HOUSE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON WORLD TRADE AND STATE/FEDERAL RELATIONS May 6, 1999 5:08 p.m. MEMBERS PRESENT Representative Ramona Barnes, Chair Representative John Cowdery, Vice Chair Representative Beverly Masek Representative Joe Green Representative Ethan Berkowitz Representative Reggie Joule MEMBERS ABSENT Representative Gail Phillips COMMITTEE CALENDAR SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 21 Relating to workers and family members of workers exposed to radiation during the Amchitka nuclear tests. - MOVED SJR 21 OUT OF COMMITTEE (* First public hearing) PREVIOUS ACTION BILL: SJR 21 SHORT TITLE: AMCHITKA ISL NUCLEAR TEST SITE WORKERS SPONSOR(S): LABOR & COMMERCE BY REQUEST Jrn-Date Jrn-Page Action 4/09/99 847 (S) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S) 4/09/99 847 (S) L&C 4/20/99 Text (S) L&C AT 1:30 PM BELTZ 211 4/20/99 Text (S) MOVED CS OUT OF COMMITTEE 4/21/99 981 (S) L&C RPT 5DP 4/21/99 981 (S) DP: MACKIE, HOFFMAN, LEMAN, TIM KELLY 4/21/99 981 (S) DONLEY 4/21/99 981 (S) ZERO FISCAL NOTE (S.L&C) 4/22/99 Text (S) RLS AT 12:05 PM FAHRENKAMP 203 4/22/99 Text (S) MINUTE(RLS) 4/23/99 1063 (S) RULES TO CALENDAR 4/23/99 4/23/99 1068 (S) READ THE SECOND TIME 4/23/99 1068 (S) ADVANCED TO THIRD READING UNAN CONSENT 4/23/99 1068 (S) READ THE THIRD TIME SJR 21 4/23/99 1068 (S) PASSED Y20 N- 4/23/99 1070 (S) TRANSMITTED TO (H) 4/26/99 974 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S) 4/26/99 974 (H) WTR 5/06/99 Text (H) WTR AT 5:00 PM CAPITOL 124 WITNESS REGISTER JEAN SMITH, Legislative Administrative Assistant to Senator Jerry Mackie Alaska State Legislature Capitol Building, Room 427 Juneau, Alaska 99801 Telephone: (907) 465-3802 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on SJR 21. KEVIN DOUGHERTY, General Council Alaska Laborers 2501 Commercial Drive Anchorage, Alaska 99501 Telephone: (907) 276-1640 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on SJR 21. BEV ALECK, Member Amchitka Technical Advisory Group [ATAG] 1220 East 112th Avenue Anchorage, Alaska 99515 Telephone: (907) 344-8920 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified in support of SJR 21. SENATOR JERRY MACKIE Alaska State Legislature Capitol Building, Room 427 Juneau, Alaska 99801 Telephone: (907) 465-3802 POSITION STATEMENT: Asked Bev Aleck to speak about her personal experience on this issue. PAMELA MILLER, Program Director Alaska Community Action on Toxics [ACAT] 135 Christensen Drive Anchorage, Alaska 99501 Telephone: (907) 222-7714 POSITION STATEMENT: Testified in support of SJR 21. ACTION NARRATIVE TAPE 99-16, SIDE A Number 0001 CHAIR RAMONA BARNES called the House Special Committee on World Trade and State/Federal Relations meeting to order at 5:08 p.m. Members present at the call to order were Representatives Barnes, Cowdery, Masek, Berkowitz and Joule. Representative Green arrived at 5:10 p.m. Representative Phillips was absent. SJR 21-AMCHITKA ISL NUCLEAR TEST SITE WORKERS CHAIR BARNES announced that the first order of business is Senate Joint Resolution No. 21, Relating to workers and family members of workers exposed to radiation during the Amchitka nuclear tests. Number 0143 JEAN SMITH, Legislative Administrative Assistant to Senator Jerry Mackie, came forward to provide information on SJR 21. She stated that SJR 21 has been introduced on behalf of the Alaskan workers and the family members of these workers exposed to radiation during the Amchitka nuclear test. The Alaskan workers are just asking for equal treatment that Atomic Energy Commission [AEC] workers based of Amchitka Island received. These energy commission workers that developed the radiation related cancer and their families received medical care and death benefits without any questions asked. She said this is the largest underground atomic explosion ever conducted by the United States and everyone seems to be wondering how Amchitka got left out because there were several sites and thousands of other workers from test sites around the United States that were included in the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. With SJR 21, the United States Congress is being asked that Amchitka be included in the 1990 Radiation Exposure Act. Number 0282 MS. SMITH stated that she became involved in this issue after talking with the wife of one of the workers. She was frustrated at the number of years it took to get anyone's attention on this issue. She explained that when the woman's husband was sick she was unable to get the classified records on him. Not only this woman's husband, but hundreds of other workers should have been informed so that they could have properly understood whether they were in a high-risk category, whether their health effects were from their Amchitka work, and if so, take some preventative actions. She said it is a mystery why these people were not included and it is also a tragedy that they have not been treated equally. KEVIN DOUGHERTY, General Council, Alaska Laborers, testified via teleconference from Anchorage. He appreciates the interest and concern for SJR 21. He stated there are two points that "come to the surface here." The first point is the private sector Alaskan workers on the Amchitka project certainly deserved to be treated the same as the federal employees that worked on that project, but they were not. The private sector employees were not given the radiation badges like the federal employees were. He does not know why they did it, but it was not fair. They were also not given the health surveillance protection the federal employees enjoy under their program. MR. DOUGHERTY stated that Alaskans deserve to have equal coverage under the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act as did the federal employees. It is unclear why the Alaskans were left off the list when they had the largest test which was about 300 times the size of Hiroshima. There is no basis for that. He thinks finally they are getting the federal government's attention on this. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ asked Mr. Dougherty if he has brought suit against the federal government. MR. DOUGHERTY replied no. He said they are focusing on the health of the workers rather than law suits. He stated that there may well be law suits for the people who were affected. He said they are very close to getting the federal government to commit to do a health surveillance study. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said he asked if he had brought suit because he is a lawyer. He stated that if Mr. Dougherty had been a doctor he would have asked about the medical care. Number 0630 REPRESENTATIVE COWDERY asked how many people have been affected by this. MR. DOUGHERTY replied that there were approximately 1,500 people who worked on the project. He stated that there were approximately 300 people who worked on the tunnel. He said the list they have has over 100 people who have died or who currently have cancer. He indicated that they have spoken with a doctor who says this is a fairly high number for that type of population. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ asked what the numbers are. CHAIR BARNES asked Mr. Dougherty to repeat the numbers. MR. DOUGHERTY clarified that 1,500 people worked on Amchitka in all of the phases. There were 300 people working on the tunnel and those are the people that he really has contact with directly. Of those 300 people, there are over 100 people, either spouses of the deceased or people currently with cancer, have filled out forms. He said part of the conclusion of this study is that everyone who worked on the project will be surveyed. Number 0788 REPRESENTATIVE COWDERY repeated for his clarification the numbers of people involved to Mr. Dougherty. He asked if the claims came from the tunnel workers or from everyone. MR. DOUGHERTY stated that most of the claims have been from tunnel workers. He said they have had other people involved in other operations of the project also make claims. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked if these claims are from both the private sector and the federal government. He wondered if the federal government workers are handled differently and if these numbers are available. MR. DOUGHERTY said the federal government employees were handled quite differently. He indicated the 1,500 employees does not include those federal government employees. REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked if the federal government employees were compensated through the federal government. MR. DOUGHERTY replied yes. He said there is a special Title 5 federal coverage for them. Number 0915 REPRESENTATIVE GREEN asked if the federal government employees that were compensated are satisfied. He wondered if there is any litigation from them. MR. DOUGHERTY does not know. He has not talked directly with any of those employees. He stated that many of the federal employees on the Amchitka project came from Nevada where the Department of Energy headquarters was located. All of the highly qualified white -collar federal employees came up for the project and then returned to Nevada. As a result, there is not much contact with these people. BEV ALECK, Member, Amchitka Technical Advisory Group [ATAG], testified next via teleconference from Anchorage. She stated that the federal government employees were treated one way while the Alaskan workers were treated as second-class citizens. She said the model concept is that there are probably 1,500 workers which are yet to be identified in the health surveillance study. They do know who some of the workers are at this point, and have identified over 300. One of the difficult tasks is going back through those early years and determining who the workers were. She said this part of the study will be very heavy concerning vital statistics and other types of research. Number 1125 SENATOR JERRY MACKIE, Alaska State Legislature, asked Ms. Aleck to explain to the committee her personal involvement on this issue. MS. ALECK stated that she and her husband, Nick Aleck, moved to Alaska in 1970. Nick went to work out at Amchitka and worked there during 1970 and 1971 when they were drilling Cannikin shaft and cavity. She said he was an extremely healthy, outdoors person. Four years later he was diagnosed with myelogenous leukemia, and died within 13 months of diagnosis. They did not really learn about radiation at Amchitka for many years. She stated that the government and the contractors denied there was any radiation present on the island, and they did not have access to any of the information because it was all classified. After 1994, Hazel O'Leary started opening the vaults and letting out many of the classified documents. Since that time and since ATAG was formed in 1997, they have obtained over 30 boxes of classified and unclassified documents that were never available before. She said they have learned that there were all kinds of nuclear sources at Amchitka. She said this is the information that Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Ph.d., analyzed and conceded that the workers were exposed to tens of rems of radiation. SENATOR MACKIE stated that he appreciates all the work Ms. Aleck has done to try to bring light to this issue so that other families have access to the type of information she has been working hard for many years to obtain. He said it is really her effort that SJR 21 is before the committee today. Number 1352 PAMELA MILLER, Program Director, Alaska Community Action on Toxics, testified next via teleconference from Anchorage. She read the following testimony: As a member of the Amchitka Technical Advisory Group, I'm familiar with the (indisc.) difficulties the workers and their families have had in finding the truth about radiation hazards at Amchitka in the years during and following the nuclear test. And I've personally received many calls from Amchitka workers and family members who expressed concerns about the high incidence of cancers and other health problems that arose among the workers after their employment on the island, and I've reviewed over 20,000 documents in my research concerning the nuclear test at Amchitka and have found documentation of radioactive sources and leakage that workers were likely exposed to. The Department of Energy still withholds classified documents which would provide additional and much needed information for assessing environmental and human health threats. A worker medical surveillance program will provide workers and their families with the information that is essential to understanding the health impacts of the nuclear test at Amchitka. I also voice my support for the amendment to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 that will include Amchitka Island within its coverage. Finally, I ask that members of the legislature work diligently to resolve worker compensation claims and litigation relating to Amchitka workers and their families. This resolution provides a measure of justice that is long overdue to the workers and their families. REPRESENTATIVE MASEK made a motion to move SJR 21 with individual recommendations and a zero fiscal note and asked unanimous consent. There being no objections, it was so ordered. Number 1505 REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ stated that this is the sort of terrible thing that happens when the government runs around unchecked. He said he asked the questions about law suits for a particular reason. He explained, "We're contemplating a bill in this body about public interest law suits, and the type of suit that would be used to help ... these kind of wrongs from being visited in the future would be a public interest suit." CHAIR BARNES adjourned the House Special Committee on World Trade and State and Federal Relations at 5:29 p.m.