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Nation owes Rocky Flats workers

A panel charged with investigating whether health and radiation dose records were adequate enough at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons facility in Jefferson County may have met its charge, but it certainly has left former public servants in a lurch.

As a result, many of the former public employees, who were exposed to unsafe levels of radiation as they helped the nation build the nuclear bombs that ended the Cold War, will die before they receive the compensation rightfully theirs.

It’s rare for members of the Colorado congressional delegation to agree on anything, but on this they are united: The nation owes former Rocky Flats workers expedited claims status, similar to the status already given to workers at all the other nuclear weapons factories in the country.

Rocky Flats produced triggers for nuclear weapons starting in 1951 and continuing until the government shut down the plant in 1991. Triggers were ball-shaped components made of nuclear and explosive material meant to initiate the nuclear reaction of the bomb.

Rocky Flats had a history of spills, leaks, fires and explosions that exposed workers to excessive doses of radiation. The FBI raided the facility in 1989, and that investigation resulted in Rockwell International, the contractor, being fined $18.5 million.

Workers at Rocky Flats have waited patiently as first the Department of Energy botched its responsibility, and now the Department of Labor has continued to block timely payment of medical claims.

Just the process of trying to secure special exposure status has taken more than two years.

The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health did provide expedited status to plant workers there from 1959 to 1966. But workers after that time, even those diagnosed with any of 22 cancers typical of radiation exposure, will need to go through standard dosage reconstruction from dusty and incomplete records in order to receive compensation.

The nation owes these workers more. They need to have their claims processed while they are still alive and while they can use the money for treatment that might extend their lives.

If the federal bureaucracy cannot act expeditiously on their claims, then Congress will need to step in to assure that they receive what they are due.