Reid, Bryan vow action for NTS workers

Wednesday, March 1, 2000 | 10 a.m.

Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid said they will fight this year to include Nevada Test Site workers in a pending bill compensating some Department of Energy employees for health problems related to exposure to radiation and other dangerous materials.

If that bill fails, Reid and Bryan say they are prepared to offer separate legislation on the floor of the Senate on behalf of hundreds of Test Site workers who claim health problems after serving at the site under an oath of secrecy.

"The Nevada Test Site workers played a key role during the Cold War," Bryan, D-Nev., told the Sun Tuesday after he sent a letter to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson asking to include sick and injured Nevada employees in any Clinton administration proposal.

"It would be unconscionable and the height of hypocrisy for the federal government to now turn its back on the thousands of Nevadans who helped us win the Cold War," Bryan said in a prepared statement.

Reid, D-Nev., said he plans to meet with Richardson on Thursday to inform him of the senators' plans.

The Test Site, located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was chosen by President Harry Truman in 1950 as a continental proving ground for nuclear warhead experiments because the U.S. atomic operation in the Pacific Islands became too expensive and dangerous during the Korean War.

From 1951 until 1992 nuclear weapons were detonated first above ground and then below at the site, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island. At its peak in the late 1970s, the Test Site employed 11,000 people.

Lawsuits by former Test Site workers failed to win them compensation in federal court.

"It's a matter of fairness and equity," Bryan said in a telephone interview with the Sun, referring to "the shameless veil of secrecy" the DOE drew around its activities at more than a dozen sites nationwide, including the Test Site.

More than 250 current and former Test Site workers attended a hearing in North Las Vegas Friday, and 52 of them told of their exposures to radiation, dust, asbestos, heavy metals and toxic chemicals.

Test Site workers may have been exposed to beryllium dust while inside pipes and tunnels underground. Beryllium, used in nuclear weapons to improve performance, has been acknowledged by the DOE as a dangerous substance.

The current bill would compensate workers from Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Paducah, Ky., for their illnesses related to the heavy metal.

Dr. David Michaels, the DOE's assistant secretary for environment, health and safety, said the beryllium was used throughout the national nuclear weapons complex.

"What we are worried about is if it is ground up into dust," he said.

Clifford Clayton, 59, told DOE officials on Friday that from 1965 to 1996 he was a storekeeper in charge of inventories for the Test Site. Working inside warehouses in North Las Vegas and on Sunset Road, Clayton kept track of everything from pencils and typewriter paper to photochemicals and beryllium.

"One of my commodities was beryllium," the former employee of EG&G Energy Measurements said. "I handled it with my bare hands."

In later years the workers wore white cotton gloves during inventories, said Clayton, who walks with a help of a cane. He said that since 1987 he has undergone two spinal surgeries and a fusion of a disc in his neck.

Bryan and Reid plan to amend DOE compensation proposed by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to include Nevada workers.

"We must ensure that all of the workers who were unknowingly harmed in the production of our nation's nuclear defense are compensated," Bryan wrote to Bingaman on Tuesday.

Test Site workers are entitled to the same right of compensation as those in Kentucky and Tennesee, the senators said.

If Bingaman's bill fails, Bryan and Reid said they are prepared to introduce separate legislation for Nevada's Test Site workers. Or they could add an amendment on another bill.

Bryan is retiring from the Senate after this year.