Energy Department seeks compensation for sick nuclear weapons workers

April 12, 2000
Web posted at: 7:20 PM EDT (2320 GMT)

By Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Energy Department on Wednesday urged Congress to quickly approve more than $300 million to compensate government workers who have cancer and other ailments they believe are a result of their work building nuclear weapons over the past 50 years.

The plan would compensate more than 3,000 Energy Department workers with a variety of illnesses, giving them either a lump-sum payment of $100,000 apiece or a higher amount to cover their medical bills and lost wages.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson apologized for years of government denials of compensation claims by workers in U.S. nuclear weapons labs.

"This policy reverses a decades-old Energy Department practice of opposing claims filed by people who helped build America's toughest defenses," Richardson said. "They are people who became ill after working with very hazardous materials under dangerous conditions."

"The president, the vice president and I apologize for the suffering these men and women have been through, suffering from the effects of cancer, chronic beryllium disease and other illnesses."

Vikki Hatfield, whose father is gravely ill after being exposed to beryllium while assembling nuclear bombs, thanked Richardson, but said, "I believe we still have a long way to go before the package is complete. It's not everything we hoped for, but it's going to get help to the people who really need it now, and that's what's important."

Hatfield's father, Leon Meade, of Kingston, Tennessee, worked for the Energy Department from 1949 to 1985, assembling weapons from 1969 on.

Hatfield echoed Richardson's call for quick congressional action: "Our first and main concern has to be these workers and their families and how we can pass legislation that is going to take care of them in the immediate future. Not down the road, but immediately, that's the important thing."

If approved by Congress, the compensation plan is expected to cost about $120 million a year for the first three years of the program.

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