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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
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Douglas O’Reagan</span>: First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Stanley Goldsmith</span>: Stanley Goldsmith. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Goldsmith here on March 21</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX228872584">st</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, 2016. The interview is being condu</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">c</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ted 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: At Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> here</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, or at Los Alamos?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Before that. Your life before the Manhattan Project. Where were you born?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia. In 19—March 25</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX228872584">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, 1924.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Can you tell us about your life before the Manhattan Project? Up through college?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well I—</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Why don’t I move closer, that might—</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: And then you entered the Army, is that right?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you just find out about what the goal was once you arrived?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What element of the project did you work on at Los Alamos?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: At Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: At Los Alamos.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: At Los—I worked on processing the uranium-235 for the first atomic bomb.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What did that involve?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were you figuring out your process as you went?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No. The process had been pretty well established. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">This was more like just individual laboratories processing individual amounts of u-235 to get it to the po</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">int where it could be reduced to</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> metal.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Who did you work with?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you work with anybody?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Yes.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Who else was in your lab?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: That was a long time ago. Let’s see. There was Al </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span class="SpellingError SCX228872584">Drumrose</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So what brought you to Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How did you hear about the job?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, I knew about Hanford, and I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">sent out</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> letter</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> of inquiry about positions that may be open here and at other sites. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">And </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I got the position</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> here</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> in 1950. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So you wanted specifically</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to work at Hanford </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">or other sites—what was—did you have specific goals of what you wanted to do?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I liked what</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Hanford had to offer. So there was no question about that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> They satisfied what I was looking for.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What were your first impressions of the area?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: W</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ell, it was shocking to say the least.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> and one the separations plant.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I stayed with the laboratory. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Could you walk us through an average day when you first—say in 1950 or ’52—what sort of work were you doing?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What sort of work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Mm-hmm.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: The average day—you want me to start back </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">there</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">?</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">is that my worksite was located about 20 miles from Richland. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">You could take a bus operated by the plant, or you could drive. But you had to </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ut they also had a contract which</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> they called 1831, and that was for doing </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">private work for industrial corporations involved in nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> work. I spent a lot of time on that, trying to—my group was trying to improve</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the performance </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I worked as a reactor engineer for about four years. Then I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">took the position of manager of nuclear fuels research and development. We worked on developing or designing nuclear fuels, analyzing the fuels tha</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">t had been used in the reactors</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 w</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ere two contract billers</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. And this was done on the 1831, which allowed Battelle to use s</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ome facilities that were DoE’s—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ome facilities on the plant</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">a lot of claims on land that have</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">a nuclear fuel for Exxon Nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> which evolved into their first commercial fuels. During that time, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> with NRC. Our main project was DoE. And here</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> again</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, I was telling you</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">--[COUGH] Excuse me. I was still involved in nuclear fuel development. We did a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">work for NRC and also for DoE. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">This was on </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">helping them understand and ap</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">prove their review of new nuclear fuels in reactors—nuclear fuel design. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">So we were working on both sides of the street: with</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> regulatory side, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> DoE </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">development</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> side. And then in 1980—excuse me just one minute—I should have jotted these dates down</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. In late 1980s, I worked on a</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> DoE program on nuclear fuels—on nuclear fuel cycles, where we were looking at different way of utilizing the nuclear fuels</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> so that they would last longer</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> and that they would be safer. Then after that,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I was assigned to Battelle</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Columbus, because I had worked through this project. It turned out</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> quite successful. And Battelle</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">DoE selected the Nevada site at Los Alamos—not Los Alamos—at Las Vegas for the site to bury</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the spent nuclear fuels. T</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">hat 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> then I retired in 1987? 19—yes, in</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">had </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">That went on until about 1992. And f</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">inally, 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">first</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 t</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ime. Oh, there’s one thing that—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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 sp</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">onsored, a fairly large program</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> in which we were tryin</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">g</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. We called it mixed oxide fuel because</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> it’s plutonium and uranium oxide. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">the reactor, which was the PRTR,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor, was designed specifically to try to test, get inform</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ation on mixed oxide fuels. Let’s see.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I moved around a lot. After about five years on that program, I moved on</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, I think, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">to working for Exxon Nuclear,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> it—the woman who had all of this</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">O’Re</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">a</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">gan</span>: They did that because they were afraid of the Department of Energy taking their knowledge?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, they were c</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">oncerned there would be some lin</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">k—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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did that hurt your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Did that work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did i</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">t impact your work, being isolated like that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: I’m sorry?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Being isolated, did</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that impact your work? Did it slow your work, or did it cause any problems?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What makes one nuclear fuel better than another nuclear fuel?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 Exxo</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">n Nuclear, when our contract with them</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> expired, we became very much involved in working only for DoE and NRC. I think I mentioned that to you. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How secretive or how classified was your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: After—when I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">moved to Hanford, the classification was almost—was very slim. It was very lax, because with the dropping of the atom bombs, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">n all of that came out, what</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the bomb was made of, and some ideas what the design of the bomb was. So by that time, it </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">had pretty well leaked out,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the security was relaxed on that, also. So that wasn’t—that was no longer a big problem. There </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">were</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ur plants at—how many </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How did you hear about that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Hear about what?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: The Russians testing the waters.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Oh. I think we had—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ur security people </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">kept an eye on what was going on with the Russians. And this is one of the things they found out.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Let’s see. What was life in the Tri-Cities like back in the 1950s and ‘60s outside of work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> most of</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> And then there was a Richland o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">pera—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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you play bridge? What was your entertainment?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Where did you live throughout your time at Hanford, or in this area?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What’s that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Where did you live? Did you move houses?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">Goldsmi</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">th</span>: 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 bedr</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ooms. There was some furnishing</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the town—provided free coal. They</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> would come around periodically and dump a load of coal for you to use in your houses.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Sounds dirty!</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Huh?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Sounds dirty! Seems like it would get you messy. All the—dumping the coal, is there a coal dust that would come up?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What’s that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: When you burned the coal, would it be dirty? Would it make a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">smoke,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I guess?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 p</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">roblem 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Must have been a lot of buses?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Must have been a whole lot of buses.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Was it different when you were working on commercial energy compared to when you were working for the Department of Energy?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 we</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">re able to get fuel </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Was it finding the uranium, the procurement that was the problem? Or just</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> write</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> paperwork?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">about </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">twice as long to develop the fue</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">l for the Fast Flux Reactor than</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> it did us for the commercial reactors.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Hmm. Let’s see. Have the Tri-Cities changed much in the time you’ve been living here?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 oth</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">er businesses now involved for our</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 housi</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ng development, the real estate. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I remember up until 19—let’s see, about 1965, GE was in charge of everything, including bui</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">lding houses. [COUGH] Excuse me,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 t</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ypes of structures. The demand </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">f</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">r 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 d</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">rive down George Washington Way, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">you see all these new </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">businesses or </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">restaurants</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> or that sort of thing. So it’s r</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">eally changed</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. Richland was all on </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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 o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">f land to build on. That was no</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> problem. There’s a whole new part of Richland that’s on the other sid</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">e of the river that wasn’t there</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> working</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> at Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">at the high school, we said</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How about something mundane, but it’s sti</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ll kind of unusual? Or maybe</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> a day in the life later on in your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">see </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">Of course the boating is still a </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">big deal. I really—as I said, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">there was so much growth going on that it’s hard to pick ou</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">t any one area. Excuse me</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: After you retired, didn’t you work with the people from Israel, the First Defenders?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Oh, yeah, that was an </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">interesting</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> little</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> program. That was after I retired, and I was re-hired. Battelle got a program from the State Department to help—to develop way</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s for the First Defenders on a</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> terrorist site could make a better determination of what happened. And they did this on a worldwide basis.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Mainly, underdeveloped countries, but one country that they had and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> they</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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. An</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">d then Israel was to send about 20</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">very pleased. And it was fun, it was interesting to see how</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> they</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 schedu</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">le was. So they finally got him</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">countries</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that we trained but who had not been submit</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ted were completely different. Like n</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ight 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> who was carrying a package</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> of any sort. And they would be examined. So that was an interesting insight on how the different countries treat terrorism.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: And the training was about how to respond to a nuclear accident, or a crisis?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, this program was called the First Defenders. And th</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">se 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that were involved</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to a certain extent. And we had t</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">he Indians, from India, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">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?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: About when Bill Wiley was here and you worked at</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Battelle in Quality Assurance. Did you share any of that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: The quality--?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: Uh-huh.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Bill Wiley</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> was a very</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">—I think he was very influential and left his mark on the site, because he wanted to develop this environmental m</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">olecular laboratory, the rows of b</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">uilding</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s out there, the new rows</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">problems with nuclear reactors and nuclear fuels. But this was completely different from that. This was basic science that</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> these laboratories allowed us</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to get involved </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">in. And it’s opened up a whole new area. I think Battelle, and Hanford in general, has benefited</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> from it, because they get a lot</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> of extra programs that they wouldn’t have before. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were you invo</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">lved with these basic science pr</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ograms?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No, I started in nuclear fuels and nuclear reactors most of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">the time I was here. But I didn’t </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">get into any of the basic science programs.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you want to say anything about this Oppenheimer letter, maybe introduce it for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: 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 th</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">e back, but you knew he was warm and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 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 </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">that letter. That’s what that i</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: 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?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: When I went to Hanford did I ever--?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Meet any other people who had been at Los Alamos?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No, there a</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">re 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: All right, well thank you so much.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">You’re</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> welcome. Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </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.)
01:08:27
Hanford Sites
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F Reactor
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Boiling Water Reacto
Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF)
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1950-2016
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1950-1987
Names Mentioned
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Wiley, Bill
Bit Rate/Frequency
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247 kbps
Dublin Core
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Title
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Interview with Stanley Goldsmith
Creator
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Subject
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Richland (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland.
Date
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3/21/2016
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.
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2016-07-28: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
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.
Battelle (Wash.)
Boiling Water Reactor
F Reactor
Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF)
General Electric
HAMMER Site
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Richland (Wash.)
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F89da53c58c34229c68c8890bd2ee16b8.mp4
f561bf21f4c6e0119896680d6c3fa4de
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
O'Reagan, Douglas
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Freshley, Max
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.)
01:06:12
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
248 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 Area
3706 Building
234-5 Building
231-Z building
324 Building
N Reactor
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1951-2016
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1951-1993
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Fox, John
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
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2016-1-11
231-Z building
234-5 building
300 Area
324 Building
3706 Building
Battelle
General Electric
Housing
N Reactor
Plutonium Finishing Plant
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Richland (Wash.)
Secrecy
Westinghouse
-
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9ebfcd597b679760a742fd7933925b23.mp4
ed164cfe7bd11e113062417f98a3f61a
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
Robert Bauman
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Jack McElroy
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">McElroy_Jack</span></span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></strong></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">All right. We'll go ahead and started then.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Jack McElroy</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> We could maybe start by having you say your name</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">and spell it for us.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah. My name is a Jack McElroy. It's J-A-C-K M-C-E-L-R-O-Y.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Great. Thank you. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">nd today's date is October 22</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX152878036">nd</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> of</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Washington State University Tri-Cities. So let's start if we could by having you talk about when you came to work</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">at Hanford initially, what brought you here.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right. I was born at Grand Coulee Dam when my folks came out here from North Carolina and grew up in</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Spokane. And they came out here to work on the dam. After it was completed, we moved Spokane. I grew up</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So at Lewis and Clark High School I took all their math and science classes. And in my senior year,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Hanford started an engineering technician development program. And I was hired directly from high school by</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">General Electric. And I came here in the summer of 1955 and started working.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I was at the large central store's administration building next to the bus lot for a couple months while they obtained</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">our Q clearances. And the program also involved sending us to classes. So during that time, we also started going</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">to classes. So I basically came here in 1955 at the age of 18 directly out of high school.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">How many students were there? How many--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">There was about 20 of us that they recruited. There were several of us from Spokane. In fact, we formed a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">carpool and would go back to Spokane almost every weekend using the ferry that was here </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">at North Richland,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">went over to South Landing on the Pasco side. And that was the quickest way to get back and forth.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And so how long did you do that then?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I did that for a year and a half. And I had some great rotations. And at th</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">e same time that I signed on down</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> here, I</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">joined the Air National Guard out in Spokane.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And I was interested in flying. So in 1957, I actually left here to go into the pilot training program. But I probably</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ought to back up to my experiences here.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I want to ask you about, you said a dif</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ferent rotation. What sort of</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah. My first assignment was</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> radiation monitoring in a 325 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">uilding, where I was basically a technician</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">supporting chemists and also other radiation monitors. I learned a lot about the radiation and monitoring and so</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> on, which was limited </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">to the radio c</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">hemistry labs there in the 325 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">uilding. My second assignment took me</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">out to the 1</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">00 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">reas, where I worked for Larry McEwen </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">and the heat transfer group.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And I was assigned to his group in the hydraulics lab that was at the 1</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">00-D and D A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">rea. And I brought in a picture</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> and ga</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ve that to you of me working there in the lab. I met some really great chemical engineers there including a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> guy that would have an e</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ffect in my life later on </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">by the name of John Batch</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> who was a PhD from Purdue.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And they had quite an influence on my future as it turned out. My next assignment, I went to radiation monitoring</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> again with Herm Pass </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">in the 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">reas. And he was stationed</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">y had an office at the 100-D, D A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">rea</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">also.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And while I was on</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> that</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> assignment, I was very fort</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">unate to be involved in the 105-</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">B outage. And during that outage,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">we supported th</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">e changing out of the old curli</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">cue pig tails. They basically looked like the real pig tail</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">, and t</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">hat's how they got their name. The</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">y were formed just like a curli</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">cue. And they were on the front face of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">r</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">eactors. And in 1956, on the B R</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">eactor, they changed those out and put in stainless steel, flexible hoses and</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">pipes.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And so I was there at the reactor at that time supporting that operation.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">How long did that take?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Oh, it was just a month or so to actually do that. And that was actually my last assignment. And I did pretty good</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">and actually achieved radiation monitor status before I left and went into the Air Force in early 1957.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Of those different assignments, did you have one that you enjoyed the most?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I think t</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">he radiation monitoring at 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">reas. I got to go out to all the different reactors. I was able to go the rear</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">face on occasion. I mean, the rear face is a really hot, hot area.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So you had to stay out to the side. But at least I was able to see the rear faces on the reactors and the front faces</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">on several reactors. And so that was a very exciting assignment. But it was the hydraulics lab and heat transfer</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">unit that probably had the biggest impact on me later on when I decided to go to college after I was in the Air</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Force.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And so what sort of work did you do in the hydraulics lab?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Basically took measurements of fluid flow. And then I did an awful lot of graphing for the engineers and realized at</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">that time that, geez, if I had a degree, I could be having somebody else do the graphs for me. So it was very</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">interesting.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And you said that you and a group of you </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">would drive to Spokane often,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> ba</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">sically </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">on weekends. Where did</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">you stay? </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">when</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> you--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">When we came here, they put us up in the Sanfor</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">d Hotel, which was on Swift Boulevard</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">. It's since been removed. But it</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">was an old army barracks type of place and had simple bunk beds and so on in it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">But in 1955, the government started turning the city over to the community</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> basically. And things like prefab</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">became available for renting. And so on a group of four of us actually applied for a prefab and ended up in a one</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">bedroom prefab at 1213 Potter Street. And it was a little bit crowded, but we had a ball.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And what was the community of Richland like at the time, 1955, </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">'56</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: It s</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">till had a mess hall. You could go to the mess hall there downtown just across from where the post office is at</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">now and have a large buffet dinner and eat there. As I said, we stayed in the little hotel, barracks type hotel.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> Uptown T</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">heater was there. It was pretty normal, small community.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And so you were here for a year and a half or so.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And then if you can talk about what you did and what brought you back to Hanford.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah. Well, I left to go in the military. And I actually became a pilot and an officer and came back to the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Washington </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Air </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">National Guard up at Geiger Field and basically, at that time, decided, well, this is a great opportunity</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">for me to go back to school. So I went to Gonzaga University while I was flying with the Guard and Air Force.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And I received a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering. And GE hired me immediately to bring me back</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">down here. So I was back down here in July of 1963. So I was gone for about six years.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Were you hoping to get back to Hanford at some point? Or was that--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">You know, I didn't know. I really didn't know </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">what life had in store for me, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ut it just kept changing and</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">progressing. And I was certainly glad to get back down here once I had the opportunity.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So when you came back in 1963, then what sort of work were you doing? What areas were you working in?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: I kind of stumbled, or fate </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">or something steered me into waste management and the group that was pioneering</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">the development of waste treatment technology for handling radioactive waste. And they were just based, had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">lot of their people, in a 321 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">uilding, which was a building that had a lot of history. Other people may have</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">mentioned it, but it had a lot of history for developing separations technology for the site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And at the time I was there, it was actually being used to develop which treatment technology. And so I got in with</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">that group. And I spent three or four months with them learning about vitrification and also something called</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">calcining, where you take liquid waste and heat it up, and drive off a lot of the volatile materials and turn it into a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">powder. And then from that, we would melt it, vitrify it, </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">make</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> glasses.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So that was my first assignment. Second a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ssignment, I went out to 100-N A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">rea and had a great assignment there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I was a process engineer. And I was actually out there at the site when President Kennedy came in 19</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I think</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">was 1963, prior to the assassination of course</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">and saw him </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">speak. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> that was a great event. And N R</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">eactor</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">was a great reactor. It's unfortunate that we had to shut it down the way we did.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Do you have any specific memories from the day that President Kennedy was here?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Not really, no. I definitely remember being out there and seeing him, and hearing him talk, and the helicopters,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">pretty routine stuff. Yeah. I had one other rotation at PRTR, Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor, where I worked </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">on </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">the containment system for them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">But in 1964, it was announced that they were going to shut down all the reactors. And so I decided it was time for</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">me to pick a permanent assignment. And so I went back to the waste management group.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I don't know if </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I mentioned their names, but Al</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> Platt </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Carl Cooley were heading up that</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">organization. And they were real pioneers for developing waste treatment technology and working with other</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">international people like in England and France at that time. So I got in with that group and had a lot of great</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">opportunities with them.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">You mentioned as early as '63 they were already starting to work on vitrification sort of technologies?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">What other sorts of technologies and waste treatment were being researched or worked on?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">At that time, it was primarily calcination and vitrification and looking at three different products, either a calcine</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">powdery dry product for final storage or either phosphate glass or borosilicate glass. And also there was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">phosphate ceramic at the time. So it really hadn't been decided what was going to be the choice for the US, what</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> direction we</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> were going to go with the treatment technology.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And in the program I was in starting a '65, we actually demonstrated with r</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">adioactive material in the 324 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">uilding</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">several different technologies with all these different products. And from that, we chose to go with borosilicate</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">glass, which is the current standard for product form for high level radioactive waste.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And what led you to that</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> sort of</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> solution?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">The processes that we demonstrated, basically that seemed to be one of the best. We actually made it with in-can</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">melting, a spray calciner, and in-can melter. I brought in another photograph of that showing all this equipment in</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">the cell with the spray cal</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ciner setting over </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">an in-can melter. And basically the product from that, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">borosilicate glass, turned out to be the best product in terms of its durability. And also the process, in-can melting,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">was a pretty straightforward simple process to--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Can you explain that a little</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> bit</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">, just a little detail?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah. Basically we sprayed liquid waste into the spray calciner, which is heated to about 700 degrees centigrade.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And as the droplets came down, they dried. And it would be hot enough to where you'd get rid of all the nitrates</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">and convert it to oxides.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And the oxides would then fall down into the melter. We had a couple different </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">melters</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> at the time. We were</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ac</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">tually looking at a continuous </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">melter, that was made out of platinum and far too expensive, and the in-can</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">melter, which is made out of Inconel. And we would add additives, boron and silica, to the calcine, and then heat</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">them up to over 1,000 degrees centigrade in either the melter or the in-can melter and convert to the glass.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So about what time period was this conclusion made to go with vitrification?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">The program was from '65 to '71. And so it was around 1970 that we basically decided that the borosilicate glass</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">was the preferred route. And then things changed. And they actually didn't support doing </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">any waste </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">work for</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">about a year and started it backup in 1972.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And in 1972, I was recruited to be the manager for the development of the vitrification program. I was recruited by</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Al Platt, who I mentioned earlier and John </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Batch, </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">who was one of the PhD chemical engineers out</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">at the 100-D R</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">eactor at the time I was there as a technician. So it kind of came back around again with one of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">people that I word for earlier. So they recruited me to head up the program to further develop technology for using</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> in the United States, </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">for vitrifying high level waste.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So were you actually able to begin the process of [INAUDIBLE]?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">In '72, we started building the program with the focus on the spray calciner and in-can melter, which was the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">choice from that earlier program</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> and also decided it was time to look at something that would handle large</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">quantities</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> of waste</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">, such as what they have here at Hanford. Because when you just melt in a can, you're pretty well limited</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">in terms of size and processing rate. So in 1972, I hired an engineer, actually Battelle hired him.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Hanford Labs under General Electric became the Pacific Northwest Laboratories under Battelle. And so in 1972, I</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">was then working for Battelle. And at that time, we started developing and hiring engineers.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And so one of the engineers was Chris Chapman out of Kansas. He was a mechanical engineer. And we put</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">him in charge of developing a new melter technology, a Joule-heated ceramic melter.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> to</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> jump further </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ahead,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Joule-heater ceramic melter now is the heart of the waste treatment plant. There's</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">two of them in the low activity waste facility and two in the high level waste facility. But anyway, we started</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">developing that technology in early '70s. And by 1975, we had </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">a prototype working in the 324 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">uilding of a liquid</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">-fed </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Joule-heated ceramic melter. And I brought in a picture of that also to share with you.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So that's almost 40 years ago now that you really started developing some of that technology.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right. If you </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">add that up, that's probably</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> 41 years. So it's over 40 years.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah, time flies. Anyway, that technology</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">1977</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">we were developing most of this technology actually for the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">commercial nuclear fuel cycle with the expectation that the United States would develop reprocessing and have a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">complete fuel cycle here. In 1977, President Carter put a moratorium on reprocessing and that just threw</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">everything into turmoil.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And fortunately, there was a gentleman by the name of Frank </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">Baranowski</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> that was running the Department of</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Energy Defense Waste sites. And he chose to pick up the technology. And so we then turned all of our efforts</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">from the commercial fuel cycle to supporting the Defense Waste facilities.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So we spent several years working with DuPont to transfer the know-how for the spray calciner and in-can melter</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">, as well as the Joule-heated</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> melter for use down at Savannah River. And they ini</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">tially started out choosing the </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">spray calciner and in-can melter. But after they figured that there was a huge cost savings by eliminating the tall</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">calciner in terms of canyon height for hot cells and processing cells, they decided to go with the Joule-heated</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">melter.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So we worked with DuPont and helped them get that technology in place in the Defense Waste Processing facility</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">at Savannah River. And it's been very successful. It's been running for about 20 years.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So you came initially in 1955--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: --and the focus at Hanford was </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">production</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">nd came back in the '60s. It was just about to shift to definitely reduced</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> production, right, and then--</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I guess if you look back at that, you've seen a lot of the changes in mission, changes in technology.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">In thinking back to the years you worked</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> at Hanford and the changes</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> what--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I mean, obviously impacted your work</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">in terms of what you were focusing on. But the changes in technology must've impacted your work as well.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah. I still do a little consulting. It turned out to be a hot area,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> waste management. So I'm still involved in it on a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">small part-time basis. I've retired two or three times. And I actually ran a small company for Battelle</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> out there</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> called</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">Geosafe</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">We actually went out and we developed another technology called in-situ vitrification, where we literally </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">clean up</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">sites by putting electrodes in the ground and melting the earth and the soil. And we brought that along and made</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">it to where it was capable of actually using the same method to melt in a large container. And so for a while here,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Hanford was looking at that technology, it was called bulk vitrification, as a way of</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> supplementing the current </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">V</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">it</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">P</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">lant. And it's possible that that technology might still have a use here at Hanford.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Mm-hm. </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">So you came back and '63. And then how long did you stay working at [INAUDIBLE]?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I worked for 30 years as an engineer and retired in '95 from Battelle. But I retired to run a small company for</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Battelle, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">Geosafe</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">company</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">In looking back at the various things you've worked on, was there a part of your work, an aspect of the work that</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">you found most challenging or part of it that you found the most rewarding?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Probably the most challenging and rewarding was trying to make thin</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">gs work in a hot cell. The 324 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">uilding</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">which is still there and may be there for a while, because there's contamination under the cell where we were</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">doing the processing. Making things work, making them reliable, and getting week-long tests completed without</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">major interruptions that was very challenging and very rewarding.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And it could be done. Sometimes the only way to solve the problem was to put it in a hot cell and make it work.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">You could spend a lon</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">g time outside playing around, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ut you really didn't know what the issues and problems</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">were until you put in it in there and tried to do it.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And then also during your years at Hanford, were there any incidents that stand out or problems or events that</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">happened that stand out in your mind above some of the others?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: Hmm. </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Not reall</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">y. I mean, some little events, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ut probably wouldn't want to put them on tape.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> I would have to say that I</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">am so amazed at the Manhattan Project and what they did so quickly and successfully.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And even when I came here in '55 and then on in the '60s, we were able to do things pretty quickly. I mean, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">could build it, put it in, </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">test</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> it. And somewhere '70s, '80s, things started to get too bogged down in paperwork and</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">overly cautious. The safety culture was always there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> But some</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">how or another the safety culture got to where it really slowed things down. And it's unfortunate. It just</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">takes too long now to get things done.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Is there any specific examples of concerns about safety or security that sort of thing that you can think of?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Just th</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">e requirements for dotting the i's and crossing the t</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">'s and undergoing inspections and being afraid. I mean,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I mentioned that sometimes the best way to get something done was to put it in there and make it work. Now, you</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">can't put it in there until you're positive it's going to work. The </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span class="SpellingError SCX152878036">Vit</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> plant's a great example of that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And they have a truly big concern associated with these Pulse Jet Mixer tanks in the black cells, where they're</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">going to be in there for 40 years. And I mean, that's a legitimate concern. But the fact is I believe that 90% of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">waste could be processed without that concern. And then we're holding up the whole plant because of this other</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">10% of the waste. And that's frustrating.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Looking back on your time working at Hanford, how </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">would </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">you a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ssess, overall, your experiences working at </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I had a great, great career, great experiences. A lot of memories, a lot of good memories, a lot of great people.</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And I raised my family here, too, my wife Carol, and daughter Toni and Jill. They're Bombers. It was Col High,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Columbia High</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> at t</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">he time that they went to high school there. Now, it's Richland High School. And they had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">great, great life and experience here also.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I wonder if you could talk about the relationship between Hanford the workplace and then the community. How</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">would you describe that relationship as y</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">ou were living here in the '60s and</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> '70s?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I don't know, just business as usual. I don't set it apart from any of the other businesses around the area in terms</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">of being different or unique. So just business as usual to me.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I wonder</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> is there anything I haven't asked you about yet related to your work experience at Hanford or something</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">that you'd like to share or talk about that you hav</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">en't had a chance to talk about </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">yet?</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I don't think so.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">I wanted to make sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">There's probably something I'll think about later.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">That happens.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah, of course, right.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman:</span> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Well, I want to thank you for coming in today. This is a really interesting</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">as someone who came like you said as</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">just out of high school</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> really.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Yeah</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> I think that is kind of a fortuitous event</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> to come directly out of high school as something like this and to be a</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">part of history. It basically impacted my life and my future decisions of where I was going to go and what I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">going to do</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> very positively.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">And then you came back in a very different capacity in many ways.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">Well, thank you again for coming in.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">McElroy</span>: Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036">. Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX152878036">
<p class="Paragraph SCX152878036"><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: I appreciate your coming and</span><span class="TextRun SCX152878036"> talking to us.</span><span class="EOP SCX152878036"> </span></p>
</div>
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:28:00
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
198kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
325 Building
100 Area
100-D Reactor
D Area
100-N Area
N Reactor
B Reactor
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1955-1957
1963-2013
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1955-1957
1963-1993
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
McEwen, Larry
Batch, John
Pass, Herm
Platt, Al
Cooley, Carl
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Chapman, Chris
Baranowski, Frank
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 Jack McElroy
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Jack McElroy 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 Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-06-15: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/22/2013
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
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
Richland (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
100 Area
100-D Reactor
100-N Area
324 Building
325 Building
B Reactor
D Area
Hanford (Wash.)
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
N Reactor
Pasco (Wash.)
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Richland (Wash.)
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F180660234e109a77b4340610c4e50f43.jpg
3816611a7f7cbd88b1b5d25e8b651ee9
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fc9ba08478b7c6707489551cbfcf22ffa.mp4
8ba37550abf1599a853424689260db35
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert Bauman
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Steve Buckingham
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span class="SpellingError SCX150736100">Buckingham_Steve</span></span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></strong></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">We're going to go ahead and start if that's all right.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Steve Buckingham:</span> Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> So if we could start by just having you say your name and spell</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">it for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Okay. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">It's</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> John Stevens Buckingham is the full name, and it's S-T-E-V-E-N-S</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> B-U-C-K-I-N-G-H-A-M, just like the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">palace.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">All right. Thank you. And today's date is November 13 of 2013--</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">November 13, 19</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">2013.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: 2013.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">2013.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I'm still in the last century.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And my name’</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">s Bob Bauman, and we're doing this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. So if we could start maybe by having you tell us how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, when</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you arrived</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX150736100">
<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. Well, first of all, I'm a native Washingtonian. I was born in Seattle, grew up in Pacific County. Went to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Washington</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">graduated from high school in 1941, and went to Washington State College, at that time, in chemical</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">engineering. Well, of course you know the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th of that year. I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">able to finish off my first year at Washington State, and came back, the second year, the sophomore year, there</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">were just mobs of people on campus recruiting for military. I tried several of them. I tried to get into the Navy V-12</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">program, but my eyes were not good enough. But I was able to get into an Air Corps program that they were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">looking for meteorologists. So I signed up for that. I had to get my dad to give me permission, because I was only</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">18 at the time.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">But I was able to finish </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">my sophomore year. I had just begun my</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> freshman, my first semester, and I had just</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">started the semester, my second semester, when I got the call to report to active duty. And the program that I had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">signed up for was this pre-meteorology program. And actually, it was kind of a neat situation. I was sent to Reed</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">College in Portland, Oregon. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd it was a little bit of a cultural shock, coming from a rather conservative</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Washington State to go to Reed College. We could smoke in classes. We could go up to a girl's room in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">dormitory. [LAUGHTER] A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd they sang rather interesting songs on campus</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> too.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> But Reed has very high scholastic standards,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">and I think the best math professor I ever had, I had at Reed College. But we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we just had almost normal</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">college classes:</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> math, and physics, and geography. It was an interesting experience.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, after a year at Reed, and also being in the military</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">because I think we must have had about</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">, what,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> two</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">flights of cadets there, and we were all in uni</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">form, of course. And after one year</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> they decided they had enough</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">meteorologists, so most of us were looking around for another program to get into. And I applied to go into</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">communications, because I had a lot of physics background by then, and was accepted in that. They sent me to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">—oh, </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">gosh, I can't even think. It was North Carolina. It was the first time I'd ever been down to the South, which was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">another cultural shock. [LAUGHTER] T</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">o see separate drinking fountains for black</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">colored and white. That's where we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">through, essentially, Officers Candidate School. But the communications part of it was spent at Yale University in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">New Haven. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">That was about—oh, </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I think that was about six months that I was there going through communication.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">We had to learn all about radio and communications. But there is where I got my</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I was commissioned, then, as a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">second lieutenant in the Air Corps. And about the time that I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">just before I finished there, one of my friends had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">gone up to Yale University</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">to Harvard, because they were looking for people to work in radar. Well, why not?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> So</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I applied, and was sent up to New Haven</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">not New Haven, up to Harvard. And there we went through a very</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">intensive training on electronics, getting all the background on electronics. I used to kind of laugh. If you dropped</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">a pencil on the floor went to drop</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> to pick it up, you'd be behind three months.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> It was really intensive training.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And after that training, then they sent</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">most of us went downtown in Boston and worked on the top floor of a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">building that overlooked the harbor</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> developing radar they were working on.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And that was really kind of interesting. But that was kind of temporary. That was just to give us some practical</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">experiences. So that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">then when that part of the training was over with, they assigned me to the 20th Air Force,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">which was the big bombers that were gettin</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">g ready to go to Japan, and sent</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> me to Boca Raton, Florida. And that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was kind of another goof-off. We were just</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we had to go o</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">n training exercises, flight training exercises once a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">week. So I got to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> fly all over Florida, all over the Caribbean.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Just goof-off things. It's really kind of almost</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">embarrassing, because we'd go fishing and stuff like that on the boat, because they'd always had to send a boat</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">out in case a plane went down in the ocean, and so we could go out on the boat an</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">d</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> fish.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">While I was at Boca Raton,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> then</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> the Japanese surrendered, and the war was over. Well, what are they going to do with</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">all of us that had been trained?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I went out to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and they were bringing B-29s back from</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">overseas. And all we did was remove the radar equipment from B-29s and stash it someplace. Well, I guess they</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">decided they really didn't need us anymore. So I was able to be discharged and get back to the Washington State</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">College to pick up my second semester sophomore year. Well, I had accumulated so many credits in going to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">these other colleges. So I went and talked to the dean, and he says, well, why don't you just switch to chemistry?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Get your degree in chemistry or general, and then come back for a master's degree.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, I had been on the East Coast for two years, and I did not like it back there. Being a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">my mom and dad lived</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">out in Pacific County</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> yet</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">, and I wanted to get home. I had two job offers when I graduated from college. One was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Troy, New York, and the other was here. General Electric was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">had on the campus quite a bit of recruiting</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">people, because they were getting ready to develop a new separation p</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rocess called the REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd they</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">were looking for people with scientific background, chemistry and so forth, to work there. Well, I grabbed the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">opportunity, and I arrived here on the 26th of July in 1947. I remember the day.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> And that was really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">it was very</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">interesting, because Richland was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">GE was really operating under the old DuPont system yet. It was the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">organization was still the one that DuPont set up during construction.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">We were in the technical department.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> And I was sent out to the 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">reas</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> waiting for my clearance to come</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">through, and w</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e were just analyzing the water</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that went</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> through the piles. And then when my </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">clearance</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">came through, they sen</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">t me to the 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rea where</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> they were developing this new separation process, this</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process, and we were doing the analytical control for </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. And that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">of course, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">development was using just uranium and other chemicals that didn't have any of the radioactive, really highly</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">radioactive material other than uranium. But it was really very interesting, because a whole new line of metallurgy</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was being dev</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">eloped there. The metallurgy in—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">old metallurgy was stuff like smelting, and electrolytic, and stuff like</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, the chemical separation process they used out at Hanford was a carrier precipitation process, which did not</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">allow them to recover the uranium. So this is why they were developing this new solvent extraction process, so</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> could</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> cover both plutonium and uranium simultaneously. That was really quite a remarkable new metallurgical</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">process that they were really developing here at Hanford, because how do you contact organic and aqueous</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">pha</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ses, and stuff like that? And </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">what kind of a con</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">tact? They had all kinds of ones</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> that they were working with</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there in the 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rea, and it was really very interesting. We were doing all </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the analysis for it. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">then </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I was there</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">maybe a little over a year, and they decided we needed to have a little experience with </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">“</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">real</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">”</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> material.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER] So they sent</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">several of us of to be</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> shi</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ft supervisors, out of the 200 Area, and the 222-T and 222-V P</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lants. That's</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">where we got to work with real material. And it was just another training program. The</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">y</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> were still</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they had begun</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">construction on the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> P</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lant. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd about that time, then there was a little bit of an accident down in Texas,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">where a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate blew up and practically wiped out the city of Texas City.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> And that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">what we were using as a salting agent in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. Well, that set the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process into a big delay.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">What are you going to do with</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we can't use ammonium nitrate. It's just plain too hazardous. They began looking</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">at new salting agents at that time, and it took, oh, maybe six months or so before they finally came up with a new</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">salting agent.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, we just kind of fiddled around a little bit out in the labs. They were closing the business phosphate process</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">labs. They combined them into just one lab. So several of us just kind of floated around doing other work that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">kind of related to the REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. For a while, I was in standards, where we were making radioactive</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">standards they used to control the counting machines and all that kind of stuff. And it was not that interesting. Well</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I had an opportunity then to go into an organization that was still there i</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">n the old 3706 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">uilding in 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rea. It was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">called process chemistry. And they were the ones who were working on the chemistry of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. It</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was just</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">to me, it was just an absolute perfect fit, because I liked to monkey around with experiments and do</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">research type stuff.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And it was a neat bunch of people that we were working with. Some of them I still kind of chortle when I think of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">some of the stuff they pulled.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> But I was able to move into that, and I w</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">as the third person to move out</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> to 222-S,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">which </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was the laboratory for the REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. And that's where we were, for our final laboratory was out there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And I stayed in that most of my working career. I did take a couple years to go over to work on writing the waste</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">management tech manual, because they were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that was another process. We got to work in every new process</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that came along. We concentrated a lot on the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process, </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">because that was new. And then that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> chemist down</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in the Hanford laboratories discovered tributyl phosphate, so that opened up the whole new PUREX process. That</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">had to be developed. And all the chemistry that went in to that development, we worked with.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And then they decided they had to do something with the waste, and there was an outfit came in that was going to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">separate out fission products out of the waste. And we were going to have a big fission product market. Well, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">eparated out a lot of strontium-90 and cesium-137. And the strontium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">90 was all right, because they could use</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that as a heat source for places where they didn't have much sunshine, deep space probes and so forth. The</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">cesium, unfortunately</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> the capsule we set someplace leaked, and we had a little bit of embarrassment. That had to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">be cleaned up. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">So Isochem had taken</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that was when the companies had separated into all these different</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">companies. And the waste management </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">just </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">kind of petered out. We still had waste management we had to do</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">something with.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">So I continued just working on it</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> but went back to the process chemistry laboratory. I finally ended up manager</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there for several years until I retired.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> But it was a real experience, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hat's all I've got to say. I feel like I was very</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">fortunate in being able to work with so much new technology. And I think one of the more interesting ones was, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">were recovering</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">out of our wast</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e, we were recovering neptunium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">237, and I had set up a small demonstration</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">process in the laboratory. And for three years, I wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">s the total source of neptunium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">237 in the whole United States.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And that 237, when we first started doing it, we actually would convert the 237 to an oxide, and mix it with</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">aluminum, and make a fuel element out of it that we stuck</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> in B reactor to make plutonium-239. Plutonium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">239 is a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">very unique isotope of plutonium. It is non-fissionable, but if you get a ball of it about the size of a golf ball, it's</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">generating so much heat, it'll actually glow red.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">So they use it as a heat source for deep space probes. So we were working on snap programs and all this is really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">fascinating new technology. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I just feel very fortunate that I had been able to have a finger in some of this stuff</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that's really far out. We were looking</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you know that one time they were going to convert that big building next to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the FFT</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">F into a facility just to process</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> plutonium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">238. That was another program that didn't ever develop. But we</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">kind of had fingers in just an awful lot of stuff over the years. Some of the stuff I kind of laugh about. There was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they developed silver reactors to remove iodine from our off gases coming out of the plant, because of the iodine</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">contamination. And one </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">of the silver reactors at the PU</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REX P</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lant blew up.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Well, it was not serious. It was all</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">contained. But we had to try to figure out, why did that darn reactor blow up? Why did they have a reaction in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And I still remember one of the old chemists, Charlie Pollock. He was the one who was in charge</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> of it</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. But I still</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">remember him making mixtures and putting it outside the lab door on a hot plate and standing behind the door to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">see it, was he going to pop? </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">We did an awful lot of innovation like that. It was just really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I think we did have a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">good time mucking with this stuff. I jokingly say that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">every Monday we would have what they called a process</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">meeting where the chemists and the process engineers would get together to discuss what we're going to do this</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">week. And I always said we just got together to see how we're going to screw the plant up this week. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">There was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">so much new technology, and every week somebody would come up with a new idea. They were the biggest pilot</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> plants in the world, really. [LAUGHTER] B</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">oth the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> one and the PUREX one, just developing these processes. The</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">whole</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you know, when we first came here, we were living in dormitories.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And the men's dormitory was on one side of town, and the women's was on the other side of town. We'd meet in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the cafeteria. [LAUGHTER] A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd I still recall, when we were working shift works, we would gather in the cafeteria after swing shift,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">and we'd still be</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> there talking, or doing something with the guys who would come in for breakfast to go to work on</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">day shifts.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Graveyard was always hell, because you didn't have time to do anything but sleep and eat.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> And swing</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">shift was kind of bad because the movie house, the movies didn't start until 4:00, and so we could go to any</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">movies or anything. But it was tolerable. We formed an organization called the dorm club, where we went on</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">made a lot of camping trips, had a few beer busts. I tell about, I was social chairman for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">while, and I found a big</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">bargain on beer, Pioneer Beer.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">It was made by the breweries that they opened when they were doing construction during the war. It was not very</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">good beer. I think I had five cases hidden under my bed in the dorm for weeks until I got rid of it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> But most of us</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">met our spouses at that time. And it was really a unique situation early on in the late 40s and early 50s, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">almost all of us h</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ad been in the same boat. We had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> started college. We'd been called into active duty during the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">war. We'd finished active duty and returned to </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">college to finish our degrees. So we all had had the same type of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">experiences. Some of them were pretty hairy. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">n fact, I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> well remember one of my roommates was telling about being in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the Philippines, and sitting on his bunk during one time, and said a big old snake crawled up between his legs.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">think I would have been of the roof and never come back </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">down if that had happened to me! [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">But you know we had all had similar experiences, and it was our first time, really, that we were making any money</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that we could do things with. We could buy cars</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">, and bought cars</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. So we went on just all sorts of trips. We learned</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">most of us</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">learned to ski. And those ski trips, that was still was fairly new in the State of Washington. There was a rope tow</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">up in the Blue Mountains at Tollgate. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And, o</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">h gosh, I think a season ticket cost $5.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> And</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> we would—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">went down, and I think we</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">initiated the chairlift at T</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">imberline</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> down at Mount Hood. We went to a lot of places just when they were first</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">opening.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> So, in fact--</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">How long did you live in the dorms, then?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, let's see. I lived in the dorms several years, and then an acquaintance was able to get an apartment over on</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">George Washington W</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ay, and he asked if I wanted to share this apartment with him. You had to share.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> You</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">couldn't just live in one by yourself. So I then lived in that apartment for a couple of years, until I got married. Then</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> we had a B</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> house. [LAUGHTER] A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd that's where we were living when they began selling Richland out. And we were junior</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">tenants in the B</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> house, </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">and way down on the move list, s</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">o there wasn't much chance of getting a decent</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">house. My wife and I bought a lot over in Kennewick.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And we didn't have much money, but we had a lot of energy, and we did an awful lot of building our own house. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">think</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I'm still living in it 54 years later.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER] So—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">but it's been</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Oh, I don't regret a day of the work that we've done here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">It's been challenging and interesting. After I retired from full time, I did a lot of part time work. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> helped—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was declassifying</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">documents and I was a tour director, taking people on tours of Hanford. And I worked at the old Science Center</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">down on the Pos</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">t Office, before that became CREHST</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> over there, where it is now. And the Visitors Center out at</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Energy Northwest, I worked there. And the FFDF Visitors Center. So it's been a wonderful life, really. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Fun.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I wonder, when you arrived</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was it July 26th of 1947? What was your first impression of Richland, or of the place</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">here?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] Well! W</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hen I graduated from college, when my folks came over to graduate, and we came back through here. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I still remember going on the old highway, looking over, and seeing the stack of the old heating plant that used to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">be downtown in Richland, and thinking, oh gosh, do I really want to come here? And it was a little different. Of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">course I had worked in very highly classified stuff during radar during the war. So I was used to the classification.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">But Richland was really different. You just didn't talk about your work at all. You kind of </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">k</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">new what your buddies did.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And there was the separation technology people, there was the pile technology people, the fuel technology</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">people. You kind of knew what they did, but that's all. You didn't really know any </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">details. And you never talked, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">never talked about it.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">You talked about the chemistry of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process. Could you explain sort of what that means, in terms of </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">what the process was?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Yeah. The fuel is dissolved, of course. They take the jackets off with sodium hydroxide, and then you dissolve the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">fuel in nitric acid. And then </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they used this solvent, it’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> an organic solvent. The stuff </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we used was </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">H</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">exon</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">, for what</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the chemical name is methyl</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">isobutyl</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> k</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">etone, which is a paint thinner. And to make sure that we could extract, this</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">H</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">exon</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> would extract uranium and plutonium from aqueous phase into this organic phase. Well, you needed to add</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">a salting agent to be able to improve th</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">at extraction. These were done i</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">n what we called columns. They were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">packed columns. They used some stuff called </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span class="SpellingError SCX150736100">Raschig</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> rings, and they were about 40 feet long. The feed would</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">come</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> about the middle of the column. The organic things would come in at the bottom of the column.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And then there'd be a scrubbing agent came in up at the top of the column, and that would scrub some of this</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">stuff out. Oh, it was a complicated process. Then we would oxidize the plutonium</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">or we would re</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">duce the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">plutonium through a three </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">valence state, and that wouldn't extract. And that was the separation column. And then</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you'd have to run both of these stuff through similar columns to clean</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> it up. It was—r</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">eally, it was kind of a marvelous</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">process. It was a whole new metallurgical processing. It was something that hadn't been done, really, until we did</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">here at Hanford. So just developing all these littl</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e techniques was quite a chore. And it worked!</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Then you said you were s</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hift supervisor in the 200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rea?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Yeah, in the laboratories.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">In the laboratories. So what sort of work did that involve</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> at that point</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, that was, then, that process chemistry that we were doing. But whenever there was an upset with the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">columns, there was all sorts of things, like the columns would occasionally flood, and they would just emulsify, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they couldn't get the organic and the stuff to separate. But why was that happening? And things like that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Sometimes the chemistry would get off a little bit, or we would get a carryover for some reason or other. It just</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">it</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">worked, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> it worked very well. But we were able to recover both the uranium and the plutonium. So we weren't</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">putting uranium out in those old waste tanks.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Then, you know, when we developed the PUREX process, we used the tributyl</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">phosphate in a more dilute phase</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">to go back in and recover that uranium we had stored from the old bismuth phosphate separation process. So you</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">name it, we did it! [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I kind of jokingly say that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you know, when DuPont was building this place, the war manpower</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">boards told them where they could recruit, and they did a lot of recruiting in the South, because that was not</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">highly industrialized. So that's why quite a few Southerners came up here to work. Well, Southerners are</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rednecks.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> They can make anything work. And I really, I sincerely think it's a lot of the ability of those people to be</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">able to do things, why this place even succeeded. And when you stop to think that that original construction and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">everything took place in 14, 16 months, it's just mind boggling.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Given the sort of materials you were working with out there, why don't you talk about safety issues? Was safety</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">emphasized quite a bit?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Oh, you </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span class="SpellingError SCX150736100">betcha</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. You know</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> DuPont was a st</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">inker on safety because they mad</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e gunpowder. You've heard the story</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">about them getting criticized for making big profits doing gunpowder during World War I. So when they took over</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the contract here, they said they'd do it for cost plus $1, and they only received $0.80.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I think that's kind of an</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">interesting story in itself. But DuPont was really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">boy, if you saw something was unsafe, that was corrected right</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">now. You didn't need to continue working in the unsafe condition at all.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And I kind of laugh a little bit about. I think we were safer out at the plant than we were in our own homes. We'd</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">have these dumb safety meetings. Once a week you had to go through a safety meeting. Sometimes they were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">boring as hell. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">But the other </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">thing was that when we didn't have any accidents for a certain length of time, we'd get</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">a prize. I still have some of the prizes we won over the years. That was another thing. When GE was taking over,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we could get GE</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">could </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">buy GE products at employee cost. You wouldn't dare buy a frying pan unless it was GE.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> So</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there were many little advantages.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I wonder, o</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">f the different things you worked on at Hanford, what were some of the most challenging aspects of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">work you did, and what was some of the most rewarding?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, I think one of the most re</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">warding ones was this neptunium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">237. That was really a fun project, because about</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">once a month we'd have to start up this little pilot plant, and you had to run it 24 hours a day for about a week to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">separate out this 237. That was a very challenging and </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">very rewarding project, because it</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> had a lot of interest.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">That, and the fact that it was also highly classified. They k</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ept changing the classification,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I think every month,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you'd</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> have a new name for it. One time it was Palmolive.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Let's see, what were some of the others? Birch bark.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">You never knew what you were supposed to call it from one month to the next, because it was a very high-priority</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">thing. Also, when we had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they begin shipping most of it back to Savannah River, because Savannah River could</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">make the 238 easier than we could here at Hanford.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">But I would separate out this 237, and I'd have to deliver personally to the mint car. That was the car that took the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">plutonium down to Los Alamos. I'd have to take that 237 up in a cask and put it on </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that mint car.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> So there were a </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lot of little things like that. Some of the challenges, we had some technical problems over the years that were real</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">problems. Like</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> we had a ru</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">thenium problem out at the REDOX</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> process that was a </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">little bit of a challenge. W</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">spewed some plutonium out on the ground out there. And plutonium is kind of a nasty stuff, because it doesn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">absorb. It migrates towards the river fairly fast. So there were a few of those little things that were a bit of a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">problem. Also, then, during the Cold War, when production was so critical</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you know you just didn't shut down for</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hell or high water. And we were running out of waste storage space.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">We came up with a way we could treat the waste and make it crib</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">able, so we could put it just to a crib, an</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">underground crib, like a dry well. And that was kind of a dumb thing to do.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> But it was necessary, because we had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">to get plutonium out</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> somehow or other. And we didn't have waste storage space. It takes too long to build a waste</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">tank. And some of the interesting little things is some of the crushers found that nice salty stuff down in the soil,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">and we had an awful lot of hot poop spread around in the desert at various places.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Some of those challenges</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">were kind of challenging!</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> We didn't get too involved in it, but somebody was getting involved in it, and we always</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">knew who it was.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">So the situation where y</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ou said that you sort of spewed</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> a little bit of plutonium, was that at PUREX? What</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">happened with that situation?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Oh, they were recovering americium from the plutonium down at 234-5, and they had a criticality event down</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there. That was a very challenging situation. I happened to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the engineer who was in charge of that was a good</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">friend. He was at a Boy Scout—at a heat </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">down along the river, and they went down and got him, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">brought h</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">im back</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> so we could do some work out there. But that was really kind of scary. That's the only really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">serious incident. That and Mr. McCluskey</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">, when the glove box blew up in his face. And I always blame the union</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">on that, because the union was being very stubborn about settling the strike, and that's why the column</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> had</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> sat with</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">this acid on it for so long. Then when they started it up, it took off.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Are there any other incidents or things that happened during your time working at Hanford that really stand out to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you? Humorous things, or serious.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I can't think. I can think of several humorous situations that occurred, particularly when I was a punk kid supervisor</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">out there </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in the 222-T P</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lant. We had quite a few women workers out there, and I swear, I think those women used</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lay awake at night to see how they could embarrass me. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] And t</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">his one</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the hot water tank was in the women's</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">restroom, and it had a check valve in it. Well, the toilets were all these pressure-type toilets. And this one woman</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">went in to use the toilet, and the check valve didn</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">'t check. She burned her bottom. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Oh, no.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: A</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd I had to take her to first</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">aid. And she was not at all hesitant about telling me exactly what had happened in detail.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I about died having to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">write up the accident report!</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Had employee been instructed on the job</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> and stuff like that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> But I still chortle about</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Y</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">eah. Y</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ou talked earlier about how during the peak of the Cold War, there was focus on production, production. At some</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">point, that leveled off, and there was sort of a decreased emphasis on production, and of course, eventually, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">shift toward cleanup. But I wonder if that sort of shift away from really high production, how that impacted your</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">work at all?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Did that change?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">It didn't seem to change it an awful lot. Those are very complicated processes out there. There not just simple</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">processes, and they seem to have a tendency to something always going wrong. Like we had a situation of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">columns flooding. And it was detergents that was put in through the Columbia River, up in Spokane</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Wenatchee</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> up</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">above us. Our water treatment system didn't remove this detergent. It was a phosphate detergent, and there it</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">came through with our water purification stuff that we were doing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I think it gave us a bit of a headache for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">while, of why there were these columns flooding all the time, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">little </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">situations like that. They see</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">med to come up, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hey'd crop up at weird times. Or a piece of equipment would fail,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">and how do we do it. Just—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">f you ever go out to the a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rea, as you pass the old PUREX P</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lant, there's a tunnel that comes</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">from the end of the PUREX Pl</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ant almost out to the highway, and there's a vent out there. And that tunnel is full of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">equipment that f</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ailed in the PUREX P</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lant that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> they shoved it into this tunnel and left it there. That's got to be</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">cleaned up someday.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I was going to ask you, President Kennedy came to v</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">isit in 1963 to dedicate the N R</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">eactor. Were you present that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">day? Were you able to see</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Oh, you </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span class="SpellingError SCX150736100">betcha</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. They took </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">us—a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nybody who wanted to go in a bus down to the place where they were going to have</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the dedication. My wife, and her sister, and my two kids came out. And I don't know how my daughter ever found</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">me in that crowd down there, but she spotted me somehow or other.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> We were so far back you could hardly see</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> him</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">But that was the first time they actually allowed people to come on the project, too. So it was really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I think my</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">wife and her sister said they sat for an hour waiting to get through the barricade before they could come out. They</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">were both quite amazed at what they saw when they got out here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Right. And as you look back at all your years working at Hanford, how would you assess it as a place to work?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, some of the companies were much better to work for than others. I really enjoyed working for General</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Electric, because that's the company I first came to work for here. And Arco was a good company to work for.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Isochem was just kind</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> of iffy. They were very small—a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nd I don't</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they didn't quite have their act together yet.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Some of the other later companies, I thought were just, </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nah</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. That was one of the reasons I quit</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> when I did</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. I quit a little early.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I took retirement at 63, because I just couldn't stand the company that was here at that time. They knew how to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">build airplanes, but they didn't kno</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">w how to run a chemical plant. That</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> shouldn't be in here. I hope you edit that out.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">You</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> did talk earlier about some of the technology that you saw. I wonder, are there any other examples? Or you</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">could talk about some of the new technology that you saw develop </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">during this time you were there?</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, gosh, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">technology was moving so fast. You know, they had this Fast Flux test</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they built the Fast Flux Test Facility. That</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was all new technology. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the plutonium recycle reactors—</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that was all new technology. I'm just amazed at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">technology that they were developing here. And it was all developed here. We didn't get a lot of credit for it,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">unfortunately.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> And I feel kind of bad about that, because it was the cleverness of the people working here that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">developed some of this technology.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Even up there in that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in what they called the old separation plant, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> old</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> bismuth phosphate plant, the design of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">equipment in that is just very unique. It was the first ti</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">me that high-level radiation</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> radioactive material was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">being handled, and they had to come up with a technique of handling it. There was a crane operator</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">big long crane that ran the whole length of </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">that 800-foot building. He sat </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in a lead-lined cab behind a concrete</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">parapet. The o</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">nly thing he had was optics that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> he could see down into the cells. And how he could take those--you look into one of those cells down there, and it's like looking into a plate of spaghetti. There's so much junk in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">it, so much stuff in there, pipes. And all everything that comes in has to come through these connectors. And he,</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the crane operator, had to know which one he had to take off first to get in, and another one in behind it, or</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">something.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">And just the technology they went through, and the learning process. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I don't know how anyone was ever</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> to do it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">I've talked to one old engineer that, fortunately enough, I could take on a tour one time. He came out here with</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">DuPont during the early construction, and he worked on quite a bit of it. He was here, and they gave him a special</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">tour. And I happened to be the one who took him around. It was one of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span class="SpellingError SCX150736100">funnest</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> days I had, because he told</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">me all sorts of things about some of </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">the stuff that he had worked on</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">. He had helped design the cask carts that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">carried the fuel from the reactors up to the separation plants, and he knew the people who would design the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">connectors for the separation plants, and some of the design on the waste tanks. To me, some of the stuff that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">they were able to do here, it still just boggles my mind. There was an awful lot of smart people working on this</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">place, that's all I've go</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">t to say. A lot smarter than me!</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">One more question. I teach a course on the Cold War, and of course most of my students now were born after the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Cold War ended.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> You know, I wonder, as someone who worked at a place like Hanford during the peak of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Cold War, what you would say to a young person who would have no memory of the Cold War at all, or much of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">an underst</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">anding, what it was like to work</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> at Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">It was a little scary, because we were surrounded by gun emplacements. And I still remember going home after</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">shift one day, and there was some gun emplacements right at the bottom </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">of the Two East H</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ill, and they were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">all raised, like they might be ready, had a warning or something. And you kind of wonder about that. And we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in, we always had to have these</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in all of the buildings, we had supplies that we could hole up in case of an</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">attack. And all of us had junk in our cars, an evacuation plan. I know my wife and I did. I had canned goods that I</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">would put in the trunk of the car. And if we were attacked, she was to meet me at a certain places in Yakima, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> going to head for the Willapa H</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ills.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER] The Willapa H</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ills are a very remote part of Pacific county.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Wow, s</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">o you did hav</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">e preparations in place in case, because--</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Yeah. And some people even built</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there were a few bomb shelters built around.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, is there anything else about your work at Hanford, or your experience there that we haven't talked</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> about</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> yet that</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">you'd like to share?</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Oh, gosh, there's so many things that went on. I could sit here and talk probably all afternoon about some of this</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">stuff because new ideas would come up that I can't remember. Well, I can remember shortly after I had gotten</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">in</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">to the laboratory down at 3706 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">uilding, one of the women that I was working with, she and I did more uranium</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">analysis in one shift than anybody had ever done.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> We were very proud of that. We just hit every sample size as</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">perfect. And it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we just were boiling out uranium analysis like crazy.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER] I can't remember now, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ut it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">there were little incidences like that that were kind of fun. And for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">while the coveralls that they were</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">giving us had pockets on them to take the size. They were colored. And there were some of those women, I tell</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">yo</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">u. I like women, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ut I think some of those gals that use</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">d to work down there had a warped sense of humor. T</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hey loved to grab ahold of these pockets and </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rip. They'd rip the pockets off!</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Well, they came up behind me one</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">time and grabbed the pockets, of and ripped, and the pockets didn't come off, but the whole seat came off.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> That</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">was when I was still single, and emba</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">r</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">rassed very easily. And I had gotten a blue sock in with my white underwear.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">My shorts were blue! [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> Oh, they got such a kick out of my blue under</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">wear!</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> I could have slapped them, though.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Oh, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">hat's quite a story.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">One of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> things that we did, I think we we</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">re a lot closer. We worked closely with each other. And we'd have</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">wonderful</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we'd call them safety meetings in the tavern.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> They were just</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">We'd have a lot</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">we had a lot of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">parties. But they don't seem to do that anymore. I don't know why. We were more like a big family, and if anything</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">happened to somebody, like a death in the family, we would all rally around them and do things like that, like</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">families did. And Richland was really a very close little community back then. If anybody got into trouble, boy, you</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">sure knew it.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, I want to thank you very much for coming in today, and sharing your memories and experiences. I really</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">appreciate it.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Well, I enjoyed doing it, because I think it was a very unique time in history. And I'm afraid that we're beginning to</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">lose that, because my</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">now, I'm getti</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">ng to the age where World War II</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> veterans are dying off like flies.</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> So many of</span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">my friends have already gone, and it's just a little shocking.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">Thank you, again, for coming in. I really appreciate it.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX150736100"><span class="TextRun SCX150736100"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Buckingham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX150736100">You're very welcome. Thank you for asking me.</span><span class="EOP SCX150736100"> </span></p>
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Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:58:53
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
5273kbps
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
100 Area
200 Area
300 Area
222-T Plant
222-V Plant
222-S Laboratory
Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX)
Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX)
N Reactor
B Reactor
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
234-5 Building (Plutonium Finishing Plant)
400 Area / Fast Flux Test Facility
Building 3706
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.
1947-1987
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Pollock, Charlie
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 Steve Buckingham
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Steve Buckingham 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
November 13th, 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.
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-05-11: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Format
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video/mp4
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.)
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
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
100 Area
200 Area
222-S Laboratory
222-T Plant
222-V Plant
234-5 Building (Plutonium Finishing Plant)
300 Area
400 Area
Arco
B Reactor
Building 3706
DuPont
Energy Northwest
Fast Flux Test Facility (Wash.)
General Electric
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963
Kennewick (Wash.)
N Reactor
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX)
Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX)
Richland (Wash.)