Help for nuke test workers expedited

Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002 | 9:53 a.m.

Dorothy Clayton, widow of a Nevada Test Site worker, has been waiting two years to receive benefits promised by the Energy and Labor departments.

She's still waiting.

Clayton's claim is one of nine filed by the families of former or deceased Test Site workers. While conducting nuclear weapons experiments 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the employees were possibly exposed to radiation dust and beryllium, a metal.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has taken steps to speed things up.

After inquiring with the Labor Department, which is investigating the claims, Reid's office found that 8,000 claims are backlogged, because the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health had only three workers to review them.

In the 2003 Labor Department appropriations bill, Reid inserted language that ensures at least 75 employees are hired to review the claims, the senator's spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. All of the claims are expected to be reviewed in less than a year.

"It's a bureaucratic process and it is taking longer than expected," Hafen said.

Glenn Clayton died in June 1999 after suffering from six forms of cancer. The government said in a letter Dorothy received this week that his lung cancer and his bladder cancer could have been caused by radiation exposure.

Another widow, Alma Mosley, has also been waiting since the compensation program was approved by Congress in 2000.

"We are deeply disappointed with the process because she has been waiting for over 23 years for this to be done," said her son Leonard Mosley. "My mother is very frustrated. She really doesn't know what to do next."

Nationwide the department has approved more than 34,000 claims and paid out $353 million to nuclear industry workers and their families from a $1.7 billion federal fund.

The claims that have been approved in Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky for former Energy Department workers were processed because their exposure records had been destroyed, Hafen explained. Under the compensation bill those federal employees who could not prove their exposure receive a lump sum payment of $150,000 and medical screening.

In the case of Test Site workers who wore badges that detected some radiation, records have to be reviewed, she said.

The DOE, under the Clinton administration, admitted responsibility for exposing nuclear workers to dangerous substances.