RICHLAND, Wash. – EM’s Richland Operations Office contractor Washington Closure Hanford (WCH) and its subcontractor employees achieved a significant safety milestone by working 7 million hours without a lost workday injury.
June 30, 2016
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Washington Closure Hanford workers prepare waste retrieved from the Hanford Site’s 618-10 Burial Ground for shipment to the site’s disposal facility for low-level waste.
RICHLAND, Wash. – EM’s Richland Operations Office contractor Washington Closure Hanford (WCH) and its subcontractor employees achieved a significant safety milestone by working 7 million hours without a lost workday injury. That’s 3½ years since the last on-the-job injury that required an employee to spend time away from work.
The River Corridor is a 220-square-mile section of the Hanford Site that borders the Columbia River and was the home to nine plutonium production reactors and fuel development facilities, and hundreds of support structures that operated during World War II and the Cold War era. The River Corridor Closure Project is EM’s largest environmental cleanup closure project.
WCH’s work involves demolishing hundreds of contaminated buildings, remediating hundreds of waste sites and burial grounds, as well as managing the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (ERDF), Hanford’s onsite landfill.
“This is a remarkable achievement for the entire River Corridor team,” said Scott Sax, WCH president and project manager. “Our employees have met the unique and hazardous challenges they face on a daily basis by placing safety and the well-being of each other above all else. I’m very proud to be a part of such a team.”
Since beginning cleanup work on the River Corridor in 2005, WCH has demolished 324 buildings, cleaned up 574 waste sites, disposed of 11.6 million tons of contaminated material in ERDF and placed two nuclear reactors in interim safe storage. By completing cleanup projects safely and efficiently, WCH has saved taxpayers by coming in more than $300 million dollars under budget, allowing EM to reinvest the savings toward additional cleanup work along the Columbia River.
In October 2015, EM added a year to WCH’s original 10-year contract. During the past year, the company has focused on two complex cleanup projects: remediating the highly hazardous 618-10 Burial Ground and placing the 324 Building in maintenance status for future demolition.