Report finds inadequate system to detect harmful vapours at Hanford Nuclear Reservation

SPOKANE, Wash. – A new report concludes that the U.S. Department of Energy does not have an adequate system to detect whether harmful vapours are sickening workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington, the nation’s most polluted nuclear site.

Dozens of workers in the past year have reported smelling vapours and then becoming ill after working around some of the 177 underground nuclear waste storage tanks there.

The waste is a byproduct of the Cold War-era production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.

The workers were checked by doctors and cleared to return to work.

But a report issued Thursday concludes that the methods used to study the vapour releases were inadequate.

It says vapours coming out of tanks in brief puffs at high concentrations are sporadically spreading into the air workers are breathing.