Roughly 70 former employees of a Metro East factory tied to the Manhattan Project, and the spouses of deceased workers, have become the first group in Illinois to receive workers’ compensation for radiation exposure.
“I am literally a landmark decision,” said Larry Burgan, one of the former employees of Spectrulite Consortium Inc.
That old Spectrulite facility that straddled the municipal boundary of Venice and Madison belonged to the Dow Chemical Co., and it processed uranium and thorium in the 1950s and early '60s. The cleanup of millions of pounds of radioactive waste wasn’t completed until 2007.
While 170 other former employees have been eligible under a federal program for more than $32 million in compensation, this set of employees has never tested positive for one of the 22 cancers required — which left them in a gray area.
Even though this settlement of $7,500 payment per employee isn’t as much as some had hoped, it does reaffirm that they had been wronged, Burgan and another former employee, Calvin Ratliff, said.
“It’s not as much as you’d like,” Ratliff said. “But some compensation is better than none.”
Rachell Horbenko, a Chicago-based attorney who represented Spectrulite’s interests, could not be reached for a comment.
Ratliff and Burgan have been at the center of the fight for local workers and residents to get compensation for radiation exposure.
U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, has pushed to get a ZIP code that spans Venice, Madison and parts of Granite City into a federal program that pays residents for radiation illnesses — but they have been unable to persuade other lawmakers to include the Metro East communities.
Burgan and Ratliff’s attorney pursued claims for roughly 70 former employees dating to 2009. They never tested positive for cancer that could be tied back to the factory but report being plagued with autoimmune diseases, thyroid issues and respiratory problems.
Roughly 20 people have died since they first filed the claims, which is why some spouses are getting the settlements, Burgan said.
If a recent DNA test had confirmed genetic anomalies tied to radiation exposure, the dollar amount could have been a lot more, they said.
Lawyer David Jerome of Collinsville had to be creative with his approach, especially because there wasn’t a similar case, Burgan said.
“We always knew we were chasing what you would consider a ghost,” Burgan said earlier this year. “You can't see it; you can't feel it; you can't touch it, but we had to prove that it harmed us. We knew from the very beginning of getting any compensation whatsoever, it was going to be hard — if possible at all.”
Their compensation marks an end to half the duo’s goals. In their eyes, employees with and without cancer have now had opportunities to be compensated. Now, they will return their attention to the residents who’ve never been eligible for compensation.
An informal survey by Burgan and Ratliff conducted over several years starting in 2009 found 368 cancer cases among residents in a six-block radius of the site. No government agency appears to have formally documented the cancer rates or health outcomes of residents in the community surrounding the plant — but that will soon change.
The Illinois Emergency Management Agency signed releases with all the residents surrounding the factory, and the state agency has plans to test their yards for radiation, Burgan and Ratliff said.
A spokeswoman for the state agency has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
If radiation is found in the residents’ yards, Burgan and Ratliff hope the formal state testing could be used to get the 62060 ZIP code added to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which is now paying Missouri residents near Coldwater Creek.
“It's been a slow process, but we're making progress,” Ratliff said.
