Area 51 worker sees hope in Supreme Court ruling
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling has sparked a glimmer of hope for a former Area 51 worker.
Fred Dunham has battled state and federal agencies for 20 years while seeking compensation for health problems he blames on breathing toxic fumes from stealth coatings burned in open pits.
During the 1980s, Dunham was a security guard for a contractor, EG&G Special Projects, at the once-secret U.S. Air Force test installation 90 miles north of Las Vegas. At the time, excess stealth material from the F-117A Nighthawk program was routinely burned in open pits in violation of environmental laws.
While Department of Energy workers exposed to radioactive or toxic materials at the former Nevada Test Site have been awarded $150,000 or more for illnesses linked to their jobs there, workers for defense contractors at Area 51 downwind of the test site and burn pits along the Groom Dry Lake bed have been denied compensation.
On Jan. 20, however, the Supreme Court ruled that military service members and contractors who believe their health was affected by open-pit burning of garbage and toxic materials in Iraq and Afghanistan could sue KBR Inc., the contractor charged with operating those pits.
“It’s encouraging,” Dunham said Thursday about the high court’s decision, “except for the fact none of the companies I worked for are still there. I’m hopeful still that the government will do the right thing.”
Dunham, 64, suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He says his health problems are not only linked to inhaling dioxin-laden fumes from burning stealth aircraft coatings, but also to a nuclear weapons test — Mighty Oak — that “blew the doors” off a tunnel. The result was a controlled release of radioactivity that was detected in the vicinity of where he worked. He was standing outside, seven miles east of the tunnel.
A Feb. 10 report by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that defense contractor KBR Inc. continued to dispose of prohibited items in open burn pits despite congressional action to restrict the practice.
The 30-page report, released by Bergmann &Moore, a national law firm that handles veterans’ disability claims, also found that military personnel and others exposed to fumes from open-pit burning might have lasting health effects.
Dunham and his co-workers were exposed to similar, dioxin-laced fumes at Area 51, but as defense contract workers they were not afforded coverage under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act.
Their claims have been denied even though EG&G Special Projects was a division of Energy Department contractor EG&G, whose employees are eligible for compensation at the former Nevada Test Site, now the Nevada National Security Site.
Dunham and his co-workers were issued Department of Energy access badges for the test site, but the Department of Labor says because they worked adjacent to it at Area 51, a “defense” installation, they don’t qualify for the “energy employees” compensation program.
Dunham has challenged the government’s denials of his claim to no avail, and his call for Congress to rewrite the law to include Area 51 workers has fallen on deaf ears. He even wrote President Barack Obama in 2012 complaining about “miscommunication and misdirection” by the Energy and Labor departments in handling his case.
His plea was farmed out to the departments. Patricia R. Worthington, who was director of the Energy Department’s Office of Health and Safety, responded with a letter stating: “DOE does not have records relating to that work.”
Dunham isn’t giving up. He said he began exploring legal avenues Friday to challenge the government’s stance on Area 51 workers in light of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court.
Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Follow @KeithRogers2 on Twitter.