Tacoma WA; Hanford records will get new home

Posted on Apr 19, 2010 in Records Management News

By Annette Cary, Her­ald staff writer
Pub­lished: 04/19/10 1:39 am

As build­ings are being knocked down in the Han­ford 300 Area just north of Rich­land, a new one is going up.

It will be used to store and pro­vide access to thou­sands of boxes of Han­ford records under con­di­tions that meet National Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion and other fed­eral standards.

“Hanford’s going to be here not just tomor­row but for 50 years,” said Pam Thur­man, Depart­ment of Energy records offi­cer. “The records are always the last thing standing.”

Now a 60-year-old build­ing near the Fed­eral Build­ing in Rich­land is used to store about 17,000 boxes of records. Those are in addi­tion to 113,000 boxes of records that have been shipped to a fed­eral records stor­age site in Seat­tle and about 75,000 boxes of records that have been destroyed. About 4,500 new boxes of records are gen­er­ated every year.

The new build­ing will cost about $1.52 mil­lion, but the total project, includ­ing racks and sit­ing expenses, will cost about $2 mil­lion. Total Site Ser­vices of Rich­land holds the con­struc­tion contract.

Con­struc­tion is under way by the fire sta­tion near the south­west cor­ner of the 300 Area, and the 9,400-square-foot build­ing should be ready for records to be moved in by mid-August.

It will include a vault area for clas­si­fied records, a load­ing dock and an area for review­ing records. Among Han­ford work­ers who will rely on the new records cen­ters are those who are comb­ing through his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments to learn as much as pos­si­ble about what may be in old bur­ial grounds before they are dug up.

The records also are used to pro­vide proof of employ­ment as early as World War II for com­pen­sa­tion claims filed by ill work­ers and their survivors.

One of the main con­cerns about the old build­ing is that it does not meet fire pro­tec­tion stan­dards for record stor­age, said Kelly Butz, infor­ma­tion man­age­ment direc­tor for DOE con­trac­tor Mis­sion Sup­port Alliance.

The new build­ing also will be energy-efficient and meet stan­dards for humid­ity con­trol and pest pre­ven­tion to ensure records are pro­tected from deterioration.

It will be larger too, with the capac­ity to store up to 27,000 boxes of records. That means some records stored in Seat­tle will be returned to Han­ford for con­ve­nience. About 1,700 boxes and 4,800 indi­vid­ual files or records are retrieved from the cen­ter in Seat­tle each year for review.

w Annette Cary: 582‑1533; acary@tricityherald.com; more Han­ford news at hanfordnews.com

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/04/19/1154123/hanford-records-will-get-new-home.html#ixzz0lYwIDGvc

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