Hazardous waste, deactivation, dismantlement, and cleanup workers exposure assessment feasibility study at the Department of Energy, Oak Ridge Reservation.

Details

• Personal Author:
  Gray FE ; Tankersley WG ; West CM
• Description:
  Since the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in 1990, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has had responsibility for management or conduct of analytical health studies of workers at DOE facilities. Unlike most previous DOE-related epidemiologic studies which have focused on past worker exposure from normal facility operations, this report pertains to a feasibility study aimed at identifying and describing records relating to the population of workers at the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee who have been, are currently, or who will be involved with environmental management (EM), including environmental restoration (ER) and waste management (WM) activities. The ORR includes the Y-12 Plant and ETTP managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Systems, Inc. (LMES), and ORNL managed by Lockheed Martin Energy Research, Inc. (LMER). In addition to these operations management organizations. Bechtel Jacobs Corporation (BJC) is the Management and Integration (M&I) contractor for all ER and WM activities at all three facilities. In many cases, accelerated cleanup schedules are planned for DOE sites across the country with the intention of site remediation within the scope of a 10-year period. There is concern that the workers involved in these cleanup activities, who might encounter hazards to which their predecessors (i.e., production workers) were not exposed, may not be traceable upon completion of these tasks. It is this concern that initiated and encouraged this study. The population of interest for the study included workers directly involved in ER or WM activities. as well as persons providing support. supervision, and monitoring, if these persons are at risk of exposure. For the purpose of the study, NIOSH initially defined the population of interest to include workers involved in HW, D&D, and CW activities. The population of interest included prime contractor workers and subcontractor workers holding various job titles. The focus of the study included recent past (1992 to 1996), present, and proposed future (1997 to 2006) remediation activities, current and proposed technologies, and worker group demographics and occupational exposures. The first phase of the study was to identify, review, and summarize documentation regarding the study population for use as a foundation upon which further studies may be built. Activities involving workers of interest were identified chiefly from information collected from publicly available documents and from interviews with ORR. personnel. A limited amount of data was garnered from documents provided by ORR not normally made available to the public. The same set of resources were used to collect other information relevant to the activities identified. Characteristics of the work force(s) involved in these activities and the technologies presently used or proposed for use in these activities were investigated. Information on the types, quantity, availability. and level of radiation exposure data pertaining to the study population, as well as the location and oversight responsibility of the exposure data. were investigated. A large number of personal contacts were made during the course of this project. and a large number of resources were accessed or identified. A detailed listing of these contacts and references is included as part of this formal document.
• Subjects:
  Accidents, Occupational Biological Factors Dust Hazardous Substances Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Employee-exposure Environmental-contamination Environmental-hazards Environmental-health-monitoring Epidemiology Hazardous-materials Hazardous-waste-cleanup Maintenance-workers Neutron-radiation Nuclear-energy Nuclear-fuels Nuclear-hazards Nuclear-radiation Nuclear-wastes Plutonium-compounds Radiation Radiation-contamination Radiation-decontamination Radiation-exposure Radiation-facilities Radiation-hazards Region-4 Waste-disposal Waste-disposal-systems Waste-treatment Worker-health Workplace-studies

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• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Contract
• Genre:
  Final Contract Report ; Memorandum of Understanding
• Place as Subject:
  Ohio ; OSHA Region 4 ; OSHA Region 5 ; Tennessee
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Division:
  DSHEFS - Division of Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  1-134
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20022481
• Citation:
  Cincinnati, OH: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Contract 200-93-2695, 1999 Sep; :1-134
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  1999
• Performing Organization:
  Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Center for Epidemiologic Research
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:baefb5a37af55860504260895a0e678a44493aa877de73c4d5277da57a2b54e71c7ada3062311e50d1c0d6b808d2df9cd1b76b6cf664f91acd30650e7cb9b5e6
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/181119/cdc_181119_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 10.41 MB ]