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U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., last week introduced legislation that would ensure compensation for the families of sick former nuclear workers won't be taken away in cases where sick workers or their eligible survivors die before their claims are processed. "We should not allow an inefficient bureaucracy to run out the clock through a claims process that takes so long that our Cold War heroes are dying before their claims are processed, leaving their families with no compensation," Alexander said in a press release. "The men and women who built our nuclear deterrent -- and their families -- deserve better. According to estimates from the Department of Labor, this will affect approximately 1,200 current and future claimants."

Agency gives OK to some Area 51 workers seeking compensation In 1998, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy were keeping mum about the secret work that went on at Area 51, a widely known Air Force installation near the northeast corner of the Nevada Test Site. That year, the U.S. Supreme Court turned away an appeal by former Area 51 workers who claimed that they were made sick and that co-workers had died from exposure to toxic fumes from stealth coatings burned in open trenches near the Groom Lake base, 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The site was used to test high-tech aircraft.

WASHINGTON - Scientists examining the radiation exposure of former Chapman Valve Co. workers in Springfield said there is no doubt that they were exposed to uranium during the Cold War. Dr. Paul L. Ziemer, chairman of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, told The Republican that the delay in determining the compensation case for former workers was centered on following the letter of the law rather than any disagreement on whether they handled radioactive material.

The secretary of Health and Human Services has approved loosening the requirements for more Hanford workers to receive $150,000 compensation for many types of cancer. If Congress does not object within 30 days, the decision by Secretary Michael Leavitt becomes final. "I'm pleased by this decision," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., in a statement. The process to ease compensation rules "is very involved and takes longer than I and many others would like, but the right decision has been made for these Hanford workers and their families," he said. "Now we still need a fair resolution for workers since 1968."

The compensation program is, by law, supposed to be claimant-friendly. In signing the law to aid nuclear weapons workers who fell ill, or the families of those who died from their jobs, President Bill Clinton said in 2000 that the program should be "compassionate, fair and timely" and that the government should help ill workers with their claims and "ensure that this program minimizes the administrative burden on workers and their survivors."

A nonprofit group has been formed to support ill nuclear workers who are applying for federal compensation or collecting benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. The group, Cold War Patriots, is sponsored by Professional Case Management, a company that provides home health care for Hanford and other ill nuclear workers. Those who sign up for the program will receive a periodic newsletter. It also has a Web site that includes a forum to help workers or their survivors connect with former coworkers.

Disc containing personal info for thousands of DOE employees lost; local workers not at risk OAK RIDGE - Free medical screenings for workers at Oak Ridge and other Department of Energy sites have been put on hold while DOE investigates an incident in which personal information could have been compromised. The department also is establishing a new protocol for handling such data. The incident involved a lost disc containing the personal information for thousands of current and former employees at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory. Local officials emphasized Tuesday that no information involving Oak Ridge workers had been placed at risk.

The U.S. Department of Labor has notified all former Mallinckrodt Chemical Company, Destrehan Street Plant workers about a new class of employees added to the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act's (EEOICPA) Special Exposure Cohort (SEC). The EEOICPA provides compensation and medical benefits to employees who became ill as a result of working in the nuclear weapons industry. Survivors of qualified employees 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 act. To date, more than $80 million in compensation and medical benefits has been paid to eligible Mallinckrodt Chemical Company, Destrehan Street Plant employees and more than $4.6 billion in compensation and medical benefits has been paid to eligible claimants nationwide under the act.

Would you want to dig up dirt at a former nuclear waste site? That's what construction crews at the Denver Federal Center site in Lakewood have been doing for the past year. But what's worse, some workers tell FOX 31 that they never knew about the radioactive history until they saw our story on the news. "We were told there was asbestos and lead at the site," says one worker who wants to remain anonymous. He says when he and his co-workers learned that lead and asbestos were not the only danger, they became concerned for their health.

New legislation introduced this year could prevent problems Paul Bell, and many other former Iowa Army Ammunition Plant workers have had over the years trying to get compensation through the EEOICPA. Advertisement The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act was passed in 2000. While amendments have been made -- and responsibility for the program has shifted from the Department of Energy to the Department of Labor -- still fewer than a third of applicants receive compensation. That's why the presidents of construction and metal trades unions and the University of Iowa Atomic Energy Commission Plant-Former Workers Program are supporting the Charlie Wolf Nuclear Employees Compensation Act that can help former workers get the payment they're due.

It was fitting that former Rocky Flats workers and their families got together for their monthly meeting so close to Memorial Day. They are American heroes, said U.S. Rep. Jared Polis. Polis and Sen. Michael Bennet, both Colorado Democrats, each spoke at the group's Saturday afternoon meeting to discuss better treatment for nuclear workers suffering the effects of radiation and chemical exposure. They specifically talked about the Charlie Wolf Act, a recently introduced bill that would make it easier for these workers to get compensation for illnesses they developed as a result of their job.

Relatives of workers who died of exposure to radiation or toxic materials at a Cold War-era uranium enrichment plant in Ohio are fighting a ruling by state officials that keeps them from receiving workers' compensation death benefits. Advertisement They say they should not be penalized for missing a deadline for filing claims because the government withheld information for years and workers did not know they were working in a life-threatening environment. "There isn't any amount of money on this earth that could replace what we lost," said Anna Fleshman, 77, of Chillicothe. "But I do believe they owe us. If they could see what they go through with that cancer ... they should have told the boys."

Federal cover-up blamed for state denying workers' comp Nancy Meadows is a Cold War widow. Her husband worked at the uranium-enrichment plant near Piketon from 1955 to 1996, handling stuff that ended up in nuclear weapons. Joe Meadows and thousands of others toiled for decades amid radiation while the federal government knew -- but publicly denied -- that it was poisoning its work force. In 1999, after years of gobbling aspirin and seldom complaining, Joe Meadows died of cancer at age 60. More than two years later, federal officials admitted having exposed workers to radiation at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Mrs. Meadows and other survivors of dead workers later received $150,000 each in federal compensation.

Longtime readers of La Jicarita News are aware that we've written numerous articles regarding the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). This program, enacted by Congress in 2000, is supposed to provide financial compensation and medical benefits for workers at federal nuclear facilities who have been made ill by exposure to radiation and other toxins in the workplace, but in fact has provided benefits for only about 28 percent of claimants nationally and less than 20 percent of claimants from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Moreover, claimants have to undergo a lengthy bureaucratic process, which testimony before Congressional committees has demonstrated is often tainted by incompetency and insensitivity by government administrators. Knowing all that I was still surprised by the seeming indifference to sick workers' suffering displayed by number crunching bureaucrats from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Department of Labor (DOL), which administers EEOICPA, at the February 17-19 meeting of the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (ABRWH) in Albuquerque.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has signed the designation that adds the 1950s employees at Oak Ridge Hospital -- when the hospital was being used for pioneering cancer treatments with radiation -- as a "Special Exposure Cohort" in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Program. The SEC status makes it easier for workers with cancer to collect under the compensation program. The designation was forwarded to Congress and will become effective Jan. 9, unless Congress acts on it prior to that date, according to NIOSH spokeswoman Shannon Bradford.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has signed the designation that adds the 1950s employees at Oak Ridge Hospital -- when the hospital was being used for pioneering cancer treatments with radiation -- as a "Special Exposure Cohort" in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Program. The SEC status makes it easier for workers with cancer to collect under the compensation program. The designation was forwarded to Congress and will become effective Jan. 9, unless Congress acts on it prior to that date, according to NIOSH spokeswoman Shannon Bradford.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has signed the designation that adds the 1950s employees at Oak Ridge Hospital -- when the hospital was being used for pioneering cancer treatments with radiation -- as a "Special Exposure Cohort" in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness and Compensation Program. The SEC status makes it easier for workers with cancer to collect under the compensation program. The designation was forwarded to Congress and will become effective Jan. 9, unless Congress acts on it prior to that date, according to NIOSH spokeswoman Shannon Bradford.

"All hope abandon ye who enter here": The Unofficial Motto of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) I must confess that the above quote isn't really engraved over the entrances to all of the OWCP district offices - poetry buffs will realize that I borrowed this quote from Dante Alighieri, the great 14th century Italian poet who penned the "Divine Comedy" - but from my experience I think it would be a suitable warning to injured Federal workers as to how they are likely to be treated by the agency.

"All hope abandon ye who enter here": The Unofficial Motto of the Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP) I must confess that the above quote isn't really engraved over the entrances to all of the OWCP district offices - poetry buffs will realize that I borrowed this quote from Dante Alighieri, the great 14th century Italian poet who penned the "Divine Comedy" - but from my experience I think it would be a suitable warning to injured Federal workers as to how they are likely to be treated by the agency.

Former IAAP worker hopes compensation denials come to end John Rowe is learning the hard way that two out of three isn't enough. The longtime Burlington resident has been denied compensation since 2003 from a federal program for former atomic energy workers. While he still has one application pending -- for a brain tumor near his pituitary gland -- Rowe isn't optimistic that this time will be any different than before. Rowe, 82, has been experiencing deja vu since his first denial on May 6, 2004. The letters are always the same. The Department of Labor agrees he worked at the Iowa Ordnance Plant more than the requisite length of time and that he's a very sick man. But the department doesn't see a link between his illnesses and work on Line 1.

Former IAAP worker hopes compensation denials come to end John Rowe is learning the hard way that two out of three isn't enough. The longtime Burlington resident has been denied compensation since 2003 from a federal program for former atomic energy workers. While he still has one application pending -- for a brain tumor near his pituitary gland -- Rowe isn't optimistic that this time will be any different than before. Rowe, 82, has been experiencing deja vu since his first denial on May 6, 2004. The letters are always the same. The Department of Labor agrees he worked at the Iowa Ordnance Plant more than the requisite length of time and that he's a very sick man. But the department doesn't see a link between his illnesses and work on Line 1.

The first "National Day of Remembrance" will be held this Friday, and Oak Ridge will be among the sites holding ceremonies. The day's events will honor workers in the nation's nuclear weapons program, many of whom fell sick and ultimately died as a result of workplace exposures, Hundreds of thousands of workers have participated in the U.S. weapons program since its inception in World War II, when work began on the first atomic bombs.

The first "National Day of Remembrance" will be held this Friday, and Oak Ridge will be among the sites holding ceremonies. The day's events will honor workers in the nation's nuclear weapons program, many of whom fell sick and ultimately died as a result of workplace exposures, Hundreds of thousands of workers have participated in the U.S. weapons program since its inception in World War II, when work began on the first atomic bombs.

"Three meetings have been scheduled in Kennewick to explain changes in a compensation program for ill Hanford nuclear reservation workers or their survivors. A recent change to the program should make more Hanford workers, retirees or their survivors eligible for $150,000 compensation and coverage of some medical expenses related to cancer or certain lung diseases. The meetings also will give an overview of the entire program, which provides compensation for illnesses caused by radiation or hazardous chemicals. Staff from the Hanford Resource Center will be available to help people file claims. The Department of Labor meetings are planned at 7 p.m. March 16 and at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. March 17 at the Red Lion Hotel, N. 2201 Columbia Center Blvd., Kennewick. "

"Hanford workers have resumed digging up temporarily buried transuranic waste in central Hanford with improved technology that should take some of the surprises out of the work. Retrieval of the transuranic waste -- typically debris contaminated with plutonium -- was stopped in February by CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Co. when it ran into problems. Since then the Department of Energy contractor has been working on improvements to its processes. In 1970 Congress ordered transuranic waste sent to a national repository. But until the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico opened, Hanford workers have been storing waste suspected of being transuranic, often by temporarily burying it. Much of the waste that Hanford workers have dug up so far to ship to New Mexico was buried in tidy rows and information about what's underground has been available. But within the last year CH2M Hill has been progressing to more difficult burial trenches, and that's contributed to problems."