Antinuclear

That’s all the time it took for him to suffer irreparable damage to his lungs by inhaling particles of beryllium, a hazardous metal used in nuclear weapons production.

Today the 58-year-old has chronic beryllium disease, a serious respiratory condition that can be fatal.

Smith says the subcontractor he worked for never warned him about the dangers of beryllium exposure, even after he asked why other workers in a tent a few yards away from him were fully suited in protective gear.

“I said, ‘Where is my suit?’ ” he recalls. “They said, ‘You don’t need one. You need just a dust mask.’ ”

News that beryllium and other toxins sickened workers at the site broke years ago. But a recent investigation by the federal government revealed that some employees at the Kansas City Plant might have been exposed to more radiation than previously known. Already, the government has paid workers from the plant, or their survivors, tens of millions in compensation for illnesses and deaths. That figure is still growing……..the latest investigation by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and an advisory board appointed by the president has turned up proof that operations at the site in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s involved more radioactive materials — and potentially higher radiation doses to workers — than previously disclosed in the public record.

More than 1,440 workers who fell ill after working at the Kansas City Plant have applied for compensation and medical coverage from the federal government. The money comes from a fund created in 2001 to recognize the sacrifices made by nuclear workers who helped America fight the Cold War.

Smith received a check this year for $150,000 from the federal government, a sum he considers a paltry price for his life and livelihood.

“How can you put a price on somebody’s life?” he asked.

The roofer is in a group of nearly 300 former Kansas City Plant workers who have received more than $55 million in compensation for illnesses linked to their work, according to an analysis of government data obtained by McClatchy Newspapers through the Freedom of Information Act.

In more than half of the cases, the money went to survivors after the workers died.

Most of those who applied to the federal fund got nothing, including the families of at least 554 deceased Kansas City Plant workers whose claims the government denied.

The approval rate for cases involving former workers at the plant is particularly low at just 23 percent — less than half the national average, McClatchy’s analysis found.

Workers and their relatives say they’re confounded by the paperwork and bureaucracy of the claims process.

Otha Gilliam has a stack of documents for his late parents’ compensation cases at least a foot thick in his home in south Kansas City.

The struggle to follow through with the claims leaves him overwhelmed……..

As the government now acknowledges, work with natural uranium took place at the plant in the early 1950s. Natural uranium emits about twice as much radioactivity per gram as depleted uranium. Workers also machined magnesium alloys containing thorium, a radioactive element, in the 1960s and ’70s. And they used tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, to prepare calibration sources and produce luminescent switch plates. Radioactive nickel-63 was plated on disks that also were used to calibrate radiation detectors.

The natural uranium and mag-thorium alloy machining could result in the biggest bumps to workers’ estimated radiation doses, said Stuart Hinnefeld, director of NIOSH’s Division of Compensation Analysis and Support……..http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article49473260.html