Howard Adventure at the Department of Energys Hanford, WA Reservation - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Howard’ Adventure at the Department of Energy’s Hanford, WA Reservation Hanford’s tank farms are generally considered the most toxic waste site in the U.S.

The Beginning A Call from Dr. Knut Ringen -Health complaints from union workers in Tank Farms -Distrust of management -Union created a stop work order -MOA that all work to be done with SCBA until Independent 3 rd party confirms that air-purifying respirators could be worn

STC and CPWR assembled a team of seasoned respirator experts Knut Ringen, DrPH, MHA, MPH, STC Project Director Subject Matter Experts • Howard Cohen, PhD, CIH, UNH/Yale U. (ret) • James S. Johnson, PhD, CIH, Lawrence Livermore National Lab (ret) • Bill Kojola, PhD (ABT), MS, AFL-CIO (ret) • Bruce Lippy, PhD, CIH, CSP, CPWR, J. Hopkins U. • Richard Metzler, MSIE, NIOSH (ret) ● Pete Stafford, BS, CPWR (ret) Liaison to HAMTC More than 250 years of professional expertise Team Onsite visit 3-30-17, photo courtesy Bruce Lippy 3

Hanford was 640 square miles purchased by the government in 1943 Photo courtesy Washington 4 State Historical Society

* Enrico Fermi’s lab at University of Chicago proved less than 2 years earlier that a controlled reaction was possible Photo courtesy Wikipedia and DOE 5

The scale of work at Hanford was astounding PUREX Facility 6

Move from Production to Waste Mgmt • In 1986, the DOE converted Hanford operations from weapons production to remediation and waste management. A so-called Tri- party Agreement between DOE, the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology was established to govern the waste management. • It was focused on environmental protection, particularly to prevent contamination of the Columbia River, and did not focus on worker protection.

Vitrification plant “The Energy Department issued a new cost estimate to remediate the entire Hanford site, taking it from $110 billion to as much as $660 billion... [WA] state wants a low-level treatment system operating by no later than 2023, full production of high- level waste glass by 2036.” June 4, 2019 Los Angeles Times, Nation’s most ambitious project to clean up nuclear weapons waste has stalled at Hanford 8

Photo courtesy Wikipedia and DOE 9

The tanks have a long and difficult history • Hanford had 40% of all radioactivity that exists across the nuclear weapons complex • Each tank holds 53,000-1.4 million gallons • Up to 45% of SSTs believed to be leaking (1 million gallons)

The tanks differ in how they are ventilated • Most SST are passively ventilated AP Tank Farm Stack • Most DST are actively ventilated Diagram courtesy WRPS

The chemical compositions and concentrations vary by tank and change over time • Approximately 1,500 chemicals • PNNL has identified 60+ chemicals of potential concern (COPCs) that may exist in the tanks headspace at 10% or more of their OEL. • WRPS assembled a team of toxicology experts to establish OELs where none existed.

A History of Adverse Health Incidents • Between July 1987 and December 2001, 16 different vapor exposure events were reported in the tank farms. They ranged considerably in severity from no medical complaints to minor first aid complaints to treatment at a local hospital to disability. • In the first quarter of 2002, a DOE investigation was completed. It concluded, “The direct cause was failure to characterize the work environment and develop the appropriate engineering controls.” • A NIOSH Health Hazard Evaluation performed in 2004 reported that 70 exposure events took place from 2001 to March 2004.

A History of Adverse Health Incidents • In the spring of 2014 another outbreak of short-term exposures led more than two dozen workers to seek medical attention. As a result, WRPS hired the Savannah River National Laboratory to conduct an investigation. • in 2015 more exposure episodes were reported, leading to two law suits being filed by the unions and State of WA against DOE and WRPS, demanding better chemical vapors protection for workers. • In the middle of that process, in 2016, HAMTC union issued a general stop work order and demanded mandatory supplied air (SCBAs) respiratory protection throughout the tank farms. An agreement was established between HAMTC and WRPS which included the assessments that STC has been conducting.

The 2014 report made the specific recommendation “WRPS should confirm that the air -purifying respirator cartridges in the tank farm are effective for the unique chemical mixtures that may be present in the tank farms. In addition, breakthrough evaluations should be conducted using representative tank farm mixtures to assure the chemical cartridges will remain effective during work activities.” 15

Part 1 Testing APR Cartridges • WRPS hired a local contractor to build a unit to test cartridges using the headspace vapors of various tanks. • The unit cost approximately $1MM to build • It took a team of IHs and technicians days to set up and sample the headspace of various different tanks in different farms (all workers had to be in SCBAs). • Tests were run on consecutive days in each tank headspace using the two different Scott organic vapor-acid gas cartridges. • Test conditions such as chemical concentrations, humidity and temperature were “as received”.

Top View Side View Respirator test Riser Temp/RH Monitor apparatus Up Vacuum pump stream Sampling Sampling ports tubes Laptop Cartridge Cartridge Down stream Sampling Sampling ports tubes Vacuum pump

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The Cartridge Testing Equipment During our first visit to WRPS we were taken to a facility where the cartridge sampling apparatus was built, designed and stored. Several of us had experience in building and testing of cartridge service life equipment for NIOSH, National Laboratories and private industry. We thought that this equipment was quite exceptional.

WRPS’s Sampling and Analysis Plan for Respirator Cartridge Testing identifies the following important features of the study: • Field calibration of all flow rates used in the study traceable to NIST primary standards. • Industrial hygiene field blank samples taken for all of the sorbent tubes in the study. • Established analytical methods published by EPA, NIOSH and OSHA used for COPC collection and analyses. • Chain of custody for all samples. • All laboratories performing the analyses were required to comply DOE quality assurance plans and contracting laboratories were also required to be AIHA-Accredited and participate in their PAT program (proficiency testing). 20

WRPS Testing Protocol • Upstream measurements of 59 COPCs every two hours (some tests only at the first and last two hours) as well as temperature and humidity • Downstream measurements of 59 COPCs every two hours as well as temperature and humidity • Testing was conducted for 16 hrs at 30 L/min per cartridge • Environmental Conditions: 32 to 115°F; RH: 5% to 100% 21

Two Scott cartridges were tested SCOTT 7422 SC-1 SCOTT 7422 SD-1 P100 22

STC Involvement ● STC was asked to provide an independent review of respirator cartridge tests conducted by WRPS from the headspace and exhauster of eight different tanks and tank farms ● Our involvement began after the protocol and all testing had been completed by WRPS personnel. ● Our analyses of the results and our conclusions were based on eight PNNL issued reports.

The STC team agreed on a review protocol that would be: Evidence based : WRPS must provide adequate information Systematic : We follow a list of review questions Consensus : All our review findings are agreed upon by all team members Certified: all our reports are signed Independent: Our team's reviews are completely independent of WRPS and HAMTC

The Overall Approach In general we agreed with the approach taken by WRPS in conducted these studies for the following reasons: -An understanding of the use of APRs including the adsorption capacity of the Scott cartridges for the 59 COPCs present in the tank farm could not have been accomplished by modeling nor by attempting to conduct controlled laboratory testing (due to the complexity of the mixture). -Examining the service life, by modeling or laboratory testing, of only one or two target COPCs (e.g. ammonia) would be insufficient.

The WRPS Protocol “We agreed with PNNL that cartridge service -life is affected by temperature, humidity, COPC concentration, breathing rate, and cartridge adsorption capacity. We agreed with their primary conclusion that cartridge service life performance (breakthrough period) is applicable to the conditions under which the measurements were made. “

Notable Findings • Ammonia: The first (and often only) COPC that broke through cartridges in almost all of the studies. • Nitrosamines: Carcinogens found at high concentrations in the inlet in a couple of studies. Well adsorbed onto the cartridges. • Furans: Carcinogens that were detected downstream of the cartridges at very low concentrations. • Elemental mercury: Detected at the inlet >10% of OEL at some sites. Although the cartridges showed good adsorption, Scott cartridges tested were not NIOSH approved for protection against mercury as they lack an end-of-service-life indicator. • Very low concentrations of many COPCs were detected downstream of cartridges.