Electrican's widow FINALLY gets a check, only after TWENTYEIGHT YEARS, & the nuclear worker comp program is moved from the Dept. of Energy to Labor

Nuclear worker's widow paid under revamped compensation program

01/10/2005

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD / Associated Press

The widow of an Oak Ridge nuclear weapons worker received a $125,000 check Monday — one of the first issued by the Department of Labor after assuming a long-delayed compensation program from the Department of Energy.

"Thank you, thank you. ... I just want to say from my heart that I am grateful," said Christine Case, whose late husband, Wayne Wallace Jr., died in 1977 from kidney disease and other illnesses caused by exposure to mercury and other substances at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

Wallace, who died at 51 after working as an electrician in the bomb parts plant from 1953 to 1971, was one of about 25,000 claims nationally awaiting the compensation Congress promised when it adopted the program four years ago.

The Department of Labor expects to cut through the backlog more quickly than the Department of Energy, in part by no longer requiring a panel of doctors to sign off on each case.

"I can assure you that those of us at the Labor Department are committed to getting this program up and running and getting benefits to eligible workers and their families as quickly as possible," said Assistant Labor Secretary Victoria Lipnic.

Lipnic presented the check to Case, saying it came "on behalf of the president, the secretary of labor, this administration and all Americans who are grateful for the sacrifice that you and your family made."

Shelby Hallmark, director of the Labor Department's Office of Workers' Compensation, said regulations to support the program should be ready in May. Meantime, he said, there are about 100 claims like Case's that are so straightforward the department can move ahead on them now.

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who with U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., led the push to transfer the program to Labor, said he didn't want to point fingers over past delays.

"It may have been the fault partly of Congress in the way we set it up. Maybe the responsibility lay with the Department of Energy," Alexander said. "But in any event, we decided to make a fresh start and recognize this nation's obligations to its Cold Warriors."

Worker advocates are encouraged by the change, but still have questions about how the cases will be processed and decisions on compensation made, said Janet Michel, secretary of the Coalition for a Healthy Environment.

"There is a lot of work that needs to be done," she said. "But we are thrilled beyond belief that we have a willing payer for all those thousands of people who did not have a willing payer.

"(And) we are thrilled that DOE is no longer part of this process. You don't ask the betrayer to take care of the victims," she said.

"These workers were harmed in service to our country and compensation to them and their families is long overdue," Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said in a statement.