SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to settle claims brought by 139 people with thyroid disease who lived downwind of the Hanford nuclear reservation.
Details of the proposed settlement were filed this week in U.S. District Court in Spokane. The individual plaintiffs still must accept it.
Lead defense counsel Kevin Van Wart says each plaintiff with hypothyroid disease would receive $5,683 for a total amount just under $800,000.
Van Wart calls the proposal progress but says it doesn’t represent a government admission of wrongdoing.