MOST HANFORD LAYOFFS CANCELLED AFTER BUDGET PASSED
WC Monitor
1/24/2014
Hanford contractors laid off just 12 workers this week, far fewer than the 289 they were authorized to let go before Congress last week approved the Fiscal Year 2014 spending bill. The Department of Energy had approved three Hanford contractors to lay off a total of up to 450 this fiscal year and some workers who volunteered for layoffs had already been released. The layoffs were approved by DOE when it appeared Hanford cleanup might be hampered by low funding because of another continuing resolution and a possible sequester. Instead, Congress approved a fiscal 2014 budget last week that increased spending at Hanford to about $2.2 billion, or $186 million more than was available in fiscal 2013. All but 100 of the possible layoffs were being considered because of budget uncertainties, with the remainder tied to worker skill mix. Layoffs began in December, with 161 workers approved for voluntary layoffs. That left 289 layoffs possible, with most planned for this month.
Washington River Protection Solutions canceled all its remaining layoffs this week. DOE had approved it to cut up to 250 jobs, all linked to budget uncertainty. In December WRPS let 82 workers go through voluntary layoffs. No more tank farm layoffs were needed after Congress approved fiscal 2014 spending at the tank farm of $520 million, equal to the administration’s budget request. Without the new budget, the tank farms could have had a budget of just $409 million. “With final funding in place, we will be working with the Office of River Protection to identify and implement project work using the funds,” said Dave Olson, the contractor president, in a memo to employees. CH2M Hill Plateau Remediation Company was approved by DOE to lay off up to 100 workers, and agreed to 44 voluntary layoffs in December. No more layoffs were needed this week, although a small number of people could be laid off in the remainder of the fiscal year if their skills are not needed for the work the contractor is assigned, said John Fulton, CH2M Hill president in a memo. The 12 people who lost their jobs worked for Mission Support Alliance and all were nonunion. Mission Support Alliance will continue to evaluate its work force through the year to make sure it has workers with the needed skills as ongoing work changes, said Deanna Hawkins, spokeswoman for the contractor. It had been approved by DOE for up to 100 layoffs and agreed to 35 voluntary layoffs in December.
AREVA WINS SUBCONTRACT 324 BUILDING CLEANUP SYSTEM
WC Monitor
1/24/2014
Washington Closure Hanford has awarded Areva Federal Services a subcontract worth nearly $19 million to design and test a system to clean up highly radioactive contamination under the Hanford 324 Building. Areva’s team includes Vista Engineering, Remote Systems Engineering, Applied Geotechnical Engineering Construction, and Federal Engineers and Constructors. The subcontract covers engineering of a system to dig up soil contaminated by concentrated cesium and strontium under a plan to have work done from within the still standing 324 Building where a hot cell leaked.
Areva plans to build a mockup of the 30-foot-tall hot cell at its Richland campus to demonstrate the equipment it designs and prove that it works, said Don McBride, WCH’s manager for the project. The building, which was constructed in the mid-1960s and operated until 1996, was being decontaminated for demolition in November 2009 when workers discovered that the lining of a sump at the bottom of B Cell in the building had cracked, allowing radioactive material to leak into the soil. The contamination is suspected of coming from a spill within the cell in the 1980s when concentrated cesium and strontium was being fabricated into a heat source for Germany to use for tests of a repository for radioactive waste. “Extensive characterization of the soil indicated radiation levels approaching 10,000 rad per hour,” said Gary Snow, director of Washington Closure’s D4 work.
Now the 324 Building acts as a shield to protect workers from the radiation from the spill beneath it and it also acts as an umbrella above the spill, keeping precipitation from driving the contamination deeper into the soil. The contamination has not reached the groundwater, which is about 42 feet below the bottom of the hot cell. The worst of the contaminated soil is believed to be 5 to 6 feet beneath the hot cell. The spill is about a quarter mile from the Columbia River about a mile north of Richland. B Cell is the largest and most contaminated cell in the building, which also is known as the Chemical and Materials Engineering Laboratory.
HANFORD CHALLENGE ASSESSING WORKER FAMILY HEALTH
WC Monitor
1/24/2014
Hanford Challenge is exploring whether family members of Hanford workers may have been made ill by exposure to contamination. It is conducting a community health assessment, asking for input from families of workers orthose who live in homes that were previously occupied by Hanford workers. If enough of a pattern is evident, the watchdog group may be able to interest a university in conducting a formal study, said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge. Depending on the findings, there could be a need for programs for those harmed or at risk, he said.
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program has paid more than $1 billion in compensation and medical claims for ill Hanford and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory employees. Hanford Challenge is not making any claims about harm to nonworkers, but is interested in looking for possible trends for further study, Carpenter said. As Hanford Challenge employees started seeing Hanford workers who were sick, they sometimes would see that family members also were ill, Carpenter said. In addition, the group has sampled the dust in some Richland homes in areas where it is likely to build up longterm, such as under refrigerators, and found “fairly elevated” levels of radioactive contamination in some instances, he said. Workers may have tracked contamination into their homes. Or contamination might have been spread in the air, he said. Hanford processing plants released contamination from World War II through the early ‘50s. Of 800 surveys Hanford Challenge has distributed to date asking about health issues, it has received about 300 responses. Those have included 161 workers with illnesses and 81 family members with illnesses that could be caused by radiation, including 53 people with cancer, he said.
