Tank farm safety management criticized

Annette Cary;Herald staff writer Cary Annette774 words19 March 2010Tri-City HeraldTRIC B1English(c) 2010 The Tri-City Herald. All Rights Reserved.

A federal oversight board has concerns about whether the safety management system used at Hanford’s tank farms is adequate. The tank farm contractor’s work planning directives “are unnecessarily complex and confusing,” among other problems, said a letter sent by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board to Ines Triay, the Department of Energy assistant secretary for environmental management. The safety board requested a report within 90 days outlining actions taken or planned by the DOE Hanford Office of River Protection and its tank farm contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS). The Office of River Protection also has had concerns and sent a letter to its contractor five months ago saying that “less-than adequate work packages and procedures have been released for work.” “This has resulted in work being stopped, workers performing steps out of sequence, workers not performing steps when they are required to be performed, work being performed to the wrong requirements and personnel being placed at risk,” it said.
The defense board criticized not only WRPS, but also DOE.
The Office of River Protection underfunded its review of the safety system at the tank farms and did not thoroughly evaluate the completeness of WRPS’s written document describing the required system, called the Integrated Safety Management System, the safety board letter said.
DOE headquarters also could help Hanford DOE officials by providing tools to help identify problems and guide corrections, the safety board letter said.
However, all parties — DOE, WRPS and the safety board — agree improvements have been made.
“DOE is working with the contractor on several initiatives to provide work planning and controls,” said Mike Jacobs, a DOE spokesman in Washington, D.C. “Some of these actions are already being implemented by WRPS, and others are under way.”
In addition, DOE has hired a work planning expert to help improve oversight of work planning and control at the tank farms, the safety board said.
Among the concerns outlined in the safety board letter was that the safety management system lacked a good process to analyze hazards before work started on specific projects. It also questioned whether a team approach was being adequately used.
Among the requirements for safety management systems at DOE programs nationwide is involving employees in pre-job planning to improve the analysis of hazards.
The board also is concerned that “a highly skilled work force modifies work procedures ad hoc when the procedures cannot be performed as written,” the letter said.
“These deficiencies result in work instructions that cannot be followed as written and incomplete controls for authorized work,” it said.
In one case, the safety board staff observed Hanford workers removing a shield plug from one of Hanford’s underground tanks that holds radioactive waste. It was impossible for the work to be done in the written sequence provided and employees instead used their own sequence of steps.
In other cases, the safety board pointed out inadequate or sloppy analysis of hazards before work started. One analysis for taking samples from underground tanks listed “working with chemical” as a hazard but included no description or discussion of the chemical that might be involved.
In a similar case, heat stress was listed as a hazard even though the work was being done outdoors in below-freezing temperatures.
The board also was concerned about a transfer of waste from one tank to another that board staff observed being done at night without adequate lighting. Instructions prepared for the work failed to list turning on lights as a required step before the transfer began, even though it was one of the problems identified related to a major spill of tank waste in 2007 during work by the previous tank farm contractor.
On March 1, WRPS instituted a new work control process, said WRPS spokesman Jerry Holloway. It simplifies work planning procedures and improves pre-job briefings among other changes, he said. About 450 workers have been trained on the new process.
In addition, all managers went through a new training program in February to increase their awareness of the complexity of field work at Hanford. Senior managers also are spending more time reviewing work in the field, Holloway said.
WRPS plans to assess its progress this summer and again this fall to make sure it is getting the results it expects, he said.
WRPS is not disputing that the safety management system needs to be improved, but it points out that its statistical record of preventing worker accidents remains strong.
w Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricityherald.com; more Hanford news at hanford ne