Former Bethlehem Steel workers and their families got the good news Thursday for which they had been waiting for years.

A federal advisory panel recommended that former Bethlehem workers—or their surviving family members — be compensated for diseases that might have resulted from their work on the company’s Cold War-era nuclear programs.

The recommendation by the 16- member Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health places the Bethlehem workers in a “special exposure cohort” that makes them eligible for federal payments of $150,000.

Retirees and their families who had previously been denied the disability benefits fought for years to right the wrong.

They were elated by the recommendation Thursday.

“Very happy. Very relieved,” said Joyce Walker, whose late husband, Edwin, started the Bethlehem Steel Action Group, which has been pressing the workers’ case. He died of bladder cancer two years ago.

“I’m just happy we were able to accomplish what my late husband, Ed, had been trying to accomplish for seven years,” Walker said after the decision Thursday. “He would be jumping with joy.”

Walker, along with dozens of Bethlehem family members, rejoiced Thursday in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Niagara Falls, where the advisory panel approved the measure by a 10-4 vote during its quarterly meeting being held this week.

“This has been a 10-year battle,” said Tino Franco of Lancaster, whose family was denied benefits on behalf of his father and father-in- law. “I wanted to cry, I wanted to shout. But I needed to look into the face of Joyce Walker, because this does not happen without Ed Walker. I will never forget that moment.”

From the 1940s to the ’60s, be-

ginning with the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, employees at Bethlehem and other local plants worked on their companies’ federal contracts to process uranium and other radioactive materials for defense and other government uses.

Years later, cancer and other diseases afflicted many employees, but the government resisted paying disability benefits and, in some cases, continues to do so today.

The reason is that records are inadequate or nonexistent, in the view of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which governs the compensation program.

The advisory panel, however, recommended that the special exposure cohort be added to include “all atomic weapons employee personnel” at Bethlehem Steel who worked in uranium-rolling activities at the plant from Jan. 1, 1949, through Dec. 31, 1952, said Shannon Bradford, spokeswoman for the institute, known as NIOSH.

The workers had to have one of the 22 radiation-related cancers specified by the government, and worked at the plant at least 250 days, Bradford said.

Any questions about filing a claim can be made to the Department of Labor’s New York Resource Center at (800) 941-3943 or (716) 832-6200, Bradford said.

Kathleen Sibelius, secretary of health and human services, must sign off on the panel’s recommendation, which then goes before Congress, Bradford said.

Franco, a member of the Bethlehem Steel Action Group, expressed confidence that the recommendation would be approved and was hopeful that the claimants would start getting their benefits by July or August.

While former employees who worked on Cold War-era nuclear programs at other local plants are still fighting for their benefits, Franco saw Thursday’s action as a hopeful sign for them, as well.

“This is going to help them,” Franco said. “When they finally see we were placed in this special cohort grouping, it pretty much will go a lot smoother.”

Lawmakers also applauded Thursday’s decision.

“We appreciate the consideration and compassion evidenced by this ruling,” Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, said in a statement. “We have been proud to stand with these families in their fight and thankful for today’s victory for the men and women of Bethlehem Steel.”

Higgins, along with fellow Reps. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, and Chris Lee, R-Clarence, D-Fairport, as well as New York’s U. S. senators, Democrats Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten

E. Gillibrand, sponsored the “Ed Walker Memorial Act,” seeking the status of special exposure cohort for the Bethlehem retirees.

But legislative action won’t be necessary in light of Thursday’s recommendation.

“Today the former workers of Bethlehem Steel are a major step closer to obtaining the justice they’ve been denied for so long,” Schumer said in a statement. “This decision took far too long, but it was the right one, and it honors the Cold War heroes who put their lives on the line for America. Still, our work will not be done until all of New York’s former nuclear workers are given the same treatment.”