Medical Tests For Hanford Workers Bungled In Wake Of Tank Explosion 8 Workers Initially Were Misled, Contractors Admit; Samples Untested For More Than 4 Weeks

Within hours of a tank explosion at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington in May, workers were assured that medical tests showed they had not been exposed to radiation.

But internal memos reveal that those assurances were baseless.

Managers at the site not only failed to analyze the nasal smears taken from eight electrical workers, but they also left the samples untested for more than four weeks. The samples, which ultimately showed no radiation exposure, were completed only after the workers demanded written confirmation of the results.

Top Hanford contractors Wednesday acknowledged that workers had been misled, but said the miscommunication was unintentional.

The bungling of the tests, commonly performed procedures at the 560-square-mile reservation, is the latest in a series of damaging revelations that could lead to reforms in how the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors respond to emergencies.

Steve Moore, who is conducting an independent investigation for the state Ecology Department, said the mishandling of the nasal smears shows that the federal government and its contractors did not give nearly enough attention to the safety of workers.

A month ago Moore learned through his investigation that the same workers were ordered to go outside in the explosion’s aftermath and thus were needlessly exposed to toxic chemicals.

Investigators said Wednesday they also had learned that the emergency procedure manual Hanford officials turned to the night of the May 14 explosion did not even include a section on how to treat exposed workers.

DOE investigator Paul Kruger said in an interview that the manual also does not instruct emergency officials to declare an emergency after an explosion unless it was caused by a terrorist attack.

The explosion occurred because the Energy Department and its contractors allowed an explosive chemical solution to slowly evaporate in a tank for 3-1/2 years, instead of draining it immediately after its use in December 1993, according to an Energy Department report released Wednesday.

Because chemical mismanagement, not terrorism, caused the explosion, Kruger said nearby Benton and Franklin County emergency officials had to learn about the accident by listening to police scanners. They weren’t officially informed it had happened for two hours, he said.

“It’s clear there were a number of breakdowns with potentially serious consequences,” Kruger said. “Our procedures clearly need to be beefed up so they are more clear and explicit.”

Kruger is directing an internal DOE investigation focusing on the emergency response and expects to propose sweeping changes.

A small level of radiation was released in the May explosion in a defunct Plutonium Processing Plant in one of the reservation’s busiest areas, Energy Department investigator Ron Gerton said at a briefing Wednesday focusing on mismanagement leading up to the explosion.

The “barely detectable level” was released when water gushed over an area where plutonium had spilled in past years, he said.

The explosion released a large, visible plume of oxides of nitrate and nitric acid - chemicals that can cause the kinds of respiratory problems and skin rashes some of the exposed workers complained of after the explosion.

Kruger said that as soon as the workers reported that they had been exposed to the chemicals, a battery of tests in addition to the nasal smears should have been done. A radiation counter should have been run over the workers’ bodies, and blood and urine samples should have been taken.

Ironically, it was the workers themselves who asked for the nasal tests that night. And when they went to the Kadlec Medical Center emergency room in nearby Richland for an examination, they also asked for blood and urine tests.

Both Hanford doctors and the emergency room physician have confirmed they told the workers those tests weren’t necessary because they believed the workers had not been exposed to anything serious.

Kruger said requirements for a full battery of tests for exposed workers is another change he will demand in Hanford’s emergency response manual.

Winston McCulley Jr., superintendent of the exposed crew of electrical workers, said it took Hanford officials several weeks to respond to his request for the results of the nasal smears.

“I guess I should be surprised that they lied to us, but after all we have been through, I’m not,” McCulley said.

Top executives from Fluor Daniel Hanford and B&W Hanford, the companies responsible for how the smears were handled, said Wednesday that workers were not lied to. Rather, they said, the workers were misinformed because of a miscommunication between the technician that did the tests and her supervisor.

Bill Heer, B&W Hanford’s president, said the confusion grew out of technician Darlene Goods’ comment that samples “were OK.” Her supervisor thought “OK” meant the samples were radiation-free, but Good actually meant only that she had succeeded in taking the samples despite not having some of the right equipment, he said.

Good said the explosion blocked her access to a main supply cabinet. The back-up cabinet she turned to lacked the essential tools for a nasal smear - Q-tips, filter paper and de-mineralized water. On a supervisor’s advice, she said she used gauze provided by firefighters on the scene and tap water.

Brian Baumann, a Hanford expert on radiation tests, said the gauze would do a good job of absorbing any radiation in workers’ noses, but could block the amount of radiation a machine could read by 20 to 40 percent.

Still, Baumann said the June reading of no radiation should be considered accurate.

But Moore, the Ecology investigator, said the lack of proper supplies will always leave the test results in question. He said there’s no excuse that such a simple and routinely performed test was not properly done.

“When we take nasal smears we are doing it for a reason,” he said. “We want the results so we can quickly ascertain if there has been any uptake of radiological contamination. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

Whether the Energy Department and its contractors will have to pay fines for the mistakes made before and after the explosion remained an open question Wednesday. Moore said he must finish his investigation first.

Lloyd Piper, the Energy Department’s acting manager of the Hanford site, said he is considering fining Hanford contractors, but also will wait until the investigation is complete.

Gerald Pollet, leader of the Hanford watchdog group Heart of America Northwest, said he believes a criminal investigation should be launched into the handling of the chemicals before the explosion and the resulting emergency response.

“One of the reasons the DOE is running this investigation is they want to avoid a finding that deliberate decisions to violate safety requirements and hazardous waste laws were made,” he said. “We need an independent investigation.”