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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.

Former Rocky Flats employees demanded Wednesday that the federal government cut red tape and provide quicker compensation for work-related illness.

Former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons workers plan to join a nationwide rally next week to protest what they call unfair treatment of sick workers who have been denied federal compensation. The Flats workers say they will protest at the Denver office of the U.S. Department of Labor, which runs the compensation program. Other workers and supporters plan similar gatherings in Cleveland, Ohio; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Espanola, N.M.

A final judgment for more than $926 million was entered Monday on behalf of homeowners who lived near the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in 1989 as a long-running lawsuit edged closer to appeal. The landowners, who were downwind from the nuclear facility, sued two companies that operated the site, Rockwell International Corp. and the Dow Chemical Co. In his decision, U.S. District Judge John L. Kane followed the jury's award by granting the landowners up to $725.9 million in compensatory damages, including prejudgment interest. In addition, Kane entered judgment for $110.8 million for "exemplary" damages from Dow and $89.4 million from Rockwell.

"Plutonium has a half-life of 20,000 years, and the controversy over the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant should continue at least that long. With good reason: If we forget that the plant sixteen miles upwind from Denver processed plutonium and other deadly materials, some day the land could turn into an attractive housing development: Contamination Acres. As it is, thousands of acres have been turned into a U.S. Fish & Wildlife-run wildlife area, much of which will soon be open to the public."

"The U.S. Department of Energy is proposing changes to the Rocky Flats site and is seeking public comment on the plan. During the Cold War, the U.S. government built nuclear weapons at the plant on Colo. 93, and the materials led to some radioactive contamination. The weapons plant was closed in 2005 and the site went through an extensive cleanup. The factory was demolished, and most of the site became a wildlife refuge. The DOE wants to demolish several dams on the site that hold surface water in retention ponds. Breaching the dams will allow water to flow and restore the wetlands and riparian habitat. Local communities, including Broomfield, oppose the plan. The dr"

After his brother's funeral Saturday, Rick Wolf started talking with a couple he'd never met. He recounted how difficult it had been for Charlie Wolf to prove he deserved federal compensation for the brain cancer that the government eventually admitted was linked to work at U.S. nuclear weapons sites. Charlie Wolf had become something of a celebrity as he battled brain cancer and the federal government to the very end of his life, determined to prove that he and other sick nuclear weapons workers were being denied aid that was promised them. His story was chronicled last July in a Rocky Mountain News special report, "Deadly Denial."

Officials at the U.S. Department of Labor say recent stories in the Rocky Mountain News "paint an inaccurate picture" of the program to compensate Cold War-era workers who became sick while building the nation's nuclear arsenal and "indict the entire program based on a small number of individual claimants' experiences." The comments came in letters to three U.S. congressmen who had asked the Labor Department why it failed to respond to the findings of a Rocky investigation published last month in a special report called "Deadly Denial."

The U.S. Department of Labor says it can find "no known" link between toxic exposure and at least 77 medical conditions. Sick workers have come to call this the "no pay" list. But the Rocky Mountain News found that at least seven of those listed diseases actually have "good" or "strong" evidence linking them to toxic substances. The Rocky discovered the links through a simple search of an Internet database of disease studies compiled by doctors for the nonprofit Collaborative on Health and the Environment.

The time has come for change in the federal compensation program for sick nuclear weapons workers, two men who have held key roles in the program said this week. More than 165,000 sick workers or their survivors - including more than 10,000 from the former Rocky Flats site near Denver - have applied to the eight-year-old compensation program. The aid program, which has been subject to multiple congressional hearings, also was the subject of a three-part investigative series in the Rocky Mountain News last week called "Deadly denial."

Sister Pat Mahoney, who went to prison for battling Rocky Flats and spent her life fighting for the homeless and against war and nuclear arms, died July 30 at San Francisco General Hospital. She had collapsed on the street about 10 blocks from her home on July 29, said her brother, Jerry Mahoney, of Petaluma, Calif. She died about 24 hours later, he said, adding that he believes Mahoney, who was 72, had a stroke.

The manner in which sick workers at Rocky Flats and other U.S. Department of Energy sites have been treated is a national disgrace. Even after a federal fund was established in 2000 to get them health care and compensate them for the illnesses acquired as they worked, they have faced missing records, insurmountable red tape and a bureaucracy that seems determined to deny them at every turn.

A U.S. Department of Energy official said Friday that his agency will continue to store 500 boxes of Rocky Flats-related documents while evaluating storage options in Colorado. "As part of our evaluation, we will consider the most appropriate way to make this information available to the public," Michael Owen, director of DOE's Office of Legacy Management, wrote in letters to members of Colorado's congressional delegation.

As a lawsuit filed by landowners near the former Rocky Flats nuclear manufacturing plant approaches its third decade, the case has finally been cleared to move to the appeals court. U.S. District Court Judge John L. Kane on Tuesday entered a formal judgment awarding a class of landowners near the plant $376.8 million.

Little about the history of the Rocky Flats nuclear trigger plant engenders the trust of Coloradans. From its secretive Cold War era roots, to suppressed reports about contamination, to a stifled grand jury investigating environmental crimes, there remains a lingering suspicion that we still don't know everything about the former plant.

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch on Monday agreed to release some documents in a long-sealed case involving the Rocky Flats grand jury, but it was a hollow victory for jurors. Matsch ruled that court filings, memos and other ancillary information be released. But he kept a lid on the testimony of jurors who think the Justice Department undermined their 2 1/2-year criminal investigation and instead cut a deal for an $18.5 million fine against Rockwell International, the operator of the former nuclear weapons plant in Jefferson County.

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.

Sen. Ken Salazar told reporters Wednesday that he would introduce legislation to address how workers from the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant are compensated for illnesses incurred as a result of exposure to radioactive materials. He termed as "abhorrent" the manner in which the Department of Labor has managed programs intended to compensate employees for their illnesses.