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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."

Tags: nuclear, n-weapons, doe, workers, compensation, contamination, nuke.news, safety, co, us on 2008-08-05 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Two Colorado congressmen want the investigative arm of Congress to scrutinize the way the U.S. Department of Labor is handling claims of sick nuclear weapons workers. Democrats Mark Udall and Ed Perlmutter say they will call today for an investigation by the Government Accountability Office, an independent, nonpartisan agency that investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars.

Tags: nuclear, n-weapons, energy, fuel-cycle, doe, dol, workers, contamination, compensation, investigation, nuke.news on 2008-08-01 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Above is a 14-minute video of an interview with sick worker Vina Colley, who was an employee at the Portsmouth/Piketon Ohio uranium enrichment and gaseous diffusion plant, now operated by United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC). Colley details her illnesses, workplace problems, her employment and her efforts to obtain medical help and monetary compensation. She is co-founder of PRESS, the Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, and part of National Nuclear Workers for Justice. If you have trouble viewing the video, a lower-connection-speed version is viewable on this web page ...

Tags: nuclear, fuel-cycle, n-weapons, portsmouth, oh, doe, workers, contamination, compensation, nuke.news on 2008-07-31 -All Annotations (0) -About

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More than 120 workers evacuated a nuclear power plant in southern France on Tuesday after an alarm was set off, the nuclear safety authority said. Plant owner EDF (EDF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) said the alarm was triggered accidentally but the safety authority ASN said it would await an independent examination before making any conclusions.

Tags: nuclear, energy, france, safety, workers, evacuation, nuke.news, nuke.news.int, europe on 2008-07-30 -All Annotations (0) -About

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The U.S. Department of Labor, if you can believe it, refused to talk to Rocky Mountain News reporter Laura Frank during the investigation that led to this week's series Deadly Denial - her description of grotesque red tape and foot-dragging inflicted upon those who once built nuclear arms for this country and who have been struck down since with terrible diseases.

Tags: dol, nuclear, n-weapons, workers, contamination, compensation, rocky-flats, nuke.news on 2008-07-29 -All Annotations (0) -About

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If the Labor Department doesn't improve the way it treats sick nuclear weapons workers and survivors, officials there may be subject to an investigation, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., said Friday. "I don't want to have to ratchet it up," Perlmutter said. "But if that's what it takes for them to see that we mean business, then that's what we'll do."

Tags: nuclear, fuel-cycle, workers, health, compensation, contamination, nuke.news, rocky-flats on 2008-07-29 -All Annotations (0) -About

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A congressional leader pledged yesterday to introduce legislation that would block an eleventh-hour proposal by the Labor Department that would make it more difficult to limit workers' exposure to chemicals on the job.

Tags: nuclear, fuel-cycle, n-weapons, workers, compensation, contamination, dol, doe, nuke.news on 2008-07-28 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.washingtonpost.com

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.

Tags: nuclear, fuel-cycle, health, safety, nuke.comments, doe, workers, co, rocky-flats, nuke.news on 2008-07-28 -All Annotations (0) -About

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Two Colorado congressmen say it was "completely irresponsible" for the Department of Labor to fail to explain decisions that make it more difficult for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers — or their survivors — to qualify for federal compensation. This week, the Rocky Mountain News reported that the Labor Department, which oversees the program, derailed aid to workers by keeping reports secret from them, constantly changing rules and delaying cases until sick workers died.

Tags: nuclear, n-wepaons, energy, fuel-cycle, workers, contamination, compensation, us, dol, doe, nuke.news, co on 2008-07-28 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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, contamination, co, nuke.news, policy on 2008-07-25 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromwww.denverpost.com

We're now developing a documentary on nuclear workers who have become poisoned by heavy metals, radiation and other contaminants and who are also struggling for adequate compensation for their illnesses for those who are yet alive but sick, and for acknowledgement that those who have died did so as a result of limited or no recognition that their illnesses were caused by exposure to contaminants, flawed human safety procedures and limited care.

Tags: nuke.orgs, workers, health, safety on 2008-07-24 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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.

Tags: nuclear, n-weapons, fuel-cycle, rocky-flats, workers, compensation, contamination, doe, nuke.news on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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, compensation, dol, nuke.news, doe, scandal on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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.

Tags: nuclear, energy, fuel-cycle, uranium, mining, workers, compensation, contamination, navajo, dineh, nuke.news on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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.

Tags: nuclear, energy, fuel-cycle, uranium, mining, workers, contamination, nuke.news on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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, contamination, safety, nuke.news, nuke.news.int on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

more fromnews.xinhuanet.com

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.

Tags: nuclear, n-weapons, workers, doe, contamination, compensation, nuke.news, co on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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.

Tags: nuclear, n-weapons, workers, doe, contamination, compensation, nuke.news, co on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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, compensation, nuke.news, co on 2008-07-23 -All Annotations (0) -About

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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.

Tags: nuclear, n-weapons, workers, doe, contamination, compensation, nuke.news, co on 2008-07-23 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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