Two employees who worked at a Hicksville magazine distributorship that sat atop a contaminated former nuclear-fuel production plant have sued Verizon Communications Inc. after contracting illnesses they say were related to radiological and other toxins released at the site.

Verizon predecessor GTE inherited liability for the site from onetime subsidiary Sylvania Electric Products, which operated the fuel-rod facility in the 1950s and 1960s.

Gerard DePascale and Liam Neville, both of whom formerly worked for Magazine Distributors Inc. when it was located on Cantiague Rock Road in Hicksville, charge in a suit filed last month that Verizon and its predecessor companies failed to "warn or prevent the use of toxic chemicals and radioactive substances" in their workplace. They worked at the distributor from the early 1990s to early 2000s. The site, now being supervised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, remains under investigation after a partial cleanup.

They seek unspecified damages, medical costs and attorney fees and past and future lost wages.

The suit, initially filed in State Supreme Court in Nassau last month, is expected to be moved to federal court in Central Islip at Verizon's request.

Paul Marasco, an attorney for the two men and for DePascale's wife, Joanne, referred questions about the case to Joseph Gonzalez, whose Web site bills him as the onetime lead environmental litigation attorney for Masry & Vititoe, the law firm depicted in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

The lawsuit isn't the first. In 2002, more than 300 current and former residents near the site filed a $3-billion-plus suit charging that activities at the plant during its operating years of 1952 to 1966 led to the development of cancers and other serious ailments. Among the activities documented in the case were the long-term incineration of uranium into the open air around the plant. The residents' suit was settled in 2003 for a reported $11 million.

Gonzalez, now of the firm Gonzalez & Robinson in Westlake Village, Calif., said the workers' case is different from the residents' suit because workers were unknowingly exposed directly at the former nuclear fuel site, and because government probes have further documented the extent of the contamination and possible exposure.

DePascale and Neville have already filed cases with the state workers' compensation board against their former employer related to their illnesses. After initial favorable rulings, both cases were appealed by Magazine Distributors.

DePascale developed an extremely rare form of cancer in his leg which subsequently spread to his lungs. Neville contracted a rare kidney disease, said to be tied to exposure to the toxins, that will require a kidney transplant within two years, the suit says.

In a statement yesterday, Verizon said of its subsidiary, "GTE is unaware of any credible evidence that supports a claim that either plaintiff's illnesses result from any exposures incurred at the site of the former Sylvania facility."

GTE and "numerous governmental agencies," the company said, "have reviewed enormous amounts of test results and other data relating to the condition of the site. GTE agrees with the judgment of these parties that the site does not pose a current health hazard to workers at the site or the community."

The workers' suit claims their exposure is more recent than that of residents, from 1992 to the early 2000s, when they worked at a warehouse, which their suit says contained contaminated dust, puddles from overflow drains and exposed soil. Magazine Distributors isn't named as a defendant in the suit.