SPOKANE — Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson plans to sue the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractor to protect workers from hazardous vapors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
A report last month found the Energy Department does not have an adequate system to detect whether harmful vapors are sickening workers.
Dozens of workers in the past year have reported smelling vapors and then becoming ill after working around some of Hanford’s 177 underground nuclear waste storage tanks. The workers were checked by doctors and cleared to return to work.
The nuclear reservation near Richland is the nation’s most polluted nuclear site, and contains waste left over from the Cold War-era production of plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Ferguson said Wednesday that Hanford workers since 1987 have been reporting exposure to harmful vapors.
