Hanford Waste Cleanup May Have Human Price
RICHLAND, Wash. -- Steve Lewis became a seething malcontent after a visit to the doctor who presides over the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
Lewis, an electrician, had been exposed to a blast of ammonia vapor from Hanford's underground "tank farms." Down on these farms during the Cold War, as federal workers churned out plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, they buried the largest haul of high-level nuclear waste in the Western Hemisphere. Lewis is part of another generation of Hanford workers that for more than a decade has been mopping up the festering mess.
His vapor exposure, which occurred in January 2002, flushed his face red and burned his lungs. Four months later, he had headaches and nosebleeds and was gagging on phlegm. He went to see Larry Smick, Hanford's acting medical director, who diagnosed Lewis's complaint as a preexisting condition: "Allergic disease likely making him more sensitive to irritant vapors at work," according to the doctor's handwritten notes.
Lewis was incredulous. He had never had allergies. He said he tried repeatedly during the exam to get the doctor to talk about chemical exposure out at the tank farms, but Smick would only talk allergies.
"Quite honestly, that is when my bubble popped," said Lewis, 51. "I could live with injury because these things do happen. I was not an angry employee up until they started trying to convince me that I hadn't been injured."
The diagnosis that infuriated the electrician is part of a years-long pattern of questionable medical and management practices at Hanford -- first disclosed last fall by a nonprofit watchdog group called the Government Accountability Project [an Earth Share of Washington member]-- that is now triggering investigations by federal and Washington state officials.
Continue reading this story from The Washington Post:
Waste Cleanup May Have Human Price
For more information about the Hanford Nuclear Reservation and current cleanup efforts, please visit the websites of Earth Share of Washington members Heart of America Northwest Research Center and Government Accountability Project.