Lockheed Martin is a major war corporation. (Photo: Internet)
Miami, September 30 (RHC)-- Two lawsuits filed in U.S. courts allege that U.S.-based weapons company Lockheed Martin has mishandled toxins at a Florida facility for decades, causing life-threatening health issues in workers and nearby residents.
One of the lawsuits was filed on behalf residents of Tangelo Park in Orange County, Florida where the Lockheed Martin facility is located. The other was filed on behalf of 13 employees of the Golf Channel, which has headquarters near Tangelo Park, a census-designated area with a population of around 2,300 that is roughly 80 percent Black, according to Statistical Atlas.
The suits alleged “reckless mismanagement of extremely hazardous toxins” on the part of Lockheed Martin, including “heavy metals, persistent environmental pollutants, and Volatile Organic Compounds [VOC]”, which are unstable materials that vaporise, lending to their ability to contaminate air, water and soil.
These toxins were used in the cleaning and production of certain goods produced by the company at the Florida facility, the suit filed on behalf of the 13 Golf Channel employees alleged. Trichloroethylene and methylene chloride are two such VOCs that have been found in the groundwater under the facility, it continues.
While the Environmental Protection Agency advised these chemicals be kept to five parts per billion (ppb), a way to count contaminants, trichloroethylene has “been detected in concentrations as high as 386,000 ppb” and methylene chloride “has been detected in concentrations as high as 213,600 ppb in groundwater under the Orlando Facility,” the suit alleged.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of the Golf Channel employees claimed Emilio San Martin, who worked and lived near the facility from 1994 until 2014, was “diagnosed with brain lesions, multiple sclerosis, and hypoactive thyroid” as a result of Lockheed Martin’s actions.
