Discussions with Deb: New Facilities Covered Under EEOICPA

Did you ever wonder why some facilities are covered by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) and some are not?  Who decides which facilities can be covered?  As with most things EECOICPA it is complicated.  Department of Energy (DOE) decides whether Atomic Weapon Employee (AWE) and Beryllium Vendor facilities should be covered.  Department of Labor (DOL) determines if a DOE site should be covered.

Every few years the list of facilities covered by EEOICPA is updated.  Yesterday a new list was published in the Federal Register which adds several sites to existing DOE facilities.

• Enewetak RADLAB is now covered due to their work providing radio-logical support during remediation work done from February 16, 1977 to September 30, 1979.
• The Warehouse building is now covered for the entire time of the Dayton Project from July 14, 1943 through 1950.
• A name change was made for the Stanford University site. The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center will now be known as SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park.  Other than the name change everything about this site remains the same.
• The Middlesex Municipal Landfill in New Jersey is now a DOE facility rather than an AWE facility. The dates remain the same.

But changes to the status of EEOICPA facilities coverage happens at other times as well.  When DOE evaluates new evidence on AWE and Beryllium Vendor facilities they adjust the date of coverage on their Facilities List Database as well as publishing the changes in the Federal Register.  When a new Special Exposure Cohort is added NIOSH publishes these changes on their SEC webpage as well as the Federal Register.  It can be hard to keep up with the changes so I have developed a EEOICPA Site Classification and SEC Quick Reference Guide which lists the covered dates of EEOICPA facilities and SECs as of today. Just remember that these dates may change at any time.

It’s important to know that additional facilities can be added to EEOICPA.  Can you be involved in getting new facilities covered by EEOICPA or the dates or classifications changed for existing facilities?  Yes, you can.  The building that was added to the Dayton Project just last week was added because of the research done by Cold War Patriots Worker Advocates.  This is part of the quiet work that Cold War Patriots does in the background for the workers.  We research facilities and supply documents to the appropriate agencies to get dates changed and buildings/facilities added.  We also provide research to SEC petitioners to support getting new SECs added to EEOICPA covered facilities.

So if you are a SEC petitioner who wants help, or if you know of changes that should be made to a covered facility, or if you know of a facility that did nuclear weapons work that is currently not covered by EEOICPA let us know.  We will try to help.