Narrator: Located in southeastern Washington State, the Hanford Site is about half the size of Rhode Island. For fifty miles, the Columbia River flows through the site. For millennia, Native Americans camped and fished here. Around 1850, agricultural pioneers arrived and began raising cattle. Next, the communities of White Bluffs and Hanford were established.
Then, World War II changed everything. In early 1943, the US Army took over the Hanford Site and built massive plutonium production facilities. Within weeks, the settlers and their families were evicted. The local Native American tribes also were barred from the land.
The government constructed nuclear reactors and hundreds of support buildings, all dedicated to producing plutonium for nuclear weapons. On August 9, 1945, it was Hanford plutonium that fueled the “Fat Man” atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.
Throughout World War II and the Cold War, the site continued to produce plutonium. In the 1990s, Hanford was declared “America’s most contaminated site” and “the nation’s largest Superfund site.” Ninety percent of the site itself was never used by the government, and remains in relatively pristine condition. The remaining ten percent was concentrated along the river corridor and certain interior areas. Over the last thirty years, progress has been made to restore the river corridor as well as several other sections.
Today, six of the nine original nuclear reactors have been “cocooned,” and people can visit the B Reactor, which is now part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. The remains of such landmarks as the White Bluffs Bank and Hanford High School serve as ghostly reminders of the small farming communities that existed before World War II.
Ten miles south of the river is perhaps the most daunting challenge. Some 56 million gallons of highly radioactive and toxic wastes are stored in 177 underground storage tanks. More than one-third of the tanks have leaked, sending plumes of contamination toward the underground aquifer. After more than two decades and many setbacks, the government is now building a vitrification plant that will help to convert the liquid tank wastes into a solid glass-like substance. If all goes well, the process will begin treating liquid wastes in 2022. However, the project has a troubled history that makes many skeptical.
In the following vignettes, you will learn from government experts who took part in the cleanup of the Hanford Site, historians, environmental advocates, Native Americans, and Downwinders who grew up in Hanford area. Their stories convey the environmental legacy of plutonium, the progress made to date, and the challenges that remain.