Prepping to Enter One of Hanford's Most Hazardous Rooms

at the plutonium finishing plant on the Department of Energy's Hanford Site in Southeast Washington state employees are about to make history by entering one of the site's most historic rooms it's a pride thing yeah and it's training the rest in work keeps you on your toes and you can look back and say I was involved with that and participated in that 50 years ago in 1964 newspapers heralded the opening of the Amory seam recovery facility the building numbered 242 Z was built to capture americium from processes at the plutonium finishing plant the plant was the last stop in Hanford's plutonium production process today part of the 242 z facility is known as the mcklusky room named after Harold McCluskey he was a nuclear chemical operator severely injured in 1976 when an explosion occurred as nitric acid was added to a column containing resin and americium the accident shattered glovebox windows and left shards of plastic on the ground it sprayed McCluskey with nitric acid and radioactive americium he received five hundred times the dose deemed safe McCluskey survived and died at age 75 in 1987 of unrelated causes the facility never operated again it was too contaminated and too hazardous to enter and stay for long periods of time few entries occurred over the years until 2010 a mess it was bad it just old dilapidated rundown just looked like a war zone four years ago American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding allowed the Department of Energy and ch2m Hill employees to enter the mcklusky room dirt everywhere felt everything was the glove boxes were just completely covered all the paint and the old plaster on the walls was hanging off just look bad funding allowed crews to safely make more than 220 entries and removed two glove boxes during the four years since demolition preparations progressed inside the rest of the plutonium finishing plant with most of the glove boxes and pencil shaped processed tanks removed there has been a lot of work that's been accomplished over the past several years to get the plutonium finishing plant to where it is today so we have about two-thirds of the facility ready for demolition and yet what lies ahead of us is some of the most challenging and difficult activities they have yet to be completed that are probably some of the most difficult work going on not only here at the Hanford Site but across the country for that matter the plutonium finishing plant demolition schedule means it's now time to re-enter the mcklusky room to finish decontamination remove the remaining gloveboxes pipes and tanks and prepare that portion of the plutonium finishing plant for demolition we have a very important milestone ahead of us to safely clean out and demolish all of the buildings that make up the plutonium finishing plant by September of 2016 and we intend to do our best to meet that challenge when employees enter the mcklusky room this year they will wear suits and respirators never before used on the Hanford Site to ensure they remain safe when they enter this hazardous and historic room plutonium finishing plant employees first saw similar technology in 2013 a lot of us went to Idaho Falls to see how this suit was used there that was a really good experience for a lot of us after employees saw the respirators and suits during an information exchange at Idaho's advanced mixed waste treatment project the Department of Energy ch2m Hill and the workers who visited Idaho agreed to adopt that type of equipment for use in 242 Z the workers came back they liked it so they've been training on it and mocking up extensively with it and doing modifications to make it applicable in our situation the new supplied air respirator z' have a mechanism that generates cool air inside the heavy suit increasing safety by protecting employees from heat stress it also allows an employee to stay inside 242 Z longer about two hours compared to only 45 minutes with the older equipment this is a really good thing I mean it gives people better protection and I think it's a really easy way to get people in and out workers inside the suits will be able to communicate better with support staff outside instead of having the throat mics like we used to where now we've got a push button which works a lot better - for us industrial hygiene monitoring will include personal breathing zone monitors that measure conditions inside the suit and transmit that information real-time to computers outside the room when you go in to do those things and it's just a confidence the confidence level this suit you have two different deals you have different monitoring it's just a lot different finally a large state-of-the-art compressor with backup tanks will ensure a safe high-quality continuous supply of air for the four employees inside the room meaning no more changing air bottles for the workers with this in this suit and setup we should be able to work in there and get accomplish more work and safer it's a lot safer employees with the support of ch2m Hill Management and the Department of Energy not only helped select the equipment but trained their co-workers on how to use it without the workers being involved with this this would never be possible and actually they are the end-user they're the ones that do the work so you know we have to provide the safe environment for them to work in this employee driven process will equip some of the most experienced employees on the Hanford Site with safer and more efficient tools and technology very confident in the team and whoever we train to go in and my confidence level is very high when it comes to that that will make cleanup history in a historic part of the plutonium finishing plant with the confidence alone it's a trust issue if you trust your PPE then when you go in to do your work you're not constantly saying is there a problem is there a problem is there a problem is this going to happen is that going to happen whereas if you know your PPE is correct for what you're doing you can put that aside and actually concentrate on what you're doing

Channel: HanfordSite

Views: 42,467

Rating: 4.821229 out of 5

Keywords: Hanford Site (Location), mccluskey, plutonium finishing plant, CH2M Hill (Business Operation), United States Department Of Energy (Government Agency)

Id: K-6bTvzBVA4

Length: 6min 36sec (396 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 02 2014