Records may be exhumed from nuclear dump |
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Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:06
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DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - Records buried in a landfill used for radioactive waste may be dug up to determine whether cancer-stricken workers from a defunct nuclear-weapons plant qualify for compensation, a federal official said.At least a dozen pallets of cardboard boxes, six 55-gallon drums and 11 safes containing classified records from the Mound weapons plant in Miamisburg, Ohio, were buried in underground shafts of the landfill at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in 2005.Nobody knows the condition of the records, and the U.S. Department of Energy says it could take up to 18 months and cost as much as $9 million to unearth and decontaminate them.Larry Elliott, the director of compensation analysis for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the records could help officials get a clear picture of the hazards workers faced at the weapons plant.'We are open-minded as to whether (the records) should be exhumed,' Elliott said. 'This is an interesting problem, and we are doing the best we can to make sure that we have the documents we need to do our work.'Elliott's office oversees a method of estimating workers' exposure to harmful radiation and chemicals. If the probability is at least 50 percent that a worker's cancer was caused by on-the-job exposure, the worker qualifies for federal cash and medical benefits.Elliott said he will know within weeks whether it will be necessary to exhume the records.Department of Energy spokeswoman Megan Barnett said Wednesday that the agency was looking for related material, including possible duplicates to the records.Mound began making triggers and detonators for nuclear weapons in 1949 and employed more than 2,000 workers at its peak. The Department of Energy ended production at the plant in 1996.Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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