Work continued at the Hanford Site tank farms this week after tank farm contractor Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) honored a stop work order by requiring all work in those areas to be done on supplied air respirators. The Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council (HAMTC) on Monday issued the stop work order to protect workers from chemical vapors after WRPS had said at the close of the previous work week that it did not have a basis for mandating supplied air respirators in all farms at all times. Mandating supplied air respirators for all work inside the tank farms is “non-negotiable,” said Dave Molnaa, HAMTC president, in response on Monday. “I am not backing off.”
HAMTC pulled workers out of one of the double-shell tank farms in the 200 East Area on Monday because they were not wearing supplied air respirators. WRPS has not required supplied air for routine work in double-shell tank farms, which have exhausters that reduce the risk of chemical vapors. Most single-shell tanks vent passively into the atmosphere. Later in the day HAMTC removed workers from the TX Tank Farm, a single-shell tank farm, where workers were in a zone in which WRPS did not believe supplied air respirators were needed. “I am just disappointed in their response,” Molnaa said Monday. “How many workers have to sacrifice their health … to establish a basis?”
HAMTC, an umbrella group for 15 unions doing work at Hanford, allowed workers elsewhere in the tank farms to continue working Monday and through the week if they were on supplied air respirators. WRPS employs about 2,200 people, with roughly 700 required to staff a routine day at the tank farms. WRPS can continue operations in the two tank farms on mandated supplied air respirators, but it is not clear if the contractor has resumed the work being done when personnel were pulled out of the farm.
The stop work order did not prevent two workers from reporting symptoms consistent with chemical vapor exposure on Tuesday. They were not covered by the stop work order because they were beyond the fence that marks the boundary of the closest tank farm, the double-shell AP Tank Farm. No work was being done in the AP Tank Farm at the time, according to WRPS. The workers were given medical evaluations and cleared to return to work, the contractor said. Other workers were told to leave the vicinity but allowed to return after analysis of air samples that WRPS said showed air quality that met safe standards.
About 53 Hanford workers have been given medical evaluations in recent months for possible exposure to chemical vapors from the tanks that hold 56 million gallons of chemical and radioactive waste, or because they were nearby when chemical vapors were suspected. All have been cleared to return to work, according to WRPS, but workers fear chemical exposure could lead to serious lung and neurological issues.
Work at the tank farms includes building the infrastructure to retrieve waste from the next set of single-shell tanks, emptying a final tank in C Farm, preparing to continue emptying the oldest double-shell tank, maintenance, and sampling and monitoring waste. The material is ultimately to be treated at the site’s Waste Treatment Plant.
Both HAMTC and WRPS must agree to lifting the stop work order for operations without supplied air. “We are honoring the HAMTC stop work order issued today,” WRPS President Mark Lindholm said in a memo to workers on Monday. The contractor will continue to evaluate the feasibility of implementing the HAMTC demand regarding supplied air respirators, the memo said.
HAMTC sent WRPS a list of demands on June 20. The contractor said there was no data to support using supplied air respirators for routine work in double-shell tank farms and that it had not been recommended by an independent review led by the Savannah River National Laboratory, prompting the stop work order.
WRPS has offered to meet HAMTC’s demand that any work that disturbs tank waste be done either on night shifts or over Hanford’s three-day weekends after most workers have finished Monday through Thursday 10-hour shifts. Fewer personnel would be at work to be exposed. But WRPS wants HAMTC to declare those regular shifts, which would not be paid at time and a half or double time. Molnaa said WRPS must send a letter with a formal request for the shift change for HAMTC to consider as required by the parties’ collective bargaining agreement. The letter must include information on specific hours, the start and end dates for the shifts, and worker classifications. HAMTC will also evaluate the tank farm contractor’s progress in response to its other demands, including a demand that workers use lighter bottles with supplied air respirators.
In a letter sent Monday to WRPS, Molnaa said HAMTC recognizes the importance of executing work in the Hanford tank farms. “However, such mission does not, and will not, take precedence over worker safety,” the letter said. He also criticized Lindholm’s July 7 letter to HAMTC, which described WRPS efforts to improve worker protections from chemical vapors to what it said was a level that exceeds industry levels. No other industry has conditions that compare with those at the Hanford tank farms, including the 1,800 chemicals that may be contained in the head space of waste tanks, Molnaa said.
