by Michele Gerber, Fluor Daniel Hanford

When a bottle of potentially explosive picric acid was found in a crawl space beneath the 327 Post Irradiation Test Laboratory on Jan. 28, 1998, emergency response actions worked exceptionally well. Marked improvements were made in many areas following the May 1997 accident at Hanford’s Plutonium Reclamation Facility.

Improvements initiated by Hanford’s Emergency preparedness organization and the Hanford Fire Department, operated by DynCorp Tri-Cities Services, came in the area of response times, protective action procedures, notifications, event classification, incident command post operations, and communications among the building emergency director, the Hanford Patrol Operations Center, the Hanford Fire Department, and DOE’s Emergency Operations Center.

Less than 20 minutes after 327 Building emergency directory Bill Hoober was notified of the picric acid discovery, the facility was evacuated and all personnel were accounted for at the nearby 328 Building. Only 15 minutes later the event was classified as an "alert level"; emergency (the lowest level of severity) and the Patrol Operations Center had activated the 300 Area "take-cover" sirens.

The Center delivered a concise informational message over 300 Area "crash phones"; at the same time the sirens sounded. Access to the 327 Building was restricted, the rest of the 300 Area was evacuated, and perimeters were established to keep unauthorized persons from the area. Meanwhile the Occurrence Notification Center duty officer was notifying city and county officials, state agencies, and DOE headquarters.

"I can’t emphasize enough how efficiently these processes and interfaces worked", said Dave Marsh, Emergency Preparedness manager for DynCorp Tri-Cities Services. "Especially in terms of the actions taken quickly to protect area occupants, I’m very pleased."

Hanford Fire Chief Don Good detailed a record of fast and safe response, beginning with the activation of a hazardous materials (haz-mat) team by Battalion Chief Dave Hare. Working in the incident command post in the 328 Building, Hare formed an entry team of haz-mat personnel and industrial hygienists from Waste Management Hanford. Wearing protective clothing, the entry team entered the crawl space below the 327 Building to videotape the acid vial.

The following day a recovery team, dressed in full fire-fighting protective clothing and wearing self-contained breathing apparatus equipment, entered the crawl space to rehydrate the picric acid by dissolving it in water. The vial was submerged in a water-filled bucket and opened. A rescue team wearing similar equipment waited just outside the crawl space door. Mock-up recovery actions were staged at the 328 Building.

After the vial was opened, fumes rose from the solution. The recovery team withdrew, waited for the fumes to subside, re-entered and brought the bucket to a chemical storage hood.

According to Good, the response was matched by prompt and thorough attention give to 327 Building occupants. Paramedics now carry a form, developed as a response to the Plutonium Reclamation Facility accident, which captures the vital signs and other key information concerning any potentially exposed persons at emergency scenes. They used the form on Jan. 28 to take data on two people who assisted the entry team and reported smelling acid-like fumes. The HFD paramedics then provided the data to an employee medical advocate and to the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation.

While most procedures worked well, some local officials and members of the public have questioned the use of county sirens and patrol boats to close the Columbia River from Leslie Groves park in Richland north to White Bluffs. The emergency sirens are mandatory parts of Benton and Franklin Counties’ response plan to emergencies in the 100 and 300 Areas. RL and local officials are reassessing that response plan.

Hanford Reach, February 23, 1998, issue