Worker at Hanford nuclear site dies on the job

A Hanford site employee collapsed and died midday Thursday at the Hanford nuclear site by Richland in Eastern Washington.

Limited information was available Thursday afternoon, but the death of worker Bryan Foster does not appear to be work related.

“Despite the best efforts of his co-workers and first responders, he passed away,” said Phil Breidenbach, chief operating officer of Hanford Tank Waste Operations and Closure, or H2C, in a message to staff Thursday afternoon.

Foster was in a supply vehicle at the Hanford tank farms when he died, according to the message. He was using a filtered-air respirator and was wearing street clothes.

He was part of the Field Crew Operations team supporting camera inspections of underground tanks storing waste from past nuclear chemical operations, according to Breidenbach.

Foster, a nuclear chemical operator, had worked at Hanford for about five years.

The Hanford nuclear site was used from World War II through the Cold War to produce almost two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Now the nation is spending more than $3 billion annually on environmental cleanup of the 580-square-mile site by Richland in Eastern Washington.

Waste left from plutonium production includes 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste stored in underground tanks, many of them prone to leaking.

The SX Tank Farm has 15 single-shell tanks, each with a 1-million-gallon capacity, in the 200 West area of central Hanford.

H2C is working to maintain tanks and to empty waste from single-shell tanks to sturdier double-shell tanks to be stored until the waste can be treated for disposal either at the vitrification plant or by grouting.

As many as 13,000 workers are employed at Hanford by the Department of Energy, federal contractors and subcontractors. They work both on site and in office buildings in the Tri-Cities.

H2C made counseling and grief support available to Foster’s coworkers. No further information on his death was available Thursday.

This story was originally published March 26, 2026 at 4:38 PM.