Security guards and other plaintiffs suing President Joe Biden and the Department of Energy over COVID19 workforce vaccination requirements at the Hanford Site in Washington state have agreed to drop contractor executives from the litigation, according to a recent federal court filing.
The plaintiffs will withdraw claims against Valerie McCain who heads Bechtel’s Waste Treatment Plant Project, Central Plateau Cleanup Co. president Scott Sax, Washington River Protection Solutions president John Eschenberg, Hanford Laboratories Management and Integration project manager Don Hardy, Hanford Mission Integration Solutions president Robert Wilkinson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory director Steven Ashby and Hiram Seth Whitmer, the project manager of occupational medical provider HPM Corp.
The move is outlined in a stipulation filed on Thursday March 11 by lawyers retained by the Silent Majority Foundation, which has filed a number of legal challenges against government COVID-19 vaccination policies in the Pacific Northwest. About 300 plaintiffs, including security guards and other workers at Hanford filed an amended complaint March 4. They want a federal district court to enjoin Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and DOE site manager Brian Vance from enforcing vaccination rules stemming from President Biden’s executive orders 14042 and 14043 in September.
The amended complaint said Granholm’s chief of staff Tarak Shah sent an agency-wide email Jan. 13 saying DOE plans to resume pursuing action, culminating in termination, of unvaccinated employees. The memo said it is a process “we paused during the holiday season.”
The latest complaint said many Hanford workers granted religious or medical variances have received only 60-day “temporary accommodations” scheduled to run out March 18. “Defendants’ decisions regarding vaccine mandates have been unequally applied and are arbitrary and capricious where some DOE Hanford contractors and/or employees are not subject to the same requirements.”
Both the DOE and its Office of Environmental Management have said over 90% of their federal and contractor workforce have been vaccinated against COVID-19.
