Theenergynet's Favorite Links on contamination from Diigo

Sen. Salazar goes to bat for Rocky Flats workers. - The Denver Post

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:27:22 -0000

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.

Tags: nuclear n-weapons workers health compensation

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Levi Samora got a stack of rejection letters — one on the day he received aid : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:30:02 -0000

For five years, former Rocky Flats worker E. Levi Samora Jr. was denied compensation meant for sick nuclear weapons workers, even though he had a diagnosis of a bomb-related illness from Rocky Flats doctors.

Early in the compensation program, chronic beryllium disease was considered a rare, almost certain approval. Unlike invisible radiation, beryllium leaves its mark. Samora, 48, had the medical test that tied his lung damage directly to the unusual metal, which was used to make nuclear weapons in the sprawling plant northwest of Denver.

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Tags: nuclear n-weapons fuel-cycle rocky-flats workers

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As workers await relief, program doles out big bonuses to its own : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:29:08 -0000

Executives at the U.S. Department of Labor are apparently happy with the operation of the program to compensate sick nuclear weapons workers. More than $3.2 million in bonuses has been paid to those administering the program since it started in 2001.

That doesn't include any bonuses that may have been paid to people working on the program in other agencies, including the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health or the U.S. Department of Energy.

Tags: nuclear energy fuel-cycle workers contamination

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Ross Williams is too weak for the tests he needs to receive compensation : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:28:07 -0000

To prove he is sick enough to deserve the federal compensation promised to former uranium miners such as himself, 86-year-old Ross Williams must take a lung-function test.

The problem is, Williams and some others like him are too sick to complete the required test. With measured breath, he explains in his native Navajo language what has happened each time he has tried to take it.

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Tags: nuclear energy fuel-cycle uranium mining

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Deadly denial: Navajo miners stand ground in a different kind of Cold War : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:25:59 -0000

TUBA CITY, Ariz. — This spring, officials from the U.S. Department of Labor sat around a small fire, touching sweet corn pollen to their tongues and inhaling spicy cedar smoke in a traditional Navajo ceremony.

Larry Martinez, who manages the Office of Navajo Uranium Workers, had organized the ceremony hoping to improve a working relationship that he described as "difficult and getting worse" between the Navajo and the labor department, which manages a federal program to compensate sick nuclear weapons workers.

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Tags: nuclear energy fuel-cycle uranium mining

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Fifteen French workers exposed to low-level nuclear radiation _English_Xinhua

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:36:26 -0000

Fifteen French workers were slightly exposed to nuclear radiation at Saint-Alban nuclear station in Iser province, but their health was unaffected, local media reported Monday.

A manager with France's national power company said regular medical checks found traces of radiation materials in the workers' bodies after they carried out routine repair and maintenance tasks at the nuclear station on July 18.

Tags: nuclear energy workers france europe

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Feds apparently disregarded toxic links to illnesses : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:33:28 -0000

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.

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Tags: nuclear n-weapons workers doe contamination

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Dee Hasenkamp's husband died; she was told to figure out why on her own : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:33:01 -0000

Gerald Hasenkamp was in excruciating pain.

Cancer had invaded his colon, his mouth, his lungs and finally his bones. When his wife, Dee, tried to prop him up in bed, his collarbone snapped. When a nurse tried to take a blood sample, his arm broke.

Finally, the doctors told Dee Hasenkamp that she had to tell her husband to let go. His fight was over.

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Tags: nuclear n-weapons workers doe contamination

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Charlie Wolf should be dead, but six years later, he's still fighting for aid : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:32:22 -0000

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."

Tags: nuclear n-weapons workers doe contamination

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Deadly denial: Shifting rules drowning sick nuclear workers : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:31:34 -0000

At the height of the Cold War, hidden away in the nation's heartland amid grazing cattle and glistening cornfields, a top-secret installation bustled with hundreds of workers assembling nuclear warheads.

Denny Daily worked for 14 years as a security guard at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in rural Des Moines County. He had the highest level of security clearance and guarded the clandestinely named "Line 1," where the warhead work took place, and the "igloos" where the warheads were stored in earthen and concrete bunkers.

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Tags: nuclear n-weapons workers doe contamination

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Final decisions on aid veiled in secrecy : Deadly Denial : The Rocky Mountain News

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:29:31 -0000

Criminals have the right to know what evidence is used against them, but sick nuclear weapons workers do not.

If a sick worker fights all the way through the federal program meant to compensate those made ill building atomic bombs, the government gets the last word — in the form of a secret report.

Tags: nuclear n-weapons doe fallout contamination

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Las Vegas Now | Downwinder Screening May Come to an End

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:25:45 -0000

In 1958, Troy Wade worked at the Nevada Test Site. His knowledge of that era comes in handy as president of the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas.

"The Soviet Union tested their own atomic bomb, and suddenly this country was faced with a very different problem. Instead of developing weapons to be used against another country, suddenly this country had to defend itself against nuclear weapons developed by somebody else. That led to the establishment of the Nevada Test Site in 1950," he said.

Tags: nts downwinders nv health contamination

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Atomic bomb veterans receive £8k compensation - but no apology - Sunday Mirror

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:17:26 -0000

He is the first of the few - a veteran of Britain's atomic bomb tests finally compensated for 50 years of suffering.

But for Ernie Moore the £8,000 he has been awarded is worthless without the apology he has waited half a lifetime for.

Tags: nuclear n-weapons uk vets contamination

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Compensation plan forged within cauldron of politics : Special Reports : The Rocky Mountain News

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:16:09 -0000

Richard Miller, a longtime union policy analyst, arrived in a formal Capitol Hill conference room in the summer of 2000 eager to share his ideas.

He had worked for years trying to help sick nuclear weapons workers. Now that the Clinton administration had dramatically reversed the federal government's decades-old policy of fighting workers' claims of job-related illness, it was time to iron out the details of a remedy for past harm.

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Tags: nuclear n-weapons doe health compensation

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George Barrie is dying. His wife's advocacy work may have become a weapon against him : Special Reports : The Rocky Mountain News

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:15:11 -0000

The pain drives George Barrie from his bed about 3 a.m. — a nightly occurrence.

He leaves his sleeping wife and stumbles to his recliner in the living room. He sits down heavily, shifting his weight, trying to make the pain bearable.

Tags: nuclear n-weapons doe health contamination

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With a 25-pound liver, Janine Anderson was told she isn't too sick : Special Reports : The Rocky Mountain News

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:13:22 -0000

Janine Anderson spent seven years as a secretary at the Oak Ridge nuclear reservation, one of the nation's premier nuclear weapons development and production complexes.

But that safe-sounding office position didn't protect her from the toxic exposure that has ravaged her body. Her lungs are scarred with deadly beryllium, a key ingredient in atomic bombs. Her immune system is attacking her body, which harbors an array of heavy metals in toxic quantities. Her liver is so enlarged that it is threatening to burst through her abdominal wall.

Tags: nuclear n-weapons doe workers health

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Deadly denial: Nuclear weapons workers who risked their safety in the Cold War now must fight for compensation

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:30:32 -0000

ABOUT THE SERIES

Tens of thousands of America's former nuclear bomb builders are sick, dying or already dead because of their exposure to radiation and other poisons. You knew that.

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Tags: nuclear n-weapons workers health compensation

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TEMPLE: Nuke workers need help not silence : Columns & Blogs : The Rocky Mountain News

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:44:44 -0000

They built the nuclear weapons that helped win World War II and the Cold War.

When the nation's future depended on them, they stood firm.

Now where is their government when they need its help?

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Tags: nuclear fuel-cycle doe workers health

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Active threat | Down To Earth magazine:Radioactive waste spills over into fields in Jharkhand

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:36:02 -0000

about 4 hectares of agricultural land in Talsa village near Jamshedpur looks jaundiced. The soil has turned light yellow and villagers fear it might have gone barren. On June 17, radioactive waste from a pond of the Uranium Corporation of India Limited (ucil) spilled over and deluged the village pond and well.

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Tags: nuclear energy fuel-cycle n-waste contamination

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KNDO/KNDU Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA | Hundreds of Former Hanford Workers Gather for Meeting on Cancer Payments

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:36:10 -0000

Hundreds of former workers stricken by cancer and their families gathered in Richland Thursday in search of more money.

The meeting comes after the U.S. Department of Labor extended benefits for former workers.

Tags: doe hanford workers contamination compensation

Posted by: theenergynet