Richardson says NTS workers should be covered in benefits plan

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson isn't waiting six months for a presidential panel to decide whether nuclear workers, including those at the Nevada Test Site, are eligible for expanded benefits.

After the Washington Post reported on thousands of uranium workers at the federally owned gaseous diffusion plant in Paducah, Ky., Richardson said he would take immediate action and include the other workers in legislation to go to Congress later this year.

Last week about 200 former Test Site workers met to seek expanded benefits for more diseases than 13 current ones -- mostly cancers -- covered under the 1994 Radiation Compensation Act.

President Clinton and the Department of Energy had proposed legislation to create an occupational health and compensation program to cover workers who became ill from exposure to beryllium, a toxic metal in nuclear weapons.

The president ordered the National Economic Council, which includes Clinton and his Cabinet, to decide by March 31 if workers exposed to radiation, asbestos and other dangerous materials at federal weapons sites should be included in the bill.

The proposed legislation would grant contractor employees the same benefits given to federal workers who became ill, especially those employed at the Test Site during above-ground testing from 1951 through 1962.

Nevada workers conducted plutonium dispersal experiments at an area of the Test Site known as Plutonium Valley. A speck of plutonium, which has a radioactive life of 24,500 years, if it gets lodged in a lung or other organ, can cause cancer.

A few thousand workers who have received compensation say the process is cumbersome. The new proposal would make it easier for workers to win benefits.

The bill could also help a screening and surveillance program sponsored by the DOE and Southern Nevada Unions. The 2-year-old program seeks Test Site workers who volunteer for physical exams by doctors from Boston University and the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School.

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