Since March 2014, near­ly 60 work­ers at the Han­ford Nuclear Reser­va­tion in Wash­ing­ton state have sought med­ical atten­tion for on-the-job expo­sure to chem­i­cal vapors released by high­ly tox­ic waste stored at the site, some as recent­ly as August. At a pub­lic meet­ing held Wednes­day in Pas­co, Wash­ing­ton, Han­ford work­ers described symp­toms that include chron­ic headaches, res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems, nerve dam­age and bloody urine.

The meet­ing, host­ed by the Unit­ed Asso­ci­a­tion (U.A.) of Plumbers and Steam­fit­ters Local 598 and Han­ford Chal­lenge, a Seat­tle-based envi­ron­men­tal watch­dog group, was con­vened fol­low­ing the Feb­ru­ary 10 release by Depart­ment of Ener­gy con­trac­tor Wash­ing­ton Riv­er Pro­tec­tion Ser­vices (WRPS) of a ​“cor­rec­tive action imple­men­ta­tion plan.” This plan was devel­oped in response to rec­om­men­da­tions in a report from the Savan­nah Riv­er Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry released in Octo­ber 2014.

Com­mis­sioned in response to work­er expo­sures at Hanford’s tank farms, the Savan­nah Riv­er report found ongo­ing emis­sions of tox­ic chem­i­cal vapors from waste tanks, inad­e­quate work­er health and safe­ty pro­ce­dures and evi­dence that ​“strong­ly sug­gests a causal link between chem­i­cal vapor releas­es and sub­se­quent health effects.”

The under­ground stor­age tanks — known as ​“tank farms” — at the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy’s (D.O.E.) 586-acre Han­ford site con­tain more than 50 mil­lion gal­lons of con­cen­trat­ed radioac­tive and chem­i­cal waste left from pro­cess­ing nuclear mate­ri­als, includ­ing ura­ni­um and plu­to­ni­um, for the U.S. weapons pro­grams between 1943 and 1987.

Locat­ed adja­cent to the Colum­bia Riv­er, the under­ground tanks hold high­ly radioac­tive sludge, mix­tures of radioac­tive mate­ri­als, heavy met­als (includ­ing mer­cury, chromi­um and cad­mi­um), volatile organ­ic com­pounds and oth­er tox­ic chem­i­cals (among them ammo­nia, beryl­li­um, formalde­hyde, hydro­flu­o­ric acid and N‑nitrosodimethylamine). For years, work has been under­way to trans­fer this waste from degrad­ing sin­gle-walled tanks to stur­dier dou­ble-shelled tanks and also to emp­ty and close out these tanks. There is also ongo­ing vent­ing through evap­o­ra­tors to reduce the vol­ume of stored liquids.

Speak­ing in the union hall Wednes­day evening, U.S. Local 598 busi­ness man­ag­er Pete Nica­cio said, ​“We’re here to make sure the con­trac­tor and D.O.E. do the right thing and fol­low up out there.”

To that end, in Novem­ber of last year Local 598, Han­ford Chal­lenge and Wash­ing­ton Physi­cians for Social Respon­si­bil­i­ty filed a 90-day notice of intent to sue the U.S. D.O.E. and WRPS, which man­ages work at the Han­ford tank farms for the D.O.E., over vio­la­tions of the Fed­er­al Resources and Recov­ery Act that endan­ger work­ers’ health.

“Work­ers are not being tak­en care of,” said Nica­cio. ​“Work­ers are hav­ing health issues and D.O.E. does not want to acknowl­edge those issues,” he said. ​“We’re here to make sure we do our part to ensure that they’re going to take some action.”

Wash­ing­ton Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son filed a sim­i­lar notice, also in Novem­ber, seek­ing to pro­tect Han­ford work­ers from haz­ardous chem­i­cal expo­sures. ​“Han­ford work­ers face a real and imme­di­ate health risk,” said Fer­gu­son on fil­ing the notice. ​“I intend to hold the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment account­able to their respon­si­bil­i­ty to main­tain a safe work envi­ron­ment for Wash­ing­to­ni­ans,” he said on Feb­ru­ary 10, respond­ing to the release of the WRPS imple­men­ta­tion plan.

Pip­efit­ter Michael Cain, who has worked at Han­ford since the 1980s and reports being exposed last year, described how tank farm work involves remov­ing tank seals and lids and work­ing on pipes that con­nect and vent the tanks. ​“I had no con­cern when I start­ed work­ing at the tank farms two years ago, until I start­ed lis­ten­ing to old­er work­ers – guys who were work­ing while being sick,” said Cain’s cowork­er John Wright.

“This is not a new issue,” says Han­ford Chal­lenge exec­u­tive direc­tor Tom Car­pen­ter, point­ing out that Han­ford work­er chem­i­cal and vapor expo­sure issues date back decades and have been doc­u­ment­ed in numer­ous reports. A 1992 DOE report out­lined the prob­lems iden­ti­cal to those described in the Octo­ber 2014 report, describ­ing the con­di­tion of the tank farm as ​“poor” and dete­ri­o­rat­ing, ongo­ing vapor expo­sure inci­dents dat­ing back to 1957 and inad­e­quate tox­i­cs mon­i­tor­ing and work­er-pro­tec­tion sys­tems. Insuf­fi­cient indus­tri­al hygiene mea­sures, lack of infor­ma­tion about chem­i­cals being released and inad­e­quate com­mu­ni­ca­tion about these haz­ards are among the prob­lems cited.

At the Feb­ru­ary 18 meet­ing, numer­ous work­ers, includ­ing Ron John­son, Jr., described how the choice of on-the-job res­pi­ra­to­ry pro­tec­tion has been left up to the work­ers. They report­ed hav­ing the option to use sup­plied air tanks while work­ing at tank farms, but this, they said, super­vi­sors dis­cour­aged because it could slow down the job.

“I have con­stant migraines,” said 36-year old Johnson.

“There is not ade­quate indus­tri­al hygiene on site to deter­mine when res­pi­ra­to­ry pro­tec­tion is need­ed,” said Unit­ed Steel­work­ers assis­tant direc­tor of health and safe­ty, Jim Fred­er­ick whose union also rep­re­sents Han­ford work­ers. ​“It’s like ​“whack-a-mole,” he said. ​“They’ve been chas­ing this stuff around for 20, 30 years, throw­ing SCBAs [self-con­tained breath­ing appa­ra­tus] on peo­ple after the fact, when the expo­sures took place yes­ter­day.” The num­ber of con­trac­tors and sub­con­trac­tors at Han­ford exac­er­bat­ed these issues of over­sight and enforce­ment, said Frederick.

Cur­rent and for­mer work­ers who spoke at the meet­ing report­ed ongo­ing dif­fi­cul­ty with med­ical diag­noses fol­low­ing expo­sure and with obtain­ing com­pen­sa­tion for med­ical claims. ​“Your liveli­hood is in pieces,” said John Swain, cur­rent­ly off work due to illness.

In addi­tion to the legal notices filed by the Wash­ing­ton Attor­ney Gen­er­al, labor and watch­dog groups, Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell (D‑Washington) has been press­ing the Depart­ment of Ener­gy on this issue. Last week, she called on Ener­gy Sec­re­tary Ernest Moniz to ensure ade­quate fund­ing for Han­ford Cleanup and work­er pro­tec­tion programs.

The Depart­ment of Ener­gy, which is ulti­mate­ly respon­si­ble for Han­ford work­ers’ health and safe­ty, said in a state­ment that it ​“remains com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing work­ers, the pub­lic and the envi­ron­ment. Min­i­miz­ing risks to work­ers, includ­ing chem­i­cal vapors in the tank farms, is some­thing the depart­ment and its con­trac­tors strive for each day at Han­ford.” Fur­ther, said the D.O.E., the depart­ment ​“rec­og­nizes that reduc­ing the poten­tial for expo­sures to vapors will require sus­tained action, con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and insti­tu­tion­al­iza­tion of lessons learned.”

The just-released imple­men­ta­tion plan ​“looks good on paper, but ​“we’re gong to make sure they take some action,” said Nica­cio. ​“We’re going to con­tin­ue to put pres­sure on to make sure cor­rec­tive action is done.”

Both 90-day notices against the DOE were filed in Novem­ber 2014. Those 90 days are now con­clud­ing, and law­suits are expect­ed to follow.