Sick nuke workers waiting

Officials frustrated by six years of delay in deciding claims

Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News

Published May 5, 2006 at midnight

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Nearly 90 percent of sick nuclear weapons plant workers seeking a particular type of federal aid for their illnesses are still waiting for answers six years after Congress approved the compensation program.

During a hearing Thursday, members of Congress from both parties expressed frustration with the slow response - and with plans by the Bush administration to cut the program's budget.

The program was created in 2000 by Congress to provide medical care and typically $150,000 in compensation to workers who were sickened or died as a result of radiation or chemical exposure while building the nation's atomic bombs.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said that half the program is moving along, reaching decisions for 74 percent of the workers with illnesses such as cancer and beryllium disease. But the second half of the program, which covers more unusual illnesses, continues to be mired in delay, despite a reform passed last year. The second half, called Part E, has provided decisions to 10.5 percent of the nearly 40,000 workers who filed claims, Hastings said.

In Colorado, the program has decided 302 of 2,270 claims filed by workers at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in suburban Denver. But only 99 have been paid.

Even the more successful side of the program is having problems finishing its remaining cases. Records of radiation exposure are wrong or missing, and many claims have been denied or delayed as a result, lawmakers testified.

Several members of Congress from states with weapons plants, including Colorado Rep. Mark Udall, used the hearing to condemn plans by the Bush administration to cut the aid program by $686 million in 2007 for budget reasons.

An administration budget document "outlines an outrageous attempt to circumvent congressional intent," the Colorado Democrat said.

Rep. Zack Wamp, R-Tenn., said that when the program was approved in 2000, lawmakers agreed that sick workers should be helped even if the cost added to the national debt. "You owe compensation to people the government has harmed," he said. "It's like a court order."

Hastings noted that 51,000 workers poured into the Washington state desert in 1943 to build the world's first nuclear reactor, used to create plutonium for the first nuclear bomb.

"If workers could build the world's first nuclear reactor in 13 months starting from scratch, surely the federal government should be capable of getting these claims processed after five years," he said.

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