Spiders, snakes and ravens ... oh my!

At two of our VNS Federal Services' projects, team members spend a great deal of time in the great outdoors – along with a variety of wildlife that can add some interesting elements to their job.

Late spring is when snakes emerge from their winter hibernation and are often seen at the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility (ERDF) in Washington State as they start foraging for food. Last June, the ERDF crew captured and released a gopher (bull) snake that was hanging around one of the buildings (photo).

“Yeah, we see them (snakes) quite frequently,” said Giovanni Midili, ERDF Health & Safety Manager. “Fortunately, we don’t often see any venomous snakes.”

Deputy Waste Management Officer Michael Legler is ERDF’s go-to person for handling wildlife issues. “He seems to have an affinity for snakes, scorpions and spiders,” Midili said.

Legler said other regular insect/reptile sightings at ERDF include sweat bees, which are attracted to the salt from sweat and can be quite bothersome to workers in the container transfer area, and spiders, which are most noticed in the seldom-occupied CREST pads. Waste containers sometimes arrive at ERDF covered with a type of Orb weaver spider called a Banded Argiope, Legler said.

ERDF is also home to a family of ravens – a common black bird that thrives among humans, hoping to get a quick meal from them. ERDF workers routinely remove the starts of raven nests from around the batch plant, which makes cement and grout for the facility. “In the spring and summer, we have to be mindful of nesting birds in our vehicles and waste containers,” Legler said. “There are laws regarding migratory bird nesting.”

Four states and about 900 miles away, in Bedrock, Colorado, VNSFS operates the Paradox Valley Unit, a desalination facility, for the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Joe Bird, Operations & Safety Supervisor at PVU, said there are a variety of wildlife that employees need to be on the lookout for, including rattlesnakes on or near pathways, black bears that den in the brush near the Delores River or pass through the facility, mountain lions and other, much less threatening wildlife.

Just this month, PVU workers came across a few black widow spiders and destroyed some wasp nests and beehives in some of the site’s equipment “It’s just now coming into rattlesnake season, so we haven’t found any as of yet.”

The area is also prone to “natural hazards” such as flooding, rockslides, lightning and earthquakes, he said.

“Some rockslides are more severe than others, but we almost always get some after a good bit of moisture has come through the area,” Bird said.