The state of Washington stepped up a lawsuit against the Energy Department and the prime contractor for the Hanford Site tank farm over worker exposure to chemical vapors by asking a federal judge Thursday to mandate protective gear and other safety measures around waste storage at the Department of Energy facility near Richland, Wash.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed the motion for preliminary injunction Thursday,
A spokespersons for Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS), the tank farm prime, did not immediately reply to a request for comment Thursday. A DOE spokesperson said the agency cannot comment on pending litigation.
The state on Thursday flooded the docket of the U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington with 24 new filings that included depositions collected from Hanford personnel from April to July. Of the 24, 13 were filed under seal and inaccessible to the public. The worker depositions were not among the public filings.
It is the latest turn in the nearly year-old legal battle, which combines vapor-exposure lawsuits filed in September by Washington state and the independent Hanford Challenge watchdog group, which filed its lawsuit jointly with the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local Union 598.
According to a Thursday press release from Ferguson’s office, Washington state’s demands are:
- Mandatory use of supplied air at all times for all personnel working within the perimeter fence lines of the tank farms.
- During waste disturbing activities, establishment of an expanded vapor control zone not less than 200 feet outside the perimeter fence line of the affected tank farms, and effective barricading of all roads and access points to prevent entry into the expanded zone.
- Mandatory use of supplied air for all personnel working inside a vapor control zone, including the expanded zone described above.
- Installation and use of additional monitoring and alarming equipment in affected tank farms during waste disturbing activities, to include optical gas imaging cameras, optical spectrometers, optical stack monitors, and VMD integration software, to warn workers when toxic vapors are being emitted.
“I’ve been asking for months: How many sick Washington workers will it take before the federal government fixes this problem?” Ferguson said in the release. “The federal government’s culture of indifference to worker safety at Hanford must end. Now.”
The AG’s press release says more than 50 workers in recent months were exposed to toxic vapors at Hanford, and subsequently suffered “nosebleeds, chest and lung pain, headaches, coughing, sore throats, irritated eyes, and difficulty breathing.”
The latest turn in the lawsuit follows a standoff at the tank farm last week between unionized employees of WRPS and management, where work on the waste tanks continued despite demands from the union that WRPS ratchet up safety measures.
When WRPS agreed to only certain safety measures — the contractor said for example it would not require tank farm workers to wear supplied air respirators at certain job sites — David Molnaa, head of the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council, an umbrella group for 15 unions at the former plutonium production site, issued a stop worker order for work at the tank farms.
Molnaa was making good on a threat delivered in a scathing letter to WRPS President and Project Manager Mark Lindholm dated July 11.
“Should WRPS fail or refuse … to implement our demands in a prompt manner, we will take any and all actions we deem necessary to enforce our position,” Molnaa wrote.
The lawsuit is still set for a bench trial May 22, 2017. Should Ferguson’s motion prevail, the protective measures he seeks would stay in place until the trial begins, the press release says.
Before that can happen, however, DOE and WRPS will have to respond to the motion. Judge Thomas Rice may also set oral arguments, according to Ferguson’s press release, which would further delay additional protective measures.
Meanwhile, work continues at the site under WRPS’ 10-year, $5.6 billion tank farm prime contract. The deal expires Sept. 30, 2018.
NIOSH Inbound
Officials from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health plan to visit the Hanford Site from July 25 to 28 for an evaluation announced last month related to worker exposure to chemical vapors.
This week workers at the Hanford tank farms received a memo from NIOSH, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with times and locations each day that they may meet with investigators to confidentially share concerns about tank farm health and safety issues. Participation is voluntary. Investigators also plan to speak with management and union officials. They will observe work practices in different areas of the tank farms, according to the memo. The review will look at four program areas: the medical program, assessment of exposure, safety and health program management, and exposure controls.
