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"The U.S. Department of Labor will visit Livermore, Calif., on June 29 and Emeryville, Calif., on June 30 to present information about the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, which provides compensation and medical benefits to employees who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. Through town hall meetings, officials will present details about two new classes of former employees at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recently added to the EEOICPA's Special Exposure Cohort, as well as provide an overview of the program. The Labor Department's California Resource Center staff will also be available at the town hall meetings for extended periods of time to assist individuals with the filing of claims under the EEOICPA. A worker who is included in a designated SEC class of employees, and who is diagnosed with one of 22 specified cancers, may receive a presumption of causation under the EEOICPA. On April 5, 2010, the secretary of health and human services designated the following two classes of employees as additions to the SEC: all employees of the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors, who worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., from Jan. 1, 1950, through Dec. 31, 1973, and at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., from Aug. 13, 1942, through Dec. 31, 1961, for at least 250 workdays occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with workdays within other classes of employees in the SEC. Both designations became effective on May 5, 2010. As the Department of Health and Human Services determines and introduces new SEC classes into the EEOICPA claims process, the Labor Department's role is to adjudicate these claims based on the new SEC class definition. To date, more than $118 million in compensation and medical bills have been paid to 1,0

"The NNSA announced last week that it had gotten rid of some contaminated "excess tools" at Sandia National Labs in California under a "low-cost plan" that saved taxpayers about $4 million -- the cost of disposing of the equipment at the Nevada Test Site. The savings came about because an Oak Ridge company -- Toxco Materials Management Center -- agreed to take title to Sandia's hot tools, with plans to clean them up and sell them."

"The U.S. Department of Labor is notifying all former Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory employees who worked at the Berkeley, Calif., site between Aug. 13, 1942, and Dec. 31, 1961, about a new class of employees added to the Special Exposure Cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The act provides compensation and medical benefits to workers who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. Survivors of qualified workers may also be entitled to benefits. A worker who is included in a designated SEC class of employees, and who is diagnosed with one of 22 specified cancers, may receive a presumption of causation under the EEOICPA. On April 5, 2010, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC: all employees of the Department of Energy, its predecessor agencies, and their contractors and subcontractors who worked at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., from Aug. 13, 1942, through Dec. 31, 1961, for at least 250 workdays occurring either solely under this employment or in combination with workdays within other classes of employees in the SEC. This designation became effective on May 5, 2010. The Labor Department's role is to adjudicate these claims based on the new SEC class definitions as determined and introduced by HHS. "

Officials with the Lawrence Livermore Lab are looking into a potential hidden danger: hundreds of workers have been possibly exposed to a toxic metal dust. "It was hard," said Joyce Brooks, talking about the loss of her husband to beryllium poisoning. "I have anger," she said. Carl Brooks came straight from the Air Force to work at Livermore Labs in the 1950's. For the next 30 years, he machined parts out of the lightweight metal beryllium. "The dust was very toxic," she said. "And they did not have much protection except a paper mask." Eventually it destroyed his lungs. Carl Brooks died in 2000.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has notified the Department of Energy that they must immediately resume cleanup activities at its Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., or face escalating penalties. A federal facilities agreement was signed between EPA, DOE and California state agencies in June 1988. The agreement outlines DOE's responsibilities and milestones for addressing site contamination. DOE has failed to operate numerous groundwater and soil vapor treatment facilities and associated wells -- an integral part of cleanup activities at the site. While pump-and-treat systems have been shutdown, site contamination has spread laterally and vertically, resulting in a larger volume of contaminated groundwater and increasing timeframes for completing the overall cleanup.

Last Friday, Nuclear Weapons and Materials Monitor's Todd Jacobson reported that that National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reduced by 30 percent Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC's award for the FY 2008 management of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) from a possible $53.7 million to $37.7 million. Part of the reason NNSA cut $16 million was LLNL's disastrous performance in an April security test by the DOE Office of Health, Safety and Security (HSS). In a fee recommendation memo, NNSA's Principal Deputy Administrator for Military Application Brig. Gen. Jonathan George found "the Contractor's performance in the area of protective force operations and information security to be 'unsatisfactory' based in large part on the Contractor's security failures surrounding the HSS audit."

During a mock exercise at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), an antiterrorist "red team" breached security and penetrated Building 332, the so-called "Superblock" where some 2,000 pounds of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium are stored. Lab security personnel failed miserably, TIME magazine reported. Situated in Livermore, California, LLNL is about an hour's drive from San Francisco; approximately seven million people live within a 50 mile radius of the weapons facility. But as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) disclosed in March,

Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's protective force failed to deter a mock terrorist attack during a recent security drill, according to a Time magazine report online Monday. During the simulated night-time attack several weeks ago, a team posing as terrorists was able to defeat the lab's defenses and get hold of their target of pretend nuclear material, according to unnamed sources.

Shifting the focus of UC laboratories away from nuclear weapons is a much-needed departure from Bush' policies. Change we can all believe in may be coming to the university's two laboratories which deal primarily with nuclear weapons research: Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Congress and the Obama administration are re-evaluating the role of nuclear weapons in national security, potentially shifting the focus of research at the UC labs away from nuclear weaponry for good. We welcome this dramatic policy shift from the Bush administration, which could mean a much-needed end to outdated Cold War-era national security policies.

Steam-cleaning technology created by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was used to clean a Superfund site in Visalia, in California's Central Valley - and the job was finished a century earlier than first expected. Utility company Southern California Edison used the site to soak wooden utility poles in creosote and other protective chemicals for some 80 years. Those chemicals contaminated the soil and underground water in the area. By the 1970s, the chemicals had seeped down as much as 100 feet in places. The site, called the Visalia Pole Yard, was one of the first Superfund sites, part of a federal government cleanup program for very toxic places. Superfund sites are on the National Priorities List of the Environmental Protection Agency because they may seriously threaten public health.

Steam-cleaning technology created by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was used to clean a Superfund site in Visalia, in California's Central Valley - and the job was finished a century earlier than first expected. Utility company Southern California Edison used the site to soak wooden utility poles in creosote and other protective chemicals for some 80 years. Those chemicals contaminated the soil and underground water in the area. By the 1970s, the chemicals had seeped down as much as 100 feet in places. The site, called the Visalia Pole Yard, was one of the first Superfund sites, part of a federal government cleanup program for very toxic places. Superfund sites are on the National Priorities List of the Environmental Protection Agency because they may seriously threaten public health.

Kelye Allen still speaks with pride about her 18-year career with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, where she worked as a machinist helping to build components for nuclear weapons. A feeling of patriotism and duty animates the workforce there, Allen said. "You want to protect the country," she said. "Stuff we do there directly affects national security." Along with her enduring pride, however, Allen is left with a permanent health condition from her work with a prized but hazardous metal called beryllium. The Department of Energy, which oversees the lab, is currently conducting an enforcement investigation into whether the lab violated health and safety regulations related to its chronic beryllium disease prevention program.

Former employees of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory are eligible for free confidential medical screening to determine if they have any health problems related to on-the-job exposure to radioactive or toxic substances such as beryllium, the universities running the program announced Monday. Experts from UC San Francisco and Boston University School of Public Health will do the evaluations of workers at Kaiser Permanente occupational medicine facilities in Northern California.

A number of residents held a press conference in Downtown Berkeley Tuesday evening to protest the demolition of a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory building known to contain radioactive materials. Concrete shielding blocks in the Bevatron, the lab's 180-foot particle accelerator, became mildly radioactive during the past 40 years of use. Residents voiced concerns in front of Old City Hall that transporting these materials may affect the health of Berkeley residents and cause damage to roads.