The U.S. Department of Energy held a groundbreaking ceremony on July 22 for the Hazardous Materials Management and Emergency Response training center in Richland, Washington. HAMMER, as the center is called, is part of a major program to drive training costs down and improve worker health and safety during environmental cleanup. The day before the groundbreaking, hazardous waste cleanup and training technologies developed by DOE were on display at HAMMER's temporary facility.
Planning for the facility began in 1986 as a community-based project for training hazardous materials workers. In 1993, DOE and Westinghouse Hanford Company began plans to develop a permanent HAMMER facility at DOE's Hanford site. DOE will fund the two-year, $29.9 million construction project. Westinghouse will operate the facility.
Representatives of DOE and other federal agencies, federal contractors, academic institutions, tribal nations, state agencies, universities, and professional organizations are among those who are partners in the project. Labor unions also plan to use HAMMER for their training programs.
HAMMER has been operating night classes from a temporary facility since 1994. By September 1997, it is expected the facility will be fully operational serving more than 400 students every day. Students will either be getting classroom instruction or gaining hands-on training using simulated—but realistic—waste storage, decontamination, cleanup, hazardous materials transportation, and emergency response props.
