VA seeking payments for those exposed at NTS

Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2001 | 11:17 a.m.

An estimated $1.1 billion could be paid to veterans exposed to radiation during bomb blasts at the Nevada Test Site and other locations around the world or to their survivors under a Department of Veterans Affairs plan.

The department proposed last week to add five types of cancer -- brain, bone, colon, lungs and ovaries -- to the list of those that automatically make the so-called "atomic veterans" eligible for benefits.

Late Friday the VA produced the first estimates of how many veterans or their survivors will be eligible to receive benefits over the next five years.

About $1.1 billion will be needed to cover about 95,042 veterans and 187,133 surviving family members, VA spokesman Jim Benson said.

The funding source has not been identified, Benson said. A claims process could be in place by late summer.

If the proposal is accepted by other federal agencies and the president, exposed vets with those cancers will have an easier time receiving compensation for their illnesses, Hershel W. Gober, acting secretary of veterans affairs, said.

The changes put the veterans and federal civilians who are eligible for compensation on equal footing, Gober said.

In 2001 veterans are expected to file 16,125 claims, along with 37,333 surviving family members for a total of $34.5 million.

By 2002, the peak year for claims, 29,450 veterans are expected to file with 68,000 survivors for a total of $135.4 million.

In 2003 another 20,583 veterans and 29,300 survivors are expected to file $237.9 million in claims.

An estimated $313.4 million in claims is expected from 16,967 veterans and 33,250 survivors in 2004.

Another $379.6 million in claims from 11,917 veterans and 19,250 survivors is estimated for 2005, Benson said.

Apart from benefits, the VA figures it will cost another $51.2 million in administrative expenses for the five years.

In the next few months the VA will write procedures for screening claims and determining benefit packages, Benson said. The process will parallel a similar procedure under the departments of Labor, Justice and Energy for civilian workers at Department of Energy facilities who helped build nuclear weapons.

Those exposed to radiation during the occupation of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, internment as a prisoner of war in Japan or onsite involvement in atmospheric nuclear weapons tests, such as those at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would be eligible.

Also included in the proposal is exposure to radiation from underground nuclear tests at Amchitka Island, Alaska, before Jan. 1, 1974, and service at gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah, Ky., Portsmouth, Ohio, and Area K25 in Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has estimated that fewer than 50 claims out of 18,000 filed were based on radiation exposure during the occupation of Hiroshima or Nagasaki or witnessing blasts at the Nevada Test Site or in the Pacific Islands.