Paducah confronts radioactive past, looks toward future

PADUCAH, Ky. -- A half-century ago, western Kentucky was so thrilled about the opening of a Cold War uranium enrichment plant that it gave communities names like "Cimota" -- Atomic spelled backward.

Decades later, workers file into Paducah's "Sick Workers Office," pulling oxygen tanks and fighting incurable tumors -- angry, scared, dying.

As they marked the 50th anniversary this week of the opening of Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, residents pondered a mixed legacy: The facility turned the town into a pocket of wealth in a poor region, but at what cost?

Workers were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, and scores slowly became sick with diseases that the government only recently admitted responsibility for.

"People come in here very sick. They feel like they've lost their dignity," said Stewart Tolar, site manager at the Energy Employees Compensation Resource Center.

In 1999, then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson issued an apology in Paducah after the government reversed decades of denial and conceded that many workers did get sick because of on-the-job exposure.

An entitlement law later provided lifetime medical care and a tax-free lump sum of $150,000 to sick workers exposed to cancer-causing radiation and silica or beryllium, which can cause lung diseases.

Since the program began last year, about $62.8 million has been distributed to former and current workers and their survivors through the resource office in Paducah, Tolar said.

But recognition came too late for many. Former plant worker Joe Harding, for example, was denied compensation even though his bones contained 34,000 times the expected concentration of uranium before he died in 1980.

In addition to the health disaster, the Energy Department estimated it would take 10 years and $1.3 billion more than the $400 million already spent to clean up environmental contamination.

Patriotic duty

Even so, many former workers say seeing the town get rich while doing what many considered their patriotic duty during the Cold War -- making weapons-grade uranium for warheads -- made everything worthwhile.

"It's been a good salary and it's got good benefits," said Rodney Cook 53, a shift superintendent who had part of a lung removed in March because of exposure to asbestos he believed he received during the 27 years he has worked at the plant. "I don't blame anybody for it. It was just part of the job."

Paducah, population 27,000, is now a rival with Piketon to attract a new uranium enrichment plant using safer and more efficient centrifuges.