Nuke Workers Can Seek Compensation

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Thursday July 15 6:38 AM ET 

Nuke Workers Can Seek Compensation

WASHINGTON (AP) - The administration is moving to let employees of 
private contractors seek federal compensation for diseases related to 
beryllium exposure while they worked at government nuclear weapons 
plans.  

Proposed legislation to allow such claims was to be outlined by 
administration officials today, with President Clinton expected to 
also announce that the National Economic council will lead an inter-
agency study on whether illnesses other than those related to 
beryllium should be included.  

USA Today and The New York Times reported on the plan in today's 
editions.  

The new compensation plan is modeled on existing programs for federal 
employees that enable them to submit claims for lost wages and 
medical and rehabilitation costs associated with job exposure to 
toxic substances.   

Although private contract employees made up the vast majority of the 
workforce at the nuclear facilities, they heretofore have not been 
ineligible to apply for federal compensation. Moreover, they 
generally have been unable to collect under state worker compensation 
programs because the state programs were designed for injuries, not 
occupational illnesses.  

To qualify under the new program, a medical panel would have to 
determine that any illness was related to the worker's employment.  

Beryllium is a rare chemical element associated with several metallic 
alloys used in atomic weapons.  

``I am reversing a policy of denial of compensation,'' Energy 
Secretary Bill Richardson told the Times.

He depicted the affected workers as victims of a Cold War rush to 
produce nuclear weapons and said safety standards, which have evolved 
since the 1940s, had been established in good faith, but have since 
been determined to have been too weak.  

USA Today quoted an internal Energy Department document saying ``this 
important endeavor has potential to help our contractor workers who 
have been so vital in achieving the (DOE's national defense) 
mission.''  

Some of the people eligible to file claims work or worked at plants 
that date from the World War II effort to build a nuclear bomb, like 
Oak Ridge in Tennessee. Others worked or still work at the Nevada 
Test site, the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington State, Rocky 
Flats near Denver, the Idaho National Environmental Engineering 
Laboratory, the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the 
Savannah River Site in South Carolina.

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/1205

"The object of opening the mind, as of opening 
the mouth, is to close it again on something solid"
              - G. K. Chesterton -
************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html