Atomic site workers commemorated

Oct 31, 2009 (The Buffalo News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- BHMSQ | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Deceased Bethlehem Steel, Linde Air and West Valley workers who were exposed to radiation while working on materials for atomic weapons during the Cold War were remembered by their families as home front patriots in a solemn ceremony held Friday night in St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in South Buffalo.

The remembrance service was organized by the Bethlehem Steel Action Group. For nearly a decade, members of the organization have been seeking monetary compensation from the U. S. government for their loved ones, who they said were exposed to lethal radiation without their knowledge in the course of doing their jobs.

"They were victims," said Tino Franco of Lancaster, whose father and father-in-law both worked at Bethlehem Steel beginning in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Members of the Bethlehem Steel Action Group said the government, following the release of a study in 2000, had promised such workers and their families around the country that they would be justly compensated for repeated exposure to cancer-causing chemicals but has kept its promise to less than half of those who were exposed.

"The first requirement is that you admit what you did, that you placed these innocent people that were going to work every day, faithfully, in a vulnerable position without any opportunity to protect themselves," Franco said.

About 70 people attended Friday's ceremony, which including a reading of the names of 70 deceased workers. A candle was lit and a bell rung in honor of each.

The Rev. Art Smith, who delivered the homily at the ceremony, noted that many of the names read were familiar to him.

"Many of these people were the fathers of my brothers' and sisters' friends. I recognized at least 20 names from this list," Smith told those gathered. "So, it's amazing, just by being here tonight, it has awakened in me the names of people that I never would have suspected were involved in what all of your family members have gone through."

Participants also recognized the work of Edwin A. Walker, a former Bethlehem Steel bricklayer who led the charge locally to get compensation under the 2001 Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program for former workers still alive and the families of those who have died. Walker died of cancer in January.

"He did all of the extreme leg work," Franco said. "The sacrifices he endured, all of the hardships with respect to the nay-saying part of the government agencies that were opposed to even questioning. But as he began to accumulate the evidence, the evidence became more and more overwhelming."

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