Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) said this week it will consider in good faith the demands made Monday by the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (HAMTC) for better protection of workers from chemical vapors. However, as it evaluates the demands it will keep in mind “any changes in approach must be implementable, such that work can continue in a manner that makes a positive difference in worker health and safety.”
Mark Lindholm, WRPS president, sent a letter to the labor organization on Tuesday after he and HAMTC President Dave Molnaa met to discuss the demands. HAMTC wants to expand the use of supplied air respirators and to move any work that might increase the release of chemical vapors to evening, night, and weekend shifts.
More than 50 workers have undergone medical checks in recent months after potential exposure to chemical vapors in and around the Hanford Site’s waste storage tank farms. All were subsequently cleared to return to work.
The heads of the Department of Energy offices at Hanford this week also said they welcomed a “short-term, focused, programmatic evaluation” planned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of four worker safety areas related to the Hanford tank farms, specifically: the site’s policies and procedures for assessing personnel health concerns for workers connected to the tank farms; Hanford’s programs for monitoring worker exposure to chemical contaminants, management of Hanford’s health and safety program, and exposure control systems.
Lindholm defended WRPS’ efforts to keep workers safe, saying the contractor has taken increasingly more aggressive steps to improve engineering controls, administrative controls, enhanced monitoring, and personal protective equipment. “Throughout the WRPS contract period, we have ensured that personnel are protected,” he said in the letter to HAMTC. But despite WRPS’s best efforts, some workers continue to express concerns associated with odors, he said. The odors may be from chemical vapors associated with waste held in underground tanks. WRPS has consistently maintained safe worker breathing zones with air quality well within the standards used by industry, including the occupational exposure limits used in the nuclear and petrochemical industries, Lindholm said.
WRPS continues to make improvements, working over the last 18 months to implement recommendations made by the independent Hanford Tank Vapor Assessment Team, which was led by the Savannah River National Laboratory. WRPS has worked with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to test and develop monitoring technology, including a mobile laboratory that can be used to “chase” suspected vapor plume, Lindholm said. It has improved its industrial hygiene program to more closely resemble the rigor and stature of Hanford’s radiological material controls programs, he said. If fieldwork proceeds as planned, WRPS should be in position by the end of the current fiscal year to implement a comprehensive vapor strategy that takes monitoring to a new level.
