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We stand at a barbed-wire fence, looking past a locked gate to a paved road that leads nowhere. Beyond a "Road Closed" sign and piles of dirt and rock, prairie grasses gone brown with the approach of winter drop eastward. In the distance, sheets of dust blow across the horizon. We have been told that behind the fence lies a stirring swath of High Plains ecology, a vast undeveloped acreage within one of the nation's fastest-growing suburban landscapes. We've been told that it's home to rare native xeric grasses and vital riparian habitat, to deer, elk, prairie dogs, pocket gophers, Preble's jumping mice, coyotes and badgers. And Wes McKinley, the Colorado state legislator who stands beside me peering through the gated entrance, has been told he cannot enter.

The U.S. Department of Labor said it has paid more than $100 million in compensation and medical benefits to Florida residents under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). The act was created to assist individuals who became ill as a result of working in the atomic weapons industry. Survivors of such individuals may also be eligible for benefits. Since the implementation of the act, the Labor Department has paid 48,510 claimants more than $4.5 billion in compensation and medical benefits nationwide.

DOL report listing the payments to applications for the EEOICPA program. Note this PDF file has been locked so no text or materials can be pulled.

Four security guards at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant were fired after testing positive for steroids, a spokeswoman for Wackenhut Services Inc., the government's security contractor, confirmed today. The guards union, however, is challenging two of the cases, claiming the positive readings were linked to use of over-the-counter supplements. Security police officers at Y-12 are subject to regular and random drug testing, but those tests are typically for Schedule I and II drugs - such as cocaine and marijuana. Courtney Henry of Wackenhut said the company began testing some guards for anabolic sterioids, a Schedule III drug, "for probable cause."

Department of Energy to Accelerate Cleanup Work While USEC Further Develops ACP Technology (Washington, D.C.) The Department of Energy announced today that it will further expand and accelerate cleanup efforts of cold-war era contamination at the Portsmouth site in Piketon, Ohio - an investment worth about $150 to $200 million per year for the next four years that is expected to create 800 to 1000 new jobs. At the same time, the Department has encouraged USEC to withdraw its application for loan guarantee funding for the American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon. This would allow USEC to work over the next 12-18 months to continue research, development, and testing to resolve the technology issues facing ACP without hurting the chances of USEC to secure approval for a loan guarantee in the future. "While we believe USEC needs time to develop its technology and demonstrate that it can be deployed at a commercial scale, we're moving forward with other investments that will create good, high-paying jobs in the community," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "USEC will have another chance to resubmit their application if they can overcome the technical and financial hurdles, but in the meantime we'll put more people to work in the environmental cleanup effort."

Three guards have been suspended for bringing video game devices, including one with transmitting capability, into the heart of a high-security nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee. Wackenhut Services spokeswoman Courtney Henry tells The Knoxville News Sentinel that the three security police officers were suspended without pay for an incident three weeks ago at the Department of Energy's Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge. She said the guards brought electronic game devices into the plant's "protected area" where warhead parts are made, dismantled and recycled. Not even cell phones are permitted there, yet one of the players was a portable Sony PlayStation with transmission capability.

The U.S. Department of Labor says it has paid more than $408 million to compensate Coloradans sickened by working in the atomic weapons industry, including some who worked at the former Rocky Flats weapons plant near Denver. The money went to 5,042 Colorado claimants under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, which was created to help people suffering cancer and other illnesses caused by exposure to toxic substances, the department said Tuesday. The act covers several facilities in Colorado including Rocky Flats, the Rulison Nuclear Explosion Site, and the Rio Blanco nuclear explosion site. Coloradans have filed 8,713 cases under the act, but about 15 percent were ineligible for benefits, the Labor Department said. There are 929 cases awaiting a final decision. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said more needs to be done to ensure people who worked at Cold War-era weapons sites receive compensation.

THE future for the workforce at Vulcan has become less secure now that it looks certain the Ministry of Defence will not be extending its current contract at its reactor base in Caithness. advertising Barring new commercial work being found, the site is set to go into decommissioning mode in five years' time. Such an outcome would add a fresh headache to the public agencies currently battling to replace the 2000-plus jobs which are to go at the next-door site at Dounreay. As with its defunct civil counterpart, Vulcan will require a workforce to decontaminate and dismantle its redundant plant. It is unclear how many of the 280 employees of site contractor Rolls-Royce would be required for the clean-up. The pressurised water reactor at Vulcan is used to test and trial the propulsion systems used on Britain's fleet of nuclear submarines. Up until recently there were positive noises about the prospects of the MOD extending its £360 million contract beyond 2014. But Royal Navy chief are now believed not to foresee a need for Vulcan to support the proposed next generation of Trident subs.

A private company was being paid $300 million by the federal government to clean up radioactive waste at two abandoned Cold War plants in Tennessee when an ironworker crashed through a rotted floor. That prompted a major safety review, which ended up forcing work to an abrupt halt, and the project was shut down for months. The delay and a host of other problems caused cost estimates to rise, eventually hitting $781 million. Now, President Obama's stimulus package is opening a bountiful stream of new funding, and the same contractor, Bechtel Jacobs, is slated to get $118 million to help complete the job.

The nuclear bombs Charlie Wolf built helped win the Cold War. But his toughest battles came afterward, when he applied to a troubled federal compensation program intended for those whose top-secret work made them sick. Wolf, who worked for a time overseeing the dismantling of Rocky Flats weapons lab southeast of Boulder, wound up battling a bureaucratic morass for more than six years -- all while fighting brain cancer that was supposed to have killed him in six months -- trying to prove he qualified for financial and medical aid.

"More Hanford downwinders could be going to trial to have their claims heard in a 19-year-old case. Almost 2,000 plaintiffs have pending claims, many of them asserting that past emissions of radioactive material from the Hanford nuclear reservation were carried downwind and caused cancer or other thyroid disease. Some people also believe they developed other cancers from eating contaminated fish. On Wednesday, Judge William Fremming Nielsen of Eastern Washington District Federal Court in Spokane said that he would select 30 of the claims for hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroids, to proceed to trial as soon as October. In addition, about 32 claims filed for thyroid cancer will be considered for settlement with the help of a mediator."

"A Savannah River National Laboratory technician's failure to adequately monitor her gloved hands was the cause of a January incident in which her clothing and skin were contaminated with radiation. The employee was testing vials of plutonium samples when a radiation control officer detected radiation on a hood where the employee was working, according to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report. The officer then examined the technician and found alpha contamination on the abdomen, lapel and right arm of her lab coat. "When the technician was sent to the decontamination room, additional contamination was found on her personal clothing and on her skin in the vicinity of the lapel," the report said."

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced that it's going to begin a major re-evaluation of its responsibilities, including the scientific and techical support, for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. NIOSH also said it would conduct a national search for a new director of the Office of Compensation Analysis and Support as the successor to Larry Elliott, who will take a new role at NIOSH as an associate director in charge of "several high-priority projects" with institute-wide activities. Stuart Hinnefeld, technical program manager, will become interim OCAS director while that search is conducted, the institute said in the announcement.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced that it's going to begin a major re-evaluation of its responsibilities, including the scientific and techical support, for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. NIOSH also said it would conduct a national search for a new director of the Office of Compensation Analysis and Support as the successor to Larry Elliott, who will take a new role at NIOSH as an associate director in charge of "several high-priority projects" with institute-wide activities. Stuart Hinnefeld, technical program manager, will become interim OCAS director while that search is conducted, the institute said in the announcement.