Nuclear Weapons Waste Made Workers Sick. Despite a Law Meant to Help, the DOE Keeps Fighting Their Claims. by Lizz Giordano, Cascade PBS, and Brandon Block for ProPublica Co-published with Cascade PBS and KUOW October 22, 2026, 8:00 am

https://www.propublica.org/article/hanford-nuclear-workers-compensation-washington-doe?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_HG2-0zZToIjDTShyX_dVIhEptt1_0b51zOaCIS38Q1sVKwKXWTTe472CDaiPudTqWKc-Apgq56btzvomzMLFIp-6h_A&_hsmi=445672729&utm_content=445672729&utm_source=hs_email ProPublica: The DOE Keeps Appealing Claims By Sick Hanford Nuclear Site Workers Lonnie Rouse shuffled into a wood-paneled conference room at the Washington state Capitol in March 2018. It had been nearly a decade since medical experts diagnosed him with a neurological disease they attributed to his exposure to chemicals at work. In the time since, he had acquired a stutter, begun limping and lost several teeth biting into a banana. For nearly 20 years, Rouse had packaged plutonium and monitored radioactive waste at the Hanford Site, a now-decommissioned Department of Energy nuclear weapons production plant in south-central Washington and one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the country. (Giordano and Block, 10/22)