News Release: US Department of Labor notifies former Alabama atomic weapons employees of energy workers compensation program [04/26/2011]

OWCP News Release: [04/26/2011]
Contact Name: Jesse Lawder Enrique Chaurand
Phone Number: (202) 693-4659 (202) 693-4679
Email Address: lawder.jesse@dol.gov chaurand.enrique@dol.gov
Release Number: 11-0581-ATL (175)

US Department of Labor notifies former Alabama atomic weapons employees of energy workers compensation program

WASHINGTON —The U.S. Department of Labor is notifying former workers of the Southern Research Institute located in Birmingham, Ala., and the Tennessee Valley Authority’s National Fertilizer Development Center located in Muscle Shoals, Ala., about benefits that may be available to them under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act administered by the department’s Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation. Survivors of qualified workers also may be entitled to benefits.

Part B of the EEOICPA provides federal compensation and medical benefits to workers who have been diagnosed with cancer and whose illness was caused by exposure to radiation while working directly for a designated Atomic Weapons Employer at a covered facility during a covered time period. The covered time period for the TVA’s National Fertilizer Development Center is 1951 through 1955. Covered time periods for the Southern Research Institute are 1955 through 1958, 1962, 1976 and the residual radiation periods of 1959 through 1961, 1963 through 1975 and 1977 through October 2009.

Individuals or their survivors found eligible under Part B may receive a lump sum compensation payment of $150,000 and medical expenses for their covered conditions. Potentially eligible individuals are urged to contact the department’s Oak Ridge Resource Center in Tennessee toll-free at 866-481-0411 and visit DEEOIC’s website at http://www.dol.gov/owcp/energy for more information.

It is the Labor Department’s goal to disseminate information concerning EEOICPA benefits to potentially eligible claimants across the country. To aid in this effort, the department maintains 11 resource centers nationwide to provide in-person and telephone-based assistance to individuals regardless of where they live. To date, the department has delivered more than $40.7 million to eligible individuals living in Alabama, and more than $6.9 billion nationwide, in compensation and medical benefits.

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