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Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert Bauman
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
William Tyler
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Northwest Public Television | Tyler_William</p>
<p>Robert Bauman: Now you can give it right back to her?</p>
<p>William Tyler: Yeah, I plan on it.</p>
<p>Man One: Exactly. All right, get this off your face there.</p>
<p>Bauman: Does your daughter live here in Richland?</p>
<p>Tyler: She lives right across the street from me.</p>
<p>Bauman: Oh, does she? Oh, there you go. Well, you can really give it to her then. [LAUGHTER] She can't avoid you.</p>
<p>Tyler: Well in fact, we work together at HAMMER.</p>
<p>Man one: I’m rolling.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. Well I think we're ready to get started. So let's start by having you say your name and also spell it for us.</p>
<p>Tyler: My name is William T. Tyler. W-I-L-L-I-A-M, T, T-Y-L-E-R.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you go by Bill?</p>
<p>Tyler: Bill, yeah.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. And today's date is August 28<sup>th</sup> of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start, if we can, by maybe having you talk about what brought you to the area. When did you come to work at Hanford, and what brought you here?</p>
<p>Tyler: We came out here on vacation from Oklahoma in 1947 to see my dad's brothers and sisters. And we were going to stay for a week or so. And my dad applied for a job here and got it, and we stayed. I thought it was the end of the world. This was not a pretty place in 1947. But I went in the Navy in 1950, got into the nuclear program and came out here in 1955. Went to work at Hanford. Worked as an HPT until '82, I believe. And then I went into management in health physics.</p>
<p>Bauman: So HPT, you mean health physics technician. Is that was HPT is?</p>
<p>Tyler: Uh-huh. Sorry.</p>
<p>Bauman: That's okay. So how old were in 1947 when you came on vacation?</p>
<p>Tyler: I think I was 15.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. What sort of job did your father get?</p>
<p>Tyler: He worked in transportation.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you already had aunts and uncles who came here?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you said you thought this was the end of the world. What do you mean by that? What are your first impressions of the place?</p>
<p>Tyler: [LAUGHTER] Well, my first impression is we got here July the 5th. And my aunt and uncle had a little cafe on downtown Kennewick, on Kennewick Avenue. And it was about 104 degrees out. And we were driving down the street looking for it. And my dad says, man, I wouldn't live here if it's the last place in the world. And back then there was not a lot of trees. There was in Kennewick, and a few in Richland. But every time the wind blew, it was dusty and the tumbleweeds flew, and a lot of dust storms. In fact, they call them termination winds. Because everything was booming out in Hanford and every time the wind blew, people didn't like that and they'd just pick up and quit. So they called it termination winds.</p>
<p>Bauman: Do you know when your aunt and uncles came here?</p>
<p>Tyler: My aunt was born here in Kennewick. My uncle came out here in '37, '38, somewhere along that area.</p>
<p>Bauman: Oh, okay, so you'd had relatives here before the Hanford site.</p>
<p>Tyler: Oh yeah.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so when your family first came in 1947 and you dad got the job and stayed here, where did you live?</p>
<p>Tyler: We lived in Kennewick for a year. And then we got a house in Richland in 1948 at 635 Basswood.</p>
<p>Bauman: That was a government home then?</p>
<p>Tyler: Uh-huh. It was ranch house. And we moved in Thanksgiving Day of '48. And my future wife moved in next door the same day. I didn't know that was my future wife, but it turned out to be. And I still live on Basswood. Different house, but--</p>
<p>Bauman: So did you go to high school here then?</p>
<p>Tyler: I went to Kennewick. I started in Kennewick because that's where we lived and I didn't want to transfer. So I rode the intercity bus every day to Kennewick and back. I graduated in 1950 and then somebody in Washington wanted me to join their services. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: So how would you describe, outside of your first impression, how would you describe the community of Richland in late '40s, early 1950s?</p>
<p>Tyler: It actually—it was a very good place to live. I didn't realize it at the time. It was smaller, much smaller--probably 5,000 people in each of the cities. It was a good place to live if you could ignore the wind blowing and the dust storms and that sort of thing. But it kind of grows on you. I know I wouldn't live anywhere else.</p>
<p>Bauman: In those early years when you were here in the '40s and '50s, do you remember any particular community events that stand out in your mind?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah, Atomic Frontier Days, the Grape Festival in Kennewick, and then the fair. Nothing big or spectacular, but it was something to do.</p>
<p>Bauman: Can you describe Atomic Frontier Days a little bit? What sorts of things--</p>
<p>Tyler: Well, normally they had a queen and a parade of course. And it was just kind of a—I don't know how--just a parade and kind of a get together type thing for the people that lived here.</p>
<p>Bauman: So let's talk about your work a little bit now. You said you started working in '55.</p>
<p>Tyler: ’55.</p>
<p>Bauman: So can you talk about who you worked for at time and a little bit more detail about what sorts of work you did? What area of the Hanford site you worked in?</p>
<p>Tyler: Okay, I started February the 22<sup>nd</sup>, 1955. And my first work assignment was 200 West Area tank farms. And then I went up to the REDOX facility which was a separations facility. A couple months later, then I went to U Plant. And then I went to T Plant, which were all separation facilities. And then I went over to PUREX in December of 1955. That was prior to startup. We started up our first spiked run was I think March or April of '56. And I worked there until '62 I believe. When I worked there, we also was switched with the 100 Area HPTs, or RCTs, or radiation monitors for exposure reasons. Because they got a lot more exposure than we did, so we would switch with them. And I got to work in all the 100 Area reactors except N when they were running, and some of the 300 Area.</p>
<p>Bauman: So just about everywhere?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah, I worked basically in every facility out here except 234-5.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so was GE the contractor? What contractor did you work for?</p>
<p>Tyler: GE. They were the prime contractor. And they left here in '66 I believe. Then Rockwell and Westinghouse and Fluor Daniel and MSA.</p>
<p>Bauman: So as a health physics technician, what exactly did that mean? What sorts of things did you do on a daily basis?</p>
<p>Tyler: Well as you know, there was a lot of contamination, radiation. And our job was to set the dose rates if people were going into a radiation area. We would go in, set the dose rates, stay with them. Got to make sure that the dose rates didn't increase while they were in there. We surveyed them out when they were done with the GMs and alpha detectors to make sure they didn't take any contamination home with them. And that was our prime responsibility. We maintain control of personnel exposure rates and their contamination, if they had any, and made sure that everything was as clean as we could get it. That's the short and sweet version.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. And you did that, obviously, at all these different areas you worked at on the site?</p>
<p>Tyler: Everywhere, inside, outside, burial grounds.</p>
<p>Bauman: Were there ever any incidents while you were doing this where people did have excessive exposure or anything along those lines?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah, there was a lot of them. When GE came here--well, they were the prime contractor. Back in those days, you really couldn't talk about your job. You could say that you worked at Hanford and that was pretty much it. But yes, there was a lot of good memories and bad memories. Some really high exposure rates almost on a daily basis, because everything was running. And what will go wrong probably does. And it was very interesting work. It was something different every day. It's the kind of job that you look forward to doing and working. I did. I really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Bauman: So what was the process or procedure if someone had an overexposure?</p>
<p>Tyler: Well, you had your dosimetry, which—Battelle read that. So you know what they got. And that's the record that's with you forever. At that time I think we worked--[PHONE RINGING] Shit. We worked under a 50 millirem per day limits, or 300 a week. And sometimes you would exceed that. But we were issued dosimetry everyday when we came to work. And you had a film badge which was read I think once a month. But they kept a running record of your exposure. That's why when we, when 100 Area radiation monitor--[PHONE RINGING] Hello. Can I call you back, Ian? Okay, thanks. Sorry. I don't know how to turn it off.</p>
<p>Bauman: So we're talking about the dosimeter--</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah, they kept records of all your exposures. And then every month they would send you a copy or let you know what it was. But if before the end of the year was out, if you were running short of exposure, then they would transfer people--particularly the radiation monitors--to different areas. And they what they were doing was using our exposure instead of--and letting their people cool down a little bit. It was just a way of equalizing the dose rates to the personnel. And it worked good in theory. And there was some--and I probably shouldn't say this—but there was some little minor ripples in the water, because people accused the other people of hanging back and now I got to come save you, that sort of thing. But it was all in fun. Everybody knew how serious the job was. And that was just part of their job.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so how long did you work as a health physics technician then?</p>
<p>Tyler: I think until 1982 and I went into management in health physics. At that time, they called us managers. And I was the manager of East tank farms until 1988. And then I transferred over to the West Area environmental group and took that over. My responsibilities were all of the outside radiation contamination areas. Burial sites. '89 I retired. Came back three months later and went to work in the environmental restoration part-time. And I did that until 1995. And then when Bechtel came in, I left there and went back to health physics side and become a evaluator at HAMMER for radiation protection, which I still do.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you still work for--</p>
<p>Tyler: Two to three days a week.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you mentioned earlier the sort of secrecy of some aspects of Hanford. Obviously secrecy, security were a very important part of. I wonder if you could discuss that at all, any ways that impacted your work?</p>
<p>Tyler: GE had a very rigid plan of how they wanted things to go. And security of course was top secret. If you went—and a few people did--they go down and have a beer at the bar and they get to talking. And you never know who you're talking to you. And there was cases where people didn't have a job the next morning. Because security would overhear them. And you were pretty much done. So people didn't talk about their job. They didn't even talk about it with their family. Security was very strict. When you—well, for instance, when you go to work in the morning or if you're on shifts, same thing. You would catch the bus at the bus lot. Get on the bus, go through the barricade at the Y. If I was going to PUREX, we'd go up, pull in to the front gate of PUREX. You'd get out, off the bus. Go through the badge house. Pick up your dosimetry. Go out. Get back on the bus. The bus would pull inside the gate. Get back on the bus. Go down to PUREX. Get off the bus. Go through their badge house. And they would check your lunch bucket and all that. And then go into the building. And then in the evening, just reverse that process and back out again. So they were very strict. If you drove your car, you could not drive it past the main gate of East Area. You parked outside. And when you could drive inside, security would check the glovebox and the trunk and whatever was in the car. So it was very regimented.</p>
<p>Bauman: I wanted to ask you about, in 1963 President Kennedy visited for the opening of the N reactor. I wondered if you were there and have any memories of that event at all?</p>
<p>Tyler: I was not there because I was on shift at that day, or I probably would have been.</p>
<p>Bauman: Mm-hm. Obviously, one of things that happened with Hanford is the shift from focus on production to focus on clean up. And I wonder if that shift impacted your work in any way?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yes. Like I said before, I was the manager of East tank farms. And my office was at Semi Works, which is in 200 East Area, which was a pilot plant for PUREX. Semi Works was running. We were doing strontium cesium runs. But then when the edict came out that we were going to phase out and clean up, one of the first facilities--well I think it was the first facility—that we started tearing down was Semi Works. And D&D did the work. But we shut it all down and demolished the building and just imploded it in place. Built a dirt berm over it, cleaned it up. Most of the cells and the tanks are still in place, but they're full of grout. And then there's concrete over it. And what we did was tear down—this was approximately a three-story building with three stories underground. So when we tore down the building—it had a lot of piping and columns—we tore down the building and left the west wall standing. And we filled everything we could get inside like the basement and concreted it in place. And then we undercut the west wall. And this is probably four foot thick. And got a couple of Caterpillars and chains and hooked it over the top of the west wall. Pulled it down over like a lid. And then dirt berm over it, and there it is. And the stack that was there—the exhaust, the big stack—they imploded that and laid her right alongside the building. One guy did that. We deconned it first, and he came in, and a dynamite expert told us where we was going to put the stack and put a stick out on the end in the ground like they do now on the TV. And laid that stack right down on that stick, all by himself. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: So that definitely did make for significant changes then, the shift from production?</p>
<p>Tyler: Very significant, because that was kind of pilot test for all the other anticipated deconning and decommissioning they we're going to do, which is still going on.</p>
<p>Bauman: Let's shift now and talk a little bit about HAPO. I wonder--I know you've been involved with them quite often. I wonder if you can talk about your involvement when you became involved in HAPO and how that came about?</p>
<p>Tyler: Well let's see. First, HAPO was a GE acronym which stands for Hanford Atomic Products Operations, which was the name of GE's part of this. GESA, which is another credit union down the street, was the General Electric Supervisors Association. GE was very particular about their managers or supervisors were a step above the blue collar worker. And I think they still maintain that. If you were a supervisor, it's white shirt and tie. And you don't fraternize with--So when the credit committee wanted to get started, that's the name they chose, just HAPO. And it's '53. And I was looking at one of the early--the record book. And I think there's five or six of the charter members of the first—that I worked with that were radiation monitors just like I was. But I never joined HAPO until my wife was--she likes C First. And I never joined HAPO until I think '71. And then a friend of mine that I worked with talked me into getting on the committee that approved loans, credit committee, which I did. And then I got invited later to go on the board of directors and got voted in and been there ever since. I really enjoyed it. It's a great credit union.</p>
<p>Bauman: So is it the board of directors then, primarily is it either current or former Hanford employees?</p>
<p>Tyler: No. It used to be when we were federal, you had to work out here to join HAPO. And then they relinquished or changed the bylaws so that anybody could join HAPO. If you give them $5 and signed up, you were a member for life. But initially it was you had to work here to join.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you said you didn't join until '71. What led you to decide to join at that point?</p>
<p>Tyler: The guy I carpool with, one of them, convinced me that I should do that. [LAUGHTER] And I didn't like C First. I never did like C First. But my wife liked them because you got at the end of the month, you got all of your checks back. And she liked that. But I joined HAPO and started my own checking account. And then she finally joined shortly after I did. And now the rest is history. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: So, I know you weren't part of the formation of the credit union. But I wonder if you can talk about it a little more? If you know more, were the employee unions at Hanford involved in the credit union, establishing that?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yes.</p>
<p>Bauman: And anything you can talk about that?</p>
<p>Tyler: Helen Van Patten was one. GESA started it first. And then the blue collars said well, we got to have one of those. The first store was down by the Spudnut Shop. I think we had one or two employees. And everything was in a ledger, handwritten. Joe Blow borrowed $25. It was very basic. But fortunately, it kept growing and membership increased.</p>
<p>Bauman: So the unions saw it as a way to provide credit union opportunities--</p>
<p>Tyler: Right.</p>
<p>Bauman:--for blue collar workers or laborers or whatever? Okay. So I want to—going back to your work at Hanford, what are some of the more challenging aspects of your work, and maybe some more rewarding aspects of your work?</p>
<p>Tyler: That’s a good question. Probably one of the most challenging was the responsibility when you're out on a hot job where the contamination levels are great and the radiation levels are great, and you have a whole crew of people. It challenges you to--it's always in the back of your mind that something's going to happen and I'm not going to see it, or I'm not going to catch it. And somebody's going to get overexposed. And that's always in the back of your mind. Because--and I have to beat my own drum here for a bit—radiation monitoring and health physics now, whatever they are, it's a very challenging job. You're responsible for--you're taking care of people. And they trust you. And they expect you to look out for them. And it's a lot of responsibility, but most everybody accepts that gladly, because they know how important it is. Because you're responsible for--you could get somebody really overexposed, and who knows what the consequences are? As far as rewards for that, I think is the satisfaction of when the job is done, that you knew you did your best job. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got overexposed. Nobody got contaminated. And the job got done.</p>
<p>Bauman: Were there any events or incidents or anything, sort of unique things that happened during your time working at Hanford that sort of really stands out to you?</p>
<p>Tyler: When I first hired in, like I said, I went to REDOX. One of the problems they had shortly before I got here was they had a ruthenium—they ran some ruthenium and they played it out in the stack. And then it broke loose. And it kind of went out in the desert and on the ground. And you had ruthenium chunks of—it looked like white paper that built up on the inside the stack and then finally broke loose and fluttered out and went everywhere. And one of my first jobs with a GM and a walking stick was walking out through the desert and finding these things. Little specks, big specks, didn't have any trouble finding them. [LAUGHTER] They were very hot. And I remember we used the KOA cans from T Plant, which were little round cans, metal cans about that big around, about this high with a snap-on lid. And that's what we put them in, with dirt for shielding. And then buried them. But there's been a lot of incidents of hot burials from PUREX. I remember some where we used a burial string. We used a locomotive, a whole bunch of flat cars. And then at that time, they'd build big wooden boxes. And I recall one big one that had enough lumber in it to build two B houses. Huge—it sat on two flat cars. And we put it in, and we took readings over the top of the tunnel as it went out of the tunnel towards the burial ground. And it read greater than 500 R. And as you know, 500 R for an hour is a lethal dose rate to 50% of the people, 60%. And then you go down the railroad track behind B Plant, pull it across the highway which patrol barricaded the road. So you pull the string across the road and then back it into the burial ground. And then you had to sink—this box was built on skids. And a big long steel cable lay on another flat car, three or four flat cars away from it. So you would pull that. And you would pull it down into a burial trench. And the Cat would be down there ready. And the train would back up and they would grab that cable, put the eye on. Hook it to the Cat. And then the Cat skinner would pull the cable off. And the train would move up until the boxes sit here and the cables here. And the Cat's down here pulling. And then we'd get up to the--and there was a dock where you could slide it off. And you would turn that box and pull it in. Pull it down into the trench, down to the other end, wherever you wanted it. Unhook the Cat. Leave it. Pull the Cat out. And then they would backfill that box. And that's the way they did the burials. And it worked great except when the box collapsed unexpectedly.</p>
<p>Bauman: Then not so great.</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah, that's not a good--that happened once or twice.</p>
<p>Bauman: During your years working out there, were you ever concerned about your own safety, health, protection, in any way?</p>
<p>Tyler: Well as stupid as it may sound, no. I never was. Because I always figured I knew what I was doing. And I received some very good training in the Navy, which helped. But I never worried about it. I always trusted me.</p>
<p>Bauman: Were you a member of a union when you were working at Hanford? And what union was that? And I guess, what sort of relationship did the union have with management here at Hanford during the time you were here?</p>
<p>Tyler: Good and bad. [LAUGHTER] I used to be chief steward for the radiation monitors. I went through two negotiations. And after the last one, I decided I didn't want any more of that. Chief steward's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it.</p>
<p>Bauman: What does that mean exactly? What—chief steward--</p>
<p>Tyler: Well, you're the union rep plant wide for all of the HPTs. And I had this grandiose idea that I could just change everything. It's a great idea, but it doesn't work. It's a job that somebody has to do. And it's a job that is thankless. Because somebody's always mad at you. Whatever you do, in some of the people's eyes, you could always do better. And it's just not a good job. [LAUGHTER] But I enjoyed it. You learn a lot. And you learn both sides of the fence--how the company thinks and how the union thinks. And then you try and compromise.</p>
<p>Bauman: Were there ever any times you were here where there was a strike or any sort of--</p>
<p>Tyler: Two--'66 and '76.</p>
<p>Bauman: And were those sort of across the site?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yep. And in '66, after we settled the '66 strike, GE left.</p>
<p>Bauman: Was that one of the reasons they left?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah, well, they had planned to leave. And then that's when--because when GE was here, they were the only contractor. And then when they left, they kind of broke it up into the 200 Areas and the 100 Areas. And it's always been different contractors, not just one prime contractor.</p>
<p>Bauman: Do you remember what some of the key issues were in '66 and '76 in terms of--</p>
<p>Tyler: Wages. Wages were always the key issue. Well, I take that back. '66 or '76 was, they were going to do away with the buses. And that was a key issue for everybody. It didn't happen, but it was a--that was when they spent all the money redoing the bus lot. And then a couple years later, they did away with the buses anyway. But we did get air conditioned buses. Before we had old buses, the old green buses. Well like the ones sitting down at--</p>
<p>Bauman: The CREHST Museum?</p>
<p>Tyler: Yeah. Those were some of the newer ones. The older ones were international buses that looked like a truck. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer. But they worked. When they did away with the buses, see, that did away with a lot of jobs in the bus lot. Maintenance, everything there, which was a lot of people.</p>
<p>Bauman: So part of that was about jobs and issues of transportation?</p>
<p>Tyler: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Bauman: Anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about or that you think we should talk about?</p>
<p>Tyler: Well, we've covered pretty much every--well, we've covered pretty much everything I think. I don't really know what you're looking for.</p>
<p>Bauman: Just your experience. That's why I wonder if there's something that you experienced some event or something that I haven't asked you about yet that you think would be important to—</p>
<p>Tyler: Well. When I retired, I took the first early out and then got bored to death and came back. When I was in the environmental group in West Area, a good friend of mine was an environmental manager outside the site. But he talked me into coming back part time and become a waste shipper and a waste handler. Which was--I'd never done it. I knew what it was. But I finally relented. I enjoyed it. It's entirely different. Because I was kind of burned out on radiation protection, and I wanted to do something different. Didn't want to retire, but I wanted to do something different. So I went to the classes and become a certified waste shipper and a waste handler. And we took care of all of the sites outside of 200 East, 200 West. All the burial sites, all the drilling sides, the river, pretty much everything. And it was very interesting. Until '95, when I decided I didn't like the contractor. [LAUGHTER] And I went back to health physics.</p>
<p>Bauman: Most of the students I teach now were born after the Cold War ended. Obviously most of your career, the Cold War was going on during most of the time you were working at Hanford. So I'm wondering what you think would be important for young people today and people in future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War?</p>
<p>Tyler: I'm trying to remember. We had the strike in '66. And there was almost another strike four or five years later. In fact midnight was the deadline when we were supposed to go on strike. And at 11:30, we got a notification that the President had put a stop to the strike because of the situation with the Cold War thing. And I think that's the first and the last time that ever happened. But as far as--</p>
<p>Bauman: So then about 1970 or so?</p>
<p>Tyler: Early, yeah, '71 or '72 maybe. No, it was before that, because I was still on shift. It was probably '68, '69 maybe. But as far as the Cold War, it's still going on in different forms—my personal opinion. You look back at history--and I've lived through a lot of it--nothing has really changed. Like what's going on now, and the Bible says there'll be war and rumors of war. And that's correct. Because whatever our President does—whatever he does is going to be wrong in a lot of people's eyes. It's kind of like if you don't do it, you should have. And if you do do it, you shouldn't have. [LAUGHTER] It's a different type of cold war. Instead of—we used to worry about Russia. And I'm not too sure that—maybe we should still be worrying about Russia and a lot of other countries that--Things have changed. But they haven't—the basic things that caused the Cold War hasn't changed. There's all kind of weapons. I don't know.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. I think that's all the questions I have for you.</p>
<p>Tyler: Okay.</p>
<p>Bauman: I want to thank you for coming in today.</p>
<p>Tyler: Thank you for having me.</p>
<p>Bauman: Pleasure to talk to you.</p>
<p>Tyler: Good.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:47:27
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
244 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
100 Area
2-East Area
200 Area
200 East Area
300 Area
B Plant
K-West Area
T Plant
U Plant
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1947-today
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1955-still working
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Helen Van Patten
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with William Tyler
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with William Tyler conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
08-28-2013
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2018-6-2: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
100 Area
1955
2-East Area
200 Area
200 East
200 East Area
200 West Area
300 Area
B Plant
Battelle
Bechtel
Cat
Cold War
General Electric
HAMMER
Hanford
K-West Area
Kennedy
Kennewick
PUREX
T Plant
U Plant
War
Westinghouse
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe4fc1a4c7495942bf447756ec5e85cfa.JPG
d98e592b247db687cb3749711ea3df5b
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Douglas O’Reagan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mark Jensen
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Douglas O’Reagan: Okay. To start us off, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us?</p>
<p>Mark Jensen: My name is Mark Jensen, M-A-R-K, J-E-N-S-E-N.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Great. Okay. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Jensen on March 25<sup>th</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be speaking with Mr. Jensen about his experiences working at the Hanford site and living in the Tri-Cities. To start us off, can you tell us a little bit about your life before you came to Hanford?</p>
<p>Jensen: Well, my mother moved to Richland to teach English at what was then Columbia High School, now Richland High School. She was a single mother with five children. So I started school at Jefferson Elementary in Richland in kindergarten. When I was in third grade, my mother remarried, and I was adopted by my new father. He was a long-time Hanford worker. Anyway, so I grew up in the Tri-Cities. We moved to Kennewick when I went into fourth grade, and I went through the Kennewick School District after that, and graduated from Kamiakin High School in 1974. Went to Washington State University, got a degree in forestry, thinking that would get me out of the Tri-Cities, because there aren’t any forests here. Unfortunately, there weren’t any jobs in forestry. So I came back home to live with my parents, and my dad mentioned that N Reactor was hiring reactor operators. So I applied, and got a job as a reactor operator.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What time frame would it have been that your mother moved here?</p>
<p>Jensen: I was five, so that would have been 1961.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay, great. Can you tell us about the schooling, the education, the schools in the Tri-Cities as you experienced them?</p>
<p>Jensen: Well, I went to Jefferson Elementary, like kindergarten through third grade. It was in an old building left over from World War II. It was probably a grade school built as part of the Manhattan Project. That’s all long since been torn down. Then when we moved to Kennewick, I went to Hawthorne Elementary school there. Building’s still there as far as I know. And then to Vista Elementary, then to Highlands Middle School—Highlands Junior High in those days. Then the Kamiakin High School which was brand new.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was life like as a kid in Kennewick?</p>
<p>Jensen: It was pretty routine, I guess. Went outside and played in those days instead of staying inside for video games. It didn’t matter how hot it was outside, we’d go out and play baseball all day usually, and things like that. Then just going to school during the school year and doing whatever during the summer. When I was growing up, before my mother remarried, she would work in the summer and I was usually babysat by some of her students. After she remarried, then she stopped working during the summer. But I’m fairly certain that one of the reactor operators I worked with at N Reactor was one of my babysitters when I was second or third grade. But anyway.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: When you were sort of a teenager, what sort of stuff did you and your friends do for fun around the area?</p>
<p>Jensen: Usually, after doing our homework, we’d go outside and play basketball, every day, every night. We had a lighted basketball court. We’d play basketball all day Saturday and Sunday. When the weather was nicer, we’d play baseball or variants of baseball, since there were seldom enough people to make up a couple of teams. We used to go to baseball games—minor league baseball games—in the summer. A variety of different team names. There was a stadium in Kennewick called Sanders Jacobs Field that’s long since been demolished. That’s pretty much what we did, just mess around. Go bowling, things like that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Do you know what your step-father did at the Hanford site?</p>
<p>Jensen: He was a chemical engineer, and he worked at N Reactor and the older reactors designing systems for decontaminating the reactors. When I was in high school, he worked at the Tank Farms in the 200 Area. He was in charge of Tank Farm surveillance, and that was when the tanks started leaking—the older tanks first started leaking. So we got frequent telephone calls in the middle of the night that there was a leaking tank. Sometimes I’d hear my dad say something on the telephone, and the next day I would see that in the newspaper, as a Hanford spokesman said, kind of thing. That was kind of interesting.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So I guess you were aware of the future environmental issues pretty early on?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes. Yeah.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did that impact your life at all? Or was it sort of in the background?</p>
<p>Jensen: It’s just the way things were.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So when you came back and were looking for a job and you first heard about this job at N Reactor, did you—was that something you were sort of excited about? Was it something you were--?</p>
<p>Jensen: It sounded interesting. I knew nothing about it. Not too many people knew reactor operators, although there were certainly plenty of them around here over the years. So I had no idea, really, what that job entailed. But it was a job, and it paid pretty good. So when it was offered to me, I accepted it.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What kind of skill sets did it end up requiring you to gain?</p>
<p>Jensen: I had to learn a lot about how to operate complex systems, do valving in a precise, controlled manner so it was done correctly. Not so much working with pumps, other than checking to make sure they were running properly. I didn’t have to do maintenance kind of things. Then once I got my certification in the control room, I had to learn how to operate all of the systems, use the controls in the control room to do that, set everything up properly, and what to do in case of an emergency, or a reactor scram, or upset. Try and keep the reactor from scramming, things like that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What kind of training was involved?</p>
<p>Jensen: We started out, once we got into the certification program, we went into what we called phase one training. That basically started off with fundamentals training. We got some math and chemistry. Didn’t hurt that I had chemistry in college. It’s kind of funny—the week or two weeks we had in chemistry, I think I learned more than the two semesters of chemistry in college, because the instructor was so much better for the fundamentals class than the professor I had at college. But it might have also been because I was older and a little more mature.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was that onsite at Hanford?</p>
<p>Jensen: It was onsite at Hanford, out at N Reactor. We had some chemistry, math, a little bit of electronics, things like that. Started learning some of the various systems at the plant. Then we went back on shift for several months. I can’t remember now how long, I mean this is almost 40 years ago, so it’s kind of hard to remember everything. So when we went back on shift, we were given a packet of stuff that we had to study on our own and learn while we were assigned to do other jobs throughout the plant. Then we went back into class, into phase two, and studied more systems, and started learning how things in the control room worked. I can’t remember if there were four phases or three phases, but each time after a phase ended, we had an exit exam. Then we went back to shift, with more stuff to do in between the regular job stuff. At the end of all of the phases, we took an eight-hour written exam. Theoretically, if you failed the written exam, they could fire you. Or they could just reassign you as a non-certified operator. Some people did that after they failed. They just said they didn’t want to continue. But generally they gave you a second chance. Well, I passed the first time, so didn’t have to worry about that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How long did that process take?</p>
<p>Jensen: Started probably in February or March of ’81. I was completely certified in June of ’82. So it was probably about a year and a half for the total process. But they were in a hurry to get people certified, because there were a lot of older operators who were getting ready to retire. So they needed to get people in there and get some experience before they lost too many of the older, experienced operators. So after the eight-hour written exam, we had to study for what we called the demonstration exam. That was in the control room, and an instructor would say, okay, Mark, how do you set this console up for operation? You are going to do this job, show me without actually doing it--because it was in the real reactor—how you would do it. Later on, we had a simulator that was pretty much an exact duplicate of the reactor, and then you could actually do the things in the simulator. But for my demonstration exam, it was just point out what you would do. When we passed that exam, we actually got a pay raise. We went from what we called a Grade 18 to a Grade 21, and got a nice little bump in pay. Then you studied for your oral exam. That one, you went before an oral board. There was a representative from operations, a representative from training, and a representative from nuclear safety. They all had a certain set of questions to ask, and any one of them could come in at any time with follow-up questions. So that—I think that took me six hours. And I passed that, so then I was a certified operator. Except that operations would not sign your certificate until you demonstrated that you could handle the jobs. So when I went back on shift, I was assigned to an experienced operator. So we rotated through various positions in the control room, and I followed him around. Initially, he would do things and tell me what he was doing. Then he would have me do it, but he would tell me what to do. And then when he was pretty satisfied I knew what I was doing, he would just sit back and let me figure out what I was doing. And then he must have told the control room supervisor I was ready, control room supervisor told the shift manager I was ready, and the shift manager recommended that my certificate be signed by the manager of operations. Then I could sit on consoles all by myself.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So was there an influx of younger operators at that point?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes, we had quite a few coming through. My certification class, we had three supervisor candidates, and I think we had seven operator candidates. One of them ended up not completing it. All of the rest passed. Some of them, it took them a couple attempts at the eight hour and maybe even the oral board to get certified. Then right after me, there was another class with a lot of other young people. So we got a lot of young people in there, and then that allowed some of the older operators to retire. I think some of them were hanging around a little longer than they might have wanted to otherwise, just because they knew they would have been shorthanded if they left.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was this all at N Reactor?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was it the same training program for all the reactors?</p>
<p>Jensen: Well, N Reactor was the only reactor left at the time. They had similar programs at the older reactors. But it evolved over time and got a little more detailed. We had a little more stuff on reactor physics. In the original days, it’s just, this is what you’re going to do, and nobody asked why, because it was all secret. It’s just, do this and keep this needle within this range, or whatever. Later on, you actually started to teach people what was happening. Some of the old operators complained about having some reactor physics stuff in there. Wah, we don’t need this stuff. And they were so good that it’s like, I don’t know that they really did need that. They just knew what to do when something went wrong. But the theory is it never hurts to have too much knowledge.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How many people were working at a given time in the actual reactor?</p>
<p>Jensen: In the control room, or—?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: That, and also—</p>
<p>Jensen: It’s easier for me to say in the control room, but I’ll estimate on the other.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure.</p>
<p>Jensen: Minimal shift in the control room was three operators and a control room supervisor, but we generally had four. There were three positions that had to be manned 24 hours a day when the reactor was operating. One of them, the nuclear console, where you actually controlled the reactor power level, we rotated two people in and out on that: two hours on and two hours off. If you only had three, then, I think the control room supervisor could give you relief. But you weren’t allowed to be there for more than two hours at a time. The other two consoles, you could be there for the whole eight hours on a shift. After my class and the next one went through, they had enough operators that we could get six or more operators in there, which gave a lot more flexibility, both for giving breaks to people, because it can get hard to keep your focus all night long, particularly on graveyard shift, when the reactor ran itself, pretty much. You’re just looking at things to make sure everything’s normal. That gets hard to do. It doesn’t sound like it would be, but it is. It’s pretty—puts a strain on you. So we had more people to give breaks. And extra certified operators to go out throughout the plant and check things, because they could recognize problems that non-certified operators might not. So, let’s say six of us in the control room, a control room supervisor, a shift manager. They were both certified control room shift manager/operators also. So they could do anything in the control room we could. And on a typical shift, you usually had a couple of electricians, a couple of instrument technicians, three or four health physics technicians—radiological control technicians—we called them radiation monitors in those days. Plus supervisors for all of them. And maybe a handful of millwrights, pipefitters, whatever. Mostly, the maintenance people did their work when the reactor was shut down. There wasn’t very much for them to do when the reactor was operating. But there was always work for instrument technicians. They would come in, and if something wasn’t working right in the control room, we’d call them in and they would tinker with it and try to fix it. Things like that. Day shift, there were a lot more people on there. And then during a reactor outage, much more work going on, particularly or the maintenance people. Because that’s when they were tear pumps down and rebuild them and things like that. So there were probably, on days, a couple hundred people out there. On shift, maybe thirty.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. So you’ve sort of been doing this, but could you walk us through a day in the life? What would sort of your average day involve?</p>
<p>Jensen: Okay. I’d come to work in the morning, a little bit before eight. And if I were assigned to the control room, I would go in and receive a turnover from the operator whose console I was taking over. We had a schedule that rotated us through. So if you’re one or two, you’re on the nuclear console. If you’re three, you’re on the double-A console. If you’re number four, you’re on the BN console, and I do not know what BN stands for. We used to joke that it was short for boring, because it was the most boring of the three consoles when we were at full power. So if I’m going to be on the nuclear console, I’d come in and there’s an operator who’s ready to leave. He gives me a turnover, tells me what the power level is, if we’re going to be raising power, if we’re at full power, we’re just going to hold power, if there’s any areas of the reactor that seem to want to lose power or gain power. So I get the turnover and then I take over. If I was on the nuclear console, I would work for two hours, and the other operator would come in, and I would give him a turnover and he would take over. And then I would usually give breaks to the other operators, unless we had enough other people to give them breaks. Anytime you take over, you’d get a turnover for what’s going on. Worked the nuclear console for two days, then you’d go to the double-A console. The double-A console controlled the reactor pressure and the primary coolant pump speed, and sending steam to the Washington Public Power Supply System. So you had this big console, went around like this and like this, and there were separate sections for each of the steam generator cells. We had six—five operating at any one time. Occasionally we ran with four operating. We never did all six. There was a reason why; I can’t remember what the reason why was. But always had one in reserve. That one was a pretty busy console during startups and shutdowns. I had full power. It was look around, look at all of the drive turbines for the primary coolant pumps and make sure they’re running at the proper RPM, look at the pressurizer level and make sure it’s at 23 feet. Got very busy on a reactor scram—lots of stuff to do there. And after the day on the double-A console, we went to the BN console. That monitored the secondary coolant system, so we had water coming back from the Washington Public Power Supply System. We sent them steam, they sent back condensate to us. Then we had a secondary system to maintain the pressure of the main steam header. So we had to watch that, plus we had to watch the rupture monitor system, which would check the radiation levels in the coolant water outlet from the reactor tubes. There were 1,003 tubes with fuel in them. The system would compare the radiation level between two adjacent tubes, and if one of them was higher than the other, a red light would come on on this panel. Then you’d go over and push the button to reset it. They’re coming on and off all the time. But if we had a rupture, that meant there was a leak in the cladding on the fuel. Usually, it was a little small pinhole; sometimes—and I never saw this—the welded-on endcap would blow off. Uranium, normally, is not very soluble in water, but when the water’s really hot, then it’s really soluble. And we’re running at 600 degrees or so for the coolant water. So if you had a rupture, you could start dissolving the uranium very rapidly. That’s got all of the fission products in it from the uranium atoms that have split, which are highly radioactive. So you could completely contaminate the primary coolant loop. So you needed to catch a rupture before it progressed too far. That was a frustrating job because those lights are coming on and off all the time. You got to look at those, and it was kind of a bad design, because that panel was here, the other panel was over there, and you had to keep looking back and forth. So that’s why we’d call it the boring console. It was pretty boring at full power. A lot of work there, again, on a reactor startup. We had to set things up to control the main steam header pressure, and that was a lot of work. So it was kind of fun, then. But full power, it was kind of boring. After we cycled through, if we had more than four operators, then we’d have two days where we’re—you could either study, because we always had to maintain our certification, and we had quarterly requalification classes and every two years we had to recertify. Or you could just be assigned to go out in the plant and do various jobs, help out—if it’s needed somewhere, help out some of the operators who were still studying to be certified operators, help train them, things like that. And then you just kept rotating through that. If we had an outage, we only had two places manned in the control room. One was the double-A console, and the other one was the communications console. So you kept contact with everybody throughout the plant, and made PA announcements if need be. Just let people know what’s going on. If we were in charge/discharge operations, you might be assigned to work on the charge or discharge elevator, to set it up for refueling the reactor. Or just—if it’s not a charge/discharge outage or we’re already done with that, you might be going in the rod rooms and doing some valving to assist the millwrights who might be repairing control rod issues and things like that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I saw you had some pictures there. Could you walk us through some of what those are?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yeah. Here is a picture. I found this online in the Hanford system a while back, and I was really surprised. That’s me, and I don’t remember posing for this picture. But I am on the charge elevator here. This is the wall, and it’s opposite the reactor and it’s a shield wall and each of these things here are plugs. You can open one up on the elevator side and on the other side, there was a really large elevator called the W work elevator. It actually came off a World War II aircraft carrier for lifting airplanes up to the flight deck. They could pull a plug out there, and they would run a tube through this penetration. Then you would mate it up with the process tube in the reactor. That’s how you refueled. They must have had a photographer up there taking pictures to show other people what goes on there. That was my assignment, and so I obviously posed for this picture, but like I say, I don’t remember doing this at all.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Is that your usual outfit when you were working?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes. Those are called anti-C clothes, or—original Hanford terminology was SWP clothing, for Special Work Procedure. During World War II, you didn’t want to say that this was to protect against contamination, because this is all secret what we’re doing. So you’re doing a special work procedure, so you have to wear the special work procedure clothes.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So that’s a second pair of gloves there?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yeah. I would be wearing two pairs of coveralls, a hood, two pairs of gloves and some rubber shoes. And underneath the rubber shoes there’s some canvas booties. So this is not a real high contamination job. If we were actually refueling the reactor, I’d be wearing plastic raingear over that. We used to wear a face shield to keep water out of our face. Later on, we had a hood with a blower unit that provided air so we didn’t suffocate, and that kept water off our face. So that’s about as good as I could get on the elevator. This picture was taken of our crew in the control room. We had started a straight day shift crew. It was so we had more time for training. We worked Monday through Thursday in the control room, and every Friday we had training. And the rotating shifts, when they came in on days, they worked Friday, Saturday and Sunday in the control room, and then during the week they had training. We formed up this brand new shift. They let it out by seniority, and there weren’t that many people who wanted to do it. Some people, strangely enough, really liked shiftwork. So I managed to get on the first crew. And on our very first day working together as a crew, we had what we call a WPPSS turbine trip—the Washington Public Power Supply System bought our steam, and they had two turbines, and one of their turbines tripped. That had happened before, and the reactor had never managed to ride through that without scramming. Well, we kept the reactor from scramming. And I was on this console here—this is the nuclear console. I was controlling the reactor power level. When their turbine dropped off, the main steam header pressure goes up. This is getting a little technical, but—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: No, that’s great.</p>
<p>Jensen: The main steam pressure goes up high. That sits on top of the steam generators. When the pressure’s high, water doesn’t boil as easily. And when water boils, you get heat exchange. So we are sending hotter water back through the reactor. That is not as good a moderator as the cooler water. So the reactor power went down very fast. So I had to start pulling control rods to make up for that. In low-enriched reactors, like any of the Hanford reactors, when you lose power rapidly, you start building up a fission product called xenon which is a neutron poison. It absorbs neutrons better than anything else. At equilibrium power, we’re making xenon at a certain rate, and it’s destroyed as soon as it’s made by absorbing neutrons. So the net amount of it in the reactor is zero. But if we lose power, we’re still producing it for several hours at the old rate. But we don’t have as many neutrons in there, so the reactor power will go down and it will just make it worse. So you have to pull rods very fast. So that’s what I had to do. My part was to keep the reactor from going down so far that the xenon would take it all the way down. The other operators were working to keep the main steam header pressure from going up too high, because we had a scram trip on that, because you didn’t want to rupture the steam header. The people controlling the primary coolant loop pressure had to do work on that. It was very exciting. But we survived it, and so they took this picture as a commemoration. One of the people involved was on the nuclear console when they took the picture and he didn’t want to be in the picture. So he’s not in there. But I like this, because if you know what you’re looking at, you can actually see that the reactor’s operating. There’s some indications there that the reactor’s at its 4,000 megawatt power level. And it’s one of the few pictures I’ve ever seen where you can tell the reactor was operating. Then, almost a year later, the exact same thing happened again, and I was in the same place. It was really easy the second time, because I knew exactly what to do. So they took a picture again, for all of us. This is the double-A console. Kept these all these years. As long as I’ve got these up here, this is an aerial photo of the N Reactor complex. Let me see. This is the reactor building right here. Make sure I’m not looking at things backwards. This building over here is the Washington Public Power Supply System. You can kind of see over here there’s some lines that go over, and those are the steam lines going over to them. They bought the steam from us and then sent the condensate back after they ran it through their turbines.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How much did you have to communicate with them?</p>
<p>Jensen: Frequently. We called them up--any time we were going to do something that might affect the power level, we would call them up, tell them we’re going to do that. If they were going to do something that might affect the condensate coming back, they would let us know. They would give us some numbers. From there, power generation, which we would compile into a daily report, I think that was the basis for how much money they paid us for the steam. Things like that. So we were in constant contact with them. Usually it was the operator on the double-A console who would communicate with the—we called them Whoops in those days. They didn’t like being called Whoops. Now it’s Energy Northwest. But that’s a habit that’s hard to break. I still want to call them Whoops. And we didn’t mean it anything derogatory in those days, but—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: When you said that the turbine tripped, would that seize it up? What does that involve?</p>
<p>Jensen: I’m not really sure why it tripped. They may have had some valves—steam admittance valves close or something. If they told us why it tripped at the time, I can’t remember. This was 1987 or so. So it was quite a while—almost 30 years ago. The second trip—not sure if it was the same cause or not. I know one time they had a turbine trip and we didn’t survive that one. [LAUGHTER] It was kind of funny. Somebody was sweeping in their control room, and the broom fell and hit a switch and caused the turbine to trip off. So on that reactor outage, they paid for everything we did to get the reactor back up. We had a special charge code. Because it was their fault, so they’re paying for it.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: That would, I guess, give the reactor xenon poisoning and they couldn’t start up for a certain amount of time?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes. If we scrammed from full power, theoretically, you could pull control rods almost immediately and override the xenon building up. But we had a mandated one-hour hold if we scrammed from full power. And that’s so that you will make sure it wasn’t a spurious scram. If it’s something that’s actually not working correctly, so it would be unsafe to operate, you can figure that out. And by doing that—waiting that one hour, it gets impossible to start the reactor up. So our minimum downtime from full power was generally about 23 hours—23 to 24 hours. If we could figure out what the problem was and get it fixed, then we started up the next day. If I was something serious, it might take a few more days, or several days, to figure out what the problem is or correct the problem. And then when we started up, it was kind of interesting, because we had the control rods pulled almost completely out of the reactor before the reactor went critical. And then as the power goes up, you’re pushing control rods in, rather than pulling them out to raise power, until you get to a point—it’s called xenon turnaround—where you’ve burned up all of the xenon that was in the reactor, and now the reactor’s making more of the xenon and then they start coming back out. So those were actually really fun.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How often did the reactor scram?</p>
<p>Jensen: N Reactor was getting kind of old by the time I was there. Some of the equipment was really old, old technology, and getting a little hard to maintain. We usually had two or three scrams in a particular operating run. I’m not really sure how many, because, again, it’s been so long. We would typically operate for a month. And we were in plutonium weapons-grade production mode, and so we only operated for a month, and then we would shut down and about a third of the reactor. But it was unusual to go an entire cycle without at least one scram. And usually they were spurious ones. The ones that caused a lot of them were the flow monitor system, which was a pretty old system. If somebody slammed a door or something somewhere, the instruments would vibrate, and it would give a false indication of low flow, and the reactor would scram. It only took one of the 1,003 flow monitor devices to cause a reactor scram. So that was kind of touchy there.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: And that was automated?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yeah, it was automated. You had this big panel with all these 1,003 dials. Normally, we never changed them. If we swapped steam generator cells out—like cell five was out for years until it got re-tubed, and then we put that one in and took another one out so they could re-tube that one. And we had to adjust all of those dials. Oh, that was a boring job—get them all set exactly right, and then somebody has to go through and check them all. If we ran in that mode with that same balance of steam generators, we didn’t have to do that every startup.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: In the pictures with the other operators, could you just tell us about one or two of the other folks you were working with?</p>
<p>Jensen: Okay. This is Dennis Real. Hopefully he won’t mind that I mentioned his name. He still works at Hanford. He started a little bit before me. This gentleman is Bill Terhark. He was a very, very experienced operator. He was one of the ones that you really wanted to have in the control room when things went bad, because he knew what to do all the time. He had so much experience. He went back to the 1950s, operating—probably operated at every one of the reactors. This is Fred Butcher, Jr. His dad had also been a reactor operator, Fred Butcher, Sr. And that’s me, and this is our control room supervisor, Glen Buckley.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Do you know anything about their backgrounds? Were they also—I guess the one who had most experience probably trained in reactors, but were they all engineers mostly?</p>
<p>Jensen: No, no. Dennis had been a paramedic or EMT before he started working at the reactor. I’m not sure about Fred, what he did. Bill had graduated from high school, joined the Air Force, came out of the Air Force, got a job at Hanford. Typically, in the ‘40s and ‘50s, they did not hire engineers to be—and I don’t know what Glen’s job was—or what his background was, before. Most of us, except the older operators had college of some sort or another. When I hired on, they were hiring people usually with a couple years or more of college.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So you were there through the end of N Reactor, is that right?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes. In 1987—well, 1986—I think it was in April, was the Chernobyl accident. Chernobyl, although really was not similar at all to N Reactor, everybody thought it was, because both reactors are moderated by graphite instead of light-water. So everybody looked at graphite—that must be the cause of why Chernobyl blew up. Well, it blew up because it was a really poor design, and it was poorly operated, and they had a really unusual transient situation and then they had a steam explosion that tore the reactor apart. Well, we decided we would make some safety upgrades. They decided we’re going to shut down on January 7<sup>th</sup>, 1987. Six months of safety upgrades, then we’d start back up. Well, we pretty much knew we were never going to start back up again. They did do all the safety upgrades, spent millions of dollars on them, but—anyway, so we came in on January 7<sup>th</sup> knowing that this is probably the last day of operation for the reactor, and it was our job to shut it down. I was on the double-A console that day. It would have been nice if I had been on the nuclear console, to be the guy actually putting the rods in, but that was Dennis. So we shut the reactor down. Took about an hour. We still had fuel in the reactor for a good almost two years before we defueled the reactor. Because we were going to start up again. And then finally they said, no, we’re going to defuel the reactor and we’ll go on wet layup. So we still had water pumping through the pipes, keep everything wet. Because if you let it drain of water and then it’s damp in there, then things will start to rust. But if you have water flowing through there, that wouldn’t happen. So we went for a few months where we kept all of the pumps running and stuff like that, but no fuel in the reactor. And then they said, well, now we’re going to go into dry layup. So we drained the primary coolant loop and all the other systems, and then we had big fans blowing hot air through there to keep moisture from condensing in there. The thought was, maybe we’ll get the order to start up again. And then they just said, nope. Pulling the plug. Reactor is abandoned, and it’ll go into decontamination and decommissioning. And it’s essentially been torn down now, and what’s left of it—the reactor block itself—is all cocooned. Just like most of the other old reactors.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What happened to your and the other reactor operators’ careers at that point?</p>
<p>Jensen: [SIGH] Well, that was kind of a scary time. People thought we’re going to get laid off. Some people quit and went back to school. I remember one guy went to school and got a doctor’s degree in optometry and became an optometrist. There was some programs to help people with that, some money to help people go to college and get something else. Some people just found other jobs and left. And then I ended up staying. I was getting bored with being an operator at a reactor that wasn’t operating, and there wasn’t even any fuel in the reactor. But we still had all the stored fuel, and they needed somebody to be what they called the criticality safety representative, to work with operations and with the criticality safety analyst to make sure we’re still storing that fuel safely, so we don’t have any inadvertent criticality accident. Not very likely, but it could conceivably still happen. So I got that job, and in addition to that I was doing other stuff that you would call nuclear safety work. So I ended up becoming, to all intents and purposes, a nuclear safety engineer, even though I don’t have an engineering degree. And I’ve been doing that ever since.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Who is that, technically, that you were working for at that point? Was it Battelle?</p>
<p>Jensen: No. Initially I worked for UNC Nuclear Industries. That was UNC parts stands for United Nuclear Corporation. They had the contract to run the reactors. In those days, Rockwell ran the 200 Areas for the Tank Farms and stuff like that, and the processing plants. So they ran the PUREX Plant that was extracting plutonium from our fuel. Battelle operates the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and that does research and design. Right after we shut down, DoE announced that they were going to consolidate all of the contracts. Westinghouse got that contract, so I worked for Westinghouse at the time I got into nuclear safety. Westinghouse went through a contract period and then a renewal period, and DoE typically does not renew anybody’s contract—nowadays anyway—more than once. So Westinghouse left, and then they announced a bid for a new contract. The Fluor Corporation won that one, and so I worked for Fluor for several years. They went through—I think they went through two and a half. DoE gave them an extension on the second done until they could get everything in place. And then the contract was won by the CH2M Hill Company, and that’s who I work for now.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Does it make much difference when one becomes—</p>
<p>Jensen: WE used to joke the only difference it makes is in the color of the paycheck. It makes a little bit of difference, because you get some upper management coming in, and they have different ideas on how things should be done. We all joke that we have to educate them on how things actually are done. That’s only half-joking because it’s different than anything else. Fluor had some subcontractors who had never done work for Department of Energy before. So they wanted to do things the way you do it in the commercial nuclear industry. And it’s like, you don’t get to do it that way—you do it the way DoE tells you to do it. So we kind of had to educate them. But it’s a little bit different. There’s a little bit of different philosophy every time.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was there ever any kind of either interest or communication with the commercial sector, in terms of learning or teaching any particular things?</p>
<p>Jensen: We did a little bit. I cannot remember the name of the organization, but it’s an organization that compiles knowledge from commercial nuclear reactors all over the country, and the disseminates that to help everybody. We had some people who would go to meetings there, so I guess we became a member of this group. I never was involved in that, but—So we would hear things that happened at other plants and then see if there were some lessons learned that we could apply. But N Reactor was so different than a commercial reactor that sometimes things that happened at N Reactor, they wouldn’t be able to use at a commercial reactor and vice versa.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How secretive was your work?</p>
<p>Jensen: Not much. There were a few things—security stuff was classified. But what we were doing was no longer secret, hadn’t been secret since 1945. I had to have a clearance—it was a secret level clearance. Mostly that was just to make sure I was trustworthy and wouldn’t sabotage the plant or something. Very rarely did I actually see any information that was classified secret.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I would assume, though, that the plutonium itself—I guess you didn’t see the plutonium until it got through the PUREX Plant?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yeah, well I never saw it. I’ve never seen plutonium. All of that stuff—how it was handled, how it was stored—that’s all part of the security thing, and that was all classified. And would still be, to this day, except we don’t have any plutonium at Hanford—not in any discrete form that you can do anything with, anyway.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So what is it you’re doing again? Could you give us more detail on what you’re doing or what you did subsequent to being a reactor operator?</p>
<p>Jensen: I worked in nuclear and criticality safety for N Reactor until we shipped all of the fuel over to the fuel storage basins at the K East and K West Reactors and I moved over there. I worked in criticality safety for that. When they were storing the fuel, that was fairly easy, because they weren’t doing anything. Then they decided they needed to get the fuel out of the basins because they’re close to the river, and the K East Basin had leaked at least once and maybe twice in the past. So the contaminated water gets into the groundwater and eventually gets out to the river. So we needed to get the fuel off the river, so they built a storage facility in the 200 East Area. We had to build a whole system to take the fuel out of the basin and put it in shielded casks and ship it over thee. So there was a lot of work on that, and all of that had to be set up to prevent criticalities. And also nuclear safety, which is more concerned with releases of radiological stuff to the atmosphere. So you need to keep those releases down below certain guidelines that DoE provides to protect the public.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So was this at all part of this amelioration cleanup efforts at that point?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yeah, that’s the whole goal that we’re working towards: get all of the fuel out of the reactor basins. So we got it all out of the K East Basin first, and then that’s actually been destroyed—the basin has been completely dug up and destroyed, and the area backfilled. The reactor’s prepared for cocooning, but hasn’t been, because they ran out of funding. So it’s in a safe, stable condition right now. K West Basin is empty of fuel, but it has sludge. I still do some work for 100 K, although mostly I work at the Plutonium Finishing Plant now. They’re going to move all the sludge out, and then they’ll do the same thing to the K West Basin that they did at K East. And basically, all over Hanford, that’s what they’re doing is cleaning things out, and getting them ready for demolition. So I work at PFP now in nuclear criticality safety there, and they’ve got miles and miles of ductwork. Some big pipes and some little pipes that are all contaminated with plutonium, and they have to carefully take all that stuff out. Get enough of that out so they can actually start tearing the building down.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Are there any general ways, whether it’s the type of people working there, or morale, or whatever, that the work at the Hanford site has changed over the time you’ve been there?</p>
<p>Jensen: [SIGH] During the operating days, it was fun. Actually fun to go to work and do something that you thought was productive. I mean, you can argue whether you thought we should have been making plutonium for nuclear weapons or not, but the job was very interesting. When the reactor shut down, the morale went down quite a bit, because, for one, people thought they were going to lose their jobs, and two, it’s like, well, even if we stay here for decommissioning, that’s not going to be anywhere near as interesting. And it isn’t. It has its own interesting aspects to it. But mostly, people are pretty professional and here’s a job, we’re going to get all of the fuel out of K East. So people went and worked on that, and we’re going to get all the fuel out of K West, so you work on that. While you’re doing that, it’s satisfying, because you’ve got a goal to work for. PFP—it’s a very difficult job. I think the morale kind of goes up and down. We have successes and then there’s problems you run into. But in a way that’s what makes a job interesting, if there’s problems that you can resolve and get through it, and then you succeed on this task and go onto the next one. But it was a lot more fun to operate than to do what we’re doing now.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How much longer would you guess we’re going to be doing this--?</p>
<p>Jensen: I, personally, or Hanford?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Both, why not?</p>
<p>Jensen: Well, PFP is supposed to be torn down. It was supposed to be torn down by the end of September this year, but it’s probably going to be about a year off from that. The K Basin—K West Basin has sludge in it. They’re probably going to start removing the sludge in about two years. That’ll probably take about a year to do that and then they’ll start tearing that basin down. There’s still a huge project called Groundwater, where they’re pumping contaminated water, and it’s not just radioactive contamination, there’s a lot of heavy metal contamination in Groundwater. They pump that out, and they run it through processes to take the, like, chromium out of the water and replace it with a type of chromium that’s not as environmentally damaging. That’ll go on for years and years. And then there’s still—all of the old processing canyons are still there in place, and all of those are going to have to be torn down at some point. So, it’s probably decades more work here. And then there’s all the tanks. They’re going to take all the waste out of the tanks and run it through the Vit Plant which isn’t done yet. So years of work left at Hanford.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Interesting. Were you ever interested in the sort of politics of Hanford?</p>
<p>Jensen: Not too much. The politics were different. In the ‘80s, it was whether we should be making weapons-grade plutonium or not. Nowadays the politics is more like, which project do we rob from to give to somebody else? And political battles in Congress as to how much funding Hanford gets, and things like that. So I try and stay out of all of that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure. So how about life outside of the work plant? Where were you living—still in Kennewick?</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes, I’ve been living in Kennewick since I moved there as a kid in 1965.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Where in Kennewick?</p>
<p>Jensen: It’s over near Highway 395 as it kind of cuts through the middle of Kennewick.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How has life in the Tri-Cities changed in the time you’ve—</p>
<p>Jensen: The Tri-Cities is a lot bigger. It was pretty small when I first moved here. For several years, it was just slowly growing, and it’s been growing like crazy since. It’s like, they’re always building new schools, and there’s always housing developments under construction. There used to be a lot of orchards in Kennewick, all around. There’s hardly anything now, because they’ve all been cut down and there’s houses there now. Traffic’s a lot worse.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What do you do in your spare time? Any hobbies or--?</p>
<p>Jensen: I like photography, I like to take pictures with film, which is old-fashioned nowadays. And I like to develop the film myself. So far that’s all been black and white film; I haven’t tried developing color film yet. And I like to collect old film cameras that I can still find film for and use those. Up until recently, I was playing hockey—adult hockey, which I started when I was 49, started playing hockey. I’m 60 now, so I’ve been doing that for about 11 years. However, I had quit, hopefully only temporarily because I’ve got some medical issues. My doctor said no hockey until this is resolved. And then I hurt my knee the other day, so I don’t know. That might—even if the other one gets resolved, that might be the end of hockey. I like to go to Tri-City Americans hockey games during the season. I got to Tri-City Dust Devil games during the baseball season. Like to go to plays and movies. I decided this year I was going to audition for a play, see if I could get in. I did not make it, but I’m going to try again, coming up later. Probably this summer. So we’ll see. Never done that before, either. But it always sounded like fun.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Any sort of major events or incidents, whether at work or just sort of around the Tri-Cities that comes to mind that are sort of worth commemorating, or worth just sort of mentioning?</p>
<p>Jensen: Kind of the interesting thing—back in 1986, reactor was still operating, and do you remember Connie Chung, the news—she came to the Tri-Cities to do a show on Hanford. Everybody at work was wondering who she’s going to interview. And we’re thinking they’re going to interview, like company president, company vice president, or something. And I remember joking that she should interview a reactor operator like me. And everybody laughed. And about an hour later, the phone rang, and it was the producer wanting to talk to me, and they wanted to interview me that night. And I got permission from the company. Turned out, my dad, who, like I said, had worked at the Tank Farms—he had gone to a public hearing on what to do with tank wastes. The Connie Chung crew had gone to the same meeting, because they were getting background information. My dad spoke at the meeting, and they said, oh, we have to interview that guy. When they talked to him, he mentioned that his son worked as a reactor operator. Oh, god, that’d be great, interview them both. So that’s how I got called up. The company gave me permission, and they did it in my house. I told them, it was my son’s third birthday, and I said we’re going to have a birthday party, but you can do the interview after the birthday party. So they said okay. After I got home, my wife sent me out to buy ice cream, I think. And I’m coming back. When she came back, she was all excited. Connie Chung called personally and asked if they could film the birthday party. So they filmed my son’s third birthday party, and then they interviewed my dad and I in my living room, and then—I don’t know, two, three hours of interview stuff, and they boil it all down to about five minutes. But that’s the way that goes. So that was kind of exciting. I was a minor celebrity for a while.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Any other stories leap to mind?</p>
<p>Jensen: We had some interesting scrams in the control room. I talked about the two turbine trip ones that were very interesting. The first one, like I said, I had to pull control rods rapidly to compensate for the xenon building up faster than it’s being burned out. I got that all settled out, and the power level wasn’t dropping, and I had forgotten that--when the main steam header pressure goes up, the power level goes down—well, eventually, they’re going to control the main steam header, and it’s going to go back where it’s supposed to be. And the power all of the sudden starts shooting up. So now I’m shoving control rods in like crazy to keep the power level from going up too fast, because we could scram on a high rate of rise. So I got that all settled out. The second time it happened—since I was the most experienced person on the plant on this upset, I got it settled out from the xenon, and I just got my ear open over here, and as soon as I hear somebody say, main steam header pressure’s coming down, I look over and the power level starts to go up, and I tap some rods in, and it was just like routine. Nothing to it. But another time, we had another accident—well, accident’s probably not the right word. We had another upset. We had a new control system—computerized system for controlling valve positioning. The old system we had was very ancient. It was obsolete when they put it in at the reactor, but they got a good price on it, so that’s why they did that. So we had this new computerized system, and there were two cards in the computer that controlled the valve positioning. The primary card, and a backup card. If the primary card failed, you would transfer to the backup card, and it was supposedly a bump-less transfer. The system wouldn’t even know. The primary card had failed, and so it transferred to the backup card, and everything went perfect. Well, the instrument technicians took the primary card out to repair it, and they came to put it back in. Now, this card controlled the steam valves going over to WPPSS. I was on the console controlling all of that, and I remember, jokingly, I said to the guy—the instrument tech and the engineer, when they came in, they were going to go to the rom below the control room where all of that stuff was. They were going to replace it, and I said, you aren’t going to scram us, are you? And the engineer said, trust me. And they went down—and I was just joking, because I figured, no big deal—and they went down and they put the primary card in and they told it to take over. It took over and sent its signal to the valves, but the secondary card did not relinquish control. So all of the steam valves opened up twice as far as they were supposed to. So our steam pressure goes down, and when that goes down, the reactor power goes up. And the primary coolant pressure also goes down, because you’re boiling water really well in the secondary system, that cools the water really well in the primary system, and cold water contracts. So that pressure goes down, and if the pressure goes down to far, the reactor scrams. So I’m fighting like mad with—somebody else came over to help me—to keep from scramming on low pressure. Other people are working over here, trying to keep from scramming on something over here. And other people over here, and the guy on the nuclear console is trying to keep the power level from going up too fast. We’re running around—it was very exciting. Seemed like it took hours. Probably just took a few minutes. We got it all stabilized out, and I’m looking at the primary loop pressure, and it’s kind of fluctuating and bouncing. And right when it’s going—trying to think if it was going up or down. See, if we cool—it had to have been going up. The secondary card cut out, all the valves slammed shut, and we had the exact opposite thing happen. Now, the primary loop gets hot, everything expands, and we scrammed on high pressure. And then about five minutes later, the instrument tech and the engineer come upstairs. They could tell something bad was happening, and they just looked like—it wasn’t their fault, but—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: When it actually does scram, is it actually just rods, or—I’ve heard some designs where there’s actually just balls that are—</p>
<p>Jensen: Okay. The main system was control rods. And you were going like this, like dropping down from the top. The old reactors had safety rods that dropped in from the top. N Reactor’s rods all came from both sides, and they overlapped. All the rods would slam in with hydraulic pressure. We had some hydraulic pumps that would turn on and pump very high pressure hydraulic fluid into the system, and the rods would shoot in. It would take about a second-and-a-half to go in. And you’d get all these enunciators in the control room, and if you were—mmm, it’s pretty boring here at two in the morning, and then all of the sudden the reactor scrams, you were wide awake. Got adrenaline pumping through and then you’ve got all these things you have to do to make sure everything works correctly on a scram, because it causes all kinds of things. The balls were the backup to the control rods. They had to be 75% in in one-and-a-half seconds. If they went in too slow, there was a problem. If they went in too fast, there was a problem, just because they could be damaged. But if they went in too slow, that’s what the ball system was for. There were hoppers on top of the reactor—I think there were a hundred-and-some reactors. And they were full of boron carbide balls. Boron absorbs neutrons. That’s what’s in the control rods to absorb neutrons. If you had one slow rod, it’s no big deal. If you had two slow rods in one column, you would drop balls on both sides of that rod column. If you had three slow rods anywhere in the reactor, you would drop balls on both sides of each of those three rod columns. Then there was also a thing where you could have a complete ball drop—drop all of the balls. If the reactor power level did not decay below five megawatts in three minutes, I think it was, then you would have a complete ball drop. That happened twice. Once, for real, because we had a scram and the rods didn’t go in at all—this is before I started working there. So there’s a scram trip, the rods did not go in, the balls dropped. And the other one was we were starting the reactor up—getting ready to start the reactor up and going through all of these checks on various instrumentation. The instrumentation that would monitor if the reactor power was below five megawatts in three minutes, they were doing the work on that, and they had a procedure that they would run. There were three channels and they would run it on each channel. That included having a switch to put in a couple of different calibrate positions. Basically, it put a false signal into the system so you could see if it’s responding correctly. So an operator and an instrument tech were doing that. They did channel one and it didn’t look right when they put it in the calibrate position. So they went on to channel two to see if it would do the same thing, and they did that. Well, they put two trips into the system. The reactor—what we called the safety circuit—was not made up, and so the system started timing for five minutes. These two instruments said the power level was greater than five megawatts with the safety circuit broken. When the give minutes went up, all the balls dropped. It was kind of innocuous. There was an enunciator that said, any ball hopper open. So the enunciator goes off, and the operator looks up at that. Any ball hopper open. And then he realized what happened. He told the control room supervisor, and the control room supervisor told me that. He says, I looked up at it. And I looked down. And I looked up again to make sure it was actually on. And then he said a few bad words and then he went and told the shift manager that we had dropped all of the balls.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I heard on the old reactor designs, that had to be actually sort of vacuumed out.</p>
<p>Jensen: Yes. They used vacuum—they were steel balls, too. And they used vacuums to suck them up. At N Reactor, we had a valve at the bottom of the channel that you would open up, and the balls would drain into a hoist, and then you would lift them all the way up to the top, and put them in a hopper at the top—a big hopper—and then you would load the individual hoppers. That was a horrible, horrible job, being up there loading those hoppers. It was always hot, you had to wear plastic raingear and an assault mask, which—rubber hugging your face, and it’s hard, physical labor, and wearing the raingear and it’s already 100 degrees up there anyway. It was just miserable work. So nobody liked to do that. When we had that big ball drop, my job was to go down underneath the reactor. You could open up those drain valves remotely. So we had Bill here who smoked a lot and was not allowed to wear respirators, he was operating the control panel. But a lot of times, the valves wouldn’t work remotely. So, me, wearing all of this fresh air stuff, would stand by, but would say, 43 didn’t work. So I would have to go back there, trailing this hose with my fresh air, and go back to 43, and open it manually. It was extremely hot, radioactively, down there. I picked up my entire one week’s worth of radiation. We were allowed 300 millirem of radiation, either in a single exposure or in a seven-day period, and I picked up that entire 300 in less than an hour, going back and forth. And most of the time, I was just standing there, waiting. And I’d go back in there, and I’d pick up quite a bit, and I’d open up a valve and come back, and then I was done and left. Couldn’t work in a radiation zone for seven days after that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How often did you have the radiation testing? Or was it the hand-and-foot test—</p>
<p>Jensen: Oh, any time we came out of a contaminated zone, contaminated area, when we were wearing those SWPs, you have to undress in a proper sequence. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this. We had step-off pads. A red pad and a green pad. And when you get to the red pad, before you get to that, you have to remove all of your outer clothing before you step on the red pad. And then when you get to the green pad, you have to remove all of your SWP clothing before you step on the green pads. So you end up coming out there—well, in the old days when there were very few women working in the Area, you’d be coming out in your underwear. Later on they made us wear a t-shirt and shorts. But I kind of lost track of what we were saying there. Oh, the hand-and-foot counters. And then when you came out, we would step into a hand-and-foot counter or a whole-body portal monitor that would monitor our sides and front and back, to make sure we weren’t contaminated. Then usually we would also be surveyed by a health physics technician who’s got a Geiger counter, and he just slowly goes over, checks your hands, checks the bottom of your shoes, makes sure you’re not—don’t have any skin or clothing contamination. If you do, then you’ve got to get decontaminated. And that happens once in a while.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was that ever a concern of yours?</p>
<p>Jensen: No. I did get a few skin contaminations. I had to hold over once. I got some primary coolant water in my hair, and there was a lot of radon in the water. Radon is electrostatically attracted to polyester and hair. So it latches on, and it’s hard to get off. I just had to wait until it decayed off. After about--</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you shave?</p>
<p>Jensen: No, no. I washed my hair several times, and then they just said—come back every hour and we’ll check, and after about three hours they let me go home. Usually, skin contaminations wash off pretty easy. If it’s your clothing, you have to wash the clothing. You don’t get to take that home until it’s passed as clean. Sometimes, rarely, stuff would have to get thrown away. But I never had any serious contamination issues. If you’re careful, if you dress correctly, and then when you come out, you undress correctly, then it’s very rare to be contaminated.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Any other sort of stories leap to mind from your--?</p>
<p>Jensen: There’s a few things that happened before I was there that were interesting. I don’t know. We had an accident. It was about three—and this one is an accident—it was about three years before I started work. They flushed a tube of hot, radioactive fuel onto the charge elevator, which is not where it’s supposed to go. It’s supposed to go out the back, and fall into the discharge shoots and then go into the basin. There were workers on the elevator when it happened. They got very high radiation exposures. Fortunately, not high enough to kill anybody. But that was just lucky, I think. So, I don’t know. That was the most serious thing I know that happened there. We did have one—before I was certified, we had one really bad accident where we lost all the instrument air to the plant. Almost every valve functions with air—they’re air-operated: air to open, air to close. A lot of pumps are—the pump speeds are maintained by air pressure, things like that. So we had a scram, and it was a very abnormal scram. But we survived it.</p>
<p>[VIDEO CUTS]</p>
<p>Camera man: Okay, hold it out so we see.</p>
<p>Jensen: --piece of fuel out of the reactor, and they pushed all the hot, irradiated fuel out, but we’d done a normal refueling after that shutdown. And, well, now, we’ve got to—we pushed out all the hot fuel, and now we’re going to push out all the un-irradiated fuel and keep it, just in case we start up again. I happened to be walking by when they got the last one out, and they were taking a picture and they said, get over here!</p>
<p>Camera man: Oh, so where are you? Are you down in front there?</p>
<p>Jensen: I am right there.</p>
<p>Camera man: Yep, that’s right.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: You’ve got the [INAUDIBLE] gear guy in back.</p>
<p>Jensen: So these guys are all dressed up in the gear and they’ve got the fuel with them. I think they’ve got the fuel with them in there. There’s another picture that I don’t have that actually shows them holding the last piece. [VIDEO CUTS] There were two certified operators when I was hired on. I think there had been some more who had left. There was another lady who was in the certification program and then she certified shortly after that. In my class, there was one woman and she did not go all the way through, and then in the class after, there was at least one woman in there. So we had a handful of women certified operators. The very first one hired, I’m pretty sure that would have been Martha Coop. I’m wondering who the guy you talked to was who hired her. Because I’m sure I would know him. I just can’t think of who that might have been. The other one was Leslie Jensen, no relation to me, and I think she was the one who babysat me when I was probably a kindergartener or a first grader. She was one of my mom’s students.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: All right. Anything else I should be asking here, any other memories that are worth preserving?</p>
<p>Jensen: I’ll probably think things when I get home.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure.</p>
<p>Jensen: But right now I think I’m—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Great. All right, well that’s been great. Thank you so much for being here.</p>
<p>Jensen: You’re welcome.</p>
<p><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/vzYLT2Ds3-Q">View interview on Youtube.</a></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:16:35
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
317 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
N Reactor
200 Area
Tank Farms
WPPSS (Washington Public Power Supply Systems)
UNC (United Nuclear Corporations)
Rockwell
PUREX
PNNL (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
K East Reactor
K West Reactor
K East/West Basins
100-K
PFP (Plutonium Finishing Plant)
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1961-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Mark Jensen
Description
An account of the resource
Mark Jensen moved to Richland, Washington in 1961 as a child and grew up in Kennewick, Washington. Mark began working on the Hanford Site in 1981.
An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
03-25-2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
Nuclear reactors
Nuclear reactor accidents
Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, Chornobylʹ, Ukraine, 1986
Nuclear energy
Nuclear power plants
Nuclear fuel rods
Relation
A related resource
<a href="http://hanfordhistory.com/collections/show/26">Mark Jensen, Oral History Metadata</a>
2-East Area
200 Area
200 East
200 East Area
Battelle
Department of Energy
Energy Northwest
Hanford
K Basin
K West Reactor
K-Basin
K-West Reactor
Kennewick
Manhattan Project
N Reactor
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Plutonium
Plutonium Finishing Plant
PUREX
School
Sun
Tank Farm
Tank Farms
United Nuclear Corporation
VIT Plant
War
Washington Public Power Supply System
Westinghouse
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F781469886630729124ac5781a546de58.JPG
854d8de5ddc7267beebe47d28e3198b4
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F97fd5a680e8f00e8b3814534fa754ff5.mp4
c2d0e6cf1d069b855fd2afebd9767149
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Douglas O’Reagan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Teena Giulio
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Douglas O’Reagan: Would you please spell and pronounce your name for us?</p>
<p>Teena Giulio: My name is Teena Giulio. First name is T-E-E-N-A. Last name is G-I-U-L-I-O.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Great, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview on May 4<sup>th</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be speaking with Miss Giulio about her experiences working at the Hanford site and living in the Tri-Cities throughout the 20<sup>th</sup> Century. Okay. Thanks for being here.</p>
<p>Giulio: Thanks for having me.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So I understand you were actually born in the Tri-Cities.</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes, I was. I was born in the Tri-Cities in 1961. Moved away when I was, oh, four or five, and then moved back when I was 13. I’ve been here pretty much ever since, for the most part.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Where did you move away to?</p>
<p>Giulio: Denver.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Hm. Was that—were you too young to sort of notice differences? Did you notice differences when you came back?</p>
<p>Giulio: Oh, I noticed differences. I didn’t like it. We lived for probably three or four years up in the Seattle area. I identify that with home because of all the trees and the green and the smells and all of that. Denver just didn’t have that. Nostalgically, I like the spring here, because when it rains you get the smell of the sage and the dirt and the Russian olive trees—not that I like it, but it’s just that nostalgic smell.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Where within the Tri-Cities did you live when you moved back?</p>
<p>Giulio: In Richland.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Giulio: In Richland. When I was very little, we lived in Richland, moved to Kennewick, moved to Finley. [LAUGHTER] And then moved away.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So you came back in, I guess, middle school? Is that right?</p>
<p>Giulio: Just began seventh grade, yes.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was it like in Richland’s middle schools?</p>
<p>Giulio: [SIGH] Well, everybody else had pretty much had grown up together, so I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt very out of place. [LAUGHTER] I really don’t know what to tell you, other—it was very clique-ish back then. I don’t know if it is still now, but yeah, it was very clique-ish. I just didn’t feel like I was part of any of that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did that change by high school?</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes. Yes, of course I had made friends and continued those friendships on even until today, which is nice. It’s kind of a shared thing, so yeah.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Right. Let’s see. So I understand your family were long-time Hanford workers.</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes. Both grandfathers worked out at Hanford. My father and his brother worked out at Hanford. My uncle’s sons and daughter worked out there, and then I worked out there also.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What did your grandparents do?</p>
<p>Giulio: I’m not sure what my paternal grandfather did. But my maternal grandfather—I think he worked out at the 200 Areas. I guess it was like there was a coal bin or coal cars or something like that. He worked in that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Do you know what time period that would be?</p>
<p>Giulio: In the ‘50s and ‘60s.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. And How about your parents? What did your parents do?</p>
<p>Giulio: Let me see. Well, let me go back to my grandparents.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure, yeah.</p>
<p>Giulio: They came out in the late ‘40s, I believe—late ‘40s, early ‘50s—to take part in all of the building and expansion and all of that. My parents—my father worked in several different areas, and—can I get my paperwork? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah, sure.</p>
<p>Giulio: Let me see. Where did he work? Let me see. He started working out there as a delivery person, delivering top secret documents and other materials as needed to the 100 Area. Let me see. Transferred to operating engineer, and his first job was unloading the coal cars for approximately three years, which—that’s what my grandfather did, too, was the coal cars. He also built bunkers in the coal rooms, worked in the boiler house, water filtering, pump houses. [LAUGHTER] Let me see. Yeah, and that—I think, I believe, that’s where—shift work—so yeah. He kind of got around to all the different areas, but it was mainly in the 200 East and West Areas.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. So sort of a technician-laborer-type role?</p>
<p>Giulio: Mm-hmm. And he went back—it’s like he left and got hired back or got laid off and got hired back. Because there were several times in my paperwork here that I’ve noticed he worked for different contractors at different times. I think that was fairly common back then, too.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you have a good impression of what your father was doing growing up?</p>
<p>Giulio: No. No. He was always very—I don’t want to say secretive—he just didn’t talk about it a whole lot. I did wonder why he didn’t shower at home. [LAUGHTER] As I got older, I realized that he showered at work after work, before he came home. When he got transferred to Rocky Flats, that was the same thing. They got cleaned before they came home so you didn’t bring coal dust or any type of radioactivity type of contamination home.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Do you remember or how you started to get an idea of what was going on at Hanford in general?</p>
<p>Giulio: No, not really, other than stories from my grandmother. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother after my grandfather passed. I spent the weekends with her, and we would talk a lot about a lot of different things. She would tell me the stories that she remembered. When they moved out here, and he first started working out there, she told me that she would pack his lunch for the day and he would walk off to the corner where everybody would meet. They—at that time, they had bus systems, and all over the city of Richland, the buses would pick up the workers. She said that all the windows were blacked out except for a small area for the driver. So nobody knew where they were going; they just got on the bus, took a long ride out, got off, and did what they were supposed to do. They all had very specific jobs. And then they cleaned up, got back on the buses with the blacked out windows, took a long ride home, and got off on the corner again. So that was my indoctrination of how secretive it was, way, way back. And she said that nobody knew what they were doing. They all had very specific jobs. They didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t know what it was part of. Oh, she also said that they moved—they occasionally did different jobs. Like they would stay at one position for a while and then they would take them to a different area to do another job. So they—nobody could really put together, mentally, what was going on, until after—you know, everything kind of broke loose and came out as to what was going on. Probably—I’m not sure if they were here when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I want to say that they were. I’m trying to recall the stories that she’s told me. I want to say that they were here, because after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, she said that all the news stories came out that it was the plutonium from Hanford that was in the bombs that were dropped. Then everybody realized how important what they were doing was. So they must have been here in the ‘40s and worked throughout the ‘50s.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was your mother a homemaker?</p>
<p>Giulio: My mother worked—my mother worked as—it would be considered a paralegal now. She worked in one of the law offices here in town. So, no, she didn’t work out at Hanford.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay, great. Let’s see. So after high school, what was your next step?</p>
<p>Giulio: [LAUGHTER] I really wanted to get a job out there. So I took several low-paying, not-very-prestigious jobs, until I could get my foot in the door out there. My father wasn’t working there at the time, and nepotism was pretty rampant. [LAUGHTER] I finally got a call that somebody wanted to interview me, and I started out there in 1981. It was actually exactly one year after Mt. St. Helens blew. So maybe that was ’82. I don’t remember. Anyway, it was exactly one year after Mt. St. Helens blew, I started working out there. I worked out at 100-N as the mail carrier. I got delivered twice a day, the mail from 200 East Area, which was like their main process station, I guess you’d call it. And I would sort the mail and deliver it to the various people out there at 100-N. So you could say I got around. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Why was it you wanted to work out there?</p>
<p>Giulio: The money. The money, the security, the benefits. And it was kind of like that’s where you were supposed to want to work at that time. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Hm. What were some of the sort of low-paying jobs you worked first?</p>
<p>Giulio: I worked in a furniture rental store. [LAUGHTER] And I worked in a funeral home—actually right out of high school, I worked in a funeral home, at Enon’s for a while. And then there was one in Kennewick that I worked at, but they were—it was kind of interconnected; they did work for each other. But I worked the front offices and typed contracts and did—it wasn’t really glamorous.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure.</p>
<p>Giulio: But I liked it. Good people.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How long were you working with the mail out at Hanford?</p>
<p>Giulio: I want to say close to a year. And then, at that time, after six months, you were eligible to transfer and apply for other jobs onsite. So I saw an opening in the—what do they call it—the site paper, or whatever it was. Saw a job opening for a metal operator and I read the description, and I thought, oh man, this sounds like a lot of fun. And what it turned out to be—I did get the job—what it turned out to be was various positions on an assembly line production of fuels for N Reactor. And, yes, it was; it was very interesting. And I really liked what I did.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Could you describe sort of what you were doing in as much detail as you’re comfortable with?</p>
<p>Giulio: Sure. You know, I’m not sure if it’s classified or not. I would imagine at this time it may be not—may be unclassified. The fuel rods for N Reactor were—I want to say about this long. The outer tube was about that big around. And then there was a smaller tube about that big around that slipped inside there. So how those were produced were the uranium core billets—that’s what they were called—and they were extremely heavy, very, very heavy. They came in billets that I believe were about that tall and about that big around. They were put through an extrusion press. They had to have cranes and little carts and stuff to wheel them around with. I didn’t take part in that particular job. It was a very dirty job. [LAUGHTER] Very hot. I don’t remember the foot-pounds of pressure that it was pushed through, but it was pushed through the extrusion press and came out in a very long tube. Like probably as long as this room, if not longer. I believe—well, of course they had different sizes. They had the larger size and the smaller size that they produced. And then they were cut into the lengths that we needed. I didn’t take part in that. [LAUGHTER] Let me see. I’m trying to remember the exact order. And then they were run through a salt bath. Two different type—no, not two different types. There was just one type of salt, but two different temperatures. They were hung from a rack that kind of—it would look like a carousel, and these huge, huge salt baths. It was molten salt, is what it was. I did do this for a while. You loaded the rods onto the rack and this carousel would lift it way up and take it over and slowly dunk it into the first molten salt bath, which—I don’t remember the temperature, but it was extremely high. That was a fairly dangerous job, because you had to make sure that no water got in there. So you had to make—you had to blow the rods off, make sure there was no water, because it was reported to explode if you got water in the molten salt. So it went through that first salt bath, it raised up, and went to another salt bath which was cooler. Then I want to say water after that, different temperatures of water, and the thing came off. At that point, it went to I want to say an acid etch. Because the billets, when they were pushed through the extrusion press were coated with graphite, and this helped it go through the press, obviously. So you had to wash off the graphite. Yeah, you washed off the graphite and etched it and they came out in this very shiny—it looked like aluminum, but it was really pretty. And then we would—yeah, they would take a—[LAUGHTER] I’m trying to remember this! I don’t remember exactly how it was done, but the ends, they had to etch out the ends, because they were to the end with the uranium. So they’d etch it out, probably about that much. Then it would go through what we called brazing. In the braze room, you put the fuel rods upright, heated it up, and put beryllium rings in the end. No—put the beryllium rings in before it gets hot.</p>
<p>Man Off-camera: [INAUDIBLE]</p>
<p>Giulio: [LAUGHTER] Sorry my story’s so boring. [LAUGHTER] That’s funny. [LAUGHTER] I like it! [LAUGHTER] So, anyway. You put the beryllium ring at the end, heat it up, and the beryllium ring would melt and meld with the outer core. And I don’t remember what the outer core—not the outer core, but the outer cladding was. I’m sure it wasn’t aluminum, but it would melt. And then another part would be—something—how did they do that? Don’t remember. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. I did—wow. I just really don’t remember the whole process. But it’s–yeah, there’s a huge, long process. At one point, we would weld the ends shut. And I want to say that was after they brazed it, because the brazing would melt the cap, and then it would get cut somehow. I don’t think I did this.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: It sounds like a lot of different sort of technical skills.</p>
<p>Giulio: A lot, yeah, a lot of manual skills. But a lot of it was done by machinery, too. And the photograph that I have is for the—it was called the TIG welder. This is one of the larger fuel rods, and you’d put like a rubber thing in there and twist it tight so that the argon would not get out. This was what we called the Chuck, and it swiveled on this little thing, and you would insert this end into the Chuck and it would go around and around and around. On the other end, there were tungsten, little—I don’t know what they’re called—that would heat up inside the chuck here and weld this part shut. Apparently, I was one of the best ones they had. [LAUGHTER] At least, that’s what they told me; I don’t know if it was true or not.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was the picture taken by a coworker?</p>
<p>Giulio: No, there was a photographer that came through at a certain time. I don’t even remember why. But this particular picture was in the Federal Building for the longest time. When it finally came down, they gave it to me. And this right here where it says, “I love you, Teena, 1981,” that—I sent that to my father. And then when he passed, of course I got it back. But he kept it for a long time. But yes, this particular picture was in the Federal Building on a wall, on an easel, I’m not sure, but I want to say it was probably close to 15 years. [LAUGHTER] So, yes, the welding part was part of the process, and then there was another process where it was etched out so that there was a little ch-ch-ch-ch on each side. Then it would get stamped with the specific number. I did do the stamping. It was all done with a little hammer. You’d just kind of put in the numbers and go whack! Stamp the numbers in.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was this all learning by doing, or was there a formalized training process?</p>
<p>Giulio: No, it was all on-the-job training. And yes, I did, I liked all of it. Oh! I remember now. Yeah, because right next to the station, on the other side, was where it was—the part was etched out. Yeah, I did that, too. It was done with lubricated water. Then there was also a quality control type of thing where it was all done underwater with—was it radar? Some kind of a sensor, the fuel rod would turn around and around and around, and this little sensor would go along the fuel rod to see if there was any gaps between the cladding and the uranium. Because when you got heated in the reactor, if there was any gaps, it would explode.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Giulio: So there was lots of quality control measures that were done also. We had an autoclave where they would test the fuel rods, where they would heat the fuel rods up in this autoclave to the temperatures that would be heated in the reactor. That would be the better place for it to blow. [LAUGHTER] But they always had—they always checked the welds, they checked the cladding, they checked the uranium, all of that along the whole process. And I did almost all of that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was the timeframe for this?</p>
<p>Giulio: Early ‘80s.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay.</p>
<p>Giulio: Early ‘80s. And this says 1981, so I believe I started out there May 18<sup>th</sup>, 1981, and I worked out there for four or five years. I don’t remember. I took a leave of absence and then came back as a security escort. [LAUGHTER] Which—I liked that, too.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: By the early ‘80s, was it unusual being a female technician out there?</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was that like?</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes. It was—it really wasn’t too much different for me, because I had always had male friends—close friends. I got along with most of the guys, except for some of the older guys. They didn’t take too well to women being out there doing their job. There was a little bit of harassment. But it was very subtle. Let me see. I want to say there was--one, two, three, four, five--six women in the whole building, doing this very large job, and I was one of them. So it was definitely one of those first steps for women into this man-dominated career.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. How many people would be working at a time roughly?</p>
<p>Giulio: Almost all of us.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Right, but what sort of scale of workforce at the time, would you estimate?</p>
<p>Giulio: In my particular area?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure.</p>
<p>Giulio: Probably 50 to 60.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay, interesting. Let’s see. Can you describe some of your coworkers for us?</p>
<p>Giulio: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: In just sort of broad terms.</p>
<p>Giulio: Well, we had the older guys who had been out there since the beginning of time. Most of them were pretty nice. There were a couple characters. One I had kind of a soft spot for, only because he was kind of a codger. His name was Ralph. He worked in the sandblast area. He was kind of hunched-over, not a real happy guy. But he was really, really nice. During break time he would put his safety goggles up on top of his hard hat and he’d take off for his break. Then he’d come back, has anybody seen my goggles? Where are my safety glasses at? [LAUGHTER] And the whole time they’re on top of his head. And somebody would say, Ralph, check your helmet. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know why he appealed to me. Probably because he was so unique and I’m attracted to very unique people. [LAUGHTER] Then of course, we had the age 30 to 40 men. That was kind of like they had started out there, maybe five to ten years before I had. Then of course, the younger generation, which I would have been.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Let’s see. Did a lot of people come in and out of those roles, or was it a pretty steady set of people?</p>
<p>Giulio: It was pretty steady set of people. Occasionally we would get new people, but mostly it was pretty steady. When somebody met retirement age, of course, we just kind of moved into different roles, or they would hire somebody new.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So you were gone before the end of N Reactor?</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes. Yes. I remember just after I—well, actually thinking, as I was doing the security escort job, thinking I should probably find something offsite, because I don’t think this is going to last much longer. [LAUGHTER] So that’s where that ended.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Do you have the impression that was sort of a common feeling at the time?</p>
<p>Giulio: I didn’t at the time have that feeling, but I do now. I do now think that it’s just—okay, it’s one thing after another. You’ve got one site that closes, well, another one’s still open, you’re going to go do something there. Or it’s a new job in another area that’s taken up. Especially with the cleanup effort that’s going on out there now. It’s not the—is it privatization? Is that what they’re calling it? I don’t remember. But, yeah, it’s becoming non-government work anymore. Yeah, and I remember thinking that it was probably a good idea for me to get off site.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How much emphasis was there on transparency in the safety risks of what you were working on?</p>
<p>Giulio: Can you repeat that?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So, how much were you sort of made aware of any health risks—or how much emphasis was there on safety while you were working out there?</p>
<p>Giulio: I want to say there was not as much emphasis on safety as there is these days. I know today it’s almost fanatical. I mean, it’s like everything from paper cuts are analyzed. But there was a very strong safety culture, only because we were working with heavy machinery, heavy material, sharp objects, hot objects, the potential for cuts and smashes and all kinds of things were very prevalent. They wanted you to be aware of what was possible. But, as I said, I don’t believe it was as prevalent as it is now.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm, sure. So do you have any kind of specialized nuclear training for working with those materials, or just sort of general warnings?</p>
<p>Giulio: Actually, I was going to say no, I didn’t have any training, but I did. There were several training classes that we were required to go through on a yearly basis. What they call Rad Worker, which was radiation worker training, general safety training, and—I’m trying to remember what else. So, yes. Yes, I was trained.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure. Can you tell us about the security escort job?</p>
<p>Giulio: [LAUGHTER] The security escort job. I actually liked that. It did get very boring at times, because we weren’t allowed to—there was no cell phones, for one thing. We weren’t allowed to read or play cards or do anything like that. I came back at that time because I had had a Q clearance, which was one of the highest clearances you could have at the time, which I got during the mail carrier job because I was handling classified information at that time. I escorted—it was mostly construction-type workers, trade workers, into buildings and areas where they needed to go to do their job. I stayed with them until they did their job. Sometimes it was really boring. [LAUGHTER] But I met a lot of great people. That was probably what I liked most about all of my jobs, is that I met a lot of great people. I liked everything that I did from mail carrier, metal operator, and the security escort. Security escort was lots of fun, because I got to go lots of different places onsite. It was 200 East, 200 West with the well drillers, with the construction people, in the 105 Building, out at 100-N, which is where I met my husband. [LAUGHTER] I was in—no, I wasn’t in the 300 Area. It was mostly at the 100 Areas and 200 Areas, and sometimes out in the deserts with the well drillers and geologists.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How was it you met your husband?</p>
<p>Giulio: [LAUGHTER] Through a mutual friend, actually. The friend had been trying to get me to go out with him. But I told him it was—I like you only as a friend. So it was the 109 Building, actually. I went in there with the construction workers and this friend, Kurt, yelled down from the top of the stairs, Hey, Stoner! What are you doing? [LAUGHTER] Stoner’s my maiden name. So I went upstairs to speak with him for a couple minutes, and my husband was sitting at a desk. So Kurt and I talked back and forth a little bit and I looked over at my—well he wasn’t my husband then—at Monty, and there was just something that kind of clicked. I was like, man, I’d like to know who that is. I thought his name tag—they were patrolmen—I thought his name tag said Guido. [LAUGHTER] Come to find out, it wasn’t Guido. That’s just what they called him. So I went back downstairs with my construction workers and did my job and went home. As I walked in the door that night, the phone was ringing and it was Monty. He had looked up my name and was calling me to see if I would go out with him, and I did.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was, even in general, sort of social scene built around the Hanford workers, or was it just sort of a Tri-Cities scene and that happened to be—I guess I’m trying to get a sense of what was the social scene like for relatively young people in that era.</p>
<p>Giulio: [LAUGHTER] A lot of going out on Friday nights. [LAUGHTER] That kind of seemed to be the thing to do, is on Friday nights, everybody would meet at some place, usually in Richland, for a couple drinks and if anything took place afterwards, go to somebody’s house, and have some more drinks and maybe watch TV. Yeah.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you have any hobbies?</p>
<p>Giulio: I liked to ride my bike. At the time I didn’t do much hiking, but I like to do that. I think I pretty much worked a lot. Worked a lot, went home, and took care of my home.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure. Let’s see. I went through those.</p>
<p>Giulio: Hobbies—what else did I do? Boy, that’s a long time. I like cars. So I would go to car shows. I had a couple friends who were in bands, so I would go watch the bands at different venues.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Such as where?</p>
<p>Giulio: In the park. At different--[LAUGHTER]—different bars around the Tri-Cities. So I’d go have a couple drinks and listen to them, and during their breaks, they’d come and talk to me and we’d have some fun. Yeah. At that time, a lot of it seemed to revolve around drinking. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Let’s see. How much was sort of secrecy or security a part of your Hanford working experience?</p>
<p>Giulio: As mail carrier, it was—I didn’t read the classified material. It wasn’t addressed to me, so I didn’t open it. But I definitely had to keep it very secure and make sure it got to the correct person, and that they—they had to sign for it, also. So there was this custody—chain of custody type of thing. The paperwork—okay, I received it, yes, I filed it, I got it to the person it was supposed to go to, he filed it, I kept that piece of paper, and then what paperwork needed to go back to whoever sent it—had to make sure it got back to that person also. Not a lot of secrecy at that time, other than the classified material. The metal operator job—not a lot of—no.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. Let’s see. Were there other pictures there, or was that it?</p>
<p>Giulio: Oh. This was a picture that I found when I was going through my father’s paperwork. I’m not sure where or when it was, or even what it’s all about. This is my father right here. He was never one to really smile much in photographs. I think I recognize this person, but I can’t recall his name. I believe it was one of my father’s friends at the time. Like I said, I don’t remember what it was or where it or when it was, and there’s nothing on the back! So. Yeah.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Let’s see. I had a question that blanked out of my mind. I hate when that happens. While I’m thinking, anything we haven’t discussed that you had thought maybe would be worth sharing?</p>
<p>Giulio: Hmm. [LAUGHTER] A story that my grandmother told me. [LAUGHTER] Ha. When they moved out here, they had just started all the Alphabet Houses. They had started building them, and they were able to get into one. She told me, at that time, nobody locked their doors. Because it was all government, everything was—all the repairs were taken care of by the government. The houses were painted, the landscaping was placed, all of that. She said that one night, her and my grandfather and my mom and her brothers went out to—I don’t know if it was dinner or a movie—but they had gone out. They came home and pulled into the driveway, everybody got out, and she—I think she said my grandfather walked in first. He opened the door and walked in, and then she walked in, and she’s standing there holding the door, and she goes, Sam, this is not our house. [LAUGHTER] But it was all dark. It was dark enough in the night that all the lights were off, and most people went to bed fairly early back then. Yeah, she said that they very quietly went out the door and shut the door. I guess they had gone one house farther than what they needed to. But she said it was pretty spooky. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So you grew up here in the ‘60s, ‘70s and onward. Was the Cold War or the anti-nuclear stuff, or the other sort of national stuff something that impacted your life at all, or was that just sort of out?</p>
<p>Giulio: It did impact my life to a certain degree, yes. Because coming from this area, most of us had been around it for the majority of our lives—or all of our lives. When I moved to Yakima in the mid-‘80s, I met some anti-nuke people. Or a lot of the people that I became friends with were decidedly anti-nuke. I met one gal who had actually come to—I don’t know if they called it a protest then, or what—but they would breach the fences, and then they’d get arrested because they were on government land. So, yes, I became friends with someone like that. I tried to explain to them the measures that were taken so that the average Joe didn’t get contaminated—as far as I knew, the measures that were taken. And of course, they’re all thinking everybody glows green out here or blue. You touch something, you get your skin scrubbed off with a wire brush. That was in the age of <em>Silkwood</em>—is that what the name of the film was?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I don’t remember.</p>
<p>Giulio: Me either! [LAUGHTER] It had Meryl Streep and Cher and somebody else in it, I don’t remember. Yeah, I think it was <em>Silkwood</em>, Karen Silkwood. Okay, so we’ll stop that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Oh. But that wasn’t really a point of contention? They were able to sort of live with disagreement with you on that, I guess?</p>
<p>Giulio: Yeah, we agreed to disagree. I don’t think they were particularly pleased that I had worked out here or was working out here, but—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How have the Tri-Cities changed over the course of your living here?</p>
<p>Giulio: Oh, my gosh. It’s not so Hanford-centered, which I find very nice. We’ve got different companies in here with different missions. I’ve seen part of the reservation opened up, and different businesses in there, and not even nuclear-related businesses. Which I find refreshing, so that it’s not like this entity that is just sitting there taking over. Yeah, it’s much—the Hanford site is much smaller now. There’s no special nuclear material out there anymore. Obviously, there’s waste out there, or else we wouldn’t have the cleanup effort that we have going on—which, by the way, I like that also. Not exactly sure how it’s going or where it’s going or what’s happening to it, since I don’t work out there any longer.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay.</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes. Nice to hear about that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. I think those are the main questions I had written down here. Anything else that comes to your mind?</p>
<p>Giulio: Not that I can think of.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Great. All right, well thanks so much for being here.</p>
<p>Giulio: Thank you!</p>
<p>O’Reagan: All right.</p>
<p>Giulio: And if you’re interested in speaking to my cousins, I can give them contact information. If you’re interested in speaking to my husband, I can talk to him, see if he would be—because like I said, he started out there in 1986 and he’s held every position on patrol except for training.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah, that’d be great. Emma helps coordinate all that, so she’s already been in contact with her—</p>
<p>Giulio: Yes.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I can tell her to ask.</p>
Duration
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00:40:31
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317 kbps
Hanford Sites
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100 Area
200 Area
300 Area
2-East Area
K-West Area
Years in Tri-Cities Area
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1961-1965/66
1973/74-today
Years on Hanford Site
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1981-1986
1986-?
Names Mentioned
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Ralph
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Title
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Interview with Teena Giulio
Description
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An interview with Teena Giulio conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
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05-04-2016
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
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video/mp4
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2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
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The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
100 Area
105 Building
109 Building
2-East Area
200 Area
200 East
200 East Area
300 Area
Cold War
drinking
Hanford
Houses
K-West Area
Kennewick
N Reactor
War
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19c463c013a7a2ea8e9413b017cfd710
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd4988a2f752925db95342438fe97dd91.mp4
7a3c130b03e6994e51dc0c9d0d65fb73
Oral History
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Transcription
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay, great. So let’s start off here. First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, my first name is Delbert L. Ballard. Leo for center. D-E-L-B-E-R-T, B-A-L-L-A-R-D. And I go by Del, commonly.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: All right, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview here on February 18</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX9056486">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Ballard about his experiences working on the Hanford site, living in this community. First of all, can you start us off just—walk us through your life in sort of a brief term before you came to this area.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I was raised on a dryland wheat farm in Montana, so I know what work is all about. And I was a student in a little high school that was only seven of us in our graduating class. So I was sort of a country boy, and went to college at Montana State University. And I graduated from there in 1951. Just prior to that, the General Electric Company, of course, had been there to do interviews. They were scoping for—recruiting for engineers and I was a civil engineer graduate. There </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">was</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> other recruiters through, too. I had an offer from a San Francisco shipyard, and another from the Soil Conservation Service in Montana. But I wanted to get a job with GE. So I’d had the interview, but no really positive award or recognition that they were going to give me an offer. They were interviewing a large number of people. So graduation day came around and I still hadn’t gotten a letter from GE. But the mail came that morning, and lo and behold, there it was. So I was really pleased at that. So my initial job right out of college was coming to Hanford and working for General Electric Company </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">as a rotational training—in the rotational training program. They had hired that year, the previous year, actually ’49, ’50 and ’51, they had hired about 300 or 350 tech grads. And I was one of the later ones getting here; I didn’t get here until July. So most of the good jobs were assigned. But in the rotational training program, my first assignment was a rather mundane assignment to the transportation department. Next one was a more interesting job with the inspection department. That was over in the shipyard in Bremerton. At that time, Hanford was undergoing I believed what they called the Korean expansion. The Korean War was underway and in full force at that time when I got out of school. As a matter of fact, I thought I was going to be drafted, but I tried to enlist and—I’m diverting here a little bit, but—tried to enlist in the Air Force to be a pilot, but my eyes weren’t good enough, so I got rejected for that. [LAUGHTER] So when I knew that the GE job was a deferred job, I thought, well, that’s an alternate I’d just as soon pursue. So anyway when I got here on the rotational training program, that’s what it was. Individuals were assigned to different locations for training purposes and for filling job needs. The second assignment was, as I said, inspection department in the shipyard in Bremerton. At that time, they were fabricating—the shipyard was fabricating the biological shield blocks for the C Reactor. It was one of the expansion </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">efforts at Hanford, increasing the production capacity. So that was an interesting job over there at the shipyard doing inspection and learning a lot about inspection techniques and components and so forth. Another month after that, I was rotating around the Seattle area inspecting other components that were being manufactured for the C Reactor. C Reactor, as you know, was the one that was built right alongside of the B Reactor out at Hanford. It started up in ’53, I believe. But out of the rotational training program, I was assigned into construction area out in the 300 Area. They were fabricating laboratories for building the laboratories out there. Radiochemistry, radiometallurgy, pile tech, machine shop, and a library at that area of the Hanford—300 Area was just under construction. So I got assigned to help in the field engineering in that job. It was an interesting project. I learned a lot there in that job. And from there I went into other project engineering work, including in later years, the K Reactors were under construction and I was involved in laying up the graphite of that reactor, K East Reactors. I stayed in project engineering with GE all my life—or all my employment time was with GE. They left here in ’64. Yeah, Battelle came in ’65. Two of the projects that I followed after K Reactors, one of them was the critical mass lab in the 300 Area, which was a facility for evaluating critical shapes and sizes for plutonium missiles. It was a research job, research facility. </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">That project was a lump sum construction and plant forces for the completion of putting the process equipment in. The next job I had was the High Temperature Lattice Test reactor in the 300 Area. That’s a reactor that probably hasn’t gotten much publicity. It was a small graphite reactor. But that was a job I was very proud of, because I was the sole project engineering function at the time. The design was done by an organization that was just brought on as GE was being phased out. It was the Vitro Engineering Company. They had a detailed design of the job, and the construction was done lump sum, and then J. Jones did the reactor installation. I can tell quite a bit of detail about that reactor, if you’re interesting. [LAUGHTER] But it was an experimental facility also for evaluating different lattice spacings for graphite moderator reactors. It was electrically heated—it operated up at 1,000 degrees centigrade, so that graphite, looking through the peepholes in the reactor, you could see white hot graphite, which is sort of an interesting thing to see. But that project was not large in comparison to today’s funding levels. But it was a three- to four-million-dollar project. </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">I finished the job and closed it out with less than $200 left on the books and no overrun. [LAUGHTER] So I got a commendation for that job, which I was quite proud of. But from there, then I diverted into other project engineering jobs. One was in Idaho Falls. We had a test facility over there, putting in test loops in the engineering test reactor. That was closer to reactor operations type work. We had to modify an operating reactor. But that was some of my interesting project years before I got into jobs later on, which was the FFTF and the FMEF. Fuels and Materials Exam Facility. I always make the statement that every project, or every job that I worked on up until the FFTF was completed and put into operation. Every project after FFTF was shut down and closed down before it was completed. [LAUGHTER] So that was kind of a breaking point for me. Hanford, of course, reached its peak in production, and I can talk something about that as far as reactor operations is concerned. But I wasn’t really in operations, I was in engineering, and had jobs all over the Project. So I never was tied down to one location. It was interesting. So I had an interesting career in a lot of different projects. I enjoyed my work, and had a good time and a good married life and I can go into that, too, if you wish.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So you say you were with GE this whole time? You didn’t switch over to different contractors as they came in?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, yes—no. I just with GE until they left.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: I see.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: And then Battelle came in ’65. So I was with Battelle for ’65 until ’70 when Westinghouse took over the Breeder Program. Initially, Westinghouse was just brought in for the Fast Flux Test Reactor, to manage that. And I happened to be working on a development job. That’s one I haven’t mentioned yet. [LAUGHTER] When Westinghouse came in, I was assigned—that was my first manager job. I had a group, or a section in the 321 Building in the 300 Area, and a job which was identified as the hydraulic core mockup. And we designed, built and operated models to evaluate the design configuration for the FFTF. So we built water models to look at a lot of different features: the reactor vessel arrangement, and the core arrangement and the structure. And the inlet planning and outlet planning. We built several models. The two biggest ones were the inlet model, which evaluated the sodium distribution in the inlet planning and feeding characteristics for the fuels channels. I worked on that job for seven years. And then during that time, of course, FFTF came under construction. Our group actually influenced the design which was being done by Westinghouse back east. There was a lot of the features in the arrangements and shapes of the vessel and the flow distribution and the core that was determined by that hydraulic core mockup test facility. Then when they started putting the reactor together, I was assigned to construction out in 400 Area. I spent the whole year inside the reactor vessel, helping the engineer put the parts together. One of our humorous comments about FFTF was, from our perspective was FFTF, do you know what that stands for? Yeah, it sounds for feel</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> file</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> to fit. [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">Fill all the tight tolerances and all the arrangements necessary to make everything fit and throw it together. It was well-engineered and well-designed, but it was still—engineering problems had to be resolved in the field. So that was another interesting project. Following that, then I spent seven years on the FMEF, the Fuels and Materials Exam Facility, designing and coordinating the design—the management of the design, which was done by an off-plant architect engineer. And there, again, that was a project that was not completed. It was shut down when the Breeder Program was curtailed. So, following that, I could go into more details where we did for various and sundry work, but it was all toward the new mission for the Hanford site, which was cleanup, </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">starting in that field in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I retired, officially, in ’89. But I worked consulting for four years after that. So my career actually spanned from 1951 to 1994.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How disappointing was it when FFTF got canceled?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Pardon me?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Was it disappointing when FFTF got canceled?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: It was very discouraging, yes, that they were going to close it down. When they drilled a hole in the core support structure, like drilling a hole in my heart. [LAUGHTER] Matter of fact, I’ve got some pictures to show that I was the last person in the FFTF vessel before they closed it up and started it filling it with sodium. Matter of fact, after that closure—after the photograph that I have, I’ll be happy to show you—they had an accident with the fuel charging machine which went up to the top of the travel and the upper limits which failed and it dropped down on the core and broke some of the components that I was so—[LAUGHTER]—proud of getting installed properly. Core support structure. And we had to go in there and do some repairs. But then I, after that, I left the FFTF and went to work on the design of the FMEF. [SIGH]</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did life sort of change day-to-day when you switched these contractors? How different was it working for these different companies?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: The only change that I could see was the difference of the color of the paycheck. [LAUGHTER] As a matter of fact, when we transferred from—let’s see if I can remember which contract that was—was it GE to Battelle or Battelle to Westinghouse? I don’t remember, but the end of that day, we were terminated and I happened to be at a party down in one of the local pubs which I didn’t very often frequent. But somebody said, who do you work for? And I said, at the moment I’m unemployed. Because that was the day we left one contractor and started with the next one. But the transitions were quite smooth, I would say. I mean, of course, policies changed and your managers changed. At one time, in a two-year period when Westinghouse came in, I think I had 13 different first level and second level</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> managers</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> above </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">me change without in those two-year period. So there was a lot of personnel changes. But a lot of us working closer to the ground floor, there was very little change.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So, let’s back up a moment. What were your first impressions of Hanford and the area?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I came here in the summer—it was in July. I got here on July 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX9056486">rd</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> of 1951. I was assigned to the barracks out in North Richland—women’s barracks as a matter of fact. That’s when all the dormitory rooms were filled up in Richland for the men’s dorms. So I was assigned out there for my quarters. The next day, I learned that you didn’t have to drive the buses around, you could ride the city buses or the plant buses. Plant buses, to ride to the area was five cents, and city buses, I don’t remember whether they were five cents or free. I rode that bus the next day that I went to work, and it was 105 degrees that day. And I thought, my lord, what have I gotten myself into? [LAUGHTER] This is horrible temperature! But I was young and willing to accept anything that came my way, so I guess I didn’t think it was too serious a problem.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How aware were you of the mission of Hanford before you came here?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Very little, probably. I knew that it was working on the war effort, but at that time, nobody really—well, yeah, I guess it was known they were producing plutonium or weapons for atomic weapons, but as far as the details concerned, I knew very little. As any engineer—young man right out of college might be. Because I didn’t know what the plant—the structure was. But they gave—they told us and we got the information from the co-workers and the other students. It was quite interesting, because all the youngsters that were working, everybody—not the majority of people, but a large percentage of them—were fresh graduates. The older bunch were the 30- and 35-year-olds working on the site. That’s when </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">I met my wife shortly after that in ’53. But we were married in ’53. But I met her in ’52 at a social that was put on by YWCA, Young Women’s—YWCA organization. They had church-sponsored dinners one night a week and that’s where we met. So we’ve been married for 62 years now.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were there a lot of those sort of social events?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: A lot of those that happened. As a matter of fact, the organization—I was the third set that the president and the secretary of that organization got married. [LAUGHTER] She was the secretary when I was the president of the organization. [LAUGHTER] Which was sort of comical, I guess.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What sort of things did you and your wife do in your spare time in the ‘50s and ‘60s?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I guess bridge playing was one, and social events. We went—there was—they had a group that she was involved in called the Fireside Group that had functions and went camping and things like that. But we played a lot of bridge then.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Where did you live?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I was living in the dormitories, of course, when we were married. I lived in North Richland in the women’s barracks for a short time until the rooms became available in the dormitories in Richland. That’s where I was living when we got married. Of course, housing was another whole story. You had to put your name on a list to get a house. They were all assigned by the government. All the housing was, of course, controlled and owned by the government. So you had to get your name on the waiting list to get a house. We were fortunate; we got a duplex, a C house up on Wright Avenue. I got that assigned in less than a month before we were married. So when we were married, we had a two-bedroom duplex house up there available. That’s where we moved in and lived there until 1957 when the government decided to disperse the property. They started selling vacant lots in 1957. We were a junior tenant in the duplex, so we couldn’t make an offer on the duplex. The senior tenants had the right to buy the duplex. So I was quite aggressive in my ownership philosophy, decided to buy a lot. We purchased the lot on Newcomer, the first property that was sold. And we built a house. I started building in March of 1958. As a matter of fact, we built—our house was the third privately built house in Richland. We had a house and were living in it before</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> Richland was</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> incorporated</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">. They incorporated the city in July of ’58. That was of course the second official designation as a corporation because Richland, of course was a corporation—I mean an incorporated city before the government took it over in ’43. We built that house and I have pictures that I brought of the fact it was one of the first ones in Richland. And we’re still living in the same house. I don’t know what that says, but [LAUGHTER] I guess stability for one thing.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were you involved in local politics at all?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: In what?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: In local politics at all?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>; No, not really. They asked me a few times if I wouldn’t run for the city council, but I never did. No, I’m not a politician. I didn’t want to get involved in that.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So you described a number of different jobs you were doing over the first two decades or so that you were here? Could you walk us through, at least for one of those, what was sort of an average work day like?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, let me see. There was one—I guess all of them were similar in a lot of respects. I was doing—on those jobs, I was doing project engineering. And that meant the coordination of, and the I guess you’d call it management, although there was, of course, the organization like GE, there’s so many levels of management that comes through that it’s a little hard to say you managed it, because you have so much supervision and overhead actions that are taken on a project, for example. But on most projects, the engineer—the project engineer would write the project proposal based on what the technical department would have as input for a required facility, for example. Like the high temperature lattice test reactor, the physics department had specified the programs that they were involved in would want to look in more detail at the lattice spacing in graphite reactors, for example. So they would write a document which would specify what their objective was and what their basic criteria was for that facility. And project people would issue—maybe take that and issue an order for another group to do the detailed process—conceptual design, or do it themselves. We’d do it sometimes on small projects. </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">We had projects all the way from modify one laboratory all the way up to a whole facility. So it’s hard to describe the same process for all of them. But it was office work, engineering work. Some of the times I was in a design group where we actually doing detailed design work. But most of my work was in the project engineering field where we were seeing the work done by others. Or specifying details or managing the people that were doing the detailed design work. But it was office work, and of course when construction started, that’s when the project engineers were more in control, because they were directing the contractors as far as the field work was concerned. It was always an interesting job, an interesting challenge, I thought, preparing contract bid packages. Office work, lots of times the projects were out in the field, of course, out in the Area. We’d drive government cars to go to work. That was an advantage. Of course being in engineering rather than operations where you had more control of your time from the standpoint of individual management. Because we’d use government cars for transportation. We didn’t have computers in the early stages, obviously. When they came out with DSIs, Don’</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">t Say It </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">In</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> Writing, that was a big move, too. [LAUGHTER] But certainly a lot of progress and a lot of technology changes over the years.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How much were security or classification a part of your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, it was certainly in overview all the time. All the documents, if a job had classified work on it, you had to get the documents classified, and follow the restrictions for those particular elements or documents, whatever’s involved. Most of the time, of course, construction was not too rigidly controlled or administered, I guess. In later years, because the, for example, research work was not really high classified. Most—a lot of it wasn’t. But it was something that was always there. Of course the badging was always—I remember one time incident I had which was funny—rather humorous. I was in a meeting out in one of the hundred areas, in a back room in some building and we were having a discussion. All of the sudden a door burst open and two patrolmen came in and said, where’s Del Ballard?! I’m over here. [LAUGHTER] Hey, come with me! They took me by the arms and whisked me outside and outside the badge house. I said, what’s going on? What’s the problem? They said, you don’t have a badge! I said, what do you mean I don’t </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">got</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> a badge. I looked at it and it was somebody else’s badge—name on it. They had given me the wrong badge! [LAUGHTER] So they were, I guess, vigilant in their control. But some of the times you thought it was a little overreach. It was always there, that’s for sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: You mentioned a couple jobs not necessarily at Hanford—I think you said Idaho Falls at one point, or other locations around?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Yes, we had a project—I guess I sort of skipped over that—in the Engineering Test Reactor in Idaho Falls. The fuels people here—research people—wanted to do some testing in the Engineering Test Reactor with certain issues or problems that they were trying to develop from the fuel technology. So we put in two high pressure loops over there. Again, I was the project person on it. I didn’t do the design work, I did the procurement and the construction management. Philips Petroleum was the operating contractor over there at the Engineering Test Reactor. So I went over there and saw that those loops were completed and put in place and in operation. It was in 1958. I spent, well, most of that year over there, back and forth. My wife was really unhappy, because that was the year that we had started our house. So I had—coming home on weekends and trying to keep that sorted out. Because we had a foreman working with the carpenters building the house. So it was kind of stressful for her. Yeah, and then I had to go back for the next year after that for some cleanup work on the project. It was another project that was managed by Hanford, but installing a reactor over there.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: I’m curious how sort of insular Hanford was, versus how much it was common for people to get advice from outside of the Area, or to travel </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">to different facilities and learn what they were doing, or share what you were doing with others?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I think that’s probably more prevalent in the technical field than it is in the construction area. Yeah, there certainly was in a nuclear complex, there was—and we did have travels. I did visit some other sites. Occasionally the laboratories on some of the projects we had. But most of that was done by the technical department, not the engineering department.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How much has the community changed</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> in any particular ways during the time you’ve lived here?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, it’s gone from a small </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">community to a much higher-traffic area than it used to be. But the people say it’s still pretty mild. Of course I’ve traveled to Los Angeles quite a bit; I had relatives in Los Angeles. And I’d grow accustomed to that mainly down there too. But it’s still—the Tri-Cities is still a nice place to live, I think. It doesn’t have a lot of the big city hubbub that other places do, but it certainly has changed a lot from what it was when I came. My wife came in 1944. Of course that was when it was sand and dust piles and no trees and no grass. It was a lot like that when I came, too, although it was developing. But the first few years that the Manhattan Project workers were here, they had some pretty rough goes. Of course the government would operate a city was an entirely different situation than we have now with private ownership and private management of the company—or local management of the company there. When the government operated the city, it was—you’ve heard these stories before, I know. Even lightbulbs were changed by the employees of the government. [LAUGHTER] So that was a big change. But when we got married we were renting from the government but as soon as they sold the houses we built our own and were on our own. So we’ve lived pretty much as a private city in all of our married life. So that hasn’t been a major change.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Anything else—nothing else in particular I’m fishing for here—did anything else come to mind, as far as changes in, I don’t know, spirit of work at Hanford or changes in the communities?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, the government management of the Hanford site has certainly undergone lots of changes</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">, much as our society has, I think, over the last 50 years. When GE operated the plant, I felt and a lot of us felt that the program was defined in general in scope and the contractor was given a block of money and there they went. They did the job. They didn’t have the oversight or the detail management or the daily exchange as much with the government, I think, as they do now. I think that’s been a change in philosophy or change in detail of management more. A lot of it is because the public’s been more closely involved. Like the different committees that are involved in the oversight with the DoE that they didn’t have at that time. Of course when the Manhattan Project started, it was even further away than that. Nobody outside the Project knew what was being done. They were building the atomic bomb and nobody knew was done except the organization involved in it. Now, anything the government does </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">it’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> public knowledge and has 100 different reviews over a period of a decade before they get anything done. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> </span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Of course all these decades we’re talking about here are during the Cold War, and nuclear weapons are wrapped up in a lot of that and nuclear power. Was that ever something that was on your mind, or that were you aware of? Or was that just something that was going on far away?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: No, I think the Cold War and the conflict with Russia was well-known because of all the cautions and concerns about the atomic weapons and people—during the crisis that peaked in the early ‘60s and we were in hard conflict with Russia. A lot of concern about what might happen. It was a different era and there was a lot of awareness of the potential that there could be a nuclear conflict.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did it ever impact your life, or your wife’s life more or less directly?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I don’t think we—we thought we were protected, we thought we had the national security to take care of it. And I guess we didn’t really worry about it—it was something you didn’t really dwell on, I don’t think. Although they told the students and the kids—some people did build bomb shelters. My neighbor, Dr. Petty, they had one at their house under the lawn in the front yard. When they built the house, they put in a bomb shelter.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: [INAUDIBLE]</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Nobody knew about it but them, but I knew about it. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you ever see the inside of the shelter?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: I never was in it, no. But I know it’s there.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Let’s see. So I guess we’ve sort of covered this. Could you describe the ways in which security and or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I guess from the work that I did in the engineering specifications and drawings and documents that related to projects, we had to worry about the classification on them. You had to worry about the access—access to different projects at different facilities. Of course you had to have the right clearance. So it was a restraint on work in some respects. But it wasn’t a major impact, I don’t think.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: In more recent years—well I guess I don’t know how long—you’ve been working with the B Reactor Museum Association and other groups interested in the history of the local community. Can you tell me how you got involved with that and sort of the history of that?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Sure can. I retired in ’89. And then as I said, I went back to work on a part-time basis. But during that period, the Environmental Impact Statements had been written, and the mission at Hanford was changing from production to cleanup. All the documents and all the philosophy that was being disseminated was, we were going to tear everything down and dispose of everything in the Project. I was the representative to the Tri-City Technical Counci</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">l. It was a group of only local affiliate—all local agent—sections or groups from the technical society’s engineering—civil, mechanical, electrical, nuclear, women’s organizations—all the technical organizations had what they called a Tri-City Technical Council. And we met monthly and addressed the issues for technology dissemination or issues that might affect the community from what we might recommend or so forth. From that group, we learned—we knew what the DoE was getting into, transition-wise into the cleanup of the site. They were going to tear everything down. And we said, well, we don’t want that to happen to some of these historic facilities. The B Reactor, for example, was the world’s first production reactor. And it was very consequential from the history, both of our nation and the world, as far as that. And also the kick-off for nuclear power. So we said, we ought to do something about that. So we formed a committee. I was one of the people of that committee. And we met in July of 1990, was our first meeting. We talked about an organization and how we might form a group that would lead toward the preservation of B Reactor. We </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">decided to form an association. So we had an attorney draw up our bylaws and we formed an organization called the B Reactor Museum Association. We got our state corporate action—I forget what word they use to describe the initiation of the organization in January of 1991. But I consider the organization being formed in 1990. And our objective was to educate the public about the historical significance of B, and to do what we could to preserve the reactor, to see that it was preserved. To gain access and to develop exhibits and so forth for the exhibits. So that was where we started, was way back in 1990. And all during the decade of the ‘90s, we were meeting and fighting with the Department of Energy because they had milestones after milestones that were established on the cleanup and disposal of all the reactors. B was put into the list later on, but it was always on the list for cocooning, as all the reactors would be. We got those milestones extended over the years. And finally, with persuasion and meeting with legislators, Sid Morris and I met with Sid Morris and—I don’t remember the year now, but it was one of the first times that he was sympathetic for the theme that we preserve the historical relic. And of course, later on Doc Hastings. We had many meetings and persuasions with all the legislators. Of course, Cantwell and Murray got on board over the years. It later progressed into the fact that we want to have a study to see if the Parks Service could preserve it. One time during the late ‘70s, I believe it was, several people thought that the REACH would be the only chance of preserving the B Reactor. They would be the ones that would sponsor the tours and provide for the access and so forth. I said, no, I said, I don’t believe that. I said, I think we want to get the Parks Service involved because I don’t know that even the REACH is going to have the muscle to do it. So we got meetings with the legislators and we got a study authorized for the Parks Service study. That was after two or three years of trials and tribulations. It was finally approved. When the Parks Service first came out—you’re probably aware of the fact that they didn’t have—they just had Los Alamos as the sole main site for the park. And we said, that would never sell. It had to include all the sites: Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Hanford. So they revised their study and made it a three-site park. It was eventually approved and then later legislation—Doc Hastings and Cantwell got the park legislation authorized. BRMA of course has been involved—has been the agency chipping at their heels all the way through all this. </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">We finally got credit for it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> For many years, they didn’t really recognize BRMA as the organization that made it happen, but I think we had an awful lot to do with what made it happen.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were you ever associated with any of the other local history-related groups?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, yes. We were affiliated with the CREHST museum. We worked with them and the REACH also.</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> But we were the ones that were pushing—BRMA—the B Reactor specifically. We still have a lot of partnerships. We had memorandums of understanding with DoE and the CREHST and with—I guess we don’t have one with the REACH but we still meet with them. Matter of fact, they’re working on this new exhibit for the Cold War exhibit. Of course they’ve got—there’s four of us from BRMA that are on those meetings, but there’s a lot of other community leaders involved, too, obviously. And that was what happened is we were the—BRMA was the organization that was in the trenches early on. But later on, the whole community and the region and the legislators all got on board. So there was a lot of emphasis and support for getting it preserved and getting it converted, or made into a national historic park. </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">Have you seen the plaque out there at B Reactor that says we’re the ones that initiated the plan to preserve </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> So, yeah, I’m quite proud of that. I was one of the founding members of the organization.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Why did it matter to you?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, it’s important, I think, to preserve the history. It’s a significant part of the nation’s history. And if it’s going to be educational for the—a good place for the students, the young kids to come up and learn what the nuclear industry’s all about. I still say—and I’ve said for twenty years—that—I don’t know how many years down the road it’s going to be, but I think nuclear power’s going to be a major source of energy. Commercial electrical as well as all the other fields—medical and research. It still has an important place to play in our total nation’s history, I think. And we need to know how it started and what problems it caused. Let’s not generate those again.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What would you—</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: So that’s the story that’s going to be told in the park, and I think a lot of people—that’s some of the emphasis. People come out and see the comments in the paper, all the negative comments. Well, that’s true, but the story’s still there and needs to be told.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in Richland during the Cold War?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I don’t know. It was a challenge, I guess. The success—I’m glad that we developed the bomb rather than Hitler. Like how Fermi said, he said when he was working on fission in Italy in the late ‘30s—the 1930s, yes. He always said he was eternally grateful that he didn’t learn how to control fission then. He said if he had </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">have</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">, Hitler would have started the war with them, rather than us ending the war with them. So I think they need to know what the conditions were at the time that the Manhattan Project was built and what the world was undergoing at the time.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What else should I be asking about? What else is there that we should discuss?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: I don’t know! I think I pretty well spilled everything I know. Unless—I don’t know. I could mention about my—as you know, I was not here during the Manhattan Project. It was over when I came in 1951. My wife and her family was a different story. They came with DuPont in 1944. So her dad was a DuPont employee and he came out here at that time and saw the conditions in employment problems that they had at that time. He was a machinist and had actually directed the tech shops out there for many years. So he probably—that family has more history of the Manhattan Project than I do. Mine is just history. It was—I’ve had an interesting career and I guess I’ve enjoyed it here and it’s been a wonderful place to live. I think it will continue to be if we have people that keep our city from growing into something that it shouldn’t be. [LAUGHTER] But I guess I don’t have any new subjects to talk about unless you have new questions.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: I think—that’s my list for now, but thank you so much for being here.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, it’s been a pleasure.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: All right, great.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Tom Hungate</span>: I had a question.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Please.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Hungate</span>: One of the jobs you had—you had a wide variety of jobs; all of them sound fascinating to me. </span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Oh, they’re interesting, yes.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Hungate</span>: One caught my ear, because I’ve seen these. Tell me what it was like when you said you worked on the K Reactors to lay—you said you were laying up the block. Tell—describe what that process was.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I wasn’t involved in that deeply as a lot of the fellows were. I can’t remember his name right now, but the primary engineer that had the graphite technology. That graphite was machined in the 101 Building. Well, actually the old reactor’s was in the old 101 Building in White Bluffs. They built a </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">new building, the 2101 Building in the 200 East Area which was specifically for the graphite machining and layup—test layups. Those blocks were built to very tight tolerances. The graphite came in in square blocks from the manufacturers and they had to be machined to the final configuration. Those tolerances were very, very tight, like plus or minus two mils or five mils at the most. The blocks were basically four-and-three-quarters inches by four-and-three-quarters inches by 40-some inches long—the main block. After they were machined to very close tolerances, they were test stacked in the 2101 Building, laid up ten tiers to be sure that the tolerances of the assembly were precise. And from there they were packaged on pallets in sequence that they would go in, in reverse sequence, so when they took them off they were ready to be stacked up. And then they were shipped—brought into the reactor vessel, lowered down into the open process area in the center part of the core and pulled off the pallets and just stacked, piece by piece. There’s pictures available that you see of the old reactors. There may be some of K Reactors too, I don’t know, but show inside the reactors when they’re laying up with the blocks. Of course everybody’s in whites. Your cleanliness control’s very important. And of course, obviously, sequence was very, very important, to have all the blocks in there. But from my perspective, I just watched—I wasn’t doing the work, I was just part of the process that was putting them in there. It was very closely controlled and very temperature controlled—well, no, I don’t know about the temperature. The building was under limited temperature control. But the cleanliness was strictly controlled, and the workers of course had been assigned with each pallet that came in, they knew where it went and how it was to be laid. But that was the same process that was used in all the reactors for graphite layup. But that’s amazing, the way they built those things. You have all the penetrations, like—I can’t give you the numbers. K Reactors were bigger than the old original reactor. The o</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">riginal reactor had 2,004 process tubes. You probably all know the story of that, too. [LAUGHTER] But what I started to say was, the alignment of the holes in the blocks, of course, had to line up with the holes of the penetrations of front and rear faces precisely when they put them in. So it was like putting a watch together on a 40-foot-square [LAUGHTER]—40-foot cube. Very precise work.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were there any mistakes?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Pardon?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you ever see any mistakes?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, no, but if there were they were corrected as they went, because they had two or three levels of inspection verified that they were going in properly. There may have been some, I don’t know. I was not in direct control of that job. I was more on the K </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">Reactor,</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> I just was in oversight. I don’t remember what my position was at that time, but—the B Reactor, for example, you know what happened there when they started it up? It died because of the xenon poison. They didn’t have enough neutron flux levels to override that poisoning effect. That’s when they had to add the additional fuel channels outside the original 1,500 that they had that the physicist said was adequate to drive the reactor. So that was an interesting job. They had to—the later reactors, they had more knowledge of </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">what the requirements were. So the design wasn’t—it didn’t create a problem on initial startup like B Reactor did.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: We were trying to outline or highlight—what sort of innovations came out of Hanford, what sort of inventions did you see—what new knowledge or techniques did you see created at Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, there again, you need to talk to the physicists and chemists and people that were in the fuel design areas. There were so many changes made to the fuel designs. They went from—of course these were only appli</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">cable to the graphite reactors the modern fuel originally were eight inches long when the distortion that occurred in the graphite, that was because of the structure change due to the radiation in the graphite. The channels were distorted to the point where some were so crooked that the eight-inch channel—the fuel wouldn’t go through the channel. SO they went to four-inch people—four-inch long fuel assemblies in some of those bad channels. And then of course another knowledge was the design of fuel assembly, you went from strictly external core where they just had an annulus of water around the outside cooling the fuel assembly. It went to a center core; they had internal cooling—a flow channel through the center of the element. But as far as the physics of the elements, they went from totally natural uranium, originally 238, all naturally derived with 0.7% 235. They went to some enrichment in the reactors to increase the power level. But there </span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486">was</span><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"> physics changes all along, as far as being able to control and just knowledge of impurities and what the effects were in the nuclear physical—the physics involved in the reactor. But of course, then the Breeder Program, we didn’t talk about that. There’s a lot of advancements made there. FFTF was a marvelous machine and it produced a lot of new information from greener technology. That FFTF was—I spent ten years on development—seven on development and three on construction, so. But I wasn’t—I’m not a physicist and wasn’t into the technology as much as the people—I was more into construction, design and construction.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: A lot of knowledge there, too, that you—hands-on knowledge.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Well, I always pride myself on being able to fix problems. We had a lot of things on assembly or putting the stuff together that just—problems or interferences or arrangements that weren’t thought of in design that we were able to resolve in the field, and that’s why I got into—I’ve been building houses for Habitat now for the last 15 years. [LAUGHTER] It’s a little different from putting reactors together, but I get a lot of comments from the instruction people in Habitat. This is not a reactor; we don’t need to have those tolerances. [LAUGHTER] But I say if you make it right, it looks a lot nicer and it goes together better.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: All right, I guess that’s the list of questions I’ve got. I guess we’ll end it once again.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX9056486"><span class="TextRun SCX9056486"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ballard</span>: Okay, well, appreciate.</span><span class="EOP SCX9056486"> </span></p>
</div>
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Douglas O' Reagan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Del Ballard
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:52:34
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
249 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 Area
321 Building
400 Area
200 East Area
2101 Building
101 Building
C Reactor
B Reactor
K Reactor
High Temperature Lattice Test Reactor
Engineering Test Reactor
Fast Flux Test Facility
Fuels and Materials Exam Facility
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1951-2016
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1951-1989
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Morris, Sid
Hastings, Doc
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Del Ballard
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Del Ballard conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Richland (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland.
Nuclear instruments & methods
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2/18/2016
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-08-10: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
101 Building
200 East Area
2101 Building
300 Area
321 Building
400 Area
B Reactor
C Reactor
Engineering Test Reactor
Fast Flux Test Facility
Fuels and Materials Exam Facility
General Electric
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
High Temperature Lattice Test Reactor
K Reactor
Richland (Wash.)
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd3a31e8f531859f8cf4173f7e777e4cc.jpg
2a38262e6623571282c597a9daca931b
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7c6061bb308050f0219a8db9b6ffcf03.mp4
98f9b422199605caf34957b60917b70d
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Bauman, Robert
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Petersen, Gary
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Northwest Public Television | Petersen_Gary</p>
<p>Gary Petersen: Sure. This is easy.</p>
<p>Robert Bauman: All right, let’s see.</p>
<p>Petersen: Hair's combed, eyebrows are trimmed.</p>
<p>Man One: Yeah, you sure do look pretty.</p>
<p>Petersen: Actually I'd rather watch her than—</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Petersen: Is that--</p>
<p>Bauman: Unfortunately, you're supposed to look at me, actually.</p>
<p>Petersen: Oh. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah, I’m sure. All right. Does that work there, on the mic?</p>
<p>Woman One: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Bauman: It’s okay?</p>
<p>Man Two: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay.</p>
<p>Man One: We can start whenever you’re ready.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. All set to go?</p>
<p>Woman one: All set.</p>
<p>Bauman: Excellent. All right. Well, Gary, I think we're ready to go.</p>
<p>Petersen: Fire away.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. Well, let's start first by having you say your name and then spell it.</p>
<p>Petersen: Okay. It's Gary Peterson G-A-R-Y P-E-T-E-R-S-E-N. That's important, the E.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yes. You're right. My name's Robert Bauman and today's date is June 5<sup>th</sup> of 2014. And we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So, Gary, let's start with the beginning of your time here. Can you tell us about when you came to Hanford and Tri-Cities, what brought you here?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, that's a good question. [LAUGHTER] Okay. Actually, I came first in 1960, January, 1960, with the Nike Ajax Missile site at the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. And I was temporarily assigned up there--well I was assigned up there, but three times a day we'd get on the back of a two and a half ton truck and go down to the mess hall down below. And I knew I was going to die, so I asked be transferred to any place and I got sent to Korea. I said never come back to the Tri-Cities, but as you can see, I did. The second time, though, is probably the one you're after. I decided after the military that I needed to get an education, so I went to Washington State University and got a Communications degree with a minor in Electrical Engineering. I had a job with Ford Motor Company all lined up, but I wasn't too enthused about going to Detroit. That was January of 1965. And so my college professor, Chuck Cole said, gee, there's a new company opening up in Tri-Cities. Why don't you stop by? So I stopped by on a Friday, went to work on Monday with Battelle, which became Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So there's how I got here.</p>
<p>Bauman: So, that first time, in 1960, why did you want to transfer? Was it the ride down the mountain?</p>
<p>Petersen: Three times a day with an 18-year-old driving, and you drop 2,000 feet, and at the bottom there's a 90 degree corner, 16 degree grade, and it was January. I knew that one of these was going to go off the road. So I said I've got to get out of here. So I put in request for transfer, and I transferred. Just like that. To Korea.</p>
<p>Bauman: Right. During the first time here in 1960, did you spend any time in town?</p>
<p>Petersen: We did, much different than--actually most of the servicemen, and there were quite a few of us at the four batteries, would go to--there was a bowling alley and a dance hall over in Kennewick, just off of Clearwater that was surrounded by fruit trees. Now all of that's gone and it's all businesses and so on. Clearwater's full, but at that time, it was all orchards. It was pretty nice.</p>
<p>Bauman: What were your impressions of the place, other than not liking that ride down the mountain?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, you have to remember it was about like probably what the first military people saw when they came by here in December, January of 1943. I mean it was cold, it was brown. No trees. It was a barren place, even in 1959. So I can imagine what Colonel Mathias thought when first flew over this place. From the top of Rattlesnake, as you can imagine, you saw the entire Hanford site, so it was pretty barren and bleak.</p>
<p>Bauman: Going back a little farther, where had you lived before this? Where did you grow up?</p>
<p>Petersen: I graduated from Womack High School, which is up the Okanagan. I lived on an apple orchard. Again I was used to being around trees, and you come to the desert--I can imagine, any time between 1943 and 1959, ‘60, ‘61, ‘62, this was a pretty barren place.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so in 1965, you took the job up at Battelle.</p>
<p>Petersen: Yep.</p>
<p>Bauman: What was the job?</p>
<p>Petersen: The job to start with was a communications person. I became the manager of the news of service. The advantage I had was I got everywhere on the Hanford site, except the tank farms. I've stayed away from the tank farms successfully for a lot of years. But I spent a lot of time out on the hundred F reactor, which was the biology and aquatic biology site at the time. I got all over the site, including back up to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain a couple of times. So it was really pretty nice.</p>
<p>Bauman: When you came back then, in '65, where did you live?</p>
<p>Petersen: Lived originally in what were called the stilt apartments. They're on Jadwin. They've been fixed up since, so you would never know that they were stilt. Stilt, meaning that they actually had posts that held up the second floor. The posts were the garage for the people who lived there. But they're not far from the Chevron station, kind of in North Richland. Lived there for quite a while. And then the last of the homes that were built prior to 1958 went for sale. Those were called the Richland Village Homes. And there were two-bedroom and three-bedroom, either one-car garage attached or unattached. And they went up for sale for—I bought one—three-bedroom with a single car garage attached—for $6,200. Pretty good buy at the time, and I ended up paying less than I was for rent in the stilt apartments. I thought was pretty good deal.</p>
<p>Bauman: What was the community of Richland like at the time in the mid-1960s?</p>
<p>Petersen: The community was still just finding its way out of what I call the federal government ownership. In 1958, the city became an incorporated city again. And it was 1958 that the federal government to city back over to itself. And so between '58 and '65, it was a city that was still trying to find its way as a city, other than as a federal funded city. It was unique in that aspect. Battelle was well the first companies, too, to come in here—although it had a government contract, it was one of the few to come in here and be from the outside. Man, up until that point it was DuPont and then General Electric and then in 1965 is when the AEC decided to diversify the Hanford contract. They split it up into eight pieces, and so Battelle was one of those pieces. The others were HEHF and the operations and so on. There's been 35 contractors in here since 1965, and Battelle was one of the early ones.</p>
<p>Bauman: Now, before your first arrival here in the 1960, the Ajax site, were you familiar with Hanford? Did you know what sort of work that was going on in Hanford?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, I did only because I spent some time up at Fairchild Air Force Base. They also had a Nike Ajax missile site. They were trying to transfer some people from Fairchild to Hanford. And so I learned a little bit about what Hanford was. The nice thing at the time is everybody--all the military guys said, oh, you're going to love the Tri-Cities because it's way warmer than Spokane. So I thought, sure, and then you come down in January and it was cold, at the top Rattlesnake you get winds up to a hundred miles an hour. It was not one of your pleasure spots at the time, but the view was great. View was great.</p>
<p>Bauman: So, you knew something about Hanford at that point.</p>
<p>Petersen: Knew that it was a military installation, federal installation. Knew that they made the material for the atomic bomb. Knew that there was a reason for the Nike Ajax missile site to be there, to protect the site. So, yes, that much we were pretty clear on, and the military took their job very seriously. There was a no fly zone over Hanford. No commercial flights, no flights of any kind other than military itself. It was pretty well protected. And on top of Rattlesnake, I might just add, that was the radar installation. It was at the highest point, so the radar reached a long way. You could see planes coming well, well in advance of them ever getting through to Hanford. What was interesting is sometimes we would notify Fairchild or McChord, and you'd actually have fighter jets intercept planes that wouldn't veer off. That was a unique feature of what you did on top of the mountain. The other sites, they had radar installations, but that one was pretty unique. That was pretty good.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. So in 1965 when you came and were working in communications, what sort of responsibilities did you have there?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, one of the assignments that was unique was to take tours to indoctrinate all new staff members, and that was for everywhere on the site. Over the years, I've taken literally thousands of people on tours over the site. At the time, it didn't seem like it was that great of a job to be able to take people around the site, explain what the reactors were, what the 100 Area, 200 Area, 300 Area, those kind of things. But as it turned out, the longer I did it the more I realized that the work that was going on here was critical. The Cold War, was still fairly active, so it became important to me to make sure that people understood what kinds of things went on here. It wasn't until later that I became interested in what happened pre-1943. As you keep tromping across the land, you start saying, oh, there were other things here too. But it was pretty good.</p>
<p>Bauman: Those site tours for new employees, were they able to go pretty much everywhere on site?</p>
<p>Petersen: We could go everywhere except into the area that had the plutonium, which is now known as the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Where there was restricted classified, the real concern was both tritium and plutonium. You couldn’t say the word tritium back in those days. You could plutonium, because they knew it was the material for the plutonium bomb, Fat Man, came from here. But tritium was something nobody talked about. And so those areas were restricted and that was mostly in the tank farm area. That was were chemical separations took place, so we stay away from those. It was okay by me.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, that does raise—obviously, security, safety were very important at Hanford. In what ways did security at Hanford impact your job? That's obviously one way. There's certain areas you couldn't go, right?</p>
<p>Petersen: There were replaces you couldn't go. The badges--all of the badges at that time were designated to which areas you could or couldn't go. It was readily identifiable on your badge whether you were allowed into say, the 300 Area or the 100 Areas with reactors, or the 200 Area. And within them there were other exclusion zones, too. There were restrictions placed in each of those locations. Typically somebody that worked in 100 Area wouldn't ever be allowed into the 300 Area, or into the 200 Areas. The reactor areas were the 100 Area, the 300 Area was the research area, and the 200 Area was chemical separation. They were pretty segregated as to where you could go.</p>
<p>Bauman: In communications you mentioned that you couldn't say the word tritium. Were there other things you couldn't talk about or write about?</p>
<p>Petersen: You couldn't talk about quantities. As a matter of fact, there was a real restriction early on. One of the things that I found in the process of working in communication, there were nine production reactors around the Columbia River on the horn. In the summertime in particular there were periods where all nine reactors would be working. Sounds unique when you think about it today, but in the summertime June, July, August they actually measured the temperature of the Columbia River before the first reactor and after the last reactor. As I recall, if the Columbia River temperature was raised by close to ten degrees, then they would have to start shutting down the reactors, because the flow back into the Columbia River was that warm coming from reactor. In order to protect the fish and things in the river, then they really monitored the river very carefully. The reason I point that out is you also never talked about how much water went through those reactors because there was a fear that the Soviet Union could figure out the quantities of production simply by measuring the amount of water that went through those reactors, or the temperature increase from one point to another. It sounds odd today, but that was one of the strictures of what you could and couldn't talk about. It was a pretty quick--they were very careful about quantities.</p>
<p>Bauman: And I assume that you had to, when you were hired, had to go through security clearance process--?</p>
<p>Petersen: Q clearances were standard. There was one level above that that was called CRYPTO for a while. I don't know what happened on those, but that was for individuals who got around most of the site. They were a unique feature at that time.</p>
<p>Bauman: Where was your office located? Where did you work out of?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well my office moved all over. Originally it was in the old army headquarters—and this is in 1965. Battelle, when they first came in here, moved into a building that was called 3201. Later they changed it to the old office building—OSB was what it was called, old office building. But that was before the Battelle buildings were built, which became known as the Sand Castle. We lived and worked from January of 1965 until probably the spring of '66 before we moved into the new Battelle-owned buildings, the Sand Castle, which are on Battelle Boulevard now. And then later I moved out into the 300 area. I was in and out of 100F area. Those kind of places. So, yeah. How we doing?</p>
<p>Bauman: You knew the site well.</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, except for the 200 Area. That was a real restricted area, and maintained that for quite a number of years.</p>
<p>Bauman: You talked about giving tours to new employees, sort of the indoctrination to the site. How about for dignitaries, government officials, did you do that? How about the general public?</p>
<p>Petersen: The general public rarely, if never, I don't think we ever did that, but government official Catherine May was the first congresswoman I took through. She was a congresswoman from 8th District. I took Senator Magnuson through. Later Tom Foley, so quite a number of those over the years. In later years we started getting some foreign visitors, as well. But early years congressional officers, congressional staff, the governor. Dan—Governor—the name just few out of my head. The governor of the State of Washington, Dan--?</p>
<p>Bauman: Evans.</p>
<p>Petersen: Evans. Thank you. He later became also a senator from the state. He was a first governor that I helped escort across the site. Most of those, it was unique to be able to take visitors like that around the area.</p>
<p>Bauman: Do any of those tours especially stand out? Were any officials particularly interested or excited about it? Are there any sort of strange stories from that?</p>
<p>Petersen: [LAUGHTER] Well, Senator Magnuson was a unique individual. He actually came out quite a number of times. And one of those times we were in the 300 Area, and I was working at the time for Westinghouse, Westinghouse Hanford Company. He came out to actually, quote, break the ground on FFTF. We were in a building at the time, a four story office building in the 300 Area, and I'll never forget, I was assigned to make sure he got up to the podium. His vehicle came in front the building, and then drove around to the back of the building, so I ran back and met Magnuson back there. I'd known him before. Frankly, honestly, he was drunk as a skunk. I didn't think he was going to be able to make it. He says, just get me to the podium and I'll be fine. I didn't think it was possible. But he got up, he gave an excellent speech. A little wobbly, but I don't think most people knew that he had been drinking. This was 4:00 in the afternoon or so, and then he left. I might point out, it was about a year later, 1971, that President Nixon came out. There was quite a scramble, because at that time there were no buildings for Westinghouse. Westinghouse was kind of spread all over, so when the advance team for Nixon came out, they decided that the proper place would be the Battelle buildings. This sounds odd, but there was a real infighting between, at that time, Atomic Energy Commission, Westinghouse Hanford Company, and Battelle over what signs would be displayed where. Because Westinghouse was interested in making sure—this was for FFTF, and that was a Westinghouse project. On the front of the podium, of course, was the President's seal. He spoke out in front of the buildings, but behind that—or around that, Westinghouse came in the night before and put up Westinghouse circle W signs around the site. Just an example of my boss at the time, who was one of the vice presidents, said I don't care how you do it, but I want to sign that says Battelle that they can't take down and will be located visibly for all the cameras. So we stole a door off of one of the rooms in the Battelle building. I don't know if you've been the buildings or not, but they're very tall doors. They're nine-foot-tall doors. So we actually, that night, took one of the doors off, put Battelle on it, and put it up on the front of the building up high so it was right behind the podium. Westinghouse--we had to do that after midnight. That door actually was at the entrance to Battelle for—I don’t know—the next 20 years. They finally took it down not long ago. But that was relative to President Nixon showing up. That was pretty good.</p>
<p>Bauman: Stealing and moving doors.</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, everybody wanted their name and with the President of the United States, and so that's what we did.</p>
<p>Bauman: Did you get the chance to meet him when he came?</p>
<p>Petersen: I did. One of the things I still—my family still values—is Pat Nixon was along with him. My oldest daughter was one year old, and because of what I was doing, we managed to get my wife and daughter into what was called the VIP area of the presentation and so on. She didn't get to shake hands with President Nixon, but Pat Nixon came by and actually held my daughter for a brief minute. We got a picture of it and it is still on the family someplace.</p>
<p>Bauman: How about foreign dignitaries were there any--</p>
<p>Petersen: Foreign dignitaries, those came later, too, after the SALT agreements. On the signing of the SALT agreements, there was real concern both on the part of Russia, Soviet Union, and the United States for how much materials were still being made or not made. There were a number of Russian visitors who came over to verify which reactors were still operating, which ones weren't, how much material was still going through the canyon facilities, those kind of things. We started for the first time, seeing some of the senior Russian officials come through. The one that still strikes me and my memory is Admiral Sarkisov. He was head of the Russian Navy, and he came out both to see at that point the start of the reactor vessels from the submarines. Today, we have about 124 submarine and cruiser missile reactor cores out on site, but at that point I want to say we probably only had eight or ten, maybe 11, 12, something like that. But he also wanted to see those and verify that the submarines had actually been decommissioned, cut up, and so on. We toured both the reactor areas and the submarine vessel area. Of course, that's where my story about FMEF comes from, too. There was a building out there that was built for FFTF called FMEF, Fuel Material Examination Facility. On the way out to the site, Admiral Sarkisov asked, what is in that building. I told him it was a shut down building. We went out and toured the site. We toured the top of Rattlesnake Mountain with him, too, which was pretty unique. But we toured the site and coming back in, he asked if he could see that building, inside the building. So I called security. It was a closed building—it was locked up. And so they met in they let us in. As we came out, Admiral Sarkisov says, well now I can move the satellite. I asked what he was talking about. And he said, well, we've been watching that building since it was completed, and we couldn't believe the United States would build a building of that size, that massive size, and then not use it. So we knew that was connected underground some other place, because we never saw any cars come. So the Russians actually thought that that building was so secret that they had an underground entrance that came from someplace else. But he saw it was simply not used. And it is unique building. It's a billion dollar building.</p>
<p>Bauman: That's a great story. When you were giving the tour with him, was there an interpreter present when he was--</p>
<p>Petersen: There was always an interpreter. As a matter of fact, one from both State Department for us, for the people who were the escorts, and then he had his interpreters, too, so there was both. The group was probably ten people or so: site manager, and then others of that--there was people from state--you didn't let them wander around by themselves. Pretty unique.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, you said you've been connected to Hanford since 1965--</p>
<p>Petersen: Mm-hm.</p>
<p>Bauman: I'm sure you’ve--</p>
<p>Petersen: Almost 50 years.</p>
<p>Bauman: --been privy to a lot of interesting events and stories. So I’m going to ask you to tell me some of those, but there's one in particular I know, and that's the alligator story.</p>
<p>Petersen: Yeah, the alligator story is good.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right, you can talk about that.</p>
<p>Petersen: The alligator’s pretty unique. The aquatic biology was located in 100-F Area. That's the last reactor in the downstream flow of the Columbia. So they studied the impacts of the reactors on fish, miniature swine, beagle dogs, they had African pygmy goats, but one of them—Merc Gillis was a doctor of veterinary medicine—graduate of WSU, I might add. He said that he wanted to study the uptake of strontium-90 in a thick skinned animal, because strontium is bone seeker or thick skin. So he convinced the manager of the site, of biology site, that we ought to buy some alligators. The story varies depending on who you're talking to. Bill Bair will give you one side of the story, because he was one of the managers out there. I'll give you another one. But I know for a fact at least six alligators were purchased for the studio strontium-90 uptake. Bill Bair says there were more, but I still wonder about that because I was in and out of there a lot. But these alligators were about two and a half feet long and they put them in a retention pen in the Columbia River, but it was also where the effluent from the F Reactor came back. The water would pass through the reactor, put into retention basin for a short period, and then put back in the river, so it was warmer than the river. That's part of the point. It also was the first place where the water returned to the river, so that was where the strontium would be taken up by the alligators. That's the theory. Well, two months, three months after they put the alligators into this retention pond, there was a big storm. The pen came down and all six alligators got out. This was under the AEC at the time, too—they managed to catch five, but they missed one. It was months later that a fisherman over in Ringgold, downstream, fishing caught this last alligator. Of course, he was trying to tell friends about it, and on and on. But, he had to protect the proof, so he took to a taxidermist office in Pasco and had the thing stuffed. Well, one of the technicians from aquatic biology was walking by the taxidermist shop, saw this stuffed alligator. So he ran in, grabbed the alligator, and ran out, which now makes it more or less of a public story. This was in 1963, before I got here. But the story comes around. Anyway, AEC tried to bury that story. No, we've never had an alligator out there. We don't know anything about alligators. They actually, I think, had it classified for quite some time. But when I got here in '65, my boss was a guy named George Dalen and I had been here for about a year. He says, it's time to give the alligator back. I had no idea what he was talking about, but this is where I entered the story. So he pulls out this stuffed alligator about like this, and he said it was, I think the guy's name was Aaron, he said track him down, because he was the fisherman. He paid to have it stuffed, and we're going to give the alligator back. We'll just let the story go away. So I did. I found the man. Unfortunately, the <em>Tri-City Herald</em> ran a story about this big about the alligator, and once every eight or ten years, they use one of these clips when they do the previous in history. DOE came in and they claimed to know nothing about any alligators, ever, ever, ever. It was in the technical library that they finally found the documents that showed not only did they have alligators, but the other five, they moved from 100-F when they had a fire out there, down to the 300 Area where life sciences built a new building. So I know that there were six alligators, five, one stuffed, and Bill Bair says that there were a few more than that, but I don't know that. That's the alligator story. Better told over beer, I might add, but not bad.</p>
<p>Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Are there any other stories during your time at Hanford--incidents, events, things that you were involved in in your job [INAUDIBLE]?</p>
<p>Petersen: The biggest one is one that I think this community has forgotten completely, and that's Apollo 11. Apollo 11 was the first lunar landing. When Apollo 11 came back to the moon and splashed down in the Pacific, it turned out that in 329 Building, there was a room that was used for very low level radiation detection. It was a room made of pre-World War II battleship steel. It was used for a lot of reasons for measuring very small quantities of radiation. Battelle actually put in a bid with NASA to study some of the first lunar materials that came back. So they had splash down in the Pacific, and we had a man named Dr. Lou Rancitelli, who actually waited in Houston for those materials to be flown from the Pacific, off of the aircraft carrier, back to Houston. He had a briefcase—big briefcase—chained to his wrist, where he brought those back through Seattle and then to the Hanford site. He arrived here about one in the morning, I might add. There were only a few people--Doctor Perkins, myself, a couple of others, who were waiting. We kept this all secret, because we weren't supposed to tell news media or anybody else that this was going on. But Lou got the materials back, and the next day we started petitioning NASA to allow us to display those moon rocks here in this community. The second place in the whole world that moon rocks were displayed was the Federal Building here in Richland. We managed to display them for three days, and there were lines four abreast around the federal building to look at those rocks. They'd go by and ooh and aah because it came from the moon. But almost to a person, everybody says, looks just about exactly like what we see out here in the desert. You couldn't tell them apart. But the fact that we had those lunar materials, I mean that was--wherever you were, you watched TV of the landing on the moon in 1969. That was a huge event. It was after that that Nixon came to town, but hardly anybody recalls that at all. It's just a forgotten piece of history, but at the time, it was pretty big. It was almost--and I missed it—it was almost like when President Kennedy came out to dedicate the Hanford Generating Project attached to N reactor, and that happened in 1963, just before I got here. Big events.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. Yeah. Any other happenings or stories that stand out in your mind?</p>
<p>Petersen: I wasn't a part of what was called the Green Run. Others will have to tell you about the Green Run. But one of the stories I covered, and that's one of the only ones that I was out near the tank farms. Atmospheric sciences is out between the 200 East and 200 West. It has a 300-foot-tall atmospheric tower at that site. They've all been removed today, but going downwind from that 300-foot-tall tower were, number one, four or five 200-foot-tall towers and then five or six or seven 100-foot-tall towers. They would regularly release very small quantities of radioactive iodine, most usually put into colored smoke so they could track both the visual as well as radiation and see how long it took to go downwind and disperse. Just to show you how we were at the time, the photographer and I who were covering that piece as a story thought, well not only did we want to shoot it so you can see it go, but get underneath it so you could watch it as it--It's not a very smart thing to do today, but at the time it seemed like a pretty good idea to be able to watch that stuff as it drifted and deposited. So, we did the story. AEC never let us release it, but we kept the story internally for quite a number of years. I don't know what happened to it now, but those kind of things went on fairly often. You need to know where radiation goes, and that was a piece of it.</p>
<p>Bauman: Do you know roughly the time period that would have been?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well, it would have been probably '68 or '69, someplace in there. There has been more study on the Hanford site--atmospheric studies, geologic studies, temperature swings, those kind of things, than almost anywhere in the United States. They really tracked how the weather changed, how the wind moved, what the ground flow is from rain, those kind of things. It was--going to atmospheric physics lab in the 200 Area was an experience. At one point I managed to take a TV crew up, because if you climb a 300-foot-tall tower in the middle of Hanford, you could see just about everything. It turned out that we got the film crew up, they took the pictures, and then security looked at the pictures and said you have pictures of classified areas within those pictures, so they took a whole video. All of the climbing up and down was for naught. So, a pretty good place.</p>
<p>Bauman: You mentioned earlier that when you first came and started giving tours, you really didn't know much about pre-'43 events.</p>
<p>Petersen: True.</p>
<p>Bauman: When did you become more aware the communities that were out there and start learning more about that?</p>
<p>Petersen: I had the real fortunate opportunity to meet Bill Rickard, and I hope you've interviewed him. Bill is a gentleman of the first order, but Bill has probably walked that site more than any single person. One of the early things—I got acquainted with Bill. Bill ended up taking me on walks across parts of Hanford. The first time that he took me out was to Rattlesnake Springs, which is up a gully on the face of Rattlesnake Mountain. It's just an experience to go with Bill, and that was mostly on—we call a bugs and bunnies--but it was mostly what was all of nature that's out there: deer, elk, coyotes, even fish and so on. But Bill knows that site probably better than any other single person. So every chance I ever got to go out with Bill, anywhere, that's where you first got the sense that there was something here pre-1943. That's when I first saw the irrigation piping. That's where you first saw the home site--we've had two major fires across that site, and both of them ended up and taking out things and were still left. There was a home up by a Rattlesnake Springs that actually still had furniture in it. It was burned down in the first fire. So Bill knew all that stuff, and so the experience of going out with Bill was really unique. I wouldn't trade it for anything. That's where I started thinking, well—actually, Bill led me to a person named Annette--I can't think of it.</p>
<p>Bauman: Heriford?</p>
<p>Petersen: Heriford. Annette is the one who—she was in the class that would have graduated from Hanford High School out there on site. She worked for Battelle, PNL at the time. I got real acquainted with Annette, and then I helped Annette have the first reunion of her class out at that old Hanford School and that would have been, my gosh, maybe '78 or so. 1977, '78. And Annette could tell stories about what the old Hanford town was like and White Bluffs, and how rich and agricultural area it was. She was an amazing lady. It's too bad that she passed away quite some time ago. She was a real historian. You talk to those, and all of a sudden it becomes real. She's the first one that I talked to, not Bill Rickard, but Annette Heriford that that explained that some of the people had less than two weeks' notice to move off that site. You think about it and you say, that's just not possible. But it happened. Then you start feeling for the people who—there were roughly 2,000—the numbers change, depending again on who you talk to. The one on one side, the federal side, says there's only 1,500 people out there. But if you look at the historical records, you know that there were probably about 2,100—kids and the whole works. Some of the early census didn't include some of the children, or the sheep herders that moved back and forth across the site. In talking with Annette, you finally got the feeling that was something else here that happened before 1943. That's what got my attention. Good that you know her name, too.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. Why did you think that was important, then, for people to know about?</p>
<p>Petersen: It was probably a little later than that that I also became acquainted with some of the Native Americans. I've got to know some of those over time, too. The relationship of the people who lived out there, both with Native Americans and the site—I’ll change directions for a minute, too. My family at that point lived in Wenatchee, so when I first came in 1965, in order to get to Wenatchee from here, you had two choices. You'd either go around through Pasco and up through Moses Lake and back, or you could go out to Vernita where there was a ferry, part time, and it didn't work at night. You'd ride the ferry and go across. That was prior to the bridge being built and so on. As you go out there, and see the ferry, you'd also see the structure that now I know is Bruggemann Warehouse, and you'd meet some of the people who were either former residents or Native Americans. Then you stopped and you waited for the ferry. You got a chance to talk to some of the people as you went back and forth. There was a lot of discussion about what was this site prior to. But growing from Vernita to Vantage that was pre-Mattawa days. Now I can visualize what Hanford must have been, because Hanford was an agricultural area, prior to—it looked like Mattawa today does. When I first started driving up there, there were no orchards between Vernita and Vantage. Now you look, there's orchards and vineyards and all kinds of stuff at Mattawa. Hanford was that, but it was that before 1943. You have to visualize what it was like, and it was amazing. Hanford really has a perfect weather pattern for early produce, and it was one of the first in the state to produce and all kinds of things--peaches and pears and cherries and walnuts, all kinds of stuff. How we doing? These guys need a break. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: You started in '65. You're now at TRIDEC. At what point did you move to TRIDEC? I know you worked also at Westinghouse and [INAUDIBLE].</p>
<p>Petersen: My wife kids around and says I can't hold a job. That's the point. I typically work for a company for about seven years and then move companies. So I worked for Battelle for a while, then Westinghouse for a while, then what was called WPPSS, Washington Public Power Supply System for a while. But I retired from Battelle in 2002, and the Hanford manager for the site was Sam Volpentest. Sam was 99 years old at the time, and his doctor, who's also my doctor ended up saying, Sam you can't fly to Washington, DC anymore and go after money. I'd known Sam since '65, I met him in '65, and Sam called and said, Gary, I know you retired, but would you come back to work part time, ten hours a week, easy job go to Washington, DC for me and that's it. He had the nerve to die at 101. He lived for about a year after he hired me to do those trips. And when he passed on, as a result TRIDEC at the time said, well, we need somebody full time to do this. I wasn't real interested, so they said we'll make it part time job. You only have to work 25, 30 hours a week. It hasn't been that since. Away we go. It's nice because if they want to fire me, I'd love it. I'll go and play golf. It's a good deal.</p>
<p>Bauman: Can you talk about Sam Volpentest a little bit? Obviously, a very important figure through most of the Tri-Cities. Can you talk about his significance a little bit?</p>
<p>Petersen: Would be happy to. Sam was an incredible politician. He never ran for office that I know of, but he knew politics from the top to the bottom. He was friends with everybody from Governor Rosellini to Senator Magnuson, Senator Jackson, Speaker of the House, Tom Foley. He knew politics. If you read the book so that was just written about Sam, it has a lot of facts, but until you knew Sam--and I was fortunate. Another part of my assignment, when I first got here in '65, TRIDEC was called TRICNIC. So it had a different name. It was Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council. And Sam was not a writer. As a matter of fact, everything he did was longhand, very pretty penmanship, but he couldn't put things down on a typewriter for taking to Washington, DC and so on. Battelle, one of their offers to the community was to provide somebody who could write to Sam to write their newsletters, to write their congressional letters, to write things. I got to know Sam when he was in a little office on the Parkway. Later he moved into the Hanford house. Sam was a mover. Most of the ideas that Sam accomplished didn't start with Sam, but he would hear an idea and he'd say, that sounds good. We're going to do that. For example, he started TRICNIC/TRIDEC in 1963. In 1963—you've got to go back in time—every road in and out of the community was two lanes. There was one airline only at the time, and Sam knew that in 1963 the government, AEC, was starting to shut down the reactors. Sam and Glen Lee and Bob Philip formed TRICNIC and they did that to try and offset, with federal dollars, the coming shut down of the production mission at Hanford. In the process, they also determined that in order to develop a community long range, you had to have transportation. Even though most people think that Sam concentrated on Hanford, he actually--and Glen Lee and Bob Philip—all really focused on how do we make the Tri-Cities bigger and better than it is? Four-lane highway was first, but airlines were second, and the third one that really was not well-known at all was education. And they went after a Center for Graduate Study for this community, which became WSU Tri-Cities. They decided that you had all of this intellectual property at the laboratory at Hanford, but you needed something for their families. I don't think it was a sit down and let's do a vision and do all these things. I think it came in pieces, where they actually decided they wanted certain things. Sometimes the fallout was better than what they expected. As an example, the breeder reactor program, which started in 1968, '69, was going to be a major, major new AEC mission. Sam went after the breeder reactor program, and he didn't get it. Savannah River did, what was called Clinch River Breeder Reactor. But he got the secondary issue, which was FFTF, which is a small test reactor that led to. As it turns out, over time the administration killed the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, but they kept FFTF going. Or, another example is we lost out on a mission that Sam really wanted that I think was called SMEVs—and maybe I'll explain it, but maybe not. And we lost that one, too, and so Sam went to Magnuson and said, we need something. Give us something. A couple days later, the story goes, Magnuson called up and said well we had a federal building planned for Montana or Wyoming or something, but they really don't want it. How about we put a federal building in the Tri-Cities. That's how this Federal Building came about. That was Sam. Sam was tenacious. He either liked you, or he didn't like you. There were people he wouldn't let in his office, period, but others-- Phenomenal memory. He could pick up a phone and call congressmen or senators from other states without ever looking the number up. He would pick up the phone--he never believed in talking to staff. He would talk to Senator Magnuson. He would talk to Chet Holifield. He would call them up personally and say I need this or I need that. He was incredible.</p>
<p>Bauman: That's a great story. How was he able to have such persuasive powers with Magnuson, Scoop Jackson, a senator also, Tom Foley, right, these US Senators? Tri-Cities is still fairly small, population-wise. Was it his tenacity?</p>
<p>Petersen: Well. It was his tenacity, but it all started with Governor Rosellini. And the fact that Sam, for a period before he came here, was in the Italian something club in Seattle, which was Rosellini, Magnuson was an honorary member. He, Sam, belonged to the Seattle club, which is still there, downtown Seattle. He made politically--he recognized that you needed political connections no matter what. When he came here and then he had the backing of Glen Lee<em>, Tri-City Herald</em>, the combination of those two—Sam took every advantage he could find. His advantage with the <em>Tri-City Herald</em> was, if he thought we needed something, then Glen Lee would support it editorially, and they would go after the politicians collectively and get it. Sam liked to take credit and he did many, many things, but it was really the combination that he put together that was pretty unique—partnerships. It took him a long time to play what I call both sides of the aisle. Typically he was a Democrat. He was a solid, solid Democrat. But he started realizing that there were Republicans that you had to deal with as well, and he needed to work with them over time, and he did. He built friendships across the whole gamut. And active, I mean, he was amazing. If you ever got a chance to go—Sam was small, but if you ever got a chance to go to Washington, DC with Sam, it was an experience. It was unbelievable. He knew where he was going. He didn't have to look at a map. He walked everywhere. I'll say he was a cheapskate, but he was a penny pincher. If a hotel cost $110 a night, he'd find one where you’d get it for $109. Sam was that kind of an individual. But he knew The Hill like nobody else I've ever seen. He knew the underground parts of The Hill, too. He didn't like to get out in the weather, so there's a whole both subway system and hallways between the House side the Capitol and the Senate side. Sam knew all of those underground links, and he'd just take off through those tunnels and go from one side of The Hill to the other side of The Hill. Amazing.</p>
<p>Bauman: And he lived a long life, so he had--</p>
<p>Petersen: 101.</p>
<p>Bauman: --connections with those politicians--</p>
<p>Petersen: Long period of time. He recognized, too, that he was outliving his supporters. He outlived Magnuson, he outlived Jackson. The one that was constant was Rosellini and Rosellini and he were the same age. And so Rosellini lived to 100, as well. Pretty good.</p>
<p>Bauman: What about Glen Lee? What sort of role--what was he like?</p>
<p>Petersen: Glen Lee was a bulldog. He's a big, imposing man. The thing that I think the <em>Tri-City Herald</em> should have done was kept his office as a mausoleum. His office was a piece of history by itself. He had pictures with Presidents, he had pictures with governors, he had memorabilia from all over the place. If you asked Sam and Glen the same question, you'd get two similar, but different answers. Who caused something to happen? I'll give you one story that is really unique. How did Battelle get here? Sam had a vision of how Battelle came; Glen Lee had a vision of how Battelle came. Fred Albaugh, one of the lab directors had a story about how Battelle came to be here. And Sherwood Fawcett, who became the first director of the lab, had a different story. I believe they're all correct, but they're different. Each one takes credit in a different way, and so Sam claims full credit for bringing Battelle here. He was at a meeting in New York and he knew that the lab was going to be bid out. He ran into Burke Thomas, who was the president of Battelle, and Sherwood Fawcett, and sold them on the idea coming. That's Sam's story. If you listened to Sherwood Fawcett, Sherwood Fawcett said that the president of the company actually was a graduate of the University of Washington. He wanted to open the lab somewhere in the state of Washington. Burke Thomas found out that this lab was going to be bids, so Burke told Sherwood go and bid on that and win it. Two different sides of the same story. I don't know which one is right.</p>
<p>Bauman: You've been connected in Hanford for quite a few years now, and seen a lot changes take place. Obviously, one of the key changes was the mission of the place itself, from production to clean up. I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit in terms of how you saw that and the impact that had on the area of Hanford itself?</p>
<p>Petersen: I'm happy to. I'm going to connect it back to Sam a little bit. One of the changes that was major was going from AEC, Atomic Energy Commission, to an organization for a short period called ERDA, which I forget now what that stands for. They were only and operation for a year and a half or so, and now to DOE. Most of the new missions for the Hanford site didn't come from within the federal government, they came from the community. As the production reactors were being shut down, Sam and Glen in particular saw that we needed to find new missions for Hanford. One of the first ones was a Hanford Generating Plant, which was operated by Washington Public Power Supply System, but attached to N Reactor. N Reactor was the first dual purpose reactor in the United States, and the vision was it was going to last a long time because it was the newest one and it produced 800 megawatts of power. Sam and Glen said, let's get the HGP here, because the United States wouldn't dare shut down a reactor that's producing 800 megawatts of power, so that was one the early ones. But as you started to see the reactors come down, they looked for other missions. One of the first ones was a thing called BWIP, which is--everything has an acronym, but a Basalt Waste Isolation Project, which was actually in competition with both Nevada and Texas to become the nation's repository. BWIP, that's a misnomer, what I just said. BWIP was actually the study of the geology of basalt for a repository, but it wasn't going to be the repository. It was a study site. If it worked, if it showed that it could work, then there would have been some other place on the Hanford site they would have dug deep down into the basalt and made a repository. Deaf Smith, Nevada, Yucca Mountain, and here were one of the visions of Sam and Glen and wanted to become the repository for the nation. All of a sudden there was a move in Congress that said we're going to select one and it's going to be Yucca Mountain. And so shut the other two down. And actually BWIP, the Basalt Waste Isolation Project, was shut down within a period of two to four weeks. There were hundreds of people who worked out there. When that shut down, Sam then went after that Clinch River Breeder Reactor program. The breeder reactor program ended up getting FFTF so there was certain things that happened in a sequence that he was always looking for that new mission, whatever it was. One example, the one that Sam loved to do, and I stumble on every time, is Sam also heard that MIT and some others were going after this deep space exploration project. There were two sides to that, at the time. One was SNAP, which is the Space Nuclear Application Program and the second side was what became LIGO, the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory. I can only do that once. But Sam loved that one because he could spit it out. He had that one memorized and he loved to go into a congressional office and say—rather than LIGO. So Sam is the one that really pushed for that project as well. Always, they had a vision of trying to capture new missions for Hanford, and it was never really—the push never came from DOE or ERDA or AEC after the original mission. They all came from the community. And we’re in competition with Oak Ridge, Idaho Falls, Savannah River, for those kind of things.</p>
<p>Bauman: Another one of the changes that's taken place at Hanford since I've been here is there are a lot fewer buildings on site now than there were. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, and what that means, you think, in terms of the history.</p>
<p>Petersen: I'll start lightly and say it's a conspiracy. The conspiracy is every building that I've ever worked in out there, with the exception of FFTF, has been torn down. [LAUGHTER] So I think they're out to get me. At the top of Rattlesnake Mountain were the Nike Ajax building, they've been torn down, and buildings and then the 300 Areas that I had offices in. What we're seeing today, though, is the success of cleanup, particularly along the river corridor. I will say that the Department of Energy and the contractors have done an amazing job of cleaning up this site. When you look at the changes, particularly in the 300 Area or the reactors themselves, the change is phenomenal. I forget, I think there's something like 280 buildings have been taken off the site, and the landscape has changed. The big, tall smokestacks are gone. The water tanks that were out there are gone. The skyline has changed drastically. And they've done it, too, with an intent to try and return it to original habitat. Most of it is what's called brownfields, but they have done a tremendous job of actually recovering a lot of the vegetation the original look of the land, with the exception that this was agricultural area, so it's different. But that's a huge, huge change. And most of that's been in the last five years. It's a different thing today than it was, 1965. You just see it all over the place.</p>
<p>Bauman: You've been giving tours for years. I can't imagine how many tours you've led.</p>
<p>Petersen: I don't know. A lot.</p>
<p>Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Do you have a favorite place on the site of the different places you stopped for tours or maybe when you went out with Bill Rickard? Is there a place that you really--?</p>
<p>Petersen: The B Reactor is unique, unique, unique. There is no place like B Reactor. When you go in to B Reactor and you realize that 50,000 people were brought from all over the United States, and some foreign countries, they didn't know what they were building. They didn't have computers. They didn't have portable radios. They didn't have portable phones. And they, start to finish, built B Reactor in 11 months. That's just plain incredible. When you look at the craftsmanship of doing that, the best analogy is still from Jim Albaugh, who was the head of the Boeing program for 787s. We took him on a tour of B Reactor and he came out and he said, this would be like trying to bring in 50,000 people, have them build their own community first, because they had to have a place to live and eat and so on, and then tell them build a 787, but you've got no computers to do it with. And you've got to buy all the materials and manufacture them. So B Reactor is unique, unique. I can't say enough about B Reactor. But there's a flip side, too, and that is I've also become enamored with pre-1943. When what I think about that, it's really the city of White Bluffs, and the fact that there's still a ferry landing out there, there's a bank building out there, there's sidewalks out there. You go out and when you're alone, you go out by yourself, you can just visualize this community that used to exist. Then all of a sudden, they're moved away and 50,000 people come in in a period of weeks, just a very short period of time. They have to build a town, and then they start building things like B Reactor. And to know is all done, really, under the direction of a 36-year-old individual and a Corps of Engineers, it's unbelievable. I know a lot of cocky 36-year-olds, but I don't know anybody like Franklin Matthias to do the things he did with 50,000 people. Unbelievable. My favorite place is B Reactor. It's got to be right there.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, I think you and I could just go on talking for hours, probably.</p>
<p>Petersen: [LAUGHTER] I think we're close.</p>
<p>Bauman: But I do wonder, is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you want to talk about, maybe that I haven't asked you about. Any stories, or anything that's really important that you want to mention?</p>
<p>Petersen: There's a piece that has yet to be done, Bob, and that piece I've talked to several people about. That piece is trying to capture either the individuals or the families of the people who were here prior to 1943. I think it is extremely important for us as a community to find those people, identify them, bring them together, allow them back out on the site for the first time. I took the Bruggemann family back out. That was the first time--did this about three years ago. That was the first time they had been back since 1943, and to go--it's like anybody's heritage. If you have a chance to go back and see where your parents or your grandparents--or you, as a child, grew up--the vision is different. Things are smaller, but—the feel of the place. We need to find those people and give them credibility and standing so that they have the opportunity to see their heritage. It turns out that exactly the same time as people were being moved off Hanford, the Japanese were being moved off of Bainbridge Island. Exactly the same time. And they all had to be off by August of 1943. In the case of the Japanese, the federal government has actually done some very nice things. They helped some of the families regain their land. They put up displays of all kinds to say this is what happened. But here at Hanford, of those families still are scattered around the United States, and they have very little to remember the site that they knew by. When you think about--and I'll use the Bruggemanns because I know them the best--you think about Bruggemanns who had 1,400--they had 640 acres, but they leased more—and they had sheep, they had cattle, they had a working staff of something like ten to 20 people on and off, up and down. They were given two weeks to get rid of all that stuff and move. We've got to get that. We've got to capture that. We've got to help them. That's the piece. How’d we do? Did you guys go to sleep back there?</p>
<p>Man two: Huh?</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: Well thanks very much, Gary, for sharing your stories. Like I said, I'm sure you and I could go on talking for quite a while.</p>
<p>Petersen: I recognize, too, you're really after the people who were here from pre-'63, but '63 to '65 or so. But I'm a Johnny-come-lately, so I look at it different.</p>
<p>Bauman: You know a lot of the history of the place, the stories.</p>
<p>Petersen: There's pieces that are really pretty fun. There's some of the stories, honestly, that you probably will never hear, because they have different twists to them. Some point, not with an audience, I will tell you there's another side to the Apollo 11 moon rocks that got here. It's a very unique story that only a couple people know, how they actually came to the site. And it was tough.</p>
<p>Bauman: Thanks so much, Gary.</p>
<p>Petersen: Yeah.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:08:37
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
260 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
B Reactor
100 Area
200 Area
300 Area
N Reactor
200 East Area
200 West Area
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1960-2014
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
ca1965-2014
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
May, Catherine
Foley, Tom
Nixon, Pat
Bair, William (Bill)
Rickard, Bill
Volpentest, Sam
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Gary Petersen
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Gary Petersen conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
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2014-6-5
Rights
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Date Modified
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2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [RG]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
100 Area
200 Area
200 East Area
200 West Area
300 Area
B Reactor
DuPont
General Electric
N Reactor
Plutonium Finishing Plant
Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005
Washington Public Power Supply System (WOOPS)
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f287161aff407d507797401b6b03f0d5
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1b4d000db44e1cb8761e58f9bedc02ab.mp4
55abe4852274c66ce085092001035e43
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert Bauman
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Loris Brinkman
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX267983003">
<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span class="SpellingError SCX267983003">Brinkman_Loris</span></span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></strong></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Loris </span></span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">L-O-R-I-S and Brinkman is B-R-I-N-K-M-A-N.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Thank you very much. Thanks for letting us talk to you today, I appreciate it. Today's date is October 29, 2013. My</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> name is Robert Bau</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">man and we're condu</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">cting this interview in Richland</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, Washington. So let's start, if you could,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Loris, by having you tell us about how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, and when did you arrive?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, I was, as I stated be</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">fore, I spent seven years with Civil Conservation—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ith the CCCs. And then I got a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">job with DuPont spent one year at Rosemount Minnesota, and that was from 1942 to '43. So I came out here in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">September of '43. And I came out here and they sent me out to 200 West. I came out to 200 West</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> and there</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">wasn't much going on the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">re yet. It was pretty i</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">n the beginning part of it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Now they were digging</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">hey were excavating for the 221-</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">T B</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">uilding. And I think they were probably building on</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the powerhouse. Well, my first job</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> they had to get water down there. And there was a water line just north of us,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">as I recall. And the first thing we had to do is to have a temporary water line, and that was made of wood pipe.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And it was laid out, and it was laid out like this</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> so it made a circle around there so that all the facilities would be</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">able to get water from this water line. And I was given the job of somebody has to follow the work. And there were</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">be places where we'd have to pour some concrete. And it was wood pipe. And wood pipe was certainly new.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And so when we got that pretty well taken care of</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> I was given the job to follow the steam lines. Now as I said, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">powerhouse was under construction. And the steam line that came out of the powerhouse was about 16 inches in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">diameter. And you see, at th</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">at time, there was the T Building and the U B</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">uilding. And the steam lines came out of</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the powerhouse, which was kind of halfway in between the two.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And then </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">one line went up towards the T B</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">uilding and the oth</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">er line went down toward the U B</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">uilding. Well there</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">was construction or excavation being g</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">oing on at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I think they called it the 221-</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">T B</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">uilding. And the steam</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">lines were necessary because they were going to furnish the steam for all the construction there. Now in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">steam line, it doesn't sound like a very important job, but we would probably go 300 to 400 feet.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And then there would </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">have to be a, what they called </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">an expansion loop there. It would go like this. And that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">to take care of the expansion when the steam was in operation. Now the thing that we did was we would construct</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">maybe three</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I don't remember</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">but 300 to 500 feet in length. And then there would have to be a loop to take</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">care of the expansion.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And what we would do is to construct a line, and then about midway between these expansion loops</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> we would cut</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the line and take out about two or three inches, as I recall. And then they would put chains on there and bring</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">those two together and weld them together. Now the reason for that is that the tension was on there when it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">cold.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And when they put the steam in the line, the expansion would make the steam line pretty much without tension on</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">it. You get the idea? And along with that steam line</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> I worked on construction of several permanent buildings that</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">were part of the main construction there. And that was the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">we had the laundry</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> and we had the office building,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">and a few buildings like that. I worked on those, too.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Now when the work was all complete, my portion of the work was fin</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ished there, I went to the 200 E</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ast A</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">rea. And I</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">don't really remember what I did there, but I think it was probably sim</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ilar to what I did over in the W</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">est A</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">rea. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">after about a year's work there, the work that I was doing was pretty well completed.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And so I went to</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">excuse me. See, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">t my age names don't come quite like they used to.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: That’s right, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> But I went to Indiana, to the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Indiana Ordinance Works. And I worked there for about a year. And by that time, after completing the work there, I</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">went to the Wilmington</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> head office</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> there,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> and I worked </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">there for about two and a half years. </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">But</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> you know,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> after being out here a year, I couldn't quite get this place out of my mind. As we said, if you can last six</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">months, you're going to like it. But many people came out here didn't last six months. When I came out here in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">beginning, I was going to</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the fellow that I was working with at Rosemount was already out here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And he had a room in Pasco, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">nd I was going to room with him. So when I got out here and I called his number,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">and I said, I'd like to speak to Ham</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">m</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. Mr. Ham</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">m</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> terminated last Friday. And there was another man with me and he</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">said, Mr. Brinkman, I don't know anything about Mr. Ham</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">m</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. I will tell you one thing, it takes a damn good man to</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">stay out here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">But anyway, after another year down at Wilmington</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">or down at Indiana Ordina</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">nce Works, I went to Wilmington and</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> I</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">stayed there for about </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">two and a half</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> years. And then there was an opportunity for me to get back out here. I didn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">hesitate. I came out here again. Got out here in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I think it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">1948. And I've been here ever since.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">What was it about the place that made you want to come back?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">One of the things is the climate. This is ideal climate. We don't have these 40 degree weather that we had in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Wisconsin. Once in a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">while i</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">t did get cold here. One time. I was, let’s see—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">e did have six days of cold weather. And the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">temperature got as low as minus 26 or 27 degrees.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> And that was six days.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And then I went out in the evening and oh, I says we have a chinook. A chinook</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">they called it a chinook when the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">warm breeze would come in there. And it's chinook. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">nd the temperature went up 40,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> 50 degrees</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> in the night</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. So the cold</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">period was over with. But I just like the weather. I like the people that were here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">They were people that were out here for one purpose, we've got to get this thing built. We need this in our war. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">that was the main thing that I liked out here.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Mm-hm. </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">When you first came in 1943, what were your very first impressions of the place? Do you remember?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, I really didn't hate the place. A lot of people did. We didn't have very much sunshine. There was about six</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">weeks the sun didn't shine. But I really enjoyed the place.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And when you came out here to work, what did you know about the work you were doing or what Hanford was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">for?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, in the first place, you didn't know what we were going to make here. Nobody's</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">there were a few people that</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">knew, but that was not discussed. We did not discuss what we were going to make here and what it was going to</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">be used for. That was absolutely quiet.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Do you remember when you found out?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yes, when I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I think it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">in Indiana Ordinance Works when they dropped the bomb. Then I knew what we</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">were doing out here. That this was very important. And the bomb was very important.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And when you worked out here in 1943, do you remember how much money you made?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yes. I made</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I think it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">about $85 a week.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And how many hours a week was that?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, when I first started out here it was nine hours, six days a week. Put in about 54 hours.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And then when you came back in 1948, what sort of job did you have when you came back here?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I have to think a little bit on this, on what I did. I don't remember what exactly what the first job was. But my biggest</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">job after getting back here was construction of</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">supervising, or not really supervising, but seeing that the job was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">done according to the plans of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> tank farm. We had these underground tanks. You see, we had waste, and that</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">waste had lots of plutonium in there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">We didn't get it all out. The uranium was changed in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">part of it was changed in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">to</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> plutonium. And then that was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">rea. Or</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">yeah, the B A</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">rea an</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">d 100 Areas. And then in the 200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">reas they separated the plutonium. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the plutonium was used to make the bomb. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> then</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> there we had tank farms.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> Oh,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I'm trying to think how many, 750,000 gallons or something like that. And we usually had 12 steel tanks. And we</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">would dig a hole way down deep. And these tanks were, I think, something like 75 feet in diameter. And we'd pour</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">a concrete base and then we'd build from there. And they would go up about 75 feet.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And then when they were all completed, then we'd backfill again. And then we'd have these tanks ready for the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">waste from the process that was going on there. And I think</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I don't remember just how many</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">but we had</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">maybe three or four tank farms. And I worked on those tank farms</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. I was known as the tank farm</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> engineer,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">something like that.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">So what did being a tank farm</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> engineer involve? Sort of, supervising?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, you have to have somebody there. We would have a contractor do the work. And we would have to see that</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">it was done properly, </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">check </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">everything that was done. And be very careful about the back filling and that sort of thing.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">So how long did you work the tank farms?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Oh, I think maybe two or three years, probably.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">What did you do after that?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, I have to think now.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> After that</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> I got involved mostly with</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">as we call it</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the project engineering. And with this</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">place there were always new facilities being created. And we call them a project. Maybe we would design this</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">project and then follow the construction of it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">But there was considerable work being done all the time. And I was part of the project engineering work.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And so how long in all did you work at Hanford? When did you stop working?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Okay.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> I was 59, and that was in 1971, I think it was. And then I retired. And about a year later</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, why,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> they called me and</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">said, would you come </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">out and help us? And I said, no!</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> And then I thought about it a bit and I said, wait a minute,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">call me tomorrow. I'll think about it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And they called the next day</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> and I says, I'll come out and work about four months. And you know, I enjoyed it very</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">much. And the next year I went out again for four months</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. And I did that for four years!</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> Finally I got to the stage</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">where I said, no, I think I've gone long enough. It's now time for me to travel.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">So after that,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> why,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> then my wife and I traveled all over the world. We took three month tours and went around the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">world, down South America, and that sort of thing. And we loved that very much.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I want to go back to when you first came to Hanford in 1943, you mentioned that a lot of people stayed </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">for </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">just a little</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">while and left. What sorts of things were there to do for fun? Was there entertainment available? What sorts of</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">things happened here?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">they had a big place down at</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> Hanford itself. They built barracks for people. And they had, well, for one</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">thing in ten days they built a great big building which was the entertainment building. And they had</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> party—or</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> dances and</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">that sort of thing. And they had beer places around.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">People could buy a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> big</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> jar of beer. And they had lots of those. They had to have facilities here that would interest</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">people so they would stay. And they spent a lot of money on that to make interests for people.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Mm-hm. </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And you said when you first came you</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">did you stay in Pasco?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">No, let's s</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ee, I first stayed up at Grandv</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">iew. I stayed there and worked back and forth. Then I got a house in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Richland. And that was great, then. And I stayed there until I moved out to--</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">To Indiana?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, Indiana. Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And then when you came back in 1948, where did you</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">did you move into Richland?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, r</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ight in there. I got a house. I had</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> got a house practically right away.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">What was Richland like as a community in the 1940s?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, it wasn't a big town in the 1940s. Oh, you mean before we came out here?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">No, I mean when you were here.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">All right, when we were here</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">—see, </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I have to think a little bit. We had</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">—</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Woman one</span>: Hello?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: W</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">e had a number of stores</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Woman</span>: Hello? That’s okay, I’ll come back later.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: B</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ut Pasco had stores</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">and Kennewick had stores. And most of the shopping was done over in those areas. But we did, then, we had the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">C</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">C</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> Anderson place here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And that was a place, they had good material in there that you could buy. It wasn't a very big shopping area here,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">but it was adequate. I would say that.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Did you go over to Kennewick and Pasco occasionally, then</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, to shop</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Oh, sure. Yeah. And the funny part of it was my daughter, when we got over to Kennewick, she said this is a real</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">city.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> It's </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">a little bit different than</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> Richland</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. But Richland was being built all the time and adding new facilities,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">new stores, </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">new</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> houses all the time, until it got to be a pretty good place.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">’ve</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> had a few people I talked to from that period talk about the dust storms. Was that an issue at all that you</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">remember?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yes, we had dust storms. And when we had a dust storm, we'd close the windows, of course. But there would be</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">dust all over the inside of your house. And that was the thing that sent quite a few people out of here. They'd have</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">a dust storm and then they'd leave.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">But it didn't bother us, we jus</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">t took those things in stride. We liked—b</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">y that time I liked it here. And when we came back on</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">the second time</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, we got this house, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">nd right across the street was the school. My wife went over and said, I'm a</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">teacher, I have a master's degree,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> would like a job.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">She got a job as a fifth grade teacher just like that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And she taught there for 23 years.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And w</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">hat school was this?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">In f</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">ifth grade.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Do you remember which elementary school it was?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, it was Lewis and Clark. And we lived right across the street from there, right on the corner.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Oh, okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, did you have one of the alphabet homes?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, H house. And then the time came when we were able to buy that house. And that was wonderful, too. That</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">turned into a good deal for us.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Do you remember how much?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, I paid about $6,000 for it. Then I added. I did some construction on it. I added</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">enlarged the two</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">bedrooms. And when we sold it,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> boy,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> I don't mind saying</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> it</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, we sold it for $85,000. And made a return of say, like,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">$76,000 or $77,000. So that was a good thing for us.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">That's a pretty good deal.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Yeah, it was a very good deal. Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">President Kennedy came out </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">here in 1963 to dedicate the N R</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">eactor. I wonder, were you there? Did you see him</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">when he came</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> at all</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I sure was there.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">What do yo</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">u remember about his visit here?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I don't remember anything about his speech. He just, as I recall, he emphasized the fact of the importance of this</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">work here. That was probably the main thing. And he tried to make us feel like we were really doing something</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">great for the country. And I guess we were.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">You and your whole</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">were your whole family out there as well?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Oh yeah, the whole family was there, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">A very special event.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">You see, they</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">it was wonderful for us to have that school there</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">. [LAUGHTER] Because</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> my wife could go over there and teach and</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">then get back in time. And when I got home the meals were ready.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">So I wanted to ask about security at Hanford. Did you have to have special clearance?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Oh yes, yes. Yes, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">e had to have Q clearance</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">, mm-hm</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Are there any other events that really stand out in your mind?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Any what?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Any events that stand out in your mind</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> or things that happened during the time you worked at Hanford that you</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">just thought were really interesting or important?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, I should remember, but my mind doesn't function like it should in that case. I don't know that there was</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">anything—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">mportant things that we had.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Overall, how was Hanford as a place to work?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">How was what?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Hanford as a place to work?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Wonderful, as far as I was concerned.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And what was it about working there that made it wonderful for you?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, we worked out in</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> the area most the time. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> people</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">we all worked together. That was the thing, I</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">thi</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">nk, that was—t</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">hat we were all working together</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> helping to accomplish what we were set out to do there. Now my</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">mind doesn't work quite like it should.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Of the different jobs you had at Hanford, was there one that was a favorite for you, one that you really enjoy the</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">most?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">It wasn't the tank farm. That wasn't it. But I think the part I liked the best was in the latter part</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> we worked on</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">various projects. And the projects were our projects, so to speak. And we were interested in seeing that those</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">we probably designed them, worked out the design and then followed the construction of it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">And we were just anxious to see how it worked out.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Is there anything I haven't asked you about yet</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> or that you haven't had a chance to talk about yet</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> in terms of</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">either working at Hanford or living in Richland</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> that you think would be important to talk about?</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, as I said, at my age here</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> my mind doesn't do quite what I hoped it would do.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">You're doing great.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, we just, oh, when we got, as far as the schools are concerned, we had such great sports here. Our</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">basketball team has won the state championship three times. They had won the state championship in football</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">once or twice. And this has ju</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">st been a very wonderful</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> sports area.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">We've had </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">quite a few basketball players that played well for colleges. And as I said, we won state championships</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">three times and got second place maybe three or four times. It was just wonderful sports. And we were always</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">my wife and I were always interested in sports. We would go to the other cities and that sort of thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">My son played on the basketball team.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Great. </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well, </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">I want to thank you very much for letting us talk to you today.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> And for sharing your memories. I really appreciate--</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX267983003">
<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">My mind doesn't work quite the way it should right now.</span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">It's working pretty darn well, myself. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX267983003">
<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Thank you, again. I really appreciate it.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Brinkman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Well I'm sure glad that if I have anything here that will be of some use to you, I'm sure happy to have helped out.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX267983003">
<p class="Paragraph SCX267983003"><span class="TextRun SCX267983003"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX267983003">Absolutely. Thank you very much.</span><span class="EOP SCX267983003"> </span></p>
</div>
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:35:01
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
193 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
200 East Area
100 Area
B Area
200 Area
N Reactor
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1943-2013
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1943-1971
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963;
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Loris Brinkman
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Loris Brinkman conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Loris Brinkman passed away on August 1, 2017. <a href="http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tricityherald/obituary.aspx?n=loris-b-brinkman&pid=186392713">Obituary</a>.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-10-29
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Richland (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
100 Area
200 Area
200 East Area
B Area
Hanford (Wash.)
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963;
Kennewick (Wash.)
N Reactor
Pasco (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)