Murray Protests Treatment Of Injured Hanford Workers Senator Says Doe, Fluor Daniel Slow To Respond

Sen. Patty Murray has written to Energy Secretary Federico Pena to complain about the treatment of Hanford Nuclear Reservation employees after an explosion in May.

The workers, some of whom met with the Washington Democrat’s staff Wednesday, were exposed to a chemical plume after the May 14 explosion at the Plutonium Finishing Plant.

“Unbelievably, they still have not received the promised (medical) treatment,” Murray said in the letter, dated Thursday.

“I am extremely concerned and angry this has gone on this long,” Murray added.

Murray also said Thursday that neither contractor Fluor Daniel Hanford nor the Energy Department adequately addressed the worker health issue in their annual reports about Hanford cleanup, Murray said.

Murray complained of being put off whenever she asks about treatment for the workers.

“We keep hearing, ‘We are going to take care of them in two days,”’ she said. “That is just not acceptable at all.”

Safety must be a top priority in the annual assessments, Murray said.

Gordon Beecher, director of human resources at Fluor Daniel Hanford, said the company has done its best to handle worker concerns, but admits the process has been slow.

“It’s going slower than all of us would have liked it to go,” he said. “We want to get this behind us. We want to finish up the exams.”

The explosion blew the lid off a 400-gallon tank when two unstable chemicals mixed. The chemicals were not radioactive, but the blast created a chemical cloud.

In the chaos after the explosion, 10 workers were ordered into the path of the cloud.

In the weeks following the accident, some workers complained of a metallic taste in their mouths, skin rashes, insomnia, bloating and confusion.

Four workers were evaluated in October at the University of Texas at Galveston. A second group of four or five is planning to go to Galveston next week, though details still are being worked out, Beecher said.

Fluor has said it will pay for the trips and assessments.

But Murray said in Thursday’s letter that none of the workers has been reimbursed.

The company also has moved workers involved in the accident out of the PFP area if they asked to be transferred. Beecher said few of the exposed workers remain at that site.

Fluor also is planning to send the employees to an independent hospital for a “whole body counter,” an evaluation of radioactivity. Beecher said Fluor doesn’t think any radioactivity was released into the air in the PFP explosion, but it wants to make sure no one was exposed.

Murray asked Fluor to do a critical one-year self-assessment in August. The company already was planning a critique, but altered its work to fit Murray’s specifications. The Energy Department did its own review. Results of both reviews were released to the public on Friday.