Congressman Brian Higgins spoke on the House Floor today to urge the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to expand the eligibility window for compensation for former Bethlehem Steel employees who now suffer from cancer and other diseases specific to radiation exposure.
“These workers did nothing other than going to work each day and carrying out their jobs,” said Congressman Brian Higgins, “all the while they were being unknowingly exposed to toxic contaminants. The absence of formal records on contamination levels is no reason to deny these employees compensation for the horrific illnesses they now suffer, long after the doors of Bethlehem Steel have closed.”
Currently, only those employees who worked at Bethlehem Steel from 1949-1952 are eligible for compensation. However, the 1952 cut off is arbitrary because no serious mitigation was undertaken until 1976. Through the change being sought, workers would become eligible to apply for $150,000 in compensation.
Because of scant safety records, no documentation of the level of contamination that workers were exposed to from 1952-1976 exists. However, the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (EEOICPA) was established to set up a mechanism on eligibility for compensation in the absence of clear documentation, which was unfortunately very typical for the time period.
In October 2011, Higgins, along with New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, asked NIOSH and the CDC to collect information on residual contamination from 1952-1976. Upon learning that such records did not exist, they asked that the period be extended to 1976 and included supporting documents prepared by workers at the site presenting their notarized first-hand accounts during of that time.
Uranium was rolled at the Bethlehem Steel facility from 1949-1952. Due to a lack of appropriate protections and, subsequently, an inadequate clean up, workers were unknowingly exposed to high levels of radiation and to residual toxic uranium dust. After years of struggle, in 2010 the Secretary of Health and Human Services finally granted a Special Exposure Cohort for workers at the site during the time period 1949-1952, while uranium was being actively rolled.
However, workers at the site during the time when rolling occurred and after 1952 have come forward with accounts showing that any potential clean-up of the radioactivity was grossly inadequate to make the worksite safe for them after the last uranium rods were shipped out, indicating that contamination likely existed until a more complete cleanup occurred in 1976.
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The text of Congressman Higgins’ remarks is below:
Mr. Speaker,
An alarming number of former employees of Bethlehem Steel in Western New York are now suffering from cancer and other diseases due to radiation exposure as a result of having unknowingly worked with and around uranium during the Cold War.
After a multi-year fight and thanks to the determination of workers and their families, those who were employed at the site from 1949-1952 are eligible for $150,000 in compensation for their injuries.
However, the cutoff at 1952 is arbitrary because no serious mitigation was undertaken until 1976. Mr. Speaker, those workers should also be eligible for just compensation.
I am working with our Senators to urge the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to meet with these workers, hear their stories, and finally grant them eligibility for just compensation.
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