Some of the approximately 75 Hanford workers and others who gathered Wednesday night at a meeting at the Local 598 union hall in Pasco are already experiencing health problems, said Pete Nicacio, business manager for the United Association of Steamfitters and Plumbers, Local 598.
And it’s too soon to say what health problems may lie in the future for workers exposed in the past two years to chemical vapors from Hanford waste held in underground tanks, he said.
Wednesday marked 90 days since Hanford Challenge and Local 598 notified the Department of Energy and its Hanford tank farm contractor that they intend to sue to protect workers from chemical vapors.
The two groups can sue now, after the notification delay, but are not doing so yet. Instead, they met with workers to hear their stories and offer help.
Washington River Protection Solutions, DOE’s tank farm contractor, obtained an independent review of ways to better protect workers and issued a plan to implement all 47 recommendations.
It sounds good, Nicacio said. But it is just the latest of more than two dozen studies over more than two decades.
The independent review team led by the Savannah River National Laboratory “did a pretty good report,” said Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge.
But he had some criticisms. The final report was watered down substantially from an initial draft, he said. The review team lacked a medical doctor and the implementation team lacked a labor member. The implementation plan did not look at the issue of denied worker compensation claims.
“We’re worried it will not result in anything meaningful,” he said.
The lawsuit threatened by Hanford Challenge and Local 598, along with Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility, and a second lawsuit that the state attorney general could file next month, are intended to hold DOE accountable for fixing vapor issues by requiring enforceable actions and deadlines.
Much of the talk at the meeting was about Hanford workers who had become ill. Hanford Challenge said workers have been diagnosed with respiratory illness, brain damage and other illnesses due to chemical vapor exposure.
Ron Johnson, who has worked at Hanford for eight years, said he fears his son is disabled because he works at Hanford.
Workers remain frustrated with too little effort to protect them and to make sure worker compensation claims are approved, according to those who spoke.
One talked of a strong, perfumey smell as recently as Wednesday morning between Hanford’s AP and AW tank farms.
In the last two weeks, instructions called for sending a worker without respiratory protection to loosen a cap on a riser into one of the underground tanks to let fumes disperse, Nicacio claimed.
Workers got the plan changed, but it should not be up to workers to set safety standards, he said.
DOE and its contractor have said supplied-air respirators are required for most work in the tank farms as improvements are made to better control vapors.
Worker compensation is difficult to obtain, workers said. Rocklin Fandrich said he was threatened with having his claim dropped when he was too sick to drive to Seattle for an evaluation.
DOE and its contractors have been blamed for problems, said James Hart, the director of metal trades for the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry. But the state shares some blame because it has the final power on approving worker compensation claims, he added.
Something is wrong when, in 2014, worker protection from chemical vapors still relied on workers’ sense of smell to determine when air is unsafe to breathe, Nicacio said — especially since many of the chemicals in the vapors have no odor.
Some of the chemicals known to be in the tanks could be fatal if inhaled, including dimethyl mercury, said Mike Cain, a Hanford worker.
Union 598 is collecting names of workers experiencing problems. “We’re committed to helping all of you,” Nicacio said.
