Plaintiffs and defendants on Friday asked a federal judge for a fifth delay in the scheduled trial for a lawsuit demanding better worker protection from chemical vapors at the Energy Department’s Hanford Site in Washington state. The delay would give the parties further time to pursue a settlement.
When parties to the lawsuit announced in January that they planned to pursue mediation, the trial was set for this month. Plaintiffs and defendants are asking that the trial be pushed back from the current start date of July 25, 2018, to Aug. 29, 2018. They also want interim deadlines postponed about four weeks, starting with an Oct. 9, 2017, deadline for plaintiffs’ expert disclosures.
The request was made after the most recent round of mediation on Sept. 18-19 did not result in a settlement agreement, the parties told Judge Thomas Rice of U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington.
The state of Washington, the watchdog group Hanford Challenge, and the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598 sued the Department of Energy and its tank farm contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, in September 2015. The plaintiffs say Hanford workers have been seriously injured by exposure to chemical vapors associated with chemical and radioactive waste held in underground tanks. DOE has argued that reports of possible exposures have declined substantially since supplied air respirators were required for most work inside the tank farms starting in August 2016.
