Letter to Paul Ziemer, Ph.D, Chair, Advisory Board on Radiation and Workers Health

Letter

Paul Ziemer, Ph.D
Chair
Advisory Board on Radiation and Workers Health
4676 Columbia Parkway, MS: C-46
Cincinnati, OH 45226

Dear Dr. Ziemer:

We urge you to recommend approval of the petition to create a Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) for former Bethlehem Steel employees who worked at the plant from January 1, 1949 through December 31, 1952.

We believe this petition should be promptly approved so as to give the necessary relief to former workers and their families, who have struggled for decades because of dangerous exposure to radiation and other particulates.

The former Bethlehem Steel plant in Lackawanna, New York played a crucial part in the Cold War and was a lynchpin in Western New York's industrial economy for over a century. Thousands worked long hours and under very difficult conditions to create modern machines, weapons, and devices that were the technological innovations of their time. Work intensified throughout the first years of the Cold War, as our country's demand for modern weapons and machines increased.

Work at the Bethlehem Steel plant was hazardous, but at the time, workers had no idea of the immense health risks associated with the uranium-rolling. Specifically during weekend shifts, workers would process upwards of 350 tons of uranium material, unknowingly ingesting radioactive dust during the process.

Decades later, only after hundreds of former workers developed cancer, did the federal government take responsibility for this travesty. Passage of The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act in 2000 was meant to provide compensation and relief to workers like those at Bethlehem Steel who developed debilitating or fatal diseases due to work-related exposure to radioactive material in service to our nation. The law directed the Department of Labor to establish a process, known as Special Exposure Cohort, to decide groups of claims for facilities where a lack of data prevented dose reconstructions from being completed with sufficient accuracy.

Bethlehem Steel workers did not wear individual radiation exposure monitors when uranium-rolling occurred. The few ambient air samples from between January 1, 1949 and December 31, 1952 were taken at monitors that were far removed from the rollers where exposure was the greatest. Yet in spite of this complete lack of data about uranium exposure at Bethlehem Steel, NIOSH has used data from other facilities to reconstruct individual radiation doses for Bethlehem Steel claimants. In addition, NIOSH completed its initial profile of conditions at Bethlehem Steel - the document that is the basis for dose reconstruction - without even interviewing surviving workers. Former workers then came forward with information that demonstrated major flaws in the site profile.

While NIOSH has made some improvements to their site profile, the data needed to accurately reconstruct dose exposure for Bethlehem Steel workers does not exist. Under these circumstances, EEOICPA requires that Bethlehem Steel be placed in a special cohort.

Finally, the denials are not based on records from the Bethlehem Steel plant, but from calculated reconstructions based on sampling from similar plants. Simply stated, it is wrong to deny the former employees of Bethlehem Steel the compensation which, through their hard labor and sacrifice, they have so obviously earned. They served our nation in her time of need; they suffered as a result of this service - through no fault of their own; and now they deserve justice in the form of compensation from the very system that was established to aid those in exactly this situation.

There are 717 cases arising from the exposure to nuclear materials at the Bethlehem Steel plant. According to NIOSH, as of March 20, 2007, less than half of those claims have resulted in compensation. We believe that this record is unacceptable and that the proposed SEC petition would present a much more equitable and fair result for these families. Therefore, we respectfully request the Board to recommend approval of the petition so that this terrible situation can be laid to rest and the many families who have been wrought with so many tragedies can finally have peace of mind.

Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton
Representatives Brian Higgins, Louise Slaughter, and Thomas Reynolds