se-src=http://www.A federal court hearing set for this month could reshape safety rules at the federal government’s Hanford nuclear-weapons-production complex in south central Washington state, where critics contend noxious vapors from underground tanks have harmed workers.
At the hearing in Spokane, Wash., Judge Thomas O. Rice plans to consider motions filed by the Washington attorney general and private parties for a preliminary injunction requiring that certain safety measures be taken, including greater use of portable breathing apparatuses.
The parties say workers were exposed to vapors from the underground tanks, which hold more than 50 million gallons of radioactive and chemical waste. The waste was created when Hanford, which closed in the late 1980s, produced plutonium for the atomic-weapons program.
The injunction requests are part of litigation filed last year over the vapor issue against the Energy Department and one of its major Hanford contractors by the state, as well as an environmental and workers-advocacy group and a local labor union.
se-src=http://www.ehscity.com/skin/default1/image/nopic.gif data-in-at4units-src=http://www.ehscity.com/skin/default1/image/nopic.gif data-enlarge="https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-QB617_HANFOR_M_20160930171612.jpg" alt="Workers inspect a valve at the Hanford site, in this July 9, 2014, photo." title="Workers inspect a valve at the Hanford site, in this July 9, 2014, photo." style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 10px; vertical-align: baseline; display: block; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px; width: 540px; background: 0px 0px;" />The plaintiffs argue in court filings that the injunction is needed to protect workers pending a resolution of the suit, which is set for trial in September 2017.
Earlier this year “over 50 Hanford tank farm workers were sickened by toxic vapors spewed into the air,” said a court filing by the attorney general’s office. Over the years, hundreds or more workers have suffered problems ranging from nosebleeds and headaches to long-term lung and brain damage, the plaintiffs contend.
While Hanford management has taken some additional protective steps, a binding court order is needed to maintain and expand safety measures, critics argue. Plaintiffs point to government reports as far back as the 1990s criticizing Hanford management on the vapor issue.
Hanford officials have “demonstrated clearly over 20 years that they are unwilling to maintain a safe working environment,” Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in an interview.
The Energy Department, which oversees the cleanup, in a court filing called the injunction motions “an unwarranted intrusion into DOE’s ongoing cleanup operations, including the world-class worker-safety and industrial-hygiene measures” the agency has put in place.
While some workers have complained about vapors, “the data overwhelmingly support the conclusion that workers have not been exposed to chemicals at dangerous levels.”
Granting the preliminary injunction could also delay by up to five years efforts to comply with a separate court-mandated schedule for emptying tanks as part of a long-term plan to treat and dispose of the waste, the filing said. Among other things, workers using supplied-air packs “generally move more slowly,” it added.
In a written statement, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has closely followed the Hanford cleanup, said it was “unconscionable that after ignoring worker safety risks from chemical vapors for so many years, DOE and its contractors would then turn around and blame those workers for delaying cleanup.”
Also scheduled to be heard at the Oct. 12 hearing is a defendants’ motion to dismiss Washington state as a plaintiff on the grounds it doesn’t have standing to sue on this matter. The state is opposing the motion.
Write to John R. Emshwiller at john.emshwiller@wsj.com