Three Pacific Northwest senators are urging Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz to take swift action on recommendations made last week in a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on Hanford Site waste tank vapors. “With the review in hand it is now critical that DOE take swift and definitive actions to implement the recommendations,” said Democratic U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington and Ron Wyden of Oregon in a letter sent Monday to Moniz.
The senators are asking that the Department of Energy develop an implementation plan with a clear schedule and the funding necessary to carry out the recommendations. “Nothing less than a complete commitment to safety at Hanford is acceptable,” the senators said. They also are recommending that DOE institutionalize improvements to workforce safety that result from the NIOSH review to ensure they carry over from contractor to contractor.
The recommendations released Nov. 28 cover the four areas considered in the NIOSH review: exposure assessment, exposure controls, safety and health program management, and medical. Recommendations emphasize the importance of recurring training for industrial hygiene technicians and call for a central website or manual that management and workers can access to explain industrial hygiene activities and procedures. The recommendations call for focusing on engineering controls, such as ventilation improvements, as a top priority and also using administrative controls, such as limiting the number of workers who enter the tank farms.
The report found that many workers and union officials distrust management at DOE and tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions. The NIOSH review report recommended that DOE and WRPS leadership acknowledge health and exposure concerns as legitimate to improve interaction between labor and management. A third-party professional mediator should be considered to resolve areas of conflict, the report says.
