Feds to help Tri-Citians with Hanford and PNNL ill worker compensation claims

U.S. Department of Labor officials will visit Richland Tuesday, May 16, to provide information and individual assistance on its compensation and free health care program for workers who developed illnesses after working at a nuclear weapons facility.

That includes work at the Hanford nuclear reservation site in Eastern Washington and also some work done at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory of Richland. If workers have died, their survivors may be eligible for payments.

Department of Labor representatives will give a presentation on the compensation program at 9 a.m. at the Holiday Inn Richland on the River, 802 George Washington Way.

Then staff will be available from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. to answer questions, help file claims and check the status of claims already filed in the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Compensation of $150,000, plus coverage of medical care if needed, is available to current workers, former workers or their survivors for cancer and certain respiratory illnesses caused by working at Hanford or PNNL.

Claims can be filed for workers employed at Hanford since its beginning in the 1940s.

Another part of the EEOICP provides compensation up to $250,000 to workers and survivors, plus medical benefits to current and former workers, based on the level of impairment or wage loss if they develop an occupational illness as a result of exposure to toxic substances at a Department of Energy Facility.

It covers a broader range of illnesses and impairments, including hearing loss.

The program has paid more than $2.1 billion in compensation and medical benefits to Hanford workers or their survivors and $377 million to PNNL workers or there survivors.

It has paid more than $23.2 billion nationwide.