Payments to NTS workers outlined

Thursday, June 21, 2001 | 10:31 a.m.

The Departments of Labor and Energy have scheduled town hall meetings at the end of June in Las Vegas to explain how hundreds of Nevada Test Site workers can receive compensation for exposure to radiation and hazardous materials.

Thousands of workers helped conduct more than 1,000 above-ground and underground nuclear weapons experiments at the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, from 1951 to 1992, and up to 600 may be eligible for compensation, the DOE has estimated.

Las Vegas is one of more than 25 communities where the town hall meetings are scheduled through July, Peter Turcic, chief of the compensation program for the Labor Department, said.

The meetings are scheduled for 7 p.m. on June 28 and 1 p.m. on June 29 at Texas Station hotel-casino, Turcic said.

Congress approved a new law in October that pays a lump sum of $150,000 and covers the medical expenses of workers who became ill from exposure to radiation, the metal dust beryllium used in nuclear weapons or silica as a result of working in the government's nuclear weapons industry.

The Labor Department has primary responsibility under the law, Turcic said. Those attending the town hall meetings will receive a packet of information, including forms for applying to receive compensation, he said.

A resource center will be set up in Las Vegas for workers who cannot attend the hearings, he said. Workers can receive information and copies of the forms necessary to apply for benefits at the center.

The first compensation checks could be sent later this year.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao announced Monday that she has hired former Assistant Secretary of Energy David Michaels as a consultant to the program. Michaels held a daylong hearing in February in Las Vegas, where more than 500 Test Site workers described how they had been exposed to radiation from the nuclear blasts and dust and beryllium particles inside the tunnels.

"This is our first opportunity to meet with workers and explain the law in detail," Chao said. "It's critical that people know how to fill out these forms properly."