Six more employees at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site in Washington state tested positive for COVID-19, according to weekend posts on the emergency operations website.
Two workers informed management on Saturday that they have tested positive, followed by another four on Sunday.
No further details were provided on the website which is updated daily by Leidos-led Mission Support Alliance, the site services contractor for the one-time plutonium production complex.
The latest infections bring the COVID-19 total at Hanford to 186. Eleven have been disclosed on the website since Oct. 7 when the cleanup site’s top manager, Brian Vance, told the Hanford Advisory Board there were 175 confirmed cases.
Hanford, which is home to 11,000 federal and contract workers, is the largest and most expensive nuclear remediation site overseen by the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management (EM).
The Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which houses extensive operations for both EM and the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, also has 11,000 employees. A Savannah River DOE website Friday that the site has now eclipsed the 600-case mark, at 610. Of that total, 568 have gotten better and been cleared to return to work.
In addition, EM nearly hit 100 active cases last week as a spokesperson for the DOE office said Thursday there were 99, up from 80 the week before.
