Hanford downwinders are pressing the federal government to include them in an estimated $1.6 billion program to compensate nuclear workers for illnesses that may be linked to chemicals or radiation.

"Emissions did not stop at the fence line," said Trisha Pritikin, who grew up in Richland and is now a Berkeley, Calif., attorney. "What we want to do is have the same rules of eligibility right now for workers applied to members of the public."

A public forum is planned for 7 p.m. Jan. 25 in Kennewick to gather evidence that people living near the Hanford reservation or downwind of it were harmed.

Organizers want a session similar to a Richland public meeting held by the Department of Energy a year ago to hear worker complaints of cancer and other illnesses they believed were caused by working at Hanford. That hearing drew more than 550 people.

Pritikin approached DOE officials then to ask that government help be expanded to include Hanford downwinders. They said downwinders needed to provide evidence of off-site exposure leading to illnesses and declined to hold similar hearings near nuclear sites across the nation, she said.

However, Pritikin and other downwinders on the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee proposed the subcommittee hold its own forum, similar to the DOE hearing. The downwinder forum is being organized by the subcommittee, which advises the federal government and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"We are trying to present evidence to DOE of off-site community health problems due to exposures," Pritikin said.

Congress passed legislation last year that would pay medical expenses and give $150,000 to former nuclear workers who could have developed cancer because of radiation or other illnesses due to exposure to hazardous materials. DOE is proposing that be amended to pay for lost wages if that amount is greater than $150,000.

Pritikin believes some downwinders had as much risk of illness as some nuclear workers who could be compensated.

Most data available on downwinder health effects concern exposure to radioactive iodine, which was released from the Hanford site during World War II and the Cold War. Iodine concentrates in the thyroid, and children are particularly susceptible.

Children who grew up near or downwind of Hanford from the mid-1940s to mid-1960s would have been exposed not just to Hanford emissions, Pritikin said. They also would have been exposed to radioactive iodine released from nuclear tests in Nevada, from a large test at Marshall Islands in 1954 and from Chinese and Russian tests.

"That all adds up if you're a kid," Pritikin said. Other biologically significant radioactive substances also were released at Hanford and in tests elsewhere, she said.

However, Ron Kathren, professor emeritus at Washington State University at Tri-Cities and a member of the Columbia Chapter of the Health Physics Society, questions whether many downwinders would be eligible for compensation.

"Except for a possible few individuals, there would not be a large enough dose to provide the risk of thyroid cancer that would warrant compensation," he said.

Kathren also said the fallout dose from nuclear tests elsewhere would be very small.

Pritikin said that although she's initially interested in getting downwinders with thyroid cancer and other thyroid diseases included in the workers' initiative, she'd also like to see other cancers or illnesses possibly caused by downwind exposures included.

"Our end goal is to try to expand the health care component of the nuclear workers' initiative to the off-site exposed community," she said.

She's encouraging anyone who believes they've suffered health problems because of off-Hanford radiation or chemical exposures to come to the forum. They may want to bring medical records, she said.

The forum also will include a panel of scientists and medical researchers, who based on a preliminary agenda appear generally sympathetic to downwinder complaints, including Rudi Nussbaum, professor emeritus of physics and environmental sciences at Portland State University.

The forum will be held at the WestCoast Tri-Cities Hotel at Columbia Center. For more information, call La Freta Dalton at 888-422-8737.

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