Washington state and its co-plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit over chemical vapor protections for workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site are asking for five more months to prepare for trial.
The proposed delay would move the trial from Sept 18, 2017, to Feb. 19, 2018. The current case schedule cannot be met, in part, because of the large volume of documents in the case released by the Department of Energy, a defendant, and many more documents expected from Hanford tank farms contractor Washington River Protection Solutions, also a defendant, according to a plaintiff motion filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington. An attorney for the state said the Department of Energy has provided almost 56,000 documents to plaintiffs; WRPS has produced nearly 12,000 documents, with many more expected.
“Furthermore, the parties need additional time to digest the court’s recent ruling on plaintiff’s motions for a preliminary injunction and confer with their experts regarding that ruling,” the motion said. U.S. District Judge Thomas Rice on Nov. 15 denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction that would have increased worker protection requirements at the Hanford tank farms while the case was being decided.
The state, along with watchdog group Hanford Challenge and Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598, in 2015 sued for heightened measures to protect Hanford personnel against vapors from chemical and radioactive waste stored at the facility near the city of Richland. Their demands include provisions for independent oversight, engineering and administrative controls, personal protective gear, employee training, and sampling and monitoring protocols.
Washington River Protection Solutions has told the court that the company and DOE are conferring with plaintiffs over the trial schedule. If the parties cannot reach agreement, the defendants are expected late this week to file responses to the plaintiffs’ motion to change the case schedule.
