The Hanford Site’s waste tank farms were placed under a stop work order from late Monday afternoon until mid-Tuesday afternoon after a worker raised concerns about beryllium safety.
The work stoppage, which was called by a single union employee, covered activities requiring beryllium controls or intrusive operations in the tank farms. Any employee can halt work at Hanford if he or she believes safety is at risk.
Washington River Protection Solutions, the Hanford tank farm contractor, said Tuesday that stopping work is “not only a right, it is the responsibility of all WRPS workers who feel there is a safety issue. We are honoring the stop work order issued yesterday regarding implementation of beryllium controls at the tank farms, and we are following our procedure for working with the individual who issued the stop work to resolve the concern.”
Managers met with the employee Tuesday and then announced the stop work order had been lifted. Hanford procedure requires both a manager and the employee who called a stop work order to reach agreement before the order is lifted. If the parties had not reached agreement Tuesday, the matter would have been elevated to discussions between management and a union safety representative.
The Department of Energy has acknowledged that workers might still encounter beryllium-contaminated dust and debris during the decontamination and decommissioning of facilities at Hanford, a former plutonium production site. Hanford has a site-wide program to prevent chronic beryllium disease in workers. Susceptible personnel can develop the respiratory disease by inhaling small particles of the metal.
No information was released about why the worker believed the program was not being adequately implemented.
