Amchitka workers question compensation

In the two years since a U.S. federal compensation program began, more than $19 million has been paid to people who fell ill or died after working in atomic bomb programs on Amchitka Island.

Last week, more than 70 people showed up at a local union hall to question the panel of experts about such topics as workers’ compensation, pharmacy bills and the search for records.

Amchitka, a small island near the tip of the Aleutian Chain, was the site of three nuclear tests in the 1960s and 1970s, including the largest underground blast ever conducted in the U.S. After the first test, in 1965, radiation seeped out of the surface and into the ground water. A second explosion, in 1969, was even bigger, though radiation was never measured above ground.

The third test, called Cannikin, required drilling a 10-foot-diameter hole more than a mile deep. Miners were lowered daily to cut through the well casing and create a 52-foot-diameter cavity in the rock. Temperatures “in the hole” ran as high as 120 degrees, the humidity was 100 per cent and fires occasionally ignited.

Over the years, drill operators, miners, cooks and others fell ill or died from a variety of diseases. But not until 2000 were Amchitka employees allowed to participate in an existing federal compensation program for workers at other nuclear sites, the Anchorage Daily News reports.

Certain Amchitka workers automatically qualify for a $150,000 compensation award, plus free medical care. They must have worked on the island between 1965 and 1974 and have developed any of two dozen cancers or lung diseases. The first received checks in early 2002.

Of the 309 Amchitka cases filed, 128 have been approved, according to the Anchorage Daily News.