US Department of Labor completes expansion of Site Exposure Matrices website

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor has completed its expansion of the Site Exposure Matrices website, an effort that began in May 2010. The final six additions to the website include the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (Livermore, Calif.), the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (also known as the East Tennessee Technology Park or K-25, in Oak Ridge, Tenn.), the Y-12 Plant (Oak Ridge, Tenn.), the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Paducah, Ky.), the Pantex Plant (Amarillo, Texas) and the Pinellas Plant (Clearwater, Fla.).

This more robust public version of the SEM website provides additional ways to look for information regarding toxic substances used at U.S. Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilities covered under Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act. The enhanced SEM website contains more data and allows users to identify interrelationships among DOE buildings, work processes, labor categories, and toxic substances verified as having been onsite and used at DOE sites. In addition to toxic substance information, the SEM website contains information regarding confirmed causal links between certain toxic substance exposures and certain diseases or health effects. The new information is now available to the public at http://www.sem.dol.gov.

Rachel Leiton, director of the department's Office of Workers' Compensation Programs Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation, expressed her appreciation of DOE's agreement to make its sites fully accessible. "The expanded information shows the SEM data organized in the same format as it is for this division's claims examiners," she said.

The SEM website also provides a users' guide to assist the public with navigation of this new and improved resource. The guide is available at http://www.sem.dol.gov/expanded/help.cfm.

Part E of the EEOICPA provides federal compensation and medical benefits to DOE contractors and subcontractors who worked at certain DOE facilities and sustained an occupational illness as a result of exposure to toxic substances. Certain survivors of these workers are also eligible for benefits.

Following the enactment of Part E in 2004, the Labor Department launched an effort to create the SEM database to assist claimants in substantiating their Part E claims. The Labor Department continues to expand the SEM database as new information is received and is always interested in obtaining new information to supplement and enhance the SEM database. Individuals may send information or comments regarding the SEM by completing a form provided on the website, sending an e-mail to info@dol-sem-public.com or sending written correspondence to the SEM Administrator, P.O. Box 1375, Hilliard, OH 43026-1375.