Roughly 70 former employees of a Metro East factory tied to the Manhattan Project, and the spouses of deceased workers, have become the first group in Illinois to receive workers’ compensation for radiation exposure.

“I am literally a landmark decision,” said Larry Burgan, one of the former employees of Spectrulite Consortium Inc.

That old Spectrulite facility that straddled the municipal boundary of Venice and Madison belonged to the Dow Chemical Co., and it processed uranium and thorium in the 1950s and early '60s. The cleanup of millions of pounds of radioactive waste wasn’t completed until 2007.

While 170 other former employees have been eligible under a federal program for more than $32 million in compensation, this set of employees has never tested positive for one of the 22 c

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