Defense contractor Lockheed Martin has agreed to a settlement resolving years of litigation over hazardous waste handling at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
Under the terms of the tentative agreement, the company will pay $5 million to the federal government. The lawsuits were filed in 1999, and allege the company and its subsidiaries didn’t properly handle, store and transport hazardous waste at the Paducah plant. The lawsuits also claim Lockheed Martin knew it was improperly handling and storing the hazardous waste, and lied about it to the federal government.
The $5 million settlement is paltry compared to what Lockheed Martin was paid in awards and incentive pay for a job the company allegedly wasn’t performing. The lawsuit lays out more than $100 million dollars the government paid Lockheed Martin, noting that had authorities known the violations were occurring, they wouldn’t have paid so much.
A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin didn’t return calls for comment. But in the company’s annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company included notice of the proposed settlement and said it admitted no liability or wrongdoing.
