Exclusive | Federal investigators look into drug use at Hanford plant. Here’s what they found

The Department of Energy Office of Inspector General investigated allegations that workers at the Hanford vitrification plant were cheating on drug tests, but found appropriate protocols in place.

The IG’s office heard allegations in May 2021 that Bechtel National, the contractor preparing the $17 billion Waste Treatment Plant for treating radioactive waste, was not responding to and under reporting a growing trend of drug use at the vit plant.

Employees could readily cheat on random drug tests, according to tips.

However, the allegations were not substantiated, and the report found some apparent improvement in handling substance abuse issues among the plant’s workers since 2019.

“We’ve always had a compliant substance abuse prevention program and appreciate being recognized for having strengthened it even further,” said Staci West, Bechtel spokeswoman.

In 2019 a significant number of failed drug and alcohol tests and an increase in drug related incidents at the plant prompted mass testing. Of the 2,700 workers tested, disciplinary action was taken against 21 of them.

Since then, failures of drug tests have been low, the IG report said.

However, in spring 2021 a custodian at the plant died after he crashed his car on the Hanford nuclear reservation as he was driving to work and fell asleep as he was coming down from a methamphetamine high, according to an investigation. The driver of the pickup truck he hit head-on was not seriously injured.

In 2020, a DOE industrial safety official assessed Bechtel’s substance abuse program and found it was well written. While there was still illicit drug use at the plant, the official said that zero incidents was not a realistic expectation.

Among concerns prompting the IG inspection was too much privacy for workers providing urine samples was contributing to cheating.

But inspectors found that the privacy allowed adhered to requirements in Bechtel’s DOE contract and requirements for federal workplace drug testing programs.

Bechtel, through a subcontractor, is conducting random drug tests of at least 30% of employees annually, which meets testing requirements, according to the inspection report.

Federal contractors must test for a minimum of five drugs and Bechtel tests for 14 drugs as well as alcohol, the IG inspection report said. Any amount of alcohol detected or a confirmed drug test failure results in the employee being fired.

Drug test protocol

Random selection of employees to test is done by Medcor, which then contacts the employee’s supervisor to escort the employee to the drug testing location.

There the employee is required to take off any unnecessary outer clothing and empty their pockets to prevent a substitute urine sample from being submitted for testing.

The employee then is allowed to go behind a closed door to provide the sample, unless there are unusual circumstances.

The sample collection is observed by a Medcor employee if the employee arrives for testing without a supervisor escort or if there is a suspicion of cheating.

Bechtel also inspects vehicles entering and exiting the vitrification plant campus in the center of the Eastern Washington Hanford nuclear reservation to check for prohibited items, such as illegal drugs and paraphernalia.

From mid 2018 to mid 2021, about 7,000 vehicles were checked, but checks became less rigorous during the COVID-19 pandemic to help protect employees from the disease, the IG inspection report said.

Tri-Cities area law enforcement agencies have provided training to plant supervisors on spotting signs of drug use and drug paraphernalia. Local law enforcement dogs trained to detect narcotics also have been used for drug searches at the plant.

Bechtel reports illegal drug use to both the Department of Energy and to local law enforcement, according to the IG inspection report.

The 580-square-mile Hanford site was used during World War II and the Cold War to produce nearly two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Production left 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste stored in underground tanks. DOE plans to start glassifying some of that waste at the vit plant for permanent disposal by the end of 2023.

This story was originally published March 29, 2022 at 12:39 PM.