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Post-1943 Oral Histories
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Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
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Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
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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.
Transcription
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<p>Victor Vargas: Yeah, we should be good.</p>
<p>Robert Franklin: Ready?</p>
<p>Vargas: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin and I am conducting an oral history interview with Ann Roseberry on January 25<sup>th</sup>, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Ann about her experiences growing up in Richland. And for the record can you state and spell your name for us?</p>
<p>Ann Roseberry: Yes. Ann Roseberry. A-N-N R-O-S-E-B-E-R-R-Y.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Thank you so much. Tell me how you came to Richland.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Well, I was born here.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: I was conceived here. My folks met after the war. Dad had been active in the Air Force and came here to work for GE. Mom was recruited by General Electric, so she came out from Chicago. When she got here, he was a personnel manager for GE, and he gave her her first day orientation, and promptly asked her out to dinner. So that was 1948.</p>
<p>Franklin: 1948.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: I was going to say that probably wouldn’t fly with the human resources department nowadays.</p>
<p>Roseberry: I’m fairly certain not. So they married in 1950, and I was born in 1951. And just grew up here, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And where did you live? Or where did your parents live in Richland?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Okay, they lived at 710 Stanton, which was a precut. Stanton is a little two-block street that runs perpendicular to Lee. So we had a two-block walk to Marcus Whitman Elementary.</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hm. Yeah, I live on that street, too, as you know.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: So what was it—so you, then, would have been about seven when Richland was privatized.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yes, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: So what do you—what can you recall about those—your early childhood or those early years? Maybe from your own experiences or what your parents told you about that early Cold War era, government-owned era of Richland?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah. Well, in regard to the 1958, I remember Mom and Dad talking about showing me a piece of paper that they were buying the house. As a seven-year-old, it wasn’t terrifically meaningful to me, but I understood that it was to them. That same year, my youngest sister was born and we added a room onto our house, the precut. So those actually have more primacy in my recollection than the thing that meant more to Mom and Dad.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p>Roseberry: But I do remember that. And I probably, at the time, said—because children do—oh, how much does the house cost? And Mom would have replied, we don’t ask those questions, dear. So just one little example of a culture of secrecy that I’ll—yeah. We—I guess my elementary school years, in some way were both peaceful—the idyllic, small town family life—but punctuated by the air raid drills, where we would get under our desks or go out into the hall and line up against the hall in a sort of a crouching position. Or now what we would call pose-of-a-child in yoga. But as flat on the ground and as taking up as least space as we could.</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hm. Did you ever do the kind of drills with the evacuation routes, where the families would drive out to a spot in the desert?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah. We did once, but the school children were bussed. So as we were—I actually have a fairly strong recollection of that, because it was terrifying. That I was alone on the bus. And I remember counting on my fingers, where’s Mom, where’s Dad, where are my sisters? Trying to sort of get a mental picture of where they were. Because even though we knew it was a drill, we were in a bus by ourselves being driven somewhere. So, we never went out as a family in our car.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: What did your mother do for GE?</p>
<p>Roseberry: She came out—her training was as an x-ray technician. So, she came out and—I won’t get all the timing of this right, but at one point, she worked for early Kadlec. And then went out to the Project and she was x-raying samples. What they were samples of, I’m not clear. But samples. But inanimate samples. I remember her talking about her work environment and that the badges, they were also radiation detectors and would indicate when the human body had had enough. But she said that she also had frequent x-rays of her hands. And she said that—the term was hot—hot hands—when she had hot hands, it meant that she had had enough radiation and she had to not do that work for a while. So.</p>
<p>Franklin: Radiation from the handling the samples, or radiation from the x-rays?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I think from the samples. There are a lot of things where—we were raised in a culture of don’t ask questions. So often, if I would have asked a question, she would have said, well, they were samples. And that would have been the end of the discussion. So, rocks, pieces of equipment, I don’t know. But something that for some reason she was x-raying, but they would have been giving radioactivity, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Hmm. Do you know where your mother worked on the Site? Did she talk about the Area? Do you know if she worked at 300, 200?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I don’t know. When Dad was out onsite, he was at 200-West.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, because he was still personnel manager at that time, or--?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Well, I don’t think so. When we would ask him what his job was, he would just say a manager. And that’s really all I know. In probably the last maybe 10 or 15 years of his working career, he was transferred into the Federal Building. And what he said then was that he was writing or editing technical reports. And he did have a master’s in English, so that’s credible. But I don’t actually know that that’s what he was doing. In the earlier years, it was just, I’m a manager. So questions like that, that a child would ask, we were given an answer and we just accepted the answer.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure, sure. Did he have any other technical training, besides a master’s in English? Did he have any training that would fit to be more site-specific? Like, production-specific?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I don’t think so. When he was talking about the later years and technical reports, he made the comment that scientists and engineers, their work often needed editing by someone who had a better understanding of the English language. So—and he was a published author; he was a skilled writer. So all of this is very credible to me, but I just don’t really know that he was doing that from the ‘50s through the ‘80s.</p>
<p>Franklin: What kinds of work did he publish or write?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Fiction, primarily. Fiction. He had a book that came out right before Pearl Harbor, Bobbs-Merrill, and he had just started on the author promotion tour when Pearl Harbor was bombed. So pretty much the next day he went and signed up and served stateside in—it was then the Army Air Corps, because he had had an injury. And almost literally to his dying day, that—he felt embarrassed that he hadn’t gone overseas. He felt that he hadn’t really quite done what he should, because he hadn’t been overseas. But then after retirement, he published a couple more fiction books and wrote some family histories, but mostly it was—he was a fiction writer, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. You mentioned that your mother talked about her work environment. Did she ever talk about the gender makeup of her environment, or her experience of a woman working out onsite?</p>
<p>Roseberry: She talked about a couple of men who she worked with right in her unit. And very warmly. Very—it clearly was a comfortable work environment for her. I’m interpreting from what she said that they were older than she was. She was in her mid-20s and very cute. But a very modest woman. Raised in the Midwest, small town in Iowa. So her comments came across as if they were avuncular or fatherly to her—warm, but not anything uncomfortable for her. Yeah. So that’s about all of her comments. I know she was back and forth between Kadlec and the Site during those years. She would have worked roughly from 1948 to 1951. I was born in March of ’51, and possibly she had to quit work before that because she was working with radiation.</p>
<p>Franklin: Are you the oldest?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I’m the oldest.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, so after you were born, she stopped working to be your full-time—</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah. There were three of us, so she stayed home until the year I turned 13, I believe. And then she went back to work part-time x-ray at the Richland Clinic, which is no longer a clinic. But—and then she worked through until retirement.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you tell me about growing up in the prefab neighborhood? Because it’s slightly—from what I understand they’re slightly different than the Alphabet House neighborhoods in terms of not only the character of the houses but the income levels of the residents.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah. We were—some of what I will tell you, to give a caveat, is my recollection. And I was a child at the time, so I had my own lens. But in our particular neighborhood, which is to say the one block, every person who lived in that neighborhood had a family member employed at the Project or at the Site. And in those years, it was all the men. The women were home. So across the street was an electrician, next door was Hanford Patrol, next door the other side, was—I don’t know what he did; I know he was a craftsworker. So in our block, all the other families were crafts families, except for ours. That was a very strong distinction, was—you were management or you were the crafts. And what I was told was that in our part of town, there was a conscious desire to mix within a neighborhood so that there would be some management people and some crafts people. In the block up, where you live, we didn’t know as many people. One of the high school teachers lived there at the time. It was close enough that we were allowed to trick-or-treat there. But we—within our own block, we were in and out of houses and borrowing a cup of sugar, and that kind of thing. But it was a very small one-block neighborhood for us.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. How long did your parents live in that house?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Mm. From 1950 until 2013.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah. My dad died at the end of 2004. And Mom stayed in the house until 2013. She had a series of falls. And after the last one, she said, I think it’s time for me to move. So we got that to happen, but—and she was—she had three other friends from the early days who at that time were still living in their homes. Only one with her husband; the other women had been widowed. But for her, this was not an unusual situation, that you would move into a house and you would live there your whole life. At some point, when I was in late elementary school, I know that Dad got a promotion at work. And this would have been before 1958. And so at that time, he was offered the chance to move to a different neighborhood to what would have been considered a nicer house. I remember our talking about that, and I just spoke right up and said, well, I don’t want to move. I like my school. I like my neighborhood. And so he didn’t accept the move. And I don’t remember now where it was. I just remember that to me it seemed really silly. Well, this was our house. Why would we move? This was home, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Do you know if the—you had mentioned that separation between trades—crafts people and managerial. Do you know if that ever caused any tension with neighbors and things like that?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yes. Not in our neighborhood, not among—this was a neighborhood where in the summer, Dad would cook hamburgers outside on the fireplace he built, and the neighbors would come over and have hamburgers. Or they’d come over and have watermelon, or they’d come over for the fireworks. So none of that happened there. But in the school environment, very much so. There were times where it would come up within the schoolroom. And fairly laterally, I want to say the early ‘60s—at any rate, there was a significant strike out at the Project and another one threatened. That was the time I remember most clearly that there were enough people out on strike that management were being placed in various locations. So Dad was driving a bus during that time. The buses came right into the neighborhoods, so he had a half-a-block walk to get the bus that took him to work. And I remember very distinctly getting into it a little bit with another girl. So—might have been fifth grade—I don’t remember the year, but there were lines drawn. Because her father was in the crafts and he was also—had some position of responsibility in one of the unions. And we didn’t fight, and we weren’t enemies, but we were just never close again. It wasn’t—this discussion happened and the lines were drawn, and we never quite managed to get back across again. But there were some neighborhoods—there were some neighborhoods in the ranch houses where the mix of people who lived there was such that, yeah, it was an issue in the neighborhood. In one case, a family—the same family where the father had quite position of responsibility, and the neighborhood lived across the street from a family where the father was a high-ranking PR person for the Project. And you felt it. You felt it; it wasn’t fighting, but it was tension, I mean—yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure. Do you remember what that series of labor movements was about?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I do not.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: I do not. And I wish that—because the memory is so clear, I’ve wished that I’d gone back to research it to find out what it was. I remember Dad saying that his concern or management’s concern was that this would be a disruptive enough situation that we would lose—we would no longer have federal funding. And so the other thing that’s unclear to me now is, the strike would have been against the contractor. But of course, all of the contractor money was federal money. So there was real concern that jobs would be lost. I do remember that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you ever—given that up until Richland was privatized, you had to work for Hanford to live in Richland—did you ever lose friends or notice people—had people that you knew that left during that time because they lost their jobs at Hanford?</p>
<p>Roseberry: No. And that is a really interesting question to me. I don’t remember ever losing any friends for that reason. And I don’t remember until high school that families were moving in from some of the other secret cities or Savannah River. I remember a family coming in from Savannah River. It isn’t that it didn’t happen. I don’t remember it, and there was no one in my close circle who left. And I really don’t remember much influx. My high school years would have been ’66 to ’69. And there were several families that I remember then.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you go to Richland High School?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Mr. Franklin, that would be Col High.</p>
<p>Franklin: Col High. Sorry.</p>
<p>Roseberry: That would be Col High. This is essential for accuracy. Yeah. Marcus Whitman, Carmichael, and then Col High.</p>
<p>Franklin: Col High, right. You’ll have to forgive me.</p>
<p>Roseberry: I do forgive you, but I will correct you, of course, because this is so important.</p>
<p>Franklin: Point taken. Would that be the Col High Bombers?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yes, that would be the Col High Bombers.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: And how long—then did you leave Richland shortly after graduating?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Mm-hm. I left in the fall of ’69. I went to Cheney for my undergrad degree, and went through in three years because I had two sisters behind me. Then went to Michigan for my library master’s and then came back and my first job was in Yakima. So—</p>
<p>Franklin: I’m wondering if—you may have been too young for this next question, but I’d like to see what—if you remember. You know, Richland, up until the mid-60s or late-60s was primarily, almost exclusively white.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Due to housing restrictions on African Americans and other minorities, they had to live in East Pasco. And although African Americans were employed by the Hanford Project, they couldn’t live in Richland—</p>
<p>Roseberry: Houses—right, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: --at that time. So I’m wondering if you could speak to that, having observed—or if you observed discrimination or any civil rights attempts to address it.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah. So in elementary school, at my elementary school at Marcus Whitman, there were two African American families who had children in the school. In second grade, I had a birthday party, and I’d invited people from school. And I remember this very clearly. We had added on the living room, so we’d set up card tables in the living room. And I had invited my friend Kathy Baker. And she didn’t come. And I remember going to the front door watching for her, and wondering why she wasn’t coming to the party. The Baker family is African American. Her mother is still here, Mrs. Baker. I remember—and I asked Mom, why didn’t Kathy come to the party? And in some way, Mom would have said, maybe she didn’t feel comfortable because she’s—in those days, we would have said Negro. And that wasn’t disrespectful. Sorry, I remember this really clearly. And it just made me so sad. She was almost my best friend, and she didn’t feel she could come to my birthday party. My folks were very—whatever opinions they might have had to the contrary, we were raised that race was not an issue. It was not a matter of discussion; it wasn’t—it was an irrelevant thing. I look back now—hold on, I’ll get hold of myself. I look back now and I think of family names that we would have heard. But in our family, nobody ever said, this name tells you that their family came from Russia or Ireland or Germany or—that was not a—we didn’t know to make those connections. It just wasn’t discussed. So, the issue of race was, it just, it wasn’t present in the way we were raised. I didn’t really question in grade school that there were only two families. When I got to junior high, as it was then, I remember two Hispanic families being added. That was at Carmichael. And I may be forgetting somebody. By high school, another African American family and a Chinese family. But at one time—and I’m not sure I could do it right now—but I counted that in my growing up years, we had nine families of color in Richland. So we had some African American families, one Chinese family, and I think maybe by high school three Hispanic families. But I didn’t know that was unusual. I just didn’t know that was unusual.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure. The children—the African American children that you went to elementary school with, they were allowed to live—the family was allowed to live in Richland?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Mm-hmm, yeah. The Bakers lived over—it’s an area of town just on the other side of Duportail. I’m so bad with directions. There was a little market there, Dietrich’s Market, that’s now Minute Mart or something. But they lived in that neighborhood. And I think Mrs. Baker is still in the family house from those days, too.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah, mm-hmm, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Thank you. Do you remember any later civil—like, any of the later civil rights actions in Kennewick and Pasco, or did you not—have you not connected much with—</p>
<p>Roseberry: I was not—no, I was not connected. We didn’t really have any family friends in Pasco or Kennewick. One exception, a friend of my dad’s in Kennewick on Canal Drive. But the world was very small. You knew people from school, where parents of other children—more strongly in elementary school of course, and then you knew people from your church. And in the people I knew, everybody went to church. Everybody belonged to a church and they went to church. And so we belonged to Central, to CUP. So, that’s how I met children from other parts of town, because I would meet at church. But we didn’t—in the early days, very actively encouraged to stay in Richland. Shop in Richland, go to a doctor in Richland. Not go out to dinner in Richland because there really weren’t many options. But you lived in Richland, you did your business in Richland, and you socialized in Richland. After 1958, I suspect the message wasn’t quite so strong. But still strong.</p>
<p>Franklin: Probably because it had been ingrained.</p>
<p>Roseberry: It had been ingrained, uh-huh. And there was still—even after Richland re-formed as a First Class City, all of that secrecy and deliberate attempt at isolation was still very present. Because we were in a very strong part of the Cold War. So the secrecy did not—and the fear—did not go away once Richland re-formed as a city. But no, I was unaware of those. In high school, a man named Duke Mitchell, who has come back—homecoming king? Anyway, one of those dances where someone is king and queen and there’s an election, and he was. So in some ways, you could say that this community was not—</p>
<p>Franklin: And I’m sorry, who was this?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Duke Mitchell.</p>
<p>Franklin: Is that CJ’s son?</p>
<p>Roseberry: CJ’s oldest, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: So he had a very strong position of leadership in the high school. Liked and respected. I couldn’t really answer adequately about how it felt or how it was. I can report that, yeah, he was held in acclaim. He was class president, too. I—once I left, I left. I just remember strongly that he was very well-liked and respected. And certainly one of the first things I did when I came back to Richland to be the library manager here was to look him up and say, I need you on the library board. But he could speak to that better than I can.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Did you ever feel—you talked a bit about the duck-and-cover drills that made you kind of feel the fear of being separated. What about later, as you grew up and entered adolescence or early adulthood and knew more about what was being produced at Hanford. Did your feelings toward—what were your feelings toward Hanford? Did they change at all from when you first found out about what was being made there and--?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I never went negative. Partly that is because my dad was—even postwar, he felt that the work that was being done there was patriotic. He still felt that it was protecting the United States. A personal characteristic of his was loyalty. So, he would have valued, in a patriotic way, and defended the Project until the day he died. So that did not occur for me. And I was never afraid in a way that you would be about something that you could do something about it. When we were very young, and maybe into pre-adolescence, I remember that he would try to teach us from the ground what planes were overhead so that we could identify them. Because it was, plane: Russia is going to bomb us. That was our default response. I got as far as being able to distinguish between a small plane, like a Piper Cub, or a B-52, or a jet. I never got—but even those distinctions, if you were—I’m the eldest. I was, I mean, day one, take care of your sisters. So I’m out on the street with my sisters, maybe walking over to the school grounds to play, and a plane goes overhead. And first I look up, try to decide if they’re in danger or not, and then look down, okay, there they are; they’re safe. And it’s not something that woke me up in the middle of the night, or I had emotional problems with. It was just part of where we were. And, again, how did we know that that wasn’t everywhere? So, learn to distinguish. But it was actually pre-adolescent. It was third grade, and we were being taught about the half-life of plutonium. I would say that my strengths have always been on the verbal, not the quantitative side. But even in third grade, I could do the numbers on that and realize that no amount of duck-and-cover was going to save any of us if we were—nuclear bomb fell. But that was, for me, a little bit like, huh. Okay, well, maybe we’ll get bombed, and maybe we won’t. So it wasn’t a fear moment; it was like, hmm, do you guys think we can’t do these numbers and figure it out? But it was really more a moment of clarity than fear. And we just never—living in Richland and reading only the local paper—although Mom and Dad always subscribed to the <em>Spokesman Review</em>, so we did have a paper that wasn’t local. Lots of magazines. But having very limited even television access, news like that just didn’t show up here. And it just—if we weren’t hearing it at home, and we weren’t hearing it at school, we just wouldn’t have heard anything anti. Really, the first time I kind of went, oh, people are upset about this was at Cheney, so that’s late ‘60s, early ‘70s. I took a class called environmental geography. Anyway, one of the field trips was here to Hanford; another was to some of the bunker silver mines in north Idaho where there was, in fact, damage from something that was manmade. And so then I started getting it. But not here. Not here.</p>
<p>Franklin: Thank you. Did the neighborhood or Richland change perceptibly after it became a First Class City to you? Did you notice any changes?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Mm-mm. Not to me.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did the fabric of—or I guess, did the fabric of the neighborhood change while you lived there after it incorporated?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Very little. I think that from 1951 to 1969, on our side of the street, the house at the corner of whatever that is and the house at the corner of Stanton and Lee, those houses had changed out once in 18 years. I don’t think any of the others had by the time I left to go to Cheney. In the mid- to late-‘70s, there were some deaths on the street and some houses changed out. But I think just those two. And those were precuts, the much smaller house. So the one up by Lee, that changed out pretty quickly. They needed a larger house. And the one on the other end, it was retirement or something. But only those two, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: When did you come back to Richland?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I came back on May 15<sup>th</sup> of 2006. That was my—I got here on May 14<sup>th</sup>. I threw stuff in my car, drove to Mom’s, unloaded the car and started that Monday. And May 16<sup>th</sup>—I remember it very clearly because May 16<sup>th</sup> was the day of the bond election for the new library building. And it passed. So those dates are just really clear for me. Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. And since that time you’ve been working at the Richland Public Library.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Mm-hm, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Tell me about your involvement in promoting Hanford history and that kind of thing.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Oh! Okay. Well, I really started with meeting Ron Kathren—Dr. Ron Kathren. He has been, for a long time, a library supporter. And I met him on May 16<sup>th</sup>—the evening of May 16<sup>th</sup>. The polls had just closed; it had been declared that the bond had passed, and we were walking out to the parking lot together. And I offered him a carrot, my go-to snack, and he accepted. So pretty much it was friendship at first sight. And he started coming into the library and just chatting with me. He’s an excellent teacher among other things. And there was something about his love of Richland and the value he places on the scientific work that had been done here that just—it created or it caught a spark in me. And then I just started thinking about it more and thinking about my parents’ generation having been pioneers of a sort. And this is no disrespect to the people who were here farming at all. But they left the Midwest, the East Coast, and they came out probably on trains and got off to a desert that had no trees. They moved into tents, or if they were lucky, trailers, and then barracks, essentially—dorms. They did work that they had no idea what they were doing. And in the early days, they couldn’t tell their families where they were, what was going on. They just seem extraordinarily brave to me. So the environmental situation that they had to deal with—against—and the work they were doing created this bonding among them that is really phenomenal. They feel that at some level they all care about each other, still. Because they were on this great adventure and venture. Then the more I learned about the science and technology and creativity and innovation that went into that, I just got fascinated. Just got fascinated. And the people who made that choice and stayed, they have a strength that I think is uncommon. And they were—we now look at that and we talk about the effects of an atomic bomb and nuclear waste, which—I’m not stepping away from that. But for them, to have been doing something that they thought was not only very important but maybe vital to the survival of the country. If you can just understand that mindset. I just admire them very much. And they’re a generation that did not complain. Did not complain. You still—no matter how much you probe with my 92- almost 93-year-old mother, she will not complain. She will not say anything bad or—she just won’t. And that’s very, very common among her friends. So I just—I think the combination of the science, but also the creativity that fueled that science, I think that’s what it was. Just started fascinating me. And I also, as a librarian, I understand that the kind of history we have here is singular. We’ll find similarities with Oak Ridge and Los Alamos, but there are three secret cities in this country. Arguably three secret cities in the world. We’re not regular. And I kind of started embracing being weird and finding the ties that we do have with those other secret cities at every possible level: the level of education, the fact that we still expect our garbage to be picked up in certain ways, that we are used to a very sturdy, robust infrastructure—we just have a lot in common. It seemed to me from a history point of view that there was some pretty important history stuff. As the public librarian part of my job—not just my interest, my job—was to collect the stuff, to protect it, to wait for WSU to be ready to have the Hanford History Project, so we could have a real, live, professional archives. And I don’t know, it just—somehow out of respect and admiration, it started being important to me.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: What would you like—I think you’ve already covered this somewhat, but I’d like to ask it again. What would you like future generations to know about living in Richland during the Cold War and what was done here during the Cold War?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Wow. Respect the science. Respect the creativity. Respect the strength of the people who were here. I might say plan ahead. One of the stories Dad told was—so, context. We were in Portland. My husband and I were living in Portland, and each year in Portland, Nagasaki Day is not celebrated, but noted.</p>
<p>Franklin: And why is that?</p>
<p>Roseberry: The people draw chalk outlines of bodies on the ground in memory of what was left after that bomb, that there would be sort of a—just a charred outline on the ground, because the body had been so thoroughly incinerated, that’s all that was left.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure, sure. I—sorry, but why Portland? Or why does that happen? Is there a special reason? Is it like a sister city relationship?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I don’t know. I just—from having lived in Portland for 30 years, I would say, that’s just Portland. I don’t have a good—I don’t have a good answer for that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure, sure. I was just wondering if there was a deeper connection.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Not that I know of.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, sorry.</p>
<p>Roseberry: But at any rate, Mom and Dad were in town, and we were walking, downtown Portland in the city hall area. Dad asked what they were, and unthinkingly, I told him the truth. Never seen him so angry. Never saw him as angry as that. He was saying, we were saving lives, we were saving American lives. Very, very, very angry. When he calmed down a little, I said, you know, people are concerned about the waste, Dad. This aside, there’s a legitimate concern about the nuclear waste. And the reason I laugh, you’ll understand, is he said, well, for Pete’s sakes. They only built those tanks to last 20 years and look how long they’ve lasted! So for future generations, I would say, maybe a 20-year tank for nuclear waste when we already understood the aforementioned half-life—maybe add that element into your future planning, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, 20 years, the life of radioactive material: not a really good match there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Some disconnect, perhaps, between science and then the administrative side of--</p>
<p>Roseberry: Exactly, exactly.</p>
<p>Franklin: --of legacy waste commitment.</p>
<p>Roseberry: And the difference between getting federal funding to, in their hope, finish a war, end a war, and in their hopes, defend the United States, and—oh, huh, yeah, well, now we want to fund something else. We don’t want to fund this. So it’s pretty big picture, but, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, hey, we’re going to need a lot more money for many hundreds of years to come to manage the—</p>
<p>Roseberry: Right, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that’s a tough sell.</p>
<p>Roseberry: it’s a tough sell. It’s a tough sell. Garbage cleanup. It’s a tough sell.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, it is. Everybody wants it, but nobody wants to do it.</p>
<p>Roseberry: But nobody wants to do it. So, yeah, I guess, not a question I’ve thought about, but probably that’s what I’d say.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you wanted to talk about?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I don’t know. I have said—maybe a little bit about the hierarchy in Richland, because from a point of view, it has the worst of a military reservation, an academic community, and a company town, where in those environments, at some level hierarchy is all. So even in the later years—I think this is changing—but the division, if you will, between management and crafts or the trades. I think, I hope, that Richland has grown so much, benefitting from people who weren’t born here, that some of that is being mitigated, but—and feel free to eliminate this if it’s in somebody else’s story. But GESA Federal Credit Union was GE Supervisors’ Association. And my dad was one of the founders of that. I have his passbook; it’s number four. But it was only for supervisors, period. Period. So about a year later, I think—I think GESA was founded in 1954, I think. At any rate, approximately a year later, HAPO was founded. So if you were not a GE manager, you could still join a credit union. And now both of them are very, very strong, very community-minded. But lines like that were drawn. And there were some sort of informal, unspoken rules about what kind of car you could drive, according to your status at the Project. And so my dad, not being a scientist or an engineer, was maybe sort of middle. So we had—growing up we had Dodges, kind of a medium. And then, at one point, I was gone, but he got another promotion and he and Mom bought an Oldsmobile, because that was okay. Whereas when I was in grade school and junior high, that—there were people above him in the hierarchy who drove Oldsmobiles. And so that—there’s some big car stuff in this community that sometimes is at the base of—people who weren’t born here or grew up here, they observe things, but they can’t decode them. And there’s no way in the world they would ever be able to decode them. The other thing where there was a hierarchy—and I don’t know that I really have an opinion about it—but certainly, in second grade, I remember actively and clearly, we were given standardized tests. So starting in second grade, we were tracked, according to what they called ability. So in second grade, we took the Stanford-Binet, which was considered a measurement of IQ. And so the result of that, partly, was that even though when I graduated high school—that would be Col High, yeah—I graduated high school, 676 people in the graduating class, but I only really knew a fraction of them. Because even in grade school, we were ability-tracked. That continued through junior high and certainly at high school, there was advanced this and honors this. The focus on academic ability—very, very strong here. So I think for children who were perceived to fall into that, you could not have had better college prep. You could not have. We—my first formal researched-with-citations research project was in fourth grade. We were writing from very early on. We were being taught research skills from very early on. And when I left and went to Cheney, I found that that was not the norm. So the school system here is very, very focused on that. And I benefited from it; my sisters benefited from it. So, I just—I have this niggling sense that that could have been improved or fine-tuned, but because I benefited from it, I wouldn’t be a very credible voice on that. But the whole concept of hierarchy: just so strong here, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: And you think still to this day?</p>
<p>Roseberry: To a certain extent. I think more so in the people who are still here who were here in the very early days. Which now would be the ‘50s, because I think most of the people who would have gotten here early ‘40s to build the Project, they’re gone. And the people who arrived just post-war, like my folks, they’re dwindling, you know. They’re dwindling. But the people who came early-ish, I mean strongly in the Cold War era, like in the ‘50s, a little bit. Because that was the Project environment.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, and there’s a real difference to authority, too, among those. And kind of a—one thing I’ve noticed is a belief in corporate benevolence, and that you’ll be taken care of with—the hard work and things will be rewarded in a corporate environment. That struck me as more present here, I think, due to the nature of the contractor relationship.</p>
<p>Roseberry: I think so, I think so. That—so for that generation, they had world-shaking events, okay? My folks lived through the Depression. My folks both were of an age to understand what Pearl Harbor meant. But I might suggest that my generation, the Boomer generation, had the first conviction that there was not only not corporate benevolence, there was not government benevolence. The World War II generation, they were patriotic. They were responding to those calls from President Roosevelt. My generation, particularly here, learned very early that, um, duck-and-cover wasn’t going to work. That there remains a question, many questions, about the assassination of President Kennedy. That the Vietnam War was not exactly about protecting democracy. So I agree. There’s more acceptance, respect for an authority figure, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah, I think so.</p>
<p>Franklin: Even—you mentioned some big events and kind of betraying of trust. I’d like to ask you about how you think maybe people’s reactions to the Green Run fall into that. Because that happened pretty early on in ’49. But a purposeful release of dangerous material that seems to be accepted by the community as something that happened and maybe shouldn’t have, but did nonetheless. But to outsiders is shocking.</p>
<p>Roseberry: It’s shocking.</p>
<p>Franklin: And a betrayal of trust, because it’s not a corporate—it’s the government. It’s supposed to be—</p>
<p>Roseberry: Right, yeah. And I did not know about that until after I came back in 2006.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: None—information about the Project, any of the science, any of the politics—not in the Richland school system. Not there. And in our family, not discussed. Ever. Ever, ever. So I did not know that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure. I forgot to ask: did you go to see President Kennedy?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Or did your family go to see President Kennedy? What was your—what do you remember about that day?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Okay. So, it was very hot and windy and dusty. And we were out in the middle of the desert, okay? However, we were just thrilled beyond any belief. He was—and just my family—but he was a beloved president. People did trust him. They followed him. People—I don’t think during his presidency, you would ever have heard him referred to as Kennedy. It always would have been President Kennedy or the President. Always, always. And partly that was then. But he, as a person and a president, people liked him, they cared about him. Here, we were so—we so completely understood that we were isolated, that that was on purpose, that for someone that important to come here was just—it was amazing. It was just amazing. And we were just thrilled. We all had to submit a security clearance paperwork. Mom just handed to me the papers for my youngest sister who was about seven, yeah. So I remember filling this out—no, she wasn’t even seven. She was more like five, she was more like five. So I filled it out, and there was a space called Membership in Subversive Organizations. And, you know, I thought about—I took this really seriously, and—</p>
<p>Franklin: And that was a voluntary thing that you would fill out, or that’s--?</p>
<p>Roseberry: No, we would not be allowed onsite.</p>
<p>Franklin: No, I mean, that was a form given to someone to fill out, so they would trust that you were being honest about your membership in a subversive organization?</p>
<p>Roseberry: Right, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Roseberry: And I put in that, yes, the only organization she was part of was the CUP Sunday school. But she was a member of that organization. But, I mean, what, to express rye amusement at the vagaries of life, but filling out a security clearance form for a little tiny girl, but we did, and we took it seriously. So we went as a family—I think I got off track, but we went as a family, and it was a big deal. But it was windy, and the wind was blowing up the sand. And it was hot. And the helicopter came in and blew up more sand. But, no, we were just thrilled. Just thrilled. The most important, the most famous person we had ever seen. And, oh, it was big. It was big, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Cool. Well, did you have anything else you wanted to add?</p>
<p>Roseberry: I can’t think—you know, Robert, I could go on for a long time, but that’s—you’ll talk to other people and they’ll either confirm or deny, and—</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Roseberry: But you know, so much was family-centered. And then your school and then your church. Those were the circles. Oh, I guess just one other note and then you should probably just turn the equipment off, but—I don’t know if you’ve heard this or not, but Richland did not appear on any maps or on any road signs. So that piece of understanding that we were secret and that the government didn’t want people to be able to get here, they didn’t want people to know where we were or what was going on. That was—there was just sort of this combination of you just sort of accepted it, and then you’d say, hmm, I wonder why that isn’t true of Pasco and Kennewick. But even a question like that, the answer would be, well, Richland is different.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Roseberry: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, thank you Ann. I really appreciated your talking today.</p>
<p>Roseberry: You’re welcome. Oh, I’m really happy to. I’m sorry the Kathy Baker story got me.</p>
<p>Franklin: No, it’s okay. I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Roseberry: But you know, it’s funny, we were so young, but I just remember I just kept going to the front door, watching, where’s Kathy? Where’s Kathy?</p>
Duration
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01:09:01
Bit Rate/Frequency
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317 kbps
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1988-2006
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Bobbs-Merrill
Dietrich
Mrs. Baker
Duke Mitchell
Ron Kathren
Kennedy
Kathy
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 Ann Roseberry
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Ann Roseberry 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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01-25-2017
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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
Date Modified
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2018-31-1: 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.
1954
Clinic
Cold War
General Electric
Hanford
Houses
Kennedy
Kennewick
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Market
Organization
Organizations
River
Ron Kathren
Savannah River
School
Sun
War
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2ec1506d174ea046db6843f0eaa6c1bc.JPG
2764bff7fb33c346ce02b07d1ae6b487
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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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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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
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Interviewer
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Robert Franklin
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Roger McClellan
Location
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Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Roger McClellan on September 2<sup>nd</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Roger about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. So, Roger, best place to begin is the beginning. So, when and where were you born?</p>
<p>Roger McClellan: I was born in Tracy, Minnesota, out in the prairies of southwestern Minnesota. Tracy, a little town of 3,000 people. My father was a blue collar worker. My mother came from an agricultural family. They were part of a generation in some ways contributed to but also, their lives were substantially influenced by World War II. They, in some ways, were saved economically. So my father went away in 1942 and I would faithfully write every Sunday evening to him at an APO address in New York, and wonder where he was. In summer ’43, he came home and said, hell, I was up in Canada building an air base on Hudson Bay, Churchill. Up with the polar bears and the Eskimos. And got another job at Hanford Engineering Works, Pasco, Washington. So in two weeks, I’m going to catch the train and be off. And maybe if I can find a place to live, your mom will come out and join me.</p>
<p>Franklin: So—sorry—what year were you born?</p>
<p>McClellan: 1937. January 5, 1937.</p>
<p>Franklin: And do you remember when your father left for HEW?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, he, as I said, he spent ’42 and ’43 in Canada working on an air base. That construction company ended up being engaged at Hanford. So he came out in ’43, in the summer, and lived at Hanford, the construction town. My mother soon joined him when they found a small trailer they could live in. She worked in the commissary at Hanford. And then in the summer of 1944, they came back to Minnesota. My brother and I had lived with our grandparents on a farm for a year, and my sister with an aunt. So we got on the train and headed out to the state of Washington on a new adventure in the summer of 1944.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>McClellan: And then that fall—we lived for the summer in Sunnyside, Washington. I remember well an eight-plex apartment, if you will. Pretty exciting. You’d go to the end of our street, take a right, go a half mile, and there was an honest-to-God Indian teepee with an Indian that lived in it. That was pretty exciting for young kids.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet. Was that one of the Navy homes?</p>
<p>McClellan: No, that was a part of the Hanford complex, that they had built some housing in outlying areas while they were constructing new homes in Richland. So near the end of August, my father came home one day and said, hey, they finished a new group of houses in Richland, and we’re going to be moving down next week or two. Neighbors would drive us down, I’m going to come in off of graveyard shift and I’ll be at our new home, and you can meet me there.</p>
<p>Franklin: And what kind of home was it?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, we said, well, where is it? He said, well, it’s a three-bedroom prefabricated house, a so-called prefab.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>McClellan: And it’s on 1809 McClellan Street. And my kid brother and I jumped up and down and said, gee, on our own street! [LAUGHTER] So we later learned that, you know, many of the streets were named for individuals in the Corps of Engineers. So McClellan was in the Corps of Engineers, a one-block-long street, up in the—I guess, what? Southwest side of Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. I live a stone’s throw away from—I live on Stanton.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah, okay.</p>
<p>Franklin: In a two-bedroom prefab.</p>
<p>McClellan: So we did just as he said. The neighbors drove us down and we got to the new house. The door was open, we went in, and there was my dad, flaked out in the bed. He’d come home from graveyard shift and welcomed us to our new home.</p>
<p>Franklin: Are you related to General—is there any family relation to General McClellan?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, only speculation. Probably one of my more noteworthy traits is procrastination. And as you may recall, General McClellan had some problems with procrastination.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, as a US historian, I’m very well-versed in—[LAUGHTER] Especially the first three years of the Civil War. Yes, he certainly was.</p>
<p>McClellan: And he also liked the libation, and I think we shared a similar taste there.</p>
<p>Franklin: And luster. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>McClellan: But he was short of stature; I’m tall of stature.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, he looked good on a horse.</p>
<p>McClellan: But I don’t know. I’ve done a little bit of digging and I found, you know, a cluster of McClellans there in Kirkcudbright in Scotland. We actually have a Castle MacLellan. It’s more of a large manor house than a castle. But interesting.</p>
<p>Franklin: What did your father do at the Hanford Site?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, my father initially worked in construction and then very quickly as they started to assemble the operational workforce, he went to work as a patrolman. You know, part of the, what today we call, security force. Of course, worked for DuPont. He moved quickly from there into what was called the separations department or operation. That was the unit that we learned later was involved in separating out the product, plutonium, from the irradiated fuel elements containing uranium. So he spent most of his career, actually, working in the PUREX facility.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>McClellan: Earlier he had some time in the bismuth phosphate separation plant. And then in the RADOX and then PUREX was ultimately the big workhorse separations facility for the Hanford operations.</p>
<p>Franklin: And how long did your father work at Hanford for?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, for his total life then. I think he passed away age 62. My mother, very soon after we came to Richland, went to work in the food services facility at Marcus Whitman Elementary School, which was where we were going to school. So I do remember in the third grade, seeing my mom in the cafeteria as we went through and picked up our lunches. She was a very ambitious lady, very intelligent. She got her shorthand and typing in quick order and then went to work and became the secretary of the principal of Columbia High School. She always commented she was pleased that one of the students in the class, I think of 1948, a noteworthy graduate was Gene Conley. The trivia question is, who is one of the athletes that played for two different sports teams in terms of major sports? And that’s Gene Conley, Col High graduate who played for the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Celtics, and earlier here was a student at Washington State University.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, interesting.</p>
<p>McClellan: So my mother spent basically her career as a professional administrator.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did she work at Hanford at all?</p>
<p>McClellan: No, she really always kind of focused on wanting her family.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: And she really didn’t want that extra travel time. So she worked for a period of time at the United Way or Community Chest, and then back into the school system and was the administrative assistant or secretary to a number of principals in different schools in the Richland school system.</p>
<p>Franklin: So, tell me about growing up in Richland in a government town, and in a prefab, and how that--</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, I think growing up and—obviously, growing up is a unique experience. [LAUGHTER] For everyone. But we had come from a small town in Minnesota. Everybody knew everybody else. Everybody was from there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: Many of them had two, three, four generations living in the area. Coming to Richland was totally different environment. Everyone was from somewhere else. There were a number of people from Utah, a number of people from Colorado, Denver. Turns out all of those were connections back to DuPont, and DuPont’s operation of facilities in those areas. And there were quite a number from the Midwest and a few from Montana. Areas where there was not a lot of industrial activity. People could be recruited. Like my father, in terms of married, three children, why, he was lower down in the draft order. So, that was prototypical of many of the people. My classmates would be families of two, three, four, five kids and their fathers, in some case were blue collar workers, in some cases were engineers. New kinds of professionals that I never had experience with, even as a little kid, and later when I’d spend summers with my grandparents on the farm in Minnesota. Yeah, the professionals we came in contact with were our family doctor, the farm veterinarian, the lawyer, the banker. So Richland, one of the interesting aspects was the extent to—as a young kid I had fellow students whose fathers were engineers or chemists. In fact, one of my classmates, class of 1954 from Columbia High School, his father was W.E. Johnson.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh!</p>
<p>McClellan: He was the top guy running Hanford for many years for the General Electric Company.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>McClellan: The other thing that’s unique is that no one owned their own home.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: You rented your home. DuPont left soon after the war ended. DuPont had been brought in because they were really a unique company. Not only were they large, but they, because of the nature of their business, producing explosives, they were in the business of designing, building, and operating facilities. That was a unique set of activities. So, as I say, you’re working with building and manufacturing explosives. You want to know that your facility—</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, and I imagine, too, that there’s a culture of safety in DuPont in dealing with such—</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh, absolutely.</p>
<p>Franklin: When your product is explosive and—</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. And many years later I would actually have interactions professionally in terms of DuPont, and that safety culture was present and continues today. But that was also present at Hanford. And then that ability, as I say, to make modifications in the design as new information came available.</p>
<p>Franklin: And do that in-house, too.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah, that was all done in-house. Then we euphemistically said that changed from DuPont to Generous Electric. General Electric was the prime contractor, and sometimes we’d refer to them as Generous Electric. Of course, they operated on a pass-through basis. It was federal dollars. That’s the other thing I think unique in terms of Richland and Richland school systems. There was no private property. So there was no private tax base. So the dollars for the Richland schools flowed through, let’s say, line of dollars that came from Washington in terms of appropriation—authorization and appropriations, and were ultimately administered by the Richland Operations Office of the Atomic Energy Commission. So if you’re in the Richland Operations Office and you’re involved in overseeing the expenditure of dollars, your kids are going to the Richland schools, you’re certainly not going to slice some dollars off the budget for School District 400, Richland. Your kids are going to be impacted. So the schools were, quite frankly, extraordinary quality. I don’t think I fully appreciated that at the time.</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER] I don’t think any of us do at the time.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. So as I told someone, even recently, you know, I’m still working off the vapor left in the fuel tank that they started to fill when I went to Marcus Whitman, then Carmichael, and Col High, and then headed off to Washington State University.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. What else can you say about growing up in Richland that might be different from a lot of other people’s experiences in a normal—</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, I think at that time, in Richland, there was an element of kind of the long hand of Washington in planning communities. There was an interesting intersection of class, if you will, more based on, are you an hourly worker or are you a monthly payroll? So-called non-exempt and exempt payroll. And there was a recognition that there was an element of status associated with education. But overlaying that, at the intersection was the fact that when we moved from 1809 McClellan Street to 1122 Perkins, we lived in a B house. Now, that’s one of the things that’s a little different. I mean, the houses had alpha-numbers on them. A houses, B houses, one-, two-, three-bedroom prefabs. So a B house was a duplex, two bedrooms on each end. But on Perkins Street, we could look across the street and there were two L houses. Those were two-story and four bedrooms upstairs; living room, dining room, kitchen downstairs. They were pretty spiffy. So here you have this strange junction of somebody who was an hourly worker was not at first bat going to be assigned an L house to live in.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: You were a manager. The manager that lived across the street, ultimately, would become the chief engineer for the Hanford Project. That was Oren H. Pilkey, P-I-L-K-E-Y. A senior. And he was an engineer. Grew up in Texas, trained as an engineer at Texas A&M, and then gone off to work for Chicago Bridge and Ironworks. Had a lot of experience. So I remember well—you know, I’m kind of a tall, even in those days, skinny kid, and I was playing out in the front yard, and I saw this black Ford sedan drive in to the L house that had recently become vacant, and out hopped four people. They weren’t too unusual, except they were short of stature. The two adults were about five-foot-four, and the kids were under five-foot. We soon became good friends. Ultimately, Oren Pilkey was one of my scout masters and a mentor.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>McClellan: He encouraged me in terms of mathematics, engineering, physical sciences. A love and appreciation for the outdoors. But I did many Sunday afternoon kind of engineering, or learning experiences in his study at his home. I remember doing one of those. It was a calculation of pressure in a large tank, what the pressure would be involved in lifting the lid on the large tank. Only many years later did I learn that was the double-walled steel tanks at Hanford that he was overseeing developing. On that particular occasion, I actually could best his son, who was my classmate in high school, Walter Pilkey. Walter would go on to become a very distinguished engineer and professor of Engineering Science at the University of Virginia. His older brother, who was my good friend also, Oren Pilkey, Junior, went on and very distinguished career in marine geology, was a Washington Duke professor of geology at Duke University. So, I think that kind of segueways back in terms of the educational environment. I think there was a lot of inspiration, if you will. As a young kid you could see people who were successful, and you soon recognized success was tied to education.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, I suppose it’s knowing so many people from so many different places. I guess I could imagine maybe that people in Richland were aware of a wider world than, say, someone in a small town in Minnesota or Arkansas might be.</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, I think that’s true. And I think they each brought their own culture. I mean, I recall our next door neighbors in Sunnyside. They were from Oklahoma. Even as a seven-year-old, I kind of knew a bit about the Dust Bowl and whatever, and the Okies. I was admonished by my parents, we’re not supposed to call them Okies. That’s a little bit of a derogatory term. But I still remember an experience, going with my mother, and she of course had her troop of three kids. I was seven, my brother was five-and-a-half and my sister was four, and we were going downtown Sunnyside to mail some packages and shopping. The lady next door had her troop of three kids about the same age, except she had a newborn baby. So we went into the Sunnyside post office and mailed our packages and came out, and the baby started to squall. And so the lady sat on the steps of the post office in Sunnyside and opened her blouse and started to nurse her baby. Well, that was not quite what you would expect in Tracy, Minnesota. Little bit different culture. So you had different cultures. Again, my friends, the Pilkeys, their mother had gone to Hunter College in New York. Very well-educated lady. We would very frequently take trips to the public library on Sunday afternoon to pick up a new collection of books. If you went to her home, why, there’d be a book on almost every table. She was an avid reader. And that encouraged us to do the same.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s very interesting—sorry. Go ahead.</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, so, I think the difference in everybody being from somewhere else was something that kind of pulled things apart, in terms of a community. On the other hand, the fact that everybody was in some way involved with Hanford brought people together. And overlaying that, in those days—the late ‘40s—was the element of secrecy. You didn’t really know what was going on. Things were compartmentalized. Many years later, I was taking a graduate course at what was then the WSU Joint Graduate Center. In a sense a predecessor of—</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, pretty much right here.</p>
<p>McClellan: WSU. So the individual teaching that was Doctor Lyle Swindeman, who was an environmental scientist at the Hanford Laboratories. And we were going through each of the different AEC facilities around the country: Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, Shipping Port—whatever—as to what they did, how they managed environmental activities. It was really rather remarkable in terms of the early 1960s, when I took that. One of them we focused on, of course, was Hanford. That particular evening, we had a flow chart for the PUREX facility. I came home and I was doing some homework at the table. My father came home from a swing shift and sat down with a cup of coffee, and we’re chatting and looking at what I’m doing. And he said, what the hell are you doing? Those are classified! [LAUGHTER] I said, no, no, look up there. It’s unclassified. He said, no, I think that’s classified. That’s what we’re doing all the time. So there was this little bit of a conflict there. He was not absolutely convinced that I had the unclassified version of the flow documents for the PUREX facility.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, that makes sense, too, right, because he would have come to Hanford during World War II when secrecy was paramount. I mean—</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh!</p>
<p>Franklin: If you said anything about your job, you could easily be on the next train out.</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh, absolutely. And the other is elements—I recently had a conversation with some people in terms of plutonium workers at Hanford, which my father was one of those. Ironically, many years later, I would be studying plutonium. I was involved in the first meeting that gave rise to the US Transuranium and Uranium Registry. My father was enrolled in that. And I continue today to have an interest in plutonium toxicity and what we do to protect the workers, which, in my opinion, was remarkable in terms of at Hanford. Part of that is you have a bioassay program. Well, what’s bioassay? One of the elements of the bioassay program is that you collect samples of urine periodically, you analyze them for radioactivity, and then using very sophisticated models, go back and project—estimate—what exposures an individual may have in terms of internal deposition. Well, it was classified as to what people did, but now I can understand, if I had just gone down the street and taken a look at which addresses had a gray box on the front doorstep, which was the urine samples that were being collected, I could have identified who were the prospective plutonium workers at Hanford. I don’t know if the Soviets had anybody doing those street checks in Richland or not, but they could have identified who were the plutonium workers pretty readily.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. I just wanted to come back to something, and say that it’s remarkable to hear you talk about the impact of the mixed income neighborhood you lived in, and that you identified that we lived in this mixed income neighborhood from the B house next to the L. Because that was, as you might know, that was Pherson—Albin Pherson—the man who designed the Richland village. That was his idea. That was one of the things he pushed through, was having mixed income neighborhoods, so that you didn’t have a total segregation of people by class.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s interesting to hear your views on that and how that affected you.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. No, there was that element of kind of a utopian plan community approach. I don’t want to go too far on it. There’s a book out there, it’s got a corruption of the word plutonium in it, written by an individual who puts herself forward as an academic historian. I’m not certain where she got her degree, what her credentials, but I can tell you the book is filled with hogwash, as my grandfather would say. Absolute, unvarnished hogwash. I don’t know where she got a lot of her information—it’s misinformation, as she tries to contrast and compare Richland, the Hanford Site, with Mayak in the Soviet Union. I’ve studied both of those; I know both of them quite well. And I also know the outcomes, in terms of health of workers at both those sites. She’s totally off base. I always like to call that to people’s attention. They say, have you read the book in its entirety? I say, I’ve read pieces of it, but I really don’t want to waste my money buying it.</p>
<p>Franklin: I see. So, you graduated in ’54, correct? From Columbia High.</p>
<p>McClellan: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: And then you went to WSC.</p>
<p>McClellan: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: So what did you go to study at—</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, we have to back up a ways.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay, let’s do that.</p>
<p>McClellan: There’s an interesting event that occurred. I’m going to be a little bit vague in this because I may not remember the specific dates. But 1948—using the royal we—the US detected airborne radioactivity on the west coast of the USA. That was not surprising; we knew that the Soviets were building a copycat facility to Hanford. When we detected radioactivity in the air, specifically radioiodine, iodine-131, that was a very good—not just clue—but we knew they were processing radioactive fuel.</p>
<p>Franklin: I’ve heard that their first facility was almost an exact copy of the one in the 300 Area, except instead of being horizontal, it was vertical. Do you know anything about—</p>
<p>McClellan: I’m not really knowledgeable of the absolute details of theirs, but again, the key element is that what they were doing is they were taking refined uranium fuel—</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: --creating a reaction, in terms of neutrons and producing plutonium-239.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. We knew they were doing the same thing that we were doing.</p>
<p>McClellan: Exactly. And when we detected radioiodine in the air, we knew they were processing that fuel. Now, the key is how much plutonium were they producing? That’s what we really wanted to know. And somebody said, well, gee, they’re doing just what we did at Hanford. They’re processing green fuel. Well, what do we mean by green fuel? Green fuel is freshly irradiated uranium oxide fuel with plutonium in it. And were now, rather than letting that cool down for a period of time, so the short live radionuclides decay off, were processing it almost immediately because we want the plutonium. That’s what happened in terms of Hanford when the first processing, I think late in 1944, early 1945, to produce plutonium to go to Los Alamos. So, somebody said, well, gee, if we know there’s x radioiodine in the air, what we want to know is y amount of plutonium. Well, why don’t we just repeat that big experiment? So that was Operation Green Run. That was the code name for what would ultimately be the largest—to my knowledge—release of radioactivity from the Hanford Operations. A planned experiment that went astray. They took the freshly irradiated green fuel, chopped it, added the nitric acid. I have reason to go back through the dates—my father was probably involved in that crew. And then the radioiodine started to come out the stack. But Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. We had a major meteorological inversion, and, basically, fumigated, quote, the Inland Empire with short-lived iodine-131. It has an eight-day half-life. That would create controversy over whether there were ill effects related to that. As it turned out, in terms of those releases—that was highly classified—but it led to a real push in further work at Hanford on radioiodine. They started a major study. That study involved feeding radioactive iodine to sheep each day. And along the way, they decided, gee, you know we always have this possibility of exposures on the site. Why don’t we maintain an offsite flock of control sheep? Ah, that sounds like a good idea. Who could do that? Well, gee, why don’t we have the Richland schools do that? I can’t go through all the details, but I’m reasonably certain there were discussions at rather high levels. Rather surprisingly, the Richland School District started a vocational agriculture program. I was one of the early students in that program. The school farm was located right across the road from where the WSU Tri-Cities campus is located today.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, right.</p>
<p>McClellan: We had a large tract of land, and in fact, if you were enterprising as I was, you could sublease a piece of that land. I actually had the sublease on the ten acres right at the corner of Jadwin across from the WSU campus where I grew corn and alfalfa for four years that I was in high school. I also had several orchards and a vineyard for two years. But that school farm maintained the offsite control sheep for the big Hanford radioiodine and thyroid cancer study that was being conducted. What was particularly important out of that is one of the people that WSU recruited was Leo K. Bustad. Leo K. Bustad was a veterinarian. He had been a distinguished military veteran. Had spent a significant portion of his military time in World War II in German prisoner of war camp, which substantially influenced him. He came back to WSU and pursued a master’s degree in nutrition and a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. When he received the DVM and the nutrition degree, he was an ideal candidate to recruit to Hanford for involvement in the studies on radiation effects. I first, then, met Leo Bustad when he was a Hanford scientist and periodically would stop by the school farm and check on the status of those offsite control sheep. So, he encouraged me in terms of veterinary medicine. My friend, Oren Pilkey, across the street encouraged me in engineering. When I headed off to WSU—or WSC—1954, I actually enrolled as an engineering student. I took engineering. I took economics. I took pre-veterinary medicine. And then I decided to go down the pathway of veterinary medicine. That led me, then, to seek summer employment. [LAUGHTER] And so I was employed as a student at Hanford for three years—’57, ’58, ’59. And then Leo twisted my arm to come back as a full-time scientist in 1960, when I received my Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. [37:40]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. We should note that Bustad is also one of the most well-known or prodigious WSU alumni in terms of his contributions to veterinary medicine and, you know, there’s an entire hall named after him on campus.</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, Leo is a wonderful remarkable individual. I can relate many, many stories with regard to Leo. But one of those—I’d just finished what was probably my first major scientific manuscript on the metabolism of strontium-90. Strontium-90 is an alkaline earth element. Behaves very much like calcium. So it’s readily absorbed in the GI tract, goes to the skeleton. Radio strontium, strontium-90, is a beta emitter, radiates then the bone and the bone marrow. So you’re concerned for those effects. So we were studying strontium-90 in miniature pigs. So I had finished this manuscript on metabolism of strontium-90 and gave it to Leo to review. Leo said, I’ll read through it tonight, come back tomorrow, and we can talk about it. So I came in the next day, and he said, well, this is really good. But there’s kind of a little bit of a problem with a few aspects. I said, oh, what’s that? He said, well, rather surprised there’s only one author. I knew, uh-oh. Boy, I goofed. I said, oh, well, this was just a draft, Leo. He said, well, I hope so. I thought I had quite a bit to do with the design of that experiment. I said, what else? He said, well, it’s got some statistics in here. You and I aren’t statisticians. Maybe we ought to have somebody else review this. I said, who do you have in mind? And he said, Carl. Turns out that he was sort of the top statistician at Hanford. I said, we don’t to waste his time then. He said, oh, I’ve already called him up. He’s expecting you in his office at 300 Area at 4:00. And he said, we’ll have to have it wrapped up by 7:00 because I’m going to be home for dinner at 7:30. Sure enough, I went in and we spent three hours—a wonderful experience. Very junior scientist and here’s one of the leading statisticians in the world, in fact. So I said, what else? And he said, well, we need some good editorial advice? I said, well, what are you thinking about? He said, well, what about Phil Abelson? I said, Phil Abelson, the editor of <em>Science</em> magazine? And he said, yeah! I said, well, we’re going to need some connections there, Leo. He says, we got them. He’s a Cougar! He picked up the phone and called Phil Abelson. And introduced me to Phil on the phone. And that was the beginning of a lifetime association that I had with Phil Abelson.</p>
<p>Franklin: Who also has a building named after him on campus.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. And many years later, I was the president and CEO for an organization called the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology from 1988 to 1999. And Phil Abelson was on my board of directors. So Phil and I were lifelong friends. I was very pleased, many years later, when I was recognized as a Regent’s Distinguished Alumnus at Washington State University to actually—I knew that Phil was also an alumnus, but I didn’t appreciate he was the first Regent’s Alumnus in terms of Washington State University. And then as I went down the list further, Leo Bustad was on that list. So I’m very proud in terms of that lineage.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s great. As a side note, your name was so familiar to me in the beginning because I did a project for them—for University Communications for a historical timeline and had to find pictures of all the Regent’s Distinguished—what year were you a Regent’s Distinguished—</p>
<p>McClellan: Golly, I think 2007, maybe.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, I think I found your picture somewhere and put it up on the website.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s funny. So, wow. You got all three degrees at Washington State?</p>
<p>McClellan: No, no, I only received one. It’s always interesting, particularly if I’m appearing in the court room. They’ll say where did you get your bachelor’s degree? I say, I don’t have one. You know, plaintiff lawyers spend a lot of time on that. I went to WSU at a time period when you could actually gain admission with the appropriate number of credit hours after two years. So I ended up going to Washington State University and completing my only degree, a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine, in six years, and graduated in 1960.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>McClellan: So I was 23 years old. I later—kind of on a lark—took a Master’s in Management Science—an MBA in an executive program—at the University of New Mexico. I received that degree in 1980. That was a lot of fun, because, again, it was multidisciplinary. There were engineers; there were chemists, physicists, social scientists, physicians, lawyers. I’ve alwys enjoyed that kind of interdisciplinary environment. I had that in terms of that program at Robert O. Anderson School of Management at University of New Mexico. And then later I had the good fortunate that the Ohio State University recognized my career in comparative veterinary medicine and awarded me an honorary Doctor of Science degree, which I’m very proud to have received.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you said—you mentioned that you worked three summesr at the Hanford Site and then were brought on at Bustad’s urgings back to Hanford. So how long did you stay at—so you graduated in 1960 and then came back to—</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. Well then I actually—I planned to stay two years until my fiancée, Kathleen—Kathleen Donnegan—graduated from Washington State. Then we’d have kind of free range. One of my understandings with Bustad when I came to Hanford is he would make certain I could visit all the schools around the USA that I was interested in potentially going to to pursue a graduate degree. He said, I won’t get you to Perth, Australia, the other one you’re considering, but I’ll get you to those five in the US. And he did live up to his bargain. Leo was a great mentor in terms of encouraging me to do lots of different things and always push yourself to the limit. He signed me up—I think the second year I was at Hanford, I was 24 years old, and he asked me to keep a day open. As I recall, it was in March ’62. And I said, well, Leo, we need to fill in the calendar; what do you have in mind? He said, well, I signed you up to give a seminar at the University of Washington on bone marrow transplantation in miniature pigs. [LAUGHTER] It was pretty heavy. But he was reassuring. As I was getting my slides together, he said, Roger, remember when you talk to that group of people, you’re going to know more about the subject than anybody in that room. That’s great advice to a young student—young scientist—to have confidence. That if you’re well-prepared, you could go before a pretty formidable audience, because you should know more about that topic than anybody in that room.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. How was it, coming back to Hanford after it had been privatized? I’m sure you probably—your parents lived—</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah, actually it was—when I was at WSC, my parents bought their home. So I saw those activities. And then, when I was employed, I was in the Hanford Laboratories. That was a remarkable institution, organization. The individual that headed that was H. M. Parker—Herbert M. Parker. The biology division within that was headed up by Harry A. Kornberg. Leo Bustad reported to Kornberg. I reported to Bustad. I was on a very short reporting line, if you will. Mr. Parker reported to W. A. Johnson. So I knew Herb Parker personally. I’d had the opportunity to give one of what were sometimes called the Parker seminars—individuals would be invited to give a seminar for Mr. Parker and a very small group of people in Parker’s office and library in 300 Area. Those were always with some trepidation. You couldn’t turn down that invitation, because people maneuvered to get them. But that was a pretty august audience they had at the laboratories—H. M. Parker listening to your presentation and having questions.</p>
<p>Franklin: That sounds like a very encouraging workplace.</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh, it was!</p>
<p>Franklin: [INAUDIBLE] of research discipline and hard work.</p>
<p>McClellan: And hard work was rewarded. I remember in 1962, I had a call from Mr. Parker’s office to come in. A little bit uncertain. Leo Bustad had kind of gone out on a limb in terms of encouraging me to go to an international meeting in England at the International Congress of Radiation Research. I initially took in my travel schedule and Leo took a look and said, gee, this doesn’t look very good, Roger. And I said, what do you mean? I’m going to the meeting for a week, I’m going to take a week’s vacation. It’s going to be just a month or so after I’m married. He said, oh, no, no problem with that. I’d like you to spend a lot more time there. There’s a lot of people I want you to see and meet. So he said I’ll draw up a revised schedule. So I came back the next day and he had a schedule that was four weeks! I said, holy cow! I said, Leo, this isn’t going to fly. I mean, it certainly won’t get by Mr. Parker. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, you don’t know the saying. There’s a saying around the lab with the working troops that if you’re gone two weeks, you’re gone forever. I said I don’t want to tempt fate. He said, oh, Herb’s bark is always a lot sharper than his bite. He said, I think he’ll approve this. He thinks you’re one of our rising stars. So sure enough, Herb Parker approved it. And then just the week before I’m going to this meeting, I get a call from Mr. Parker’s office. And I thought, uh-oh, he’s going to personally tell me he’s changed his mind. So I went into his office, and seated in the outer room, the door to the strong room, if you will, open. And Mr. Parker, a rather large individual, came out with his kind of limp handshake. Hello, Roger, great to have you here. Come on in. And then, you’re probably wondering why I’ve invited you to my office today. And I said, well, I am. [LAUGHTER] He said, well, we have a program here. I like to recognize people for their contributions, and it’s a rather private matter. And he gave me a little black leather case, and it had a nice little commemorative statement in there. Then he reached into his coat pocket and he pulled out an envelope and he said, and there is a monetary award that goes with this. I’m sure that’s going to be useful on that very prolonged trip you have planned to Europe. [LAUGHTER] So, Herb could have a—he was an outstanding scientist—also had a very wry, British humor. He certainly encouraged me to become involved in activities in radiation protection. I’m very confident I would never have become a member of the National Counsel of Radiation Protection and Measurements if it had not been for the encouragement that Herb Parker and Leo Bustad gave me.</p>
<p>Franklin: Could you speak a little—just for people that might not know—could you speak a little more about Herb Parker and his work at Hanford. Since you knew him personally, Herb Parker’s working at Hanford and his importance to Hanford.</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, Herb Parker was trained as a radiological physicist in England. Very bright individual. Did some seminal work in radiological physics, particularly related to treatment of cancer, and what we call [UNKNOWN] dose curves. He developed these to estimate the radiation dose that would be delivered to a tumor, if you will, from an external x-ray beam. One of the people that he learned of and came in contact with was Dr. Cantrell at Swedish Cancer Institute in Seattle. So, he joined Cantrell to continue his work. And then World War II came along and Herb got pulled into the Manhattan Project. He was a part of a group of individuals trained primarily in physics, some in chemistry, and brought together initially at Oak Ridge. They were to be sort of the liaison between the operations, the medical community, and assuring the safety of workers. That coded, if you will, as health physics. That was done in part because no one wanted to use the term radiological in terms of this particular activity, because of the secrecy during World War II. Later, Herb would express profound dislike for that term, health physics. I agree with him. I would think it probably was a useful placeholder for a time period. So Herb was one of that early group, and he was assigned to Hanford, I think. If memory serves me, he came to Hanford in August of 1944. I said I came in September to start the third grade in 1944. And Herb had a key role in the overall design and management, ultimately, of the program in terms of radiological protection of the Hanford workers, and you could go more broadly, protection in terms of chemical agents. And not protection just of workers but the total environmental program. In my opinion, the program that Herb Parker really provided the leadership for was one of the foremost programs in terms of environmental and worker protection that was ever put in place in prospective way. Evidence of that, Mr. Parker—and it was Mr. Parker; he did not have an earned doctoral degree—set about writing with Cantrell kind of a handbook, if you will, on radiation protection. What is it? What is radiation? What does it do to the body? He wanted to see that distributed to the appropriate workers at the earliest possible date. It ran into some difficulties in terms of clearance, but it ultimately was released on January 5<sup>th</sup>, 1945. My eighth birthday. [LAUGHTER] So it’s easy for me to recall. That document is an extraordinary exposition on what we knew about radiation then. And many of the basic concepts that were outlined by Cantrell and Parker in that document are still applicable today.</p>
<p>Franklin: So he’s really a major leader in health physics.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah, and I would say, Herb would probably—he would prefer radiological protection.</p>
<p>Franklin: Radiological protection.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah, and I see it as that big picture of protection of workers and the environment from agents, whether the agents were working, processing, in terms of the whole chain of radioactive materials, uranium to plutonium fission products, or whether we’re talking about chemicals. My career, in fact, has been punctuated—I’ve been involved in radiation throughout my career, but I’ve also spent a very large portion of it dealing with chemical agents.</p>
<p>Franklin: How long did you work at Hanford Labs?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, as I said, I came back as a permanent scientist 1960. I was very fortunate, I think, working under the leadership of Leo Bustad and Harry Kornberg and Mr. Parker, to be advanced very early to rank Senior Scientist. I soon put the graduate program sort of on the side and pushed ahead. In 1964, Leo came to me and said, you know, they’re pushing on me again to come back to Washington, D.C. on a special assignment. I’m not really enthusiastic about it because my kids are in school. But I think I’m going to suggest they take a look at you. What do you think about that? And I said, well, gee. That sounds like an interesting opportunity. So, first thing you know, I’m on my way to Washignton, D.C. and a series of interviews. We reached agreement that in October 1 of 1964, I’ll go to Washington, D.C. Well, then, all of the sudden, things started to change in the summer, basically, of ’64. The decision that General Electric is going to leave, that total operation is going to be fragmented. Sometimes I refer to that as the disparaging phrase of, maintaining employment in the face of absence of a product. Because it was pretty clear we had enough plutonium-239. We didn’t need Hanford any longer to produce any more. General Electric ran a very efficient operation. So, General Electric headed out, and they start to look at firms to run different pieces of the operation. It became known that the laboratories would be managed as a separate enterprise, and very quickly we learned that was going to be Battelle Memorial Institute from Columbus. For those of at Hanford, it didn’t take much time in the library to kind of determine that, gee, this seems to be upside-down. We ought to be taking over Battelle, not Battelle taking us over. But that’s the way it was. So I was interviewed by Sherwood Fawcett, who had been announced as the first director of what would become the Pacific Northwest Laboratories. The outcome was predictable. They said, we want you to join the Battelle team. We seem to have this problem: you’re leaving before we arrive. So I said, well, that’s just the way it is. [LAUGHTER] And he said, well, maybe we could delay your departure. I said, well, perhaps we could talk to the people in the AEC and see if they’d be agreeable. But Dr. Fawcett said, well, what would they have to do with it? And I still remember telling him, they had something to do with everything that goes on here. They certainly will have a say. Well, they were quickly agreed. So it was agreed that I would become a Battelle employee. So as I recall, January 4<sup>th</sup> or thereabouts, 1965, I walked out the door on Friday evening and threw my GE badge in the box and came in on Monday morning and picked up a Battelle badge, and that Friday I headed out on a leave of absence to join the division of biology and medicine at the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>McClellan: So the next phase is after not quite two years in Washington. I spent—I was then strongly encouraged to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico to run a research program on inhaled radioactivity that was operated by the Lovelace Foundation for Medical Education and Research, a part of a triad of a medical research institute, a private medical clinic and a hospital. And in that role, running that program, I essentially competed with Hanford in terms of a very significant research program that Bill Bair pioneered in leading at Hanford. So while I was gone from Hanford, I in a sense remained connected, certainly scientifically. And as a competitor, but a very friendly competition.</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER] And did you ever come back to work at Hanford after you went to New Mexico?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, I never came—well, I came for a couple weeks in the summer of ’66 and sort of bid my farewell. Wrapped up a few things. And I continued to publish some papers interrelated. I came back many times in terms of the Hanford Symposium that became a regular feature. And then I had the opportunity, more recently, to serve on the Scientific Advisory Committee for the US Transuranium and Uranium Registry. Which, ironically, I was involved in in some of the early activities initiating it in 1966. Now we’re 50 years later, celebrating the 50<sup>th</sup> anniversary of a landmark program started by group of occupational physicians, Dag Norwood, one of those small contractors in the privatized acitivites at Hanford. Then that later went over to Washington State University, and today is maintained and operated as a piece of the Washington State University College of Pharmacy.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup. When you were at Hanford Labs, what kinds of work were you—you mentioned work on pigs, bone marrow—what other kinds of work were you doing?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, we had a major study that Leo was wrapping up on the effects of radioiodine in thyroid cancer in sheep. I did some ancillary studies related to how we translated those results to people, to humans. One of the key pieces of work that I did—and it really fit into a bigger picture with many people involved, but—we looked at the effects of x radiation of the thyroid gland and compared that to the protracted beta radiation of the thyroid from ingested or inhaled radioiodine. That showed that the protracted radiation exposure was much less effective in causing damage to the thyroid. So that was a very important piece of work. Another major study that—the primary one I had responsibility for was one that involved miniature pigs given strontium-90. They received their strontium-90 dose each day. We had three generations of pigs. Not because it was a study of genetic effects, but that’s the way in which we could introduce additional animals into the study. It ultimately involved over 1,000 miniature pigs, essentially studied for their total lifespan. And the endpoints were the development of bone marrow discrasias, bone marrow cancers, leukemia, and a development of bone cancers. So that study continued after I left. I think, in total, it represented a very important contribution. A key finding, again, was the importance of dose rate delivery. When radiation dose is protracted over time, it’s much less effective in causing damage and causing cancer. Another key study that was done during that time period linked back to Operation Green Run. We essentially simulated a part of that in a study in which we fed radioiodine—iodine-131 to dairy cows. We followed the thyroid in radioactivity in dairy cows. We collected samples of the milk—we milked them. And then we had a group of volunteers that drank that radioiodine-contaminated milk, elements of it. And then we monitored their thyroids. So you could put together this total picture of a contamination event in terms of iodine-131. What’s happening in terms of the cow’s thyroids accumulating iodine, what’s happening in terms of the iodine-131 in the milk, and then what is happening in terms of concentration of radioiodine in the human thyroid for people ingesting that. That was a very valuable set of data to help us understand what happened in terms of Operation Green Run. It was an extraordinarily valuable piece of information we could use in terms of assessing what was happening post-Chernobyl and post Fukushima.</p>
<p>Franklin: What did that data show, as to contamination in humans?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, it basically—key message out of that is if radioiodine is released in the event of a reactor accident, you really want to focus on what you can do to control it. You can control it multiple ways. One way is you simply take the cows off of any pasturage. You put them on the stored feed that doesn’t have radioiodine in it. And you make very certain that you simply stop the milk in that supply line. So in the case of Chernobyl, I was able to go to the Ukraine the fall after the Chernobyl accident and do some work there, reconstructing what was going on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>McClellan: We could see—and I think has been subsequently borne out—in many areas the Soviets were very effective of limiting the exposure of populations. Part of that was cut off that contaminated milk supply. The other that came out of that was something we had a clue to, and that is that the stable iodine intake is very important. If an individual is in what we call a goitergenic diet, low on stable iodine, then they’re going to take up much more of the radioiodine and get a higher radiation dose, as well as, I think there’s a synergistic interaction between the goitergenic thyroid that low in terms of iodine intake, and it’s pushing to do its best, if you will, limited iodine. So that’s combination of living in an area that’s goiterogenic and being subjected to radioiodine is bad news.</p>
<p>Franklin: How would someone naturally have a low iodine intake?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, very difficult in the USA—or in most advanced countries. Because one of the things we do is we introduce iodine in the flour.</p>
<p>Franklin: And what about iodized salt, also.</p>
<p>McClellan: Salt, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. So--</p>
<p>McClelland: Okay. But in certain areas, you know, in the Ukraine and Belarussia, at the time of the Chernobyl accident, things were not working well politically. Areas that had subsidized practices in terms of iodized salt, iodized flour—that was gone. They were reverting back to the old ways of flour being produced from wheat grown in these low iodine areas.</p>
<p>Franklin: So they’re bodies would have been much more naturally attuned to be grabbing that iodine and storing it?</p>
<p>McClellan: That’s right. Yeah, that’s exactly—</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, that’s really fascinating.</p>
<p>McClellan: So the people most at risk were those people living in those goiterogenic areas. In fact, that pattern was well-studied in terms of people knowledgeable of thyroid and thyroid disease.</p>
<p>Franklin: So did you know this about—you knew this about the iodine, then, before Chernobyl happened and were able to identify it, or this came about as a result of Chernobyl?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, what happened is Chernobyl kind of confirmed our fears, if you will. An individual by the name of Lester van Middlesworth at the Univeristy of Tennessee in Memphis was a major figure in studying thyroid and thyroid diseases. Leo Bustad and van Middlesworth were very good friends. I later became friends with van Middlesworth. He understood this, alerted him to this. In fact, our study that I referred to of radioiodine in cows—cows’ milk—we actually studied the influence in a small supplemental study of changing the iodine intake of the cows. So we knew—we understood that picture then. But it was after Chernobyl that, I think, Lester van Middlesworth was a key figure in pointing out these were the areas that were going to be at risk in the Ukraine, Russia, and Belarussia.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. The cows that were used for the study, were those cows—were those someone’s cows, or were they cows at the Hanford Labs?</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh, no, we purchased the cows. We purchased the cows at the open market. It was kind of fun. We actually had a much bigger experiment planned early on. We were going to grow and have the pastures and contaminate them and so on. But that was a multimillion dollar experiment to get shrunk down to something you could finally do. Kind of an interesting sideline is, as I told you, I came to Hanford as a summer student. I was fortunate that I fit into a program that was designed primarily for engineers. There were 100 individuals in the program in ’57. I think there were 95, 98 bona fide engineers. There was a graduate student from Wyoming and me, a veterinary medical student. But I had a—and Leo had an enthusiasm for bringing in students. So when I came back and was a permanent staff member, we regularly recruited students. So I can recall when we were planning the cow study, Leo and I had a set of resumes and applications in front of us. Leo pulled out one, and he said, I think this guy is really our guy. His name was Eugene Elafson. And I said, oh, I spotted him, Leo, and I knew you’d probably pick him out. He said, why is that? And I said, because he’s from Stanwood, Washington. That’s where you grew up! He’s another Scandinavian. And he said, oh, Roger, I knew you’d see through that. But remember, this guy grew up on a dairy farm. We need somebody to milk these cows this summer. [LAUGHTER] So we had Gene Olafson, who later was onto a very successful career in veterinary medicine. It was one of the students working with us that summer.</p>
<p>Franklin: How did you get the volunteers to ingest the milk? Did they know of—</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh, they knew that they were ingesting—in fact, they were all, as best I recall, the individuals were all professionals within the radiation protection unit at Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>McClellan: So today, whether we would have allowed them to be subjects of their own experiment, I don’t know. But I want to assure you that the radiation doses they received were extraordinarily small.</p>
<p>Franklin: I was just curious.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: You don’t hear about human subjects, generally, you know?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, we went through a time period where there was a lot of attention given in terms of work done under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Commission and using radiation and radionuclides in human subjects. During that time period, this study was one which the people—by then, Battelle was operating the laboratories, but they had go to back and pull out all the records. I recall very well the day I received a call from an attorney with the General Electric Company and said, I’ve read your papers in which you’re a coauthor reporting these students with five volunteers at Hanford. What can you tell me about them? But turned out, our scientific papers published in the open peer reviewed literature were one of the best pieces of information that one could use to readily calculate the radiation exposure the individuals and show that it was what I would call <em>de minimis</em>.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. That’s really interesting. When did you finally retire? Or have you retired?</p>
<p>McClellan: I’m not really retired. I’ve transitioned. I think my career is one of Hanford and studies on ingested radionuclides. A very important part of Hanford that I think should be emphasized is we were involved in what I would call issue-resolving science. We were trying to develop science so that we could resolve issues, solve problems, create information that could protect workers, protect the environment. I’m concerned that we’ve, over the years, science has changed in many quarters. Now sometimes I accuse some of my fellow scientists of being engaged in issue of perpetuating science: can we keep this going until my career’s over, or my graduate students’ careers are over. And even sometimes a bit of, will this arouse enough concern on the part of the public that they’ll fund what I want to do? The year that I was involved at Hanford, it was issue resolving science. The problem, the issue, it wasn’t a random walk through the scientific thicket, trying to find something interesting.</p>
<p>Franklin: Why do you think that’s changed?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, I think we always have tension, and sometimes the tension—we can simplify it by talking about basic versus applied science. I think that’s an artificial distinction on it. Some of the most basic, fundamental findings in science have been serendipitous findings that came out of applied science. I really am not an enthusiastic of the view that the best and the brightest can go into the laboratory and just sit down and they’ll have some great thoughts about what comes next. Some of this, I think, comes out of the high energy physics community, where there is a bit of that. I’m a strong believer, particularly in the use of public funds. That public funds should be used for science, in which we do have issues, and we want to obtain information that’s going to help us resolve those and use the science for the benefit of society. I think we sometimes get a little quite frankly maybe a little pompous as scientists that we know what the issues are and if the public would just listen to us more and give us more money, why, we’ll solve all the problems. That’s not really the way the world works. I think that science if a very vital part of the whole society. But it has to be a part of it, and it has to be interlocked and working with the other elements of society. I also think that many times we find scientists getting so wrapped up in their particular discipline that they fail to appreciate that most of these issues are so complex, they’re not solved by one scientist, one discipline. They’re really solved by a team of people. That becomes very challenging, because systems, in terms of reward, are not always designed to reward teams of people.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: We focus on rewarding individuals. I would say, I think, at Hanford, in the time period that I had extensive involvement, there was a teamwork orientation and a balance of recognizing the value of the individual but the value of the individual contributing his part of the team to solve a problem.</p>
<p>Franklin: Do you think—do you feel, maybe, that the Cold War had an impact in how science was connected, or that kind of teamwork or purpose-driven science happened, especially in the period you’re talking about, in the early, the heightened tensions of the Cold War versus this kind of post-Cold War world?</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, I know there was a purpose. In terms of talking nationalistic.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>McClellan: I mean, we were in a war. But now we’re in a new war, the Cold War. We knew what the Soviets were doing; they knew what we were doing. I think there was a battle on—I think the other part of that that influences this is that if you go back to the tremendous contributions of science, in terms of World War II, to winning that war, and certainly in many different ways—but we can go into the whole issue of RADAR. Things were done in communication, things were done in aeronautics in terms of physiological suit design.</p>
<p>Franklin: And so on.</p>
<p>McClellan: Yeah. Development of antibiotics. All of that, the whole field of nuclear energy. My personal view is that nuclear energy has both benefited from those origins, but it’s also had a heavy burden to bear. [LAUGHTER] I can relate to the fact that I’m visiting here in Richland and I’m going to go to a football game, and that football game, my grandson’s going to be playing in one team from western Washington, and they’re going to be playing the Richland High School Bombers, and their symbol is a mushroom cloud.</p>
<p>Franklin: Proud of the cloud!</p>
<p>McClellan: Unfortunately, many people, when you talk about nuclear power and its role in meeting our societal energy needs, their first image is that mushroom cloud. Their second image is envisioning thousands of deaths in terms of people who were killed in the two atomic bombings in Japan. What they fail to appreciate is that in fact radiation is not very effective in terms of producing cancer. It is really a weak carcinogen. That being said it has a bad rap. It doesn’t get as much of a good rap, probably, as it should in terms of its value in diagnostic purposes in terms of human medicine, nor diagnostic purposes—treatment purposes in terms of ccancer. Radiation is still one of our most effective tools in terms of cancer treatment. But all of that is sort of overwhelmed in the public view. So I continue to be a very strong supporter, enthusiast, wearing my hat as a citizen, I think, with special knowledge of radiation, as to what we should be doing in terms of trying to meet our energy needs. I think nuclear power has a key role. We’ve amply demonstrated that we can handle it and control it. We have had serious accidents—Chernobyl, Fukushima—but I think we can also learn from those.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. So I hate to—</p>
<p>McClellan: I think we’ve gone well over.</p>
<p>Franklin: We’ve gone for a bit. But I hate to [unknown] but I have an interview here in just a bit. But before you go, is there anything else we haven’t talked aobut that you would like to get off your chest?</p>
<p>McClellan: No. Well, there’s probably about another hour-and-a-half.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, we’d—I’d be happy to schedule a follow-up interview with you. There’s still several questions that I haven’t asked you.</p>
<p>McClellan: Oh, I think there’s a whole area that we ought to go into. Because I think—I mean, I know I sound pompous, but—I think I know it probably better than anybody else. This would take us down the line of radio accidents, inhalation of radioactivity, workers and worker exposure. Really the basis for much of the work that Bill Bair and his colleagues did at Hanford. And then the work we did at Albuquerque, initially with fission product radionuclides and then with plutonium. And then worked on it at the University of Utah with injections of plutonium, strontium-90, radium, in the beagle dogs. And then the study at UC-Davis that involved ingested strontium-90 and injected radium in dogs, and that links back to the studies with miniature pigs here. Those studies collectively provide a major portion of our knowledge of internally deposited radionuclides. The part that’s fascinating out of that is when we look at our human experience, in terms of the USA, I think we can be extraordinarily pleased with the fact that we did have effective radiation protection programs that go back to Herb Parker. So if there were effects, injuries, they’re extraordinarily rare, very localized. On a collective basis, I think we—we have ample evidence—we did a good job. On the other hand, I tell you that we have evidence post-Cold War that Mayak, the Soviet, was a very different situation. In fact, we did the studies in dogs because we didn’t have human experience. And we never expected to get it. What it turned out is the Soviets at Mayak got the experience that we never thought we would see and we never wanted to see. Their human subjects, accidentally exposed, demonstrated that our dogs were great models; i.e., workers at Mayak were exposed at levels that did produce an excess of lung cancer, an excess of liver cancer, an excess of bone cancer. The lung cancers and liver cancers were really remarkably predicted from the dog data.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>McClellan: Once you took into account two factors—one major. The dogs were clean living. They didn’t smoke, and they didn’t drink. Smoking does cause lung cancer.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, it does.</p>
<p>McClellan: And some plutonium exposure adds to that. Drinking in huge quantities can cause liver damage, and liver cancer. Exposure to plutonium increases it further.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. Well, that was great. And I would love to—we’d love to—</p>
<p>McClellan: So we’ll figure out some other time when we can continue into these others. Then after you’ve looked at what you’ve got here and how much of it’s useable—</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, there’s a lot of it. Thank you so much. That was great. And I had a great time.</p>
<p>McClellan: Well, my pleasure.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/85Jpe-VRlqQ">View interview on Youtube.</a></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:32:42
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
317 kbps
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Gene Conley
W.E. Johnson
Oren H. Pilkey
Walter Pilkey
Oren Pilkey
Doctor Lyle Swindeman
Albin Pherson
Leo K. Bustad
Kathleen Donnegan
Herbert M. Parker
Harry A. Kornberg
Dr. Cantrell
Sherwood Fawcett
Dag Norwood
Lester van Middlesworth
Leo Bustad
Eugene Elafson
Gene Olafson
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 Area
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1944-today
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1960-
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 Roger McClellan
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Roger McClellan 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
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
09-02-2016
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.
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2017-15-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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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.
1954
300 Area
Atomic Energy Commission
Battelle
Cancer
Cold War
DuPont
General Electric
Hanford
injuries
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Manhattan Project
Park
PUREX
School
Street
Sun
War
-
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4edca9efa5b020755d209c72f854cb83
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F08e2a82e15be87724cc35f3cc14a3127.mp4
b8689a451a342a533ee6e816848384f1
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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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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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 Franklin
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Jerome Martin
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p class="MsoNormal">Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history with Jerome Martin on June 1<sup>st</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Jerome Martin about his experiences working at the Hanford site and his involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. And you—just wanted to use your legal name to start out with, but you prefer to be called Jerry, right?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jerome Martin: Yes, I do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Jerome’s a little too formal. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right. Just for the technical purposes. Sure. No more, we will not mention the name—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Again. [LAUGHTER] So for the record, you did an interview with the Parker Foundation sometime in 2010.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I believe it was earlier.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Or possibly earlier. And some of the Parker Foundation videos, as we know, were lost. And so this video is an attempt to recapture some of the information that would have been in that oral history, but also add some other information, and also to give you a chance to talk about your involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. So just as a introduction to whoever views this in the future. So why don’t we start in the beginning? How did you come to—you’re not from the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Not originally.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: All right. How did you come to the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, a little quick history, I got my bachelor’s degree at San Diego State College and then I was a radiation safety officer at San Diego State for about three years. Then I had an opportunity to go to the University of Colorado in Boulder, where, again, I was a radiation safety officer and on the faculty of the physics department. After several years there, an excellent opportunity came up for me here at Hanford with Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So I moved here in 1976, and had a great opportunity to work with many other more senior people here at Hanford that had been here since the beginning. One of those, of course, was Herbert M. Parker. He was former director of the laboratories under General Electric, and then retired, but stayed on with Battelle as a director. I had a few opportunities to interact with him, and was quite impressed. I have heard stories about, he was a rather demanding taskmaster. And I could kind of imagining myself trying to work for him, but it would have been a challenge.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What do you feel is important to be known about Herbert M. Parker for the historical record?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I’ve had an opportunity to review many of his publications. They were quite professional and very well researched, and in many cases the leading authority on several topics. So I was very impressed by his publications. I didn’t have a direct opportunity to work for him, so I don’t know about his management style or other things. But that was the thing that impressed me the most, was his publications.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What topics did Dr. Parker write on—or do his research?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: His early professional career was in medical physics. He was at Swedish Hospital in Seattle for many years. Then he was called upon, as part of the Manhattan Project, to set up the safety program at Oak Ridge. He did that for about a year or so. Then he was called upon to do the same thing here at Hanford. So he came here and established the entire environmental safety and health program for Hanford. Of course he had all the right background to be able to do that, and he was able to recruit a number of really talented people to help him with that. So I think Hanford ended up with what could be known as the best environmental safety and health program, among all the early AEC and then DoE laboratories. One of the things that impressed me most by that program was the record keeping. And I had an opportunity to work on that in later years. But the way the record keeping was designed and set up and maintained was quite thorough. It was designed to be able to recreate whatever may have happened according to those records. It turned out to be very valuable in later years.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Who instituted that record-keeping? Was that Parker?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I don’t recall the name of the individual that set it up, although I know Ken Hyde was involved very early on. He may have been at the very origin of it. But I’m sure Parker certainly influenced the rigor with which that program was established. In later years, John Jech was manager of the record keeping program, and then my good friend, Matt Lyon, was the manager of that. I worked with Matt, then, on American National Standard Institute’s standard for record keeping. We incorporated into that standard virtually all of the fundamentals that Parker had established initially.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: The first name was John—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: The second manager of records was John Jech. J-E-C-H.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Do you know if he’s still living?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: No, he’s not.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And what about Lyon?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Matt Lyon passed away about ten years ago, as did Ken Hyde.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What’s that?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Ken Hyde—I think they all three passed away about ten years ago.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah, give or take.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So you mentioned that the record keeping was designed to recreate an incident as it happened. Do you know of any such—or can you speak to any such times when that record keeping system was crucial into a safety issue?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: The one that comes to mind is one of the more I guess infamous incidents here at Hanford. It occurred just around the time I arrived here in 1976. It was sometimes called the McCluskey accident out at the 231-Z Building. There was an explosion in a glovebox that resulted in very significant contamination of Mr. McCluskey by americium-241. And the response to that incident, and then all the following treatment of Mr. McCluskey was very well documented. In fact, those documents then became the basis for a whole series of scientific papers that described the entire incident and all the aspects of it. So that was one major case where excellent record keeping was very valuable.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Excellent. And what—I’m just curious now—what happened to Mr. McCluskey?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: He survived for about ten years after the accident. He initially had very severe acid burns and trauma. But he was very carefully treated for that. The americium contamination that he had was gradually eliminated—not eliminated, but reduced substantially. He survived for another ten years after that incident even though he had heart trouble. I know several people that assisted in his care, and it was quite remarkable what they were able to do and what he was able to do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. Did he ever go back to work?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: No, he was 65 at the time of the accident.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So he kind of went into medical retirement at that point. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right. Yeah, I can imagine. So you said you came in 1976.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Right.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And what did you—what was your first job, when you came to Battelle?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I worked in what was called the radiation protection department, later called health physics department. My first assignment was called ALARA management. ALARA stands for maintain our radiation exposures as low as reasonably achievable. I would monitor the exposure records of Battelle workers, and watch for any that were the least bit unusually high, and then look for ways that we could reduce those exposures. And I monitored other things like average exposures and the use of dosimeters and things of that nature. The overall assignment was to generally reduce the workers’ radiation exposure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: How successful do you feel that the department was in that effort?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I think we were very successful, and it went on for many years, even after I had that assignment. I remember one time, looking at a report that DoE put out annually on radiation exposures over all the major DoE facilities. Those average exposures, highest individual exposures, and things of that nature. Battelle and Hanford had among the lowest averages of all the other DoE facilities. So, I believe it was a very effective ALARA program here at Hanford.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Do you know if that report was ever made publically available?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, yes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah, those are published every year by DoE.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, great. I’ll have to find that. Sorry, just scribbling down some notes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: At one point, Battelle had a contract with the DoE headquarters to actually do the production of that report each year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: And I was involved in the production of it—oh, three or four years, as I recall.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay. So you mentioned that you had moved on out of that program or department, so what—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Right. Well, I started getting involved in management at kind of the bottom level. I was an associate section manager, and then I got an assignment as section manager for the radiation monitoring section. I was responsible for all the radiation monitors—or as they’re now called, radiation protection technologists—the radiation monitors for Battelle and two other of the contractors here at Hanford. It was kind of ironic that I was located in what used to be the 300 Area library, and my office was on the second floor. And my office was the former office of Herbert M. Parker, when he was director of laboratories.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It was an honor to have that space, and recall memories of Mr. Parker.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow, that’s great. And how long did you do that for?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I did that two or three years, and then another opportunity came along in 1979—no actually, it was ’79, but I guess I’d been on that management job for about a year and a half. In September of ’79, which was about three months after the Three Mile Island accident, we had an opportunity to make a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide support for their staff in emergency planning work. At that time, NRC was making a big push on all the power plants, all the nuclear power plants across the country to enhance their emergency planning programs. So we began about a ten-year project with NRC to supplement their staff. The NRC established the requirement for annual emergency exercises at each of the nuclear power plants, where they had to work up a scenario, and then they would activate their emergency response staff to demonstrate that they would know how to handle that accident scenario. We served as observers. We had teams of observers with the NRC staff. We did a total of 800 of those exercises over a ten-year period.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So we had a lot of staff out there, doing a lot of travel.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah. So that would have been—so you said for power, would that have been for all of the power reactors in the United States?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes. There were 103 plants at the time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. Did you do any in foreign countries?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I didn’t personally, but we did have some staff that went to a similar kind of program with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and visited foreign nuclear power plants. Some in France, that I recall.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. So you said 103 power plants?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: In the US, yeah.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Actually, that was the number of reactors. There was a fewer number of plants, because many of them are two or more reactors at a site.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay so the 103 is the number of reactors?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I believe that’s correct. At that time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: How did Chernobyl affect your field and your work?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: That’s an excellent question, because that was in this period. Of course, the Chernobyl accident happened in 1986, and I was working directly with NRC at that time. I was project manager on that NRC contract. When Chernobyl happened, there was an immediate reaction, and NRC had to study the Chernobyl accident as well as we could, and then determine what could be applied to US power reactors by way of improvements and emergency planning. One of my managers, Bill Bair, was part of a US delegation led by DoE and NRC to actually visit the Chernobyl area shortly after the accident, interact with the Russians, and do lessons learned that was turned into a series of DoE and NRC documents that tried to extract as much useful information as we could from Chernobyl and apply it here in the US.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right, because if I’m not mistaken, the design of the Chernobyl reactor—there were reactors of similar design in the United States.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Not exactly. The Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel. There were a few reactors in the US that also did not have containment vessels, but they had other safeguards. The N Reactor was one of those. Unfortunately, I would call it an overreaction of the US government to a reactor with no containment. Severe restrictions were put on N Reactor, and some re-design was required that ultimately led to the end of N Reactor. It’s interesting to note that at that point in time, which was about 1986, 1987, N Reactor had generated more electricity from a nuclear reactor than any other plant in the world. So it’s unfortunate it came to an early demise.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And—sorry, my ignorance here on the technical aspects. You said some of them don’t have a containment vessel. What does a containment vessel look like and what role does it play, and why would there would be reactors with one and without one?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, N Reactor went back to the early—the late ‘50s, I believe when it was designed. It was designed similar to the other reactors here at Hanford that were intended for production of plutonium. But N Reactor was a dual purpose, in that it also generated 800 megawatts of electricity. But it had a similar kind of design to what you see out at B Plant, for example. So it didn’t have the same kind of containment vessel that other modern pressurized water reactors or other nuclear power plants have that is designed in such a way that if there is reactor core damage, any radioactivity released can be contained and not released.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Or released in a very controlled fashion.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I see. Kind of like a clam shell that kind of covers the—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, it’s basically—yeah, in many cases a spherical kind of containment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay. Excellent. So after—obviously the demise of N Reactor, ’86, ’87, is kind of the end of operations—or I should say of product production—product and energy production on the Hanford site. So how did your job change after that? And what did you continue to do after the shutdown?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I wasn’t directly affected by N Reactor shutting down. And the other production reactors had been shut down before that, so I wasn’t really directly involved in that. But I had yet another opportunity came up that turned out to be really a challenge for me. The Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas is the primary assembly and disassembly facility for nuclear weapons. At that time, it was managed by a company called Mason and Hanger. Mason and Hanger had that contract for many years, and DoE challenged them to rebid the contract. So Mason and Hanger reached out to Battelle for assistance in teaming on environmental health and safety. So my manager talked me into being involved, so I went down to Amarillo and visited the plant and worked with the team there on the proposal that had to be presented to DoE. And we won the contract. Of course in the fine print it said I then had to move there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Ah!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But it turned out great. By that time, my family was pretty well grown, kids were through college. So we moved down to Amarillo, and I went to work at Pantex. We really enjoyed that. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Amarillo’s a very nice town, a lot of nice people. The work at Pantex was very challenging. I enjoyed that very much, too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great. So how long were you at the Pantex plant?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I was manager of the radiation safety department down there for three years, which was my original contract obligation. During that time, we were very closely scrutinized by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board, which was an organization established by Congress to be a watchdog over DoE. Their method for watching DoE was to watch the contractors very closely. So they would scrutinize everything we did, and then challenge DoE if they found something. They pushed us in a way that was good, because one of the things they promoted was professional certification. I’m a certified health physicist, certified by the American Board of Health Physics. At the time at Pantex, I was the only one we had there. But the DNFSB pushed us to add more, so I got more of my staff certified. There was a similar program for technicians called the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists, and at the time, we had two of my staff that were registered with NRRPT. Again, they pushed us to promote more training. By the end of that three-year period, I think we had ten of our technologists registered and certified. So we really improved the credentials of our staff. We instituted some new programs, again, related to ALARA radiation reduction. Probably the most interesting or challenging day of my life occurred down there in 1994. We were working on disassembly of the W48 program. The W48 was a tactical weapon used in—that was deployed in Europe—it was never used. But it was a very small, cylindrical nuclear weapon designed to be shot out of a 155 millimeter howitzer, which is amazing just to think about. But the plutonium pit in this device was surrounded by high explosive. It turned out to be rather difficult to disassemble this particular design of nuclear weapon. It also turned out that the plutonium pit had a relatively high dose rate, compared to others. So the workers were getting some increased exposure to their hands in the process of working on this. So we were concerned about their extremity dose. So we worked up a method for doing a classified videotape of the disassembly operation, so that we could study each step in the process to find ways to improve worker safety. Providing shielding, remote tools, things of that nature. The process on this was to take the plutonium pit and high explosives and put it in liquid nitrogen bath for a period of time. Then bring it out and put it in a little tub-like, and pour hot water on it. The HE would expand rapidly and crack off. And for the most part, it worked very well. Well, there was this one particular pit that we were working on when we were doing the videotape for this study. Apparently the HE wasn’t coming off the way it should, and so they had to repeat this process over and over. They brought it out of the liquid nitrogen, poured hot water on it, and the plutonium—the cladding, the beryllium cladding on the plutonium pit actually cracked, due to the severe temperature change. The workers who were working on this were trained very carefully that if that cladding on the pit ever cracks, get out of there fast, so you avoid a plutonium exposure. So that happened. One of the technicians heard an audible crack and saw it on the surface of that pit. And they all evacuated immediately. They got just outside the door of this special facility, and they called our radiation safety office, and fortunately my three best technicians were standing there by the phone. They said, pit had cracked. And so they got over there as fast as they possibly could. They recognized the danger of having an exposed plutonium pit, and how that can oxidize and cause severe contamination very quickly. They decided to put on respirators to protect themselves, but they didn’t bother with any of the other protective clothing because they wanted to save time. So they made an entry where the cracked pit was, still there with the water bath on it, and the video shooting this picture. They took samples right on the crack and on the water and all around it. They managed to take that plutonium pit and get it into a plastic bag and then they doubled bagged it and then they triple bagged it and sealed it up. Then they came out. Of course, the samples revealed that there was indeed plutonium contamination coming out of that crack, but they had contained it very quickly. When we made a later entry to retrieve the video tape that was still running, and we looked at the timestamp on it. From the time the crack appeared until they had it in the bag was seven minutes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: That’s about as fast as you can possibly expect a response team to come in and secure a situation like that. And so, following that, of course we had the incident debriefing, and I had to chair that. But we very carefully went through and recorded every little thing that happened from the time they were working on the disassembly to the time they exited. Got that all documented, and then the videotape of course documented all of that. The scrutiny by Department of Energy, the Amarillo office, the Albuquerque office, Headquarters, any number of others—we had a lot of attention that day. It was a long, hard day at the office, but very exciting. Following that, we had to debrief many other investigation committees and others. But we had that videotape to rely on, and that just was invaluable. That’s my—that was probably the most exciting day of my life, down there. [LAUGHTER] Got a follow-up to that. That W48 weapon was designed by Livermore. They came in at a later time and did a post-mortem on that cracked pit. And when they did, we discovered that the amount of plutonium contamination there that was available for distribution had it not been contained, would have totally just made that facility useless. I mean, extremely expensive clean-up, if it ever got done.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Not just the room, but the entire facility?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, mainly that room.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That room.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But it was a very big room, and a very valuable room, specially designed. But the quick response of our radiation safety technicians and getting that contained saved that room and millions of dollars in expense.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. And so this was a weapon that was the size of a howitzer shell?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: 155 millimeters.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. And what is the—I don’t know if you know this—but what’s the explosive power of that—is it—I guess it could be—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, it’s just like the atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about 20-kiloton fission device. The plutonium pit is designed to implode and cause a super-critical reaction.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: But fired out of a howitzer, instead of—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Fired out of a howitzer, perhaps 20 miles or something. And then you can somehow coordinate the careful detonation of this--</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: --device. It boggled my mind.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I guess that’s best that that was never ever—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: There’s quite a large number of different nuclear weapons. Many of them were tactical weapons used in Europe—or deployed in Europe during the Cold War. Many other more modern ones are part of Polaris missiles and other large bombs that can be deployed by B-52s or B-2s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. There’s quite a wide range of different models and designs. I didn’t know that at the time, but it’s fascinating. I remember one day standing in one of the disassembly rooms, and they had this nuclear weapon in a cradle standing there on the floor, and they had the top off of it. And I could just look down in the top of it. I couldn’t touch it, but I could look in there and just see the engineering in one of those things was just amazing. Just beyond belief.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I bet. I can only imagine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. But I’ve gone off on this nuclear weapons story and departed from Hanford.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: It’s okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Maybe I should come back.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I think that’s a very interesting story. I certainly—I’ve also, like I said, heard of plenty of bombs—ICBMs, missiles, but I’d never quite heard of a howitzer-type fired weapon. But also just the fact that your team and your field was able to prevent a really nasty incident is pretty amazing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Right.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: It speaks to your profession and your skill.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, like I mentioned, the professional credentials. Two of the three technicians who responded were certified by NNRPT. And they had the right kind of training, knew what to do, did it very well.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I had an opportunity a year later to nominate them for a special DoE award for unusual—not heroism, but effective response. And they won the award that year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That’s great. So how and when did you leave Pantex?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, the first time, was in ’96—no, I’m sorry, in ’93—and I had a special appointment back at DoE headquarters in Germantown. So I went back there for two years to work with the branch of DoE that was like an inspector general—the internal inspection branch, if you will. Very similar in scope to what the DNFSB—Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board—was doing. Scrutinizing all the DoE operations at the national labs and other facilities, and trying to always make improvements.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So I worked with the DoE headquarters staff on many different audits that we did at other DoE labs. At the time, I specialized in dosimetry, both internal and external dosimetry, and other operational health physics parts of the program.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. So when did you come back to the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I had a couple other interesting assignments in there. After DoE headquarters, then I went back to Pantex for three more years. And then another opportunity came up on an old facility near Cincinnati that needed to be decommissioned—decontaminated and decommissioned. And I went to Oak Ridge first, worked with the Foster Wheeler Company on the design of what became the largest radon control building that had ever been done. I was the radiation safety officer for that project at Oak Ridge in the design effort. And then we moved to Cincinnati for a year and I worked at the Fernald facility in actually building this radon control facility. What we were trying to deal with were these large concrete silos that contained residual ore material from the Second World War. They have to go back to—when the Manhattan Project was trying to bring together the necessary uranium in addition to the plutonium that was produced here at Hanford, they were using a rich pitch blend ore that was coming from what was then called Belgian Congo in Africa. It was shipped from there up the Saint Lawrence River to a facility near Niagara Falls. And then it ended up being processed to extract as much uranium as possible. But there were these residuals. They ended up in these concrete silos near Niagara Falls, New York as well as this Fernald facility, just outside of Cincinnati. So we had three big concrete silos that—I don’t recall—they must have been 80 feet in diameter and 50 feet high. So they held a lot of uranium ore residuals. It contained a fair amount of radium, which gave off radon gas. This facility was located not too far from a residential area. So it became a greater concern for getting it cleaned up. We put together this radon control facility that had these huge charcoal beds and you could pipe—you could take the head gas off of this silo, pipe it into these charcoal beds where the radon would be absorbed, and then the clean air would circulate. So you could fairly rapidly reduce the concentration of radon inside the silo to much lower levels. In the process, the charcoal beds got loaded up by absorbing radon. There came a point where you had to heat up that charcoal to drive off the captured radon. We devised a clever scheme with four different beds where we could kind of keep one of them recirculating on all times and have the other three working.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So you say drive off the captured radon, where would it be driven off?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Over to the next charcoal bed, which hadn’t yet been completely saturated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh! But then eventually you still have charcoal that—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: but it decays with a 3.8 day half-life, and that was built into the plan, too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: But if it was to escape, right, it would get people very—it would contaminate or get people sick, or--?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, it was pretty carefully designed not to—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, but I’m saying that radon—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, if it escaped from the silo. If there was no control of it—a certain amount of radon was escaping from the silo. For the most part, it’s a light gas, it just goes up and the wind blows it and disperses it. So it was very difficult to even measure anything offsite. But there was that concern there that we were dealing with.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: But if enough of it was released at once, then there might have been an issue?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Like if the whole roof of the silo was suddenly removed and it all came out, that could be a problem, yeah.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Interesting. I didn’t realize it had such a short half-life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. So I did that, what amounted to ten years of offsite assignments. About that time, my wife and I got tired of moving. So we came back to the Tri-Cities, and our kids are here. I came back to work at Battelle for another few years before I retired.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: When did you come back to Battelle?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I came back in 2001.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay. So then you worked for—it says you retired in 2006.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I retired about four years later. And the last major project I worked on was also very interesting. It was the project for customs and border protection. It was to install radiation portal monitors at seaports. This was shortly after 9/11, and there was a concern about dirty bomb material being imported by any means. We had one part of the project dealt with seaport, another part airports, and a third part postal facilities.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So I worked on the seaports part, and I had the Port of Los Angeles was my assignment. Another one of us had Port of Long Beach, which is right next door, which are the largest seaports on the West Coast and have the largest number of shipping containers coming in. So we devised a method for monitoring those shipping containers as they were unloaded and making sure nothing was coming in that way.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Did—oh, sorry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Very interesting project.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I don’t know if you can speak to this, but was anything caught by these monitors?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes. But not dirty bomb material.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Turns out they were so sensitive, they would detect any kind of elevated background radioactivity. For example, kitty litter is a little bit elevated in background. Any kind of stone product, and there are various granite and other stone products imported from different places. Those had a high enough background activity that they would trigger our monitors. So we would run all these containers through a set of monitors, and any that triggered that amount would then be sent over to a secondary monitor, where they’d examine it more carefully, verify what was actually in the containers, sometimes inspect them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So recently our project staff got a tour of some of the facilities at HAMMER. And I believe we saw one of those monitors. Would that have been the same?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Mm-hm. Big yellow columns?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah, that they run it through.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yep, that was the one.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So you helped design—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We helped design—oh, I didn’t really get involved in design. That was done by some real smart people out here at Battelle. But I was onsite trying to get them installed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: And tested.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. That’s really—that’s fascinating.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah, it was. I had a chance to do a lot of fun things when I worked at Battelle.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah, it sounds like it. Sounds like maybe I need to go get a job over there. Maybe they need a traveling historian. So, where—what have you been doing since you retired?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, for about five years, I worked for Dade Moeller, which is kind of a spinoff company from Battelle. And they had a major contract with NIOSH—National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health—as part of an employee compensation program for radiation workers. Initially, the way this was set up was we got the actual radiation exposure records for former employees and examined their measured radiation exposure, and then did some other calculations that would tend to take into account anything else that they might have been exposed to but was somehow not measured on the dosimeter and many other factors to kind of add up their maximum possible radiation dose. And then that was compared—this is where it got a little complex. There are many different types of cancer that can be caused by radiation at a high enough level. Some types of cancer can be caused by a radiation level lower than some others. So it depended on what type of cancer the individual had as to which—how we measured their maximum possible radiation exposure to the likelihood that that cancer was caused by radiation. We did a careful calculation using probability and determined that if their cancer was at least 50% probable that it was caused by radiation, then they were granted an award. Well, we did that for several years in a very careful, scientific way that was well-documented. Then it became political. A lot of former workers, then, applied for another category within this overall compensation program that they called Special Exposure Cohort. Which meant that it didn’t matter how much radiation exposure they had, if they had the right type of cancer, they could get the award. And it’s kind of degenerated that way. But for many years, I think we did it right. I also had an opportunity to work on another part of that project where we did what we call the technical basis documents, where we reconstructed the history of how radiation exposure records were developed and maintained at each of these different sites. Every one varied a little bit. I did the one for the technical basis document for Pantex in Amarillo, because I was familiar with that. But I got to do several other interesting sites, one of which was Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Going there and interviewing some of these old-timers and looking at their old records, I found that there was a chemistry professor at what was then Iowa State University. He was called upon by the Manhattan Project in 1943 to help them improve their methods for extracting uranium metal. The old process that had been used by the Curies and other early scientists was really quite inefficient. But this professor developed a method used in a calcium catalyst that was very effective. He was able to purify uranium metal much quicker and in larger quantities. The story was that he would have to get on the train every Sunday afternoon and go to Chicago for the meeting with the Manhattan Project and report on the progress of his research and so on. One week after successfully isolating an ingot of uranium metal, he took it with him in his briefcase. Went into the meeting with Manhattan Project and clunked it on the desk, and passed it around. He said that this is a new method for producing substantial quantities of uranium metal. All the scientists around the table kind of poked at it and scratched it and so on and didn’t believe it was really uranium, but it was. And they finally decided that he had made a great breakthrough, so they sent him back to Iowa and said, make a lot more, fast. And he did. So he had the material they needed, then, for the Manhattan Project.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Interesting story.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah, that’s really fascinating. So how did you become involved with the Parker Foundation?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: About ten years ago—almost ten years ago—my friend Bill Bair and Ron Kathren and a couple others on the Parker Board invited me to participate. Matt Moeller was chairman of the board at that time—invited me to participate, and I just joined in, and found it very rewarding. I really appreciate what the Parker Board does in the memory of Herb Parker and in the sense of scholarships and other educational programs. So it’s a pleasure to contribute to that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great, great. You moved in 1975 or ’76?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I moved here in ’76.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: ’76. And you mentioned children. Were your children born here, or did you move here with them?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: My oldest daughter was born in San Diego, and my younger daughter was born in Boulder, Colorado.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So they were six and eight, I think, when we moved here.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What were your impressions of Richland in the mid-70s when you moved? Did you live in Richland or did you--?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We did. Yeah, we lived just a few blocks from WSU here.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: In North Richland. It was a very different community, but one that I came to know and respect. Because at that time, education was really paramount in the minds of parents and the school system. And my wife was a teacher. So we really took an interest in that. My kids got a really good education here in Richland. Went to Hanford High, and then did well in college. One of the main features of Richland at that time, I think, was a superior education program. Some of the other history of Richland with old government housing, and then we got a new house, and things like that are entirely different, but also very interesting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And is that what you kind of are meaning when you say it was a different community? I guess I’d like to unpack that a little bit more. How—in what ways was it different?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, a large part of Richland was originally government housing, and you only had to drive through town, you could see all the evidence of that. And then on the north side of Richland, they had opened up—beginning in 1965, I believe—development of newer private housing. We got here just in time to get in on a new house, and worked out fine for us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great. Was there—being next to a site that was primarily involved in product production, plutonium production—was there a different feeling about the Cold War in Richland per se than anywhere else you had lived in the United States at that time?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: There definitely was different feelings about the Cold War and living anywhere near a nuclear power plant. I remember when we were working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at many different reactor sites around the country. In many cases we would have public meetings to introduce the local folks to what we were trying to do to improve the emergency planning. There was a lot of concern about living anywhere near a nuclear power plant just a few years after TMI. I tried to explain to people how I live within 30 miles of nine nuclear power plants. But I understood radiation. I understood the risk, and I understood what could go wrong or how to deal with it. And it didn’t concern—didn’t bother me that much to live here. I found that to be generally true of a lot of people in Richland that were part—working at Hanford and were well-educated. They understood the risk and they could deal with it. Whereas many other people were just afraid. And I attribute that to what I call now about a 71-year deliberate misinformation program on the part of mass media to scare people about radiation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I like that. I’m writing it down. How do you feel that the—do you feel that the ending of the Cold War changed your work at all? I guess the reason why I ask—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: --these questions about the Cold War is because it was the impetus for much of the continued production of the material.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. I was in Germany in 1988, just before the Berlin Wall came down. I was also there in Berlin in 1984, and we actually crossed through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin on a special tour.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Really?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It was quite amazing. I was in Berlin for a meeting of the International Radiation Protection Association. I took my whole family; it was a tremendous adventure for them. But we were able to be part of a special US Army tour that went through Checkpoint Charlie. I think they did this once a week. And we had a little tour of East Berlin while it was still under the control of the USSR. We visited their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and they had a little ceremonial changing the guard there. And we visited the square in Berlin where Hitler had burned the books that one night in 1939. And then we visited a huge Russian war memorial, and there was a building there where the Germans had surrendered in 1945. There was quite a story about that. But I was really impressed with this huge Russian war memorial. There were five mass graves that each held 100,000 soldiers. It was done in kind of the Russian style, with statues and other honorary symbols to clearly show their respect for the lives of all those soldiers. But that was an impressive sight. But I was there again in 1988 just before the Berlin Wall came down, and you could kind of see the end of the Cold War coming. So it was a great opportunity that I had, working for Battelle, being able to travel like that, and do many exciting things.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Did you get to ever talk or meet with any of your counterparts on the Russian side?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: After the Cold War ended. And what was that like, to finally work with what had been considered the enemy?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It was quite unusual. I was scheduled to go to Russia a week after 9/11. It almost got canceled, but I managed to go. I was giving—they were having a conference for young scientists and trying to introduce them to international concepts of radiation safety. So I gave my paper and four others that we did to that group. It was located at what was the Russian equivalent of Los Alamos, their design facility. There weren’t very many Americans had been in there up to that point. So I was watched very closely. [LAUGHTER] And not allowed to see much, actually. But it was a very interesting exchange. The papers I was presenting were prepared in both English and Russian. And then we also did what they called a poster presentation, where we had a big poster with diagrams and everything—again translated to Russian. So we were able to put these up at this conference for these young scientists. They, I think, got a lot out of it because it was in their language so it was easy for them to understand. Working with an interpreter was a new experience for me. I would give this oral presentation, so I’d say one sentence and the pause. The interpreter would repeat that. I’d say the next sentence, and—kind of an awkward way to do an oral presentation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I can imagine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But their hospitality was very good. This was in 2001. So the Cold War had been over for quite a few years. But we were trying to establish better relations. I think it was quite effective in doing that. I had another opportunity to work with Russian scientists on an NRC program, again where NRC was trying to provide training to their equivalent Russian inspectors for nuclear power plants and explain to them some of the ways that they did inspections, things they looked for, how they documented findings and things like that. We had four Russian inspectors and their interpreter come over from Moscow. I was their host in Washington, DC, and we worked with them there with the NRC headquarters for a week, providing training. And then we brought them out to Idaho to the Idaho National Lab, north of Idaho Falls, and went to a large hot cell facility at Idaho. A hot cell is where they have a heavily shielded enclosure with mechanical arms that do things on the inside. It was quite a sophisticated facility and somewhat unlike what the Russian counterparts were used to. But it was a good learning exercise for them. We kind of went through a demonstration of how we would do an inspection—a safety inspection. So, I had those kind of opportunities to interact with Russian scientists and found that very exciting. Very interesting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Did you find that there was anything that you had learned from them at all? Or do you feel that the US was much more advanced in radiation protection and health physics?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I kept my ears open when I was talking to them, but they didn’t reveal much. [LAUGHTER] So, we didn’t pick up much that way.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We were trying to help them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right. Were you at Hanford during the Russian visit to Hanford when they toured the Plutonium Finishing Plant?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: No. That was after I retired, I think.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay, just curious.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I heard about it of course.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I’m sure. That must have been a pretty big deal from the standpoint of both countries. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you would like to talk about?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I think there’s one thing I remember from when I did this interview the first time that I wanted to mention.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I’ve been talking about all the varied experiences I had, and excellent opportunities over the years. But I think one of the perhaps most impressive things that I was able to do was to be able to hire several good people into my organization. I won’t mention names, but there were several that I call superstars that are now leaders in the field. I was able to bring them in right out of college or from another job, and hire several really good people that certainly enhanced our program, and then gave them great opportunities to grow and expand. Like I say, they’re now leaders in the field. That was one of the most rewarding parts of my job.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That’s great. Maybe you can give me their names off camera and we could contact them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I think they’re already on your list. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay, good.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But I’ll do that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Well, good.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We’ll do that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: They should be. Tom, did you—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tom Hungate: No, I’m fine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Emma, did you have anything?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Emma Rice: No, I’m fine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay. Well, I think that’s it. Jerry, thank you so much.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, that was fun. Did we stay on target?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I believe we did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I wandered a little. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That’s okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: There’s some stories there that might be interesting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I think the stories help keep the oral histories—they have a human-centered focus and they’re interesting for people to watch.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I hope so.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And I think there might be a couple things that merit some more research in there that personally, for me, I’d like to find out some more about.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Especially the howitzer thing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, yeah. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: One thing I’d just like to ask—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: You’ve been involved in a lot of things over a broad range of time and experiences and I just kind of wonder what you would feel is the one—maybe the item or two that you’ve worked on that will leave the most lasting impact?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: The most lasting impact.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: Or that you wished had been developed more that didn’t quite complete, you’d like to see more work done on it, it was either defunded or it was—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I’m thinking of several different things now. I’ll just have to think it through. The work we did with NRC to improve emergency planning on nuclear power plants I think was very effective. And that’s still being maintained today. Work we did with DoE at Pantex on nuclear weapons. You mentioned the end of the Cold War, that’s when many of these tactical nuclear weapons in Europe were brought back and declared obsolete, and so we were doing a massive disassembly operation on those. I learned a lot about nuclear weapons and found it fascinating. We implemented some methods at Pantex that I think are still in use in the maintenance programs that they do now. But we were able to, I think, substantially improve on radiation safety at Pantex. Certainly to the point where we were finally blessed by DNFSB and DoE. I think the quality of that program has been maintained. There’s several other projects that I’ve worked on over the years, but I guess there’s no one thing that stands out that I would be concerned about that it was defunded or ended or somehow went downhill. I’m sure that’s happened, but I haven’t kept track of everything.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Being as nuclear power and nuclear weapons have different objectives, and you mentioned this retirement of a lot of nuclear weapons, do you feel that nuclear weapons still have a role to play in security—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: You do?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes. Because the Russians still have a lot of them, China has some, the French and English have a few. It’s what I call the mutual deterrent, which is a term that’s been used. It just means that we don’t ever want to use one again, but if any one of those countries had some kind of an unbalanced advantage, it could be used. So if we have this mutual assured deterrence, it keeps that in balance. So it’s important to maintain that stockpile.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Interesting. Thank you.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history with Jerome Martin on June 1<sup>st</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Jerome Martin about his experiences working at the Hanford site and his involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. And you—just wanted to use your legal name to start out with, but you prefer to be called Jerry, right?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Jerome Martin: Yes, I do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Jerome’s a little too formal. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right. Just for the technical purposes. Sure. No more, we will not mention the name—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Again. [LAUGHTER] So for the record, you did an interview with the Parker Foundation sometime in 2010.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I believe it was earlier.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Or possibly earlier. And some of the Parker Foundation videos, as we know, were lost. And so this video is an attempt to recapture some of the information that would have been in that oral history, but also add some other information, and also to give you a chance to talk about your involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. So just as a introduction to whoever views this in the future. So why don’t we start in the beginning? How did you come to—you’re not from the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Not originally.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: All right. How did you come to the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, a little quick history, I got my bachelor’s degree at San Diego State College and then I was a radiation safety officer at San Diego State for about three years. Then I had an opportunity to go to the University of Colorado in Boulder, where, again, I was a radiation safety officer and on the faculty of the physics department. After several years there, an excellent opportunity came up for me here at Hanford with Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So I moved here in 1976, and had a great opportunity to work with many other more senior people here at Hanford that had been here since the beginning. One of those, of course, was Herbert M. Parker. He was former director of the laboratories under General Electric, and then retired, but stayed on with Battelle as a director. I had a few opportunities to interact with him, and was quite impressed. I have heard stories about, he was a rather demanding taskmaster. And I could kind of imagining myself trying to work for him, but it would have been a challenge.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What do you feel is important to be known about Herbert M. Parker for the historical record?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I’ve had an opportunity to review many of his publications. They were quite professional and very well researched, and in many cases the leading authority on several topics. So I was very impressed by his publications. I didn’t have a direct opportunity to work for him, so I don’t know about his management style or other things. But that was the thing that impressed me the most, was his publications.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What topics did Dr. Parker write on—or do his research?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: His early professional career was in medical physics. He was at Swedish Hospital in Seattle for many years. Then he was called upon, as part of the Manhattan Project, to set up the safety program at Oak Ridge. He did that for about a year or so. Then he was called upon to do the same thing here at Hanford. So he came here and established the entire environmental safety and health program for Hanford. Of course he had all the right background to be able to do that, and he was able to recruit a number of really talented people to help him with that. So I think Hanford ended up with what could be known as the best environmental safety and health program, among all the early AEC and then DoE laboratories. One of the things that impressed me most by that program was the record keeping. And I had an opportunity to work on that in later years. But the way the record keeping was designed and set up and maintained was quite thorough. It was designed to be able to recreate whatever may have happened according to those records. It turned out to be very valuable in later years.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Who instituted that record-keeping? Was that Parker?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I don’t recall the name of the individual that set it up, although I know Ken Hyde was involved very early on. He may have been at the very origin of it. But I’m sure Parker certainly influenced the rigor with which that program was established. In later years, John Jech was manager of the record keeping program, and then my good friend, Matt Lyon, was the manager of that. I worked with Matt, then, on American National Standard Institute’s standard for record keeping. We incorporated into that standard virtually all of the fundamentals that Parker had established initially.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: The first name was John—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: The second manager of records was John Jech. J-E-C-H.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Do you know if he’s still living?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: No, he’s not.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And what about Lyon?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Matt Lyon passed away about ten years ago, as did Ken Hyde.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What’s that?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Ken Hyde—I think they all three passed away about ten years ago.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah, give or take.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So you mentioned that the record keeping was designed to recreate an incident as it happened. Do you know of any such—or can you speak to any such times when that record keeping system was crucial into a safety issue?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: The one that comes to mind is one of the more I guess infamous incidents here at Hanford. It occurred just around the time I arrived here in 1976. It was sometimes called the McCluskey accident out at the 231-Z Building. There was an explosion in a glovebox that resulted in very significant contamination of Mr. McCluskey by americium-241. And the response to that incident, and then all the following treatment of Mr. McCluskey was very well documented. In fact, those documents then became the basis for a whole series of scientific papers that described the entire incident and all the aspects of it. So that was one major case where excellent record keeping was very valuable.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Excellent. And what—I’m just curious now—what happened to Mr. McCluskey?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: He survived for about ten years after the accident. He initially had very severe acid burns and trauma. But he was very carefully treated for that. The americium contamination that he had was gradually eliminated—not eliminated, but reduced substantially. He survived for another ten years after that incident even though he had heart trouble. I know several people that assisted in his care, and it was quite remarkable what they were able to do and what he was able to do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. Did he ever go back to work?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: No, he was 65 at the time of the accident.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So he kind of went into medical retirement at that point. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right. Yeah, I can imagine. So you said you came in 1976.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Right.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And what did you—what was your first job, when you came to Battelle?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I worked in what was called the radiation protection department, later called health physics department. My first assignment was called ALARA management. ALARA stands for maintain our radiation exposures as low as reasonably achievable. I would monitor the exposure records of Battelle workers, and watch for any that were the least bit unusually high, and then look for ways that we could reduce those exposures. And I monitored other things like average exposures and the use of dosimeters and things of that nature. The overall assignment was to generally reduce the workers’ radiation exposure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: How successful do you feel that the department was in that effort?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I think we were very successful, and it went on for many years, even after I had that assignment. I remember one time, looking at a report that DoE put out annually on radiation exposures over all the major DoE facilities. Those average exposures, highest individual exposures, and things of that nature. Battelle and Hanford had among the lowest averages of all the other DoE facilities. So, I believe it was a very effective ALARA program here at Hanford.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Do you know if that report was ever made publically available?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, yes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah, those are published every year by DoE.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, great. I’ll have to find that. Sorry, just scribbling down some notes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: At one point, Battelle had a contract with the DoE headquarters to actually do the production of that report each year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: And I was involved in the production of it—oh, three or four years, as I recall.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay. So you mentioned that you had moved on out of that program or department, so what—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Right. Well, I started getting involved in management at kind of the bottom level. I was an associate section manager, and then I got an assignment as section manager for the radiation monitoring section. I was responsible for all the radiation monitors—or as they’re now called, radiation protection technologists—the radiation monitors for Battelle and two other of the contractors here at Hanford. It was kind of ironic that I was located in what used to be the 300 Area library, and my office was on the second floor. And my office was the former office of Herbert M. Parker, when he was director of laboratories.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It was an honor to have that space, and recall memories of Mr. Parker.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow, that’s great. And how long did you do that for?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I did that two or three years, and then another opportunity came along in 1979—no actually, it was ’79, but I guess I’d been on that management job for about a year and a half. In September of ’79, which was about three months after the Three Mile Island accident, we had an opportunity to make a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide support for their staff in emergency planning work. At that time, NRC was making a big push on all the power plants, all the nuclear power plants across the country to enhance their emergency planning programs. So we began about a ten-year project with NRC to supplement their staff. The NRC established the requirement for annual emergency exercises at each of the nuclear power plants, where they had to work up a scenario, and then they would activate their emergency response staff to demonstrate that they would know how to handle that accident scenario. We served as observers. We had teams of observers with the NRC staff. We did a total of 800 of those exercises over a ten-year period.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So we had a lot of staff out there, doing a lot of travel.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah. So that would have been—so you said for power, would that have been for all of the power reactors in the United States?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes. There were 103 plants at the time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. Did you do any in foreign countries?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I didn’t personally, but we did have some staff that went to a similar kind of program with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and visited foreign nuclear power plants. Some in France, that I recall.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. So you said 103 power plants?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: In the US, yeah.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Actually, that was the number of reactors. There was a fewer number of plants, because many of them are two or more reactors at a site.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay so the 103 is the number of reactors?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I believe that’s correct. At that time.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: How did Chernobyl affect your field and your work?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: That’s an excellent question, because that was in this period. Of course, the Chernobyl accident happened in 1986, and I was working directly with NRC at that time. I was project manager on that NRC contract. When Chernobyl happened, there was an immediate reaction, and NRC had to study the Chernobyl accident as well as we could, and then determine what could be applied to US power reactors by way of improvements and emergency planning. One of my managers, Bill Bair, was part of a US delegation led by DoE and NRC to actually visit the Chernobyl area shortly after the accident, interact with the Russians, and do lessons learned that was turned into a series of DoE and NRC documents that tried to extract as much useful information as we could from Chernobyl and apply it here in the US.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right, because if I’m not mistaken, the design of the Chernobyl reactor—there were reactors of similar design in the United States.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Not exactly. The Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel. There were a few reactors in the US that also did not have containment vessels, but they had other safeguards. The N Reactor was one of those. Unfortunately, I would call it an overreaction of the US government to a reactor with no containment. Severe restrictions were put on N Reactor, and some re-design was required that ultimately led to the end of N Reactor. It’s interesting to note that at that point in time, which was about 1986, 1987, N Reactor had generated more electricity from a nuclear reactor than any other plant in the world. So it’s unfortunate it came to an early demise.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And—sorry, my ignorance here on the technical aspects. You said some of them don’t have a containment vessel. What does a containment vessel look like and what role does it play, and why would there would be reactors with one and without one?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, N Reactor went back to the early—the late ‘50s, I believe when it was designed. It was designed similar to the other reactors here at Hanford that were intended for production of plutonium. But N Reactor was a dual purpose, in that it also generated 800 megawatts of electricity. But it had a similar kind of design to what you see out at B Plant, for example. So it didn’t have the same kind of containment vessel that other modern pressurized water reactors or other nuclear power plants have that is designed in such a way that if there is reactor core damage, any radioactivity released can be contained and not released.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Or released in a very controlled fashion.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I see. Kind of like a clam shell that kind of covers the—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, it’s basically—yeah, in many cases a spherical kind of containment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay. Excellent. So after—obviously the demise of N Reactor, ’86, ’87, is kind of the end of operations—or I should say of product production—product and energy production on the Hanford site. So how did your job change after that? And what did you continue to do after the shutdown?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I wasn’t directly affected by N Reactor shutting down. And the other production reactors had been shut down before that, so I wasn’t really directly involved in that. But I had yet another opportunity came up that turned out to be really a challenge for me. The Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas is the primary assembly and disassembly facility for nuclear weapons. At that time, it was managed by a company called Mason and Hanger. Mason and Hanger had that contract for many years, and DoE challenged them to rebid the contract. So Mason and Hanger reached out to Battelle for assistance in teaming on environmental health and safety. So my manager talked me into being involved, so I went down to Amarillo and visited the plant and worked with the team there on the proposal that had to be presented to DoE. And we won the contract. Of course in the fine print it said I then had to move there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Ah!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But it turned out great. By that time, my family was pretty well grown, kids were through college. So we moved down to Amarillo, and I went to work at Pantex. We really enjoyed that. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Amarillo’s a very nice town, a lot of nice people. The work at Pantex was very challenging. I enjoyed that very much, too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great. So how long were you at the Pantex plant?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I was manager of the radiation safety department down there for three years, which was my original contract obligation. During that time, we were very closely scrutinized by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board, which was an organization established by Congress to be a watchdog over DoE. Their method for watching DoE was to watch the contractors very closely. So they would scrutinize everything we did, and then challenge DoE if they found something. They pushed us in a way that was good, because one of the things they promoted was professional certification. I’m a certified health physicist, certified by the American Board of Health Physics. At the time at Pantex, I was the only one we had there. But the DNFSB pushed us to add more, so I got more of my staff certified. There was a similar program for technicians called the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists, and at the time, we had two of my staff that were registered with NRRPT. Again, they pushed us to promote more training. By the end of that three-year period, I think we had ten of our technologists registered and certified. So we really improved the credentials of our staff. We instituted some new programs, again, related to ALARA radiation reduction. Probably the most interesting or challenging day of my life occurred down there in 1994. We were working on disassembly of the W48 program. The W48 was a tactical weapon used in—that was deployed in Europe—it was never used. But it was a very small, cylindrical nuclear weapon designed to be shot out of a 155 millimeter howitzer, which is amazing just to think about. But the plutonium pit in this device was surrounded by high explosive. It turned out to be rather difficult to disassemble this particular design of nuclear weapon. It also turned out that the plutonium pit had a relatively high dose rate, compared to others. So the workers were getting some increased exposure to their hands in the process of working on this. So we were concerned about their extremity dose. So we worked up a method for doing a classified videotape of the disassembly operation, so that we could study each step in the process to find ways to improve worker safety. Providing shielding, remote tools, things of that nature. The process on this was to take the plutonium pit and high explosives and put it in liquid nitrogen bath for a period of time. Then bring it out and put it in a little tub-like, and pour hot water on it. The HE would expand rapidly and crack off. And for the most part, it worked very well. Well, there was this one particular pit that we were working on when we were doing the videotape for this study. Apparently the HE wasn’t coming off the way it should, and so they had to repeat this process over and over. They brought it out of the liquid nitrogen, poured hot water on it, and the plutonium—the cladding, the beryllium cladding on the plutonium pit actually cracked, due to the severe temperature change. The workers who were working on this were trained very carefully that if that cladding on the pit ever cracks, get out of there fast, so you avoid a plutonium exposure. So that happened. One of the technicians heard an audible crack and saw it on the surface of that pit. And they all evacuated immediately. They got just outside the door of this special facility, and they called our radiation safety office, and fortunately my three best technicians were standing there by the phone. They said, pit had cracked. And so they got over there as fast as they possibly could. They recognized the danger of having an exposed plutonium pit, and how that can oxidize and cause severe contamination very quickly. They decided to put on respirators to protect themselves, but they didn’t bother with any of the other protective clothing because they wanted to save time. So they made an entry where the cracked pit was, still there with the water bath on it, and the video shooting this picture. They took samples right on the crack and on the water and all around it. They managed to take that plutonium pit and get it into a plastic bag and then they doubled bagged it and then they triple bagged it and sealed it up. Then they came out. Of course, the samples revealed that there was indeed plutonium contamination coming out of that crack, but they had contained it very quickly. When we made a later entry to retrieve the video tape that was still running, and we looked at the timestamp on it. From the time the crack appeared until they had it in the bag was seven minutes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: That’s about as fast as you can possibly expect a response team to come in and secure a situation like that. And so, following that, of course we had the incident debriefing, and I had to chair that. But we very carefully went through and recorded every little thing that happened from the time they were working on the disassembly to the time they exited. Got that all documented, and then the videotape of course documented all of that. The scrutiny by Department of Energy, the Amarillo office, the Albuquerque office, Headquarters, any number of others—we had a lot of attention that day. It was a long, hard day at the office, but very exciting. Following that, we had to debrief many other investigation committees and others. But we had that videotape to rely on, and that just was invaluable. That’s my—that was probably the most exciting day of my life, down there. [LAUGHTER] Got a follow-up to that. That W48 weapon was designed by Livermore. They came in at a later time and did a post-mortem on that cracked pit. And when they did, we discovered that the amount of plutonium contamination there that was available for distribution had it not been contained, would have totally just made that facility useless. I mean, extremely expensive clean-up, if it ever got done.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Not just the room, but the entire facility?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, mainly that room.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That room.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But it was a very big room, and a very valuable room, specially designed. But the quick response of our radiation safety technicians and getting that contained saved that room and millions of dollars in expense.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. And so this was a weapon that was the size of a howitzer shell?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: 155 millimeters.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. And what is the—I don’t know if you know this—but what’s the explosive power of that—is it—I guess it could be—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, it’s just like the atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about 20-kiloton fission device. The plutonium pit is designed to implode and cause a super-critical reaction.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: But fired out of a howitzer, instead of—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Fired out of a howitzer, perhaps 20 miles or something. And then you can somehow coordinate the careful detonation of this--</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: --device. It boggled my mind.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I guess that’s best that that was never ever—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: There’s quite a large number of different nuclear weapons. Many of them were tactical weapons used in Europe—or deployed in Europe during the Cold War. Many other more modern ones are part of Polaris missiles and other large bombs that can be deployed by B-52s or B-2s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. There’s quite a wide range of different models and designs. I didn’t know that at the time, but it’s fascinating. I remember one day standing in one of the disassembly rooms, and they had this nuclear weapon in a cradle standing there on the floor, and they had the top off of it. And I could just look down in the top of it. I couldn’t touch it, but I could look in there and just see the engineering in one of those things was just amazing. Just beyond belief.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I bet. I can only imagine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. But I’ve gone off on this nuclear weapons story and departed from Hanford.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: It’s okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Maybe I should come back.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I think that’s a very interesting story. I certainly—I’ve also, like I said, heard of plenty of bombs—ICBMs, missiles, but I’d never quite heard of a howitzer-type fired weapon. But also just the fact that your team and your field was able to prevent a really nasty incident is pretty amazing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Right.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: It speaks to your profession and your skill.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, like I mentioned, the professional credentials. Two of the three technicians who responded were certified by NNRPT. And they had the right kind of training, knew what to do, did it very well.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I had an opportunity a year later to nominate them for a special DoE award for unusual—not heroism, but effective response. And they won the award that year.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That’s great. So how and when did you leave Pantex?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, the first time, was in ’96—no, I’m sorry, in ’93—and I had a special appointment back at DoE headquarters in Germantown. So I went back there for two years to work with the branch of DoE that was like an inspector general—the internal inspection branch, if you will. Very similar in scope to what the DNFSB—Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board—was doing. Scrutinizing all the DoE operations at the national labs and other facilities, and trying to always make improvements.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So I worked with the DoE headquarters staff on many different audits that we did at other DoE labs. At the time, I specialized in dosimetry, both internal and external dosimetry, and other operational health physics parts of the program.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. So when did you come back to the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I had a couple other interesting assignments in there. After DoE headquarters, then I went back to Pantex for three more years. And then another opportunity came up on an old facility near Cincinnati that needed to be decommissioned—decontaminated and decommissioned. And I went to Oak Ridge first, worked with the Foster Wheeler Company on the design of what became the largest radon control building that had ever been done. I was the radiation safety officer for that project at Oak Ridge in the design effort. And then we moved to Cincinnati for a year and I worked at the Fernald facility in actually building this radon control facility. What we were trying to deal with were these large concrete silos that contained residual ore material from the Second World War. They have to go back to—when the Manhattan Project was trying to bring together the necessary uranium in addition to the plutonium that was produced here at Hanford, they were using a rich pitch blend ore that was coming from what was then called Belgian Congo in Africa. It was shipped from there up the Saint Lawrence River to a facility near Niagara Falls. And then it ended up being processed to extract as much uranium as possible. But there were these residuals. They ended up in these concrete silos near Niagara Falls, New York as well as this Fernald facility, just outside of Cincinnati. So we had three big concrete silos that—I don’t recall—they must have been 80 feet in diameter and 50 feet high. So they held a lot of uranium ore residuals. It contained a fair amount of radium, which gave off radon gas. This facility was located not too far from a residential area. So it became a greater concern for getting it cleaned up. We put together this radon control facility that had these huge charcoal beds and you could pipe—you could take the head gas off of this silo, pipe it into these charcoal beds where the radon would be absorbed, and then the clean air would circulate. So you could fairly rapidly reduce the concentration of radon inside the silo to much lower levels. In the process, the charcoal beds got loaded up by absorbing radon. There came a point where you had to heat up that charcoal to drive off the captured radon. We devised a clever scheme with four different beds where we could kind of keep one of them recirculating on all times and have the other three working.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So you say drive off the captured radon, where would it be driven off?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Over to the next charcoal bed, which hadn’t yet been completely saturated.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh! But then eventually you still have charcoal that—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: but it decays with a 3.8 day half-life, and that was built into the plan, too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: But if it was to escape, right, it would get people very—it would contaminate or get people sick, or--?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, it was pretty carefully designed not to—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, but I’m saying that radon—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, if it escaped from the silo. If there was no control of it—a certain amount of radon was escaping from the silo. For the most part, it’s a light gas, it just goes up and the wind blows it and disperses it. So it was very difficult to even measure anything offsite. But there was that concern there that we were dealing with.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: But if enough of it was released at once, then there might have been an issue?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Like if the whole roof of the silo was suddenly removed and it all came out, that could be a problem, yeah.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Interesting. I didn’t realize it had such a short half-life.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. So I did that, what amounted to ten years of offsite assignments. About that time, my wife and I got tired of moving. So we came back to the Tri-Cities, and our kids are here. I came back to work at Battelle for another few years before I retired.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: When did you come back to Battelle?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I came back in 2001.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay. So then you worked for—it says you retired in 2006.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I retired about four years later. And the last major project I worked on was also very interesting. It was the project for customs and border protection. It was to install radiation portal monitors at seaports. This was shortly after 9/11, and there was a concern about dirty bomb material being imported by any means. We had one part of the project dealt with seaport, another part airports, and a third part postal facilities.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So I worked on the seaports part, and I had the Port of Los Angeles was my assignment. Another one of us had Port of Long Beach, which is right next door, which are the largest seaports on the West Coast and have the largest number of shipping containers coming in. So we devised a method for monitoring those shipping containers as they were unloaded and making sure nothing was coming in that way.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Did—oh, sorry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Very interesting project.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I don’t know if you can speak to this, but was anything caught by these monitors?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes. But not dirty bomb material.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Turns out they were so sensitive, they would detect any kind of elevated background radioactivity. For example, kitty litter is a little bit elevated in background. Any kind of stone product, and there are various granite and other stone products imported from different places. Those had a high enough background activity that they would trigger our monitors. So we would run all these containers through a set of monitors, and any that triggered that amount would then be sent over to a secondary monitor, where they’d examine it more carefully, verify what was actually in the containers, sometimes inspect them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So recently our project staff got a tour of some of the facilities at HAMMER. And I believe we saw one of those monitors. Would that have been the same?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Mm-hm. Big yellow columns?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah, that they run it through.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yep, that was the one.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: So you helped design—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We helped design—oh, I didn’t really get involved in design. That was done by some real smart people out here at Battelle. But I was onsite trying to get them installed.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: And tested.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow. That’s really—that’s fascinating.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah, it was. I had a chance to do a lot of fun things when I worked at Battelle.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah, it sounds like it. Sounds like maybe I need to go get a job over there. Maybe they need a traveling historian. So, where—what have you been doing since you retired?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, for about five years, I worked for Dade Moeller, which is kind of a spinoff company from Battelle. And they had a major contract with NIOSH—National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health—as part of an employee compensation program for radiation workers. Initially, the way this was set up was we got the actual radiation exposure records for former employees and examined their measured radiation exposure, and then did some other calculations that would tend to take into account anything else that they might have been exposed to but was somehow not measured on the dosimeter and many other factors to kind of add up their maximum possible radiation dose. And then that was compared—this is where it got a little complex. There are many different types of cancer that can be caused by radiation at a high enough level. Some types of cancer can be caused by a radiation level lower than some others. So it depended on what type of cancer the individual had as to which—how we measured their maximum possible radiation exposure to the likelihood that that cancer was caused by radiation. We did a careful calculation using probability and determined that if their cancer was at least 50% probable that it was caused by radiation, then they were granted an award. Well, we did that for several years in a very careful, scientific way that was well-documented. Then it became political. A lot of former workers, then, applied for another category within this overall compensation program that they called Special Exposure Cohort. Which meant that it didn’t matter how much radiation exposure they had, if they had the right type of cancer, they could get the award. And it’s kind of degenerated that way. But for many years, I think we did it right. I also had an opportunity to work on another part of that project where we did what we call the technical basis documents, where we reconstructed the history of how radiation exposure records were developed and maintained at each of these different sites. Every one varied a little bit. I did the one for the technical basis document for Pantex in Amarillo, because I was familiar with that. But I got to do several other interesting sites, one of which was Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Going there and interviewing some of these old-timers and looking at their old records, I found that there was a chemistry professor at what was then Iowa State University. He was called upon by the Manhattan Project in 1943 to help them improve their methods for extracting uranium metal. The old process that had been used by the Curies and other early scientists was really quite inefficient. But this professor developed a method used in a calcium catalyst that was very effective. He was able to purify uranium metal much quicker and in larger quantities. The story was that he would have to get on the train every Sunday afternoon and go to Chicago for the meeting with the Manhattan Project and report on the progress of his research and so on. One week after successfully isolating an ingot of uranium metal, he took it with him in his briefcase. Went into the meeting with Manhattan Project and clunked it on the desk, and passed it around. He said that this is a new method for producing substantial quantities of uranium metal. All the scientists around the table kind of poked at it and scratched it and so on and didn’t believe it was really uranium, but it was. And they finally decided that he had made a great breakthrough, so they sent him back to Iowa and said, make a lot more, fast. And he did. So he had the material they needed, then, for the Manhattan Project.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Interesting story.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Yeah, that’s really fascinating. So how did you become involved with the Parker Foundation?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: About ten years ago—almost ten years ago—my friend Bill Bair and Ron Kathren and a couple others on the Parker Board invited me to participate. Matt Moeller was chairman of the board at that time—invited me to participate, and I just joined in, and found it very rewarding. I really appreciate what the Parker Board does in the memory of Herb Parker and in the sense of scholarships and other educational programs. So it’s a pleasure to contribute to that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great, great. You moved in 1975 or ’76?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I moved here in ’76.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: ’76. And you mentioned children. Were your children born here, or did you move here with them?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: My oldest daughter was born in San Diego, and my younger daughter was born in Boulder, Colorado.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: So they were six and eight, I think, when we moved here.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: What were your impressions of Richland in the mid-70s when you moved? Did you live in Richland or did you--?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We did. Yeah, we lived just a few blocks from WSU here.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: In North Richland. It was a very different community, but one that I came to know and respect. Because at that time, education was really paramount in the minds of parents and the school system. And my wife was a teacher. So we really took an interest in that. My kids got a really good education here in Richland. Went to Hanford High, and then did well in college. One of the main features of Richland at that time, I think, was a superior education program. Some of the other history of Richland with old government housing, and then we got a new house, and things like that are entirely different, but also very interesting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And is that what you kind of are meaning when you say it was a different community? I guess I’d like to unpack that a little bit more. How—in what ways was it different?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, a large part of Richland was originally government housing, and you only had to drive through town, you could see all the evidence of that. And then on the north side of Richland, they had opened up—beginning in 1965, I believe—development of newer private housing. We got here just in time to get in on a new house, and worked out fine for us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great. Was there—being next to a site that was primarily involved in product production, plutonium production—was there a different feeling about the Cold War in Richland per se than anywhere else you had lived in the United States at that time?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: There definitely was different feelings about the Cold War and living anywhere near a nuclear power plant. I remember when we were working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at many different reactor sites around the country. In many cases we would have public meetings to introduce the local folks to what we were trying to do to improve the emergency planning. There was a lot of concern about living anywhere near a nuclear power plant just a few years after TMI. I tried to explain to people how I live within 30 miles of nine nuclear power plants. But I understood radiation. I understood the risk, and I understood what could go wrong or how to deal with it. And it didn’t concern—didn’t bother me that much to live here. I found that to be generally true of a lot of people in Richland that were part—working at Hanford and were well-educated. They understood the risk and they could deal with it. Whereas many other people were just afraid. And I attribute that to what I call now about a 71-year deliberate misinformation program on the part of mass media to scare people about radiation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I like that. I’m writing it down. How do you feel that the—do you feel that the ending of the Cold War changed your work at all? I guess the reason why I ask—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: --these questions about the Cold War is because it was the impetus for much of the continued production of the material.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yeah. I was in Germany in 1988, just before the Berlin Wall came down. I was also there in Berlin in 1984, and we actually crossed through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin on a special tour.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Really?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It was quite amazing. I was in Berlin for a meeting of the International Radiation Protection Association. I took my whole family; it was a tremendous adventure for them. But we were able to be part of a special US Army tour that went through Checkpoint Charlie. I think they did this once a week. And we had a little tour of East Berlin while it was still under the control of the USSR. We visited their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and they had a little ceremonial changing the guard there. And we visited the square in Berlin where Hitler had burned the books that one night in 1939. And then we visited a huge Russian war memorial, and there was a building there where the Germans had surrendered in 1945. There was quite a story about that. But I was really impressed with this huge Russian war memorial. There were five mass graves that each held 100,000 soldiers. It was done in kind of the Russian style, with statues and other honorary symbols to clearly show their respect for the lives of all those soldiers. But that was an impressive sight. But I was there again in 1988 just before the Berlin Wall came down, and you could kind of see the end of the Cold War coming. So it was a great opportunity that I had, working for Battelle, being able to travel like that, and do many exciting things.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Did you get to ever talk or meet with any of your counterparts on the Russian side?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: After the Cold War ended. And what was that like, to finally work with what had been considered the enemy?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: It was quite unusual. I was scheduled to go to Russia a week after 9/11. It almost got canceled, but I managed to go. I was giving—they were having a conference for young scientists and trying to introduce them to international concepts of radiation safety. So I gave my paper and four others that we did to that group. It was located at what was the Russian equivalent of Los Alamos, their design facility. There weren’t very many Americans had been in there up to that point. So I was watched very closely. [LAUGHTER] And not allowed to see much, actually. But it was a very interesting exchange. The papers I was presenting were prepared in both English and Russian. And then we also did what they called a poster presentation, where we had a big poster with diagrams and everything—again translated to Russian. So we were able to put these up at this conference for these young scientists. They, I think, got a lot out of it because it was in their language so it was easy for them to understand. Working with an interpreter was a new experience for me. I would give this oral presentation, so I’d say one sentence and the pause. The interpreter would repeat that. I’d say the next sentence, and—kind of an awkward way to do an oral presentation.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I can imagine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But their hospitality was very good. This was in 2001. So the Cold War had been over for quite a few years. But we were trying to establish better relations. I think it was quite effective in doing that. I had another opportunity to work with Russian scientists on an NRC program, again where NRC was trying to provide training to their equivalent Russian inspectors for nuclear power plants and explain to them some of the ways that they did inspections, things they looked for, how they documented findings and things like that. We had four Russian inspectors and their interpreter come over from Moscow. I was their host in Washington, DC, and we worked with them there with the NRC headquarters for a week, providing training. And then we brought them out to Idaho to the Idaho National Lab, north of Idaho Falls, and went to a large hot cell facility at Idaho. A hot cell is where they have a heavily shielded enclosure with mechanical arms that do things on the inside. It was quite a sophisticated facility and somewhat unlike what the Russian counterparts were used to. But it was a good learning exercise for them. We kind of went through a demonstration of how we would do an inspection—a safety inspection. So, I had those kind of opportunities to interact with Russian scientists and found that very exciting. Very interesting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Did you find that there was anything that you had learned from them at all? Or do you feel that the US was much more advanced in radiation protection and health physics?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I kept my ears open when I was talking to them, but they didn’t reveal much. [LAUGHTER] So, we didn’t pick up much that way.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We were trying to help them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Right. Were you at Hanford during the Russian visit to Hanford when they toured the Plutonium Finishing Plant?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: No. That was after I retired, I think.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay, just curious.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I heard about it of course.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I’m sure. That must have been a pretty big deal from the standpoint of both countries. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you would like to talk about?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I think there’s one thing I remember from when I did this interview the first time that I wanted to mention.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I’ve been talking about all the varied experiences I had, and excellent opportunities over the years. But I think one of the perhaps most impressive things that I was able to do was to be able to hire several good people into my organization. I won’t mention names, but there were several that I call superstars that are now leaders in the field. I was able to bring them in right out of college or from another job, and hire several really good people that certainly enhanced our program, and then gave them great opportunities to grow and expand. Like I say, they’re now leaders in the field. That was one of the most rewarding parts of my job.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That’s great. Maybe you can give me their names off camera and we could contact them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I think they’re already on your list. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Oh, okay, good.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: But I’ll do that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Well, good.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: We’ll do that.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: They should be. Tom, did you—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tom Hungate: No, I’m fine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Emma, did you have anything?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Emma Rice: No, I’m fine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Okay. Well, I think that’s it. Jerry, thank you so much.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, that was fun. Did we stay on target?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I believe we did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I wandered a little. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: That’s okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: There’s some stories there that might be interesting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: I think the stories help keep the oral histories—they have a human-centered focus and they’re interesting for people to watch.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I hope so.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: And I think there might be a couple things that merit some more research in there that personally, for me, I’d like to find out some more about.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Especially the howitzer thing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Oh, yeah. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: One thing I’d just like to ask—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Sure.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: You’ve been involved in a lot of things over a broad range of time and experiences and I just kind of wonder what you would feel is the one—maybe the item or two that you’ve worked on that will leave the most lasting impact?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: The most lasting impact.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: Or that you wished had been developed more that didn’t quite complete, you’d like to see more work done on it, it was either defunded or it was—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Well, I’m thinking of several different things now. I’ll just have to think it through. The work we did with NRC to improve emergency planning on nuclear power plants I think was very effective. And that’s still being maintained today. Work we did with DoE at Pantex on nuclear weapons. You mentioned the end of the Cold War, that’s when many of these tactical nuclear weapons in Europe were brought back and declared obsolete, and so we were doing a massive disassembly operation on those. I learned a lot about nuclear weapons and found it fascinating. We implemented some methods at Pantex that I think are still in use in the maintenance programs that they do now. But we were able to, I think, substantially improve on radiation safety at Pantex. Certainly to the point where we were finally blessed by DNFSB and DoE. I think the quality of that program has been maintained. There’s several other projects that I’ve worked on over the years, but I guess there’s no one thing that stands out that I would be concerned about that it was defunded or ended or somehow went downhill. I’m sure that’s happened, but I haven’t kept track of everything.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Being as nuclear power and nuclear weapons have different objectives, and you mentioned this retirement of a lot of nuclear weapons, do you feel that nuclear weapons still have a role to play in security—</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: I do.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: You do?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Martin: Yes. Because the Russians still have a lot of them, China has some, the French and English have a few. It’s what I call the mutual deterrent, which is a term that’s been used. It just means that we don’t ever want to use one again, but if any one of those countries had some kind of an unbalanced advantage, it could be used. So if we have this mutual assured deterrence, it keeps that in balance. So it’s important to maintain that stockpile.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Interesting. Thank you.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hungate: Okay.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Franklin: Great.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:02:44
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
300 Area
B Plant
N Reactor
Plutonium Finishing Plant
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1976-2006
2001-2006
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Herbert M. Parker
Ken Hyde
John Jech
McCluskey
Mason and Hanger
Dade Moeller
Bill Bair
Ron Kathren
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
2001-today
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 Jerome Martin
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Jerome Martin 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
06-01-16
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.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2017-15-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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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.
300 Area
B Plant
Battelle
Cold War
Department of Energy
General Electric
HAMMER
Hanford
Livermore
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Manhattan Project
N Reactor
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Park
Plutonium
Plutonium Finishing Plant
River
Ron Kathren
Safety
Sun
War
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3709e8204c8899a93c9c81308951a94c.JPG
84a45b395471c72ce61c06a25b1e3919
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 Franklin
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Michael Lawrence
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Michael Lawrence on February 1<sup>st</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mike about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?</p>
<p>Michael Lawrence: Michael J. Lawrence. L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Thank you. So, how did you come to the Hanford Site?</p>
<p>Lawrence: I went—I grew up in Washington, DC. I was born and raised in Washington, DC, and I went to the University of Maryland and lived at home when I did so. And I was a physics major. Between my junior and senior year of college, I was fortunate enough to get one of five internships at the Atomic Energy Commission. That internship had me working in a division of the AEC, or Atomic Energy Commission, called the production division, which was responsible for, among other sites, the Hanford Site, because of its production of plutonium. During that summer, I actually shared an office with an individual who was responsible for the operations and missions of the N Reactor which was located here. So I had an opportunity to learn a little bit about Hanford at that particular point in time. When I graduated from Maryland with my degree in physics the next year, I had already been offered and had accepted a full-time job with the Atomic Energy Commission when I went back to the production division again to work. I was working on isotopes programs and other things when I was called into the director’s office one day. It just so happened that several years previously, in 1969 I believe, President Nixon had signed the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and one of the provisions in NEPA called for something which, at that point in time, was not known at all. Something called an environmental impact statement. You had to do environmental impact statements for any major federal projects, and our division was responsible for two projects that were going to occur in the early ‘70s here. One was the design and building of the quite a bit. And also had a sense of what it was going to be involved dealing with the public on important and issues that were of concern to the public, like the Z-9 crib and plutonium production. Because one of our hearings for those environmental impact statements was held down in Portland. And I can recall going down there, and there were demonstrators in radiation contamination clothing protesting and all the rest. And you got a chance to see just how the public felt about it. But that was my first instance of dealing with Hanford. Then later in the mid-‘70s—again, I’m still back in Washington, DC; AEC had become the Department of Energy—and I was responsible for a program to manage and store commercial spent nuclear fuel. And that program, the contractor and site that was helping us out was the Savannah River site in South Carolina. But because of the heavy burden they had, I decided it would be best if we changed the management of that program, or the contractor working on the program from Savannah River to the Hanford Site and to the Pacific Northwest National Lab—at that time was Pacific Northwest Lab; it wasn’t a national lab, but PNL. And so I started coming out again and working with the people here. So I had a pretty good understanding of the community and what was out here, and I liked it. But in the early 1980s, in 1982 to be exact, after several years of very, very intense negotiation back in the halls of Congress, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was passed by Congress which set up a process and legal requirements for identifying, selecting, licensing, building, operating, and funding a geologic repository for commercial nuclear waste from commercial reactors and defense waste from the production of plutonium, primarily either at Hanford or at the Savannah River plant. I was one of several people called down from where I was working in Germantown, Maryland, down to Washington, DC to work on the direct implementation of that act. Obviously, that was a very—it was controversial, it was huge, and the new Secretary of Energy at that time—his name was Donald Hodel, who had formerly been the administrator of Bonneville out here in the Pacific Northwest—he was very familiar with the issues involved. And I got an opportunity to meet and work with him rather closely. And after several years of doing that, he asked me to come out here to be the manager of the Richland Operations Office.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. Thank you. That’s really fascinating, with all of your lengths between DC and to here. Did you—I want to ask—you mentioned a hearing in Portland where there were demonstrators. And that—I think it fits pretty well into what we hear a lot about how the west side and the east side of the state think about Hanford. Did you find a pretty supportive public here in Tri-Cities when you would come and hold meetings here in the area about, like, for example the Z-9 crib or other projects? Did you find a pretty supportive public?</p>
<p>Lawrence: I wouldn’t use the term supportive, I would use the term very informed and knowledgeable. They understood, to a greater degree, what the risks, what the concerns were, what the precautions were. Not universally, obviously. There were—and I have a good example of what a protestor would be. But basically, they seemed to be more informed, and certainly they were more knowledgeable of the situation. So the further away you went, the less direct knowledge people had of the situation. And so consequently—and it’s understandable, you know, they really didn’t have the same—they didn’t know people who worked at the Site. They didn’t—couldn’t appreciate the values that they had, their sensitivities. So that would be more the way I would describe it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Lawrence: What was interesting, and I just had alluded to, was after coming out here—this was in 1984; I came—arrived in July of 1984. And at the beginning of that year was when the PUREX Plant, which processed the fuel coming out of N Reactor and reprocessed it to recover the plutonium, had just gone back into operation after a number of years of being mothballed. This was all part of President Reagan’s buildup of our military strength and weapons complex to more or less challenge the Russians or the Soviet Union in their ability to do so. And so we were gearing back up, really, the plutonium production mission at the Hanford Site. It was obviously very controversial here in the Northwest. And it was just starting up, and there had actually been a leak from the PUREX Plant right after it started up. And what I found when I arrived here in July was that even though the people on the Site—the contractor and the officials here—were saying, no, this is what it was and this is what the effects were. There was very little credibility. People would not believe them. And there was a strong opposition to what they were doing. That was a challenging situation to walk into where you really don’t have any credibility. But the first week I was in town, first week as manager, down in my office in the Federal Building, which is up in the northeast corner of the Federal Building, seventh floor, looking out over John Dam Plaza and the park, and I looked out on the street, and there’s a person with a big sign and billboard saying, Mike Lawrence, carpetbagger, go home. And he’s just sitting on the park bench in front of the building. And I—you know, I’ve just arrived in town, and I’m looking at him. His name was Larry Caldwell. He was known to everybody in town; he liked to protest. And I’m looking down at him and I—I sort of like to engage. I don’t like to ignore things. So I said, you know, I think I’ll go out and talk to him. Well, that caused quite a stir. But I walked down and walked across the street, walked up to the park bench, introduced myself, sat down and we started talking. I wanted to find out, well, since you don’t know me, why do you call me a carpetbagger, why do you want me to go home? Let’s talk. And it was funny because in the midst of discussing this with him, I happened to glance back over. And if you’re familiar with the Federal Building, it’s just full of windows. Every window was filled with faces looking out. [LAUGHTER] They said, this is our new manager and he’s out there. Security was very concerned. But you know? It worked out fine. Larry told me what his problems were. He didn’t like the mission. I told him, I said, I understood that. I had a job to do; Congress had appropriated the money, and I’d been given a job to do, and I was going to do it the best I could. But I was going to do it trying to do it in keeping the public informed of what we were doing and being as upfront and—now the term is transparent. We didn’t use that term back then—but as transparent I could be in handling it. So that was my first direct encounter with a protestor, if you will. But I thought it turned out pretty well. But that gets to a broader topic that I’d like to address, and that is, as I said, the Department and its contractors, I found they didn’t have credibility. And I’m not saying it was anyone’s fault, but it’s my opinion that it’s very easy for organizations—Department of Energy, Richland, Hanford—to lose credibility. And the only way you regain that credibility is through individuals, by really engaging with people so they get a sense of who you are or who the people are doing the work. And so we tried from the very beginning back in 1984 to go out and to meet with the public, to engage the public, to be as open as we could to explain our perspective and what we were doing. Obviously, we didn’t expect everyone to agree with us; some people were just diametrically opposed to it. But you’d like them to at least sense that the people doing the work shared some of their values, shared their concerns, in doing their work. The best example I have of that is—I believe it was in 1985. Again, Hanford, because of our role going back into the nuclear weapons complex had been quite controversial. I received a call from the pastor of the Catholic church down in Kennewick, St. Joseph’s. And he said, Mike, I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but the three bishops—Catholic bishops—in Washington State are having prepared a letter—very, very critical of Hanford, its operations, and the people who work there. And he said, I just think that it’s being, I guess—a focal point was being headed up by a person in Yakima where the bishop was a Bishop William Skylstad. And I happened to have met and knew Bishop Skylstad from my own personal dealings with the church. And so I thanked the priest in Kennewick, and I called up Bishop Skylstad, and I said, I’d really like to come—I understand you’re having some work done on behalf of yourself and the other two bishops, and I’d like to really come and talk to you about it. And so I actually took the president of Rockwell Hanford, who operated PUREX, his name was Paul Lorenzini—very, very intelligent, smart guy—with me. And we went to meet with Bishop Skylstad and he had the individual who was writing this who happened also to be a member of the Hanford Education Action League in Spokane. And, you know, I read what they had prepared. It was talking about the Department of Energy is lying about this, and they’re poisoning, and they’re making these intentional releases. And in discussing that, after a while, Bishop Skylstad said to me, he said, Mike, Mike, calm down. He says, you’re taking this personally. And I looked at him and I said, Bishop, of course I’m taking it personally. When you say the Department of Energy is lying, who is that? Who is it that you’re saying is lying? And it was amazing, because he just stopped; all of a sudden, it dawned on him. He said, oh my goodness, I never thought of it that way. But you had to put a face in front of the organization. And that helped a lot. Now, the letter still came out and it was still very critical. But it wasn’t as accusatory as perhaps it was. It says, we’re opposed to the mission. That’s fine; that I understand. But when you get into the motives and the ill will of the people, that’s where it goes a little too far.</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm. Right. The difference between unintentional or passive action and then direct action.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Franklin: I wonder if you could talk about what it was like in the early ‘70s to actually—to physically get to Hanford from Washington, DC. Was it still very—was travel still kind of tough to get to Hanford? Or was there easy air travel or car travel? Or did you find it to be a little still off the beaten path?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, it was a lengthy trip. Coming from Washington, DC, I would fly from Washington, DC to Chicago, Chicago to Seattle, then Seattle to Pasco. And usually that was like going United, and then I think there was—it was called Airwest—Hughes Airwest, owned by Howard Hughes. Then it did get significantly easier later on when Northwest Airlines had a direct flight from Dulles Airport in DC to Seattle, and then you’d fly back over here. I always used to enjoy those trips. I mean, air travel was a lot different then than it was now in that it wasn’t as—a chore and the like. It was a little bit more creature comforts in traveling as well.</p>
<p>Franklin: When you mentioned NEPA and the need for the EIS, Environmental Impact Statement, and digging at Z-9 and I’m sure probably a couple other facilities—did that also trigger any kind of cultural resources work, archaeological digs? Were there ever any—was there any cultural resources work or things found?</p>
<p>Lawrence: In the ‘70s, no. I mean, that work was right in the middle of the 200 Area. Which is—it still today is the most concentrated area. I believe, if I recall correctly, the EISs probably said—would address that. But not—I mean, EISs then were maybe 100 pages long. Now they’re—[LAUGHTER]—multiple volumes and many thousands of pages long. But I wasn’t aware of any. I think the first real instance of dealing with Native Americans and their concerns was with a project we had on the center of the Site called the Basalt Waste Isolation Project, or BWIP, which was on Gable--</p>
<p>Franklin: I was going to ask you about that next.</p>
<p>Lawrence: --which was on Gable Mountain. But I’ll let you ask about it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, no, I was going to ask if you—you talked about the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and finding a geological repository. And I was just going to ask, I assume that’s BWIP, then, that is the—</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yeah, and, actually there’s a slight difference there. But the whole idea of the geologic repository, especially since I had been responsible for that program before coming here, led people to suspect or conclude that it was a foregone conclusion that Hanford was going to be named the geologic repository for the United States. And actually, when I came here, that Nuclear Waste Policy Act had set out a process for narrowing down until you had three sites that you would thoroughly characterize. We had gone from nine sites to five, and when I came out here, there were five sites under consideration. Once I was here, it was narrowed down to the three finalists, if you will: Hanford for basalt, Nevada for tuffs—that’s the Yucca Mountain Site—and in Texas there was a salt formation called Deaf Smith County. And so that was being looked at. Now, BWIP itself was not the geologic repository site. It was a test facility built into Gable Mountain—and Gable Mountain, of course, rises up and the geologic repository was going to go down several thousand feet. But it allowed the scientists to put heaters into basalt rock to see how the rock responded to it—expansion, contraction, did it attract water, was it pushed away, and the like. It was actually a quite successful project. We learned quite a bit about how basalt rock would interact. However—getting back to the cultural resources—during that period, we also found out that the Native Americans—the Yakamas, I believe—used to use Gable Mountain for vision-quest-type activities and places to send people on a spiritual adventure. This didn’t happen right away, but we finally worked out—because I saw no reason why we couldn’t—with a day’s notice, we let the Yakamas—we said, we will let you come on and go up to the site, and do whatever ceremonies, to do whatever you want to do. We just need to know about it. Obviously there is physical security and there’s safety we had to provide for them. But I think we were able to work out and arrangement with the Yakamas where they would have access. Perhaps not as freely as they would like, but it did allow some compromise to be worked out so they could still perform some of their religious ceremonies there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure. So you came—you arrived in July 1984, you said. And that was kind of—that was under this Reagan era mandate of basically restarting production.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Because it had just been N Reactor through most of the ‘70s, correct, and into the early ‘80s. So I’m wondering if you can just elaborate more on that mission and some of the activities needed and the push back—if there was any push back—and the whole thing.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, there was opposition, particularly on the west side and in Portland to restarting plutonium production facilities. While N Reactor had continued to operate, the fuel had not been processed and plutonium had not been recovered in many instances until PUREX started back up. So that was the process of really then getting back into plutonium production. That’s what was leading to opposition to what we were doing. We did the best we could to try to go around and to explain at least what we were doing, how we were doing it, how we would interact. I can recall going with my wife to a meeting up in Spokane. I just went up on a weekday night and the Hanford Education Action League had asked me to come up and talk to them. It was clear. It was clear then, that there was very, very strong opposition to what we were doing. A person I remember asked me the question, did I realize that I was acting just like Hitler? [LAUGHTER] I said, you know, I don’t think of it that way. I think about what I do very seriously, and I’m doing something that’s approved by and funded by the government of the United States of America, from the President and the Congress. I have to do it safely, and I have to do it in accordance with the law, but that’s what needs to be done. But, again, it was another effort to try to get out and at least be present, answer the questions; you may not make them happy, but at least you know you’re there trying to interact.</p>
<p>Franklin: And so how many facilities ended up being restarted or brought online from when you got here to when things were shut down? Maybe you could kind of walk me through that process.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, as I indicated, N Reactor had continued to operate, because N Reactor, unlike the other production reactors that were at Savannah River, was a dual purpose reactor. It not only produced plutonium in the fuel elements, but the water which passed through the reactors for cooling it was then sent over to a facility operated by the Washington Public Power Supply System to turn turbines and to produce electricity, on the order of a gigawatt of electricity a year. And because of that, we needed to—the cycle of the N Reactor was different than other production reactors: it was on a shorter cycle. That was for production reasons, the type of plutonium we were producing. So N Reactor went from producing what was fuel grade—it was called fuel grade plutonium—for reactor development programs like the Fast Flux Test Facility and ultimately would have been a breeder reactor. It went to making weapons grade, which meant much shorter irradiation periods. Also, prior to their restarting of PUREX, the fuel was just stored. With the starting of PUREX, you would then let the fuel cool in the basin at N Reactor then ship it in casks on rail cars to the center of the site at PUREX where it would be dissolved in PUREX. The waste would be sent to waste tanks, the plutonium concentrate in a liquid form would be sent to the Plutonium Finishing Plant over in the 200-West area, where it would then be converted into a plutonium metal button about the size of a tuna fish can. And that would be then sent to Colorado—Rocky Flats Plant—where it would actually be fashioned into the material used in a nuclear weapon. So it was the facilities associated with reprocessing at PUREX, handling waste from PUREX, and the facilities associated with the Plutonium Finishing Plant for converting the plutonium to metal that were the primary set of facilities that had to restart.</p>
<p>Franklin: And so then N Reactor was the only reactor that was operated during that time?</p>
<p>Lawrence: It was the only production reactor on the Hanford Site at that time. And the only reactor that was producing water that was—steam—that was then used to produce electricity. There was another very important reactor at Hanford that was operating then. It was called the Fast Flux Test Facility, which had just started operation a year or so before I got here. And that was to be a precursor of a commercial breeder reactor. The developmental—the reactor, the full-scale reactor that was going to demonstrate the breeder process was going to be built in Oak Ridge, Tennessee at the Clinch River Breeder Reactor. But they built the FFTF prior to that in order to get a feeling for how the sodium cooling worked, the fuel worked, the interactions. It was a prototype, if you will, to see just how that system was going to work. And quite frankly, the FFTF was a tremendously successful test reactor and developmental reactor for liquid sodium. It operated flawlessly, really. Unfortunately, though, it shut down because the breeder program was canceled and there really wasn’t a need for it. People tried diligently to find a mission, to find a need for it. But it was a—it just wasn’t in the cards, and it eventually—it took until the late 1990s for it to be permanently shut down. But that was the other reactor that was operating when I came out here.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Yeah, I’ve interviewed several other people that worked at FFTF, and they’ve all—</p>
<p>Lawrence: Oh, and they’re very enthusiastic about the FFTF. And I can understand it. It was a great reactor.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, and a reactor with kind of a different mission than any of Hanford’s other reactors.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yes, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Save maybe the N Reactor which had a dual—</p>
<p>Lawrence: No, it was very different. It didn’t have that plutonium production role.</p>
<p>Franklin: How long did the production go at Hanford—that ‘80s Reagan era production?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, in 1986, the reactor in Chernobyl blew up—April of 1986. That was in Ukraine, at Chernobyl. Of course, there was very little information coming out after the news of that explosion occurred. You couldn’t get in; the Soviets weren’t saying anything about it. But they couldn’t deny it, because you could detect the radiation coming. But people knew, generally, what type of reactor the Russians were operating there. It was graphite-moderated, water-cooled, and very quickly they came upon the fact that, wait a minute, there’s a graphite-moderated, water-cooled reactor operating in the US out of Hanford that’s called the N Reactor. So consequently, I believe it was in the first week of the Chernobyl accident, one afternoon—I guess it was a morning—in the lobby of the Federal Building, it was mayhem. There must have been 50 to 100 people, representatives from all of the television networks, the major newspapers and wire services—all there wanting to do a story on N Reactor, the Chernobyl of the United States. So I got on the phone to Washington, DC and I said, look, we’ve got a problem here. Because we had been told, do not talk to the press about this. This is one of the few times when I was manager here that we were ever given instructions from Washington about how to interact and how to manage the sites. The managers had much greater authority then than they do now. And there was only one manager here at that point in time, as opposed to three that they have now. So we had a lot of leeway, but we’d been told, don’t talk about it because it’s very sensitive; it’s international news and we’re concerned about it. So when I called and said we have this mob scene in the lobby all wanting to talk about and go see the N Reactor, they said, don’t talk to them. Don’t do anything. I got back on the phone and I said, look, there’s stories that are going to be coming out of here. They can either be based on fact or they can be based upon fiction. If they’re based upon fiction, it’s not going to be pretty. And it’s going to be inaccurate. And I said, look, I will not speculate at all on what happened at Chernobyl. I don’t know. I care, but I’m not going to say a thing about that. I just want to explain how N Reactor works and what its safety features are, so that they can see for themselves. So reluctantly but finally, they relented and said, okay, you can show them. Go take them out. So we got a big bus. We put everybody on the bus—it was multiple buses. And we went out to N Reactor. And as you know, that’s about an hour’s drive out. But they were chomping at the bit. And I can remember the look on their faces when they saw—I think they were expecting a little Quonset huts with steam rising out of vents and out of chimneys and all the rest. And when they see this massive building—and in fact we were able to open one of the doors, which was three feet thick of concrete and steel. They looked at that and they were kind of amazed. And I explained to them that although commercial reactors have a system called containment, which is a big steel dome, production reactors don’t. It’s called confinement. It’s different. So it leads to speculation. Well, you know, containment’s going to keep it in; confinement’s not going to do it. And I was pointing out how we had ways of safely venting steam and pressure so it wouldn’t build up, so it couldn’t explode. And we went through all the safety systems, showed them in the inside, the face of the reactor. And consequently, the next several days in <em>USA Today</em>—I mean, it was front page stuff. But at least it was based upon, well, you know, here are all these safety features. It still raised a lot of issues and concerns because nobody knew what caused Chernobyl, so how could we say it couldn’t happen here? We could only say, here are all the safety systems we have to prevent something like that from happening here. Now, ultimately, we found out over time, that what happened at Chernobyl was a physical characteristic called a positive void coefficient. But basically something that didn’t exist in the physics out at N Reactor. But the damage was done. We did need to do some safety upgrades at N Reactor, which we did. But ultimately, in 1988 I believe it was, the Secretary of Energy, John Harrington, in testifying before Congress announced that the US had now produced so much plutonium that we were in fact, quote, awash in plutonium and didn’t need to produce any more. And quite frankly, with that being the case, we no longer had a justification for operating N Reactor. And ultimately it was shut down. To this day, I applaud the hard work and dedication of all the people out at N Reactor. They worked on the safety upgrades and the operation of that reactor, they worked extremely hard and were very, very proud of the operation of that reactor. I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to those people. They did a great job.</p>
<p>Franklin: There’s several things that strike me as really interesting that I want to return to in what you just said about Chernobyl and N. One was one of the last things, that John Harrington, awash with plutonium; the US had produced enough. Did you agree with that statement then? That we were—because that would be, I mean, your boss or boss’s boss.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Quite frankly, I didn’t know what the total plutonium numbers were for the country. I didn’t know what the total demand was. I do know that plutonium has a very long half-life and sooner or later, you’ve got to have more than you need. We had thousands and thousands of nuclear warheads then. So, I mean, I didn’t know for sure, but I knew at some point we were going to reach it, and quite frankly felt we probably had overshot. So I did not disagree with Secretary Harrington on that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, because I mean, we had passed mutually assured destruction quite a long—</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: And I guess, we know a lot more now about our stockpile then than we did then. But it’s a very interesting way to phrase that. We’re awash in—</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yeah, I mean, it conjures up an image that you really don’t want to have.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. I wanted to return to the Chernobyl thing. It strikes me as interesting that this reaction of don’t talk to the press, which is—you can understand in some way, because you don’t want misinformation. But isn’t that the same kind of criticism that we would level at the Soviets? That they were clamming up and not saying anything, and we wished that they were saying something? So this reaction to not say anything on our side is—could have been seen as—you know—being too controlling maybe perhaps?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, I mean, it went against my instincts, but it’s understandable. The Soviets were the one who had the accident. Now, if we had had an accident and they said, don’t talk to them, I would have been incensed. But basically, we were just going along and people want to come in and try to write a story and say, you’re just like Chernobyl. Well, in a sense, we didn’t know what Chernobyl was, how could we have definitely refuted that? So I can understand their perspective, because, quite frankly, some people at other sites had been quoted by the press as saying, well, we think this is what happened at Chernobyl, or that happened at Chernobyl. And it was just—it was getting out of hand. So I understood that. That was—my point was, I’m not going to talk at all about Chernobyl, because I don’t know. I do know N Reactor. I do know how it works, and I do know its safety features; that’s all I’m going to talk about. And I was awfully glad they let me do it.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s good, yeah. I’m wondering if you could talk about—being in charge of the Site here, I’m wondering if you could talk about the effect of Chernobyl on employee morale at Hanford. Did you notice a particular change—what changed as a result of—</p>
<p>Lawrence: I really don’t think I saw any change in the behavior of the people here. They were going about their work. They knew the systems and the procedures and the processes they worked by, the protections that they were given. I’ll tell you candidly one thing that always bothered me then and it bothers me today, is that sometimes people, they get off work and they act somewhat cavalier or bravado about the work they do. Whether it’s to impress somebody or what, I don’t know. But they say, oh yeah, we deal with this. You know, handling it not as seriously as it needs to be. I know on the job, they do and they have to. But then like a macho reaction at the Gaslight Tavern or something like that talking about what they’re doing. That bothers me because it leaves a wrong impression with the public. And it’s certainly not the way we act onsite.</p>
<p>Franklin: I guess I’d like to maybe rephrase that question. Did you see like maybe a level of—or rise of kind of the fatigue of workers, maybe thinking that anti-nuclear folks or that there was a new public perception that this was really unsafe or that there was really an imminent danger at Hanford? Do you think that weighed on—did that weigh on you, or did that weigh on anybody else?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, I think there was a sense on their part that there was an overreaction, that people were, in a way, paranoid and exaggerating the risk. They knew the risk. The people who work here know the risk. But they also know the precautions, so they can balance it out. And consequently, they felt like there was an overreaction. But even before Chernobyl occurred, there was an event that put the Site under somewhat of a microscope and an intense scrutiny, and that would have been, I believe it was September of 1985. Now, Chernobyl happened in April of ’86; this was September of 1985 on a Sunday, <em>The Spokesman Review</em> newspaper in Spokane came out with a multiday series on what they called the downwinders. Basically, they were interviewing and writing stories about an area across the Columbia River in Eltopia, Mesa, where farmers had experienced or felt they had experienced undue health effects—a number of health effects and cancers, and even some wildlife—some of their livestock being born with—there was reports of double heads and the like. And this was a major news piece done by a reporter called Karen Dorn Steele, and quite frankly she did an excellent job of researching this and writing it up. And I—you know, this is the first any of us had heard about this. That was on a Sunday-Monday. So, again, trying to engage on this topic, that Thursday, just several days after it had come out, we had a public meeting over at the Edwin Markham Middle School in Eltopia, across the river, with the public to say, we’re here. What are your concerns? This is—let us tell you what we’ve been able to measure and monitor, and you tell us what your concerns are. And I had some people from Battelle who—we put out an annual monitoring report saying, here are the releases, here are the quantities, here’s how they compare with standards and the like. It was somewhat emotional. You know, people are worried about their health and people dying of cancer and the like. But we also knew that we, in our numbers—we weren’t showing anything that should have resulted in something like that. During that meeting, one of the farmers who had been prominently noted in the article, his name was Tom Bailey, he actually got up and said, well, okay, we’re not saying that you’re doing that to us now, or that you’re intentionally doing anything now. But what happened in the past? What happened back in the ‘50s? When he said that, I realized that, although we had monitoring reports going back to the Manhattan Project—here’s what people were measuring and monitoring and releasing—most of those had been classified secret. And they had never been declassified. It wasn’t malicious; it’s just not a simple process to declassify a document. But I knew because of the extent of time involved, they could be. So, I then at that meeting said, you know, if you want to know, we can go back, we can review and declassify those documents and make them available so you can actually see what was being done. That seemed to both surprise but also satisfy. So we came back and started the process of declassifying monitoring reports going back to the mid-1940s. That is a time-consuming and expensive process. But we were doing it. And we were keeping the public—I used to have monthly press availabilities at the Federal Building and we’d talk about that. But we didn’t really have the first batch of documents, which was 19,000 pages deep, ready to release until February. Now, one thing I’d like to make very clear and to get on the record: we’re in the process of doing that—time-consuming and expensive—but in January, one month before we completed and released the documents, a Freedom of Information request was filed for those documents by an environmental group. I’m not certain of who it is, so I won’t say who it was. But it was an environmental group, filed a Freedom of Information request. And we said, wait a minute. We are releasing these; it’ll be ready next month—the first batch. The reason I raise that is because subsequently, to this day, I hear from time to time people say, you released those documents—they were forced out of you by the Freedom of Information request. And I say, that is just not true. We had—if you go and check the record, we had committed to doing that a long time before. Again, getting back to credibility—it was easy to make that charge. In fact, I had <em>National Geographic</em> call me about ten years ago checking a story and that specific point. Because they didn’t know if it was right or not and they were able to research it and confirm it. But anyway, we were able to release those documents. But when those documents came out—and this was a mistake on my part—there was a lot of information there, but where was the understanding? Where was the, if you want to call it, education of the public, so they could understand what they were reading? And very quickly, it was found that one of the monitoring reports from 1949 had talked about something called the Green Run, where fuel that had been cooled for shorter than normal, so there were radioactive elements in it, was dissolved and more radioactivity went up, intentionally, through the stack. Some of the background as to why that was done had to be deleted—because it was still classified. When this document—when that report was found and the Green Run was discussed, there was speculation that it was associated with human experimentation: let’s release it and see what happens to the public when it hits them. That was not the case at all. In fact, I knew from reading the documents, they had delayed the Green Run because unfavorable weather conditions that they thought might be harmful to the public. But nonetheless, since certain portions had to be deleted because of classification, we couldn’t really explain it to people. And that created quite an uproar. It’s normal and naturally you would expect people to think you’re trying to intentionally harm the public or experiment on the public. Ultimately, what we decided to do was that, even though we could not tell the public the intent of the Green Run, congressmen and senators from Washington and Oregon, by purpose of their position, have clearance and can be told. So I went back to Washington, DC with a person here from the lab and in a classified conference room in the rotunda of the US Capitol, we had the entire delegations from Washington and Oregon there, and we were able to explain to them the classified reason why the experiment was done and why it was still classified today. Tom Foley, who was later to become the Speaker of the House, from Spokane, more or less led the group. He appreciated it, but he pushed back. He says, I’ve got to have more to tell the public than that. I have to be able to tell them whether we know, but we can’t tell you. You’ve got to give me a little bit to tell them as to why it’s so classified. So I was able to get on the phone, again, back to the department, talk to them about it. And ultimately we were able to explain that the reason it was done was to allow the US government to improve their methods for determining and detecting what the Soviet Union was doing with their production program. Ultimately, it became known, if you measure the iodine and the cesium, you could cut back and see what they’re producing. And the reason it was still classified was that we were still, back in 1986, using that technique for nuclear non-proliferation detection around the world. So it’s since been declassified, but that was the reason. I felt that was a good use of our government and our representatives to represent the people and be able to explain to the people what was going on. But ultimately that whole—all those documents led us to create something called the Northwest Citizens Forum for Defense Waste, which was 25 individuals picked from a broad cross-section: academia, industry, church leaders—to be given the information and to be briefed on the information and ask and have answers provided for any questions they have. So they could act as the public’s representatives on what was being done. And that ultimately turned into all of the citizens’ groups that are formed at the DOE sites now. Where you have—here it’s called the HAB, the Hanford Advisory Board. But it was the first ever citizens’ group to oversee and look at what was going on at the DOE sites.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Thank you for that. That’s really illuminating. Wasn’t it still a calculated risk, though? Sorry, the Green Run, the actual action itself. Certainly there’s still, I think, in the mind of a lot of people—even though it may have been check the release to see how much the Soviets were releasing, there still is a real calculated risk, though. Or do you think that there’s still a calculated risk there—that there could have been some environmental or human population damage resulting from a higher-than-average—or kind of breaking protocol that was set to release that much contaminate?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, based on what I was able to look at and the rationale and how it was done, they were doing it at levels such that it would be a fraction of what the public was allowed to be exposed to. Even with that higher amount. It would just be a fraction. And that’s why when weather conditions weren’t right, and they felt it would rise above that, they didn’t do it. There are always risks. And were the standards that they were a fraction of, were they right, were they wrong, were they conservative, were they not strong enough? I mean, hindsight, you can go back and ask all those questions. But based upon the knowledge that they had at the time, they were being conservative. That also happened to be at the time when we were doing atmospheric testing at the Nevada Test Site. And you’re setting off nuclear bombs that people are going out and watching, you know, maybe 20 miles away. I’m not saying that’s right, and we know now it was wrong. But it was a fraction of the exposure that might have existed there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. I get—yes. That’s very true and that’s a good point. I guess it just—the only thing that still strikes, at least in my mind, as a difference is that they’re informing the public about the nuclear bombs so people can go and watch them. Whereas the Green Run was kind of this—I think that maybe—</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yeah, it was secret. No.</p>
<p>Franklin: It came out after the fact. And it was like, what else could these guys be hiding? Because, like you said, there was already that level of mistrust there.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: It just seems like that event can never really shake that level of mistrust in some ways with some people.</p>
<p>Lawrence: In hindsight, that’s true, but it was a very different time. A very different time.</p>
<p>Franklin: Of course. That’s just an interesting legacy. So, thank you for covering Chernobyl so much. I just have one more question. What role did Hanford play in assisting the Soviets—Hanford and Battelle play in assisting the Soviets with Chernobyl? Wasn’t there a team—</p>
<p>Lawrence: None at the time.</p>
<p>Franklin: --that went over?</p>
<p>Lawrence: None at the time. The Soviets didn’t ask for any. Ultimately, and actually when I came back to the Tri-Cities in 1999 and eventually started working for the Pacific Northwest National Lab, under my responsibility was the team we had at Chernobyl helping to build the new sarcophagus, the confinement structure, that now has been completed and rolled over the destroyed reactor. And I’ve been to Chernobyl a number of times and visited on that project. So we were involved in that. But I don’t recall us being asked to provide any assistance or having provided any assistance at that point in time.</p>
<p>Franklin: I was wondering—I’d like to—Chernobyl made me think of another incident, maybe hop back in time real quick and get your perceptions on that. You weren’t here, but I know you were still working in the nuclear industry, and I’m wondering maybe if you’re going to guess what I’m going to ask about, but I’m wondering, in the late ‘70s, the Three Mile Island scare. I’m wondering if you—because you were not here at the time of Three Mile Island, right, you would have been back east. But I’m wondering if you could talk about the legacy of that incident and how that affected people’s perceptions of nuclear—</p>
<p>Lawrence: Oh, it affected everybody’s perceptions of nuclear because—everyone in the nuclear industry had gotten a little sloppy, implying an accident cannot happen, it will not happen. You know, we’ve got all these precautions; the risk is so small, they’re non-existent. Well, nothing is non-existent. Everything is a risk, and if enough things go wrong, yes, you can have a problem. And they certainly had it there. Much more serious than they ever expected it to be. But in hindsight, the fact of the matter is, the systems all worked to contain it. There were never any releases harmful to the public. There was never a single fatality or anything associated with the Three Mile Island accident. I can remember exactly where I was when I heard about it. I was getting ready to go take a run at lunchtime in the AEC—or it would have been a DOE at that time—building. And someone said, hey, did you hear they had some reactor incident going on up in Pennsylvania? You know, it started then and several days later I was getting calls from good friends who we were godparents of their child who lived in Hershey saying, should we evacuate? And I said, follow what the governor says. I really don’t have any firsthand knowledge, but it really did shake people’s fears, because it led people to say, you said it couldn’t happen and it did. And that’s always a problem.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s such a tough issue of framing, though, right? Because you can either say, well, it could happen but we have really good safeguards so it probably won’t, which leaves open the door in people’s minds to something happening. Or you can say, well, it won’t, we’ve got this under control and it won’t happen. How do you frame—framing disaster seems to be a very tricky subject. Or framing the possibility of disaster.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Yeah. In part, because you can say, just looking at risk and probability, you can say you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than to die from this. And you’re willing to accept one but not the other. It’s what people are associated with. And if they think, I don’t have to deal with that, I don’t even want to deal with that minimal risk. I just don’t want to do it. That’s understandable; it’s part of human nature.</p>
<p>Franklin: It kind of comes to, we see this a lot in current day in dealing with—well, won’t go into that. But there seems to be a—there’s these fact-based arguments but they can’t always counter the emotion-based arguments. And a lot of the response to nuclear seems, in some cases to be emotionally-based and not fact—and immune, almost inoculated against the factual side of it. Which seems to bother many who have a lot of intimate knowledge, a lot of people who worked at Hanford who know the risks can’t ever seem to communicate that to the critics. I wonder if you could expand on that at all, being someone who would have been trying to communicate that to critics of Hanford. And how you’ve dealt with that fact-versus-emotion in your career.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well you see it—you still see it today. Fukushima is an excellent example of that. Assist you with the nuclear accident first. That tidal wave hits, completely washes over, and the plant loses all power. Now, most importantly that was an avoidable accident. Even as hugely severe as a tsunami was, if they just had have had the secondary generators higher and separated more from the plant, they wouldn’t have lost power, and the reactors would have been fine. In this country, we have that requirement. They didn’t have it there. So that reactor accident, which was catastrophic, it was devastating, could have been prevented if rules that we have here had have been used there. But the other thing—and this is more to the point you made—18,000 people were killed by the tsunami, by the flood, by all of the devastation caused by the tsunami. None were caused by the nuclear accident. And yet all of the attention is on the nuclear accident. And it’s not like, oh, but there’ll be 18,000 in the future—there won’t. You know, looking at the numbers, it’s hard to say if there’ll be any. And people are evacuated now, when perhaps they don’t even need to be, but it’s out of the fear of whatever’s left there. And consequently, because of that, it’s causing stress that have led to heart attacks and have led to fatalities. Are they caused by the nuke—they’re not caused by radiation, but they’re caused by fear of radiation or caused by fear of the displacement. So how do you put that in perspective, where as a nuclear accident has gotten all the attention, but a tsunami that killed 18,000 people, it’s sort of like, well, that’s an act of nature? And so, I really don’t know how to balance that. I do know that on <em>NOVA</em> last month, they had a very good show about that. Because nuclear is a carbon-free source of baseload electricity, and if we’re going to deal with climate change, I know I believe and many people believe nuclear has to be part of the solution.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I would personally agree with you. I wondered—so, moving past Chernobyl then, you mentioned that as kind of a major—you know, it definitely is a major event in regards to people’s perceptions of Hanford. And you mentioned in ’88 this—awash in plutonium. How did it play out after that? What was the drawdown like? What happened in the community when that—when it was realized that Hanford was—the mission was going to change?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, you know, there was fear, because Hanford—the Tri-Cities over time, going back to the ‘50s and ‘60s had gone through booms and busts. And whenever Hanford production was up, the community was good; whenever it was down, homes were for sale, property values dropped and all the rest. So there was a feel, that was going to continue. And if N Reactor was shutting down, PUREX was down, it was going to happen to have a devastating effect on the economy again. Of course, what also happened at the same time was the commitment to the cleanup mission and the negotiation in signing the Tri-Party Agreement, which led to the cleanup mission here, which has continued and kept levels and funding levels right up to where they were and actually higher than in the production days. Maybe not employment necessarily, but it’s close. But also the Tri-Cities has significantly diversified from Hanford. Still very much—we get through $3 billion a year from the federal government between the Site and the national lab in this community, and that’s got huge benefits. But we’ve diversified quite a bit. But, getting to the Tri-Party Agreement, that was a direct result of a legal decision in Tennessee in 1985 that said that Department of Energy sites had to comply with national and state environmental rules. Up until that time, it had been assumed that the Atomic Energy Act, that the department operated under absolved us from that, or we did not have to do that. When that ruling came down, ultimately, it led to getting together with federal regulators in the form of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and state regulators in the form of the Department of Ecology, to find out, okay, where are we in violation, what do we need to change, and how do we do that? You don’t do it instantaneously. Which, obviously, is clear. And that led to the negotiation and the ultimate signing in May of—May 15<sup>th</sup> of 1989 of the Tri-Party Agreement. But that has provided a rather steady employment, funding, and—you know, I realize it’s taking longer than people thought, it’s costing more than people thought. And fortunately, it’s not an urgent—it’s not the type of crisis where something has to be done immediately or here’s the catastrophic result. It’s a problem in slow motion that the main thing you want to do is get the solution right the first time. You don’t want to go hot with the Vit Plant and then find out it doesn’t work. Because you’ll never—you won’t get around to it again. So let’s make sure we’ve got it right. It’s been an enduring process, and I’m very pleased and proud of the enduring capabilities of the Tri-Party Agreement.</p>
<p>Franklin: And what was your role in the negotiation and signing of the Tri-Party Agreement?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, we—the Richland Operations Office had the responsibility and role of negotiating with EPA Region 10 and the Department of Ecology for what the cleanup agreement would look like and what it would entail. And we kept Washington, DC informed of what we were doing and we’d get feedback from them. But it was our main responsibility to do that. Initially a person by the name of Jerry White and then ultimately Ron Izatt who worked for me as division directors had that responsibility of negotiating. And they would brief me every other day and we would get involved. From time to time, I would have discussions with the head of ecology who was Chris Gregoire, who subsequently became governor of the state, on issues that they would rise to our level. Or with Robie Russell, who was the head of EPA regionally, on issues that would come up. But we eventually worked out, basically, the agreement: this would be done and this was the timeframe for doing it. Then it came time to saying, okay, this is what we’ve got. It was in December of 1978 when we had pretty much wrapped everything up.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sorry—’88?</p>
<p>Lawrence: I’m sorry. ’88, yes, I’m sorry. December of ’88. So I went over to Lacey near Olympia where Ecology is located, to meet with Chris Gregoire and her team, and I had Ron Izatt and a lawyer from our team, to talk about what we were going to do. And at that meeting—it was a Friday afternoon—they said, okay, what we want to do now is we want to take this to a court and have a judge bless it, make it law: this is what has to be done. And we couldn’t go along with that, and the reason was that the lawyer for the federal government is the Department of Justice. And anytime you go to court as a US government agency, the Department of Justice represents you. They do not believe in friendly settlements. They will fight everything. I don’t mean that to be critical; that’s just the approach they take. And I said to her, I said, Chris, if you insist on taking this to court, we, the Department of Energy and I, lose all ability to deal with this, and it goes into the hands of lawyers who get paid to fight it. And you’re going to win. You’ve got the law on your side. But it’s going to be two, three years from now at great expense. I said, why don’t we just sign it as an agreement, shake hands on it, and you wait for us to violate it, and then take us to court. And she—we went back and forth on that issue. EPA, by the way, had stepped back and said, if you two can reach agreement, we’ll go along with anything that you say. Because they knew we had the tough issues. And so finally, you know, she said, no, we need it in court. These were her instructions, or this is where the governor wanted to go. And I said, well, Chris, can we take this to the governor? And, fortunately, through my tenure here, I had wonderful relations, a great respect for Governor Booth Gardner, who was the governor at that time. And she said, sure, we can take it to him. Subsequently, the following Friday I went over by myself with her and we met with Governor Gardner in his office in Olympia in the state capitol. And I went through the message of, you know, I don’t have the authority to sign this in court. If it goes to court, Justice will fight it, you’ll win, but it will be two years from now or whatever. Didn’t sway the governor. You know, it was clear: no, we want this—we want the law behind it and make it in a court of law. I must have said the same thing three times. Always slightly different. Maybe I warmed him, I don’t know what. But finally the governor looked at Chris and said, well, Chris, could you live with it as an agreement until if and when they fail to live up to it and then go to court? And she said, you know, Governor, if you can, I can. And the governor says, okay, that’s what we’ll do. And so it was an act of faith and it worked for a long time before it ended up in court. But we would not have had the Tri-Party Agreement when we did in the manner in which we did without his willingness and her willingness to concede on that point and let us move on with it.</p>
<p>Franklin: And so when the Tri-Party Agreement was established, what did that lay out for the future of Hanford?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Basically, it took the entire Site and all the areas in which we were in non-compliance, whether it was currently operating sites—even though the plant wasn’t operating, there were still facilities that were operating that fell under the state, or old sites which fell under EPA. All of those things, and when they would be cleaned up, the schedule and process for doing it. And that’s what it laid out. It also laid out, like, the ability to modify the agreement as you went forward. Because the simple fact was, we were operating with nowhere near the degree of knowledge and specificity you would need to have hard-and-fast deadlines. And the other thing was, we didn’t know, and we still don’t know today, what the funding will be year to year. Okay, or problems that will come up. But there was a process in there to move with it and to let it happen. And that was, I think, one of the best features of the Tri-Party Agreement. And it required parties to act in good faith. And I’m pleased it did.</p>
<p>Franklin: Excellent. Was there anything in there about any of the history at Hanford or preserving any of the historic activity at Hanford, whether—keeping buildings there or documenting the history in some way, or saving equipment or anything used in the process?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Not really, no. I mean, this was all compliance. This was an enforcement order. But we did make sure that B Reactor was going to be one of the last things to be—actually, originally, they wanted all of the reactors out on the Site by the rivers to be decontaminated as best they could, and then they wanted to dig under the reactors, bring in the big crawlers they use at Cape Canaveral to move missiles, put it under there, lift up the block, and take it to the center of the Site. And I thought, oh, my good—and that was to be done early in the process. And we said, let’s move that ‘til about 25 years from now. Of course, subsequently they’ve learned how to cocoon and maybe that’ll be found to be good enough. But, I mean, that was—we didn’t have the level of specificity or knowledge or information that you need to do a good cleanup then as we do now.</p>
<p>Franklin: I know that the B Reactor Museum Association was founded in the early ‘90s, but were there whispers then when you were signing that agreement or afterwards about saving B Reactor or saving something onsite as kind of a testament to the production at Hanford?</p>
<p>Lawrence: There very well may have been. I just—I wasn’t cognizant of it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure. So when did you leave working at the Richland office?</p>
<p>Lawrence: I left in July of 1990.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay, so you were—and why did you leave? Where did you go after?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, in part, I went to work for a company in Colorado that was doing cleanup work. But I was only there less than a year when the state department offered me a diplomatic post in Vienna, Austria. Because that was right after the first Gulf War, when they discovered that the Iraqis had a clandestine nuclear program, and they wanted the International Atomic Energy Agency, who was supposed to monitor things like that, to become stronger and more efficient and effective. And the State Department decided that they wanted a person with technical knowledge and ability but who also had had some international experience, which I had in the ‘70s under a Carter program doing international negotiations. So they called me up and I went to Vienna, then, to do that. I left here, one, because the managers’ authorities had been greatly, greatly reduced.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that a result of the Tri-Party Agreement, or just from the shift or production to cleanup?</p>
<p>Lawrence: In part, it was due to the Tri-Party Agreement in that as we were negotiating the Tri-Party Agreement—we had the responsibility for doing that here, but kept Washington informed of our activities and getting their agreement as we went along. And right after those meetings that I told you about with Chris Gregoire and Governor Gardner, that was in December. In January of that year, a new Secretary of Energy was coming in. Admiral Watkins had been appointed to be the Secretary of Energy. So he was transitioning in, and there was an acting secretary. Her name was Donna Fitzpatrick, who was interacting with him as this transition occurred. Acting Secretary Fitzpatrick—they all knew what we were doing here. But as it happens, the agreement was formally signed in May 15<sup>th</sup>, 1989. But three months prior to that—what would that have been, February—is when—you have to give a three-month notice before you do something like that, for public comment and the like. As it turns out, everyone was so pleased with coming to agreement that the announcement of agreement was made in the rotunda of the Capitol in Washington, DC. Governor Gardner was there, I was there, representatives of DC and the Department were there, EPA were there, and it was announced we had reached agreement and it would be signed in three months in May. You know, after the formal comment period and any changes that had to occur. Well, in the normal question-and-answer period that went on, with that announcement, the State said, this is going to be commit the government to be spending $25 billion for the cleanup of Hanford. Now, it just so happened that the very next day was Admiral Watkins’ first day as Secretary of Energy. During that first day, he was to meet with all of the site managers, including myself. That morning, when it appeared in the paper that Washington State says it’s committed to paying $25 billion—whatever that means—the Office of Management and Budget, which, evidently had been left in the dark—I don’t know. I had no responsibility to inform them. They called him up and said, what in the world’s going on over there? What are you doing committing us to $25 billion? We go into the meeting with the new secretary. And he proceeded to just chew me up and chew me down as to, this is the worst thing we’ve ever done, how could we be so bad and stupid, and all this other stuff. And I just sat there, and—you know, you can’t push back, really. You just think—and unfortunately, the former acting secretary, Donna Fitzpatrick was sitting next to him. She knew all about it, but she couldn’t do anything. And it really just set a very bad tone with the secretary. Subsequently, however, as the kudos started coming in about what a good agreement this was and how it showed good cooperation and compliance by the Department, Admiral Watkins was very happy to take the credit for the Tri-Party Agreement. But life was a little uncomfortable out here. And I decided then I was going to be leaving. But I didn’t want to leave in the first year, because I wanted to make sure the Tri-Party Agreement got off to a good start. So, subsequently when I did leave, a lot of it was about the fact that it just wasn’t the same job. And quite frankly, a very important tenet of any management job is never accept responsibility that you don’t have the authority to fulfill. If you don’t have the authority, but have the responsibility, it just doesn’t work. And I didn’t, and I left.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. How did you come back to the area?</p>
<p>Lawrence: That’s an interesting story as well. After I left Vienna in 1985, I was hired by—</p>
<p>Franklin: Sorry, you mean 1995.</p>
<p>Lawrence: ’95, I’m sorry, yeah, I have my years mixed. 1995. I went to work for a company called BNFL, which stands for British Nuclear Fuels, Limited. And they had bought a company in Los Alamos, New Mexico and they asked me to be president of it. I was running the company, and then they subsequently asked me to move back to their Washington, DC headquarters for their US operations as the chief operating officer, which I did. But that was also the same time when BNFL had gotten the contract to design the Vitrification Plant for the Hanford Site. And they had brought in engineers and managers from the UK to head up that project here in the Tri-Cities. So, I’ve gone back to Washington, DC as the chief operating officer of BNFL, Inc., which is the US component. And shortly—not so long after it—I was there less than a year—the manager of the project in Richland came back. And they had signed an agreement of what they were going to do and the government was going along with it. It was basically, for $6.5 billion they would build and operate the plant and process the first so many million gallons of waste, for $6.5 billion. When that manager came back, he indicated—he said, you know—he’s British; I’m not going to do a British accent—but he said, you know, I really—I’m not fitting in well with the community. I just don’t understand those people out there. I don’t fit in well with the community. We need somebody out there who understands things. Well, I love this community. I know this community. They were very, very good to me and my family when we were here. So I raised my hand and said, I know those people. This was our biggest project by far for our company, I’d be willing to go out and head up the project. And so subsequently, I came out to head up the Vit Plant. Within a week of getting here, I had to go and report to the new Office of River Protection, which had responsibility for it, what the status was of our cost estimates. I had only been here a week, so they give me the numbers. And I asked the—are they aware of this? Yeah, they’re aware of this. So I went in and, oh, all hell broke loose. Because the number—it had risen. It was higher than 6.5. And Dick French, who was the head of the project, rightly so, says, I can’t—this is terrible. Your first report—and it’s over budget already. And I knew Dick, and I understood his position. And basically, I said, let me go back and find out what’s going on. I was told you were on board with this. You obviously are not. Let me find out. I subsequently found out that there had been an arbitrary 20% cut in their estimates, thinking they were just going to drive things harder and shave things off and make it cheaper. And I had a—obviously, I had a major problem with this. Because in the beginning, you don’t shave back. You have contingency that’s built in and you work off. It doesn’t work the other way. And so I’d moved back here, we bought a house, I’m running the—and this project is going downhill quick. What was worse was that I tried to tell BNFL, we need to go to the Department and say, this number, $6.5 billion, for the plant and operations of it is not going to work. We need to renegotiate. We need to do something different. And I got nothing but pushback. We would not do this. And I was even—I said, you know, if we don’t do something, we’re going to be fired. And they said, they can’t fire us. They’re not going to fire us. And I said, I’m sorry, I said, I can’t continue to operate like that. So I resigned. Resigned from the project. Didn’t have another job, but I figured, I’ll find something. But I can’t continue with this. And within two months, Secretary Richardson had fired BNFL. Fortunately, a couple months after that, Battelle and Pacific Northwest National Lab hired me to run their nuclear programs. That’s how I came back, and that’s how I spent my first two years back. As managing a dying project and then transitioning to a new job.</p>
<p>Franklin: And how long did you work at PNNL?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, I worked from 2000 up until 2008. And during that period, I had responsibility—I was the associate lab director for energy. But in the latter part of that timeframe, I was also deputy lab director for facilities and was responsible for the putting together and funding and getting approved the new—they called it a consolidated lab—facilities that are just north of Horn Rapids Road and two private facilities that are on the campus. And then Battelle asked if I’d be willing to lead a team to manage the national nuclear lab in the United Kingdom. They had put together a team with two other companies to do that. And I said I’d be willing to do that. I had spent time in Europe already. And I went over and subsequently we won the contract in the early 2009. So in 2009 and ’10, I was the director of the national nuclear lab in the UK. And then I retired and came back and retired here in West Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, great. Well, thank you so much, Mike. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you’d like to talk about?</p>
<p>Lawrence: Well, I’d like to get on record that I’ve been very, very fortunate in my life to hold some very interesting positions and to work for some phenomenal people. But the job that I enjoyed the most was as manager of the Richland Operations Office. There was a spirit, a camaraderie, a support, a community spirit that I felt there that I’ve just—as much as I’ve enjoyed my other jobs, nothing quite as good as that. It was really, really enjoyable, and aside from my wife and family, probably there was nothing better that had ever happened to us than to move to this area and be involved in these activities. I’ve really enjoyed it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming in today.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Okay, very good. Thank you.</p>
<p>Franklin: All right, yeah.</p>
<p>Lawrence: Thanks.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. That was a great--<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/SiYN7OCJOAs">View interview on Youtube.</a></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:23:14
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
200 Area
B Reactor
Fast Flux Test Facility
N Reactor
Vitrification Plant
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1972-1990
2000-2007
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1972-1990
2000-2007
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Donald Hodel
William Skylstad
Paul Lorenzini
Howard Hughes
John Harrington
Karen Dorn Steele
Jerry White
Ron Izatt
Chris Gregoire
Robie Russell
Carter
Governor Gardner
Donna Fitzpatrick
Admiral Watkins
Dick French
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 Michael Lawrence
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Michael Lawrence 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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02-01-17
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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
Date Modified
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2017-15-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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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.
200 Area
Atomic Energy Commission
B Reactor
B Reactor Museum Association
Battelle
Cat
ceremonies
Dam
Department of Energy
Fast Flux Test Facility
Hanford
Kennewick
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Manhattan Project
Mountain
N Reactor
Plutonium
Plutonium Finishing Plant
PUREX
Quonset hut
Quonset huts
River
Road
Savannah River
School
Sun
VIT Plant
Vitrification Plant
War
Washington Public Power Supply System
-
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dd6665ad63d7fe5c5acc2cb6fa5d2b46
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8e26990ed6f57cf106722b5faea48c57.mp4
407f005756ef54638c41f44cafc967f7
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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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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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
Leonard Gustafson
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p><strong>Northwest Public Television | Gustafson_Leonard</strong></p>
<p>Robert Bauman: We're ready to go. So if we could start by having you say your name and spell your last name for us.</p>
<p>Leonard Gustafson: Okay. You ready?</p>
<p>Bauman: Yep.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Okay. I'm Leonard Gustafson. Last name is spelled G-U-S-T-A-F-S-O-N.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. And my name's Robert Bauman. And today's date is October 16<sup>th</sup>, as we clarified, 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start, if we could, by having you tell us when you came to Hanford, what brought you here, how you heard about the place.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Okay.</p>
<p>Bauman: Why you came here.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, we do that almost any direction. I knew about the place so for a couple reasons, but the main reason was that some of my fellow chemical engineers from Montana State University had come over a year or two earlier. And so when I finished up at Bozeman and started looking for a job, it seemed like I might take at least a temporary assignment at this wartime installation until I found a real job. So I arrived on October 15<sup>th</sup> of 1950. It's been a little while ago isn't it? 63 years.</p>
<p>Bauman: Almost your anniversary, yeah.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Went through, I guess, the normal procedures. Found out about what was going on in the plant, and security, and a little bit about how to deal with radioactive materials. And then I was assigned to my first tasks. I was what they called a Supervisor-in-Training, and went into the operations part of the chemical processing department. My first building that I went to was T Plant. The T Plant, the bismuth phosphate separation plant. And about all I did there was so learn how to detect contamination and clean it up. I always tell the story that the operators really loved having these young supervisors-in-training come in, because they could hand them a bucket of acetone, or something like that, and bundle of rags, and a cutie pie—which was our instrument for detecting radiation—and send us out to scrub the deck. In the separation plants, and this was common after the crane operator removes the blocks from the cells, he always leaves a little bit of contamination on the deck. So that's a rather regular job. So I learned how to handle the cutie pie. And how to go through the—how to dress. Put us in our white coveralls and learn how to go through what we called at that time, the SWP, Special Work Permit. It's been called many different things. Anyhow, that started me out. After I believe it was about two months in T Plant, I was assigned to the startup of the REDOX operation. Now the REDOX was the first of the solvent extraction plants. So it was essentially near completion there at the end of 1950, the beginning of 1951. So we went through the final inspection processes and started up. And then I was assigned to one of the four operating shifts that operated that building. This was extremely interesting. It was like a great big pilot plant laboratory, and we chemical engineers essentially had the responsibility for operating. We moved into that plant without having much time for a lot of training and procedural preparation. So in order to at least establish some kind of order beyond simple procedures. The operation was strictly conducted by the engineers, by the supervisors. Each shift had eight shift supervisors and two senior supervisors. And initially all the operation was conducted by the supervisors. The operators were just learning at that stage. After, oh, year or so, the operators were ready to run the plant. We didn't need so many supervisors. So in late 1953, I went out on another rather interesting assignment. Engineering at that time was responsible for inspection. We didn't have anything like quality assurance organizations. So engineering inspectors took care of the required inspection of any materials or equipment that we were ordering from Hanford. I was assigned mostly out in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky area, New York. I spent a little over a year. It was a very active thing. Frequently I'd turn in an expense account for seven different locations in a week. So is this about--</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah, this is great.</p>
<p>Gustafson: --where you want to go? I can cut things pretty short if you'd like.</p>
<p>Bauman: This is great. Keep going.</p>
<p>Gustafson: So anyhow, we got into some fabulous big plants and all this sort of thing. Learned a little more about how to build things. Because some of the time we were actually not only assigned for the final inspections, but we went right through all the manufacturing stages. I returned then to Richland in the beginning of 1955. By that time, the PUREX plant was nearing completion. That was the second of the big solvent extraction plants. So I was assigned for the startup and so on of that plant. My final assignment there was basically I was the operating supervisor for C shift. C shift was one of the four shifts that was responsible for operating the plant. By that time, the operators were pretty well trained, so I had about 18 or 19 operators and two chief operators. And there was one technical man also assigned to the shift. I'd have to look upon that assignment as probably the most responsible job I ever had, starting up and running that plant. The operating group was basically responsible for the main process. The shift crews have the responsibility to run it, unless there were some real serious problem or question, we have to find the answers and go ahead and do it. There were many experiences there, but I was--after a couple years, well, I'd been married in the process there at the end of ‘55. My wife was a teacher and it was getting to the point where shift work was not the most desirable. We'd touch base occasionally. So I moved into one of the engineering groups again in the separations department, process design and development. [UNKNOWN], just one who is still around, managed that group. A good friend. And so I spent a couple years in that work. We were basically responsible for new activities or problem activities that the engineering group was supposed to take care of to support the operations. So after two or three years there, I thought it was about time to see some more of the plant, so I moved on down to the 300 Area, and worked with the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor. So I spent a couple three years there. So that had to be about 1960, 1961, somewhere in there. I didn't get the exact dates. So I went through the startup and operation of the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor. Now this was not associated with plutonium production. This was really in support of the oncoming nuclear industry for power production, for electrical production. And the reason for the PRTR was to demonstrate that plutonium could be used as well as uranium-235 as the fissile fuel for commercial reactors. It was a successful project. And at that time, projects were completed on time and usually under budget. So it was a success as far as I'm concerned. After that plant is operating and they didn't have much need for me around anymore, I moved on out to the 100 Areas. And good friend of mine, Gene Astley, asked me one day what I was doing. I said, well, I guess I'm about ready to do something else. And so he said, well, come on out work for me for a while. So I went out to the 100 Areas, must've been ‘64 or ‘65, and worked largely with so water plant type problems and questions that were going on. Now we're getting into the area where we're getting about ready to--the Cold War was sort of winding up. So production wasn't the number one priority anymore. There were a lot of questions about what was the future of Hanford and so on at that time. So after working a couple three years out there, I guess not quite, I moved on down to the fuels department and worked with Charlie Mathis, the manager of fuels production at that time—this must've been about ‘65. And my main activity there was mostly planning, what are we going to do with the fuels manufacturing plants in the future? So very, very interesting and we worked along with—Roy Nielsen had a group that was overall Hanford planning at that time. So after a couple years there in the fuels department, I actually moved into Roy's group. And so this had to be ‘67, maybe ‘66, I'm not real sure. With that assignment, one of the things that was done at that time the AEC, countrywide, was studying and planning for what to do with the nuclear facilities and how they were going to support commercial electrical power generation. So they had a group down at Oak Ridge that was called the AEC Combined Operational Planning Group. And Hanford, as well as most of the sites, were responsible for providing two or three representatives. So I spent about a year and a half down there. That was in basically ‘68. Of course, that was quite fascinating, because we were looking at the overall AEC complex and what was the future for nuclear power, essentially. One of the things I got involved with were the nuclear power forecasts. I spend a lot of time at headquarters. Frank Baranowski was the head of the production division, essentially responsible for Hanford, Savannah River, Oak Ridge—all of the main production facilities. I spent some time with him every now and then. Very fine fellow. And so after year and half or so there, I felt it was about time to get back home. And we had actually moved the family there, so we moved completely and sold our house and rented in Oak Ridge. So we came back to Richland at I guess the end of ‘69. And one of the big activities at that time was the FFTF. So I again I went with the FFTF project. So I changed, I had been with Douglas United Nuclear, so at that time I went to Battelle who was responsible for the early FFTF bid. My good friends Astley and Condoda, who were the manager an engineering manager, they did not stay with the project. We Indians sort of stayed with it. That was when the AEC—the Milt Shaw years—decided that Battelle was not adequately competent to take on a project like that. They needed somebody with more, I guess, manufacturing and big project experience. So Westinghouse had been assigned to take over that responsibility by the AEC. So I then became a Westinghouse employee. Spent most of the next, I guess, ten years with the FFTF project until it was a complete and operating. By that time we're getting up to 1980 range. So those were interesting times. We had a lot particularly early conflict. The assigning of Westinghouse to take overlooked project didn't really satisfy what Milt Shaw was after. We had a rather severe conflict. Milt Shaw was finally ousted. I still don't know for sure who was the most influential in getting that because the project was floundering. We moved the AEC representatives from Washington, DC. The most closely associated came to Hanford and became essentially the FFTF project office on site. Most of the closely associated Westinghouse staff who had been in Pittsburgh moved to Hanford. And we were able to work over a local table rather than on the phone and at crazy meetings. And the FFTF came together quite well. I think it was very successful project. Perhaps we didn't finish it under budget, but we did well after it was reorganized. It started up and ran very successfully. Too bad that we couldn't find a better use for the plant. Of course, the liquid metal fast breeder program essentially fizzled. Let's see, from that—well, I'm getting pretty well along and I needed something maybe a little different. So I got into a rather, again, what I regard as an interesting assignment. Westinghouse there somewhere close to the period ‘78, ‘79, ‘80, had been assigned to run a nuclear quality assurance program office. And although Westinghouse Hanford was running that office, we were really a part of the AEC, or what became DoE. The work we did the next few years was largely to try and add something, coordinate the quality assurance programs around all of the sites. Lots of travel involved. Lots of lecturing. Lots of QA audits. I ran so many QA audits that I can't remember. Like I tell people, I got into more parts of Savannah River than most of the people who worked there. I think I was involved in at least 30 audits there over the years. This evolved into--that office—let’s see, it finally closed down in ’87, perhaps. And so I came back to a more conventional Hanford-type quality assurance and did that until I retired in ‘90. One of the last projects that I was on there was an SP-100. We were going to do a space reactor. And SP-100 was an interesting project, but it also never came to pass. Amazingly, ended up back in the PRTR building. Because we cleaned out some of the cells in the PRTR building and were going to put in a big vacuum tank there so we could simulate space for running this space reactor. Let's see, where'd I go from there? After I spent a little bit of time with a number of the waste program projects, including our own, and got into a little bit of the early vitrification plant. I retired in, what, December of ‘90. Spent the next three or four years doing part-time consulting. The main thing that I was associated with at that time was another interesting project. The only really commercial chemical reprocessing plant that was built was the West Valley plant, just south of Buffalo, New York. It was a small, but commercial, reprocessing plant. See, most of the reprocessing was shut down in 1970. And of course, that led to a lot of problems here at Hanford. Early '70s. I could go on about that for hours, but-- [LAUGHTER] Let's see. So I spent a lot of time at West Valley. And that was very separate. It didn't hit the newspapers. But that plant was completed. The waste that they had was vitrified into glass. And as far as I know, it's sitting there ready to go wherever. It could be up the mountain, but who knows. It's a good project in many ways.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you've had a long and varied career in many ways. A number of different assignments.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Yes, I think so. I think I was very lucky to see so much.</p>
<p>Bauman: I wanted to ask you a few questions about some of the things you worked on. So you said you worked at both REDOX and PUREX. Could you explain the solvent extraction, and what that means?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Yeah. Well, you know the purpose of our chemical processing, or chemical separation plants here at Hanford, is to take the fuel that has been irradiated in our reactors and extract from that the plutonium. And get the plutonium into a form so it can then go on down to Los Alamos for the bombs. So the chemical reprocessing plants essentially dissolve this uranium metal fuel that had been irradiated in the reactors, and a small amount of the uranium-238 has been converted into plutonium-239. And of course the atomic bombs can use either uranium-235 or plutonium-239 as their fissile source. So these plants are gigantic. They're 1,000 feet long, great big canyon buildings, as we called them. Basically just involve a lot of chemicals running from one end to the other. We start with the fuel and end up with--in the initial separation plants, they ended up with a waste stream that also included the uranium. Now we wanted to recover that uranium, so that early waste from the B and T Plants, as we refer it, these were the early bismuth phosphate separation plants. The waste from those reprocessed to recover the uranium. And the high level elements that we wanted to get rid of were put back into the waste tanks. But in both the REDOX and the PUREX processes, we actually extracted both the plutonium and uranium. So we ended up with two products. So the uranium could be immediately converted into UO-3 and then eventually back in the metal. And the plutonium could be converted into metal so it could be used for the bombs. So kind of an oversimplification there.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so your work there—your position there was operational management?</p>
<p>Gustafson: I was mostly associated with the direct operation. In the 200 Areas, except I said, after my PUREX assignment I was in just what we call the process design and development. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: And then you talked about this AEC combined operational planning group that you were part of in the late '60s. And you said, one of questions you were looking at was, what's the future of nuclear power? Did the group come up with any conclusions about that at the time in the late '60s, what the future of nuclear power was?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, I think we were quite optimistic about nuclear power at that time. Of course, also what was developing was resistance to nuclear power. So our forecasts were extremely optimistic. And although we did end up finally with about 120 operating power production plants in the United States, far short of what we expected. The government had assumed, basically, I guess, overall responsibility to see that the technology is okay. And in particular, to assure commercial operators that they will have enough enriched uranium to run their plants. Because we didn't need that weapons-type material anymore. But see at Oak Ridge they ended up the producing almost pure U-235 while we were producing pure—or near pure—plutonium-239. So either of those could be used for the bombs. But what happened with the commercial power, we had to use about 3% or 4% U-235. Only slightly enriched. But we still had to use enrichment plants, and the government had all the enrichment plants—basically, like Oak Ridge and the rest of them. And so as far as AEC combined operational planning, their goal was to make sure that nuclear power did what it was supposed to do. Provide us with lots of good economic electric energy. And to a large extent, it has.</p>
<p>Bauman: Hanford, obviously as a site, was a place that emphasized security, secrecy. Were you able to talk about the work you did? Was that something that was allowable given the security secrecy?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Yes, there wasn't a great deal of the security concern. It was mostly what are the resources and what can we do with this combination of government and industry to provide good electricity for the country. Economic.</p>
<p>Bauman: I want to go back to when you first arrived in 1950. What were your first impressions of the place here, of Richland, of the area?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Oh, I don't know. It was a temporary stop. [LAUGHTER] Never expected to spend the next 40 years or so working here. It was a great place, particularly for young single people. We moved into dormitories and there were a lot for fine single people, ambitious, and always wanting to do things. Those were good years. We certainly accepted the security. We were part of what we felt was a very necessary effort. We were in the Cold War. And we had to do a better job than the Russians.</p>
<p>Bauman: How long did you live in the dorms and where did you move to after that?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, I didn't actually live too long in the dorms. There were four of us, still good friends of mine, except one of them's gone. But we actually moved out to a small place in West Richland. So a number of the people in the dorms were looking for a little better living conditions. One of the problems with those early dorms—in theory we weren't even supposed to do any cooking in the dorms. So we strictly were going from the dorms to the local cafeteria, or a few commercial places that were opening up in Richland. It was a fascinating time, those early '50s. I got married the end of ‘55, so the first five years of single life and included my year plus when I was offsite, skiing, water skiing. Like my crowd, we were essentially the first water skiers in the Tri-Cities. At that time to find a boat, we had to go to Seattle to get one that we could use for water skiing. There wasn't any Mets Marina at that time. So we sort of started the water skiing in the area. Created the Desert Ski Club which was a snow skiing, but also got in the water skiing. Desert Ski Club still exists. So my close associates, we were sort of the instigators that. All went through our time as officers of the club. It was a big social group. Still is, I think.</p>
<p>Bauman: Richland was a federal town when you first arrived. How did you see that change over time from when you first arrived?</p>
<p>Gustafson: It's kind of hard. We certainly enjoyed our early years. We had a lot more individual responsibility on the jobs. I tell one of my stories, I came in at midnight to take over my shift at PUREX. I was the operating supervisor on C shift. And the operating supervisor on swing shift wasn't there. And I'd been met at the door with an assault mask, all of the crew were. And when I went in the building, the operating supervisor who I was to replace wasn't there, but my boss was. And I never saw him again. So, I guess I tell the story that they didn't really tell me I was captain of the ship. So anyhow, we restarted the plant. And it took us a couple months.</p>
<p>Bauman: And about when would this have been?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Pardon?</p>
<p>Bauman: What time period would this have been in?</p>
<p>Gustafson: When was that?</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah, roughly.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, let's see, I guess that was, must have been early ‘57, right? I'm not exactly sure now. It was a different time. Individuals have a lot of responsibility. And we made a few mistakes, but in general, I think we did a damn good job of operating the plants. And safety and radiological exposure, these were major parts of our responsibility and our concern.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah, I was going to ask you about safety. Obviously, you said it was very—emphasized quite a bit. What sort of precautions did you have to take on your job? And were there ever any incidents when you were working of someone overexposure or anything along those lines?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, I think we operated with a lot of what you would probably expect military officers to have as a responsibility. And you know, you were responsible for your job and you--As an operating supervisor of my C shift at PUREX, there wasn't any other group that was responsible for the training of my operators. They were my responsibility. And if we had to send them to some special training, we'd do that. But the basic training was conducted by the supervisor. They assured whether they were qualified and whether they were able to do their job. I guess that's why when my counterpart was ejected, it was a military type operation, I guess. But I think we did a really good job. Safety was a number one concern. Radiological exposure was also a number one concern. And as far as I'm concerned, from everything I've seen, very, very few people suffered from working in our plants.</p>
<p>Bauman: I was going to ask you about President Kennedy came to the site in 1963 to visit. There was a story in the paper, a while back because it was the 50th anniversary of that. I wondered if you have any memories of that?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Oh yeah. Half the plant was out there. And I was there to welcome him as he came in on his helicopter. We were all out there.</p>
<p>Bauman: Anything in particular stand out to you about that day at all?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, I don't know. It's what we all expected at that time. There wasn't anything really unusual about this. Although I came out in 1950 saying, this is going to be a very temporary thing, I think we became--[CRYING] We became Hanford. [CRYING] Didn't expect to get emotional.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, you built a sense of community, it seems like.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Really did. Those were good years. Really good years.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah, I was going to ask you, you talked about a number of different places on site that you worked. Different assignments. Was there one of those that was the most challenging? Or the most difficult? Or maybe one that was the most rewarding?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well for me, it had to be those first few years with the PUREX plant. I've had a lot of other—what I think—good work assignments over the years. I know of no one who had the variety that I had. Certainly projects likely FFTF, I felt I had a very important role in that. I was one of these so-called cognizant engineers and my system was the main heat transport system. And it included basically the primary and secondary cooling systems. Everything from the reactor on. And the operating conditions for the plant, all of the design events and so on were channeled into that system. So that was a rewarding job, too. And I think we did a good job. As I said, we had a lot of early trouble getting that project going, but finally. So I enjoyed those years. I didn't feel the same individual responsibility that I had with the early time at PUREX.</p>
<p>Bauman: Obviously, Hanford also had the shift from production to a reduced production that you talked about, and then a shift to clean up. I wonder if those sort of mission changes impacted your work and in what ways?</p>
<p>Gustafson: Well, they certainly did. I've been involved in many parts of that. Even during my last few years with generally this overall quality assurance type bit, getting into working with the Washington, DC folks and that sort of thing.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you mentioned when you first came here, you thought it would be a short term.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so for some people was. Some people did come for a short time and left. So why did you stay? I know you had some assigned that took you way to a bunch of other places, but--</p>
<p>Gustafson: Yeah. I don't know. We stayed for lots of reasons. We established a lot of close friendships. And sort of had our crowd of social as well as work relations. And we just became Hanford.</p>
<p>Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about yet in terms of your work at Hanford? Or your experiences that you'd like to talk about that you haven't had a chance to talk about yet? Any stories or things that stand out in your mind?</p>
<p>Gustafson: I have so many stories about Hanford that it's kind of hard to come. Of course, many. My operational years, the most direct part of the operations, were the early years. I have a lot of individual things that happened. Some of them were good, some of them weren't. I remember particularly one incident. I don't want to be called a hero, but it was rather exciting. My operator was unloading a caustic car. And he was properly dressed with his shield and so on, but the hose from the railroad car came loose and it ended up spraying up underneath his protective clothing. And I felt that I was sure glad I was there, only about ten feet away. Because he was just kind of yelling with--You know, caustic getting sprayed into your face is not really good. Grabbed a hold of him and we both got under the safety shower was there. And at least he retained most of his sight. So, that was a situation where—just sort of individual kind of exciting happening, certainly was. I had a lot of other things go on. I feel that I had a lot of important tasks at Hanford. As I said, probably my most responsible thing was when I was still pretty young there, and operating the early couple, three years of PUREX as one of the operating supervisors. Had many chances to do so many different things over the years. Let's see, what would be of--It's kind of hard to come up with individual things that you might be interested in.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, you've already talked about a number. That's been great. So I want to thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your experiences with us. We appreciate it.</p>
<p>Gustafson: Okay. Thank you.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:48:52
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
T Plant
REDOX
PUREX
PRTR (Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor)
100 Areas
FFTF
Westinghouse Hanford
200 Area
B Plant
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1950-
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1950-1990
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
An interview with Leonard Gustafson
Description
An account of the resource
Leonard Gustafson moved to Richland, Washington in 1950 to work on the Hanford Site.
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.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/16/2013
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
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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.)
Radioactive substances
Nuclear fuels
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
100 Area
1955
200 Area
300 Area
Battelle
Cold War
Desert
Hanford
Kennedy
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Plutonium
PUREX
River
Safety
Savannah River
T Plant
War
Westinghouse
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3c0a15b7341da5395fe544ee39586122.JPG
4c81c97bcaf611d56e40f2d717c1f940
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
Stanley Goldsmith
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Douglas O’Reagan: First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us?</p>
<p>Stanley Goldsmith: Stanley Goldsmith.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Goldsmith here on March 21<sup>st</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Goldsmith about his experiences working at Hanford. Okay. Could you tell us about your childhood up through—just briefly tell us about your life up through college and entering the Manhattan Project.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: At Hanford here, or at Los Alamos?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Before that. Your life before the Manhattan Project. Where were you born?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia. In 19—March 25<sup>th</sup>, 1924.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Can you tell us about your life before the Manhattan Project? Up through college?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well I—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Why don’t I move closer, that might—</p>
<p>Goldsmith: I was raised in Norfolk and went to Virginia Tech to take—to get a chemical engineering degree. I entered Virginia Tech in 1941, and I graduated in 1945.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: And then you entered the Army, is that right?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: After graduation, I was drafted into the Army, and assigned to the Manhattan District of Engineers. Eventually, after waiting in several different places for my clearance, I wound up at Los Alamos, where I worked from 1945 to ’47—1947.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you just find out about what the goal was once you arrived?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Yes. After I got to Los Alamos, we were told what the objective was, and all about the problems. This was different than the other nuclear sites were. This mission was kept secret.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What element of the project did you work on at Los Alamos?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: At Hanford?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: At Los Alamos.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: At Los—I worked on processing the uranium-235 for the first atomic bomb.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What did that involve?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: That involved converting uranium oxide that had been enriched with 235. That involved processing it from an oxide to a fluoride so it could be reduced to a metal. And then machined into the shapes they needed for the bombs.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Were you figuring out your process as you went?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: No. The process had been pretty well established. This was more like just individual laboratories processing individual amounts of u-235 to get it to the point where it could be reduced to metal.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Who did you work with?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: What?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you work with anybody?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Yes.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Who else was in your lab?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: That was a long time ago. Let’s see. There was Al Drumrose and a Purcell—I don’t remember his first name. There were two other—well, maybe a few other more people. But I guess I just don’t recall the names.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So what brought you to Hanford?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: What got me to Hanford? I left Los Alamos to get a graduate degree in chemical engineering. When I graduated, I got a job here at Hanford as a nuclear—as a reactor engineer.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How did you hear about the job?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, I knew about Hanford, and I sent out letters of inquiry about positions that may be open here and at other sites. And I got the position here in 1950.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So you wanted specifically to work at Hanford or other sites—what was—did you have specific goals of what you wanted to do?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, I liked what Hanford had to offer. So there was no question about that. They satisfied what I was looking for.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What were your first impressions of the area?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, it was shocking to say the least. It was like out in the wilderness. And when I arrived in 1950, General Electric operated the whole site, including the housing and all of the utilities and so forth. They assigned me a house that—I don’t remember what the rent was, but it was very inexpensive. And then in 1960—let’s see, it was about 1960—between ’61 and ’65—they divided the work at Hanford among several—among four or five contractors. One of them operated the laboratory, one of them operated the nuclear reactor, and one the separations plant. I stayed with the laboratory.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Could you walk us through an average day when you first—say in 1950 or ’52—what sort of work were you doing?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: What sort of work?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: The average day—you want me to start back there?—is that my worksite was located about 20 miles from Richland. You could take a bus operated by the plant, or you could drive. But you had to go through an entrance gate—entrance—not a gate, but a station. And then we had to show our passes—badges. Then we went out to the site where we were working. In this case, at that time, I was working at F Reactor. As a reactor engineer, I rotated positions at the different reactors. So the work was—you asked me about the work—the work was, I thought, extremely interesting. And I felt very fortunate in that I felt like I was on the forefront of a new technology. By the time I got up here, there was a lot of emphasis on the peaceful use of nuclear power. I got involved in work for improving the nuclear fuels that was currently being used. This was because I was with Battelle then, and Battelle had a joint contract with the DoE where they could use part of their facilities—well, the major part of the facilities were for DoE work. But they also had a contract which they called 1831, and that was for doing private work for industrial corporations involved in nuclear work. I spent a lot of time on that, trying to—my group was trying to improve the performance of the fuel. Wanted to get higher powers. So that the fuel—we could produce fuel at a faster rate—I’m sorry, produce plutonium at a faster rate by increasing the power of the reactors. I worked as a reactor engineer for about four years. Then I took the position of manager of nuclear fuels research and development. We worked on developing or designing nuclear fuels, analyzing the fuels that had been used in the reactors to see what improvements could be made. Let’s see. We had a lot of interactions with the commercial fuel designers. As I mentioned, there were two contract billers. And this was done on the 1831, which allowed Battelle to use some facilities that were DoE’s—some facilities on the plant in their private work. So I’m trying to think about the timing, now. The main—after working on DoE projects for about five years, I worked on a private project that was sponsored—that was funded by Exxon—they’re now called Exxon Nuclear. They were interested in getting into the nuclear business, because they had a lot of claims on land that have uranium. They wanted—they decided to utilize those claims. Get the uranium, then processing it for use as nuclear fuels. So at that time, I think there was only one Exxon employee involved in this. They took over part—a major part of that, as Exxon Nuclear—took over a major part of Battelle. We were moved out of the buildings that DoE built, and we were located in Uptown in Richland in the industrial—just completely isolated from the other nuclear work that was going on. We designed a nuclear fuel for Exxon Nuclear which evolved into their first commercial fuels. During that time, Exxon Nuclear began to have their own staff. But we stayed with them until about 19—early 1970s, we worked with them. And then their own employees could take over from then. After that, I worked on fuel cycles. On seeing if we could design different types of fuels with different types of materials, like thorium, on the fuel cycles. And we—let’s see. This was work for DoE. And we continued that work—my group continued working for DoE. They were working on the nuclear reactor regulation, on NRC. We had projects with NRC. Our main project was DoE. And here again, I was telling you--[COUGH] Excuse me. I was still involved in nuclear fuel development. We did a lot of work for NRC and also for DoE. This was on helping them understand and approve their review of new nuclear fuels in reactors—nuclear fuel design. So we were working on both sides of the street: with the regulatory side, and the DoE development side. And then in 1980—excuse me just one minute—I should have jotted these dates down. In late 1980s, I worked on a DoE program on nuclear fuels—on nuclear fuel cycles, where we were looking at different way of utilizing the nuclear fuels so that they would last longer and that they would be safer. Then after that, I was assigned to Battelle Columbus, because I had worked through this project. It turned out quite successful. And Battelle Columbus had a contract with DoE to perform research on finding a nuclear repository—nuclear burial site. I was the Battelle manager of that program for about four years. We looked at the—examined the potential nuclear sites in New Mexico, Louisiana, Georgia, and here at Hanford. This program went on for about four or five years, and then DoE selected the Nevada site at Los Alamos—not Los Alamos—at Las Vegas for the site to bury the spent nuclear fuels. That program lasted for quite a while, but I left it in 19—after four years, because I didn’t want to move down to Texas, which was one of the sites that was being considered. So I moved back here to the Hanford. I worked on miscellaneous programs after I came back to Hanford. A lot of them had to do with the nuclear fuel cycle and the nuclear waste disposal—nuclear waste treatment and disposal. And I did that type of work for about four years, and then I retired in 1987? 19—yes, in 1987. And I left Battelle, and went to work for an environmental engineering company in Washington, DC, who was working on the same sort of thing. They were technical support contracted to DoE headquarters. So I was there until—let’s see. I was there until about 1994. And then I had to just—I still continued to work even though I was retired from Battelle. I had actually moved back to Battelle and was hired by Battelle as a consultant so that I could retain my pension and the salary for the job. That went on until about 1992. And finally, I retired for good. [LAUGHTER] So, that’s a very brief and sketchy description of what I did here at Hanford. One thing that—a little sideline you might be interested in. You asked about what Hanford was like. When I first came to work here, there were very few facilities that could be used at Hanford. I was not—I didn’t need anything special to do my work; I didn’t need a specially designed building structure. But I did do work on design and that work was done—the group was assigned to the Hanford High School. [LAUGHTER] Let’s see, where else? As I said, I had worked at most of the reactors that were operating at that time. Oh, there’s one thing that—I want to back up a little bit until about 1975. I got in—my group got involved in plutonium recycle. This was a program that DoE sponsored, a fairly large program, in which we were trying to recycle the plutonium that was not being used in bombs. Plutonium—to show that it could be used in nuclear power reactors. And we actually had a plutonium recycle test reactor built here onsite to test the fuels, the mixed oxide. We called it mixed oxide fuel because it’s plutonium and uranium oxide. And the reactor, which was the PRTR, Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor, was designed specifically to try to test, get information on mixed oxide fuels. Let’s see. I moved around a lot. After about five years on that program, I moved on, I think, to working for Exxon Nuclear, to assist them in their program. Now, Exxon Nuclear was so sensitive about their work being exposed by DoE that they moved many of the facilities that they used at Battelle, they moved them to different sections. We had offices at the old—what was it—the woman who had all of this fabric stuff? It was in Richland, it’s right in downtown Richland. And we took the top floor of one of the buildings that had already been built. And of course, there, we only did calculations because they had no facilities for taking care of irradiated material. That was an interesting time, too, when we were off on our own, so to speak.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: They did that because they were afraid of the Department of Energy taking their knowledge?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, they were concerned there would be some link—crossover—inadvertently, perhaps. The DoE could claim that some of the work done by Exxon Nuclear was done by DoE. And they didn’t want that to happen, so they completely isolated themselves.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did that hurt your work?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Did that work?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did it impact your work, being isolated like that?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: I’m sorry?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Being isolated, did that impact your work? Did it slow your work, or did it cause any problems?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: No, it didn’t cause any problems. We were able to move our whole group out into the new facility in downtown Richland. So were other groups—nuclear physics group, and the other groups that went into the fuel cycle. But that was an interesting time, because we were really developing commercial nuclear fuels. The design that we had come up with was the first nuclear fuels that Exxon Nuclear had marketed. They marketed to—I’ll think of that in a minute. But anyway, we got involved in—since I mentioned earlier that there were very few Exxon Nuclear employees involved in this program—that we actually got involved with the Exxon Nuclear people who went out to market their product. That was at the time when we ran into some very interesting commercial situations.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What makes one nuclear fuel better than another nuclear fuel?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, they were made primarily from uranium, and they were oxides. They were made into compressed pellets. Now, some of these were different—some of these were specifically made for boiling-water reactors, and others were for pressurized-water reactors. There was a design difference in the two reactors. One of them—the power level was about the same, but the design of the fuel and the way it was structured was different. That made a difference in the fuel for the two types of reactors. After we got involved in working for Exxon Nuclear, when our contract with them expired, we became very much involved in working only for DoE and NRC. I think I mentioned that to you. We—oh, we had contracts—my group had contacts with practically all the commercial nuclear fuel design people, and we provided them design support, and we did testing for them. So we were pretty much involved in the nuclear industry by then.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How secretive or how classified was your work?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: After—when I moved to Hanford, the classification was almost—was very slim. It was very lax, because with the dropping of the atom bombs, then all of that came out, what the bomb was made of, and some ideas what the design of the bomb was. So by that time, it had pretty well leaked out, the security was relaxed on that, also. So that wasn’t—that was no longer a big problem. There were still some residual problem in security. In fact, the Russians, of course, wanted to get into the nuclear industry business. They wanted to know—well, this backed up into the weapons program—Cold War program. They wanted to know what powers we read our plants at—how many megawatts. And they actually took measurements of the Columbia River and calculated from that what powers we were obtaining. So that was when the Cold War was going on.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How did you hear about that?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Hear about what?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: The Russians testing the waters.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Oh. I think we had—our security people kept an eye on what was going on with the Russians. And this is one of the things they found out.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Let’s see. What was life in the Tri-Cities like back in the 1950s and ‘60s outside of work?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, it was pretty plain in a way—several. Because there weren’t many things to do. There was only one theater, and there may have been one or two grocery stores, and I think there was one real estate agent. That was the case with most of the various businesses. There was maybe one, or two at the most. There was not much in the way of entertainment. I mentioned that we had one theater. People—the workers at the plant—developed their own entertainment—sources of entertainment. They formed all kinds of different clubs. One of the most popular club was the bridge club—competitive bridge. We played that in one of the commercial buildings that had an open space that we could use. Another was the Richland Little Theater. And then there was a Richland opera—Light Opera, also. And there were—of course, golf was a big activity, because there were already several different golf courses. So that was taking off. There were other activities like that where you had to build them yourself. You may have gotten a little support from DoE, but you couldn’t depend on it. So we had to make our own source of entertainment and relaxation.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you play bridge? What was your entertainment?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Yeah, I got involved in playing bridge. This was duplicate bridge. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but that’s a form of bridge that is competitive. It’s still—it’s played in such a way that everybody—each couple gets to play against another couple, and they rotate during the evening, so that other couples play the same cards. The competitive part comes in as to who comes up with the best score at the end of the evening. [LAUGHTER] And that was quite controversial. Particularly when a man and woman were partners—they would—they had no shame, or no hesitant to getting into arguments at the bridge table. So that was a big deal. Even now there’s a lot of bridge clubs that are playing here—duplicate bridge is what it’s called.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Where did you live throughout your time at Hanford, or in this area?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: What’s that?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Where did you live? Did you move houses?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Yes—well, yeah. At that time, they were building houses like mad. I lived in one of the government houses in Richland—old Richland. Then I moved into what they called a ranch house. Those were a government house that was one story, and it had three bedrooms. There was some furnishing that came with these houses. The rental on it was very nominal. And as I recall, we were provided—many of these houses, or most of them were heated by coal. DoE actually—at that time, it was actually GE who ran the town—provided free coal. They would come around periodically and dump a load of coal for you to use in your houses.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sounds dirty!</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Huh?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sounds dirty! Seems like it would get you messy. All the—dumping the coal, is there a coal dust that would come up?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: What’s that?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: When you burned the coal, would it be dirty? Would it make a lot of smoke, I guess?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Not too bad. They must have used a hard coal that gave out less smoke. I don’t know that—it wasn’t like an industrial company where they had large facilities that generated a lot of steam, a lot of smoke. This was kind of dispersed. So we didn’t have an air problem at that time. We had—now the other thing that they did to make life easier—we had our own transportation—public transportation system. You could ride on the buses that they had for free. So that was to make life easier for the employees.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Must have been a lot of buses?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: What?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Must have been a whole lot of buses.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, most of the buses were actually used to go out to the Area—to take the workers out to the Area, because there’s where you had a lot of people to be transported. The civilians, or the private people, had—many of them had their own cars. So didn’t use the bus.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was it different when you were working on commercial energy compared to when you were working for the Department of Energy?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Yes, there were quite a lot of differences. We were able to produce fuel designs and produce developmental fuels in a much shorter time than DoE, because there was a lot of paperwork involved in going through the DoE process. In fact, one of the DoE people at headquarters who was in charge of reactor development said he was very upset because he couldn’t—he was in charge of the fast reactor, the FFTF. And they were struggling to try to get the thing going. He was very upset because he couldn’t understand how we were able to get fuel for Exxon Nuclear, and they were still struggling. They’d been struggling for a long time. [LAUGHTER] So he wanted to know what we were doing. Well, what it was, we didn’t have to jump through all the loops that you did.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was it finding the uranium, the procurement that was the problem? Or just write paperwork?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: No, the problem that DoE had was that they had a bureaucracy that kind of controlled things. And that always slows things down. It took them about twice as long to develop the fuel for the Fast Flux Reactor than it did us for the commercial reactors.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Hmm. Let’s see. Have the Tri-Cities changed much in the time you’ve been living here?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Oh, yeah. It’s been amazing how it’s grown. The Tri-Cities now is like a normal city. The nuclear influence is much less, because we have so many other businesses now involved for our economic base. As I had mentioned earlier, there were usually one kind or maybe two types of business or entertainment or something like that. When the commercial people came in, they opened as many stores as they wanted, or that were needed. So that was one big thing. Another big thing was the housing development, the real estate. I remember up until 19—let’s see, about 1965, GE was in charge of everything, including building houses. [COUGH] Excuse me, I’ve got a cold. When they opened up the lands, part of the land, surrounding territory was owned by the Department of the Interior—it was government owned. And then they made those available to the public for building houses and other types of structures. The demand for these things was great enough, so the building was really at a peak. Now, even now, you take a look at the housing—the amount of housing that’s going on, and take a look at the commercial businesses, like drive down George Washington Way, you see all these new businesses or restaurants or that sort of thing. So it’s really changed. Richland was all on this side of the Columbia River. That was one of the boundaries for Richland. But then the Columbia River curved around, and there were—on the other side of the river, there was nothing but sagebrush. But some entrepreneurs had bought land there, and then when they started to build, they had lots of land to build on. That was no problem. There’s a whole new part of Richland that’s on the other side of the river that wasn’t there until probably about 1965 or so. That’s when it started. So there’s been a growth of industry. The highways have been developed. There’s new industry that’s come in. So we’ve developed quite a good industrial base now, and it’s still growing.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Are there any—to ask an open-ended question, are there any moments or stories that come to mind that you think are worth telling about your time working at Hanford?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, I told you about how we had, early on, we had offices at the Hanford High School. That was—we made a lot of fun of that, when anyone called you at the high school, we said this is the Goldsmith class of ’41-’42. There was a lot of—amazing amount of work that was done on animals to use those as some of the basic studies for the effect of radiation on animals. Now we don’t have any of those studies going on. But let’s see. I’m trying to think of something that is unusual. A lot of it was—practically all of it was unusual.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How about something mundane, but it’s still kind of unusual? Or maybe a day in the life later on in your work?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, I mentioned the general public had to develop their own recreational activities. We have—I don’t know—we have a lot of parks and fields. Like some of those baseball parks are very good. I didn’t appreciate how good they were until—I have some relatives who live in Maryland, and we visited them, and we went to see their children’s baseball game. But they had just an open field, nothing like we have. So that’s been—the recreational things have improved quite a bit. Of course the boating is still a big deal. I really—as I said, there was so much growth going on that it’s hard to pick out any one area. Excuse me. The recreational areas have increased. You know, we’ve grown more; we’ve built at least two new golf courses, and these were very good golf courses. Then the other thing is some of the building of private homes around the golf courses. That has been—we live in a community there that probably has—what would you say, Joyce, about 800 people? Something of that sort. And it’s very nice. There’s two such communities. One of them is called Canyon Lakes, where we live, and the other is called Meadow Springs. That’s been developed—highly developed. We both have very nice golf courses.</p>
<p>Joyce: After you retired, didn’t you work with the people from Israel, the First Defenders?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Oh, yeah, that was an interesting little program. That was after I retired, and I was re-hired. Battelle got a program from the State Department to help—to develop ways for the First Defenders on a terrorist site could make a better determination of what happened. And they did this on a worldwide basis. Mainly, underdeveloped countries, but one country that they had and they were anxious to get involved because they had firsthand information—they were anxious to get Israelis involved. Because they had a lot of first defenders. The program consisted of sending a team of people over to Israel and tell them what the program was about. And then Israel was to send about 20 people over here for a month. And then we were using the training—the HAMMER facility to do the training. I got involved because when the Israelis came over, they asked me, since I’m Jewish, they asked me if I would help trying to make them feel comfortable and so forth, take care of their dietary laws. And again, they were very pleased. And it was fun, it was interesting to see how they had become sensitized to terrorism. For instance, they stayed at one of the hotels out there. It’s right outside of Columbia Center Mall. And early morning, a bus would pick them up and take them out to the HAMMER site. After about two or three days, the bus driver said—no, someone said are we going to take any different routes? And the bus driver thought they meant for sightseeing. But they didn’t want to establish a pattern for terrorists to see what their schedule was. So they finally got him to change the route out to Hanford itself. But that was interesting, because the view of the Israelis who had been submitted to so much terrorism and the view of the other countries that we trained but who had not been submitted were completely different. Like night and day. So that was interesting experience. They show you the difference between our view of being careful about terrorism. As I said, these people were housed—excuse me. These people were housed in one of the hotels close to the Columbia Center—close to the Columbia Center Mall. They would go into the mall, and they were appalled to see that people were allowed to go in and out of the mall carrying all kinds of backpacks and all kinds of packages where it’s not being inspected. Because in Israel, they inspected anyone who was carrying a package of any sort. And they would be examined. So that was an interesting insight on how the different countries treat terrorism.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: And the training was about how to respond to a nuclear accident, or a crisis?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Well, this program was called the First Defenders. And these people were doctors, they were scientists, they were firemen and so first. They were a mixture of who would come to the site where an attack had been made. That’s why they called them the First Defenders. They—let’s see, what was I going to say? They were very—the ones that were really involved in anti-terrorism were very conscientious and good about it. We had some interesting things that arose as part of this program. As I said, there were nations from all over the world that were involved to a certain extent. And we had the Indians, from India, coming over, spending a month. They were put up in the Hanford House—Red Lion Hanford House. They got a call one day from someone at the Hanford House wanting to know if we could talk to these people about how to keep the shower curtains inside of the showers, because they would keep them out and they would flood the whole area. So there were strange incidences like that. I’m sorry, Joyce?</p>
<p>Joyce: About when Bill Wiley was here and you worked at Hanford Battelle in Quality Assurance. Did you share any of that?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: The quality--?</p>
<p>Joyce: Uh-huh.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: Bill Wiley was a very—I think he was very influential and left his mark on the site, because he wanted to develop this environmental molecular laboratory, the rows of buildings out there, the new rows. And that opened up a whole new set of doors for Battelle to grow. They went into more basic stuff. Up to that time, we mainly focused on working on problems with nuclear reactors and nuclear fuels. But this was completely different from that. This was basic science that these laboratories allowed us to get involved in. And it’s opened up a whole new area. I think Battelle, and Hanford in general, has benefited from it, because they get a lot of extra programs that they wouldn’t have before.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Were you involved with these basic science programs?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: No, I started in nuclear fuels and nuclear reactors most of the time I was here. But I didn’t get into any of the basic science programs.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you want to say anything about this Oppenheimer letter, maybe introduce it for us?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: He was a very nice guy, and he was very considerate, and everybody liked him. He was very friendly—friendly in a reserved way. He didn’t go around smacking people on the back, but you knew he was warm and he remembered names. After the peace was declared, I think it was that later date in 1945? No, not 1945. At any rate, after the war was over, and things settled down, he sent out a letter to some of the people who worked on it that thanked them for their effort. And he sent me one of those letters. And I’m very impressed with it, because he knew what I was doing. Because he could mention that in his letter. I’ve been very proud of that letter. That’s what that is all about. It may not be much to many people, but to people who have been involved in the nuclear industry, I think it has some impact.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you ever meet any other Los Alamos or other Manhattan Project veterans who weren’t from the Hanford site when you worked at Hanford?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: When I went to Hanford did I ever--?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Meet any other people who had been at Los Alamos?</p>
<p>Goldsmith: No, there are not too many people here, just a few people here. I’m hoping—I’d like to know—I wanted to put something on Facebook about seeing how many people from Los Alamos who actually worked on the bomb still are around. Because I don’t think there are too many. I was—I got my degree when I was 21, so—and then I immediately went to work and have done that since then. But I’ve lost track of most of the people. I think they’re probably dead by now. [LAUGHTER] But if there’s something that comes up from that, I’d like to see.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: All right, well thank you so much.</p>
<p>Joyce: Thank you.</p>
<p>Goldsmith: You’re welcome. Thank you.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/yCLXgXa3QdQ">View interview on Youtube.</a></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:13:13
Bit Rate/Frequency
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317 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
F Reactor
Battelle
PRTR (Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor)
Exxon Nuclear
FFTF (Fast Flux Test Facility)
HAMMER
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1950-
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1950-1987
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 Stanley Goldsmith
Description
An account of the resource
Stanley Goldsmith moved to Richland, Washington in 1950 to work on the Hanford Site.
An interview with Stanley Goldsmith 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.
Date
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03/21/2016
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.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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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.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Los Alamos (N.M.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Chemical engineering
Nuclear fuels
Nuclear reactors
Publisher
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Battelle
Cold War
Department of Energy
Event
F Reactor
General Electric
HAMMER
Hanford
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Manhattan Project
Plutonium
River
School
Theater
War
-
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1397d9eb82d20248c32d7079d03d7288.mp4
f4cbd8641a1b1edcb6e4447010862c8d
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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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
Maxwell Freshley
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Douglas O’Reagan: First off, would you please say and spell your name for us?</p>
<p>Maxwell Freshley: My legal name is Maxwell Freshley, F-R-E-S-H-L-E-Y. Not many people around here know me by that name. I go by Max.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay, thanks. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral interview history here on January 11<sup>th</sup>, 2016. This interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And I will be talking with Mr. Freshley about his experiences working at the Hanford site. To start us off, would you tell us maybe some of your life up, before you came to this area?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I graduated from the University of Portland in 1951 with a degree in physics. I was offered a tech grad position on the site here. At the time, it was operated by General Electric Company, and this was—I started work here in June of 1951. Okay. So I guess prior to coming here, my having been raised in Portland, and that’s where I went to school, my extended experiences were rather limited. That’s kind of what happened. So I came here in June of 1951, fresh out of school, I wasn’t married at the time. First place I lived was in the Army barracks in north Richland. I can’t tell you about how long I lived there, but while I was living in north Richland in the barracks, I did not have a car. So being kind of isolated out north was a bit of a challenge. So as soon as I could find somebody who would loan me some money, I bought a brand new Ford and that solved a lot of my problems. And then sometime during that first year, I was moved to one of the dorms in Richland. I think the dorms were located on Lee Boulevard. It was close to—I’m calling it a drugstore. But it was kind of like a Payless. I don’t think that was the right name at that time. But they had a restaurant—they served food in this drugstore. So that’s where I would eat.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Had you heard about Hanford before you came here?</p>
<p>Freshley: Not really. I really hadn’t heard about it. It was all secret, you know?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Right. Were you aware of the sort of connection with the atomic bomb before you got here?</p>
<p>Freshley: I’d have to say I was not. Although while I was still going to school—still in school—when was the Nagasaki ignited?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: ’45, I believe?</p>
<p>Freshley: ’45?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I think so.</p>
<p>Freshley: That—oh, okay.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: It was the very end of the Second World War.</p>
<p>Freshley: Yeah. Well, I might’ve heard of that. Yeah.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was your first impression of Richland and this area?</p>
<p>Freshley: [LAUGHTER] First impression was living in the barracks out in north Richland-- [LAUGHTER] was not too great. Of course, my first impression was it was darn hot here, coming here in June. It was very warm. My future wife and her mother brought me to Richland from Portland and dropped me off. [LAUGHTER] So things kind of went from there.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure. So we were going to ask about where you were living, but we already addressed that to some degree. What was life like in the barracks?</p>
<p>Freshley: Oh. I would say very basic. Of course, in the dorm rooms that were assigned, you always had a roommate that you lived with. So I became, of course, very familiar with my roommates. When I moved from the barracks to Richland, I had a different roommate. So I made acquaintances with two people like that. They were both scientists, so we got along really well. In fact, one of them is still living in Richland.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What kind of work did you do at Hanford, and where on the site did you work?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, first of all, I worked in 300 Area in 3706 Building. I was—they assigned me a position in the Graphite Group. We were studying graphite, the moderator in the reactors. One of the things that was going on at the time—and I can’t tell you what reactor it was—but the graphite core was swelling. It was—I don’t know if it had come in contact yet with the upper shield, but it was growing. I was assigned to two people in the Graphite Group. We went and extracted samples of graphite from the core of this reactor. The thing that they had set up to do that, of course, was already here. So we were extracting samples—core samples. What the purpose of my job was to determine the annealing temperature of the graphite, so that if they raised the temperature in the core to a point where graphite annealing started occurring, then the core would shrink back and not interfere with the top shield. So I think they were looking for somebody—[LAUGHTER] I won’t say it. But anyway, I was assigned the position or job of taking these graphite samples and investigating the annealing temperature. What we used was a Fresnel diffractometer. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that, but interference rings from this interferometer would be displayed. It was my job to count the rings. It was a very tedious job. I’m sure that these two fellas didn’t want to do that, so they found me, and I did it. These rotations were—honestly I can’t remember whether they were three months or six months, but you would rotate from one position to another. I don’t remember if you could choose your positions—your rotations—I guess it probably depended on whether or not there was something available or not to go to. So I fulfilled my position in the Graphite Group. I didn’t want to stay in the Graphite Group, so I moved on.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Before we move on, I have a quick question for you. This is a little bit off-script, but I have an undergraduate degree in physics.</p>
<p>Freshley: Uh-huh.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I was reading a while back that when you started heating up the reactors, it caused that expansion to go back, and that sounds like what you’re describing.</p>
<p>Freshley: Mm-hm.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: But what is annealing?</p>
<p>Freshley: It’s heating to a temperature where the damage caused by the neutron radiation would be annealed physically. So the core would shrink back. But you had to get it up to a certain temperature, and you didn’t want to overheat it, because if you get it too hot, then the core—the graphite would oxidize. That would not be good. But I think the cores were enclosed in an argon atmosphere, as I remember.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: It just surprised me, of course—I expected you get something hot, it expands. But now we’re saying you get it hot and it shrinks!</p>
<p>Freshley: Yeah, that’s right. But when you’re looking at the diffraction rings on the interferometer, you can tell by the movement of the rings when you are reaching the annealing temperature. So either they—and I can’t honestly remember the details here, whether the rings did not move as fast, or whether they might have even changed direction.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Interesting.</p>
<p>Freshley: So I had an early experience with a graphite-moderated production reactor.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was it—you said you moved on from graphite to something else?</p>
<p>Freshley: Oh yeah. My second assignment was in the metallurgy laboratory in 234-5 Building. 234-5 Building now is known as—god. Hm. Plutonium—it’s the one that you read a lot--</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Plutonium Finishing Plant?</p>
<p>Freshley: Pardon me?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Is it the plutonium finishing?</p>
<p>Freshley: Yeah, Plutonium Finishing Plant where the plutonium buttons were received and machined to a hockey-type shape. Well, they were—actually, they were reduced to form the metal, and I was not involved in that. But I was in the Plutonium Metallurgy Lab, which was at one end of the Plutonium Finishing Plant. I don’t think there are many or any people left around who know of that. I can’t think of anybody that I worked with during that period who’s still around. But we had a Plutonium Metallurgy Lab, and my manager was a very nice fella. This, now, was in the early ‘50s. One thing that he wanted me to do—and I don’t think that what I did was original research, because I think all of the original research was probably done at Los Alamos, which was the renowned weapons facility. He wanted me to investigate the low temperature phase changes in plutonium. So what I did—and that’s important because phase changes in plutonium or any metal creates a dimensional change. And a dimensional change is not something that you want in a weapon or a bomb, because it interferes with the efficiency of the bomb. So here I was, fresh out of school and didn’t know from up. Anyway, I put together what’s called a differential thermal analysis apparatus. Are you familiar with that?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I know the individual terms.</p>
<p>Freshley: Okay. [LAUGHTER] So that’s what I did. I ran low temperature phase studies on plutonium—pure plutonium to detect these low temperature phase changes, which were very—since they were low temperature, they were very difficult to pick up, because there wasn’t much energy exchange during the phase change. Then, since that was not something you would want in a weapon or a bomb, small alloy additions were added to the plutonium to stabilize the low temperature, so you didn’t have these low temperature changes. All of this at the time was quite classified, which make it extra interesting, I guess. But when I went out to 234-5 Building in the plutonium lab, we were—there were three or four of us—we were assigned a car. So we had a car that we could go back and forth in, to work. That made it pretty nice, because we didn’t have to ride the bus and all of that. Then—this is something else that I doubt very much that anyone knew about at the time. It was the fabrication of plutonium parts for artillery shells. We cast plutonium in what was known as the 231-Z Building. We didn’t do it in the 234-5 Building. 231 was just across the street. In that building, I was not involved in the casting or the machining, but the parts were machined in that building. Then they were brought over to 234-5 Building in the Plutonium Metallurgy Lab. Because plutonium would oxidize and so on—so my job was to produce pure nickel coatings. But I don’t mean coatings like were attached. We used bismuth, which has a low melting temperature and it’s stable, to machine the exact replica of the plutonium part. Then, my job was to make—with electroplated nickel onto this bismuth—and then the bismuth was melted away. My job was to enclose the plutonium parts in nickel. So I had to do that in a vacuum. At first I had to do the electroplating. Then I had to put the nickel—what—the nickel cover, if you want—on the plutonium part, under vacuum, and solder a seal around the edge to make it—so it wouldn’t contact the air. And then it wouldn’t be as—you wouldn’t have to worry so much about contamination. But it had to be done in an atmosphere where, after the nickel part was put on the plutonium part, I sealed it with the vacuum and then it was not contaminated. The interesting part about that—one of the interesting parts—is that we were doing this for the Livermore National Lab, who was also at the time at a weapons facility. There were two: Los Alamos and Livermore. We were doing this for Livermore. As soon as the parts were finished, and I finished them, there would be a representative from Livermore waiting for the part. These parts, at times, were handed off, out the back door of 234-5 Building to this individual, who then took them to town, to the airport. I presume then, they were flown to Livermore. These tests at the time were conducted in the South Pacific—Eniwetok Islands. I never knew anything about the results. [LAUGHTER] Or what happened. But I suspect that these days we have artillery shells with plutonium weapons involved.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: When you were working on all these—all these different processes, what sort of team were you working—were you working mostly on an independent sub-project, or did you have other people you were sort of working with day-to-day?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, when I did the differential thermal analysis, it was me. And when I was enclosing the plutonium parts in these nickel shells, that was pretty much me. Yeah. The group was small. I would guess—let’s see, there was—oh, three, four, five—I suspect there were less than ten people in the whole group. The machinist—there were two machinists—I guess I shouldn’t say who they were, but—they did very well—one of them did very well in the Tri-Cities. He had a big vision and—</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I ask, because some of what you’re describing sounds—at least to my sort of ignorant ears—like applied chemistry as well as applied physics. Did you have a chemistry background, or was that not really necessary for what you were working on?</p>
<p>Freshley: I did not have a chemistry background other than what you normally get in a four-year program. I did not have a metallurgy background, either. You know? So that all took—I had to get acquainted with that aspect of the world, and I found it to be very interesting. Later on in my life, I was sorry that I probably hadn’t taken metallurgy.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: How much were you instructed specifically what to do versus sort of innovating yourself or figuring stuff out as you go?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, I’m sure that my manager—he had a degree from Montana School of Mines in Metallurgy. He was a very nice person. He—I’m sure I got instruction and help from him, because I needed it. Here’s this 21-year-old kid, just out of school, doesn’t know metallurgy from up. But I guess I was successful and it worked out.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. Let’s see. Could you describe a typical workday within those first—you worked there for a long period of time overall, is that right? How long were you working at Hanford overall?</p>
<p>Freshley: Overall?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah.</p>
<p>Freshley: [LAUGHTER] I started in 1951 and I retired in 1993. Then I consulted for a period after that. So you figure out the years. The first 14 years were with GE, then Battelle came in ’65, and I transferred to Battelle. I had the choice at that point to transfer to either Battelle or Westinghouse. Westinghouse was focused on the FFTF, and the development of that reactor. But I chose Battelle.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Why did you choose Battelle?</p>
<p>Freshley: I don’t know. I think they were interested in things that I found fascinating. So I switched to Battelle, and have never been sorry. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So when you were describing—is that amount of time that you were describing up to the end of your time at GE? Or was there still more that you were working on at GE before, or subsequent to—you were describing the different plutonium products.</p>
<p>Freshley: I haven’t gotten to the end of GE yet. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay, great. I’d love to hear more.</p>
<p>Freshley: Yeah. And then I got out—I was moved—I got into other things besides plutonium metallurgy. I might say that one of the—while I was at the plutonium lab, one of the technicians was working in a glovebox—do you know what a glovebox is?—that exploded. And it totally, totally contaminated the lab with plutonium. So we spent—the group—spent a lot of time decontaminating that room, and everything in it. We were successful enough that the walls were repainted to secure the plutonium contamination and everything. But then—I don’t know why I changed—but I stayed in 234-5 Building, and maybe—I don’t know, three, four, five years, possibly. Then I got involved in light-water reactor fuel development. That’s where I basically spent the rest of my career. In the late ‘50s, PRTR was under construction. We did—in those days, you were given—at least, in my case, you were given a lot of flexibility to do new things. That was really neat. Then—I didn’t write down the date, but in the late ‘50s, PRTR was under construction, and there was the second International Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy. We contributed to that publication—there were several publications. I didn’t get to go to the conference, but we contributed to that. Then I got involved in plutonium recycling in thermal reactors. I don’t know if you read this morning’s paper: there was an article there about a plutonium fuel—well, it’s called MOX—mixed oxide: plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, a mixture of fuel. This was at Savannah River, and they were building—or are supposedly building a facility for fabricating mixed oxide fuel for light-water reactors. But there have been some problems there, and it’s way behind schedule and over cost or whatever. But that doesn’t affect me. So I’m not involved in that. But anyway, I got involved in, like I say, fuel development—plutonium fuel development for light-water reactors. We had the liberty of doing a lot of different things. One of them was—oh, when we—at first, we found diluents for the plutonium. We irradiated and tested many diluents for plutonium. It had to be diluted—I mean, you can’t use pure plutonium. So I got into that, and we conducted lots and lots of testing of different diluents for plutonium in the MTR and ETR in Idaho—Materials Test Reactor and the Engineering Test Reactor in Idaho. There was a lot of that, and the post-radiation examination was done in the 324 Building, where the major contamination still exists that they have to remove. It’s in the ground, and it’s a major decon project right now with whoever the contractor is, I don’t know. Anyway, we did a lot of testing in MTR and ETR with diluents. We developed a plutonium aluminum alloy spike enrichment element for PRTR. That was one of the activities. An aluminum plutonium spike element—excuse me—is only for spike enrichment in the core. These are spaced around for different neutronic effects. And the reason—it’s a difficult concept, and I don’t know how we got started on that, exactly, because the coefficient of thermal expansion of aluminum with a little bit of plutonium in it is a lot different than the Zircaloy cladding in which it is enclosed. So there were problems with that. Then—ah, let’s see—then I got into recycling the plutonium in thermal reactors, and that was a major government initiative to dispose of plutonium that was no longer needed. So we made mixed oxide fuels of different types. One of the types that seemed attractive at the time was a vibrationally compacted mixture of plutonium and uranium. That is a difficult thing to achieve, because we had to make plutonium—mixed oxide shot, and we vibrated it into the long rods. I remember setting up a shot tower in the basement of 326 Building to make uranium shot. That didn’t work out too good. We didn’t put any plutonium in 326 Building.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Is this still the late ‘50s or have we gotten into the early ‘60s yet?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well this would be the late ‘50s. Well, we’re getting into the ‘60s, though, yeah. We did irradiation tests of aluminum plutonium spike elements in PRTR. I can’t remember what the plutonium concentration was, but then we started working on VIPAC, or vibrationally compacted fuel. It seemed like it would have advantages, because you’re not working with the small centered pellets. You can just pour the fissionable material into the tubes and VIPAC—vibrationally compact—it. So that—we did a lot of work on that, on VIPAC fuel, because we thought it would have an advantage fabrication-wise. But it had disadvantages, too, of course. You couldn’t compact it to the density that you would get with the centered pellet. There was another concern about it, and that is: fuel elements and reactors, the cladding fails from time to time. Still does. I think they suspect that there is a cladding failure in the Columbia Generating Station now. We needed to look at how they would perform with a cladding rupture. So we performed a test in PRTR in what was known as the Fuel Element Rupture Test Facility, FERTF. We were brave.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: It sounds dangerous!</p>
<p>Freshley: We put together a test element. The elements in PRTR were 19 rod clusters—I forget how long, but quite long. So what we did--we were adventuresome—we put a mixed oxide fuel element in PRTR, but first we drilled a hole in the cladding. John Fox, who you’ve interviewed, still can’t imagine that we did something like that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: This probably couldn’t happen today [INAUDIBLE]</p>
<p>Freshley: Oh, no. No way. Anyway, in 1966, we had that experiment in PRTR, and everything was going pretty well until they started cycling the reactor power a little bit. Well, from then on, things went from bad to worse. The cladding failed, but I mean, other than the small hole that we had drilled in it, it ruptured for over quite a distance. When it did that, it swelled, and it came in contact with the pressure tube of the FERTF. It caused that to fail also. So this made a horrible mess in PRTR. The reactor was shut down for I don’t know how long during the cleanup and the recovery from that. I can’t remember—I have some pictures if you’re interested—whether or not we were operating with fuel melting at the time. Because we wanted to get as much heat out of the element—or out of the rods as we could. Now, uranium melts at a little over 2,800 degrees centigrade. So we did a lot of work with not only VIPAC fuel—fuel melting in VIPAC fuel, but also in pellet fuel. Of course, you don’t do that sort of thing in real life. In a commercial light-water reactor—I don’t know what the maximum operating temperatures are in the uranium pellets, but it’s a long ways from melting, I guarantee you.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So did you get the data that you wanted from this rupture test?</p>
<p>Freshley: [LAUGHTER] Yeah, don’t do it. Yeah, and that was kind of actually the end of VIPAC fuel interest. It would definitely not have been commercially viable to have something like that going on in a power reactor. Of course, we learned what the rupture behavior—probably the worst case of what a ruptured VIPAC fuel might do in real life. So that was kind of the end of VIPAC fuel elements. But it was interesting! A really interesting thing to work with and try and develop. We had various—came up with various schemes for compacting UO2 and MOX with using a Dynapac machine, which is a high-energy compaction machine, to form particles. The ideal particle would have been a sphere in a varying size range, so you can maximize the density during VIPACing. But it didn’t work out. And I didn’t get fired. [LAUGHTER] But there were a lot of experiments. Also with looking at the transient behavior of VIPAC fuel, we even conducted some tests in a test reactor. You are placing pure PUO2 particles next to the cladding. Then doing a transient power test on that to see what kind of behavior you would get: how the PUO2 particle would behave. This was done in a reactor in Idaho called SPERT—I can’t tell you what the acronym stands for right now, but it was an interesting exercise. Had some—maybe the reactor was in San Jose; I’m not sure. Anyway, I had some companions who were working for GE; we worked together on that sort of thing. But then, this would have been in 1975, ’76. The light-water reactor power industry wanted to go to higher burnups. That is, leave the fuel in the reactor longer, so they would have longer times between maintenance shutdowns. At the time, the maintenance shutdowns were probably a year or less. So what happened when they went to higher temperatures and higher burnups, the fuel column in—these are ten or 12 feet long rods—would shorten. The fuel column, then, would shrink—would settle. So that caused a great deal of consternation in the light-water reactor power industry, because they had these voids, then, at the top of the fuel columns. Something we called the irradiation-induced densification occurred. So then there was a big effort, commercially, to find solutions to that, so we had—there was what was called a fuel densification program to solve this problem. The fuel industry—let’s see, how was this—they could not tolerate the core shrinking, and then that led to an understanding, or an investigation of N Reactor densification—just the neutron activity. But then they wanted to go to higher burnups. So they started leaving voids in the pellets to accommodate the fission products associated with the high burnup. That didn’t work out to well, either, because of the column shrinking. So that’s when we launched, or got into looking at the fuel densification behavior. The fuel vendors, then, came up with adding materials into the fuel—god, I can’t think of the name now—that would disappear on the high temperature centering of the pellet, leaving voids—controlled voids in the pellets. And they do that today. So the High Burnup Effect Program was a big program here at the lab for quite a long period of time. As a result of that, the fabricators reduced, by using—I can’t think of the name—reduced the density to accommodate the fission—oh, then they put in pore formers. And we, as the lab, were instrumental in coming up with suitable pore formers that would disappear upon centering, during the centering process, to leave these voids in the fuel pellets to accommodate the fission products. As a result of that, this proved to be very satisfactory. It resulted in a stable fuel column and the achievable burnups were increased significantly. You’re probably aware of the fact, now, that the Columbia—the reactor, generating—the Columbia Generating Station, now, can go on a two-year cycle. Meaning they don’t have to shut down for maintenance every year; they can go two years. So the achievement of satisfactory high burnup in reactor fuel was made. All of the other reactors, now—light-water reactors—use that technique. And in fact, as a result of that, the NRC—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—has imposed a requirement that they test the thermal stability of centered pellets by exposing them to a heat treatment so they don’t shrink any more. Or the shrinkage would be very small. So we were instrumental in coming up with this out-of-reactor thermal test to test the stability, if you will, of the pellets.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: You mentioned working with the light-water reactor industry. Were you working with different groups outside of the Hanford Site and outside of Battelle at that point, or was it still focused within the company?</p>
<p>Freshley: I would say that the company, Battelle, the lab, was instrumental in these investigations. EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, was a partner. In fact, they were kind of the driving force helping us put together a joint program where we had seven other contributors—financial sponsors to this program. We had meetings frequently on the progress of this effort. These seven sponsors came from all over the world: Japan, France, England—of course, the commercial operators in the United States were members. So we had this rather large, difficult to manage international program to develop these advanced fuels for high burnup.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So this wasn’t classified, or was it more of a sharing agreement with [INAUDIBLE] Not classified then?</p>
<p>Freshley: No, it wasn’t classified. Well, maybe there might have been some—not security, but because the seven sponsors of this program were—they were paying money, you know? And contributing, and they wanted to protect their interests.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: More like trade secrets, then, rather than—</p>
<p>Freshley: Pardon?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: So, more like trade secrets, then, rather than confidentiality.</p>
<p>Freshley: Yeah, but I’d say, most of the—in the United States, the utilities that were operating light-water reactors contributed to this. Another contributor or sponsor was Germany. I can’t remember all of them. That made it real interesting. We had these technical reviews and meetings all over the world. So that made it kind of neat.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah.</p>
<p>Freshley: Yeah. But the program was very successful. I think I have some documents that describe it, if you’re interested.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah, absolutely.</p>
<p>Freshley: Okay. And then—I’m not covering this too well—I thought my notes would be more complete but they’re not. [LAUGHTER] Then I got into—this was late in my professional career. There was a reactor in Savannah River, and I didn’t—I can’t tell you the name of it—that produced tritium for thermonuclear weapons. It had to be shut down because of safety reasons. So I got involved in what was called tritium target development for light-water reactors. Because you need tritium for a thermonuclear device. What we did was, the way we did it, we irradiated lithium metal—I shouldn’t say irradiated; we exposed lithium metal to a neutron environment in light-water reactors. The idea being to generate tritium, the gas. Well, what happens is lithium is a metal similar, maybe—low-melting, kind of—to aluminum. It’s not compatible with many cladding or enclosure materials. So we exposed lithium to neutrons to form tritium. In doing that, you had to—because the tritium is an isotope of helium, you had to tie it up some way and contain it. You didn’t want it to get out of the cladding, because we were using zirconium cladding. And then inside of this target, we used a getter for the tritium to collect the tritium and try and keep it enclosed. In fact, I’ve learned recently that there are some commercial reactors back east that have tritium target elements in their cores now to produce tritium for thermonuclear devices.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I imagine that’s something the government wouldn’t want other places to be doing then.</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, probably not, yeah. You can google tritium production and you’ll get information on the process—well, I don’t know about the detail of the process, but information on producing tritium in light-water reactors. Then as I was nearing retirement, I got out of that and was taken over by a couple other people. But it was interesting, and so that’s kind of—I enjoyed doing this sort of thing a lot. Exploring and testing and so on.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Was the tritium work also unclassified then, or was that back to the classified world?</p>
<p>Freshley: I think it was in the classified world, perhaps, at the time. Although the lady who currently manages that project at the lab here gave a talk on these elements, these targets, and some of the latest things that they were doing. This was a while back, that she gave this talk. But there were parts of the talk she could not discuss. These parts that she couldn’t discuss are unknown to me and foreign to me, because a lot of that has happened since I retired. See, I retired in ’93—1993. That was—what—25, 26 years ago.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: When you moved from GE to Battelle, did you ever notice any sorts of differences in your work experiences in sort of general terms?</p>
<p>Freshley: No, not really. They were the same people involved, in my case. The big difference is that under DoE at the time—I think it was DoE, maybe AEC—we did not earn credits for service. So 14 years, I didn’t get any—[LAUGHTER]—credits for service which would help my pension, until Battelle came. Then that changed. I do get a GE pension still, but it’s not very much.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Let’s see. Are there sort of—one thing I’m interested in is how working on Hanford—people’s experiences changed over time as the decades went on, how things changed. Anything sort of leaps to your mind in those regards?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, one thing that comes to mind to me is things that you do if you’re in the lab and so on, are a lot more regulated now than they were back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Can you imagine opening the door and getting somebody a plutonium part that he takes off with and goes to Livermore?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah.</p>
<p>Freshley: You don’t do that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Right. Let’s see.</p>
<p>Freshley: So things are a lot more regulated now. And I would say a lot more sophisticated, too. I am aware of the fact that AREVA, here, the fuel fabricator, has developed since my time some very sophisticated models on fuel performance. We didn’t have models like that in those days.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Interesting. One of the things we’re also trying to get at, which is why a lot of this has been very useful, is what was done on the Hanford site that was sort of innovative or hadn’t been mastered elsewhere? Because you hear sort of both sides of the Hanford legacy, and a lot of these are harder to get at without having classified sources. So the unclassified versions people could tell us about are very interesting.</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, I would say, that except for my time in the plutonium laboratory, things were pretty much unclassified. The development of these different fuels—fuel materials—and testing them and so on. I would say that was pretty much unclassified.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Interesting.</p>
<p>Freshley: Now, I’m sure that AREVA here has some proprietary interests in their fuel modeling these days. But I’ve seen some of it; it’s a very sophisticated code and model.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What was it like living in Richland, let’s say the ‘40s and ‘50s first and ask for the later parts afterwards.</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, I can tell you my experience.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Yeah.</p>
<p>Freshley: First, as I said, I lived in the Army barracks. Then I moved to the dorms that were on Lee. This was before I was married. I was here for a year before I got married, and then when I got married, we got access to one of the Gribble apartments. I don’t know if they’re still there on Gribble Street? I think, maybe, Kadlec has taken all of that over now and destroyed all of the old buildings. But they were two-story apartments. They were really nice. Then after that, we lived in that apartment for five years, my wife tells me. And then we bought a ranch house. It wasn’t a purchase from the government; it was after the ranch houses and the other government houses were sold off by the government. This fella was in a position, a management position, in DoE—I think it might have been AEC at the time. And we bought this ranch house from him on Burch Street in Richland. We paid him $10,000 for it. And then from there—we lived there for a few years, and then we bought a house on Howell. And from Howell, we built a house in Country Ridge. That’s where we live now. We’ve lived there for 20—over 25 years.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Interesting. I was just thinking back on the timeline there. I know for a long time people couldn’t buy houses in Richland. So I guess you got your first place not too long after you were allowed to?</p>
<p>Freshley: Oh, I think it was very soon. I can’t remember his name, but he was in some management position in DoE and wanted to sell his house. So we bought it from him and got the title and made some changes and so on. Yeah, it was among the first government houses that were sold privately.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. What was life like in the community around there? Do you remember any sort of community events?</p>
<p>Freshley: Yup. Town Theater was there. Actually showing movies, of course. Mm, I don’t know how to answer that. I would say it was pretty normal. Did a lot of outdoor activities, a lot of snow skiing at Tollgate—I don’t know if you know where Tollgate is.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: I’m new to the area.</p>
<p>Freshley: Oh, are you? Okay. It’s in the Blue Mountains. A lot of boating activities. We had a canoe and enjoyed that. Things like that.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Great.</p>
<p>Freshley: Pretty normal, I would say. Wouldn’t you?</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure.</p>
<p>Freshley: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Did you ever feel like the sort of larger scale politics of the day ever impacted your life whether—Cold War security issues or changing Presidents or any of that?</p>
<p>Freshley: I can’t relate to that. I was not politically inclined like some people you know. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Sure. Let’s see. This is sort of a similar question, so we don’t have to go into too much detail. Any memories of the social scene, local politics, or other insights into life in the Tri-Cities over the time you lived here?</p>
<p>Freshley: Over what time period? Oh.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: In the time you lived here.</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, like I said, I’m not politically oriented, so if there were these things happening, I was pretty isolated from them.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. Could you describe any ways in which security and/or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work?</p>
<p>Freshley: No, I really can’t, except 234-5 Building, every time you went out there, you had to have your badge and security. I think even in the Plutonium Finishing Plant, there probably—I think there were—additional security requirements.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in Richland during the Cold War?</p>
<p>Freshley: [LAUGHTER] Well, I wouldn’t know how to answer that. I would say, from my experience, it was very normal. I guess if there were security requirements and things like that, you just kind of got used to it, and you didn’t—it wasn’t something that stood out. I think that’s true.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Okay. So what haven’t I asked about that I should ask about? What else is there I should be asking about?</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, how do I answer that? I don’t know. I think we’ve covered my experience pretty thoroughly. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Well, we don’t have to dwell on it if nothing comes to mind.</p>
<p>Freshley: No.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: It is an open-ended question.</p>
<p>Freshley: Well, what happened, after we bought our ranch house, the government didn’t come around and change our light bulbs anymore. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>O’Reagan: Oh, really? Did you have to—how much of a transition was that once you sort of became a homeowner? Was it--?</p>
<p>Freshley: Oh, it was a good transition, from my standpoint. You could do things—like we made modifications to the house. It was our house. It wasn’t controlled by the government—or owned by the government. So that made a big difference. You had a lot more freedom and so on in what you did and how you did it.</p>
<p>O’Reagan: All right. Well, thanks so much. This is very, very interesting, very useful.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:06:39
Bit Rate/Frequency
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317 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 Area
324 Area
3706 Building
N Reactor
Plutonium Finishing Plant
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1951-today
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1951-1993
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
John Fox
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 Max Freshley
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Max Freshley 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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02-10-2016
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.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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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.
300 Area
324 Building
3706 Building
Battelle
Cold War
Engineering Test Reactor
General Electric
Hanford
Livermore
Los Alamo
Los Alamos
Mountain
Mountains
N Reactor
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Plutonium
Plutonium Finishing Plant
River
Savannah River
School
Street
Theater
War
Westinghouse
-
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b57899b4456572c689b8c6aaa528cfed
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F583865462e4fa6396d8d362c783d5ae2.mp4
1a5d0b226d8d91e261ba39aaba60fd79
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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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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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 Franklin
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
George Boice
Location
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Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Tom Hungate: Okay.</p>
<p>Robert Franklin: You ready, Tom?</p>
<p>Hungate: Mm-hm.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with George Boice on July 15<sup>th</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mr. Boice about his experiences living in Richland. So why don’t we start at the beginning, that’s the best place. When and where were you born?</p>
<p>George Boice: I was born in Ellensburg. A third generation native of the state of Washington. My father and my grandmother were born in Cle Elum.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: We came through this—the tribe came through this territory and crossed the White Bluffs ferry in 1885. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And went up to the Kittitas County area. And then we came back later. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: What year were you born?</p>
<p>Boice: ’37.</p>
<p>Franklin: ’37. Did your family work at all at the coal mine in Roslyn?</p>
<p>Boice: Yes. [LAUGHTER] Short answers. My grandmother’s brother, Uncle Tony, was a mine rescue worker up there at Roslyn.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: You go up to Roslyn, that is interesting. Ever been there?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes, I have.</p>
<p>Boice: 27 cemeteries. Just neater than all get out. [LAUGHTER] The different ethnic groups up there. They talk about one Fourth of July, the Italians were going to raise the Italian flag in the main street there. Some of the local citizens took a dim view of it. And some wagons were turned on their side and the Winchesters came out, and the sweet little old lady got out there and got everybody calmed down before the shooting started. [LAUGHTER] But the flag didn’t go up. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. So what brought your family down to the Hanford area?</p>
<p>Boice: My—[LAUGHTER] When they started Hanford—Dad was a firefighter in Ellensburg, had been for a few years. And when they set up Hanford, the first thing they did for a fire department was pick up the retired fire chief out of Yakima. Well, he goes around to the local fire departments and starts hydrating citizens. [LAUGHTER] So, Dad came down here in ’43 as the ninth man hired at the Hanford Fire Department. Always claimed that half of them had been canned before he got there. [LAUGHTER] So he went to work in ’43—June of ’43 at Hanford. We were still there at Ellensburg, and we didn’t come down here ‘til summer of ’44.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And they were still moving prefabs in, and unloading them with rapid shape.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did your father commute at this time, or did he live on—</p>
<p>Boice: Uh-unh. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Where did he—do you know much about his living quarters or where he lived?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, there were barracks.</p>
<p>Franklin: So he lived in the barracks?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Did he come back to visit at all?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Wasn’t but—hell, by the time you get up to the Hanford area, it’s just over the ridge. [LAUGHTER] So he’d come in every couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. How many siblings do you have?</p>
<p>Boice: One of each—one brother, one sister.</p>
<p>Franklin: Older, younger?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah. My brother was born in Kadlec in September of ’45. My sister was—well, they bracket the war. She was born about a month before it started—or right after it started. She was born in December of ’41.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And he was born September of ’45.</p>
<p>Franklin: So can you talk a little more about your father’s job at Hanford? What did he—did he talk much about what he did, or—</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah! You know. The place is building up, it’s trying to erupt. You’ve got construction going all directions. Trailer house fires. He talked about them [EMOTIONAL]—how quick people died in them damn trailer houses. They’d go up in a matter of seconds. And there were acres of them. But yeah, it was—And the amount of nothing to do. I mean, you had time to work and then there was really no recreational facilities. He worked at a grocery store for a while in his off hours stocking milk. He said it was not unusual to work a whole shift with a forklift or a handcart walking out of the stack and filling the same slot behind the counter there. We came over twice to visit him at Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Before you moved—</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: --in ’44. Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: You drive across the Vantage Bridge, and somebody had gone through with a grader and graded out a dirt-slash-gravel road. And we drove around and down, and across the Hanford ferry into Hanford. Because you could get into Hanford; it wasn’t restricted—the town. Everything else was. So getting in and out of Hanford was no trick. Getting out of the surrounding area was. So my mom and I and my grandfather went down there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. And where did you stay? Did you just go for the day?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, we didn’t—when I was there, we didn’t stay. We just went for the day and went home.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: But Mom talks about going down and staying overnight. [LAUGHTER] She says she was not warned. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Warned about what?</p>
<p>Boice: To keep everything you wanted nailed down.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh.</p>
<p>Boice: She got up in the morning and somebody stole her girdle. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. So when your family moved in summer of ’44, where did you move to?</p>
<p>Boice: 17-1.</p>
<p>Franklin: 17-1?</p>
<p>Boice: That was the lot number and the house number. It is now 1033 Sanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah.</p>
<p>Boice: It’s on the southwest corner of Sanford and Putnam.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup. I live right by there.</p>
<p>Boice: We went in there and it was—they had—you can’t describe to people how they had come in there and just dozed the farmland over, staked out streets and planted houses. And hauled them in on trucks and set them down. We were fortunate—I didn’t realize how fortunate it was—in the fact that we had only come about 100 miles or so—we came in a truck. We had our stuff. Mom had her piano. And I can’t tell you how many times women would come up and bang on the door, can I play your piano?</p>
<p>Franklin: Really?</p>
<p>Boice: Strangers off the street. Just because it was there, and it was—so we had all kind of musical stuff. Everybody could play better than Mom could. But we had the piano.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And she had her houseplants. It was different. But there was no trees in Richland. There wasn’t three blades of grass! [LAUGHTER] You’d come in, you got a garden hose and a plastic nozzle. You hosed down your lot and it immediately became a slick, slimy mud pile. Great for kids to play in! Man, we could slide in that mud across there—it was really cool! And then when it dried up, why, it reticulated like a picture puzzle. So we’re picking chunks up and stacking them up and building houses. And Mom gets up and she’s just madder than a wet hen, so we had to put the lawn back together. [LAUGHTER] But the hose nozzles were so interesting, because when you had a plastic nozzle, but you couldn’t get anything else. There was a hardware store here, eventually, but they didn’t handle stuff like that. This was a war going on. And the ingenuity that went into lawn sprinklers would just boggle your mind! The cutest one I remember was some guy took a chunk of surgical tubing—he got a bent pipe for an uppensticker. And he stretched his hunk of surgical tubing over the end of it, turned the water on, and it was not efficiently watering his area, but he could flail water all over a half an acre! [LAUGHTER] That was one of the cuter ones. There was also no shade and no air conditioning.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: Coming down in a moving truck, Dad brought his carpenter tools, he brought his bench, and he set to work building an air conditioner. Now, this was the dog-gonedest thing you ever saw. He got some burlap sacks and set out there with scrap lumber in the backyard on his workbench just creating shavings out of boards. Fill these burlap sacks with wood shavings for the pads for his air conditioner. He got a motor out of I-don’t-know-what. It was an appliance motor out of something. And he whittled out this propeller out of a two-by-four. And he cranked this thing up and it sounded like a B-29. [LAUGHTER] But it would blow sort of cool air, which raised the wrath of the neighbors. Number one was the racket he was making. Number two was we had air conditioning. So immediately, guys come out of the woodwork in all directions. Guy next door was a sheet metal worker. He came home with parts to make a much better, more efficient fan that was quieter. [LAUGHTER] So they set to work building him one. [LAUGHTER] We made air conditioners—you come up with a motor, and they would come up with an air conditioner. And we would deliver them on the back of my little red wagon. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Where would you put that? Like, would that just go in the window?</p>
<p>Boice: We put it in a window.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. And how would you attach it to the house?</p>
<p>Boice: Ingeniously! Most often, they would just build a rack underneath, a shelf on top, and set it up on top there. A houses, you wanted to put your air conditioner—at least about everybody did—set it at the top of the stairs where it would blow out the upstairs and cool your downstairs. They were reasonably efficient. The one thing about all the homemade air conditioners—very few of them, if any, had a recirculating system. So you had to use fresh water. This had two sides to it. You didn’t crud up your water system with alkali by reusing your water. But you did have to go out there and keep moving your hose where it drained out to water your lawn.</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Wow. What kind of house did your family move into?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, originally we had a three-bedroom prefab. Prefabs come in three sizes and five colors. And a bunch of very ingenious kids on Halloween 1944 went out and stole the damn street signs. The buses coming back off of swing shift had no earthly idea where they were going. They wandered around town, because all the houses looked alike! [LAUGHTER] Then after a while—oh, let’s see, we moved in in August, and about the following spring—because we started out school at Sacajawea and then at Christmas vacation they changed us to Marcus Whitman. But up there on Longfitt, thereabouts, I was coming home from school and here sits the roof of a prefab right out in the middle of the street. Apparently, this guy was sleeping and a windstorm come along and picked up his whole roof and set it out in the middle of the street. Thereafter they had a crew of carpenters going around fastening the rooves of the prefabs down a little tighter.</p>
<p>Franklin: Because at that time, right, they had flat rooves.</p>
<p>Boice: Flat rooves.</p>
<p>Franklin: Correct? That kind of overhung a bit, something that the wind could really easily—</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: --grab ahold and pop off. Do you remember when they got the gabled rooves that they all have now?</p>
<p>Boice: No, I don’t, because I was—I think after we left, but I wouldn’t bet heavy money on it. We moved off the prefab in ’45.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And into an A house on Swift. I don’t recall when they put the gabled rooves on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. So what did your mom do? Did she work at Hanford at all?</p>
<p>Boice: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: No?</p>
<p>Boice: She was a stay-at-home mom.</p>
<p>Franklin: Stay-at-home mom?</p>
<p>Boice: It was such an interesting place. The buses ran every 30 minutes. No charge, just go out and get on the bus. One of my main jobs was—because there was no mail delivery, everybody in Richland got their mail general delivery. So I’d take the bus, go downtown, get off at the post office, check the mail, go down to the grocery store—and there was only one—that was a brief period, but then there was only one grocery store at that time. And that’s where that ski rental shop is—kayak rental shop on the corner of Lee and GW?</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Boice: That was the grocery store. The one and only. Shortly thereafter, Safeway opened up on the corner of—southwest corner of Lee and Jadwin. So things picked up. And then there was—they come up with the community center grocery store—whatever you want to call them. There was one at Thayer and Williams, which was the Groceteria. Garmo’s was out there on Stevens and Jadwin—no, Symons and something-or-other. The south end of town was—oh, nuts. He was the one that survived—Campbell’s. Campbell’s grocery store. He specialized in fresh fruit and stuff, and of the whole pile of them, he was the one that really come out of it in good shape. But the fourth one is now the school office, up there by Marcus Whitman. That was a grocery store.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: But you go down, you do your post office work, and then you go and get your groceries, and if you’re lucky you get ten cents. Next bus home. You know where the Knights of Columbus Hall is out on the bypass?</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Boice: That used to be—originally that was the Richland post office.</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Boice: It’s up there at Knight and GW, I think. There wasn’t a whole bunch of shopping centers. The Richland Theater was in existence. The drug store next door to it was there. After a while, the big brown building, which was everything, at that time, when it opened up it was CC Anderson’s. Then there was the dime store, and, oh, we were hot and heavy then. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you tell me a little more about your dad’s job? What would a typical day or a typical week look like for someone who worked on the fire department?</p>
<p>Boice: On the fire department, there is no such thing as typical. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: It was wild. In the beginning, they opened up—they were on shifts. Like everything was on day shifts, swing shift, graveyard. In our neighborhood, after my brother was born, we moved down to Swift and McPherson. Dad had come into town by that time. If you go behind the Richland Theater, you look real close, there’s two B houses back there. One of them’s a real B house and the other one ain’t. You look at the B houses over here, and the other one that ain’t is over here. And you look real close at the driveways. That was the original fire station that the City of Richland had going. That was the fire station when Hanford came in. Then they built a fire station on Jadwin in conjunction with the housing building and a couple other things, right across from the 700 Area, which is what they wanted, was coverage on that 700 Area. So that was the downtown fire station. And when they opened that up, why, then Dad came up out of Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: He wasn’t too long there, and they opened one up Williams off of Thayer, in behind the Groceteria and a little service station up there with a small satellite fire station. Two trucks and one crew. Dad was there for years and years and years.</p>
<p>Franklin: How long did your dad work for Hanford or the government here?</p>
<p>Boice: Like I say, he came in in ’43 and retired in the early ‘70s.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Rode her right on through.</p>
<p>Franklin: So what did he do when the community transitioned in ’58?</p>
<p>Boice: They bought him!</p>
<p>Franklin: The City of Richland did?</p>
<p>Boice: Yup, the City of Richland bought the outstanding time and he rolled right over.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So can you talk a little bit more about growing up here? You said you went to Marcus Whitman and then to—and then what other schools did you go to?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, like I say, there was no shade.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: And very few radio stations. With a good shot you could get in Yakima, Spokane, and Walla Walla, and that was about it. So we sat around in the shade, and my mother read us stories. [LAUGHTER] One of them was a book we picked up in Walla Walla about Sacajawea. She read us the entire story of Sacajawea and the Shoshones and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, et cetera, et cetera. And in ’44, they opened up Sacajawea School. Now, as everybody does, they did their darnedest to convert us kids to saying Sah-CAH-jah-wee-ah. It didn’t take. [LAUGHTER] Because there was already Sacajawea State Park and everybody was using the term Sacajawea. But Sah-CAH-jah-wee-ah—they tried. They gave it their level best. It didn’t take. But the time that they were doing this, Miss Jesson was a teacher there was giving us the thumbnail sketch about Sacajawea. She did a pretty good job—well, you know, she told you what she knew. And she made mention of the fact that she was married to a trapper, but they didn’t know what his name or anything about him. I says, his name was Toussaint Charbonneau. He got her off a wolf man of the minute carriage for a white buffalo robe. My status went up. [LAUGHTER] And the teachers wanted to know where in the cat hair I learned that. Well, Mom read us the book. But I’ve always liked Sacajawea School. Just kind of a kinship. We went—in ’45, they opened up Marcus Whitman. We went there ’45 was all, because when they broke for the summer, we were over by—we moved. By the next fall we were over in the area where I could go to Sacajawea again. But we were going to Marcus Whitman when Roosevelt was shot—died. So that was the event of the time. You watched the transition of one President to another. The flag ceremony—the whole thing—it was interesting for a kid.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet. What do you remember about during the war years that kind of focus on secrecy and security? How did that affect your life and your family’s life?</p>
<p>Boice: You didn’t talk to nobody about nothing! [LAUGHTER] I mean, that was just the words. You didn’t talk about—if somebody asks you what your dad does, you talk about something else. It was so interesting here in the last year, I think—time goes quicker now. A whole bunch of us from that neighborhood on Swift went to a funeral—this boy’s mother—well, yeah—Bill’s mother’s 100<sup>th</sup> birthday, after the funeral they had a sit-down dinner. I happened to sit down at the table with the whole kids of the old neighborhood. And we’re talking about all this stuff, and the secrecy, and the ones you watch out for—this girl over here. Yeah. She didn’t share the secrets with the neighbors when they were talking about who’s got butter on sale. They didn’t tell her anymore. She fried her food in butter. So no one would tell her where the butter sales were when it was available. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Was there any mention of the work going on at Hanford at school that you can remember?</p>
<p>Boice: The one thing of what was going on, and it wasn’t the work at Hanford, because nobody talked about that. But when the Japs were sending over the firebombs—</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, the balloon bombs.</p>
<p>Boice: Yes. We were told to write no letters, tell nobody, because they didn’t want it to get out how blinking effective they were.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. The fear of these bombs from the sky—</p>
<p>Boice: They were hitting, and they were working.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: You guys are in the right position to find out. But there was a rumor going around that a balloon-loaded Jap had landed out there in the area and they caught him and bundled him up and carted him off before they did any business. Okay, la-di-da-di-da. There’s rumors about one thing and another. And four or five years ago, CNN or one of these, they were talking about the weather balloons. They showed the colored pictures taken out here at Hanford of the balloons landing in the BPA lines and burning up. [LAUGHTER] End of speech, end of story. [LAUGHTER] But I was surprised to find out that something had happened. There was no soldiers attached or anything else, but there was an incident.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, we’ve—there are a couple confirmed reports of—we actually did an oral history with a gentleman whose father had been a patrolman and had seen one of the balloons land and had to chase it down and didn’t realize right away that it was—had explosives attached to it. The others—there’s a couple reports of them touching down onsite. And there was a family that was killed in Idaho where they were picnicking and a balloon came down.</p>
<p>Boice: Idaho or Oregon?</p>
<p>Franklin: I think it was—oh, that’s right, maybe it was Oregon.</p>
<p>Boice: K Falls.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes.</p>
<p>Boice: You go to the museum in Klamath Falls had the—or when I went through it—I was working down there twenty years ago or so—they had a big display of the family that was picnicking and the kids went to prod on it, and it went off and killed a girl.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. Were there—when you were—so we’re still in the World War II era and we’ll definitely get to the Cold War in a bit—but were there any kind of—what do you remember about like emergency procedures in school? Was there anything special, kind of drills or something during World War II?</p>
<p>Boice: You mean the duck-and-cover?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that kind of stuff. Was there any duck-and-cover during World War II?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Of course—my kindergarten days—now, man. Lived across the street from the college there at Ellensburg, and firebombs were to be worried about. But I was covered. I had a bucket full of sand and a shovel, and it was there on the front porch. When the firebomb came through there, I was going to put my sand on it. So we were prepared. God help us if it landed any place else. [LAUGHTER] But the beginning of the war when I was a kid in Ellensburg was so funny, because we were living right across the street from the college and everything was just the standard college. And the war started, and immediately, there’s all these people running around here that can’t count. Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four. I wasn’t even in kindergarten, and I knew about my ones! [LAUGHTER] And there was—you go across the street and around the corner, and there was this one half basement room where I could stand there and watch the guys play shirts-and-skins basketball. And the next time I looked, here’s a skeleton of a single engine aircraft, and a guy instructing people on how to make dead stick landing. Now, of all the damned things for a four-year-old kid to remember, dead stick landings was what he was talking about. And they had this thing skeletonized where they could show the internal workings of all the aeronautics.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: But in Richland—oh, yes. Duck-and-cover fire drills. But they never talked about nuclear, because it was yet to be discovered. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, right. So Ellensburg then quickly became inundated with—the state college there became a training area?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah. Just that fast.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. In your notes here, I also see you mentioned about the heavy military presence and the olive drab everywhere and the cops in Army uniforms.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER] It absolutely was. Richland was strictly OD. I think they only had one bucket of paint. But all the vehicles were olive drab. The buses were, on today’s standards, I’ll call them a three-quarter size school bus painted olive drab. The vehicles were anything they could scrounge up, because I remember two GIs in a ’37 Chev coupe, and I know today some farmer had taken the trunk out and made a pickup box out of it. But they scrounged this thing up someplace, painted it OD, and here’s the MPs running around in a ’37 Chev pickup. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER] A homemade pickup?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah. It was years later that I found out—Dad didn’t say anything about it, and he certainly knew—that it was simple, because the war was going on. Everything was prioritized. But they had unlimited supply of uniforms. So they put the cops in soldiers’ uniforms; the firemen were in Navy uniforms. The firemen stood out and were very easily recognizable, but you couldn’t tell the soldiers and the cops apart, because they all had the same stuff on. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. A couple oral histories we’ve done with people that were children in Richland, a couple of them mentioned their fathers had taken them onsite somewhat clandestinely. Did your father ever take you onsite into a secured area?</p>
<p>Boice: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you ever get access to any of that some way?</p>
<p>Boice: No, I did not go to any secured area.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: I was raised running in and out of fire stations. To this day, when I go through the door of a fire station, my hands go into my pockets. You’re allowed to touch nothing. Because you leave fingerprints. [LAUGHTER] It’s just a genuine reflex.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah! So you said that you went to Sacajawea, then to Marcus Whitman then back to Sacajawea. Then where did you go to high school?</p>
<p>Boice: We went through all of the—I’ll call it the school construction. They couldn’t build schools fast enough in Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet.</p>
<p>Boice: We had double shifts. Now they have these temporary quarters—whatever you call them. But we had hutments. Sacajawea had six hutments out there. They built the hutments, and then they went to double shifts. So you went to school at 8:00, and at noon they marched out, teacher and all, and our class marched in, and we went home at 4:30 or 5:00, something like that. So we went through all of that, and then in ’49, they opened Carmichael. A brand new junior high school, man, this is cool! And I was in the seventh grade in Carmichael and I are still the proud possessor of ASB cord 001, 1949, Carmichael Junior High School. The first one they ever gave out. [LAUGHTER] And that was neat, to have a real hard-built school. It was—oh, we had class. After three months, we moved to Kennewick. The Kennewick school system—</p>
<p>Franklin: Your family did, or--?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah!</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Dad stayed in Richland, but they were selling off. And if you didn’t have priority, the houses went to the guy that was there first. And in that A house, we were in second, so we were not in line to buy the house.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: So, Dad got a piece of property in Kennewick and we moved to Kennewick. And what a school system mess.</p>
<p>Franklin: Why?</p>
<p>Boice: They were behind. They couldn’t get money quick enough. They couldn’t build stuff fast enough. They had the red brick building—forget what it was called. It had been a high school at one time, and they pressed it back into service. It was so overcrowded you couldn’t believe it. But they finally built the high school that’s there now. It opened in ’52, I believe. ’51—yeah, class of ’52 was the first one to graduate—’52 or ’53. Graduated from Erwin S. Black Senior High School. And it was Erwin S. Black Senior High School one year. Because he was the school superintendent, and they built the school—they named the school in his honor because he had gone to bat and made trips back and forth to Washington, DC to cash some money to use for the school system. Then they got in a shooting match with the <em>Tri-City Herald</em>. [LAUGHTER] And Erwin S. Black and the schoolboard got run out of town, and they chiseled his name off the front of the school. But for one year it was E.S. Black.</p>
<p>Franklin: And then it just became Kennewick High School.</p>
<p>Boice: It became Kennewick High School.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you talk a little bit more about this disagreement between Erwin S. Black and the schoolboard and the <em>Tri-City Herald</em>?</p>
<p>Boice: It was several things. One of them, there was a book—and I can’t recall—Magruder? McGregor? Somebody. It was a history book, and it mentioned communism. And that was brought up and made a big deal. This was back in the McCarthy era.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: That was brought out. And there was a lot of talk—Black was a certified building inspector, and he inspected the construction of the high school. It was said by a lot of people that it wasn’t up to standards; that the concrete wasn’t what it should have been. And I don’t know what the specs were. I wasn’t into concrete work at that time. I have been later. But I know when we were hanging the benches in the ag shop, where you would put a concrete anchor in the wall ordinarily and it would hold, they didn’t there. And they had to through-bolt through the wall to get to things to hang. So there was—and transfer of equipment and stuff—this was swapped for that, and that was swapped for this—and I don’t remember that, and the only guy I know that did know has died. [LAUGHTER] But one of the kids that graduated from Erwin S. Black, one of the few that was in that class, worked with him off and on and was aware of what went on.</p>
<p>Franklin: When you said that there was a book that mentioned communism, did it mention it in a favorable light, or did it just make a mention to communism?</p>
<p>Boice: More or less, it just made a mention.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: I was on the—oh, we had the open house at the school, and I was one of the tour guides. Yeah, I showed them the book and what it had to say. And I don’t recall anything drastic.</p>
<p>Franklin: So then did you graduate from Kennewick High School?</p>
<p>Boice: No. [LAUGHTER] The military had a hell of a sale. Anybody that enlisted by the first of February got the Korean GI Bill of Rights. And those that enlisted afterwards didn’t. So I drug up in January and joined the Air Force.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh. Without graduating.</p>
<p>Boice: Without graduating.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Interesting.</p>
<p>Boice: So I served my illustrious military career in a photo lab in Mountain Home, Idaho. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: And how long were you in the Air Force?</p>
<p>Boice: Two years.</p>
<p>Franklin: Two years, and then you were discharged?</p>
<p>Boice: Yes, yup, yup.</p>
<p>Franklin: When you were in school, you mentioned being in school during this McCarthy era, one of the real hot points of the Cold War. Can you talk a little bit about the civil defense procedures and kind of the general feeling of that time as it related to—because I imagine with Hanford so close, and now knowing what was being produced there, that would have been a likely target. It’s a major part of the nuclear weapons stockpile. So can you talk a little bit about that time and just the general feeling?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, you knew what was going to happen—or what they said was gonna happen. It was the duck-and-cover thing. And we had drills. A lot of what they said what was gonna happen—now they talk about getting into water to modulate it. Then, it was one of the things that they didn’t want you to do. Because we had the irrigation ditch that was running right alongside of the schools. But then they didn’t want you to get into it. So, it’s changed. They had the civil defense procedures—Radiant Cleaners, they’re in Kennewick. They had panel delivery cleaner trucks. They were rigged for emergency ambulances. They had fold-down bunks in them; they could handle four people. [LAUGHTER] It was taken serious.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you feel any particular sense of worry, or did it not seem to really affect you, your daily life or your psychological—</p>
<p>Boice: It never bothered me ‘til years afterwards. When they talked about the Green Run, where they turned a bunch of that stuff loose, just to see what it would do to the citizens and count the drift on it. The people that had—the down-winders, and the people that had the thyroid problems. My sister was one of the first rounds that went to court over that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Really?</p>
<p>Boice: Because she was—we moved into Richland. She had her third birthday in the prefab, when they were still practicing how to build this stuff. And then we moved in on a farm where the alfalfa grew, the cow ate it, gave them milk, and everything was recycled and nothing went over the fence. And so it bothered me, then, that they used us as guinea pigs. But the other hand, they really didn’t know what in the cat hair that they were doing in a lot of cases. The nuclear waste? You’ve heard about the radioactive rabbit turds.</p>
<p>Franklin: I have.</p>
<p>Boice: You have?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes, I have, but why don’t you mention that?</p>
<p>Boice: I was working with Vitro out here—’72, I think it was. The radioactivity, of course, is settled on the sagebrush. And the rabbits went around eating the leaves, just leaving fat, dumb and happy, and concentrating everything into the rabbit turds. And they were contemplating taking the top six inches of about two or three sections and burying it. Only they couldn’t decide where they had to build the hole. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: When you—you mentioned just a minute ago that you were on a farm, and you had the cows that would have eaten the tainted alfalfa—was your milk ever tested? Or did anyone ever come and--</p>
<p>Boice: Nah. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: test your—Were you ever tested for—or your family, anybody in your family, ever tested for radiation? Because I know that they, at one point, had those Whole Body Counters that they would test—some children in Pasco were tested through those machines?</p>
<p>Boice: You ever been through a Whole Body Counter?</p>
<p>Franklin: I have not been through a Whole Body Counter.</p>
<p>Boice: Depending on where you’re at, there may or may not be a—they’re kind of a joke. Now, when I was working here at Vitro, we went through the Whole Body thing, and they were serious. I mean, before we got cleared out, we went through the chamber, and we were counted. I went to work in South Carolina. They—as far as I was concerned—were very sloppy with their radiation handling and their checking and their radiation monitoring. We had a hand-and-foot monitoring station where we was going in and out of. You stick your hands in and they check it, and your feet were there at the same time. Well, this one time, I come up pretty hot, so I found an RM. I says, that machine gave me a bad reading. Oh, he says, that machine’s no good anyway. Come around to this other one over here and we’ll check you out. Well, if the blinking thing’s no good, why in the cat hair are we using it?! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So, just a second ago, you mentioned you were working for Vitro?</p>
<p>Boice: Uh-huh.</p>
<p>Franklin: What is or was Vitro?</p>
<p>Boice: What was Vitro? Okay. Vitro Engineering—and I don’t know how many times the name changed hands. But these guys were the ones that laid out the City of Richland—laid out the Hanford Projects. These were the strictly insiders. There was pictures on a wall of my grade school buddy’s dad, who I remember being a surveyor in Richland there. And these guys—this has gone on forever, and they were a pretty dug-in organization. To the point that they were not really aware that there was a world outside the fence. They’d heard about it, but they weren’t too sure it existed. [LAUGHTER] But I ended up at Vitro, and we did the Tank Farms that they’re having problems with, the hot tanks? We were in on the modification of that farm. We surveyed in there quite a bit. Whenever they show the pictures on TV, they always show you the evaporation facility. They show you that same picture. Warren Wolfe and I—I say Warren and I—it’s a little—our crew brought that up out of the ground, and we modified the tank farm, and we laid out the construction on that building from the ground right through the top.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And I was very fortunate, because all my surveying experience to that point was with the railroads and pipelines and longline work. Construction surveying was new to me. And I got throwed in with an old boy that was good at it. [LAUGHTER] And I learned a bunch working with him. And rolled right over, later on, into Hanford, too. We got in on the end of that—[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Hanford II?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, as--T-O-O. And which building was this that you and Warren Wolfe and your crew built?</p>
<p>Boice: All I remember is the evaporation facility.</p>
<p>Franklin: What was your specific job at Vitro? Were you a surveyor?</p>
<p>Boice: I was a surveyor. I was an instrument man. You get in the hot zones—we got inside the Canyon Building on several different occasions. And you got suited up, and I was instructed very specifically and emphatically to touch nothing, because anything that got crapped up, they kept. And we couldn’t get the instruments crapped up. But that stuff was so hot that the paper—the Rite-in-the-Rain books have got a specific paper there that has pitch in it or something—it attracts radioactivity like a sponge. And when they kept the notes, then one of us would stay inside and the other guy would get out in the clean zone, and we’d have to transcribe all the notes, because that book was so hot that they wouldn’t let it out of the area. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: There was some weird stuff going on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Any other—</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, but there’s some I ain’t gonna talk about. [LAUGHTER] Okay. We came so close to having a nuclear disaster, it wasn’t even funny. We were good. We were awful good. And we were fast. And we were set up out there on an offset, and Rosie the labor foreman come over. Somebody said you needed a shot here for a hole for a penetration into the tank. Man, we whipped that out and figured the pull and what it was gonna take. Swung over there, put a distance and an angle, drove the stake in the ground. I figured that Warren checked it, and away we went. We come back in a week or so, or a few days later, we were back in that same farm. And Rosie comes over there and he says, would you guys check that again? Because these guys was digging a hole there and they’re supposed to hit a tank. And we checked it. And I lied, and Warren swore to it. [LAUGHTER] We forgot we was on a ten-foot offset. So they’re digging clear to one side of this tank, and just good solid dirt. Had we been just half as screwed-up as we were, they would have gone right down the edge of that tank with a core drill. And we’d have had ooey-gooeys all over the place. They talked to us. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Kind of a happy accident, right?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, we were—I’ll never forget Warren’s work. He’d come back with the boss and he says, name me one guy in this world ever got through this life being perfect. He says, always pissed me off, he’s a damned carpenter. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So you went to—you joined the Air Force, you went to Idaho for two years. When you came back—or what did you do after that? Did you come back to Richland after?</p>
<p>Boice: We were living in Kennewick.</p>
<p>Franklin: Living in Kennewick.</p>
<p>Boice: And I was working at the Washington Hardware Store. And this kid—we were working on cars in my buddy’s garage. And this guy comes through and he’s surveying for the Corps. And he talked that they were setting up a photogrammetry section. Well, heck, that’s what I was doing in the service. So, I beat feet over to Walla Walla to sign up to lay out photo mosaics. And they say, we haven’t got enough work for fulltime at that job. Are you a draftsman? No, I are not a draftsman. He says, would you take a job surveying? You bet. I became a surveyor. [LAUGHTER] And we worked from the mouth of the Deschutes River to Lewiston, Idaho. The first thing was the mouth of the Deschutes to McNary Dam—we mapped from the water level to the top of the bluffs by hand.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And then we went through, starting in ’58, and we inventoried the railroad. Now, when you inventory a railroad, we inventoried a railroad. Everything they possessed was put down. First, you go through and you measure and put stations—mark station markings on the rails. 80 miles of them. Then you go back and you reference everything the railroad’s got. Ties, spikes, tie plates, rails, joints, joint bars—if the fence moves, how far did it move, from what to what? If the rail changes, if there’s an isolation joint in there, you put that in. When you come to a switch, you measure everything that’s in the switch facility. You go—everything that that railroad has got. You become very, very familiar with railroads. [LAUGHTER] And then we went ahead, and we built railroads clear up to Lewistown. We handled a railroad layout real heavy. When they—are you familiar with the Marmes men?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes.</p>
<p>Boice: Luck of the draw, I was on that. Because we were the—call it the resident survey crew in that area.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh.</p>
<p>Boice: And we were babysitting construction. Make sure they got sticks out ahead of them, make sure that things are checked out behind them. They’re putting in a detour, why, check that out. They’re building a bridge, make sure it’s set up right, and check it out when they get done. So, first they call up and they say, there’s a guy down here at the mouth of the Palouse River thinks he hit something, and he wants an elevation on this cave, see where the water’s gonna come when they raise the water behind Lower Monumental, I believe.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I think that sounds right.</p>
<p>Boice: Is that the dam? So we went down there and run him in an elevation, painted it on the cave face. Happily on our way. Well, they hit pay dirt. [LAUGHTER] They dug up bones. So we were called back. They wanted—because the drillers were in there then doing sub-cell drilling of what’s down there. So we got to come in there and locate their holes so they know where what is. That was interesting. The whole thing. Now that the world has got into this Ice Age floods and stuff, I wish so heavily that I knew then what I know now. Because the layers that they went through were very definitely visible. This thing had been covered in various floods. But it was so interesting, the stuff that they found. Because it became an international incident. One of the coolest cats in the whole joint was Pono the Greek. And Pono run the sluice box. He had been all over the world. When the girls dug everything out, then they took the dirt to Pono, and he washed it down. Pono found thread of somebody’s sewing. Then they found the needle. And that to me was so cool. They had this needle that looked for all the world like a darning needle. How in the blazes they cut that eye in there! This was a really heads-up organization. [LAUGHTER] Interesting. Very interesting.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that was a very significant archaeological find.</p>
<p>Boice: I’ve got to go back some day and talk to that doctor. At an anniversary of something, we’re down here at Columbia Park, and he was talking and I showed up there with the historical society doing something-or-other. And I talked to him for about five minutes. He mentioned the fact that he wanted to see the guy that painted that elevation. I said, well, you’re looking at him. [LAUGHTER] It was—I got to go talk to him. Because one of the things in their report—they talked that the ditch was dug with a Cat. Now, I ain’t saying they’re wrong, because I didn’t see any digging when I was there. But just—as you’re going up and looking at a hole, and in those days we had looked at a bunch of holes—we were inspectors. They were going behind the soils guys. And it just to me had all the appearance of somebody that dug a ditch with a dragline. And I always figured it was a dragline in there, and somebody said it was a Cat. I don’t totally agree with him. But the bones were so interesting. They said that the one thing about the site was there had been somebody living on it forever. Just, the further down you went, the more primitive they became, ‘til you got past the layer of the Mazama ash, when Crater Lake blew its top. And they went past Mazama ash and suddenly things looked pretty sophisticated. That’s where the needle came from and a few other things. It was neat. I’d have liked to spend more time with them.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. I’m sure you heard about the dam failing and the site flooding after they—because they created the protective dam around the shelter, and that failed and let water in.</p>
<p>Boice: It didn’t fail! The SOB was never built to hold! When they brought us down there to check these drill holes out, the drillers—we had other stuff to do that morning, and we didn’t get down there until 10:00. The driller had a half-a-dozen holes in. I’m talking to this old driller, and he says, they ain’t never gonna keep water out of that thing, because there’s a layer of palm wood down there and it’s gonna leak like a sieve. But they did it anyway. And we’re down there checking on settlement pins and a whole bunch of other stuff when the water’s coming up. But we’re all on the radio, and it’s like a big one-party line—you can hear what’s going on no matter where. And they’re putting in pumps, and the more pumps they put in, the more water they sprayed out, but noting changed. [LAUGHTER] So it’s a lovely fishing pond. But interesting: it was shortly thereafter that I quit the corps and went to Alaska. Within a year-and-a-half, two years, I’m up there doing the same thing, only instead of spotting holes in the ground, we’re spotting oil wells. And sitting in a warm-up shack, talking to a driller, and he made mention of the fact that they had spudded oil wells. Now, when they spud an oil well, they get in there with an oversized auger, like you’re setting telephone poles. And they go down there through the mud and the blood and the crud ‘til they get to solid rock. And then they bring in the drills. And he says, we have yet to spud a well here that we didn’t get palm wood. And that has always sat with me. Now, when they’re talking about global warming—if there has been palm trees growing at the mouth of the Palouse River, and palm trees growing at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, it’s been a lot warmer than people are willing to talk about. [LAUGHTER] Just boggles my mind that there is palm wood in Alaska as well as Marmes Rockshelter.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, that’s really interesting. So you were—Marmes, then Alaska. When did you come to work for Vitro at Hanford?</p>
<p>Boice: That was a pretty short season. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: At Hanford, or in Alaska?</p>
<p>Boice: At Vitro. Oh, at Alaska I worked for various contractors. But Vitro—we didn’t philosophically match. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah.</p>
<p>Boice: Their minds were all inside the fence. And I’m too antagonistic. [LAUGHTER] If we had a problem—thou shalt not speak bad of Vitro. And we’re laying out penetrations on top of a tank. And they’re all done. Radius and angle—which radius is—and they had them at different stages there, and other people had been doing them. And this tank had been there for quite a—not quite a while, but every once in a while someone would come in and set some more holes, set some more holes. Well, they didn’t continue their circle around—nobody closed the circle. So by the time we get there ‘til the end, we have to figure out by adding up each and every hole all the way around the circle at every different radius to get the dimensions to where we’re at. Where if the guy had closed out his circle, you could have backed him out and been out of there in about a tenth the time. So I happened to make the statement, I said, Vitro drafting strikes again. And I was a marked man. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: How long in total, then, did you work out on the Hanford site?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, in ’56-’57, or ’57-’58, they were doing a lot of military work out there. And we did the roads up Rattlesnake—was in on that. The road up Saddle Mountain. A lot of RADAR sites. You’re aware of the Nike sites on—</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup.</p>
<p>Boice: --the north side of the river over there?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup.</p>
<p>Boice: Been there, done that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So—that wasn’t for Vitro, was that when you were with—</p>
<p>Boice: That was the Corps.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And we also did a lot of work up at Moses Lake.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: All the runway extensions up there, we were in on. They throwed us in the clink. They did not like our very presence.</p>
<p>Franklin: Why?</p>
<p>Boice: Apparently Moses Lake had two different structures. There was the Strategic Air Command structure up there, and there was the Military Air Transport Service. I didn’t know the difference. Les was—we were doing some mapping work. And the three of us were just gonna run some levels out to the next site we were gonna work at. And we took off the BM—benchmark—at the control tower. And we get about two turns out across the flight line there. And a bunch of guys come out, like a changing of the guard or something. Two or three of them stopped to talk to Kirby and George. The other five come out along, and they walked, just formed a circle around me, and they wanted to know if I wanted to go with them. They had submachine guns and a whole bunch of other stuff, and I said, heck, there’s nothing I’d rather do! [LAUGHTER] So they called up Walla Walla and they verified our existence. Then we had to go through security and get badges to—and we’d been working on that thing off-and-on for months. But we just hadn’t stepped in the right zone.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: They were just kind of waiting for you, then, to—</p>
<p>Boice: Just different—different bunch of stuff.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. When you were in school in Kennewick, so after the—or even just after the word was out about the Hanford site, after August 6<sup>th</sup>, 1945, when you were in school, did they teach anything about Hanford history? Was it—</p>
<p>Boice: Go back to August 6<sup>th</sup>.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: What a day. [EMOTIONAL] What a wonderful day! I’d been down at the Village Theater—now the Richland Theater. I don’t even remember what was playing. But we came out, [EMOTIONAL] and the bells were ringing. The church down there, they were ringing their bells. And everybody was whooping it up—the war was over! And I’ll never forget, some gal in there alongside the street, she had half a dozen kids with garbage can lids and a parade going, and they’re banging and clanging. And the festivities that the war was over. And then we went back and they came out with the thing and Truman said, It’s the Atomic Bomb, and that’s what we’ve been building. And Mom went over and talked to the lady next door. She mentioned the U-235. And the gal says, they didn’t talk about that, did they? And she’d been keeping files, and her husband had been working on it. And neither of them would ever admit that they knew what the other one was doing. It was that tight. And the security in Richland. The FBI knew everybody in town, because it was not uncommon—it was a regular thing that they would come around and they would talk to you, and ask about him. And then they’d go talk to him and ask about you. It was just—it was what was going on. We didn’t know why. Well, after that—yeah, after it came out what was going on out there, then we knew what was there. But until Truman come out and said, here’s what was going on, we didn’t know.</p>
<p>Franklin: What about V-J Day? Was that a separate kind of a big celebration?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that as big as the news of the bomb drop? Or was the bomb drop more of a pivotal moment here in the—</p>
<p>Boice: Well, the V-J Day, the end of the war, was the big day. That’s the celebration that I’ll never forget.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you talk about it?</p>
<p>Boice: June—you heard about Harry Truman, didn’t you? When he come out to Hanford?</p>
<p>Franklin: No.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER] The head of security was a guy by the name of McHale. And Dad worked pretty close with him with the fire department because everything was safety and security and if you had a problem, see McHale. Now, the guy had taken—he was pretty much high up in intelligence—but he had assumed the position of a first sergeant. And Sarge McHale was the guy. No matter what happened, Sarge McHale. Harry Truman did a fantastic job, and made his reputation just going from plant to plant—the Truman Investigating Committee, cutting down waste. And I guess he did a heck of a job. But he come out to Hanford and demanded to be let in.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sorry, was this when he was Vice President or President?</p>
<p>Boice: He was a senator!</p>
<p>Franklin: Senator—Senator Harry Truman. Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And he comes there and demands to be let in. And of course, the guard says, McHale! And McHale comes over there and meets him head-on. He says, I’m Senator Truman, and I demand to be let in. McHale says, I don’t give a damn if you’re President of the United States; you ain’t coming in here. And he didn’t. Well, years later, and I believe it was when they were dedicating the Elks Club in Pasco, Truman was back up in this area. And he was President. And he come out to Hanford and he looked up McHale. And he said, uh-huh, you son of a bitch, you didn’t think I’d make ‘er, did ya? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. That’s a great story. [LAUGHTER] But thank you. So after the war was over, was what went on at Hanford taught in school? Was there mention of the work at Hanford that built the bomb? Was that part of the curriculum here in town?</p>
<p>Boice: The local lore.</p>
<p>Franklin: The local lore, but nothing in the school at all?</p>
<p>Boice: Not that I recall.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Everything was—there was a terrific amount of pride. The Atomic City, the atomic this, the atomic that. The first barber shop quartet come to town, when GE left—no, DuPont left, GE come in, four guys come in from Schenectady, New York with a barber shop quartet. First ones I ever saw. And they were the Atomic City Four. And the next one were the Nuclear Notes. [LAUGHTER] But there was an atomic pride, all over the area. Then there was the people that thought we should be ashamed of it. That we had built this device that killed a whole bunch of people.</p>
<p>Franklin: Now, were these people in the community? Or people outside?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: And this was right at the time—</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, no, no, no. This is--</p>
<p>Franklin: Later?</p>
<p>Boice: Last week? [LAUGHTER] Last few years ago, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: I got my—I’m still behind Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Screwed up and all. Back to Vitro for a little bit. Like I say, they were—the organization that literally purchased and built the city of Richland—now, at that time I was flying, and I was flying out of the Richland airport. And there was an old geezer out there called Norm. Norm flew the bench. He was always on the bench out in front of the airport, there. And if somebody just going up to burn up some hours or play, why, Norm was willing to go along. I saw Norm and I hauled him around and then I went back to work for Vitro. And Pritchard brought this guy through—it was Norm! Norm had been the head of real estate when the entire city of Richland and the whole Hanford Project was bought. He was in charge of it. And he retired and trained his successor, who died. And he trained the next guy, who died. So they had Norm on a retainer. Just to ride dirt on real estate. Quite an interesting character!</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I bet. I think I’d kind of like to return about something we were just talking about a minute ago, where you were talking about people that—especially in the later years that have been critical of Hanford. I’d like to get more of your feelings on that. On how you feel about that, or kind of what part of their argument or their viewpoint that you don’t agree with.</p>
<p>Boice: They were talking about—well, first there was the Richland High School and their bomb insignia. It was felt that they were making a big deal or prideful about this terrible event. And I always go back to a group from Japan that came over and were very critical of Richland for the same thing. And the gentleman who was interviewing them or was talking to them, when they got done, informed them in no uncertain terms, that we were invited very unceremoniously into that war, and we’re sorry if you didn’t like the way we ended it. [LAUGHTER] You get to researching, I’d like to bring up, why didn’t they drop the bomb on Tokyo? Because there was nothing left on Tokyo to injure. If you read about Curt LeMay and the Strategic Air Command and the bombing of Japan, he had eliminated that thing down to—the B-29 was supposed to be a high altitude bomber. And it wasn’t as great at it as it was advertised to be. But they had eliminated the defenses. And they made the B-29 into a low-level trucking company, and they were just hauling stuff over and unloading it. And the firebombing of Tokyo—the movies they showed us in the Air Force was something to behold. I mean, they—it was so much worse than what happened at Nagasaki or Hiroshima, either one. He was told to save two or three targets—clean targets. And when they come over there with the bombs, then they used these clean targets and saw what they could do. Of the four devices—the four nuclear devices, we used—was it four or three in World War II?</p>
<p>Franklin: Are you referring to—</p>
<p>Boice: All but one of them came from Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: The first one at Los Alamos was plutonium. And then Hiroshima was Oak Ridge.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup.</p>
<p>Boice: And then Nagasaki was plutonium.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: But there’s those that—and there were at the time, there was a big discussion on, should we demonstrate to them what this thing could do? And the big argument was, what if it doesn’t do? What if you drop it and it don’t do nothing? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. Can you speak to—or do you remember anything about the Civil Rights era in the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: There were reports of—you know, it’s known that Kennewick was kind of a sun-down town, and that many minorities were forced to live in East Pasco. And that during the war—</p>
<p>[NEW CLIP]</p>
<p>Franklin: There had been a sizable African American population at Hanford, but that after the war many of them left. So I was wondering if you could speak to the Civil Rights action you might have seen or you might have observed or anything in the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, I was up in Lewiston when their civil rights march come through. But it was well-advertised. People knew what was gonna happen. And I was at the hardware store, and there’s a black cement finisher I’d worked with building houses in Pasco. I says, Leroy! You gonna come march on Kennewick? He said, [AFFECTED DIALECT] shee-it. I wantsta live in Kennewick just about as bad as you wantsta live in East Pasco. [LAUGHTER] They had a march on Kennewick—a bunch of people that—I am told, because I was living in Lewiston, and I was in Lewiston at the time. But there’s a group out of Seattle and a group out of Portland come up to Pasco, and they marched across the bridge. They marched down Avenue C, up Washington Street, down Kennewick Avenue. And Kennewick yawned. Nobody particularly cared. They got to the Methodist church, and the groups come out and says, you look hot. Come on in and have some lemonade. They sat down at the church, had lemonade and went home. And that was the civil rights march in Kennewick. But there is—when I was there growing up, there were no blacks in Kennewick. There were blacks in Pasco, and there were no blacks in Richland. With the exception—the guy that run the shoeshine parlor at Ganzel’s barbershop lived in the basement, and they tell me that there was two black porters at the Hanford House. And that was the total black population of Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: But they were not welcome in Kennewick. It wasn’t that big a deal when I was walking down Kennewick Avenue when a couple of black guys—they were bums, hobos—come walking down Main Street, you might as well say. And a cop pulled up and says, the railroad tracks are two blocks down that way. They go east and west. Either one will get you out of town. And they went to the railroad track. I always figured that the blacks wanted to move to Kennewick because they couldn’t stand to live next to the blacks in Pasco. [LAUGHTER] And if you want to get right down to it, well, all that hooping and hollering they do right now, you go down to Fayette, Mississippi, which is 98.645% black, and all the blacks in Mississippi can live in Fayette and nobody cares. Go down to Van Horn, Texas, which is all Mexicans, and they can all live in Van Horn, Texas, and nobody cares. But you let half a dozen white guys go up in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and they just have yourself a storm. Why, these are a bunch of white separatists! If everybody else can live together, why can’t the whites?</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. Some might say they were kind of starting a separatist movement up there, I think—claiming their own territory, and—</p>
<p>Boice: So what?</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, living together communally is often different from claiming that you don’t—aren’t subject to the law, the jurisdiction of the United States.</p>
<p>Boice: Nobody said that they weren’t subject to the law.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well--</p>
<p>Boice: They kept trying to integrate Prudhoe, but he kept getting cold and going home.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, in Alaska?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah!</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: They had a heck of a time keeping Prudhoe integrated. Because them black people do not like cold weather! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: I don’t think a lot of people like cold weather.</p>
<p>Boice: It was a big joke when we went down south there, to work at Savannah River. Because—hell, we’d come out of here and it was Thanksgiving. It was cold. We got down there, of course, if you’re traveling you’re gonna get nightshift. We left having the cold weather here at night down there. And I says, that’s okay, you’ll get yours come summertime when it heats up. But surprisingly—and I was really surprised that they didn’t take the hot weather any better than we did. I mean, it was miserably hot, but they were just as big a problem as a rest of us.</p>
<p>Franklin: I imagine it’s quite a bit more humid down there, though, with the—when it gets hot, you know. Because the heat with the humidity is—</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, it is.</p>
<p>Franklin: --much worse than the dry heat.</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention? Or any question I haven’t asked you that you think I should—</p>
<p>Boice: I don’t know what it would be. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, we’ve really gone—really jumped all over the place. It’s been great. Anyone else have any questions?</p>
<p>Hungate: No, the only question—you said you’d done some work with the railroad. What railroad?</p>
<p>Boice: Name one. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Hungate: All railroads? Union Pacific, all the different--?</p>
<p>Boice: Yes. Right now they’re talking about the oil trains, and their problems with them tipping over? I wonder how long it’s gonna take them to get to the problem. In the beginning, railroads were 39-foot rails bolted together. Measured mile after mile after mile of it. Then in about, oh, the middle ‘60s—’67, thereabouts, ’66—when they were putting in the SP&S, that’s now the BN—the Burlington Northern on the Washington side. They went with quarter-mile steel. And the first question that we had as surveyors—because you’re constantly working with the expansion and contraction of steel—was how are they going to control that in long rails? Because if you’re working on railroads very long, first thing you realize is do not sit on the joints in a hot day. You get your butt pinched! [LAUGHTER] When those tracks expand. So we brought this up and the first thing they told us was, well, they’ve got special steel and it’s only going to expand sideways. Well, that story lasted about as long as it took when they started putting it together. Because when they started—they’d set up a factory down here, if you’ll call it that. Brought in 39-foot un-punched rail, and just rolled her off, welded her together and ground down the joints and put her in quarter-mile sections. They were very particular when they put it in at the temperature that they laid that down on, where before—you know what a creeper is? Okay, it’s a kind of a hairpin device that you put over the rail so that it will slide less. But in the old days, the 39-foot rail very seldom saw any creepers. When they put that quarter-mile steel together, you saw a lot of creepers. Now they have gone to ribbon rail. They welded the quarter-mile steel together. You drive down to Portland, and you look at that rail, and you’re gonna go a long ways before you see a joint. There at Quinton and Washman’s dip—which don’t mean a thing to you guys—[LAUGHTER] about a mile post from 120-whatever, they have got a creeper on each—alongside of each and every tie. I mean, they were using creepers like they were going out of style. To me, the expansion’s the thing that they got to worry about, but then they should have figured this out because they’re running it. But it’s a factor. You got to factor it in when you’re doing a pipeline, when you’re doing a railroad. When we were doing the pipeline, Maurice Smith of British Petroleum, who was the head pipeline engineer, I had lunch with him. [LAUGHTER] It ain’t like we sit down at a specified lunch—he dropped in at the chow hall I was eating and sat down at our table. So we got to talking about it. And that was the question I brought up, was how are you going to handle the expansion in the steel? And he says—he admitted it was a heck of a problem. And that you got to run as many Ss as you can so that it’ll take up and accordion itself. And when you’ve got a long straight stretch, it’s gonna give you problems. [LAUGHTER] Because it’s gonna go someplace. And that’s the thing that—after they started the quarter-mile steel, a couple of years later, we had a hot summer. The article in the Tri-City Herald called it the long, hot summer, where we had over 90 days of over 90-degree weather. But they were cutting chunks out of that railroad to keep her on the road bed. And at that time, when the SP&S was having these problems, the UP was laughing at them. They said, we tried this stuff in Wyoming. It didn’t work. And they’re using 39-foot stuff, and it was just whistling down the road. But now I see that they’re using the ribbon rail like everybody else. I can’t see how it’s gonna work, but the they’re doing it. [LAUGHTER] It ain’t my role! [LAUGHTER] The other one was the Camas Prairie. And that starts out, oh, about ten miles above Ice Harbor Dam, thereabouts, breaks loose, and goes clear up past Lewiston, up into Grangeville, Idaho. That’s a crazy little river.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s the one that they filmed that Charles Bronson movie.</p>
<p>Boice: Breakheart Pass?</p>
<p>Franklin: Breakheart Pass, yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, that was done up there. You get into railroad history—this area is knee-deep in it. Vollard was the great character in that. He started out with a little portage railroad around Idaho Falls and that area. And then he got the Walla Walla line—I call it the WWWWW&WWW line—Walla Walla, Waitsburg, Washtucna and Washington Wail Woad—which was a money maker. But he ended up getting a lineup from Portland out here. And then when they started building the Northern Pacific, they were building from both ends, and he was hauling Northern Pacific rail over his tracks and taking it out in railroad stock. By the time they got connected over in Montana, he owned a sizable chunk of the railroad. [LAUGHTER] And it was—you get into that railroad history, and it’s just takeover checkers. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Well, thank you so much, George.</p>
<p>Boice: Okay! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: It was a pleasure talking to you. And, yeah, thanks for coming in today.</p>
<p>Boice: All righty. Write if you find work! [LAUGHTER]</p>
Duration
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01:46:59
Bit Rate/Frequency
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317 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
700 Area
Vitro Engineering
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1944-
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1972-
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 George Boice
Description
An account of the resource
George Boice moved to Richland, Washington in 1944 as a child. He began working on the Hanford Site in 1972.
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.
Date
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07/15/2016
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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
Date Modified
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2017-08-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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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.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Ellensburg (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Publisher
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
700 Area
Cat
Cold War
Construction
Dam
DuPont
FBI
Hanford
Kennewick
Los Alamos
Mountain
Park
River
Savannah River
School
Street
Tank Farm
Tank Farms
Theater
Trailer
War
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F66986ea49c777b4977889b8a654cf444.mp4
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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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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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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
Laura Arata
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dale Denham
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Denham_Dale</span></span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></strong></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Laura Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I feel ready.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I think Dale feels ready.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Dale </span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Yeah. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Are you going to ask me some questions to begin with, or just--</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I sure am.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">We're</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> here, huh?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">If we could just start by having you say your name, and then spell your last name</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> for us, please</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. Dale Denham. D-E-N-H-A-M. I always let people know it's like the denim jeans. Can't forget me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Thank you. My name's Laura Arata. It's December 12, 2013. We're conducting this interview on the campus of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Washington State University</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Tri-Cities. So if we could just start, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you came to Hanford, why you came to Hanford, and what you knew about it at the time.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, maybe it's better if I tell you when I first came in 1947.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: Please do.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> But as a young person, came with my family because</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">my dad was invited to come up here and start a radio station. And Dad was in the radio business since the '20s.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And his buddy says, boy, this is just a golden opportunity, and dad said, oh no. The war's over and this place is</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">going to fold.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Obviously, he was a bit wrong, but he had been through the Depression and all those kind of things. So we came.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">My sister and I would come up on the train and spend weeks, because they had a couple daughters. And they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">moved in in '47 and stayed here 'til '57.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So the station today is KONA, but at that time it was KWIE. And it began in that period, and so we made lots of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">trips. But they lived in Kennewick, so I really didn't spend much time in Richland. They brought us out to see the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">barricade out here on Stevens, and the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> bypass to even get to the 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">rea. And at the time, their studios were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">being built, and so they were doing things in the Hanford House, whic</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">h is today the Richland</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Red Lion.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I had some introduction to the Tri-C</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ity community. But I came as a graduate student, 1961, as part of a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">fellowship from the Atomic Energy Commission, which was in Health Physics</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd it turns out I was in the first class</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of graduates of master's degree from the University of Wash</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ington. There were like ten of them, ten</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> of us. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">came and spent the summer here in '61. I got married that summer also. And we became acquainted with the site</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">by</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">much like they did most of the engineers, they moved us around on site, kind of give us a familiarity with all</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the different aspects of health physics, which was radiation protection, basically, for the people and the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">environment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so that was my introduction to the place. But while I was here, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity to get a master's, because they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't have a master's program at UW at the time, because we were the first class. And while we were here during</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the summer, a program opened up to get a master's by going back for the second year.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I went on back to University of Washington and was able to get my master's. Matter of fact, I was studying</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">rheumatoid </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">arthritic</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> patients looking for ways to use the reactor there at the university to evaluate the gold in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these patients, because gold was not a cure for the disease, but it could slow it down and at least make people so</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they could</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">so I worked with two individuals. I collected all their urine, because we were looking for activation</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">techniques.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And it took me most of the year because the opportunities were great to look to the future, but we didn't have all</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the technology yet. I was doing a lot of my work using a single channel analyzer and looking at different photo</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">peaks, energy, gamma ray energies coming off of these radionuclides, because we're all full of sodium, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">sodium has a very high ener</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">gy activation product, sodium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">24. And so that was a real issue. And I had to try</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">different ways is to subtract that material, or that impact that we would see on the scans.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But that was the beginning. And so I completed the degree. And then my wife had been born in Long Beach,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">California. Her grandmother was still down there. And so got the opportunity to go to Lawrence Livermore</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Laboratory</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">it was called Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the time</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in Livermore, California. So went down</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">there and spent seven years</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">no, five years</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and then came back up here. She developed some real allergy</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">issues. And the kids were still young, small, a couple years old.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So it was a good opportunity to come back. We knew what the area was like. We had spent the summer here,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">which is a tough time. And of course we remembered</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I remembered from my childhood all the dust storms and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the running out to grab the laundry to bring it in because it was getting dusty.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I just thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine. And my parents, </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Dad was from Baker City, Oregon</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, and mother was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from Boise, Idaho. So it made sense, in one </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">sense, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> they might select to come here. But Mom didn't get along</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">too well in the heat, and so this was not a favorite place. So that was probably part of the equation, too, that they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">chose not to even go any further, even though their friends were very successful here and sold out, and bought</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the station in Hood River and then retired, which is what they all did.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that was my introduction and coming to Hanford. And I served in a variety of departments</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I mean, by name,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">but they all were basically radiation protection, health physics, mostly applied. In other words, I was dealing with</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">how to take air samples, where to take air samples, how to take river samples, how to measure them, what to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">measure them for. I got into the environmental arena, which was really my long-term interest.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I was involved in the late '60s in the water monitoring portion of the Hanford program, where I looked at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the water in the schools, took water from the public schools, water from the wells, drinking water. We sampled</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">water from the river directly. We monitored the river by passing it through detectors. And this was a period when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">most of the reactors were operating, so there was plenty of activity, and a real challenge to trace that. Where did it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">go? How wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">s it going to impact the public?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I worked primarily in the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> until I retired from Battelle in '95. Oh, by the way, that's who I came to work</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">for, was Battelle. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd I spent all my career up to that point with Battelle after I'd come back from Livermore. And I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">took the certification exam in health physics and became a certified health physicist, a diplomat of the American</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Board of Health Physics. I served on the board for that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">certifying other individuals coming along.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I taught some of the classes here. We started here when this was the graduate school, the graduate center, long</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">before Washington State University became a part of the community. And so I had a lot of involvement in that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">arena. I just really enjoyed the field because it was broad enough that we could be concerned about x-rays and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">radiation that you would get externally from contamination, or get it on your body, in your body, so internal</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">evaluation.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I was primarily interested in keeping the environment clean, which was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd I have to mention Herb Parker</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because he </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was really the father of the radiation protection, radiation safety here at the site. And Herb called me</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">up one day</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">this was in the early '70s</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and said, I've got an opportunity for you. I think that you would make an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">excellent candidate to make this move.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I said, well, I wasn't interested in moving. Well, he says, I think you should come over to my office and let's</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">chat. Well, he had a job in an environmental organization called Radiation Management Corporation. He was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">consultant to them, and they were in Philadelphia. And I'd always lived all my life on the west coast, so I wasn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">very enthused.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I went, I listened. He sent me back for an interview. I went in December, just about this time, a horrible time to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">go back there. It was crummy weather. It was wet, dark, I couldn't see anything. But it was a little company, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they were about to grow with the nuclear industry to supply environmental monitoring support for the nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">power reactors up and down the east coast.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I turned them down. But two years later I got another call and says, gosh, we really need you, and here's an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity. You better come. So by '74 I did take advantage, moved back there. And then I think it was Jimmy</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Carter that desired not to reprocess any fuel, and so the nuclear industry, the nuclear power industry dropped off</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, at least began its diminished increased places, increased sites, increased utilities going with nuclear.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> So that led to the need—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">e had too many people, grew fast, but then</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd matter of fact, my original boss here,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Bob </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Junkins</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">by name, hired me in '67, and I worked with him for almost two years before I moved to the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">environmental. I was in the criticality safety, nuclear safety business in that time. And my whole role was to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">develop a criticality safety manual that we could use to audit and evaluate the users of nuclear material here on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the site—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Battelle's portion of the site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that led me</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">then, with that environmental interest, I moved into the environmental monitoring portion in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">late '60s. And that's what set me up for that. I went to Philadelphia, but I had to go find something else. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">unfortunately, in that time period, I also got divorced back there in Philadelphia. And my children moved back to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the west coast, to Bainb</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ridge</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Island.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So it was now, where do I go?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Fortunately</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> there </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ere lots of jobs. I didn't have any problem finding a job. But I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">chose to go back to Livermore because I was familiar with the territory and the people. And so I went back there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But it was only a couple of years, because I met a gal that I had dated in high school. And she ran into my sister,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and my sister gave me an address. I wrote to her, and she called me up and says, what are you doing for</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Christmas? I said, I'm taking the train to go see my kids. Well, why don't you stop here and see me on the way in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Salem? And we both went to Willamette University. That was where our degrees were from. And I'm still married</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to her today, 35 years. And we've had a great time here at Hanford.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">When I did retire, I moved</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, I helped</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because she was Vice President of United Way. And so I took on the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">role of the listener as the United Way representative volunteer at the Reemployment Opportunity Center. This was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">1995, when we had some 5,000 layoffs. I was part of that, only I wasn't a layoff. I took a voluntary retirement,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">early retirement.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And through that I discovered that there were other positions available on the site, and Bechtel Hanford had come</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in as the environmental restoration contractor. And golly, I was involved in all that sort of stuff. So it was a perfect</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity to send a note</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I knew the head of the department from my health physics background and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">membership</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and was offered that opportunity to go to work for them. So I spend another eight years with them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then to finish my career, so to speak, I retired from them in '06, and then I got a call from Battelle, said, we're</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">doing all these calculating the radiation risks of former atomic energy workers, and we really need some help.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Could you do this for us? And that was nice because I did it at home. I would come to meetings with Battelle. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">one of my close friends, the two of us kind of worked together, which was great, because we were working at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">home. I had to buy a new computer and all that because I needed access to much more sophisticated equipment</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">than I had, because I was just a little email and that sort of thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">My exciting things that happened here, my work </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the nuclear—criticality safety—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that was one of my first papers,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">major papers, because while I was at Livermore I studied the transuranics, which meant the materials that were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">heavier than uranium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> curium</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> and so on up the chain.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I got very familiar because I was working with a group of chemists in California as their radiation safety</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">person, where they were trying to come up with these heavier elements. And so I got to know most of that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">material. And when I got up here and the criticality safety, because that was a concern too. We knew that some of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these materials could go critical with the right conditions.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that gave me an opportunity to use that background that I had in knowing these materials, and then to put</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">together, really, a summary. I evaluated the fire safety aspect, the e</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">xplosion aspects, the radiation—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nternal as well</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">as external—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">aspects. So that was one of my real highlights. And that came right at a time when I took the exam to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">become certified in health physics.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The next the set of the exciting things were the working with the environmental, where I got involved with nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">power reactors and in helping develop criteria for their environmental monitoring programs. You see, we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from Atomic Energy Commission, AEC, to ERDA, Energy Research and Development Administration. That was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">'74. And then we became the Department of Energy, and that was about '77, '78.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I went through that period, so I was working for all three agencies, so to speak, just because one followed the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">other. I think my document that we finally issued on how to use environmental monitoring</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that is, what</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">techniques and so on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were recommended by what was called ERDA at that time, but became the DOE position</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">for all the sites.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And the way we handled that was, we we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nt out as teams and visited Oak R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge and Savannah River and Chicago.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And we even went to some of the power reactors, or the early</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not so much power, but the early development</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">reactors, Idaho, testing, and checking out how they were doing things so that we could then look at a composite</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and gather the folks. We held a couple of workshops where we brought in folks from all these other sites and said,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you know, here's what we see that ought to be the basic criteria. So that was a great opportunity to explore and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">see other sites.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I visited many of the DOE sites, Los Alamos and Livermore, as all part of that, too. So I had a wonderful time</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and experience in a whole variety of things, handling these transuranic materials that not a whole lot was known.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And you came to know these things by working with them, working on developing shielding, because these</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">materials also—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not only external radiation but also neutron radiation, which you get primarily from accelerators, or</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from particular radionuclides that do give off neutrons as they fission. And so those were areas to explore and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">develop.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But what a great place to have to have worked, to have had my time, and I really don't want to leave the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">community. We've enjoyed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and my wife, I thought, who really was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">after she finished school at Willamette, she</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">stayed there in Salem and went to work. And she's always been in the social services side of things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And she came here, and she headed up Girl Scouts, she headed up Red Cross, and then got involved with United</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Way. So we ended our careers here, so to speak, but a great place that we have enjoyed. And of course it's far</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">different today than when I came 60 years ago to visit, because the agriculture and all those other things that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">have occurred as part of the site.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">All right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">That was a wonderful overview. I'd like to back up for just a minute to when your father first came here to start this</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">radio station. I know you said he lived in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Kennewick, but--</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">No, he didn't. It was my father's best buddy. Yeah. They both </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were in Portland radio stations.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Dad, and his name</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was Clarence McCrea</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">dy, but we called him Mac. And he chose to come, and brought us along to come and see.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But Dad refused to come and be a part of the team.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Dean Mitchell's the name I can think of right now. He was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and Dean Mitchell, I t</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hink, is still in the community,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">think he's still </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">alive. And I believe he goes to Kennewick United Methodist Church over there. I hope to see him</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because I'm going to be speaking at that church here in a couple weeks, actually about three weeks, in January.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I know I linked up with him because I had a lot of pictures from all this development of the radio station that my</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">family</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not my own personal family, but our very close family friends. And we only celebrated Easter and Fourth</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of July with his family. So you can see, we would come up here and be up here, and in a good time of the year,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">spring. Summer was hot, but these were occasions. Yeah, so my family never did move up here. But they came to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">visit when I finally settled here in '67.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Visited. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. So do you recall any impressions of the community at that time from your visits, what it was like to be here?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, the things I remember</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and even as a graduate student, the rest of the guys</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">there were four of us came</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">together</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">no, three of us. Three of us who had all gone to Willamette together</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">went to UW for our first year, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">then all came here, and then went back to UW to complete that program</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they all lived in Kennewick, but I lived</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">here in Richland. I couldn't pass up the nickel each way bus. And I lived in on Gribble Street, which is now where</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Kadlec</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> has taken over those what were two-story apartments and one-story </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">fourplexes</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that's where I lived that summer in '61. And the bus came right down our street, hopped on for a nickel, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">whether I went out to our areas or the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, because we spent one day a week during that time in the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> in classes in the library, because that was an opportunity for us to learn more about the site, and about the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">profession and the field. So we had people tell us about instrumentation, told us about environment, told us about</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the various things that were related to radiation instrument development, and different kinds of survey</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">instruments, and so on.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that was a nice part, because coming back a few years later</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, I left here in '62, finished my degree, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't come back 'til '67, so I was gone for five years. The bus system was still here, but the rates were different,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and I wasn't using the bus then. And I went to work for Battelle, and my office was in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Federal Building</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. So I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">able to walk to work. And I'm a busser, a walker, and I've been that all my life. I did that in Portland. So it was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">logical step for me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The fact that I could get around</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I was not much of a commercial</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I didn't buy a lot of stuff. And so to this day</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">we're not much consumers. And so it was great. There were a few places. I bowled, you know, I played tennis,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">golfed some,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> took advantage of the things that were available right here. I had a cousin</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">couple of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">cousins still in Baker City, Oregon, so we'd go down for weekends to go down and see them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And he was a dentist, so he took care of my dental needs early on. But once I settled here with my wife and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">family, it was no longer making those kind of trips for that purpose. We still had the friendship and relationship.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I enjoyed just the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, I guess I wouldn't say I enjoyed the heat, but yet I liked lots of sunshine, and the people.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Enjoyed working with the people. And that was a tough part of retiring. And of course, I took care of part of that by</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">volunteering over at the Reemployment Opportunities Center, which was over in Kennewick. And at that point we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">had moved out to the Village at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Canyon Lakes. It was brand new,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> building that community and retirement.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I thought, well, we'll get in on the ground floor. We'll be there and get acquainted, and so on. But then the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity with Bechtel, but clear out at the north end of the site. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd after two years of that long </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">commute, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">moved back to Richland. But the opportunities here for my interests, and the opportunities on the job, because I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't just stay right here, because I was working for Battelle, and we did a lot of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I suppose you would call it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">contract research because that was Battelle's primary activity. But yet it really took me to visit other sites and to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">see how we could improve what we were doing right here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I thin</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">k that that opportunity—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I didn't have to go somewhere else. Yes, I did interview for jobs along the line,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">along the way during the time. I </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">interviewed at Los Alamos. I interviewed at Rocky Flats and so on. But this was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">home, so to speak. And so it was a g</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ood place to stay. It wasn't—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">30,000 or so population.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And the population of Richland, today I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think it's doubled in all this time. But the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">boundary where Yakima came in to the Columbia there was kind of the southern end of Richland. There was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Richland Y and so on. But I lived essentially all my time within that confines. And of course now there's many</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">homes and developments south, and yet still part of the incorporated portion of Richland. So yes, this was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">delightful place, and it still is for me.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">We've heard lots of fun stories about card games and checkers games and </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">different kinds of things going </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these buses. Do you have any fun stories?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, yes. I tell you, what I used the bus for was sleeping. Being a newlywed and having all these classes and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">riding the bus every day, I would often take a nap on the way home. And often I'd end up at the end of the bus.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Rather than getting off at my stop, I would discover, oh, I missed the stop, so I got a little walk in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> yeah, there were card games on the buses. I was not a bridge player</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, and that was one of the—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I played at pinnacle and hearts. And we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">played on the job. My goodness, we kept our scores on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the blackboard in the office. Yeah, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">e played hearts. And there</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were other games, I'm sure, but that's what I remember the most. And I remember, also, we were conscious of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">our walking hour, keeping track of our weight and all. So we would walk over</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">after lunch we'd walk over and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">check our weight at the medical, go weigh on the scales.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I was never a smoker, but one of the guys in the group, even the leader, was a heavy smoker. But one of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">guys who was roughly my age</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and matter of fact, he went back to grad school, and that opened the door for me</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to step in and take his job in the environmental in the late '60s. So that was ideal. And that was another thing. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were paying attention to those things that now the society is beginning to look at. So we looked for those kinds of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I think the working environment was great. In my later years here, before I left Battelle, it was altogether different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because now the opportunities within Battelle were more in the research ar</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ena. And that wasn't my forte, i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">t was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not my capabilities, not my interest, in going out and trying to obtain contracts and so on. So I found it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and that's</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">when the opportunity to retire early, I just took advantage of it. My wife had a good job, and so she became my</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">sugar mama to take care of me, take care of us. And we had no children living here. Our children were all grown</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">by then. And so our needs were different.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I missed the people. But yet I was interacting every day, because I was there usually half a day. But some</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">days I'd be there all day. And I kept the hot water hot so I could make cocoa, or soups, or whatever people who</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were coming to find jobs and to look. We did mock interviews and all that sort of thing. So it was a continuation of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that people interaction that I really enjoyed.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And of course, when one does retire, a number of my friends have said the same thing. And yet today I don't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">know how I have time to work, because I'm plenty involved in the community. And so that's part of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">my wife and I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">joined the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Gideons</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, and so that's been one of our maj</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">or activities in our retirement,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> that we've served as</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">presidents of the local camps on a geographic basis, and also area directors. And we have a state convention</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">coming up this next spring, so we're heavily involved in that. So we have enjoyed that aspect of life here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And we have a daughter in Olympia, and we have a son</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, a daughter and family in Olympia and same in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Portland. Otherwise the kids are south of Eugene and Cottage Grove, and then a son and family in Albuquerque.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Neither of the sons</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">b</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">oth have PhDs—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and neither are involved in the nuclear business. Both of them engineers.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">One basically what I would call a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, one's a civi</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">l engineer with water interests.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> And</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> other is involved in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">materials engineering, works for Ball Aerospace, so has a lot of involvement in things that I might have had an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involvement in, but not from the nuclear standpoint.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham:</span> Yeah, the things I remember</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—l</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ike I say, we had activities with other </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">families</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> right here. We were involved in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">church. We got involved in the church. I'</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">m in a different church today, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ut that's where we raised our kids. So it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was a good community environment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">In terms of what else did I do, well, I think I mentioned I had the children, and we did things with them. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">camped. And I wasn't a fisherman or a hunter, so those things weren't part of my interests here in the community.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I remember we would do the sledding and so on when the conditions were right, the snow and Carmichael</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Hill, because we lived not far from there, we'd walk over there, and swimming pool.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Back in the very early days</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and let me go back to that for just a moment. Because when we came, McNary Dam</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">wasn't here. So we had to take a ferry to cross from or Oregon to Washington, or we had to take the Bridge of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Gods back</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> 40 miles out of Portland, and then take that route. And we'd usually come over </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Satus</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Pass and come</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">into Kennewick that way. Today you can take Highway 12 and 14 in all the way to Vancouver on the Oregon side--I mean, on the Washington side, excuse me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that was interesting because this was a free-flowing river. There weren't any dams in that area. And so riding</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that ferry in a fairly narrow portion of the river was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and these are one- or two-car type ferries. I mean, this wasn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a big ferry like you see out of Puget Sound. And it was difficult to reach the shore. Sometimes you'd get close and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you'd have to back up and try again.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then I watched all the highways come in over the Horse Heavens. Because it used to be you could stay on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the Oregon side and come around through Walla Walla that way. So it was a whole different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and it took longer.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The roads weren't as nice. And so I watched the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">several times they've rebuilt the highway over the Horse</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Heavens.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Because we have family in Portland, we go down there every month or two with grandkids. They're about to finish</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, the last one is in his senior year in high school, and the other's in college. And all the rest of our grandkids,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">except the ones in Albuquerque, are all over 21. So our involvement with them is a lot different than when they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were younger.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So yeah, it was a different place just because of the getting around. And we didn't have a public transit. We didn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">have</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">n those early days right here. But we had the Hanford buses. And you can see the one down there by the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Crehs</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">t</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Museum. And that's what I rode much of the time, up until when I chose my work with Battelle. By then,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">going out on the site, it was about $50 a month to ride the bus then. It was more expensive.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then I did go through some periods of spending time out on the site, where I'd spend a couple weeks for</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">some activity, work-related, and I would end up being able to take a government car. And I worked in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Federal Building</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, so it was convenient. We had a motor pool there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that’s some of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">background. I don't know if there's other things that you were hoping to talk about, or remind me of.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I think I just have couple more questions. One thing I wonder if you could talk about, obviously much of your</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">career at Hanford spans the Cold War period.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: Mm-hm.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> So of course security was a very important concern. Can you talk a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">little bit about how that impacted your career?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, it certainly did. And I was fortunate in the sense that I had the Atomic Energy Commission fellowship. In</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">order to get that and apply it at the University of Washington, I had to get security clearance. So I was cleared,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and that happened when I went to Livermore.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Right after I finished grad school, I arrived at Livermore. And because I had a clearance, I was assigned those</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">facilities to be radiation safety person. I know that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> you know the name Ron Kathren</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, or have come across Ron</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Kathren. And Ron Kathren</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> became my officemate there. He didn't have the clearance. So I got to be in places</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">work things that he wasn't able to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ell, he was eventually,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I mean, he got the clearance also.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And of course, late in my career</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">like when I went to Philadelphia, I didn't need a clearance back there. And when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I came back, yes, I had to get my clearance re-instituted in Livermore, because Livermore is still very much</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved with weaponry, or at least the development of materials. And so yes, clearance. But fortunately, I didn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">have an issue, and because I had had it really at the beginning when I went to grad school, that didn't impact me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And some of my site visits at Oak</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I had to have special clearance to get into some of the places. One of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things I didn't mention, and I should, I got involved in the decommissioning. And of course, that was the activity</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">with Bechtel Hanford. But the other thing I got involved in was what we call development of an emergency</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">assessment resource manual. We called it HEARM, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> they called—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because I was working with some gals, too, that was my</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">harem. But it was Hanford Emergency Assessment Resource Manual.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, our sponsor at DOE headquarters began to see the utility of that at some of the other DOE sites. So we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to Livermore, we wen</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">t to Los Alamos, we went to Oak R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge, we went to Savannah River. We developed those</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">same manuals for these other sites. And basically what it was </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">was</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> an identification of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a safety assessment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And DOE was forcing all to look at the safety of their business. And if something went wrong, how bad could it be?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that's what this manual was, was to identify the facilities and the materials. It was structured originally about</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">radiation, but it became clear that there were also hazardous chemicals and other materials that needed to be of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">concern. And if they had an explosion, if they had a venting, they had a situation, where would that stuff go?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So we developed this. We looked at site boundaries. How far to the site boundary, in what directions, look at wind</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">speeds, all of that. So we combined all of that into a manual so that we could use that here at Hanford, call</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Unified Dose Assessment Center, UDAC.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that provided a tool so when an emergency occurred, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> knew we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> had an indication of how bad it could be. We could</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">flip to the page that was Building XYZ, and we could say, ah, this really is not likely to be any kind of an issue. Or</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">just the opposite, that it was an ABC, it was the top priority, the most hazardous materials on the site handled in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that building. And what were the projected, from the safety assessments, for the actual use of those facilities?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so that was an exciting kind of thing, because we got into sites where they had more security need than what</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I had to do for those. And so yes, we got into those. Matter of fact, some of the materials that we developed were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">basically classified information on how much material is in this building, where is this building relative to the site,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and so on. So those kind of things we had to tone down, we had to talk about and find ways. And they became,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">essentially, not top secret, but at least they were less.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so we provided not only these manuals for right here, but also DOE headquarters got the same copies. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">whenever something was going wrong, they're evaluating what's happening out here, or from Livermore, or from</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Sandy, or Savannah River, or one of the other sites.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So yes,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the emergency management aspect. And Battelle, that was one of the things that I moved from that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">development into working with the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Battelle had a contract for the 60 nuclear power plants to do emergency</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">exercises. And I even got involved with my wife with the Red Cross, because Red Cross would get involved in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">emergency exercises, especially for the supply system here. And I remember Mesa School was the first one.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I got a couple of my health physics buddies, and we </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">would go and be the consultants. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ecause the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">farmers would come in and say, well, what should I do? My cows are out there on this potentially contaminated</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ground. What do I need to do? This was just</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these were what-if type exercises. So that was an aspect I guess I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">just had passed over and forgotten all about. So even had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">n involvement with my wife </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">indirectly because of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So with these nuclear sites, I got involved as an evaluator to go out either for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">or DOE, and evaluate these exercises. So I was involved not in developing those exercises, but evaluating and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">being there on site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And also, as </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a result, I got to go to the Kennedy Space Center and involved in a couple of spacecraft launches</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that had nuclear materials. And so that was exciting, paid to go. And also got involved in many cancellations. You</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">know, weather didn't turn out right, we'd get thunderstorms or a rain, and you'd have to wait it out for a few more</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">days. Those sort of things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Galileo, I think, was the one major one that we were sending heat sources, radioactive sources into space, so if</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they were to have</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> aborted</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not for reentry, but on the launch, that's why we were there, to take air samples,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you know, we were teams spread out. So there's another aspect I'd forgotten about.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Very cool. You had this</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> multiplicity of great jobs, it sounds like, throughout the course of your career here. Is there anything</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that stands out as being the most challenging or the most rewarding?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, I think the challenge came later in the career when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">as I mentioned, that Battelle was going off in a research</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">wing, and that wasn't where my expertise and my capabiliti</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">es were. And so a challenge to—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">f I'm not going to stick</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">around, what am I going to do? B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ecause nuclear power was obviously diminishing with time, especially when you</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">get up in the 90s, and so on.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that became one of the challenges, if I were to retire, what would I do? I </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was young enough, late '50s</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, I didn't need to retire that early. And the other side, the side as I shared, I think sort of the three or four</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">major things that I was involved in that I very much enjoyed, one</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and I haven't shared this directly</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved with Joe Soledad.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I don't know whether you've interviewed Joe, but I know Joe's been interviewed. I just don't know who were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved. But Joe was developing all the criteria to evaluate all these radionuclides that had been released here in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Hanford, had been released at other sites, or could be</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">weren't necessarily all released, but I mean, if they got</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">into the environment and got into people, what kind of doses could those--Well, I was involved with Joe as my mentor. I developed the numbers that went in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">n other words, I looked at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">decay schemes of each of those radionuclides and then built the numbers that would go into the equations. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't develop the equations for how much got into the human body, but I developed if you had radioiodine, or you</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">had strontium, or you had cesium, or you had plutonium, what could that mean inside the body?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so that was a great opportunity that I had developi</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ng those, because those became—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd still used today—a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ll</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that environmental pathway stuff that Joe had developed is still in use today, used by the EPA, the Nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Regulatory Commission.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Yeah, they've added more materials and modified things a bit. But the modifications are more related to, now,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">more knowledge about some of those decay schemes and so on, but that impact. So that was one of the exciting</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The criticality safety manual. I get the manual done, and I got to move on to something else, because once you've</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">developed the manual, unless you're using it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">yes, I was. I was out evaluating criticality safety. I was auditing,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">basically. Oh, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hat was, yeah, I could do it, but it was more fun to go out and get involved in the environmental</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">monitoring, choosing which sample, where to sample, what to analyze those samples for, and then write the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">report to show what this means impact-wise for the site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Going from there, then, into developing what should an environmental monitoring program look like, either for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nuclear power plant or a place like Hanford. That wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">s that exciting and thrilling, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd I felt I made a contribution.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then to jump over into, now you understand that stuff, and now relate that to emergency preparedness and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">evaluating emergency preparedness. Did you take into account?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I will have to say, because I was involved in a course, and I've forgotten what the course was called, but it was at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the Nevada test site. And we were there--and I think it was only Hanford person there at the time. That's when I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was involved in emergency preparedness.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And this was a course to really walk us through scenarios and situations, and see the mistakes we could make.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">We could walk over a wire on the ground that we shouldn't have because it was live, or could've been live, and not</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">recognizing that. You're taking </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">an action for what you see in front of you, but then missing out on something that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you shouldn't have done as part of that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that became part of our evaluation, when we looked at mistakes they would make, not take an air sample, or</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">take it where it shouldn't have been. You should have taken it over here instead of over there, you know, those</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">kind of things. So was able to use all that background and material that I had had as part of my career.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I feel like, yes, had I started over today, I think I would've probably gone the environmental, but more from an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">atmospheric and understanding weather. That was an interest as a kid. I've watched</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">this is before television</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and I would pay attention to the thermometer and what was going on. Is it going to snow tomorrow, or that kind of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But otherwise, no, it was great. And the courses and the opportunities afforded by this diverse kind of a field, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">when I came, and when I was a health physicist, I didn't k</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">now what a health physicist was, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I think I have a pretty</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">good idea today.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So obviously, a lot of my students n</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ow were born after the Cold War.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: They</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> don't really understand that time period.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Is there anything you'd like for future generations who may be watching this video to know about what it was like</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to work during that time period and contribute to that effort?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, obviously, one of the things, being here in Hanford, was because we had all these reactors operating, which</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">meant that there was always contamination going into the river, contamination going into the ground.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Reprocessing was occurring</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> but was stopped at a time period. So then we had to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and of course, today we still</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hear about whether it's from the west side or else around the country. Even our own family ask questions. What</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">about the leaking tanks? What does that mean? And from my perspective, I have an idea what that means.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I think I look at it in a lot different mindset, because I know that yes, it's of concern, and it should be. But on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the other hand, it's not going to kill me. It's not going to give me a dose that I won't want to stay here, I won't want</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to live here. And because, like I said, in the older days, when all the reactors were operating and so on, we had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">lot more radioactivity to deal with.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But Joe's equation</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Joe Soledad</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">those pathway formulas and equations and so on that we used, we proved</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">with that that hey, yes, there is material out there. It's of low consequence to you and me as residents of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">community. And I think that that was probably a kind of thing that we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the scientists, let's say, the science side</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were not very successful in communicating that to the public.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I don't think we are today. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ecause I can remember one of my daughter's friends, when they had the different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">kinds of sweeteners, and they would say no, we're going to cut those off. And so when her dad worked in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">grocery business, he could bring that stuff home, and no, I don't think we want to use that. Again, uninformed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">about those kind of things</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. And I think that's the aspect—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that we get a bug, a thought of what an impact could be,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and yet we don't know the whole story. And I know I tried, but on the other hand, that wasn't my role particularly.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I was aware.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I think that, looking today, we look at so many more things today in terms of hurtful environmental impact</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">kinds of things. I'm thinking just the environmental movement, if you will, because our daughter-in-law is very</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">much involved there, and her daughter is now in college and looking in that same arena. The other daughter-in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">law</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">down in New </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Mexico, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> was one of her areas of interest. And she studied bugs and insects and that sort</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of thing. Today she's not using that, because she's really into health and doing private yoga and exercise training.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But the Cold War meant that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, that's where it was nice when I got to go the other sites, because that allowed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">me to kind of see, and to put all this together as </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">an </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">understanding</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the whole package, and not just what's happening</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in Han</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ford or what's happening at Oak R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge or whatever, to be able to realize that probably some choices</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">mean, </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">making the choice here</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> of </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Hanford, I think, was a wonderful choice. Choosing this remote location</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">it's not so</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">remote today, but I think it was an excellent</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from all the material, all the information we knew at the time.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And yet places like Savannah River, where you've got all kinds of groundwater and all kinds of those kind of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">issues, maybe that wasn't such a good place, where the ability of stuff to move would be greater than a place like</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">this. And I think what we saw, and what I remember just f</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">rom the public, my own families—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">our own families would</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ask questions, which was very reasonable.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I think the understanding</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—and </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">we've been watching</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I'm digressing for a second, but we've been</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">watching the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">residential wives series on television, so we're going back over the history and seeing some of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things that were going on as this whole business developed in our lifetime, things that we didn't realize, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">some was top secret, not shared. And of course, I was perfectly happy to work in a closed environment, where</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you didn't share everything you did.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">For someone tod</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ay, I think that the question</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> aspect of business, and for the future, is always question what</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you're doing, how can it impact the environment, how can it impact people, how can it impact you yourself?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Cellphones, all kinds of things that we use and are in use daily, but do we really know what the long-term impacts</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of these devices are? I think for the moment we feel quite certain t</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hat we're not creating monster issues that become-- </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I like the environmental movement, because I kind of put my life together around that, an interest in seeing</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that we're doing the right things to keep us safe, and yet not say, you can't do that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And of course, the environmental impact statement business. I was involved partly in that too, in helping develop</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">those. I guess my last one that I was involved in was in Tennessee, for the Tennessee Valley Authority, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they were going wide with lots of nuclear. And that was in the '90s, as I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> recall, when I went down there and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to tell us about? Any other stories that stand out?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, of course, we did have accidents. We had things that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">yeah, I got involved in a cleanup in the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">where an underground pipe had broken. And this was americium, was a principal nuclide that had gotten into the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ground. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">we ended up digging that all up. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ut just chasing it, deciding where to sample, and digging up and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">then discovering, oh, the pipe is all corroded. So yes, everything that went down that drain.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so those kinds of things, I really enjoyed those, because you were evaluating a condition that was really an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">unknown. And I think that's part of what the environmental restoration contract</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the Bechtel work that I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved in, we were doing some of that, too, because we were making measurements and then determining, did</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">those measurements give us what we need to know so that we can take the appropriate steps for remediation?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I think that aspect, so to speak, of research piece might have been</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">if I were to start again, I might be</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">more interested in research. But at the time, I was more interested in what we need to know so that we can take</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the right steps to move forward.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I think that those are my observations. I was an enthusiastic worker. I just loved the opportunity and the people to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">work with. And we did a lot of group things. You know, I can remember bac</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">k in the old days, Ron Kathren</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> and I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">would have an equation on the blackboard we were trying to solve, and then leave it up there for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">while with</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">getting more information to make things fit. You took the information you had.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I was successful, probably published about, I don't know, 50 different papers in Health Physics Journal. And I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">also was involved in the Society for Radiological Protection in the British Isles. I gave two different presentations</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">over there in the '80s and '90s, which is always nice to go and experience others. I had even looked at that as a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">possible exchange.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: And as a result of those visits, I got invited to go to the Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and work on an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">environmental plan with folks from all over the world. And we had interpreters, because we had Russians, and we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">had Canadians, and we had French and Germans. And so</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> on—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">all that was nice. And they paid my way, and I got to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">spend</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">matter of fact, I made two trips in the same year on that activity. I had a third one, but the Department of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Energy wouldn't allow me to go on the third one.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that adds to your enjoyment, your understanding and working with people who have come from different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">places, and yet have similar issues and proble</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ms, and how are you addressing—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">especially when we're trying to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">write a manual, an international manual that would be used wherever, in developing countries as well as</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">advanced countries and so on, to protect people in the environment.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Is there anything else at all?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Not that's coming to me at this point. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I'm just delighted to have had this opportunity to share with you, even though</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">it's </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">very</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> uncoordinated.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I certainly rambled.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">No, that was wonderful. You gave us some great detail</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">s. That’s always</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> exciting for us to hear about. And I want to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">thank you so much for sharing with us. We really appreciate you taking time out.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, Laura, it was a pleasure sharing with you and getting to know you. I wish you well in your</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: --</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">future work and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">finishing your PhD. I never got there.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:06:42
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
5261 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 area.
Bechtel Hanford
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1947-2013
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1961-1995
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Parker, Herb
Kathren, Ron
Soldat, Joe
Carter, Jimmy
Junkins, Bob
McCreedy, Clarence
Mitchell, Dean
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 Dale Denham
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Dale Denham 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
12/12/2013
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.
2016-05-24: 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.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Nuclear instruments & methods
Richland (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
300 Area
Battelle (Wash.)
Bechtel Hanford
Kennewick (Wash.)
Livermore
Los Alamos
Oakridge
Richland (Wash.)
Savannah River