Home
Energy Net's Library tagged → View Popular
Cibola Beacon - Uranium miners honored at remembrance event
The first annual National Day of Remembrance in honor of former uranium and nuclear workers was observed Friday at the Cibola Convention Center.
Locally the ceremony was organized by the Cold War Patriots, a non-profit advocacy group for those who worked in the uranium and weapons industries. You may have noticed a couple of PT Cruisers painted with a Cold War Patriots motif around town and wondered, as we did, what this group's mission was.
NIOSH to reevaluate its work for EEOICPA; seeks new director for compensation office | Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground | knoxnews.com
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.
Day honors Cold War Hanford workers - Mid-Columbia News | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
Harold Copeland took an engineering job at the Hanford nuclear reservation in 1947, swayed by a recruiter's pitch that he would be paid a good wage and could live in a house with his wife in the government-owned town of Richland.
He took the job and the house rented for $38 a month, which also included power, water, grass seed and handymen to change the light bulbs.
Special cohort needed for Hanford workers - Opinions | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
We're not nuclear scientists or radiation experts, but we're willing to accept the recommendation from those who are -- especially after years of study.
Congress should approve the special exposure cohort for Hanford workers currently being recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
A special cohort would make automatic $150,000 in compensation and extend medical coverage to potentially hundreds of sick Hanford workers who were employed for at least 250 days from Oct. 1, 1943, through June 30, 1972.
In the case of deceased workers, surviving family may be eligible for the payment.
House approves bill to remember nuclear defense workers - Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009 | 5:23 p.m. - Las Vegas Sun
It may be a simple gesture, but the House today overwhelmingly approved a resolution that establishes Friday as a day of remembrance for Nevada Test Site workers and other employees of the nation’s nuclear defense industry.
Authored by Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley of Las Vegas, the day will be set aside for the nation to “salute the hundreds of thousands of men and women who built and maintained America’s nuclear defense capacity for more than 60 years,” the congresswoman said.
Remembrance Day and Janine Anderson | Frank Munger's Atomic City Underground | knoxnews.com
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.
Senator seeks more compensation for state nuclear energy workers | coshoctontribune.com | Coshocton Tribune
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown unveiled legislation Tuesday that would extend occupational illness-related compensation and health benefits to hundreds of former employees at two Cold War-era nuclear facilities in Ohio.
The Ohio Democrat's proposal would extend a special designation to the Feed Materials Production Center in Fernald and the Piqua Organic Moderated Reactor in Piqua so that former workers suffering from certain forms of cancer would automatically qualify for compensation.
Under current law, compensation is paid only if there is evidence the cancer was likely caused by radiation exposure.
"Former energy workers battling cancer should not have to struggle to receive the benefits to which they are entitled," Brown said.
Board OKs expanded compensation for ill Hanford nuclear workers - Breaking News - Yahoo | Tri-City Herald : Mid-Columbia news
A compensation program for ill nuclear workers won key approval Tuesday to offer automatic $150,000 payments to potentially hundreds more Hanford workers or their survivors.
An advisory committee to the federal government meeting in New York voted unanimously to further ease compensation requirements for Hanford workers who may have developed any of a wide range of cancers due to radiation exposure on the job. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services, now is expected to recommend the eased rules, called a special exposure cohort, to Congress.
If Congress does not object, the special exposure cohort would be formed.
Under the special exposure cohort, automatic $150,000 compensation and medical coverage would be extended to any Hanford worker who was employed for at least 250 days from Oct. 1, 1943, through June 30, 1972. That's more inclusive than previous decisions to ease rules only for workers assigned to specific Hanford areas for certain of those years.
The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO - Cold War-era nuclear workers recognized
An event in eastern Missouri will join other U.S. observances of the service of Cold War-era nuclear weapons workers.
Several hundred workers, or their survivors and friends, are expected to attend ceremonies Oct. 30 in Weldon Spring during the first National Day of Remembrance.
Congress dedicated the day to recognize the sacrifices of nuclear weapons and uranium workers from more than 300 U.S. facilities, many of them disabled or dead from exposure to radiation or other toxins.
Event organizer Denise Brock says $4 billion has been paid to workers or their survivors nationwide, including $200 million in Missouri, as federal compensation for the harm since 2000.
The event will include a tree dedication and wreath laying, as well as signups for free medical screenings.
The Hawk Eye: Pantex plant site waiting for same status as IAAP
Many former atomic energy workers in southeast Iowa practically have to beg for compensation under the federal program specifically designed for them.
Advertisement
They go months without a response from the Department of Labor that oversees the program, and yet are expected to get their replies sent back in record time. Some letters simply go unanswered by the district offices.
Then, they often wait years before finally being denied redress for protecting the country during the Cold War.
And the former workers in Amarillo, Texas, at the Pantex site would love to have it that easy.
"Why can't cumulative information be used to benefit other workers," said Sarah Ray, who is one of three people applying for a special exposure cohort for Pantex. "I don't get the feeling that they are truly creating a usable database. I think they're missing the boat."
News Articles: "All hope abandon ye who enter here"
"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.
Officials: Missing SC nuclear pellets not risky - South Carolina & Regional - Wire - The Sun News
Federal investigators say the public faces little danger from 25 pounds of radioactive material reported missing from a South Carolina nuclear fuel plant, but at least one expert from a private group said any amount of uranium could be dangerous in the wrong hands.
Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting in Columbia Thursday to discuss results of their months long inspection at the Westinghouse Electric Co. plant. In May, the Monroeville, Pa.-based company told regulators it could not account for about 25 pounds of low-enriched uranium - small, pencil eraser-sized pellets used to make nuclear fuel.
The material, which amounts to a container of pellets about the size of a five-pound coffee can, likely never left the plant and was recycled with discarded materials that don't meet quality standards, NRC spokesman Roger Hannah said Friday. And even if it had been released, the stable composition of the uranium is such that it couldn't be used as a weapon, like a dirty bomb, he said.
The Associated Press: 1,000 jobs lost at uranium enrichment plant
USEC Inc. said Monday about 120 employees and more than 850 workers for suppliers have lost their jobs since the Energy Department delayed a final review of the company's application for a $2 billion loan guarantee to finance a uranium-enrichment plant in southern Ohio.
USEC suspended work on the project in August after the government's decision over its plans for the American Centrifuge plant in Piketon.
Job losses have occurred in eight states with Ohio and Tennessee having the largest losses.
USEC said it is continuing with demonstration activities for the project and wants to be in a position to ramp back up should it be approved for the loan guarantees in 2010. The company said it hopes to update its application for the loan guarantee by early next year.
Failure to report SRS accidents costs two their jobs | Aiken Standard | Aiken, SC
One of two accidents at the Savannah River Site made public last week "had potential criticality safety implications" when a 200-pound bundle of highly enriched uranium fell 15 feet from a crane into a pit of acid.
Fuel bundles loaded with highly enriched uranium metal being transported by crane are lowered into a "dissolver" containing acid. The process converts the uranium into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors.
Twice in August there were problems with the process, problems that caused two SRS employees to lose their jobs.
"Two recent events illustrate the challenges management faces in changing the behavior of some workers," a report on the incidents read.
The incidents were described in the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report that was made public last week. Having potential criticality safety implications mean that a nuclear chain reaction could have occurred.
2 SRS workers fired over dropping uranium - The Augusta Chronicle
Savannah River Site officials have taken corrective actions — and fired two workers — after two incidents in H Canyon in which bundles of highly enriched uranium were dropped by a crane.
According to a Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board report — dated Aug. 21 and made public Thursday — the incidents “had potential criticality safety implications” and halted reprocessing operations for a week.
A criticality accident is one in which a chain reaction occurs, said Charles Nickell, the site’s nuclear materials disposition manager. “It is something we definitely don’t want to happen.”
The H Canyon area is where highly enriched uranium is loaded by cranes into vats of acid, called “dissolvers,” that help purify and convert the material from solid to a liquid form. The liquid is later blended with natural uranium to create low-enriched uranium and shipped off-site for use in the manufacture of fuel rods for commercial reactors.
Cancer deaths higher for some DOE workers » Knoxville News Sentinel
Construction workers at Department of Energy nuclear sites, including Oak Ridge, had a significantly increased rate of cancer deaths, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine.
Oak Ridge, in particular, had an abnormally high number of deaths attributed to non-Hodgkins lymphoma - a type of cancer sometimes linked to radiation exposure.
The study, which was funded by DOE as part of a medical surveillance program, looked at death numbers and death causes among 8,976 former construction workers at four DOE sites: Oak Ridge; Hanford, near Richland, Wash.; Savannah River, near Aiken, S.C.; and Amchitka, an Alaskan island once used for nuclear weapons testing.
The overall mortality rate of the study group was slightly lower than the U.S. population as a whole, but that's expected when looking at any group of steadily employed workers with access to health care, according to Dr. John Dement, the lead researcher and professor of occupational medicine at Duke University.
Cameco fuel manufacturing workers to strike -union | Industries | Industrials, Materials & Utilities | Reuters
* Workers vote 96 pct to reject latest contract offer
* Plan to strike at midnight, union says
* Company says no meetings with union have been scheduled (Adds details)
TORONTO, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Unionized workers at Cameco Corp's (CCO.TO) Port Hope, Ontario, fuel manufacturing division voted overwhelmingly on Friday to strike, and will officially walk out at midnight, a union official said.
Mohamed Baksh, a staff representative for the United Steelworkers, said the vote was 96 percent to reject Cameco's most recent contract offer. He represents 137 workers at the operation, formerly known as Zircatec, which makes up a bit less than half of the total work force at the facility.
About Mesothelioma: Asbestos Exposure and Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma Lawyers & Attorneys Info
A new study of older construction workers at four U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons sites found the workers have a higher risk of having asbestos-related disease. The study, conducted by researchers at Duke University, the University of Cincinnati and other institutions, found that trades workers at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee, Savannah River Site in South Carolina or the Amchitka site in Alaska had significantly elevated asbestos-related cancers.
The study was published in the current issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, a medical publication. The research was funded by the Department of Energy.
The study tracked the mortality of 8,976 construction workers at nuclear weapons facilities who had participated in voluntary medical screening programs from 1998 through 2004. The workers were predominantly white and nearly all male. Researchers identified 674 deaths among the overall group —slightly less than expected—but noted a significantly higher death rate among those identified as asbestos workers and insulators. The incidence of cancer was elevated at all four sites with the highest rates at Savannah River.
Hanford News: Study: Hanford construction workers were at risk of certain cancers
Former Hanford construction workers have an increased risk of death from a blood cancer linked to radiation and another cancer linked to asbestos, according to a new study.
The study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine drew on data collected in the Building Trades National Medical Screening Program for Hanford and three other Department of Energy sites.
"While several studies have investigated mortality risks among (Department of Energy) production workers, little data exist concerning mortality among construction and trade workers ...," the study said.
It looked at 8,976 workers who had participated in the building trades screening program at the four sites and had an initial screening interview from 1998 through 2004. Those interviews were compared to the National Death Index, which had information only through 2004 when the study began.
Ex-staffer at Dimona nuclear reactor says made to drink uranium - Haaretz - Israel News
Workers at the nuclear reactor facility in Dimona were made to volunteer to drink uranium in 1998 as part of an experiment, according to a lawsuit filed four months ago in the Be'er Sheva Labor Tribunal by a former worker at the facility.
The experiment was allegedly carried out without obtaining written consent from the workers or warning them of risks or side effects, as required by the Declaration of Helsinki on human experimentation.
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission said in a statement that the Dimona facility "has the safety and health of its workers as its highest priority."
Selected Tags
Related Tags
Sponsored Links
Top Contributors
Groups interested in workers
-
Cajas de carton
Sites that have vocabulary,...
Items: 5 | Visits: 21
Created by: Jodi Toole
-
Insurance
List of links to websites t...
Items: 20 | Visits: 44
Created by: Frank Magala
Diigo is about better ways to research, share and collaborate on information. Learn more »
Join Diigo