Improving the Evaluation of Risk to Workers in the Budget Planning Process at a Former U.S. Nuclear Weapons Site. T. K. Takaro, K. Ertell, S. M. Bartell, R. Ponce, T. Ewers, E. Faustman, W. Griffith, M. Salazar, and S. Barnhart, U. WA, Dept. of Environ. Health and Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation
The Hanford nuclear reservation is one of several nuclear production sites operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE). Current work at the site is primarily nuclear waste cleanup. In an effort to incorporate risk into the budget planning process, USDOE developed the Risk Data Sheet (RDS), a qualitative risk prioritization tool. The RDS, provides a qualitative risk evaluation regarding site personnel and public health and safety, environmental (ecological) health, compliance, mission impact, mortgage reduction and social, cultural and economic impacts. RDS (or for 1997: Project Baseline Summaries, PBS) data is used by managers to developed a priority list for budget planning. In 1996 the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) convened a National Review Panel to perform an independent review of the quality, completeness, and utility of RDS. That review found that while the RDS appeared to be useful, a lack of reference documentation and detail in the RDS hampered its utility. For example, description of occupational hazards during a project’s execution were often lacking. This comparative study evaluates the utility of a new occupational health hazard assessment instrument, the Employee Job Task Analysis (EJTA) for improving the quality of information used in budget planning at Hanford. The EJTA is completed for each of the approximately 12,000 Hanford employees. It collects information about the employee’s job tasks, and workplace exposures categorized as: 1) Regulated, 2) Paints/Resins, 3) environmental (ecological) health, compliance, mission impact, mortgage reduction and social, cultural and economic impacts. RDS (or for 1997: Project Baseline Summaries, PBS) data is used by managers to developed a priority list for budget planning. In 1996 the Consortium for Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP) convened a National Review Panel to perform an independent review of the quality, . . . . [RiskWorld Note: Submitted abstract incomplete]