A worker wearing protective gear prepares a chemical tank inside the Americium Recovery Facility for removal.

A former processing canyon as shown in 2013, when debris from years of production was on the canyon floor.

By 2015, crews had removed debris from the canyon and were cleaning its floor.

Earlier this year, crews applied a protective grout cap to the canyon floor and painted it with a fixative, allowing them to decontaminate the canyon walls.

RICHLAND, Wash. – Recent changes in how work crews are deployed at the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant (PFP) have yielded significant improvements in safety performance as EM’s Richland Operations Office and contractor CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company continue to make steady progress toward demolition of the plant. 

   Teams of workers have been redeployed to perform one high-hazard project at a time, with additional oversight, rather than performing multiple high-hazard projects simultaneously. 

   The PFP is the largest, most complex plutonium facility that has ever been remediated or will be demolished in the EM complex. Many of the hazards inside the building are gone, including nearly 240 pieces of plutonium processing equipment called glove boxes, hundreds of feet of process and chemical lines, 52 pencil-shaped processing tanks, and more than a mile of ventilation ductwork. 

   With demolition scheduled to begin later this year, crews are finishing demolition preparations and safely performing some of the most hazardous work across the EM complex.

   “The workers’ continued focus on safety has been as important as their effort to significantly reduce hazards inside the facility,” said Glenn Konzek, EM deputy federal project director for the PFP closure division. 

   In 2015, an increase in safety incidents resulted in management changes, additional safety and radiological control oversight, and the re-sequencing of work to ensure the remaining work at PFP can be performed safely by a highly skilled and experienced workforce. These measures led to recent strong safety performance.

   “We’ve seen fewer people getting hurt,” said Hans Showalter, a PFP safety representative for the Hanford Atomic Metal Trades Council. “We’re also working better as a team. We’re doing a lot of this hazardous work for the first time ever. We’ve made a lot of progress over the years because management and the workers teamed together to figure out how to do this.” 

   Crews shifted from doing three simultaneous high-hazard projects to focusing on one job at a time requiring protective suits with air supplied by a compressor. The teams using the suits are among the most skilled at the Hanford Site, and using those suits requires a significant support team. By redeploying the teams, the contractor ensures the most experienced team and support members are available for the given scope. 

   “We’ve shown we can improve safety and improve performance,” said Tom Bratvold, vice president of the PFP closure project. “Our workforce is motivated, dedicated, and is working together to keep each other safe, and making tremendous progress on this challenging project.”

   Since January, crews finished cutting apart and removing the last of two heavily contaminated glove boxes, eliminating one of two jobs at the facility requiring the protective suits. In the coming weeks, they’ll complete the second job: preparing the Americium Recovery Facility for demolition. Once this job is done, the highest radiological hazard demolition preparation tasks at PFP will be complete. 

   Another crew is making so much progress in cleaning out and reducing contamination levels in a former processing canyon that workers will soon be able to breathe filtered air in that area rather than air supplied via portable air tanks. 

   Significant challenges remain at PFP, including removing, or preparing to remove during demolition, nearly 8,900 feet of contaminated ventilation duct. Crews are also preparing the site for demolition by installing infrastructure, like temporary power needed during demolition, removing unneeded ancillary buildings to make room for heavy equipment, and preparing for a readiness assessment later this summer, when outside experts will evaluate whether the facility is ready for demolition.