Workers at the Hanford Site in Washington state twice this week have reported smelling suspicious odors that could be chemical vapors. The two incidents are the first time since Nov. 28 that suspicious odors have been reported outside the radioactive waste storage tank farms at the Department of Energy facility.
On Monday afternoon, five Hanford workers declined precautionary medical evaluations after reporting odors inside the 702-AZ exhauster building. Odors can be linked to chemical vapors associated with tank waste that have been blamed for harming the health of some Hanford employees.
The exhauster building serves the AY and AZ tank farms, but is outside the tank farm fence lines, so personnel were not required to wear supplied air respirators. Workers on Monday were inspecting the emergency lighting system inside the building that houses the exhauster that removes fumes from the four tanks in the two tank farms to keep flammable gas from building up in the tanks’ head space.
On Tuesday morning, two more Hanford workers reported suspicious odors outside the SY Tank Farm. They also declined medical evaluations. The SY Tank Farm is in the 200 West Area and the 702-AZ exhauster building is about 7 miles away in the 200 East Area.
Workers were also outside the fence line of the SY Tank Farm, so were not required to wear supplied air respirators. They were doing excavation work for the installation of a safety shower.
In both incidents, workers were told to leave the area and access was restricted. On Tuesday morning, access to the exhauster building had been restored after air monitoring and sampling results showed no chemicals above harmful levels, according to tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. That afternoon, industrial hygiene technicians were collecting samples outside the SY Tank Farm and doing monitoring.
In the November incident, three workers were in the 271-AW instrument building, which is outside the AW Tank Farm. They received medical checks and were cleared to return to work.
Bill on Vapor Task Force Advances in Wash. Legislature
Separately, the Washington state Senate has passed a bill that would establish a task force to look at ways to diagnose and treat Hanford workers who may be ill after exposure to chemical vapors associated with waste in underground tanks. Hanford-area Sen. Sharon Brown sponsored the bill and got a unanimous Senate vote in its favor Wednesday. The bill now goes to the state House of Representatives for consideration.
Brown envisions the task force expanding the mission of the Center of Excellence for beryllium disease at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle to include aiding workers exposed to chemical vapors. “It is my hope that we attract doctors and researchers from all over the world who have experience in chemical vapor exposure so that we can have treatment plans that are appropriate to address the specific exposure,” she said.
If the Washington state Legislature approves the bill, Gov. Jay Inslee would appoint a task force with representatives from the Department of Energy Richland Operations Office, the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598, Harborview, the state Department of Labor and Industries, and the state Department of Health.
The task force would be required to provide an annual report on its work to the Legislature.
