From gap-general-list@whistleblower.org Mon Sep 15 07:00:00 2003 From: gap-general-list@whistleblower.org (gap-general-list@whistleblower.org) Date: 15 Sep 2003 06:00:00 -0000 Subject: Latest News and Efforts from the Government Accountability ProjectFACT SHEET ON VAPOR ISSUE AT HANFORD Message-ID: <20030915060000.32350.qmail@waitak.pair.com>

FACT SHEET ON VAPOR ISSUE AT HANFORD

Tom Carpenter and Clare Gilbert

• The Hanford Nuclear Site, located in southeastern Washington state, is a former nuclear weapons production facility owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and operated by private companies.

• The legacy of Hanford’s plutonium production operations is a large quantity of deadly high-level radioactive and chemical byproducts, the worst of which, an estimated 53 million gallons of nuclear waste, are stored in 177 underground tanks. The tanks are arranged into eighteen farms, known as “tank farms,” and managed primarily by DOE contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group, Inc. (CHG).

• The high level waste forms noxious vapors in the headspace of the tanks, which must vent to the atmosphere to prevent pressure buildup, possible explosion, or tank rupture.

• Over 1200 chemicals have been documented in the vapors contained within Hanford’s tank headspaces, any number of which can and do escape through various tank equipment. Workers exposed to the tank vapors have suffered numerous health effects: nosebleeds, persistent headaches, tearing eyes, burning skin and lungs, coughing, sore throats, the need to constantly clear their throats, expectorating, dizziness, nausea, and increased heart rates.

• More serious health impacts resulting from exposure to tank vapors may be long term in nature. Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) concluded in a 1997 draft report that the risk of contracting cancer from even a single exposure to these chemical vapors could be as high as 1.6 in 10.

• The vapor exposure controversy is not new. Numerous oversight investigations were conducted by the DOE, Congress and the Inspector General in the early 1990’s after 16 exposure incidents took place over a 55 month period (4 ½ years). The resulting reports found gross mismanagement and potentially criminal activity in failing to protect workers from known hazards, and reforms were briefly instituted. Production pressures combined with costs, combined with a lack of oversight, resulted in the return of a lax safety culture at the Hanford tank farms.

• As DOE and CHG rush to pump and treat the high level waste to meet the DOE’s new “accelerated cleanup” deadlines of faster, cheaper cleanup, worker exposures to chemical vapors have skyrocketed, with at least 45 documented chemical vapor exposure incidents involving 67 workers requiring medical attention between January 2002 and August 2003. There were an additional 75 complaints of tank vapor odors in the same time span.

• CHG’s chemical vapor monitoring equipment can only accurately test for a small fraction of the over 1200 chemicals potentially coming out of the tanks and monitoring occurs only a small fraction of the time workers are in the field.

• CHG prohibits employees from using supplied air respirators, and is, in fact, planning to reduce the amount of respiratory protection used in the tank farms, reduce the amount of administrative controls designed to protect workers, and has abolished the “buddy system” whereby all work is performed in pairs, so that if one person is injured, there is another person on hand to provide assistance.

• High contaminant readings on instruments frequently go unrecorded and unacknowledged by CHG, and health affected tank farm workers are left with no dose record.

• Additionally, certain physicians and mental health counselors at the medical facility on site, the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation (HEHF), compound the problem for a tank farm worker seeking protection from chemical vapors. GAP has received several reports and documentation that HEHF management has:

 dismissed away chemical vapor related symptoms as imagined or the result of allergies;
 designed policies of automatic referral to a mental health counselor for a host of questionable reasons;
 shredded and altered the progress notes of patients;
 pressured workers to accept tank farm restrictions designed by tank farm contractors and suggest that the worker’s job is at stake if they refuse;
 pressured HEHF health care providers to not write “recordable” medical restrictions and diagnoses for patients;
 prohibited patients from having a union steward, friend, or family member accompany them during medical visits.

• The 45 recent exposures represent a 750% increase in the rate of similar exposures that triggered the last major DOE investigation in 1992 into Hanford’s chemical vapor exposures.
• The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) does not have jurisdiction at the Hanford site or any other DOE site. The Department of Energy is the sole enforcer of OSHA-like requirements which it promulgates but often fails to enforce.

Contacts:
Government Accountability Project, Tom Carpenter or Clare Gilbert: (206) 292-2850
Department of Energy, Tank Farms Office (ORP), Roy Schepens: (509) 376-6677
CHG, contractor in charge of Hanford tank operations: Ed Aromi, President: (509) 373-1677
State of Washington Department of Ecology, Mike Wilson, Program Mgr.: (360) 407-7150

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FACT SHEET ON VAPOR ISSUE AT HANFORD

PRESS ADVISORY

Tom Carpenter

Report to be released documents dozens of recent exposures to toxic chemical vapors requiring medical attention, and the failure of the U.S. DOE and contractors to protect worker health and safety

On Monday, several Hanford tank farm workers and the Government Accountability Project (GAP) will speak at a press conference about the documented failure of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and two of its contractors to protect Hanford nuclear waste tank farm workers from toxic chemical vapor exposure. Speakers will detail recent incidents of exposure to toxic vapors which required medical attention, but were not hitherto reported publicly.

As DOE and tank farm contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group rush to pump and treat the high level waste and “close” several tanks, the real cost of DOE’s quicker, cheaper “accelerated cleanup” plan is being borne by the Hanford workforce, whose health and safety are being sacrificed. Over the 4 ½ years between 1987 and 1992, it took only 16 vapor releases requiring medical attention to trigger large scale investigations by the DOE, the then tank farm contractor Westinghouse, the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, the DOE’s Office of Inspector General, and, upon invitation, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and resulted in widespread changes onsite. Now, over a decade later, GAP’s report chronicles enormous increases in hazardous worker exposures.

NEWS CONFERENCE

WHO: Hanford tank farm workers

Tom Carpenter & Clare Gilbert, Government Accountability Project
Tim Jarvis, PhD., toxicologist

WHEN: Monday, September 15, 2003
11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

WHERE: Hanford Red Lion Inn, Richland
802 George Washington Way
Richland, WA 99352
(509) 946-7611 for directions:

Copies of the full report will be available at the press conference.