Construction and craft · Nevada Test Site · EEOICPA

Built at the Nevada Test Site?

Somebody had to build it. The Nevada Test Site was a construction site for forty years — towers, tunnels, roads, camps, instrumentation cable runs, and the reconstruction after every shot. The people who did that work were at a covered Department of Energy facility, and the trade they held does not change that.

The work

Carpenters, labourers, ironworkers, masons and operators.

REECo held most of the construction and craft work at the site for four decades, and hired the Las Vegas building trades to do it. Dozens of contractors worked alongside — Tiberti, Frehner, Martin-Harris, Sletten, Wells Cargo and others all appear on the Department of Labor’s own subcontractor list for the site.

Work went on in the areas, at Mercury, and out along the roads and cable runs. Very little of it was indoors, and almost none of it was clean.

The trade
carpenter, laborer, ironworker, cement mason, roofer, painter, mason, sheet metal worker.
Who employed it
Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, J.A. Tiberti Construction Company, Frehner Construction Company, Martin-Harris Construction, Sletten Construction, and others.
Covered facility
The Nevada Test Site, now the Nevada National Security Site, is a covered Department of Energy facility for work from 1951 on. So is the Tonopah Test Range.
What still has to connect
A covered illness linked to that work. The Department of Labor decides every claim.
The part people get wrong

The job title is not what decides it.

You did not have to work for the Department of Energy. Its contractors and subcontractors are covered the same way, and most of the people who worked at the Nevada Test Site were never federal employees. They worked for REECo, for EG&G, for Wackenhut, for a paving company or a bus line or a drilling outfit out of Las Vegas.

Department of Energy contractor and subcontractor employees are covered the same as federal employees, and the job title does not matter. Craft and construction, security, drivers, cooks, clerks, custodians and warehouse staff worked at a covered facility exactly as the scientists did.

The Department of Labor decides every claim. Alara assesses the patient, coordinates the physician documentation and the home-health authorization, and provides the authorized care. It does not file claims and nothing here is a determination of eligibility.

What it may be worth

Compensation, and a medical benefit that does not expire.

An accepted claim can pay a lump sum and opens a medical benefit for the accepted condition. Families call that the White Card. It is what can pay for skilled nursing and home health aide care at home — when a doctor documents that the care is needed for the accepted condition and the Department of Labor authorizes it. There is no lifetime dollar cap on the medical benefit.

Part B
A lump sum of $150,000 and lifetime medical coverage for the accepted condition.
Part E
Compensation for whole-body impairment and for wage loss caused by the covered illness, up to a combined maximum of $250,000. Federal Department of Energy employees are not covered under Part E.
The White Card
The medical benefit that comes with an accepted claim. It pays providers directly for care tied to the accepted condition, at no cost to you.
Care at home
Skilled nursing and home health aide services when they are medically appropriate and authorized. There is no lifetime dollar cap on the medical benefit.
What happens next

Four questions, and a nurse reads the answers.

Where the work was. Who the paycheck came from. Roughly when. What a doctor has said about your health since. That is enough for a nurse to say whether there is something here worth opening — and if there is not, to say that too.

Nothing here is a determination of eligibility, and nobody takes a percentage of anything. Claim help through the Department of Labor’s Resource Center is free.

Check a work history → The full list of companies →

Common questions

What people ask first.

I was union out of Las Vegas and worked all over. Does a Test Site job still count?

Yes. What matters is the days worked at the covered facility, not who dispatched you or how many other jobs you held. Days across separate stints add up.

I never went underground and never handled anything radioactive.

Exposure at the site was not limited to the people running the tests, and the program does not ask you to prove what you touched. It asks where and when you worked, and connects that to a covered illness. The Department of Labor decides every claim.

My contractor is not on the DOL list.

DOL says the list may not include every subcontractor. A missing name is a reason to have the record looked up, not a reason to stop.

Start here

A nurse reads it, not a form.

A case review takes a few minutes and needs no records, no claim number and no appointment. Nothing here is a determination of eligibility.

Every company on the DOL list → Nevada Test Site White Card guide → Check a work history →