge is expected to rule on whether the lawsuit can proceed to a civil trial.

While Modine denies any connection between pollution from its plant and any illnesses, it tentatively agreed in January to pay $1.4 million toward medical monitoring, $100,000 toward property value relief, and the remaining $500,000 toward a partial reimbursement of the law firm’s legal costs to include the cost of implementing the settlement.

Checks for $396.34 also were mailed last week to 253 claimants who qualified for property value relief. Freiwald acknowledged the amount is small, but said that Modine was a minimal contributor to area groundwater contamination. Solvents dumped into an on-site pit between 1968 and 1982 ended up mingling with the much larger plume from Rohm and Haas’ closed 8-acre landfill, according to research commissioned by both companies.

"We believe Rohm and Haas is by far and away the more responsible party, and in terms of the settlement dollars, we felt and the court agreed that the greater priority now was maximizing the funds available to provide for the medical screening," Freiwald said.

Racine, Wis.-based Modine has declined comment on the issue since the lawsuits were filed, except for a brief statement made after the settlement was announced.

People wanting medical monitoring had to have lived in village limits for at least one cumulative year between Jan. 1, 1968, and Dec. 31, 2002. Property value relief was eligible to anyone owning property in the village since the first lawsuits were filed on April 25, 2006.

Modine settled with the 23 individual plaintiffs in Pennsylvania state court for undisclosed amounts. Eighteen of the 23 plaintiffs have brain or nerve cancer, three have pituitary cancer, and one each have liver cancer or liver cirrhosis. Ten of the plaintiffs are dead, three of whom died in the past 12 months.

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