Suspected leak spurs evacuation

RICHLAND – The U.S. Department of Energy evacuated some workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation for several hours Wednesday after the suspected breach of a container, but no radiological contamination was detected in initial surveys of the area.

The incident occurred at the 200 West area of the south-central Washington site, where workers have been unearthing containers of waste that had been buried for years. The 200 West area also is near a landfill where some waste is being permanently buried.

Workers were evacuated from a trench as a precaution after the suspected breach at 10:35 a.m., said Calvin Dudney, a member of the joint information center at Hanford. Workers in the area were advised to take cover in secure buildings nearby.

An alarm was raised after a “brown absorbent material” escaped from a 55-gallon drum, he said, adding he was unable to describe it further. Nasal smears were taken from the two workers closest to the drum and showed no contamination, Dudney said. Nine other workers in the area were evacuated to a safe building nearby and also showed no contamination.

The 55-gallon drum contained another drum, which held a small amount of radioactive material. The inner drum was not believed to have leaked. The absorbent material leaked from the outer drum, but there was no contamination to the environment and there were no injuries, said Katie Larson, information center spokeswoman.

By early afternoon, the breached drum had been placed in a secondary container. The evacuation order was lifted at 1:10 p.m., and workers returned to normal duties, Dudney said.

The State Emergency Operations Center was activated to monitor the situation and assist Benton, Franklin and Grant counties if emergency operations became necessary. The governor’s office also was notified.

Even if an incident turns out to be minor, it is good practice for agencies that must cooperate and notify the public during an emergency, said Rob Harper of the State Emergency Operations Center.

“There’s value added even if it turns out that it’s not a major episode,” Harper said.

For 40 years, the 586-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation made plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal, beginning with the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb.

Today, it is the nation’s most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup costs expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion. The work is scheduled to be completed by 2035.