Test Site veterans take victory lap

At the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas on Friday, Nevada Test Site veterans took a victory lap after Cold War workers on the sprawling reservation finally became eligible this year for special medical compensation after several years of prodding the government.

In May, miners who tunneled out caverns for underground blasts and others who took part in weapons testing were granted "special exposure cohort" status.

That means it became much easier for them to qualify for compensation if they developed cancers that might be traceable to exposures to radiation or hazardous substances on the job.

With the special status, 1,265 former Test Site workers became potentially eligible for payments, according to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

At a short ceremony, Reid recognized former Test Site workers Paul Stednick and Peter White, and Lori Hunton, whose father Oral Triplett worked at the site and died when she was 16.

The three and Reid filed a petition with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in 2007 seeking fast-track status for Test Site veterans that had been granted to workers at other sites where nuclear weapons were manufactured.

"Nevada was a very real battlefield in the long struggle against the evils of communism," Reid said. People who worked at the Test Site were unsung heroes who put their health on the line, most often unknowingly.

Granting compensation "is the least their country can do for them," he said.

Through the designation, former workers who compiled at least 250 days on the job at the test site from Jan. 1, 1963, through Dec. 31, 1992, would be able to receive at least $150,000 apiece plus medical expenses if they contracted one or more of 22 listed cancers.

Former workers who filed claims that their illnesses resulted from exposure to toxic materials can receive compensation based on a percentage of their disability, which could be as much as $250,000 if they are 100 percent disabled from hazardous, work-related exposures.