A cruel legacy
BY RICK FOSTER SUN CHRONICLE STAFF | Posted: Sunday, February 3, 2013 2:05 am
When Larry Darcey contracted kidney cancer in 1992, he never guessed that it might be related to his job at Texas Instruments in Attleboro.
Even after a friend told him the federal government was helping fellow workers who developed cancer
after working at the plant which once manufactured nuclear components for the Navy, he had trouble
putting his disease together with the 40 years he worked as a top technical manager.
"I didn't believe it," said Darcey, 66.
Then he began talking to other former TI workers, including several who had worked directly for him.
Others, it turned out, also had cancer. Lots of them.
After two years of seeking out former co-workers, Darcey said he found 177 former employees from the plant who had cancer. Many had applied for and been accepted into a federal program that provides $150,000 in compensation and free medical care to affected workers.
The U.S. Department of Labor, which administers worker's compensation programs, has granted claims of hundreds of ex-TI employees who got cancer and has paid out more than $30 million in compensation and medical bills to date.
Most of that went to former workers who were employed from 1952 to 1967 as part of a special grouping created by the government.
Darcey, who also was diagnosed with skin cancer, was convinced.
As he continued seeking out and talking to retired fellow workers, he discovered alarming coincidences.
Several had died of cancer. Leo Plouffe, a longtime friend and co-worker, got bladder cancer.
And Darcey found the same types of cancer diagnoses repeated over and over again - bladder, thyroid
and kidney cancers being the most prevalent for both sexes.
Among couples who had worked at the plant, he found four instances in which both husband and wife
contracted cancer.
The Rehoboth resident has since made it a mission to inform fellow retirees about the health dangers they might be facing and about the availability of help.
He says he's not bitter about Texas Instruments, where he made his career. But he is surprised that neither the company nor anyone else seems to be taking the initiative to guide former atomic workers now facing the possibility of cancer.
"I don't have a vendetta against TI," Darcey said. "I had a good living because I worked there, and still
do. But nobody is talking about this. It's time for someone to step up and take responsibility."
He said that as far as he knows, TI, which sold the Attleboro manufacturing complex in 2006, has never
tried to contact him or other workers to inform them that they might be eligible for federal compensation
or medical help for their cancer.
Steve Foster, a Taunton resident who worked at the plant from 1975 until he was laid off in 2011,
received federal compensation for thyroid cancer. His wife and father, both of whom worked at the same facility, died of cancer. He said his brother, another former employee, has cancer, too.
Foster, 56, said he never received any notification about compensation or help under the Energy
Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program, which he remembers learning about either
online or from a newspaper report.
Foster says the company could have done more, using personnel records to reach out to former
employees.
Texas Instruments said in a statement that it has cooperated with the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services on issues related to cancer claims and has made information available to its former
workers.
"TI has worked with HHS over the years to verify employment of former employees at the Attleboro site
who worked at the Metals & Controls facility from 1/1/1952 - 12/31/1967," TI spokeswoman Whitney
Jodry said in the statement. "We have also dedicated a resource for former employees to contact for more information about the EEOICPA program. It is important to note that we have had very few former
employees use the resources we have provided."
Adriano Llosa, a spokesman for the Department of Labor, said the federal agency publicized the
availability of assistance for the plant's atomic workers through a news release in 2010 that generated
several dozen applications from former workers.
The government has continued to mail brochures to residents of the Attleboro area on a bimonthly basis since that time.
However, Darcey and other former plant employees note that with the passage of time, many workers
have retired or been laid off and become widely scattered.
Focusing on the Attleboro area doesn't go far enough to notify those who might have been affected, they say.
As many as 6,000 people were employed at Texas Instruments during the 1950s and '60s making motor controls, thermostats and other devices.
But, the company also made nuclear fuels used by the Navy, Air Force and civilian government reactors, as well as switches for Navy submarines that contained radium 226, according to Nuclear Regulatory Commission documents.
The company's nuclear operations were so extensive that the Department of Labor classified the
Attleboro site as an "atomic weapons employer."
TI cleaned up the campus in 1997 and received a sign-off from federal and state officials, who said the
site needed no further remediation.
But former workers, including those who fabricated nuclear fuels and switches, disposed of scrap and
performed laboratory testing, still carried in their bodies the effects of exposure to radioactive materials
and other substances.
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program that went into effect in 2001
provides compensation of $150,000 and free medical care to private industry atomic workers and certain government employees and contractors if the employee developed cancer after working at a covered facility.
Under the program, compensation can be granted if it is determined that the cancer was "at least as likely as not" related to their employment, or if they were part of a special group called a "special exposure cohort" of workers who spent at least 250 days on the job prior to 1992.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services created a special exposure cohort in 2010 covering all atomic weapons employees who worked at least 250 days at Metals & Controls in Attleboro during a period from Jan. 1, 1952, to Dec. 31, 1967.
As of Jan. 9, the U.S. Department of Labor had approved 301 claims by former workers and paid out a
total of $26.2 million in compensation related to the Attleboro site. Another $768,000 went to pay
medical bills of affected workers.
Further, the National Institutes of Occupational Safety and Health approved another $3.4 million in
payments to a total of 29 claimants whose cancers were found as likely as not to be work-related.
Not every cancer qualifies. To receive compensation a worker must have contracted one of about 20
types of cancer listed by the Department of Labor.
Former employees receiving compensation aren't just those who worked at the plant during the '50s and '60s. Others who were employed later also received payments following health evaluations.
The payout to TI workers is a small portion of the billions of dollars in benefits and medical care that has been dispensed nationally to tens of thousands of energy workers suffering from cancer. The Labor Department says more than $8.9 billion in benefits has been delivered so far.
According to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission document, manufacturing operations involving
radioactive materials began at the Attleboro site in 1952 when Metals & Controls began to fabricate
enriched uranium foils. M&C merged with Texas Instruments in 1959 and continued to operate as a
component of TI.
From 1952 to 1965, M&C manufactured uranium fuel for the U.S. Naval Reactors Program, the Air
Force and other government research. The company continued manufacturing fuel for the High Flux
Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and other government research reactors through 1981.
Originally, according to the NRC, work related to radioactive materials was conducted in at least three
buildings at the Forest Street complex. Later, operations were consolidated into a single structure,
Building 10, constructed in 1956.
Some of the wastes from the manufacturing operations were buried in an outdoor area next to Building
11.
Small amounts of radium 226 were also found by radiological surveys in Building 1, the building closest
to Forest Street.
That contamination has since been removed and the building released for unrestricted use, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The building is currently being considered as the future site for offices for various human service agencies.
During a cleanup on its site during the mid-1990s, TI removed 34,600 cubic feet of contaminated
materials from building interiors and an additional 532,000 cubic feet of soil from the complex,
according to government records. Contaminated wastes were sent to a disposal facility in Utah.
Because it could find no documentation limiting potential radiation exposure to a particular building,
according to a 2010 Labor Department bulletin, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health
assumes that workers could have been exposed to radioactive materials in any part of the Metals &
Controls site.
That means for the purpose of receiving benefits as part of the special exposure cohort, any employee
working anywhere within the Metals & Controls site during the 1952-1967 timeframe can be considered.
Employees who worked at other times can apply under the program, which involves an evaluation to
determine whether the worker's cancer was at least as likely as not related to their employment.
The Forest Street manufacturing site isn't the only area location where the nuclear industry left behind a dangerous legacy of contamination.
Earlier this year, Texas Instruments agreed to reimburse the federal government $15 million as part of a consent order stemming from the cleanup of the former Shpack landfill on the Norton-Attleboro line.
Texas Instruments, which admitted no liability as part of the settlement, was accused by the federal
government of having arranged for disposal of radioactive Uranium-234, -235 and -238 at the Shpack site from nuclear fuel operations at the Attleboro plant.
In 2011, the Department of Labor notified former landfill employees that they also might be eligible to
apply for compensation.
The Makepeace Division of Engelhard Industries in Plainville also fabricated nuclear fuel elements from
1957 to 1962, according to NRC records.
Manufacturing involved the use of natural, depleted and enriched uranium. The site was decontaminated in 1963.
Former workers at the TI and Shpack sites can still apply for benefits.
