CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Seven members of the West Virginia National Guard who guarded a water plant in southern Iraq in 2003 have filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that the contractor in charge of the project knowingly exposed them to a highly toxic chemical.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in West Virginia's Northern District, accuses KBR Inc., a former Halliburton subsidiary that has been awarded billions of dollars' worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq, of not telling soldiers that they were being exposed to sodium dichromate.

That chemical contains hexavalent chromium, described in the lawsuit as "one of the most potent carcinogens and mutagenic substances known to man."

When the West Virginia Guardsmen and American civilians working in the area began displaying symptoms of hexavalent chromium poisoning, including "chrome nose," or nasal bleeding, KBR managers told them that it was a byproduct of the "dry desert air," or perhaps they were "allergic to sand," the lawsuit contends.

Thursday's action follows similar lawsuits filed on behalf of members of Guard units from Oregon and Indiana who also served at Qarmat Ali, near Basra, while KBR repaired a water plant facility that pumped water into oil wells for smoother flow.

"The [Guard members] were repeatedly told that there was no danger on site, even after KBR managers knew that blood testing of American civilians exposed onsite confirmed elevated chromium levels," the lawsuit states.

KBR's alleged concealment came to light during congressional hearings in 2008, according to the lawsuit.

Ed Blacke, a civilian medic working at the site, tried to alert supervisors to dangerous conditions in July 2003, but was checked by his superiors who told him he was being "insubordinate" and "disruptive," according to a statement he gave during a June 20, 2008, Senate hearing.

"In my mind, it was criminally negligent of the KBR [Health Safety Environment] and Project management to make a decision to continue to expose personnel to sodium dichromate poisoning at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant when they knew of the exposure and knew of the absence of any personal protective gear whatsoever," Blacke told the senators, as quoted in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also alleges that when KBR managers inspected Qarmat Ali in August 2003, a month before they shut down the site, they wore environmental-protection suits, even though the soldiers and civilian workers had not been issued protective gear.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Seven members of the West Virginia National Guard who guarded a water plant in southern Iraq in 2003 have filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that the contractor in charge of the project knowingly exposed them to a highly toxic chemical.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in West Virginia's Northern District, accuses KBR Inc., a former Halliburton subsidiary that has been awarded billions of dollars' worth of no-bid contracts in Iraq, of not telling soldiers that they were being exposed to sodium dichromate.

That chemical contains hexavalent chromium, described in the lawsuit as "one of the most potent carcinogens and mutagenic substances known to man."

When the West Virginia Guardsmen and American civilians working in the area began displaying symptoms of hexavalent chromium poisoning, including "chrome nose," or nasal bleeding, KBR managers told them that it was a byproduct of the "dry desert air," or perhaps they were "allergic to sand," the lawsuit contends.

Thursday's action follows similar lawsuits filed on behalf of members of Guard units from Oregon and Indiana who also served at Qarmat Ali, near Basra, while KBR repaired a water plant facility that pumped water into oil wells for smoother flow.

"The [Guard members] were repeatedly told that there was no danger on site, even after KBR managers knew that blood testing of American civilians exposed onsite confirmed elevated chromium levels," the lawsuit states.

KBR's alleged concealment came to light during congressional hearings in 2008, according to the lawsuit.

Ed Blacke, a civilian medic working at the site, tried to alert supervisors to dangerous conditions in July 2003, but was checked by his superiors who told him he was being "insubordinate" and "disruptive," according to a statement he gave during a June 20, 2008, Senate hearing.

"In my mind, it was criminally negligent of the KBR [Health Safety Environment] and Project management to make a decision to continue to expose personnel to sodium dichromate poisoning at the Qarmat Ali water treatment plant when they knew of the exposure and knew of the absence of any personal protective gear whatsoever," Blacke told the senators, as quoted in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also alleges that when KBR managers inspected Qarmat Ali in August 2003, a month before they shut down the site, they wore environmental-protection suits, even though the soldiers and civilian workers had not been issued protective gear.

KBR has denied any wrongdoing, and said in a statement that it located and cleaned up the chemical at Qarmat Ali and "did not knowingly harm troops," according to a recent Associated Press report.

Houston attorney Michael P. Doyle and Weirton attorney Michael G. Simon filed the lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs Dale Gallaher of Kansas City, Kan.; Robert Wilson of Dunbar; Russell Powell of Moundsville; Andru Keller of Middlebourne; Eric Heid of Rocky Mount, N.C.; John Headley of Paden City; and Bradley Ebert of Wheeling.

The lawsuit also names Kellogg Brown & Root Services Inc. and KBR Technical Services Inc., two Delaware corporations that it alleges were created only to accumulate profit, and Overseas Administration Services Ltd. and Service Employees International Inc., both incorporated in the Cayman Islands, as defendants.

The West Virginia Guardsmen have varying degrees of respiratory ailments, but no cases of cancer have been confirmed, Doyle said Friday.

"The No. 1 most important goal for these cases, bar none, is ensuring that these soldiers get ongoing evaluation and treatment for conditions resulting from their exposure," he said. "[Exposure] increases cancer risk dramatically, way off the charts. Anyone exposed to [sodium dichromate] needs routine, regular, specific evaluations to get the best chance of dealing with whatever might come from it."

In an April news release, U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said the Department of Defense alerted the West Virginia National Guard in November 2008 about possible exposure to sodium dichromate during its deployment in the Basra area in 2003.

Rockefeller wrote letters to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Department of Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki in April, expressing concern for the identification, notification and treatment of members of the 1092nd Engineering Battalion believed to have been exposed.

Gates' and Shinseki's responses were not available Friday.

"The thing that we're really concerned about is, five to 10 years after exposure, cancers start popping up," Doyle said. "These Guardsmen, they went there for us, and they end up now having these problems."

Reach Andrew Clevenger at acleven...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1723.