Yucca Mountain workers must register for silicosis screenings

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, March 15, 2004 | 11:28 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Former miners or employees who worked in tunnels at the Energy Department's Yucca Mountain Project need to watch their mail for information on the free silicosis screenings now available through a new program.

Gene Runkle, senior safety adviser for the department's office of civilian radioactive waste management who also manages the program, said 1,200 letters went out in the past two weeks to people who could need testing. The department has sent out 2,400 letters in all since it announced the screening program in January.

Runkle was to testify at a Senate field hearing in Las Vegas today, along with Margaret Chu, who heads the entire project, and Clark County resident Gene Griego, who recently filed a class action lawsuit against department contractors for his exposure to silica that he says has made him sick.

Silica is a naturally occurring mineral in the rock at Yucca Mountain, but dangerous if dust particles are inhaled. The particles collect in a person's lungs and over time can cause silicosis, which causes coughing and shortness of breath.

The department announced on Jan. 15 that it would offer free silicosis screenings to any employee from 1992 to the present who was involved in the tunneling and underground operation or set up experiments at the proposed nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Since then, Runkle said, the department has been working with contracting companies to identify employees who spent time in the tunnels. So far 2,400 workers have been listed, but Runkle said this does not mean all of those employees worked in the tunnels. The department estimates 1,200 to 1,500 employees may have been exposed to airborne silica.

The Center to Protect Workers' Rights has contacted local building construction trade unions in Southern Nevada to see if any of their members might need screenings, Trish Quinn, a project manager with the center said.

The department will also work with the Internal Revenue Service to find new addresses for letters that get sent back to the department. Runkle said

Identified workers should receive a letter from W. John Arthur, the project's deputy director of repository development, that explains the program. A second letter should come from the University of Cincinnati, which is conducting the study, seeking basic information such as name, age, address and when and what type of work the person did at the mountain. Workers can register by mail or a toll-free phone number, 866-716-1542.

A call to the number brought a recording asking to leave name and telephone number for someone to return the call.

Once registered, workers will receive a medical consent form and confirmation letter, followed by a telephone interview from Zenith Administrators, a benefit administration company contracted by the University of Cincinnati. So far, 28 interviews have been conducted.

After the interview, Zenith then schedules a medical exam with a doctor who specializes in pulmonary problems. Right now the doctors are in Las Vegas, since the department feels most of the people needing tests will be in Nevada, but Runkle said if enough people were in another region, a doctor could go there.

Michele Boyd, a legislative representative for Public Citizen, who has been trying to track the process said it is "very frustrating."

"You have to receive the letter to know where to go," Boyd said. "The information is just not available. It's not an easy process."

So far, 240 people have signed up for screening. Worker interviews started last week and medical exams could start this week, Runkle said.

The exams include lung tests, a chest X-ray, a regular physical exam and a blood test, which includes a cholesterol screening.

Runkle said silicosis has no effect on cholesterol, but since 1998 employees covered under the Silica Protection Program created by the department receive a cholesterol screening and it wanted to keep the program consistent. Workers who spend or are anticipated to spend more than 20 days in the tunnels get chest X-rays and a physical to be properly fitted for respiratory protection equipment.

Before 1996 the department had little protection or requirements for protection while digging was going on at Yucca.

"My understanding is they were looking at monitoring data and did not detect any high levels of silica," Runkle said.

Allegations that employees changed the data so they would not have to require the protections are still being investigated by the department's inspector general office.

Eula Bingham, the project's principle investigator at the University of Cincinnati, said she received 14 new letters today from people who want screenings. About four people a day leave messages on the hotline, but some do both so the correct total is hard to calculate. Most responses so far have been from Nevada.

"It's moving along," Bingham said. "We are going to try to keep up with them as best we can."

Bingham, who works at the universiy's medical school, was formerly assistant secretary of labor for occupational health and safety for the Labor Department under former President Jimmy Carter.