A San Jose jury is now listening to arguments about whether Olin
Corporation should pay tens of millions of dollars to four families
who claim perchlorate contamination damaged their rural lifestyles
as well as their home values. We hope the jury will apply common
sense in deciding whether the plaintiffs have actually suffered any
damage.
A San Jose jury is now listening to arguments about whether Olin Corporation should pay tens of millions of dollars to four families who claim perchlorate contamination damaged their rural lifestyles as well as their home values. We hope the jury will apply common sense in deciding whether the plaintiffs have actually suffered any damage.
It is difficult to understand how plaintiff Teresa Pereira can claim to have suffered a damaged home value when her home has increased in value from $410,000 in 1998 to $990,000 earlier this year.
It is difficult to understand how the plaintiffs can claim to have grave fears about perchlorate contamination when they showed no concern about the nitrate contamination that has been documented in South County ground water for decades, or when they refused to allow Olin to install a proven well-head treatment system.
It is difficult to understand how Pereira could be so unconcerned about nitrate-contaminated water that she would give it to her young daughter and drink it all through her pregnancy, then be so anxious on learning of the perchlorate contamination that she became unable to breastfeed, even though bottled water was available, courtesy of Olin Corp.
It is especially difficult to understand how Pereira could believe the perchlorate tests that say her untreated well water contains 11 parts per billion of perchlorate, and then disbelieve those same tests when they show an inexpensive under-the-sink reverse-osmosis system will remove those perchlorates, as well as other contaminants.
Olin has not been faultless through this whole sorry saga. The company contaminated the ground water to begin with.
It resisted testing the groundwater flowing north of its former road flare factory. It stopped providing bottled water to families whose water tested below 6 ppb as soon as the public health goal was set at 6 ppb.
But neither has the company been a villain. It has provided bottled water to families whose wells tested above 6 ppb for perchlorate. It has hired a top-rated consultant to oversee its cleanup efforts.
The company has removed the worst of the contaminated soil and laced it with calcium magnesium acetate and gypsum to spur growth of anaerobic bacteria which eat the perchlorate.
Its efforts so far have lowered the perchlorate levels at the site from thousands of parts per billion to less than 100.
The plaintiffs have a right to sue. The Seventh Amendment guarantees that right: “In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed $20, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved….”
But the jury has a right, too. The jury has a right to decide the plaintiffs’ claims are based on hysteria or greed, rather than truth or justice or common sense.
The jury has a right, nay, a duty, to infuse a little justice and a little common sense into this suit at common law. We hope they will do so.
