Chemical Tank Explosion At Hanford Investigated

Investigators on Thursday ruled out sabotage in an explosion at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. A watchdog group alleged the blast might have been the result of improper chemical storage and lax oversight.

“This was a predictable result of illegal storage of hazardous wastes,” said Gerald Pollet, director of Seattle-based Heart of America Northwest.

Pollet’s comments came as the U.S. Department of Energy began investigating why the chemical storage tank at Hanford exploded Wednesday night. No one was injured and no radiation or chemicals were released in the explosion about 8 p.m. in the Plutonium Reclamation Facility building now used for chemical storage, Hanford Manager Lloyd Piper said.

Officials gave conflicting information about the contents of the tank. Piper told a news conference Thursday that the tank contained hydroxylamine nitrate, an oxidant similar to salt that is not supposed to be volatile. But James McCracken, a DOE nuclear engineer, said he believed the tank hadn’t contained hydroxylamine nitrate for at least six years and instead contained nitric acid.

“We are not ready to say what was in those tanks, and won’t until we’ve had a chance to have these things analyzed,” DOE spokesman Guy Schein said Thursday night.

DOE’s Keith Taylor said sabotage had been ruled out as a cause.

“Our preliminary evidence just doesn’t indicate that is a possibility,” he said.

The building, in the 200 West area in the center of the reservation, is in Hanford’s most secure area, Taylor said.

Hanford’s Piper said hydroxylamine nitrate is generally not volatile. But Pollet disagreed.

“The tank which exploded had been used to store an inherently unstable chemical, to which nitric acid was added recently,” he said.

Adding nitric acid to the chemical already in the tank created the risk of an explosive reaction, he said.

“You could not store these chemicals for this period of time in these … tanks if you were a regulated facility as they should have been,” he said.

There was no immediate response from Hanford or Energy Department officials.

Piper said the investigation will determine the cause, as well as procedures that can be improved to ensure a similar incident does not occur at the 560-square-mile nuclear reservation in south central Washington.

The explosion blew the lid off the 1,570-liter tank, rupturing a fire sprinkler line that flooded the fourth-floor room and flowed down an elevator shaft to a parking lot before water and electricity to the building were shut off, Piper said.

The explosion broke some windows and knocked doors off their hinges.

There was no fire and the building’s radiation containment and ventilation systems remained intact, Piper said. Filters in ventilation stacks were checked and showed no signs of radiation or chemical contamination, he said.

Nine workers were taken to a hospital as a precaution after reporting a metallic taste in their mouths. Some complained of sore throats or headaches. They were examined and released.