THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

So you spend you working life at a nuclear waste facility and your retirement years dying of cancer from all that radioactive shit. You might think you should get some compensation for that, but you would be wrong.

Dan, known by his coworkers as “Big Dan,” worked from 1964 until 1997 as a radioactive waste packer at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, a sprawling facility where some of the nation’s top scientists contracted by NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission once worked together to advance the fields of space exploration, weaponry and nuclear power at the height of the cold war.

And when he found himself dying years later of pancreatic cancer, Dan sought compensation from a government program meant to help former workers who had been exposed to radiation and toxic substances at nuclear technology sites.

Dan Kurowski was denied, becoming one of hundreds of Santa Susana workers refused compensation for a variety of illnesses potentially associated with radiation and toxic chemical exposure. That’s because those workers – many of them NASA contractors – were unable to prove that they were ever in the small sliver of the site known as Area IV.

The Department of Energy, the Department of Labor and the Boeing company – the site’s current corporate owner – all say Area IV is the only portion of the site where the Department of Energy operated. And therefore, the Labor Department insists, it can compensate only a subset of sick former Santa Susana workers.

All of Santa Susana was operated by a Department of Energy contractor called North American Aviation. Two divisions worked at Santa Susana: Rocketdyne took primary responsibility for aerospace technology and rocket testing. Atomics International focused on experimental nuclear reactors. For now, the government accepts claims only from people who worked under Atomics International or who can prove they spent time in Area IV.

But worker testimonials and historical documents reviewed by McClatchy suggest the divisions at the site were not so clear-cut, nor was workers’ exposure to hazards.

Radiation does not respect boundaries or employment contracts nearly as much as the Dept. of Energy. Mainly because radiation never seeks compensation, only its victims do.