[CPEO-MEF] Lab workers get help for work-related illnesses

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Lab workers get help for work-related illnesses
By Thomas Weiler
Tribune Reporter

Harold Ide never saw the enemy, never fired a shot, yet he fought for 
his country until the day he died.

"He was a sick boy, I'll tell you," said Rose Ann Ide as she reminisces 
about the final days of her husband's life.

Now, Ide, and many others in a similar situation, are trying to take 
advantage of a compensation program designed to help federal employees 
in the Department of Energy stricken with work-related illnesses.

The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, which 
began in July 2001, is striving to make sure that these old soldiers 
don't just fade away.

The program awards $150,000 in lump sum compensation, in addition to 
related medical expenses, to all workers determined to have contracted 
certain diseases while working for the Department of Energy.

Sparked by the Cold War, New Mexico's two national laboratories, under 
the direction of the Department of Energy, blossomed into busy nuclear 
research centers.

Pacing the arms race, employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory and 
Sandia National Laboratories worked on many defense projects with 
potentially harmful toxic and radioactive materials.

"We have quite a number of people who have been exposed to that nature 
of work," said Floyd Archuleta, site manager of the Energy Employees 
Compensation Resource Center in Espanola.

This article can be viewed in its entirety at:
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news02/071902_news_fedcomp.shtml

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