It's been almost a year since Ronald Sack
drilled into a barrel containing an unknown
liquid 20 feet underground at the Atlantic
Station construction site -- the $2 billion
mini-city planned for Midtown.
"It was fluorescent green -- stunk real bad,"
Sack says. "It burned my nose."
He's been sick ever since, starting with
severe headaches that began after he dug into
the barrel. These days he's losing hair, his
teeth are loosening in their sockets. There are
several bumps just under the surface of his skin
that move around and show up on X-rays.
None of the doctors he went to had a clue as
to what exactly was wrong with him -- until last
month.
At the time, Sack's tongue was swollen,
discolored and lumpy. He went to Dr. David
Williams in Marietta and during the examination
Williams produced a most unusual instrument -- a
Geiger counter.
The Geiger counter was silent over Sack's
liver. But when Williams put it over Sack's
thyroid gland, it gave a reading of 40 clicks
per minute -- about double what are considered
safe levels of radioactivity, according to Dr.
Ernest Sternglass, professor emeritus of
radiological physics in the department of
radiology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Sternglass has not been hired by Sack, and
was contacted independently by Creative
Loafing.
As of yet, there's no way to know if Sack was
exposed to radiation at the Atlantic Station
site, which for decades was an industrial site
home to a hazardous waste depot and steel
manufacturing company. Sack was fired shortly
after he dug up the barrel.
Gerald Pouncey, a partner at Morris, Manning
& Martin who has acted as the environmental
counsel for Atlantic Station since the inception
of the project, says, "The new allegations
relating to the Atlantic Station Project are so
outlandish that they do not merit a response."
But Sack and his attorney, Marie Harkins, are
requesting that the state Environmental
Protection Division perform a radiation survey
of Atlantic Station to be sure. They've also
asked for help in locating the barrel Sack
uncovered. Back in November, Brian Brown, safety
director for the subcontractor Sack worked for,
told Creative Loafing that a hazardous
waste response team removed the barrel.
"The thing we want to do first is to find out
what the heck is wrong with him," Harkins says.
"If we could find out what was in the barrel
then we could find out what's wrong with him. If
we can't find the barrel, then we'll need a
survey of the site."
EPD spokesman Kevin Chambers says, "I don't
think there's a precedent for something like
this. We would have to evaluate this request and
determine if EPD has the expertise and resources
to accomplish what [Harkins] requested."
As to when EPD would decide how to handle the
radiation survey request, Chambers says, "It's
too early to say."
Harkins also asked the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention's Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry to conduct a
public health assessment at the site. Since she
made her request, the agency has gathered
records from the EPD and U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency about the Atlantic Station
site. A CDC spokeswoman says that a decision on
whether to conduct the health assessment will be
reached by the end of the month.
In May, Sack and Harkins filed a lawsuit
against Atlantic Station alleging the developers
"did knowingly, fraudulently and recklessly
suppress material facts that Mr. Ron Sack was
exposed to contaminated soil and groundwater
located at the site."
Harkins dropped the suit March 18 because she
says Sack needed a new diagnosis after his
symptoms changed.
"They tell me something is wrong with me,"
Sack says. "But they don't know what because
they don't know what's wrong over there" at the
Atlantic Station site.
05.15.02
.gif){kind=spacer}