The U.S. government will allow workers from an experimental Cold War laboratory in Middletown to reapply for lump-sum payments and medical benefits, tagging them with a special status already accorded to other labs nationwide where workers were exposed to radiation.
The U.S. Dept. of Labor cleared all former workers at the Connecticut Aircraft Nuclear Engine Laboratory (CANEL) to apply for benefits under the special-exposure cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, which took effect in 2001.
Under EEOICA, eligible workers who contracted cancer under federal nuclear programs are entitled to payments of up to $250,000 and reimbursement for medical expenses. The initial statute established four special-exposure cohorts covering workers at nuclear programs at Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Paducah, Ky.; Portsmouth, Ohio; and Amchitka, Alaska. Since then, some 30 other sites have been added to the special-exposure cohort, including a Windsor property owned by the former Stamford-based company Combustion Engineering, acquired by ABB Group in 1990. Combustion Engineering produced fuel for nuclear submarines in Windsor.
The CANEL facility included 34 buildings on 1,100 acres of land. Under the direction of the U.S. Air Force, CANEL researchers with Pratt & Whitney attempted to develop an aircraft engine that could be powered with nuclear fuel, with General Electric Co. pursuing a similar aim at a Cincinnati lab. The Pratt & Whitney design involved using a small nuclear reactor on board a plane to heat liquids, which would in turn funnel superheated air to power turbines in flight.
The new CANEL cohort includes all former Department of Energy employees, contractors and subcontractors who worked at least 250 days at CANEL between 1958 and 1965, including those who had previously been denied claims for assistance.
Survivors of qualified employees may also be entitled to benefits. To date, the government has disbursed more than $2 million in 16 CANEL cases filed by employees and their survivors, of more than 40 workers or family members who have sought payment.
Workers at two Fairfield County work sites have received payments under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act, and two more qualify as eligible work sites under the program.
Bridgeport Brass cut and stored uranium for the Havens Lab in Seymour, and the Dept. of Labor has disbursed nearly $1.8 million across a dozen cases. Employees of American Chain and Cable in Bridgeport helped make uranium slugs for the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, and DOL awarded $150,000 in one case.
DOL has qualified two other work sites under the law, but neither has been the subject of an award. Dorr Corp. conducted tests on handling low-level radioactive material, and subsequent owners of its Stamford facility have also been covered under the federal program. And in Danbury, Sperry Products developed processes for testing uranium plates.
In total, some 75 Connecticut workers have received $9.6 million in payments under the compensation act, part of some $4.5 billion nationally distributed to more than 48,500 workers. Nearly 370 Connecticut workers have filed for payments under the act.
