Alarms go off, crews take cover at Hanford nuclear site

‘Two air monitor alarms went off in a demolition area of the Hanford Site’s Plutonium Finishing Plant, causing workers to take cover less than a month after a tunnel collapse at the Richland, Washington facility, the Department of Energy-owned site said.
The Continuous Air Monitoring alarms went off just before 8am local time at the site. The demolition crews in the area immediately stopped work, took cover “as a precaution” and applied adhesive paint as a fixative material that “is used as part of demolition to control contamination,” the Hanford Site said in a series of tweets.
Crews found radioactive contamination as they were removing a gallery glove box in a demolition area that was used to process plutonium throughout the Cold War, Hanford said in an email sent to employees. Recovery crews have entered the area to conduct additional surveys and apply additional fixatives “to mitigate any further contamination spread.”
The contamination was found on the stairs to the mask station where workers put on protective gear, according to KING’s Susannah Frame.’
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