KENNEWICK — Lawrence Rouse took the microphone before a state Senate committee on Wednesday to speak in support of a bill to help ill Hanford workers, in words that seemed to be pushed out of his mouth in jerks and clipped starts by sheer will.
“He doesn’t speak well. I pretty much speak for him all the time now,” said his wife, Melinda, taking over.
It has been eight years since Rouse, a Hanford worker for more than 20 years, was diagnosed with toxic encephalopathy – brain dysfunction caused by exposure to chemicals.
The biggest battle of their lives has been fighting the Department of Energy Hanford system for workers’ compensation, she said.
“Somebody has got to have the integrity to stop the self-governing Department of Energy,” she said.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Labor and Sports heard testimony on Senate House Bill 1723, which has already passed the House.
The bill would require the state Department of Labor and Industries to presume that a wide variety of illnesses in Hanford workers are caused by workplace exposure.
Currently, workers have the burden of proving that illnesses are caused by working at the Hanford nuclear reservation.
The Department of Energy at Hanford is self-insured for workers’ compensation. It hires a third-party administrator to handle claims, with the state agency making final decisions on whether they are approved or denied.
In addition to the Rouses, Abe Garza’s wife, Bertolla Bugarin, testified in favor of the bill Wednesday, saying her husband has not been the same since August 2015, when she believes he was exposed to chemical vapors from waste held in an underground tanks at Hanford.
He has breathing issues, which Labor and Industries blames on allergies and asthma, she said. But she believes his health issues, which include a diagnosis of toxic encephalopathy, were caused by the 2015 and earlier exposures to chemical vapors at Hanford.
“It is the most toxic site in the United States,” she said. “I’m really angry no one is listening to us.”
Natalee Fillinger, an attorney speaking for the Washington Self-Insurers Association, told state senators they were hearing only one side of an issue that had been researched and investigated for decades.
“Before you make sweeping law changes, go find the actual internal reports that have been thoroughly reviewed and (that) investigated issues,” Fillinger said.
She called the proposed law broad, vague and “extraordinarily expensive.”
She questioned whether the proposed law would get to the heart of the issue of whether people who are exposed are getting coverage.
She is a former state assistant attorney general, who managed the attorneys who provided legal advice to the self-insures section of Labor and Industries.
The current attorney general, Bob Ferguson, supports the proposed law.
Kelly Wood, an assistant attorney general, told senators that Hanford waste storage tanks hold a toxic soup of chemicals, without control of chemical vapors that are emitted.
The Association of Washington Business also testified against the bill.
“It creates a bad precedence,” said Bob Battles of the association.
One eight-hour shift anywhere on the sprawling Hanford nuclear reservation would result in a presumption that illnesses were caused by exposure to toxins at Hanford, he said. Covered illnesses include respiratory and neurological illnesses and a wide range of cancers.
DOE did not send representatives to testify at the Senate or earlier House committee hearings. It declined comment after the hearing.
Workers currently wear respirators when they are within the Hanford tank farms as protection against possible exposure to chemical vapors.
