A different kind of ‘gun’ caused the Hanford nuclear site’s active shooter lockdown

A concrete nail gun, not a firearm, caused the Hanford nuclear reservation to lockdown on Tuesday amidst reports of an active shooter on site.

About 10:40 a.m. a call about possible gunshots was made to the Hanford Patrol from an office building in the center of the 580-square-mile site.

One person heard noises that sounded like multiple shots and went to another office to discuss it with a second person, and the decision was made to report what they were hearing, said Lt. Jason Erickson with the Benton County Sheriff’s Office.

Their report sent the Hanford Patrol and dozens of law enforcement officers from throughout the Tri-Cities area racing to the 2750E Building, a large concrete office building used mostly by Hanford contractor Washington River Protection Solutions.

A startling message went out to Hanford workers warning of an active shooter at the 2750E Building at Hanford: “Affected employees prepare to run hide fight. Employees in nearby buildings are to lockdown and prepare to run hide fight. All others stay away.”

Officers began searching the 2750E Building, where some workers had barricaded themselves inside rooms. Others began searching cars.

At one point, a gun, possibly a rifle, appeared to be found in a vehicle, according to unconfirmed reports that originated from chatter over police scanners.

It turned out to be an ice scraper, Erickson said.

A thorough search of the 2750E Building found no one injured and no evidence of any shots fired.

The site remained on lockdown until early afternoon, with only law enforcement officers allowed through the security checkpoints that keep the public out of the areas of the site once used to produce plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, also a Department of Energy facility, in Richland also locked down. The southern edge of the nuclear reservation is adjacent to Richland, one of the Tri-Cities of Eastern Washington.

The Tri-Cities already was on edge after a random shooting three weeks earlier in the Richland Fred Meyer owned by Kroger killed an Instacart shopper, critically injured a store employee and sent shoppers scrambling to hide or escape the building.

Noisy construction

After investigation by the Benton County Sheriff’s Office and the Hanford Patrol, it was determined that workers heard a loud noise from construction work.

Multiple construction projects are underway at the center of the site as the Department of Energy is preparing for the treatment of radioactive waste now held in underground tanks by the end of 2023.

Information has not been made public on which construction project was using a concrete nail gun and what type of a nail gun it was.

Some use compressed air to drive a nail and others are powered by blank cartridges similar to those used in firearms.

Brian Vance, the DOE manager of Hanford, sent a message to the site’s 11,000 employees after the incident saying that those who thought they were hearing gunshots did the right thing.

“Those who made the initial reports did so out of an abundance of caution and we should all be proud they chose to do the right thing,” he said.

He told employees that security concerns are no different than safety and ethics concerns in that, “If you see something, say something. If you hear something, say something.”

He also praised the Hanford Patrol, the Hanford Fire Department and Tri-Cities area law enforcement for their response to the incident.

“Their willingness to serve and protect in potentially dangerous situations is something we should all be thankful for,” he said.

Hanford explained

Hanford produced about two-thirds of the plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program from World War II through the Cold War.

Its nine production reactors have not operated since the Cold War, and weapons-grade plutonium produced there has been shipped off site.

The only reactor at Hanford is the Northwest’s only commercial nuclear power reactor and it is on previously unused, leased land at the nuclear reservation and has no connection to the former weapons project and the waste and contamination it produced.

The nation is spending about $2.5 billion a year now to maintain and keep the Hanford site secure and for environmental cleanup there. Cleanup is expected to continue for decades to come.

The nuclear reservation has 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks, among other radioactive waste and used nuclear fuel at the site. It also has buildings, soil and groundwater contaminated with radioactive and hazardous chemical waste.

The site’s security buffer is being managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as the Hanford Reach National Monument, some of it open to the public, and Hanford’s B Reactor, the nation’s first full-scale nuclear reactor, is part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 4:27 PM with the headline "A different kind of ‘gun’ caused the Hanford nuclear site’s active shooter lockdown."