List

• Team Set to Arrive on Tuesday
• Court Seal Lifted
• Hotline Established For Public Inquiries

"I want to assure the current and former workers and the Paducah community that we are aggressively working to answer their questions and concerns," Secretary Richardson said. "Our workers are entitled to open discussions of health and safety issues, and if they have been harmed in the past, they should be treated and compensated."

The team, led by the Energy Department's Office of Oversight, is working closely with the Commonwealth of Kentucky and in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

In June, the Energy Department dispatched a team of health and safety experts to the Paducah site to begin to assess the situation. At that time, they did not uncover imminent threats to the public health, worker safety or the environment.

A hotline has been established for current and former workers concerned about possible health effects from their employment at Paducah. The phone number is 877/447-9756.

Work on other actions that Richardson announced earlier this week continues, including:

• Dr. David Michaels, the department's Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health was in Paducah on Monday and Tuesday to meet with workers and the public;

• the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine will include Paducah workers in an independent examination reviewing the relationship between hazardous exposures and illnesses in workers at Energy Department sites;

• initiation of a comprehensive study of Paducah workers' medical histories since the 1950s and an expansion of a medical surveillance program to include former and current workers at the Paducah site. An ongoing project provides medical monitoring for former workers at the gaseous diffusion sites, including Portsmouth and Oak Ridge;

• consideration of whether to expand the scope of legislation, soon to be sent to Congress, to include workers who have been exposed to radioactive materials such as those at Paducah and became ill as a result;

• assessment of the contractual and legal responsibilities of the Energy Department's contractors and whether those responsibilities were met;

• reassessment of the Energy Department's Fiscal Year 2000 budget request to addresses all important health and safety issues at our gaseous diffusion plant sites and if necessary, recommend changes to the Congress; and

• review of the Gaseous Diffusion Plant sites in Piketon, OH and Oak Ridge, TN and other Energy Department sites who in the past may have handled materials similar to those handled at Paducah.

Late last evening, the United States District Court of the Western District of Kentucky granted the Government's request to lift the seal in a case concerning issues filed by employees of the Paducah facility and others on behalf of the United States. Because of the seal, the Government was not previously able to discuss or acknowledge the lawsuit or address the allegations in the complaint. The Government is investigating the complaint's allegations and will decide whether to pursue the suit.

- DOE -

R-99-215