The test site's legacy of shame
I WALKED OUT OF THE COLD Ely morning and into the coffee shop at the Jailhouse Motel, searching for my pal Ray Slaughter. Slaughter's many friends in the Las Vegas law enforcement community remember him as a big bear of a man who, in his younger years, was a hard rock miner and tunnel digger, strong as a bull, garrulous but not one to back down from any man.
I looked around the coffee shop but didn't see him anywhere, then realized that the frail guy stranding in front of me was Ray. He looks like he's aged 20 years in the last two and has lost about a third of his body size. He doesn't look at all like the same friend I've known for 20-plus years. His mind is sharp and his humor wicked as ever, but the physical changes are startling.
Ray is dying. His doctors told him he had one, maybe two years to live. That was three years ago. He's been holding on to life, day by day, because he wants to leave something behind for his son and daughter, but it's not at all certain he will be able to pull it off.
Slaughter is one of the thousands of workers at the Nevada Test Site whose exposure to radiation and other nasty substances during the height of the atomic testing program has caused severe health problems. He's been diagnosed with two kinds of cancer, along with a host of other diseases directly related to his work at the test site. It is a medical certainty that his diseases stem from his work for the government. Yet, that government, the one that Ray and so many others loyally served, is doing everything it can to deny benefits to its former employees, men and women who are dying off, day by day. From all appearances, the government is counting on the deaths so it doesn't have to write more checks.
If I told you all of the crap that's been pulled by the Department of Labor over the past few years, you might find it hard to believe. People like Ray get shuffled from doctor to doctor to doctor. They take countless tests and give countless samples and then they get tested some more. One of the doctors Ray saw claimed there's no scientific proof that radiation even causes cancer, which would mean Ray is not eligible to receive compensation from a program that was fully funded years ago, in part because of testimony Ray delivered before Congress. A doctor who says radiation doesn't cause cancer? Where did they dig this guy up?
Ray and his doctors figured Slaughter would be dead by now. The government must have figured that, too. They've done just about everything they could to delay paying him the benefits that are clearly deserved. After a year of forms and documents, they changed his case worker and told him to start all over. They've lost paperwork. They've requested more tests. Finally, the feds seem to have run out of excuses because Ray was told two months ago that his settlement had been approved. He's been hanging on each day, hoping the check would be in the mail.
Last week, Ray called the Department of Labor and learned that the check has been sitting in a manager's office, waiting for a signature. It's been sitting there for more than a month. After that, it will need three more signatures, then will go to the Treasury Department for final approval. Slaughter might not live that long. He's so weak that he's had to forego recent chemotherapy treatments because he can't make the drive to Las Vegas.
When the Department of Labor wants something from the former test site workers, it will bury them in a blizzard of paper. Ray says the department claimed it overpaid him for his meals by a couple of bucks. They sent him five letters in five days, demanding repayment. Five letters in five days, asking him about $8.50 Yet they don't have the time to sign his damned check?
Thousands of other test site workers are in the same boat. Hundreds have already died. Their families will get nothing but will be stuck with the hospital bills and funeral expenses. Despite the best efforts of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, the Bush administration simply won't get off its ass and do the right thing, even though the money for the program has already been appropriated and is basically sitting there. Maybe they need the dough to fund more tax breaks for oil companies or agri-biz giants.
It's an absolute obscenity and is one more reason that these corporate-loving bastards in Washington need to go.
NAMES AND FACES
Think the casino industry is satisfied with the millions of dollars in tax breaks it received because of the "green building" initiative? Guess again. The casino giants want another bite at the apple. They've asked the Nevada Tax Commission to approve changes that would take the casinos off the hook if they are caught exaggerating the amounts they have coming because of their green projects. The issue comes to a head at the commission's Jan. 28 meeting and it's worth watching. ... Former Las Vegas Councilman and mayoral candidate Steve Miller probably can't count on getting the Culinary endorsement if he ever runs for office again. Miller has always been a bit of a flamethrower, but his latest online newsletter takes rhetorical scorching to a new level. His main article is a slam at his former foe Jan Jones and her support for Hillary Clinton during the recent caucuses. In Miller's view, Jones and the casino industry intimidated Hispanic workers into supporting Clinton at the caucuses. He wrote that the "majority" of the participants at the Strip hotel caucus events would not speak or write English and had to be helped by translators. Miller characterized the caucus participants as "our nations most controversial voting block -- mainly undocumented workers willing to vote as they are told by casino bosses in trade for giving them sanctuary in Nevada." Come to think of it, Miller probably better not count on any campaign donations from the gaming industry, either. ... Word is circulating in D.C. that last year's firings of several U.S. attorneys is not a dead issue, not by a long shot. Two congressional committees are pursuing their own investigations, as is the Office of Inspector General within the Justice Department. Former Nevada U.S. Attorney Dan Bogden confirms that he has been interviewed by investigators. Some are predicting criminal indictments later this year, or at a minimum, some blistering reports that could easily become campaign fodder. By the way, Bogden met with his successor, Greg Brower, in Reno last week, in the office that was once Bogden's. ... Political pundit Roger Stone says in his StoneZone.com blogsite that "more than one third" of the GOP voters who turned out for the Republican straw poll were members of the Mormon faith. He doesn't say where he got this info, but calls Mitt Romney's victory in Nevada "a fugazy, a Magoffin," in other words, a deception. Romney was expected to garner a lot of support from his fellow Mormons but does anyone know if this one-third figure is accurate? If so, please send us the info.
George Knapp is a veteran investigative reporter for KLAS-TV Channel 8. You can reach him at gknapp@klastv.com.
Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 02:59PM
by
Gregor Gable
in Nevada Test Site
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Gregor Gable
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