A U.S. District Court jury decided that a dying woman's thyroid cancer was not caused by radiation that drifted off the Hanford nuclear reservation when she was a child.

Some of the jurors were crying as they left the Spokane courtroom after the verdict was announced Wednesday morning, said Richard Eymann, one of several attorneys representing about 2,000 plaintiffs who believe radiation from the nuclear site decades ago harmed their health.

"The jury was able to separate emotion from science," said attorney Kevin Van Wart of Chicago, who is defending early Hanford contractors in the suit. Costs are being covered by the federal government.

At the end of closing arguments, Eymann of Spokane, had asked the jury for a verdict of $20 million to $30 million for Shannon Rhodes, 64, of Coeur d'Alene.

While the trial was for just one plaintiff, its goal was to give attorneys an idea of the potential value of cases to help reach a settlement agreement.

Rhodes' case was among six "bellwether" cases heard by a jury in the spring. The jury deadlocked on Rhodes' case, awarded damages to two other cancer patients and rejected claims that Hanford caused three cases of overactive thyroid disease.

In addition, six other bellwether cases, all picked by the defense, were too weak to be heard by a jury.

Attorneys for Hanford contractors saw the Wednesday decision as an important win because a jury rejected the idea that a low dose of radiation could be shown to cause cancer. Rhodes, who grew up on a Colfax farm during the years that Hanford released radioactive iodine into the air, received an estimated radiation dose of 6 to 7 rads.

During World War II and the early years of the Cold War, radioactive iodine was released from stacks during the production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. It drifted with the wind over communities surrounding Hanford and to the northeast, where it settled to the ground on crops and pastures where cows grazed.

Children were particularly at risk of developing disease years later if they drank milk contaminated with radioactive iodine, which concentrates in the thyroid gland.

Rhodes had part of her thyroid removed when she was 36, but the cancer spread to her lungs. During the trial, a surgeon described Rhodes' expected short and painful future as the cancer grows around her trachea and chokes her.

When Rhodes took the stand "she told one of the most compelling stories of fear of dying I've ever heard," Eymann said.

But U.S. Judge William Fremming Nielsen required the jury to find that without Hanford emissions, Rhodes would not have developed thyroid cancer. The defense argued that she received no more radiation from Hanford than she would have from other sources, such as fallout from nuclear testing in Nevada that would have drifted over her family's farm.

"The defendants worked very hard in that courtroom to confuse the issues and misrepresent the science," Eymann said.

He plans to appeal the decision to the 9th District Court of Appeals, where plaintiff attorneys already are arguing that the standard Nielsen is requiring them to meet to show Hanford caused illness is unreasonable.

Appeals in the case have been on hold until Rhodes' case was heard by a second jury. The appeals could take a year or two to be decided, possibly longer than Rhodes may live, Eymann said. The case already has dragged on for 14 years.

The defense has made a settlement offer that Eymann said would amount to about $15 million.

It has offered to pay $150,000 for thyroid cancer cases and $25,000 for thyroid nodules in certain cases. Plaintiffs would have to have received a radiation dose of more than 10 rads. It also would pay $40,000 to certain patients with overactive thyroids who received more than 40 rads.

The offer is inadequate, plaintiff attorneys said. The two cancer patients who won their claims this spring received larger estimated doses than Rhodes and were awarded about $550,000 combined.

The defense believes that many of the 2,000 claims yet to be resolved involve small doses that science has not linked to disease. But plaintiffs counter that 1,700 cases have been dismissed as having little basis, and cases that remain include some for people exposed to 100s of rads.

Up to half of the cases remaining are for plaintiffs who have cancers other than thyroid cancer they believe were caused by radiation released into the air or the Columbia River.

The verdict Wednesday left Rhodes devastated, Eymann said.

She wanted to go back for a second trial out of concern for other people who grew up downwind of Hanford and developed cancer, he said.