Bechtel Reaches Safety Milestone at Hanford Waste Treatment Plant

Bechtel Corporation announced today that workers at the Hanford Waste Treatment Plant, also known as the “Vit Plant,” surpassed 11 million hours without an injury resulting in a lost work day.  More than 2,700 people at the Vit Plant worked safely for more than a year and a half to achieve this extraordinary milestone.

“Reaching 11 million safe hours as a project is an outstanding achievement that required everyone involved in the project, whether at our construction site or in our offices, to work safely and watch out for each other,” said Frank Russo, Bechtel’s project director. “This accomplishment demonstrates our strong safety culture and the safety commitment of the people working on this project. They want to ensure they go home safely every night and that the workers who will operate the Vit Plant in the future will be able to go home safely every night.”

Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI), a member of the Bechtel group of companies, is designing and constructing the Vit Plant for the United States Department of Energy (DOE). The facility will immobilize 56 million gallons of radioactive waste currently stored in underground tanks in southeastern Washington state. The waste, a byproduct of plutonium-production during World War II and the Cold War era, will be turned into glass using proven vitrification technology.

Bechtel cultivates its culture of quality and safety through three focus areas: leadership, employee engagement, and organizational learning. The company provides employees with the information and tools they need to actively implement these focus areas in their everyday work.