Washington – U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar wants a Senate hearing examining how the government is handling the medical claims of former workers at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons depot.
Salazar, D-Colo., signed a letter along with 13 other Democrats and Republican senators, asking the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions to hold a hearing.
“Nuclear-weapons workers with work-related diseases in 20 states are not being compensated,” the letter states, while federal law passed in 2000 “was designed to fairly compensate sick energy workers.”
Thousands of Coloradans worked at the plant 16 miles west of downtown Denver, making plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons. Other workers cleaned up contaminated buildings at the plant.
Former workers at the Colorado plant and their surviving spouses have filed 6,212 claims, seeking compensation for illnesses. So far, 802 payments have been made.
U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, a Republican, did not sign the letter. He said he was not asked, but he believes that “it needs to be resolved in the courts and the courts have spoken.”
Kay Barker, Grand Lake resident and a member of the worker advocacy group Alliance Against Nuclear Weapons, said Congress should intervene. Former workers are dying each week, she said.
“Congress is the one that set up the law, and now Congress is the one that needs to fix it,” she said.
Staff writer Anne Mulkern can be reached at 202-662-8907 or amulkern@denverpost.com.
