Attorneys Flown In Before Toxic Cloud Can Be Blown Out -- Lawsuits Could Threaten Town Economy

BOGALUSA, La. - Even as a toxic orange cloud hovered over this rustic factory town last month, forcing thousands of residents to flee, another calamity of potentially more disastrous proportions was in the making.

With an acute sense of prey, dozens of lawyers - some of them local, others from Louisiana's bigger cities and a few from out of state, including Johnnie Cochran Jr. - came swooping down on Bogalusa, seeking out prospective plaintiffs with a zeal that most folks here consider nothing short of vulturous.

Attorneys drove campers onto vacant lots, designating them as mobile law offices. They transformed motels into personal-injury centers, providing in-room consultations with medical experts flown in from around the country. They plastered the local newspaper with full-page ads, offering free hot lines (1-800-99-TOXIC) and legal seminars ("Learn the truth about toxic gas exposure!"). They even deluged residents with personalized mailings, including prepaid business reply cards: "Yes, Morris, I want you to be my lawyer."

So far, at least 45 lawsuits on behalf of several hundred victims have been filed, the first coming from an attorney who was at the courthouse, waiting for the doors to open, the morning after the eruption.

Nobody was killed or critically injured in the Oct. 23 accident at Gaylord Chemical Corp., but nearly 5,000 people - almost one-third of the city - swarmed Bogalusa's hospitals after spotting the vaporous ball of nitrogen tetroxide.

Most of the lawsuits cite nausea, burning eyes and shortness of breath - the same symptoms that lawyers repeatedly named in their advertisements and, in some cases, inserted into legal contracts before even interviewing their clients. Another group of attorneys, including Cochran, has raised the specter of "environmental racism," alleging that black residents were not evacuated until white residents had been escorted to safety.

What makes this skirmishing such a dilemma for many Bogalusans is the nature of the target. The Gaylord facility, which has existed in one form or another since 1906, single-handedly created Bogalusa, carving out a company town from a virgin pine forest.

After nearly a century, it remains Bogalusa's economic lifeblood, employing nearly 1,000 people with an annual payroll of more than $40 million.

"Let us not kill the goose that laid the golden egg," one civic-minded reader cautioned in a letter to Bogalusa's Daily News.

The unseemliness of the legal assault, which is being investigated by the Louisiana Bar Association, has prompted an unusual exchange of public recriminations and atonements in the paper.

Several local attorneys were moved to take out a full-page ad, assuring fellow citizens that "there are some of us who subscribe to a higher standard of professionalism than has been exhibited by others in recent days."

On the other hand, Frank J. D'Amico Jr., a high-powered attorney from New Orleans, says Bogalusa has grown so reliant on the Gaylord plant that civic boosters simply can't accept the idea that their benefactor might be harming them.

That view was echoed by Dr. Tony Palazzo, Bogalusa's only pediatrician. When he came to town nine years ago, he intentionally sought out a home that wouldn't be downwind of the plant, which he views as an ominous landmark even under normal operating conditions.

"This place stinks," he said bluntly. "I don't know what's coming out of those smokestacks. But it can't be good for you."

Soon after taking the job, Palazzo began noticing an unusually high rate of asthma in his young patients, about one-third of whom suffer from bronchial problems, he said. His fear, both before and after last month's gaseous explosion, is that Bogalusans are too cowed by Gaylord to register serious objections.

Originally known as the Great Southern Lumber Co., the Bogalusa factory was the brainchild of two members of the Goodyear clan.

Sold to Crown Zellerbach and, later, to Gaylord Container Corp., the mill is now one of the nation's top producers of cardboard, pumping out an average of 2,700 tons a day. Its next-door subsidiary, Gaylord Chemical, converts the mill's waste into DMSO, which is used by pharmaceutical manufacturers in pain-relieving ointments.

Records show that Gaylord has been cited numerous times for violations of state and federal environmental laws. It has exceeded limits on the dumping of effluent at least 14 times, killing fish in Bogue Lusa Creek. It also has been disciplined for failing to notify authorities about the removal of asbestos.

Last month's explosion, however, has placed a much higher degree of scrutiny on the plant, including an ongoing investigation by Louisiana state police.

A leaking rail car triggered the accident. As Gaylord officials struggled to contain it, the ruptured tank exploded, spewing a stunning auburn cloud. Because the wind was initially blowing north, according to police, those were the first neighborhoods evacuated. After the wind began to shift the next day, authorities said, so did the evacuation area. But that explanation hasn't satisfied residents of the city's oldest black neighborhood, which lies to the south.