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Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sather, Virginia Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Sather_Virginia Man one: Yes. I’m recording. And okay. Robert Bauman: Okay. We're going to go ahead and get started. I thought we'd start by having you say your name and spell your last name for us. Virginia Sather: Virginia Sather--S-A-T-H-E-R. Bauman: Thank you. My name's Robert Bauman, and today's date is October 16th, 2013. And we're recording this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So I wonder if we could start by having you tell me what brought you to Hanford, when you came here, why you came. Sather: Well, I was working at a Navy hospital near Los Angeles, California in what they called ship service. It's a PX in the Army. And I was more or less recruited to work in the PX at Hanford Recreation Building, and in that building, they had a beer hall, and a soda fountain, and a ten-pin bowling alley, and the PX. Just kind of a service place where everything was based on the Army. The barracks and mess halls, it was all Army language. I'd been used to Navy language. And I called my sister, and I was telling her about it in Des Moines, Iowa where I was born and raised, and oh, she said, that sounds good. They told us they'd pay our way out. And your room and board would be furnished in your pay. And if you stayed at least four months, you got your way paid back. So we thought, well, we could try for four months. Her husband had just been in the Medical Corps, and he'd been in the European theater. And at that time, they were sending some European theater people over to the Japanese theater, and she was going to be alone anyway, maybe ‘til the end of the war. So she said well, let's do it. So that's what we did. So we came into to Pasco in the middle of the night with the train. Next morning, came out to--taken out to Hanford and processed and all. Just everything, just click, click, click. And we got used to standing in line for everything. And I don't mean a little line. I mean like lines we'd never seen before--blocks long. One grocery store, one drugstore, one Sears order office. Just one of anything for 50,000, 60,000 people. That would be like having one of everything in Kennewick. So I don't know, we just--her husband—then his orders were changed, as sometimes happen in the military, at the last minute, he's actually on a ship going over to the Pacific area. And they changed, and he was sent back to the States. So she stayed her four months. By that time, she got this notice. And so she left, so I was on my own by then. And I just thought, well, I'll just stick it out because it's a pretty good job, and I met my husband-to-be, and I don't know. We kept thinking, well, when the war's over, we'll be laid off. The time came and went, and we didn't get laid off. And they shut down some reactors, and we said well, we're going to be laid off. At that time, I was working in a fuels production section for N Reactor and my husband was the manager in fuels production for the older reactors, what they called the Al-Si fuels. So we said, we're going to be laid off. They shut down the reactors, but they just took the Al-Si people and transferred them over to my section and I'm the one that got laid off. Other people got laid off. But I didn't actually get laid off, because we were on an excess list, and there was another opening in research and development. So I went there, and something—and then they dismantled that in three years. So then I went out to the N Reactor. So I was actually in several reactor areas and all the production separations areas. So when one door closed, another one opened up, and I just was flexible enough to go with the flow. And here I am, 40 years later. Well actually, I worked 40 years, so it's 70 years later because I've been retired for 30 years. Bauman: Do you remember your first impressions when you--coming from Los Angeles to Pasco and Richland? Sather: Well, of course, the area surrounding Los Angeles is actually a semi-desert. And of course, everything was dug up, so there was just dust, dust everywhere, just heavy equipment everywhere—the whole 600 square miles. And there was a lack of a lot to do because the hospital where I worked was about 40 miles. It'd been a former country club when the Navy took it over. And had indoor pools, outdoor pools, golf course, and the whole nine yards, so there was lots to do. And on the weekends, we'd go into LA or wherever, Hollywood, everywhere, sometimes clear to San Diego if we could--transportation was very scarce during the war. Find somebody who had gas and hitch a ride. [LAUGHTER] And yeah, that was my first impression. I guess I was like most people. I must've missed something when I was in my geography class in grade school, because I, like a lot of people, I was looking for forests and mountains. But I was used to flat-flat coming from Iowa. But of course, there was lots of woods in Iowa. I guess being young--I don't know. What was I? 21, 20, 21. I guess I was 21. Yeah, I was very flexible. I had changed jobs different times before. I guess I was kind of adventuresome for those times. Sometimes the older people criticized me because by the time I was 21, I'd been in several states. One summer, my cousin and her husband had a carnival that went all over the South and Midwest, and they took me on one summer and I travelled with that carnival. So I just got used to making do, also just making do, not expecting any luxuries, places to stay, or anything like that. So it was primitive. The barracks were just bare floors and cots and a washroom. They were H shaped, so the cross in the center was the wash rooms and the barbed wire all around. Looked more like a prison camp, actually. I know when we moved to Richland and they had a Prisoner-of-War camp out on the Yakima River near the dam, Horn Rapids, near there. And we went to Benton City by way of that road one time, and we saw that, and I said, oh, look. It looks like the Hanford—[LAUGHTER]—original Hanford. Yeah, it's kind of primitive, but I think young people nowadays may be kind of spoiled. I don't know whether they would really put up with that, what we put up with then. Bauman: You said you were sort of recruited. What were you told about Hanford? Did you know what was being worked on? Sather: Well, actually, they talked to me first about Alaska. And then even before I talked to my sister about it, a recruiter called me and said, oh, the weather has been so bad out there, they put a stop to everything for a while. But I've got this place that's just as good in eastern Washington. And there's going to be a lot of young people. It turned out, there was a lot of old people, too, because the middle type people were in the army or in the military. And of course, there was probably 100 men to every female. There were just very few women. And mostly because of the housing, because a lot of women in those days would be married by that time. And if they came, it was the same situation. You still had to be separated in the barracks. And the men didn't like that at all, so they'd go to Yakima or Walla Walla or someplace searching for housing. But the women liked it, because the housekeeping was all done for you. The beds were made, the linens were changed, the bathroom was cleaned, and you had the mess hall, all the food you wanted at the mess hall. I think the women really liked it. Of course, I was not married and didn't have any children, but the ones that did, I think they thought it was kind of a vacation. Bauman: And how long did you stay in the dormitories then—or the barracks? Sather: Well, the dormitories were in Richland, so-- Bauman: Oh, the barracks-- Sather: Yeah, we can't say dormitories because they weren't that fancy. They were built in Richland for the operation people. That's where people's going to stay. They must have opened in '45 down on Lee Boulevard. One of the buildings is still there on the corner across from the Federal Building. That was the cafeteria. Then they all down Lee and Knight Street where they had the post office and the bank. They were two-story dormitories, and I never lived in there because by that time, I was married. So then we were assigned to a house in Richland. Bauman: How long were you in the women's barracks then? Sather: Oh, '43, '44. Pretty close to two. We closed out Hanford like about, well, right after the war was over. We got our house in '44, and I know I was commuting for a while to Hanford, probably a year and a half. And then we got a house—couldn't get any houses ‘til probably late '44. We got a house in Richland, and we were there ten years, and then we built the house in Kennewick up by the mall, and we've been there ever since. Bauman: You said you met your husband here. How did the two of you meet and where was he working? Sather: Well, people laugh when they hear this story. I have one girlfriend still left from my graduating class, same age I am. She lives out in Manhattan Beach. So when I was in California, she'd gone out with her folks after high school because of the airplane factories, and so we kept in touch. And I saw a lot of her and everything, and she asked my husband about it one time. She asked him, she said, what did you like about Ginger—I was known as Ginger—when you first met her? And he said her spirit, her spirit! And Betty Jean said, have you got enough spirit yet? He said, just about. I think we'd been married about 50 years by then and now we're coming up on 70 now. But I don't know. I was on an afternoon shift at that time, and afternoon shift, we went to--we worked six days, ten to 12 hour days. Supposed to be ten, but people didn't show up. They were gone. People just disappeared. The rules and everything was so strict and security was so strict. Even after we moved into Richland, neighbors would just disappear, especially if they had unruly children. Any little infraction or anything like that, you could disappear. And the FBI, they had total control. It was really like some third world country there for a long while until the city was sold in '58. Your boss or the top guy in DuPont or General Electric, United Nuclear, they could not—caught with a weapon or drinking or any type of malfeasance, I mean, you just disappeared. I mean, no 30 day notice or anything. Looked up, the house was empty. Or maybe you'd look out and see a moving van. Yeah, it was strict. Well anyway, we would have a ten or 12 hour shift. So they had eight mess halls. They could serve 5,000 people in each one of those at a time, and the only one that was 24 hours was number eight. So usually, you'd go with some of your coworkers there after your shift. So he was there. There'd been a guy about age and my father who would come in when it was spare time. He'd talk to me there at the register, at the PX. And he kept telling me, I've got this roommate, this fellow, he's about your age. And I think you should meet him. And I kept thinking, oh my God. What's he trying to pawn off on me? And he kept it up and kept it up, and I kept telling him I was busy or I was booked up or something, anything. But anyway, I got caught dead. He came over to my table at this mess hall in the middle of the night at the end of the shift. I think we got off at midnight that night. And he came dragging this poor guy over. You could tell he didn't want to come. He just had a hold of him and actually pulling him over, and my husband's 6'3" and 189 pounds. [LAUGHTER] And this guy, Reardon, his name was Reardon, he says, this is Dick Sather, and I told him you wanted to meet him. Oh, I'm telling you, it was a good thing there was the rules. And so I said, not particularly. And he went on and so, well he said, well don't you want him to just sit down and visit with you? I said, not particularly. I remember everything he said. People still tease me about it. Not particularly. And my husband the same coloring that I am, but his face still turned red. And of course, he didn't know what to do, young, naive boy. He's six months older than I am. Anyway, so the next time they both came over to my register--and of course they bought some, I don't know, shaving lotion or something. Anyway, so then my husband started coming in. Then it graduated till we went over and sat down in the soda pop place and had soda pop and visited. Well, that went on for about three weeks, and I didn't find out till very much later that my husband-to-be was dating a gal, and he was booked up for this time. And so he was just playing it cool till he could get rid of this other gal, evidently. So anyway, I found that out. Even after I was married, this guy who got us together told me that. And so then we started, if you could call it dating when somebody drops you off in the middle of the night at a barbed wire fence with a guard. They had buses going to Walla Walla, Pasco, and Yakima, and it cost you a nickel. And they said they had to charge that because of the insurance rules. So on your day off--which usually, we got one day off--we would go, see a movie, have dinner and go back to our barracks, and it went like that. And so he bought me a ring. I think it was in March. I met him in January, I think, December. It might have been December, I think. And we were engaged, and then we married--but I didn't want to get married. He said, when do you want to get married? I said, about 30. I was thinking about 30. So then he started talking about, well, he was going to go to Alaska and all this, that and the other. So we had it set for May. My mother-in-law for years still sent my anniversary card in May, but they actually got married in June because they changed the date twice. We got married in June, so in coming June, I'll be married 70 years. Bauman: Wow. Sather: But that's how we met, and that's just the opposite of me. I'm a class A, he's a class B. He's mostly Norwegian and he's pretty laid back. He's one of these, whatever. Whatever you want. Do what you want. Yeah, it's worked out very well, and he's not here with me now because he's lost his memory. Because he could tell you some tales, too. Bauman: You talked about the buses going to Yakima and Walla Walla for entertainment. And was there ever entertainment on the site at all? Sather: No, no. But the surrounding communities did not cater to us at all. You know now, you go to a convention or some big thing in the town, have sale signs and discounts at the restaurants and do everything to welcome you. No, they were very, very provincial. Well, so many of them either got displaced or knew or had a relative or somebody who was displaced because these towns were just seven miles apart. And the families in those times were practically incestuous. I don't mean that in a bad way, but I mean, they just were cousins and aunts and uncles. And I had to be careful because I might be talking to the wrong person. [LAUGHTER] But no, no. Although they tried to make all the money they could, divided their house--just like they did in California and still do--to illegal housing, turn the garage into a room and did everything to make money off of you. They didn't turn any of that down. But no, the natives, they were not friendly. A lot of people remarked on that. We were intruders, and I can see their point of view--we were. Tearing up their land, their orchards, and their vineyards, and their little mint fields, which is all the world to them. People back in those days had never really been out of the county. People didn't travel till the wartime. They didn't marry outside. Of course, with the wartime, they not only married people from another state, they married them from another country. But my time, of course, that was just unheard of ‘til wartime. And the only ones that were halfway decent that could think outside the box enough to see that it was for the war effort, even though they didn't know what it was. They just took it in their stride. But by and large, we later got personally acquainted and socially visited with some of the old timers here that the John Dam Plaza, the John Hazel Dam. He actually came from Norway, but he'd lived here most of his life. He came here as a young man, but there were several people like that. He had a store, a general store, there on George Washington Way. And I found out that this went on all over where people were displaced with--maybe not on that scale, but I mean, an airplane factory went in, or a shipyard went in, or something was expanded, and they got displaced because the government had the right of domain. And I think during the war, the President had all the executive powers that were ever heard of. Bauman: You mentioned that at some point, you were able to get a house. Sather: Yeah. Bauman: Where was that, in Richland? Or what sort of housing were you able to get then? Sather: We got a house. It was a prefab, and I got--I think I gave them to the historical society down at the museum—where they came in sections, I think from Portland. And we were in that a little while, and I got up--it was December 1st. Turned out to be the coldest day of the year. And I smelled smoke. And they had heaters in the wall, 220 heaters in the wall. And then they had 220 wiring that ran inside a wood. Everything was plywood, and it was treated with a propellant, a subtype varnish or something. So it really went up fast. So then we got a pre-cut. And pieces like trusses and all were made in Spokane in a mill, and then came down and put together, there are not very many of those. One was two-bedroom and one was three-bedroom, so we were in that for a while till we built our house, five years I guess until we built our house. But when they did the fire investigation, we found out that's what it was, was electrical. I went in to grab some stuff out of the closets, and we didn't have closet doors, so we just had drapes across there—and they were on fire. But I just overreacted and I grabbed the hangers, which in those days were all wire, and I had blisters all over my hands, and all my hair in the front, my eyebrows were burnt off. So then we got this other house, this precut. And then the investigator came to us and showed us that. And then we went around all those prefabs and rewired them all after that. Because they said the houses they rewired, they found scorch marks in there. So there could've been a lot more fires. Yeah, yeah. So your name, your name just kind of came up. A lot of it was supposed to be your position. When they built the stick houses out here on the north end and right here, Harris Street, where they ended. When they started up there in up town, they started building--well up there about by Jefferson School, they started past there, building stick houses. They all went to management or up here on here, Harris. And in '58, when they sold the land, all that land was bare out there. And mostly, people who got the land--maybe they could afford it. I don't know why, but a lot of them said it was politics. But it was dentists and doctors and lawyers, but it was known--Davidson and Harrison, these streets out here--they were known as Pill and Drill Hill because of the doctors and the dentists out there. So a lot of it was by your position. A lot of it's the size of the family. And a lot of it, I think, just political, who you knew. You knew somebody in housing office. You really had it made. But your name would come up on a list, and they'd give you like three places to look at. Then you'd choose one. Bauman: When did you find out exactly what Hanford's purpose was, that it was involved in production of-- Sather: Well, I was at work and—I don't remember now who it was. I was working in security at that time. I worked in security two different times early on. And then when they had the expansion and built what they called the Cold War reactors, they were going to have to process thousands of construction workers and support services out at North Richland, so I moved out there to North Richland and processed—Atkinson-Jones was the prime contractor, process all these people. So I was downtown with my first security job. The building's been torn down since. It was down in the region of the Federal Building next to the 703 Building that we also had at the Federal Building. I think it was my boss, Roy James, came in and said--and then people kind of didn't quite believe him at first there in the offices. And then, of course, I saw the newspapers--or at first, the local paper, The Villager. And it didn't really surprise people too much. I think after they heard--especially if you transferred around a bit—well, I know I was told I ask too many questions. Bauman: So you worked in security a couple different times. What other sorts of jobs did you have? Sather: Well first, when I went out there, my very first at the rec hall at Hanford, I was classified as a clerk. And then, let's see, where did I go from there? Oh, yeah. And then of course, then I was moved down to Richland for security. And then I went to 300 Area to instrument division. Then I went out to the hog and dog farm. When Battelle came and took over the Hanford laboratories--and I was in the laboratory building, I wasn't in the reactor building. That was F Reactor. They put up a big welcome sign there by the gate to F Area, and it said, welcome Baa-ttelle because they had so many sheep out there. They were testing. Well, then I asked for a transfer out of that because I started getting nauseated. And you know I was up there where they opened these—just like the steam would, like they just kind of boil these rats and stuff. They were trying to find out how much of that contamination would be in the bones. They had doctors, vets there, and everything like that. And I kept telling my supervisor, I don't think I can do this. And oh, he said, it's probably something else. Well, I was going out to the bus area, picking up the bus every morning, and it was in May, so I wasn't wearing a coat--because May can be pretty hot here--and I could see these other workers looking at my abdomen, and I think they thought it was morning sickness. But it wasn't to be for a long time. But anyway, I knew what he was thinking. And every area had a first aid station. Well, I'd go over to the first aid station. And I put off going out there, because you had to dress. You had booties and white coat and all that on. And I said, I get out in that fresh air and I'm fine, and I go back in—it was on the fourth floor. Well, after I left there, sometime after, I guess enough people complain that they change their ventilation system. But I know that's what it was, because I'm just kind of sensitive to scents anyway. Bauman: And so what task did you have there? Sather: Oh, well, of course they had all these precious metals, and they had gold, and they had silver, and they had alcohol. And all the supplies, everything. I even ordered dogs from the pound in Yakima. Had to be a certain size. And pigs—we had to have pigs a certain size. Just supplies. What did they call me? Buyer, yeah. But I had to keep track of all this, and they audited me on it. And because it wouldn't be past people to try to take alcohol, particularly. So all the supplies, ether, all kinds of stuff. And of course, your regular office supplies, medical supplies, all that kind of stuff. So I did that. Then I got transferred out of there. And I went out to 200 Areas to the separations building. And I was a secretary there. And then when I went out to BC Reactor, N Reactor, and research and development, all those places, I was executive secretary. I went to night school, CBC. And then I was an administrative assistant, and then I retired. I was a specialist, education training and development. Wrote training manuals and conducted training. Made overhead displays and stuff like that. So I was just kind of a Jack—Jill of all trades. Bauman: Yes. You had a number of different positions, and yeah. Sather: Oh, yeah. Well, they just asked me if I could do it, and when I said yes, and then I'd run home and call anybody I knew and say, how do you do this? Brush up on it and-- Bauman: Of the different positions you had, did you have one that you enjoyed the most, that you really enjoyed, or maybe one that was sort of most difficult that are challenging? Sather: Well, I forgot the two in between. I was in employee relations, and they wanted somebody to go to labor relations who was not connected with any union member. This was during the strike. I believe it was '63. It was a three-month strike of all the craftspeople. Those were trying times. And of course, nowadays with all the technology, it's hard to believe how they operated back then. But the union would get a proposal, type it up, take it to the employee relations people, and they'd study it, and send back an answer, and back and forth, and back and forth. So I really for the first time in a long time was working overtime, because they would be meeting long into the night sometimes. And I guess I was one of the few women who wasn't connected. I know all my friends, most of them were married to craftspeople, and my husband was a manager of maintenance at that time. So anyway, I did that until end of that—that was a temporary assignment. But then that's I guess how I got into the education training and development, because that was part of employee relations. So I was pretty flexible. And also in my studies, I learned that when you work long time a place, they're not going to get--they said three years. They're not going to get much more out of you, and you're not going to get much more out of them. In other words, you're going to get complacent. You're not going to grow that much. And along as far as any place was at PUREX. That was the newest separations plant. I was there six years. And I left there. The boss got mad at me, because he was on vacation when I took the job out at the BC Reactor. But they had a little thing going on. When jobs would come up, they didn't want you to move. They'd never tell you about it. There was no posting. Now posting is required, and we finally got posting to be required. Well, the man who took his place, when he was on vacation, he came back from a staff meeting. And when he came back from a staff meeting, he had me type up his meeting minutes for him so he could turn them over to my boss when he came back after two weeks. Well, I said, I'd like to interview for this job. It was a one rate hire because—that was another thing; your job was tied in with your manager's rate. You couldn't advance if you stayed with the same person unless he advanced. And there was a time or two when my boss advanced and I advanced with him, but normally, you're just stuck. It doesn't have anything to do with your job description or anything. Now, for the exempt people, it was different. They had a bunch of requirements, and it was all rated, and so many points signed, this and that and the other, and you'd be at level 12. Almost like the federal ratings. You'd be at level 12, or 15, or whatever. But the people working for them, the non-exempt people working for them, no. So anyway, I went out there and interviewed, and he said, well, you've got the job. And I said, well don't you have other people interviewing? He said yes, but he said I'm giving you the job. And I said, well. Then he said, I'm going to take you down the hall and introduce you to the rest of my staff. I said--of course I had been training managers for a long time--I said, you can't do that. You're going to have to go ahead and either interview or not interview or something. You can't just all of a sudden drop this on people. Oh, he said, thank you. He's the boss I had to change a lot of his letters. He was Scotch, and he had this temper, and he'd fire off letters and everything, and I'd put them in the bottom drawer. Sometimes I wouldn't even transcribe them. They'd lay there for a while. Sometimes he'd come in and say, what about that letter to that dude over in such and such an area? I said, oh, I've been so busy. I just haven't got around to it yet. Oh, he said, thank you, thank you. Because usually, he'd fire it off to somebody that he shouldn't have, somebody at a higher level. He was so funny. But anyway, I got that job. And then after that, after the civil rights legislation and all this equality and all this business, these federal jobs had to put quarterly reports into some committee in Washington, DC about what they were doing to even the playing field. And here they were saying they were posting jobs and they were doing this and that and the other. And just imagine these people typing up these reports and sending them in and everything, knowing a lot of it was a big lie. So finally, they revolted. And they were so scared they were going to join the union that they would do most anything to keep the white collar people out of the union. So finally, they changed it and started posting the jobs. But before that, it was just quite a bit about who you knew, or who you happened to run into, or maybe just by the grapevine to find an opening. So they had to quit doing that. But I thought, here these people, a lot of them have Master's and PhDs. How stupid can they be? Don't they think we read what we type up? [LAUGHTER] It was so funny. It was so funny. There was enough levity from time to time to make it interesting. There were practical jokes and things like that that went on. Bauman: Earlier, you talked about the emphasis on security. You worked on security and secrecy and you talked about the FBI having a presence. Were you all aware of that? I mean, it was a real focus, and-- Sather: We got reminded all the time. And all the war plants in the room my friend there I'm talking about in California who worked a long time for Hughes Aircraft, they had big signs up and everything about the enemy’s listening and all that kind of stuff, and pictures, and little cartoons. And yeah, you were just reminded of it in a subtle fashion all the time. But now, just like when I married, I looked up one day and there were two FBI men there standing at my desk. I think I was coming back from the lunchroom and they were waiting for me. And they start questioning me, and I said, well I never planned to change my name. Of course, that was unheard of. Back then--I mean, it's common now. But they said, well, you know there's a law. You're going to have to change it. Well, I'd already researched it. Not that I'm smarter than the FBI, but I think you should get your facts before you expose yourself. And there never was a law. It was like something borrowed, something blue. It was tradition. So I said show me the law. So then they came back again a little bit later, and said, you're going to have to change your name. I don't know what they got all excited about because my husband worked here and had clearance and everything. And I said, well, it's not the law. And they said, no, but it's our policy and it's job requirement. I said, well, when I hired in, I didn't see any such requirement on my papers. They said, well, it's there now. [LAUGHTER] So I let it go for a while, and my husband said, oh, don't hassle it. Don't worry about it. He said, I know your name's as good as my name. He said, don't hassle it. So I guess he thought he might get fired. So anyway, I changed my name, changed my badge and all. I had to fill out umpteen papers again, the personnel security questionnaire. Everybody had to fill out seven copies. You remember--you wouldn't know of trying to make seven copies on a manual typewriter, carbon paper. You had to start wearing dresses that were either navy blue or black because you'd get this carbon all over you. It was something else. So that's my closest encounter with the FBI. Bauman: You also earlier talked about how during the war, there--bare bones. There really wasn't any entertainment, and the town wasn't necessarily especially welcoming. Did that change after the war? Did-- Sather: Yes, I think they knew what side their bread was buttered on, so to speak. They knew that in the long run, it was good for the communities. Yeah, I think so, because I know we mixed a lot more with it. And of course, they had their stores that you had to trade at. It just wasn't that many places to shop, and you couldn't just jump in the car and go to Spokane or Seattle because where were you going to get your gas stamps? When we were in the trailer, we ran the stove that took white gas. And my husband had a '39 Ford Coupe V8. So we're eating at the mess hall, I mean, we weren't really cooking. So we were putting the white gas allotment into this Ford, and it just about hopped up. Yeah. But we never got enough to go any great distance. Bauman: Where did you go shopping locally? Sather: Well, we could get the bus and go to Pasco. There was a lot of nice stores in Pasco at that time. They were like men's stores—weren't any department stores—men's stores, and lady's stores, and children's stories, like every little small town has. And same way with the Kennewick. Well, we went to Yakima. And actually, we didn't shop like you would imagine in your time because where you going to put it? Because we're more or less transient for quite a while. And also, they just weren't things available. Maybe they weren't rationed, but they just weren't available because the federal projects and the military had the priority. I was bumped from a train between LA and Fresno, and my brother from the first Marines came back from the Pacific. My sister—I was visiting in LA at the time, and I went to my sister’s at Fresno. And we got bumped. We were going to 'Frisco, and he was coming in at 'Frisco. Well, actually, he came into San Diego where the marine base was at Camp Pendleton. But then he got a ride some buddy up to San Francisco. And when he was overseas, he was on a Browning Automatic Rifle, BAR, and it's a two man thing. And he had promised his buddies that he, if anybody was lost, he would visit their next of kin. And he had a list of 22 names in the four plus years that he was in the first Marines that he lost that could've been him. And two of them were in San Francisco, and so that's why he ended up in San Francisco. So we picked him up, come to my place, and stayed about a month. And then he went all around the country, visited these next of kin that he'd promised. Bauman: So overall, how would you describe your years working at Hanford? Sather: Oh, I think it was a good thing. I think it was good for us. I learned a lot, did a lot of different type of jobs. And the climate was much better than Des Moines, Iowa, I'll tell ya. And the companies, overall, have been good to us. We were with DuPont first and General Electric and then United Nuclear. It's been very broadening, I'll say that. We met people from all over, just all over. And allowed us to raise our family and have a nice home, and a good retirement, and I would do it over again. Not at this age, but at 21, it was easy. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Is there anything else that stands out in your mind from your time working at Hanford, or anything that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about it? Sather: Well, it wasn't all as stringent as it sounds. We just kind of laughed about a lot of it. Of course, we really aren't allowed to criticize much, because it just wasn't nice to do that with the war on. I had four brothers in the service. And my dad had been in the Navy in World War I. And you just kind of, well—after Pearl Harbor, the people supported the government very, very well. Before that, when England was in the midst of it and it was back and forth about whether United States would get into it, and it was—really there was no question about it after Pearl Harbor. And so most people felt we were attacked, and they felt you had to do what you had to do. I've never supported a war since then, I guess because we weren't attacked. But I feel now, now that we've been attacked again with the 9/11—I think which took as many people as Pearl Harbor. I think Pearl Harbor was about 2,500 or something like that. That other one plane went into the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania field I think was about 3,000. Yeah. Overall, I know there was critics, primarily over on the west side. And I know they visited over here, and they have no idea that we have an operating nuclear reactor out here on the edge of town. And it was just like my friend in California. We had some friends in California, so anti-nuclear and everything. So I looked it up, and I found out that the time that he was talking about, that there were 19 operating in California alone! Over 100 in the United States. And that was probably 25, 30 years ago. And he was so surprised to think--he just thought there might be one that blew up somewhere. But it just wasn't needed, it wasn't really producing that much. But now you stop to think they'd shut down all those like you see outside of Phoenix in these large cities. What would we do? Where would we get the oil or the gas for alternate fuel? Because the populations have grown. The industries have grown. I realize there's a lot of critics. I know they come over here expecting to see us glow in the dark. But they don't mind hooking up to it whenever they get a chance. But of course, they shut it down. And Oregon shut the one they had down in Oregon, and they stopped building the ones that they were building on the other side at Elma. So I don't think they realize how dependent we are. But the same way there's critics about the dam, and what's cheaper than hydropower? But on the other hand, you go to California or Arizona and they're paying $0.15, $0.16 per kilowatt. We're paying 6.5 for electric heating here. So they envy us in a way, I think a lot of us envy. Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today-- Sather: Well, you're welcome. Bauman: And thank you for sharing your experiences at Hanford. I really appreciate it. Sather: Yeah. You're a very good interviewer. Bauman: Thank you. All right. Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:51:58 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview N Reactor 300 Area 200 Area 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 Virginia Sather Description An account of the resource An interview with Virginia Sather conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Missasion 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 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 2013-10-16 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource " Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 200 Area 300 Area DuPont General Electric N Reactor https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fecf6d23f2029be8777f7364c6e43f6d1.jpg 107947d118ec8047404f520b29342bda https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff48f8f7243653d2a40990d75bedb74ff.mp4 3bd7a80a24bfec4a2e2d7085d4e15964 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sutter, Sue Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Sutter_Sue Robert Bauman: Well, I think we're ready to get started. Sue Sutter: All right. Bauman: So let's start by having you say your name and spell your last name for us. Sutter: Sue Sutter, S-U-T-T-E-R. Bauman: Great, thank you. And my name is Robert Bauman, and we're conducting this oral history interview on July 23rd of 2014, on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So I wonder if you could start by telling us, first of all, when you came to Hanford and what brought you here. Sutter: Well, it all started when I was in college. I was at Washington State. It was a college then. And they came up there and interviewed, and they gave most of us jobs. They needed warm bodies down here. And so I had a job when I came down here in June 21st of 1948. Bauman: And what did you major in in college at WS--? Sutter: Chemistry. They needed a lot of chemists. And then when I came here, my folks brought me over from Seattle in a car. And we came to North Richland. Well, I signed in downtown, and we came out to North Richland, where I was supposed to go. And where I was assigned to live, at least temporarily, was in North Richland. It had a wire, a cyclone fence around it, topped by three rows of barbed wire. I think it was made for prisoners of war or something like that. I didn't think my parents were going to leave me there, but they did. And I'd never seen one before. They had a community shower, you know, like the men have. I was the only person there. And the next day, they found me a place downtown. I was in W5. W5 was the women's dorm. And it was right above the Green Hut Cafe, where everybody ate all the time, because that's about what it was, that and Thrifty Drug. And when I was there, I met some of the—it was when I was going through the hospital, one of my friends from college was working there, and she happened to be in the same dorm. And I went. That was about it. And I don't remember starting work. And where do you want to go from here now? Bauman: Well, what was your first job? What sort of work were you doing? Sutter: Oh, what they called essential materials. It was in 300 Area. And everything that came on to the plant had to be chemically verified. And that was what that job was. And I was working there for about three years. And then I got married. That's where I met my husband. He was in the lab, too—a chemist. Bauman: What were your first impressions when you arrived in the area here? Do you remember? Sutter: No, I don't. After you've gone away to college, I went over on the train from college, you're used to things changing at that time. It didn't strike me as odd at all. What was odd was that when I first came, I was in North Richland and I had to eat out of the cafeteria there. And it was all full of construction workers. [LAUGHTER] But I survived. But I was only out there a couple of days, and then I moved to town. Bauman: And you said you worked for three years out at the 300 Area then? Sutter: Yes. Bauman: And you met your husband. Was your husband also working there? Sutter: Yeah, we were in 3706 Building, which has long since been destroyed. Bauman: And you mentioned your dorm was right above the cafe. Sutter: Yeah. Oh, that's it. And there were a lot of young people here. They had money and no place to go. And so every weekend—a few of them had cars—so we all left town. And we went down to Lost Lake in Oregon on one trip. And I remember one trip we went to Long Beach, Washington, and just various around here. Because there was nothing here. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: I was going to ask you, was there anything in town for entertainment? Sutter: Oh, I think there was a movie theater. And Thrifty Drug. I don't recall any particular entertainment. Of course, we were here for working. Well, that's why we left town. Bauman: So after three years working at the 300 Area, you got married. Where did you live it at point then? Sutter: Oh, we were able to get a house. Houses were assigned to married people. We lived on Farrell Lane. And we lived there for about three years. And then they decided they were going to sell all the houses, and that's when we bought the house in Kennewick. You have the information on selling the houses. Bauman: Right, yes. Sutter: We were the junior tenants in a duplex. Bauman: Oh, okay. Sutter: And we moved to Kennewick, and we stayed there ever since. We were lucky to find a house that worked very well for us over there. Bauman: So let's go back to your work, then, a little bit. What was your work like? How was it as a place to work, the 300 Area, when you were there? Sutter: It was just a lab. There were a lot of funny people working there, different people working there. One of the technicians, she stole all the cheesecloth, and she wrapped it around her head and took it out with her every day. [LAUGHTER] But I can't remember much of working. I'm sorry. Bauman: That's okay. That's fine. And did your husband continue working then there at the same area? Sutter: No, after I got pregnant, I stayed home. And it was 1965, I think, when I went back to work. I worked for Battelle. And I worked there until I retired. Bauman: And what kind of job was that? Sutter: Well, it varied. At Battelle, you do whatever needs to be done. And I was—I've forgotten. I was working at a lab at first. And I ended up helping with quality assurance for some of the people. That was a good job. Bauman: And how long did you work there, then? Sutter: I retired in 1968. Is that right? Man one: I think it was after I got out of high school. Did you tell them about you were a wind tunnel scientist? Sutter: Oh, yeah, I worked in atmospheric sciences after some time at Battelle. And I operated a wind tunnel. And this was for—they were trying to find out how much would blow around out on the site. And so we went out and picked up samples on the dirt. And then we put measured amounts in the wind tunnel and see how far it goes and how long it stayed there, that type of information. And all this went into the environmental impact statement that they had to make when they were operating. And the annoying thing is, everybody thought my husband did that work. [LAUGHTER] It's the way it was. Bauman: When you first came in 1948 and were in the women's dorms, did you take buses to get out to the site? Sutter: Yes. But I don't remember anything. I know we had to take buses. You could not drive cars in on the site then. Oh, that's it. We took one bus, and we went up to the bus lot, and then you got on to the bus that took you out to where you were working. Quite an operation. Bauman: And when you then went back to work in the '60s, were you still taking buses? Or were you driving your own car out there? Sutter: There were still buses. I've forgotten where I was working. And then for a while, when I got transferred out to the atmospheric sciences building, the meteorological station, I rode out to that area with my husband. Because he was in 2-West at that time. He was a supervisor. Bauman: And when you started working in 1948 as a chemist, were there are a lot of other women chemists at Hanford at the time? Sutter: There were several of us, about five or six—I mean, considering all, yes. Bauman: So you lived in Richland for a while, got married, then you moved to Kennewick. Is that right? Sutter: Yes. Bauman: Okay. One of events that happened, I know, was in 1963, President Kennedy came to dedicate the N Reactor. Do you remember that at all? Sutter: Oh, I remember it. I took my three children out there with me. I was not working then, and then we drove out there. And all I can remember is this one over here, she ran away. And I decided I wasn't going to even be worried about her, because I wanted to see Kennedy. He was quite a charismatic person. And Paul was there, too. We were all there. And I have another daughter, too. Bauman: Do you remember much about the day itself? Sutter: It was about 80 degrees. Oh, and I can remember Kennedy was so surprised when he started the reactor with a probe of some kind. A lot of traffic. Took me a long time to get home. My husband had gone out there. Everybody who worked there went there on buses, and so he got home way long time before I did. [LAUGHTER] It was well attended. Bauman: Do you remember any other events or incidents, things that happened when you either were working at Hanford or living in the area here? Sutter: I can't think of any right now. Man one: What about your dorm social clubs? Sutter: My what? Man one: The social clubs in the dorm? Sutter: Oh, yeah, we belonged to the dorm club. That's the one that we went someplace every weekend. That's just the dorm club. Oh, and they had dances in town, too. In fact, I think I brought over a picture of one of those if you—you can have them. Bauman: Great. Man one: The Sadie Hawkins Day dance. Sutter: They don't have Sadie Hawkins anymore. Bauman: They do, actually. Sutter: Do they? Bauman: The high schools do. Sutter: Okay, but we were all just a little bit older. But you just had to make your own entertainment. And that was a good one. Bauman: So did you and your husband meet at work? Sutter: Yes. Bauman: At the 300 Area? Sutter: Actually in 300 Area. Oh, and another thing we used to do is everybody drank beer. We'd go out by the Yakima River and drink beer after work in the evening, swing shift or something. It was just fun. Bauman: Mm-hm. So you've seen a lot of change in the time that you-- Sutter: Oh, my Lord, yes. Bauman: Obviously one change that happened at Hanford was a shift from production to cleanup. Sutter: Yeah. Bauman: I don't know if you want to talk about that a little bit. Sutter: Well, all I did was run the wind tunnel. We generated information so they could do the environmental impact statement before they started doing something out there. And we'd go out in the field, and I know they had picked up all kind of material to run through the wind tunnel to see what happened to it. Bauman: I know there was a lot of emphasis on security at Hanford and secrecy. Can you talk about that at all, what that was like? Sutter: It was pretty straightforward. You had a badge, and you had to show it every time you went in and out. And it went pretty easily. Bauman: Were you able to talk about your work at all? Sutter: You weren't supposed to. But it wasn't interesting work, so I didn't want to talk about it anyway. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: And what about the community itself? How did that change over the years? Sutter: Well, the community, they built the ranch houses. And we got a lot of bad dust storms then. And I was home with children, and you just don't get out in the community much. There wasn't much here that’s all. Man one: Mom? Sutter: Yes? Man one: Did you ever talk about an incident, I guess you were down on the river and security came out to see what you were doing or something like that? Sutter: I don't remember anything like that. Man one: Oh, okay. I thought I—Or boating or something and the army showed up? Woman one: Well, there was a-- Sutter: You should have prepped me for this. Woman one: Wasn't there a military base, too? Sutter: A what? Woman one: A military base out there, Camp Hanford? Sutter: Well, yeah, Camp Hanford was there for a while, yeah. I don't remember. I wasn't working when it was Camp Hanford. I can remember baking a cake for the soldiers. That's about it. Bauman: Oh, did you? Sutter: Yeah. Bauman: Was there a specific reason for baking a cake? Sutter: Oh, I belonged to a club. And that was their project that they were on, and so I've participated, just once that I can remember. We lived in a B house. Oh, and all the coal was furnished free, coal furnace in the basement. [LAUGHTER] You don't know about those. My husband called it the iron monster because you'd have to bang it so it would start the next morning. He was on shift work, and it's not the best way to go. Bauman: So were you renting the B house then? Sutter: You paid some rent. There was nominal rent. It was cheap. And as I remember, they furnished the coal. And if something happened, you just called down, like my dear son, he's flushed potatoes down the toilet. And you'd call somebody, and the plumber comes out immediately and takes care of it. Man one: And what did you do that night for dinner? Sutter: I gave you potato soup. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So a lot of the service or repair work was-- Sutter: It was done by somebody. They were just like a landlord. But you had to mow the lawn and water it. Bauman: You had to take care of yard, that sort of thing. So how long did your husband work at Hanford then? Sutter: Until he retired. I think he worked there for 50 years. No, not that long. Woman one: Well, if he was working in '76 when I was in high school. Sutter: Yeah, I don't remember how long. But he worked there until he retired. It was a good job. You could move from job to job at that time because it was all under one contractor. And he worked in 2 East and 2 West as well as I think North Richland. Bauman: So what was the most challenging--was there any part of your work that you did at Hanford that you would think was sort of the most challenging thing that you did or the most rewarding? Sutter: I think the most fun was just before I retired. It was when I was running a wind tunnel, and it was out in 2 East Area in an old evaporator building. I remember there were just the two of us. I was there with a technician, and we had a wind tunnel. And all these things that we’d gathered out on the terrain, we'd put them in the wind tunnel to see what they were going to do and how far they would go. And then this was put into a report that I wrote. And the annoying thing is, everybody thought my husband wrote it. Because they just put it with your initials. Bauman: What were the findings of that report? Do you remember what did you-- Sutter: I have no idea. It didn't matter to us. This much went along, and if you're a researcher, you just give them the results. I think they were able to do all the work anyway. But it was fun. You'd go out, and you'd gather up these—there were rabbits out there. And they liked to sit on top of the hills. And so that was a rich place to get samples. Research is really fun work. Because it doesn't matter. You get an answer. And that's the answer. If they don't like it, that's their problem. Bauman: Overall, then, how was Hanford as a place to work? Sutter: Well, I unfortunately had a manager—I shouldn't--he was Mormon. And he didn't think women should be working. However, the next level up really believed in women. So he's the one that--I was treasurer for the local ACS. And I wanted to go to the meeting in Hawai’i. And my immediate manager wouldn't let me, but the next one up sent me. When you're an officer, they usually will let you go to something like that. So that's how I got to Hawai’i. I figure all the men do it, and so I was trying to do the same thing. Bauman: That's a good place to go for a conference. Sutter: Yeah, oh, yes. One of the women from another contractor was there, and she even came to the meetings in her bathing suit, if came at all. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: When was this about that you did that? Sutter: Well, I was still working, so I don't really-- Bauman: The '60s? Sutter: Yeah. I can't remember that long ago. Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about yet or that you haven't talked about that you think is important to talk about? Sutter: No, I can't think of anything. Man one: What was it like being a woman and working in this area, predominantly male? Sutter: Well, that didn't bother me except some of them are prejudiced against women. And actually, when I was out, we had the lab out where the wind tunnel in 2 East. And the fellow I worked with was really good. He was a farmer from over in Pasco. He raised apples. But he would just do anything that needed to be done. It didn't matter whether you were a woman or man. He'd do anything. Oh, the funny thing about that is the building that we had, they had a restroom in it. And they didn't have a door on it. So my manager had them put a door in it. But they put a door in it with a window. [LAUGHTER] So they had to change the door. Bauman: That didn't help a whole lot, did it? Sutter: No, but there were just the two of us working there. We had to report over to the Atmospheric Sciences building and then drive over to where the wind tunnel was. Bauman: Oh, I see, okay. Woman one: Mom, you shared with me the difficulty at getting a raise, the difficulty getting a raise in pay. Bauman: Did you have difficulty getting a raise? Sutter: Oh, yeah. My manager said the raise is--this is more than I wanted to give you. He wanted the raises for the men, because they have a family to take care of. He doesn't realize I have all these kids to take care of, too, and one daughter who went on to college and is now an engineer out there. Bauman: Were you able to get the raise? Sutter: Oh, yeah, oh, yes. You have to be persistent. Bauman: Do you happen to remember what your salary was, say, when you started in 1948 at all? Sutter: It's about $100 a week. I don't really remember. It was adequate for the time. Bauman: Do you remember any other challenges being a woman working there in the 1940s and 1960s? Sutter: Well, like that this one manager who just didn't believe in women. Bauman: But you said the person above him-- Sutter: Just fine person, yeah. And that's always helpful. Bauman: Right. I don't think I have any more questions for you. Man one: Oh, excuse me. What was it like raising us kids in an area that didn't have a lot of support services and it was just all your contemporaries and nobody had any relatives in town or anything like that? Sutter: I never thought about it. Man one: It was what it was and you just coped with it? Sutter: Yeah. Oh, and then I remember we babysat back and forth. I remember my friend Dusty was babysitting and Paul, all he'd do is hide in the closet. [LAUGHTER] That was a long time ago. Bauman: But you'd find ways to help each other out? Sutter: Yeah. Bauman: Take care of the kids. Woman one: And Dad was from--where was Dad from? New York? Man one: Yeah, he went to University of Buffalo and was recruited out there. Bauman: So you mentioned you went to Washington State College. Where were you from initially? When did you grow up? Sutter: I was grown up in Seattle. Bauman: Oh, okay. Sutter: And I went to college starting in home economics, and that's a dumb major. They don't give you anything challenging. And the only thing I liked the first year was chemistry, and that's why I majored in that. Man one: I was curious. I kind of recalled once hearing a story about the way you met Dad was you accidentally left some battery acid on a stool or something like this? And it left a stain on his pants? Sutter: I don't remember anything like that. No, he was just out there in the same lab. And then he was in this group that went on trips. He was one with a car! Man one: So that made him popular? Sutter: Yeah. Bauman: So he went on some of these trips. You were part of the group? Sutter: Yeah. Oh, we went down to Lost Lake in Oregon. I can remember that. And I knew Steve Buckingham. We were up there. Snow was on the ground. And he went in the water. And he said, it's warm! I can remember that one. Man one: How many people would go on the trips? Sutter: Yeah. Man one: I mean, it was like four or five? Sutter: Yeah, about that, because you just had cars. You didn't have anything big. There were no buses or anything taking you. Woman one: So lack of family support, you built some really good friendships that you still have now. Sutter: Yeah. Bauman: About how often did you go on these trips? Sutter: Oh, I'd say once a month or something. There was various degrees. It depends on what came to mind, what the people wanted. Man one; What about the one where you left town and you got someplace and set up camp in the middle the night and Steve Buckingham found a-- Sutter: Oh, yeah, we were going over to Orcas Island. That was where we were going. And so we camped near Anacortes, and it was dark. And when we woke up, we found we camped in the garbage dump. [LAUGHTER] We went on our trip. Bauman: That's a great story. Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and sharing your stories. And we're going to go ahead and make copies of the photos that you brought in. Sutter: Oh, yeah, they're over there. I don't know. A lot of them you don't want. Man one: Oh, I don't know. There's a lot of them that were-- Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:26:58 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 3706 building 200 west area 200 east area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. ca1948-1968 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. Buckingham, Steve 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 Sue Sutter Description An account of the resource An interview with Sue Sutter 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 2014-7-23 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.) Richland (Wash.) Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-07: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 200 Area 300 Area Building 3706 Housing Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963 Richland (Wash.) Secrecy https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F949c34824c3baa683668f048b76a3f7c.jpg a7532e182135be110ec23c9c1739ee92 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff4c175dd0e7d7618799f999a667b9b3a.mp4 8ac495b3421b632f99b868b055771a34 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 Joe Soldat Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div> <div> Northwest Public Television | Soldat_Joe Robert Bauman: Okay, all right. Well, we'll go ahead and get started. All right. What I'm going to have you do first is say your name. And then spell it for me. Joe Soldat: Okay. Joseph Soldat, S-O-L-D-A-T. Bauman: Thank you, and my name is Robert Bauman. And we're conducting an oral history interview. Today's date is August 6th of 2013. And the interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. And so I'm talking today with Joe Soldat about his experiences working at the Hanford site. So I wonder--let's start by maybe you tell me how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, how you heard about the place. Soldat: When I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in chemical engineering, I worked for a while at the Denver General Hospital, which was associated with the university. And they lost their research grant. So I heard from somebody that there was a place called Hanford. So I wrote a letter to the employment department at GE. And I got a thing back, of course, that says, we got your letter on file. But it wasn't too long afterwards they called me, and told me to come. So I agreed to come out, sight unseen, on the train. And I got off to train. I looked at all the sagebrush, like everybody, and said, oh, I'll give it a year or two. That was 1948. And I stayed on the project for 47 years. Bauman: Ah. And so you arrived in this place of sage brush and desert. Soldat: Yeah. Bauman: What sort of housing did you find? Soldat: Well, when I came they put me in a barracks in North Richland, the old military barracks--small rooms for two people with a closet and a dresser. And showers were down the hall. Maid came in once a week to change the linens and towels. And I was paying $0.20 a day for rent. Eventually, I got to move to Richland--the dorm M4. And on the corner right now is a bank where M2 used to be. And M2 became a motel for a while—some guy bought it. And then it finally became a bank. But my wife-to-be lived in the women's dormitories with W numbers. And so we finally met, and ended up getting married in '52. Bauman: So did you live in the dorms for about four years from about '48 to '52 then? Soldat: Yeah, before I got married, yeah. And we managed to get a house. Because I was in radiation protection, we had some small priority on getting housing. And we picked out a pre-cut on the south side, three-bedroom. So we lived there till '63. And moved in a ranch house where I live now on Torbett, in a remodeled ranch house with an extra bedroom. Bauman: About how large were the dorms that you lived in? Soldat: The dormitories? Well, I'd say maybe as big as from here to that wall square. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: About how many people lived in the dormitories as a whole? </div> </div> <div>Soldat: On the whole, I don't know. They had--since I was on weekly salary, I had one kind of dormitory. Those that were hired on monthly salary had a little fancier ones. And the women had their own real good ones with a fence around it.</div> <div> <div> Bauman: So what was Richland like in the late '40s and early '50s in the community? Soldat: Well, when I finally moved into town, the town, essentially, was closed. If you didn't work there, you couldn’t live there. You could come in. There was no fence around it. But if you retired, you had to go somewhere else to live. There was no retirement housing. And the city, when I got my house, supplied oil, or coal, free for the housing. So the rent was fairly reasonable at that time. And they had the federal government until, I think it was '58, when they sold houses to us, and got their own government. One of my friends, Bob McKee, was on the church council. And he became, eventually, mayor of Richland. His funeral is coming up Thursday. He died away back in the spring. But they delayed the funeral for relatives, I guess. But, anyway, I got a reasonable price for my house, I thought. It was like about $9,000 plus, because I had put up a fence, and a little thing for storage of garbage cans and stuff. They thought it was the enhanced above the original value. So I got a little better value. We had the option of taking a buy back offer. If you wanted to sell the house back to the government in x number of years, they would give you a 15% discount on your house. But I didn't opt for that. I figured by then, I was going to stay. [LAUGHTER] They had a cafeteria in a building next to the 703 Building, that old Quonsethut-shaped building, that later became commercial facilities. But we could go in there for breakfast and get meals that were partly for military style, like powdered scrambled eggs and stuff like that. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: And what about entertainment at the time you were living in the dorms? Were there things to do entertainment-wise? Soldat: Oh, okay. The people that lived in the dormitories could join the dorm club. We did all kinds of things. We had parties, dances, skiing, bike riding, hiking—everything before all these individual groups were established. So they covered the whole share. I learned to ski a little bit at Spout Springs, made it down the beginner's hill. Bauman: And you said you met your wife during that time? Soldat: Yes. Bauman: Was she working also at the Hanford Site, then? Soldat: She was a secretary. And she worked for a while. We got married in June, and in December, she had to quit because she was pregnant. They would not allow, at that time, pregnant women to work after fourth or fifth month. And then she never did go back to work. But she got involved in things like volunteering at the Red Cross, and Republican Women's Club, and all the things kept her busy. Bauman: Did you meet as part of some social activity? Or was it on the job, at work that you met? Soldat: She did all this being a housewife, all those things. Bauman: But how did the two of you meet? Was it at a-- Soldat: I'm trying hard to remember. Bauman: Oh, okay. [LAUGHTER] Soldat: I think I was introduced by a mutual friend, a guy that I used to bowl together. That's the other thing we had for entertainment in Richland, was bowling. And I liked doing that. But one of the guys I bowled with, we went to the restaurant. Next to the Richland Players Theater used to be a drug store, and they had a little cafeteria in there. We went in there, and we met these two women. And he knew one of them. The other one was going to become my wife. [LAUGHTER] </div> </div> <div> <div> Bauman: Let's move now to the work you did at Hanford. What was your first job? Soldat: My first job while I was waiting for my clearance was in what was the bioassay lab in 700 Area doing statistical analysis of the results of the analysis of employees’ urine for radioactive contamination. I wasn't allowed to know everything I was analyzing. But I did a statistical analysis. I had a orange card, which allowed me in, because I didn't have my clearance. Theoretically, I was supposed to be escorted in and out. But there was such a mob of people going in and out they never bothered to ask me whomy escort was. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So where was this at? Soldat: 700 Area, 703 Building—the old one. And the bioassay lab was inside the 716 Building, I think it was. Bauman: And so how long did you do that? Soldat: I did that--well, I came in August, '48. And it was five months before I got my clearance. Then I went out to T Plant as a radiation monitor in training. Bauman: And how long did you work there? Soldat: Oh, gosh, I worked there for a couple of years. And then I got transferred to environmental monitoring. Out there in 2-East Area, environmental monitoring people were housed in an old Quonset hut next to the coal pile. You had to go in and sweep your desk off with a broom every morning to get the coal dust off of it. [LAUGHTER] And I stayed there for a while. I did some projects, calibrating some instruments, and other things. And then we moved to 329 Building in 300 Area. I think it was in the early '50s. And I stayed in environmental monitoring work ever since, through the rest of my career, writing impact statements, deriving equations for calculating dose to the public from releases at Hanford in food, and water, and air, and stuff like that. And my models are still being used some places. I was--we didn't have a lot of data. But I learned from the turtle you don't make progress unless you stick your neck out. That’s how they do. Sometimes throw darts at the chemistry chart on the wall. And say, well, this one should behave like that one, and put together what we could know. And my coworker Dave Baker was a computer guy. I'm not very good at computers. But he computerized a lot of my equations and stuff. Between us, we agreed and what kind of factors to use. There was some literature from the fallout studies. There was a fellow named Yoka Ng, N-G, in California who had to put together a lot of data for the fallout branch on concentrations of various chemical elements in soil and plants, which made it very easy for me to predict the update of the radionuclides. Bauman: So, what kind of findings did you have at some of your research about things that happened at Hanford in terms of the air, and water, and so forth? Soldat: Well, depends on what you want. It all started in '58 when Jack Healy gave a paper at the International Atomic Energy Symposium. And he talked about what we were measuring in the environment, and the kind of findings that we had. And we eventually created a maximum individual person who ate big amounts of food, and drank milk from cows, and fish from the river, and all that. And then we calculated the dose he would get from concentrations in these things. And things were generally below the limits that they had at those times. Originally, in the early years the limits for the public were the same as workers. It took them a while to figure out that there are, perhaps, more sensitive people in the public because workers were all health screened and everything. So they lowered all the public limits by a factor of ten to be safer. And we also had to put controls on releases to the atmosphere. The manager of the radiation protection department—it call was called health instruments at first—set limits for the reprocessing plants, and how much iodine they could release, and other things. And they worked hard during those years in the '50s and '60s putting in new cleanup equipment on the stacks—sand filters. And then eventually PUREX had fiberglass filters to remove the particles and stuff. So I've installed sampling equipment on all of the stacks, and the separation there is, some of them before and after the cleanup so they could see what the efficiency was. And I kept track, by going to the operating gallery, what kind of metal they were processing, how old it was, how much it had decayed, so we could relate things to what we were finding at the stacks. That data is still around. And when they did the dose reconstruction under Bruce Napier, they used a lot of my old data about the stack releases. Fortunately, Bruce had an office next to me. [LAUGHTER] So we communicated. </div> </div> <div> <div> Bauman: So you worked there for how many years at Hanford? Soldat: 47. Bauman: 47, you must have seen a lot of changes in technology, instrumentation, those sorts of things? Soldat: And administration. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. GE, at one time, I think it must have been in the '50s, decided that they would have no job description titled assistant, or under-secretary, or whatever like that. There would be no committees doing any administration. Every job had to have a written, definitive description specifying the duties, and the authorities, and the obligations. And it worked well for a long time. And then before that, when I wanted to get a paper cleared, I had to go through about half a dozen signatures, including public relations, of course. But then later on, I--essentially with my boss and one guy from public relations--they all had to clear my public papers. And it worked out well then. Then Battelle took over, reorganized things a little bit. And a funny thing happened. I had a secret clearance with GE. When Battelle took over, they decided that they didn't want to have too many secret clearances to manage. So they lowered my clearance and several other people’s. I want to the library to get a report I had written in 1949, classified secret. They gave it to me on microfiche. I read it, and I asked for a full printed copy. The remark I got eventually was, you can't it. You're not cleared for it. What are you going to do, brainwash me? [LAUGHTER] So Battelle had to raise my clearance back to what it was before. Bauman: Because you had written secret reports? Soldat: I talked about iodine releases to the environment, and measurements inside the 200 Areas. Bauman: I understand you were involved in a comprehensive food model? Soldat: Yeah. Bauman: What was that? Soldat: Well, about the late '60s, Westinghouse had a project to try and calculate doses to the US public from a large nuclear economy, especially reactors, and ignoring the waste part. And they needed to know what would be in food, and water, and air, and everything. And a fellow by the name of Bill Templeton who was an aquatic biologist worked with me at first. And then, finally, he said, okay, Joe. You're doing all right. So he turned me loose. But I had a fellow, Dennis Harr, who came to Hanford from Alaska. He was a forest hydrologist. They assigned him to me to help look up the factors I needed. He came here to WSU--or to Pullman, really—and looked up all of thinking about how much a cow eats, how much water they drink, and how many acres of this and that is growing. So he was very helpful looking all that stuff up for me. I just sat down and wrote an equation. I had heard that in the Windscale accident that the iodine they released stuck about 25% to plants. So I used that factor. And I added that stuff from Yoka Ng with the soil to plant ratios. So I modeled the uptake from soil, and combine all that in a big long equation with about 21 parameters. And I gave a paper on that at an ANS meeting in the '70s. And I also developed a diagram—a pathway diagram I call it--with all of the lines from all of the sources going across and interacting. And then at the end, they combined for the dose at the end. And that got published, too, in my '70 paper. And I did put all that stuff together with some other things for Reg Guide 1.109. It included my calculated dose factors for people of four ages--four years, 11 years, 17 or 16, and adult, because the organ sizes are different. So the doses are different. That was in there, my food model was in there, and then I developed a model for exposure to sediment in the Columbia River. Dick Perkins had measured three or four radionuclides in the sediment in the Columbia River as best you could, because it's awful rocky on the bottom. And analysis of that told me what the relationship was between the water and the sediment, assuming it had been running for many years, and had time to come to equilibrium. So I developed the equation for that, which included the radioactive half-life of the elements. And that was used in several instances in impact statements about--I think it was '59, they had something called a Calvert Cliffs Decision, in which they were trying to build a reactor. And the government was forced to do an environmental impact statement on every existing reactor and every new reactor. First rule was 100 pages’ length. But it still grew, because people were copying what other people had done. Well, this flew, so we'll put it in. Then they add unique things to their site. And it kept growing and growing. But there were 50 reactors that had to have impact statements. And they split it up three ways between Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, and Hanford. And I got involved in the Hanford one. First time I used my sediment model was for plants on the shore of Lake Michigan, and exposure to people standing on the shoreline--first time I used it off-site. And we calculated the dose someone might receive from the sediment contaminated from the water which came from the reactor outlet that was diluted before it got to where the fishermen was. So that was added to the impact statement, along with the fish, and all the other stuff that we normally did. </div> </div> <div> <div> Bauman: Hanford, of course, when you first arrived was all about production. But at some point that shifted to cleanup. Did that shift impact your work in anyway? Soldat: Well, yes and no. [LAUGHTER] It changed exactly what I was doing. But I was still doing environmental stuff. For cleanup—well, before that we were doing impact statements for new things at Hanford, like a front end for PUREX to do 100 N fuel, and all kinds of stuff. Afterwards, I was doing impact statements and studies forproposed cleanup. There was a big, fat three-volume document--I think it was SWASH 1400, it started out. It ended up being ERDA 1400. And in there, they studied every possible waste source, contamination source, potential for accidents and exposure. And I did a lot of those calculations. So one thing they wanted, which is very current today, they wanted to know, what would happen if a tank leaked? They said, what would happen if 1,000 gallons of tank leaked all at once? So I got a guy, Andy Reisenhauer, in the water department we called them. He was doing ground water studies. And he figured it out. With this modeling, he showed how small the contaminated area would be, and how, essentially harmless and well-confined to the immediate vicinity it was. And I get all upset now a days about the clamor about everybody that don't understand what's going on, even the governor. [LAUGHTER] At least he tried. </div> </div> <div>Bauman: So when you started working for GE, what other contractors--you worked for Battelle? Is that right?</div> <div> <div> Soldat: Yeah. Battelle just took over everything we were doing. Almost all people came directly to Battelle. There were a few that stayed in the 200 Areas the reprocessing areas. But some of them later came to Battelle. So a few stayed out there, worked for the various contractors they had. But it was nice, because having been altogether in GE, I could still communicate with those people when I needed information and data on releases, and access, and things. I could talk to them directly. I didn't have to go up and down the channels. Bauman: You mentioned earlier that you had written a secret report. And you had to go back and look at it, they initially told you you couldn't. As a site that, obviously, emphasized security and secrecy, I wonder if you could talk about how the emphasis on secrecy and security impacted your work in anyway. Soldat: Well, I told you what happened to me when I was working in the 700 Area. And I got here in '48. In '53, they renewed the Q clearances. I got called in the FBI for interview. They said, when you were in college—that's like in '46 or '47--you attended a meeting of, I think it was, SDS, which was supposed to be a Communist-related organization. They had a meeting in the park. They were complaining about their treatment. And it was a big hullabaloo. And I decided I'd go down and see what was going on. Apparently, they had spies watching all these people. So they started asking me questions about that. And I explained it away to their satisfaction. They said, do you ever read The Communist Manifesto? I said, no, but maybe I should someday. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: When you first started working there, did you take the bus out to the site? Soldat: Pardon? Bauman: When you first started working there, how did you get to the site and back? Did you take the bus out? Did you drive a car? Soldat: There was no background checks when I first came, because I had that work card. It took them five months to do all the investigations of relatives and friends to find out if I was reliable. And I finally got my Q clearance. But they may have reviewed things other than that one I know about since. But the FBI was doing it at that time. Later on, they farmed it out to a different government agency. And I don't think the checks were quite as thorough at that time. But you couldn't drive through the project like you can today. When you want to go to the west side, you can drive down towards Vantage through the project. It's all right. But it used to be all sealed off. You had to go around by Robinson's barn to get where you're going. Bauman: And when you went through security at the gate, did you have to show a badge? Soldat: Well, after I got my clearance, they checked everybody's badge going through. At one time in 300 Area, they had a badge rack. You would put your badge in the rack to go home. They didn't want you taking it off site. Well, one thing, you might get exposed from TV. [LAUGHTER] The old TV sets had a relatively high energy coming out at the bottom. Some kid sat there with his feet under the TV set, he might get a little bit of exposure. And so one day, I wore some radiation dosimeters, those pencil dosimeters on myself while I was watching TV at a distance. And then I put some by the TV set to compare the readings. And there was a small difference. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, at first, I thought security was a little lax because of the way they were letting you go through 700 Area, first few months. But it got pretty tight afterwards. </div> </div> <div>Bauman: Were there any events or incidents, anything that happened—accidents of any kind, that happened when you were working at Hanford, or strange occurrences? Anything sort of stand out in your mind?</div> <div> <div> Soldat: Well, there was a few, of course. They had limits they set on the releases for iodine-131. They had an experiment in which they wanted to have short cooled fuel, which would have more iodine in it, to released short-lived inert gases like Xenon and Krypton to the atmosphere so the Air Force could fly around with a plane and measure it. As I figure out, the idea was they could fly around Russia and see what kind of production they might be having from what they could detect in the air over a facility. Well, when they had—it's called a green run, when they had that, the iodine came out. And there was a little bit of to-do about that in later years, and people being exposed. And even before the iodine releases were controlled, there was quite a few releases. But in later years, I used my rules of thumb I learned, and my models to predict what doses probably were in the early years before they had reconstruction done. And I came probably within a factor of two of what they spent millions of dollars to calculate. [LAUGHTER] But that was one thing. And then they had some fuel that was mislabeled, and it was short cooled, that released iodine in the 200 Areas. And we went out and studied the vegetation on the project, and all around. Well, it turns out the iodine was held in the tanks for a while. And the vegetation that we measured didn't have any until they transferred the solution to another tank. Then the iodine escaped. And then we could find it on the vegetation—we found it in the Pasco area, and West Richland. And the meteorological group predicted it would--according to the weather, it should be high in north of Pasco. Well, it wasn't high there. It was higher in Benton City than it was in Richland. And there was a Benton City farm that had milk. And we sampled that milk every day for a long time, and plotted the curve as it decayed. And I backtracked it for a couple of days that we had missed. And I calculated the radiation dose a kid might have drinking that milk. And the standard model was one liter of milk a day. And I calculated all that. And we couldn't get the kids to come in to get a thyroid check for awhile. The mother was reluctant. Finally, he came in months later. And at that point, I predicted the thyroid burden ought to be 70 picocuries. And it turned out, he was measured 72 picocuries. Then something really interesting happened with that. Some anti-nuclears said that I had reported on this thing, and the dose was less than a fraction of the limits. So it's all right to die by a fraction at a time. Somebody else picked that up, and said I had pin pointed the death of a small child drinking that milk. So some guy from Oak Ridge, his name was Piper, investigated all this stuff, and tried to put everything straight, and straighten out all these misconceptions. But you can see what happens to the press. Bauman: So what time period was that? Soldat: That was in '63. It's all published in Health Physics Journal, and all that stuff. They had an iodine symposium in 1963—a biology symposium. People all over the world came here. And we met in the old community house, this little anteroom off to the side, with swamp coolers. And it was 116 in Pasco. [LAUGHTER] It was a mess. But we published a whole book of the papers. And I have a couple in here, at least by abstract anyway. I learned alot about the different factors, again, and improved my knowledge of what was going on. Bauman: So when there were releases of iodine, you were involved in calculating the-- Soldat: Yeah. Bauman: Measurements? Soldat: Yeah, another thing I did was I stood out by a met tower wearing a respirator device that measured my breathing rate by volume. And they released iodine--I think it was 135 or 132, a real short half life--that another guy and I could stand there and inhale. And then we went and got our thyroids counted, and watched the decay, and integrated the whole thing. And my total dose was probably about ten millirem, compared to the limit, which was 1,500 a year at that time. Herb Parker got real mad, because we hadn't checked with him to see if it was okay. He said we should have our thyroids examined before we did it. [LAUGHTER] </div> </div> <div> <div> Bauman: So you were used as test subjects? Soldat: The other release was from REDOX--ruthenium--there was two rutheniums: 106, and 103. And the scrubber in the plant that was supposed to remove these from their exhaust failed. And it released about 40 curie of ruthenium out the stack. It was detectable on Wahluke Slope, and all the way up just southeast of Spokane. It missed all of real good farms, and everything, fortunately. So we went up collecting a lot of samples from that. Then there was a contamination on Hanford itself on the roofs of some of the buildings and the ground. So that was all cleaned up. I spent some time monitoring transportation workers who were going around picking up particles around the 200 Areas. The other thing that happened is they found radioactive rabbits and coyotes--BC trenches, in 2 East Area. They disposed of waste which had cesium. And, of course, it's a salt relative to sodium in the nucleic chart. And the rabbits got in there were eating the waste with the cesium, and digging down. And the coyotes were eating the rabbits. And so we were finding this contaminated environment, and traced it down to that. It didn't travel more than a mile or two. Rabbits have a very short range. They don't travel more than a couple miles. And so that had to all get cleaned up, and covered over, put to rest. There was a few things like that. Bauman: Did any of these incidents or releases--were there ever any that you looked at, studied, calculated, and found that it was a risk to employees, or to the public at all? Soldat: No, most of them were--the release of the strontium, the highest concentration found at Wahluke Slope across the river was--if a guy stood there and breathed the whole time the cloud time went by, he might have got 80 milligram to the lungs. And, of course, at that time, we were getting 100 milligram a year from radiation. And the limit to the public was 1,500. So, really, it wasn't that significant. Bauman: I wanted to ask you about a little bit different part of it. President Kennedy visited in 1963 to open the N Reactor. Soldat: Yeah, I want to see-- Bauman: Were you there? Were you part of it? Soldat: I was standing far back in the crowd. And I could barely see the President. They opened up to the site to the public to go there. And I rode with a friend. And he and his son went with me. We watched that thing. Bauman: Do you remember anything else about that day? Or just being really far away? Soldat: Well, I remember when the helicopter landed with the President inside it, kicked up an awful lot of dust. I was glad that maybe it wasn't all that contaminated for people to breathe. Bauman: Do you remember any other time when any dignitaries came to the site? Soldat: Yeah, I just noticed something I looked at this week. Nixon visited Battelle facilities, the main research building. And Ronald Reagan was here one time. </div> </div> <div>Bauman: I wondered what you would consider the greatest challenges you had during your years working Hanford, and the greatest rewards?</div> <div> <div> Soldat: Well, I don't know. The least of my challenges was working with administration, because usually they managed to turn me loose when they found out what I was doing. I think that the challenge was finding data in the open literature that I could use to put into my models. I'd go to the library in those days, you would ask for literature, and sit down, and read it, and take notes—not like today. So I found things, eventually, from researchers in Russia who had studied uptake and radionuclides in fish, and studies at Oak Ridge on fallout in cattle, and all these things. But finding data was a little hard, not because it was classified. But it was in the open literature, and you had to think about where it might be located. That was one of my most challenging things. The other challenge was to learning how to use Word Perfect. [LAUGHTER] My secretary forced me to learn it. She helped teach me because she couldn't read my handwriting. That was a challenge for a while. I still have trouble with computers. But I think the biggest reward was all of the recognition I got from management, and Health Physics Society, and other groups. I got a file about that thick that I labeled Kudos. And when they have the recouplex incident in 234-5that had a solution that wasn't handled right. And it had a nuclear reaction, in an outfit called recouplex. We worked a week or so overtime in evening, and around the clock some of us, working on the effects of that, and the dose to the people. And I had measurements of the stack gases. And I predicted from the stack gases how many fissions had occurred in that pot. And then the other guys, the real nuclear experts, came and did theirs. And we agreed within a factor of two again. But, yeah, it never really did much off-site again. It dissipated before it got anywheres. We plotted the path, and by the time it reached the boundary of the site over towards Pasco it was essentially nothing. Because whenyou have a nuclear reaction like that, you generate a lot of short-lived radionuclides with seconds, and minutes, and days. And so it really wasn't that effective off-site. Bauman: What was the time period of that incident? Soldat: I want to say April '62, I guess. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Being involved in environmental monitoring, and monitoring the effects of releases and that sort of thing, did you at any point—it seems like at some point, nuclear power became--like, certain groups opposed that, right? You hadgroups that became opposed to nuclear power, and the use of-- Soldat: Obtained what? Bauman: Opposed to nuclear power-- Soldat: Oh, oh. Bauman: Anti-nuclear stuff. Did you feel that at all at work, I mean or stuff you were involved in? Soldat: Well, yeah--well, there are people off-site who--that story I told you about that small child. And then there was another guy, he worked at the University of Pittsburgh. I'm trying to remember his name. He predicted all the dire results of fallout from strontium-90. He gave a talk at strontium-90 symposium in biologyput on here one time. And he came to me and says, I need to get my slides remade. What he was doing was correlating the concentration of strontium-90 in milk and leukemia in children. Well, this curve went to pot. And he decided he needed to summarize, average it, over two years. And eventually that went to pot. It didn't work. So then he eventually tried four years. And he asked me if I could get his slides rebuilt for his talk so he could use them for a four-year average. So I went to Bill Bair who was the manager of the symposium. And he said, sure, we'll do it for him. And they did. And he used them. Of course, a lot of people in the audience knew better than to believe what he was saying. </div> </div> <div> Bauman: Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you would like to talk about? That I haven't asked you about? Soldat: Well, I got some awards. I don't know if you're interested. The local chapter Health Physics Society gave me what's called a Herb Parker Award for Distinguished Service. And then I got elected fellow of the National Society. And then I got the National Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Health Physics Society, which was sort of a review of my total career, and all the, quote, the great things that I had done. The environmental section in the National Health Physics Society established an award for environmental radioactivity measurements type of stuff. And a fellow, a friend, Jack Corley, who worked here, and I got the first ones that they awarded for that as distinguished service. And then I got a plaque from Bill Bair when he was retiring. So he's such a nice guy, he awarded about three or four plaques to employees outlining their distinguished careers. I was one of them. And it's for all the work I had done on radioiodine. So I got that plaque. Bauman: And you're involved in the Herbert Parker Foundation? Is that right? Are you part of that? Soldat: I volunteered not to get involved in the Parker Foundation. I let Ron Kathren, and Bill Bair and Dale Denham, and all these guys do it. I worked for a little while after I retired for Dave Muller and Associates to help with the down-winders case, writings some papers on it, and releases, and another one with Jack Selby on plutonium releases from the 200 Areas that were used in the hearings for that business. I haven't really--well, people call me up every once in a while and ask questions—pro bono. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Overall, how would you assess your 47 years working at Hanford as a place to work? Soldat: For me, it was a great job. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had wonderful people, except maybe one case of this one boss. But totally great people, and I felt like I was doing something worth while. And it was useful. Later on, it got to be where everybody was writing impact statements, which are not a product. It bothered me a little bit. Even I got involved. And those were kind of necessary. EPA at one time says, we need you to calculate the effect of this dose out to the year 10,000. I said, what? So I got out my business card. And I changed it from environmental engineer to science fiction writer. [LAUGHTER] But I had a great time. I tried to get in the army when I first graduated from high school. And I couldn't because of my ears. And the Navy wouldn't take me because of my eyes, the program for officers. So I ended up—third choice was out here to do my part. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Well, I want to thank you very much for coming in today, and sharing your stories with us, and your experiences. I appreciate it. Soldat: I hope it's been useful. Bauman: Yes. Thank you. Soldat: Yeah, just carrying this around helped me remember. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:53:44 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 209 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 700 Area 2-East Area 329 Building 300 Area 200 Area N Reactor 703 Building 716 Building Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1948-1995 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 McKee, Bob Baker, Dave Healy, Jack Templeton, Bill Harr, Dennis Perkins, Dick Andy Reisenhauer Parker, Herb Corley, Jack Kathren, Ron Bair, Bill Denham, Dale Muller, Dave Selby, Jack 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 Joe Soldat Description An account of the resource An interview with Joe Soldat 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. 2016-06-30: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 8/6/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 2-East Area 200 Area 300 Area 329 Building 700 Area 703 Building 716 Building Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 N Reactor Pasco (Wash.) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Feedc5fccd193a378981173beb0d0136a.jpg 118fe6ae90840ec1411e82c29ac1adf4 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F60c1c02414a925fb0ebfa6b3b6ba31b5.mp4 9918c042c46673ef73b3220ee13b9fb1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Shea, Bob Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Shea_Bob Robert Bauman: --start. So let's start, first of all, just by having you say your name and spell it for us. Robert Shea: Okay. Yeah. My name is Bob Shea. Bauman: And can you get the last name spelling? Shea: Oh, S-H-E-A. Bauman: Great. Thank you. And my name is Bob Bauman, and today's date is November 13th of 2013, and we're conducting this interview on campus Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So maybe if we could start by having you talk about when you and your family arrived here at Hanford, and talk a little bit about maybe your first impressions of the place. Shea: Well, my dad came over here in early March of 1943 from Missoula, Montana as a construction carpenter. And then my mother, and brother, and I came here after school was out in 1943 from Missoula, Montana. And we arrived, interestingly, the night of—or the morning, very early morning, of June 20, 1943 in the Pasco train depot there. And the reason I say it's quite interesting, because that day happened to be my dad's birthday, my mom and dad's anniversary, and Father's day. [LAUGHTER] So it was kind of a big day. But about two o'clock in the morning--and I might mention that, to me it was fascinating, because I was ten years old there in June of 1943. And when we arrived at the train depot there in Pasco, it was really in the middle of the night, and there were probably upwards of 2,000 people milling around; military—Army, and of course Navy personnel, I suppose, from the Pasco Navy base, and construction workers. There were little what we would call taco stands today around. Anyway, very interesting, very interesting. Just milling around. So anyway, Dad took us out to, at that time, the Hanford construction town site, which occupied the village area of Hanford, what was Hanford at that time. And in the middle of the night. Dad had brought over a very small trailer house, handmade trailer house. And that's what he'd been living in. And at that time, the trailer court for the Hanford construction workers was very primitive. They had put in most of the wash houses and most of the streets, but there was still a lot to be done. And so anyway, we made do. And to begin with, the trailers just sat out in the sun, so to speak. But it wasn't too long before the government realized that they should maybe put some canopies over the trailers to shield the trailers so they'd be more comfortable in the summertime from the heat of the sun, and keep some of the snow, and ice, and all off during the winter. So they put up canopies. I think the government had the idea that they would not allow anything as far as living quarters in the trailer portion of the Hanford construction site there. But it wasn't too long before they realized, with the number of children and so forth, they were going to have to allow some leeway there, and let the people build small little extensions to the trailer or whatever. And in our case, that was very important, because the trailer the mom and dad had was very small, maybe 21 feet at the most. And so we built a little lean-to establishment behind the trailer, which was very, very comfortable for my brother and I. By the way, my brother's five and a half years older than I am, so he went to work almost immediately. He was, what, 15 and a half, something like that. And he went to work immediately for one of the construction companies in their kitchen. I think he started out as a dish washer. And he worked there, I think, most of the summer of 1943. But at any rate, we had a nice, comfortable, well insulated with all sorts of Celotex that we are able to get--and it was very roomy, and comfortable. It was great. It served us very, very well. So that gets us established there at Hanford, and then of course the rest of the summer, for me, was roaming around, getting acquainted with various things to do, and not to do that I did anyway. And to begin with, the swimming facility—which was very important at that time for the construction workers, as well as the people in the trailer court—was in the river, just over the bank, so to speak, from what was beautiful downtown Hanford, which consisted of one gas station and maybe two little stores. But anyway. But it wasn't too long before they realized that that might not be too good of an idea to have that swimming area down in the river, because some of the fellows, especially--there were a lot of young men there working in construction. And some of them decided that it'd be kind of a challenge to swim across the river, and some of them were getting into trouble. I don't think there were any drownings, but there were some problems. And so it wasn't too long before they went what I call across the highway to the south of the trailer court about, oh, it would've been a good strong mile, I suppose, from the river. And they dug out some beautiful swimming areas, big ponds, with nice berms and all, to hold the water. And then they brought the water in from the river, and flooded those areas, and kept them in good shape. And so we had a nice, sandy bottom, and diving boards, and very, very nice. Very nice. So I've rambled along a little bit. Maybe you have a specific question that has come up or something. Bauman: You mentioned that you did some things that were okay for you to do, and maybe some things that you weren't supposed to do. Any stories from--that you want to share? Shea: Well, you know, maybe—well, I don't think of any right off hand. I might mention that—I'm sure I wandered off some, and probably worried Mom and Dad. But everything was wide open. And the good—at least from my point of view as a youngster there—there was never any problem for me as a little kid roaming around. And I I'll get into some of the detail later. But they went into the barracks of the white guys, as well as the barracks of the black fellows. And keep in mind that this is 1943. This is segregation. Right or wrong, good or bad, it was segregated. And there were black barracks. There were white barracks. And there were very, very few black children. But they had kind of a segregated area there in the trailer court for that also. But never any problem. And I spent a lot of time in the black barracks. One of my little sidelights as an entrepreneur out there, a ten-year-old entrepreneur, somewhere I got tied in with the Cloverine Brand Salve people. And I would get these tubes of Cloverine Brand Salve. And I think there are ten or 12 in each carton. And I would go to the black and the white barracks both on Sunday afternoons, and sell that salve. And boy, they just gobbled it up. They loved it. And so I made a few dollars that way. I shined shoes, which was quite--that was quite an activity for kids my age. We had little shoeshine kits. We'd carry them around, and if the guy wanted a shoeshine, $0.25 for a good shoeshine. It was a way to make money, and we enjoyed it. And maybe I'm jumping ahead, but anyway, when school started in the fall, of course, it was during the war. They had a shortage of teachers. They had a shortage of room there at the site to begin with for the school kids. And so we only went to school half-day, which was pretty tough to take as a kid, [LAUGHTER] but we managed to do it. So that gave us a lot of free time for activities, playing or making a few bucks doing whatever. So anyway though, during that summer of '43, got acquainted, and by the end of the summer, the trailer court was in great shape, and it was being added to daily. You might be interested in the--I forget exactly, but for about every 25 or so trailers, there was what we called a wash house, which--in the front of the building, or wash house, there would be an area with washtubs where the ladies could wash clothes. And then immediately across the street there were huge areas to hang clothes. No clothes dryers at that time. And so there were facilities for hanging the clothes and drying the clothes. And there was a lot of good weather, and for the most part, the clothes dried even during the winter. It wasn't too bad. But anyway, the wash house, the laundry facilities were in the front. And then on either side--on one side was the ladies’ toilet facilities, showers, and so forth. Then on the other side, the men had toilets, showers, sinks for shaving and all. And that would accommodate quite a few. And as I recall, it was around 20-25 trailers for each wash house. And of course, people could use any of the wash house facilities anytime they wanted to, if they walked around the trailer court, or whatever. Plus, as far as toilet facilities were concerned, there were portable--what we would call portables today. They were wooden. But they would accommodate people, too, and they had the female and the male outhouses, or portable toilets. And another thing very, very important there, throughout the barracks areas, throughout the whole trailer court, there were many, many water barrels. And that's really what they were. They were wooden barrels. I imagine they were an outgrowth of whiskey barrels of bygone days. But they had wooden barrels supplied with ice and water. Very clean. Everything was clean. And by the way, the portable toilets were kept very, very clean, and taken care of, in great shape. And the water barrels—and all the water barrels had salt distributors. The little distributors of salt would have little pills of salt, if you felt you needed salt. And I might add now that in the trailer court, I don't know how many there were, but for every, I would guess, 100 or so trailers, they had an icehouse, probably a building of 15 feet by 15 feet, something like that, well insulated, and then filled with ice. And the people from the trailer court could go get the ice anytime they wanted, all they wanted. No charge. And you could go and help yourself. Now you might say, well, why ice? Why not just turn the refrigerator on? Well, at that time, there weren't--all the trailers, most of them were very primitive. Very few electric refrigerators or electric heat. And so the ice went into the ice chest, of what we call an ice--a refrigerator that was cooled by ice. So it was great. And that, I might add right here, that that free ice was very important to me, because one way of making some dollars, or making some money as a kid out there--well, I guess I need to back up for a second. Virtually all hot water and heating throughout the whole Hanford town site, that in 1944 consisted of about 52,000 people--but all of the heating of the water, heating of the wash houses, heating of the barracks, and all, was done by steam—steaming. So that meant that there had to be quite a few large steam generating facilities throughout the whole Hanford site there to heat the water to produce the steam. Well, that was coal fired, and most of that coal came from up near Cle Elum. Roslyn was a big coal producing area there. And they would--the train loads of coal were brought in from Roslyn. But the steam plant was important to me because I could go there, and I could borrow a wheelbarrow. And I could take that wheelbarrow to the icehouse. And I could fill it with free ice. Then I could go to the grocery store, and I could buy Coke, or Pepsi, or whatever they happened to have, put it on that ice, and then push it down to where the buses--and I say buses in quote. We can talk about that later, if you like. But when the buses with the construction people would come in from the outer job sites every night for the guys living in the barracks and in the trailer court--and I would sell that Coke or Pepsi that had been on ice to the men. I think I bought it for something like a nickel a bottle. They didn't have cans at that time. A nickel a bottle, and I sold it for a dime. So a pretty good deal. Bauman: That's a good profit. [LAUGHTER] Shea: Good profit, good profit. Yeah. So anyway, that tells you about the icehouses. It tells you about the wash houses. And of course those wash houses, it was kind of interesting, because every morning, there would be--it was kind of like an anthill. You’d see the ladies walking over, and the men walking over, and shaving, showering, whatever, taking care of their needs for the morning, there, to begin with. So it was good. The government--or we could say the Corps of Engineers, because the Corps of Engineers really ran Hanford. That was their thing--they bent over backward to help people enjoy to the degree possible the living quarters, and they wanted to keep the people there to work. And so they had a lot of activities for the kids. We had tumbling, and then, as I mentioned, swimming. They had softball and all sorts of things. And of course we could work. The older kids—well, bowling at that time, which it still is to some degree today—bowling was very, very, very widespread throughout the whole country. And there were several bowling alleys there at Hanford. And the older kids, like 14, 15, 16, they didn't do the shoe shining and the selling the pop, and some of these other less important jobs. They were pin setters. Because at that time, you didn't have the automatic pin setters in bowling alleys. So they would go and set pins. And they apparently made good money setting pins and all. Plus, as I mentioned, by the time the kid was 15, they could work in the cafeteria, or what we called mess halls, really. I suppose the mess hall term came in from the military, there. But they were huge dining areas. We'll put it that way. So anyway, I'll stop for a minute, see if you have any questions. I'm kind of rambling here. Bauman: No, that's all great stuff. You said something about the buses. Do you want to talk about the buses a little more, and describe them a little bit? Shea: Yeah. Really, the transportation that was provided for the workers from Hanford out to the various areas, and in some cases, I suppose they had to go upwards of 15 miles, maybe 20 miles or so, were kind of glorified cattle cars, really. I mean, for the time, it was good. But they were wooden benches in these—actually, they were semi trailers that had a tractor, a truck tractor, attached. And they would haul, I suppose, 30-40 workers. And the poor guys, during the summer, they'd pull in to where they--kind of the disembarking area there, and those poor guys, I mean their tongues were virtually hanging out, because I mean, they'd come through this very hot ride in this very hot vehicle. And that's why they really sucked up those iced Cokes, and all. So anyway, but that's enough of—Actually, I might add that the grade school aged kids, grades one through eight, they went to school there at Hanford. But the high school age, nine through 12 there, they were transported into Richland for their high school years. And they rode those cattle cars too. They had buses, or anyway, transportation to and from. And it was pretty crude. But they got in. Bauman: So could you talk about the school a little bit? You went to school at Hanford town site, and could you talk about that a little bit, what that was like? Shea: The white building that is still out there, kind of shot up and beat up, which was really the Hanford high school, that's where the--they had, I don't know, probably eight, ten, 12 classrooms. And that's where I attended fifth and most of sixth grade, there in that school. But then they also had a many Quonset huts outside the school, immediately adjacent to the school. And they had a lot of classrooms in those Quonset huts, too. So I don't know how many, all told, kids that they would have had in the school. It had to be hundreds, but I don't know how many hundreds. But there were a lot. Bauman: Was it close enough for you to walk to? Shea: Oh, yeah. In my case, it was a piece of cake. I only lived about three blocks from--what we would think of today as blocks. And it was real simple. And they named the streets like Egypt, and such as that. I happened to live on Egypt Street--Egypt Street, and I guess it was actually the second block. And the trailer space number was 20. So my address was E 2-20. But now some of the kids, though, that would have been a pretty good hike for them. Some kids, I suppose, had to walk upwards of a good mile. A good mile. And no buses at all at that time for the school kids and all. The teachers, bless their hearts, I'm sure they did the best they could. But they had both morning and afternoon sessions. I imagine by the end of the day, they were pretty tired cookies. But they did as well as they could, and they were well respected, and taken care of. And basically it was the three Rs at that time. Bauman: Were you morning or afternoon session? Shea: I forget. At least one year, either the fifth or sixth, it was morning. Because that gave me all afternoon to go. But the second year, or one of the years, I don't remember if it was morning or afternoon. But anyway. And I'm not so sure, I don't remember, it could be that after one semester, they flipped us, also. If you had been going morning, maybe then they switched to afternoon, or vice versa. I'm not sure. I think maybe that happened, in case there was some reason that they thought it was better for the kids to be turned around there. Bauman: So the high school building was there, and you mentioned a gas station, maybe a couple of grocery stores. Were there a lot of buildings still from the Hanford town site, still there? Or had some of them been torn down? Shea: I think for the most part, those that had been--were there to begin, they retained them, like a gas station and a couple of small stores. But the Corps of Engineers, I suppose under contract, had--there in the trailer court, there were probably three very large grocery stores. And I remember, I believe at least one large grocery store over in the vicinity of the barracks, where the people out of the barracks could go if they wanted to get food, or maybe some clothing, this type of thing. And of course those stores were well stocked, well stocked, but just jam packed. And so you had, just as everywhere out at Hanford, you had long lines, whether it was a post office, which was general delivery, or stores, or whatever. In fact, some kids made some money standing in line for people. They would go and stand in line for Mrs. Jones at the grocery store, and when Mrs. Jones got her groceries, they'd come over, and naturally the kid had moved up several spaces. So anyway, there were all kinds of interesting things. I'd like to go back just a minute to the dorm--the barracks and the grocery store there, and the mess halls, although they were fantastic. The food was excellent that served the people, and the mess halls provided, if the guys wanted them, lunches to carry out to their worksite, so that they didn't have to prepare them, which would have been pretty tough in the dormitories. But the mess halls served excellent food. And actually, the people from the trailer court were welcome anytime they wanted to go to the mess hall. And I think, if I recall correctly--I don't know about the breakfast and lunch--but the dinners were a great big whopping $0.35 apiece per person. And that was family style, and you could eat all you wanted. Mom, and Dad, and my brother and I went to--I can remember at least two or three times going there for Thanksgiving and/or Christmas dinners. And, oh, excellent food. Excellent. And I'll have to tell you a little story there. The one experience, we went, and of course it was family style. It was just benches to sit on, and wooden tables. I think at Thanksgiving and Christmas, they did put a tablecloth on. But the one time we went, one fellow sitting across from us, obviously living in the barracks or someplace, didn't have his family with him. Anyway, during the time that Mom and Dad and my brother, and I were sitting there having our dinner, he consumed five pies. No meat and potatoes, the only thing he had besides that was coffee. He had five pies. Now these weren't huge pies. But they were pies. And he just took his time. And that's all he had. That was his dinner. And you could do that. It was family style. You could have all you wanted, and just go for it. Well, again, I've been rambling. Can I-- Bauman: Did you and your family eat there fairly regularly, or was there more special occasions that you would go to eat at the mess hall? Shea: The only times I remember are maybe three or four times there at Thanksgiving or Christmas. There may have been other times. Sunday afternoon, Dad might have taken us over there. I don't really remember that, no. Mom was an excellent cook, and unbelievable what those ladies were able to do with their limited facilities. Again, most of the trailers were very small, very crude. By today's standards, they would have been just shacks. But they did great. However, there were some manufactured trailers, and even with inside toilet facilities and all. But that was very rare there in the trailer court. Bauman: So you were about ten years old when you were there? Shea: I was ten in April of 1943, and we got there in June of 1943. So I was ten in two or three months, yeah. Bauman: So did you have any idea what this big project was, why your dad had come out here to work? Shea: No. Bob, at that time there were just a handful of people who really knew what was going on. And most of them didn't have a great idea. I mean they'd been told that it was--well, just for an example. A man that I later worked with on the Hanford project, he had come here as an expert in radio communication. And it was he and the crew that he had that put an antenna up on Gable Mountain. And he was told that, okay, this is, of course, super-secret, and one day, we will tell you more. And he said that before B Reactor went online, they came to him and said, okay, now B Reactor is going to go online because of thus, and thus, and thus. And we don't have any idea what it will do, if anything, with the radio communication, radio waves. It may be nothing. But be alert to the fact that, you know, you're the man. And so he said, but when it went online, no problem, no change. But anyway, that was interesting, what he had to say. I don't know if the name Robley Johnson means much to anybody anymore, but he was the official photographer. And he was a young man. And he was all over that place taking photographs and all. And later, I got to know him pretty well in the 1950s, when he had his photography shop here in Richland. And he shared some things that he thought was real interesting. But even he didn't know what they were doing, but so few did. And I suppose the few that did, they'd have said nothing. And of course the old Desert Inn Hotel here in Richland that basically was on the ground there where--what is it, Hanford House, or whatever they call it now? Anyway, it housed a lot of very famous people. But again, most of them were there with code names, now. Bauman: Do you remember when you found out what was being built out at Hanford? Shea: Kind of interestingly, in, I guess it was August of 1945, Dad decided he needed a few days off, so we took a vacation. Went over to the Seattle area, actually up to Everett, and then back down to Auburn and visited some people. And as we were going down, I guess, the old 99 Highway, Dad had the radio on, and it said, hey, you know, guess what? Across the mountains at Hanford, this is where the material for the second bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki came from. That's where we learned. So when we got back over here, though, then there was a lot of—all sorts of interesting things brought out. So that's how we found out. Bauman: So how long did you live in the trailer, then? Shea: Okay, we lived at the Hanford construction town site there from June 20th of '43 until--I'm not sure of the exact date--late March, 1945. And by that time, they moved everybody out of Hanford, all the barracks, the trailer court, again, anticipating that something could happen, and we would have been downwind from the B Reactor. And so then, yeah, we dispersed. And people--many of the people--were able to move directly into Richland that went to work in operations. They moved directly into Richland. But not everybody. They weren't able to house everybody. My dad went to work in operations from construction there. But we had to find a place, and we wound up in a house with a couple of other families down in what we know as Columbia Park today. Where the gazebo is today, that's where the house was. And so we lived there from end of March until--it was early July, I guess, when we got a house in Richland, and moved into Richland. And the family lived in that house--I mean, Mom and Dad--until in the 90s. So they lived there for better than 50 years. Bauman: It sounds like, for someone who was ten, 11 years old as you were, that living in the construction camp was quite an adventure in many ways. Shea: It was. It was a wonderful opportunity. I'm 80 years old, and as I look back on my life, two--we'll call them adventures, or two opportunities, let's put it that way, that I have always praised the Lord that I could enjoy--one, being a kid out there at Hanford, and the other, believe it or not, to be able to go through the United States Marine Corps Boot Camp. That was a great, great opportunity for me. I loved it. In both cases, I loved it. And as a take-off on that question, if you don't mind, that first summer of '43 there, one of the things that I enjoyed the most was going across the river and climbing around, and hiking around the bluffs. I called it my playground. And the thing--they had a 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week ferry. That ferry never stopped. It was not a big ferry. It was a tug-pushed barge that would hold four or five automobiles. And it just went back and forth, back and forth. And it didn't cost anything. Again, it was free for the employees. And the kids would go down there, and we'd cross the river, and go hiking on the bluffs, and chase rabbits, and kill rattlesnakes, and had a good time. So that really was great, though. I don't know if you wanted to take time or not on that—I brought a piece of aluminum, though. You know, that's kind of unique. But anyway, it's a piece of aluminum that came off of an airplane. One evening—toward evening, it was five, six, seven o'clock. One of the aircraft from the Naval training center there in Pasco, it was a dive bomber, had come around from the south, and the bluffs, of course, were across the river to the north, at very low altitude. And the engine was sputtering some. And, I mean, pretty obvious it was in trouble. And they were able to clear the bluffs by a couple hundred yards, maybe, 400 or 500 feet. But then it crashed and it burned. And so some of the men went out and got souvenirs. And the instructor and the student pilot were both killed in that crash. But it was unfortunate, but it was kind of interesting that they came through there. Bauman: And this is when you were living at the camp there? Shea: Yeah, right. And it just came right over the Hanford site there, the Hanford town site. We didn't see many of the planes from Pasco, there. I suppose a few that we saw came in on a cross-country training flight. But, talking about airplanes, we have to talk about the big airplane yet. We have to talk, I would hope, anyway, about Day's Pay. Now first of all, I want to correct something that--the idea that Day's Pay landed at some airstrip out at—oh, boy, the little town site to the west of Hanford— Alice: White Bluffs? Bauman: White Bluffs? Shea: --White Bluffs. Some would have you to believe that. But Day's Pay, when it came in, when it was flown in, it landed on the highway about a mile west of the school there. It landed, and there was plenty of room. It made a great landing strip: it was straight, and no hills, or whatever. It landed there, and then taxied up to the school, within 100 feet of the school, and parked, cut its engines, and they got out and did their thing. They christened it. There was a lady there that christened it. And they had their ceremony. And then it started up, taxied back to that highway strip, and took off to the west. And so that's where Day's Pay landed and took off. And for those who are not familiar with the Day's Pay thing, the reason it was named Day's Pay is all of the construction workers there at Hanford, building what we know as the Hanford Works, donated a day's pay to buy that B-17 bomber. And so anyway. Bauman: Yeah. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about when you went to work at Hanford then. When was that, and what sort of work did you do there? Shea: Can we come back to this other for a minute? Bauman: Oh, yeah, sure. Shea: Before we finish it? Bauman: That’s fine. Shea: Yeah. Again, praise the Lord, I was able to—right after finishing high school in 1951, and by the way, I graduated from Columbia High School in Richland. Well, it wasn't immediately after that. I had to get healed up from a broken ankle first. But by August of 1951, I was able to go into construction work, and I went to work helping build the 100-C Area, which was right adjacent to 100-B. And so that's where I started my construction work. And I worked there until September of 1952, at which time I started college. And so the rest--the several years after that, then, I would work in the summers, or if I had a real good job, I would work in the summer and maybe a winter quarter, or spring quarter, or whatever, in construction. So, my term, I helped build 100-C, helped build PUREX. And then in the mid-50s, I helped build--I don't know how many thousands of yards of concrete I hauled from the batch plant to the 100-K East and West basins, when they were putting the basins in, which was an excellent job. And I made good money, and was able to go back to school there after about six months. Then after that, after I got my degree, then I went into teaching. But as things would have it, I went to work back at Hanford in 1967. At that time, it was for what they call ITT/FSS. And they had the fire department security and several other responsibilities. And I went to work there for a couple of years. Then after that, actually, I didn't work at what is known as Hanford Works until the BWIP Project. And most people are not aware of what is called the BWIP Project. BWIP, B-W-I-P, stands for Basalt Waste Isolation Project. They were going to at least check on the feasibility of going down into the basalt under the Hanford site, and have storage for nuclear waste in containers. But politics being as it was, that didn't happen. BWIP and several other projects that they were experimenting with throughout the United States, went to Yucca Mountain and died, or at least is still dead. It may come back. But anyway, I went to work on the BWIP, but that didn't last long, because they abandoned that job. And then it wasn't until about 1983 or 1984 that I went back to work at what we'd call the Hanford site. And off and on there, and working on the two commercial sites that—Eventually, in 1996 I retired. So all told, if that's of any interest, I spent about ten years working at what we would call Hanford, in operations or construction. Bauman: Okay. Shea: Yeah. Bauman: Mm-hmm. Of the different sort of jobs and places at Hanford site that you worked, was there a job that was sort of the most rewarding, that you found the most rewarding, enjoyed the most, or one that was sort of the most challenging or difficult? Shea: Well, going back to August of 1951 there, yeah, I went to work in construction. And I was working through the union driving a truck. I mean I'd had some experience in that during high school. And so I was driving a flatbed truck, and one day I went to the boss, and I said, Charlie, I really appreciate this job. And I said, could I maybe drive a dump truck, or get some experience? Oh, sure, Bob, yeah, we'll fix you right up. So he said, go out--see that Euclid out there? This is a huge—to me, a huge piece of equipment, diesel powered, and it would haul about ten yards of dirt, and all. He said, yeah, go climb on that Euc, and take it over here to this power shovel, and work with them today. And anyway, I went out, to make a long story short, I finally got it started, with some help from some other guys, because I'd never driven diesel before. But this was the largest earth-moving equipment that they had out there at the time. And so I operated the Eucs for about a year, and I loved it. That was the most interesting part, I think, of my construction. And of that work, the most important and most interesting was we—right down to the north from the B Reactor there, we put in a new, I guess they'd call it to siphon, to draw water out of the Columbia River. We had to go about 100 yards out into the river, and built a levee for them to eventually put and lower the pipe--after it was welded, lower the pipe down to the floor of the river. And so hauling dirt out to the end of that, and you had to back the whole way and dump the earth, that it was quite a challenge. So I enjoyed that. But the other very interesting thing really didn't have anything to do with the Hanford site. It did have to do with what we know today as--well, what we knew then as unit number two, which today it's known as, what, Power Northwest? Bauman: Energy Northwest. Shea: Energy Northwest. Their number two unit out there, I was the welding inspector on all of the welding, and all for the structural steel that went on top of the reactor building, including the overhead crane. And that was very—I had never done that type of work. I had never walked steel before, and I haven't walked steel since then, and I never will walk steel again. But that was very interesting, very interesting. And it was very important work. And it was all nuclear grade welding. And so it was very fascinating. Even though that wasn't technically connected with the Hanford site, it was on the Hanford site anyway. Bauman: Sure. Shea: So it was very good. I don't know if you had-- Bauman: I have a question about when you actually, then, moved to the town of Richland. What was that like? What was Richland like in the late 1940s then? Shea: Very, very good question. It was very different, and I suppose that was true also of Kennewick and Pasco. It was a melting pot—people from all over the country—which is true at Hanford, too. Very interesting. Lot of people had come up from the South for the construction. Some people came up from the South and all to work in operations. And people like us had come in from Missoula, Montana. They'd come in from all over the country, South Dakota, North Dakota, all over. And it was true at Hanford, and it became true, really, at Richland, too. Many of these people, especially out of the South, had worked at that time—1943, even during the war years—had worked for maybe $1 a day. And they came to Hanford in construction out there, and laborers were making, I think, about $1.10 an hour. This was great. Many people moved into Richland, ourselves included. Mom and Dad had never owned a home. It had always been a rental home in the almost 20 years that they'd been married. They were provided nice houses, all the coal was furnished. They had to pay for their own phone, they had to pay for their own electricity. But I think the water and sewer was provided, all the coal. It was great. It was a new world. It was a new world for a lot of people, including the Sheas. And Dad appreciated it, Mom appreciated it. And they took very good care of things, and I don't think they took advantage of anything. But they enjoyed it. It's kind of interesting, I think—Alice and I share this every once in a while. Along toward '47, '48, in that frame, maybe '49 too, it was not uncommon that a neighbor might come to you in Richland there, and say, well, you know, it's been nice having you as a neighbor, you know, and we wish you well, and all that. We're being reassigned. And you would ask, reassigned? Oh, you're going to go to do a different job. Yeah, I'm getting a different job. Well, as it turned out, several plainclothes FBI agents lived with their families in the city of Richland, there, because at that time they were checking pretty carefully about communists. And of course it wasn't too long after that McCarthy in the US Senate, with McCarthyism there, and all, and the big communist situation there, as far as seeking them out. So that was kind of interesting. And there were, unfortunately, some families, the dad would be approached, and just say, okay, pack up, you're out of here. Your kids aren't behaving as they should be, or maybe they were a drunk. In other words, it was pretty tight, pretty tight. And it was kind of interesting, too, until probably 1950 or maybe even later, there was kind of a police headquarters, which was really government control. But the headquarters there. And they had police officers throughout the city, but nothing real heavy. But if—and this happened to us--if people come out of town would come, relatives from podunk corners, or wherever it was, would come to town. And they'd stop, and they'd say, well here's a police headquarters, we'll check and see where the Sheas live, because we're confused. And they would just be escorted. If they stopped with the police, there, the police would escort them right to our home, and they would say, do you know these folks? And, well, yeah. This is Uncle George, or whoever. Oh, okay, that's fine. You know them. That's good. We weren't sure what the deal was. So we brought them over. So that was kind of interesting. Bauman: Wow. Yeah. Very tight security. Shea: Tight security, yeah. Tight security. And I think that lasted pretty much until the mid-50s probably. Bauman: So, in terms of security, then, when you started working there in the 50s, did you have to have special clearance? Was there training about security, too, when you worked there? Shea: You had to fill out some paperwork. In construction phase there, it was pretty loose, not much. But in 1955, when I went one summer, when I was off from college, I went to work for what was known at that time J.A. Jones Construction Services. And I was going to be working some in D and DR, and F Areas. And I had to qualify with a Q clearance. So I got a Q clearance there in 1955, and I had it restated later, too. In fact, when I retired I had a Q clearance. Not too many had it at that time. For some reason they'd lowered the standard some. But yeah. So it was tight. It was very tight. And you've probably heard about the aircraft, the patrol aircraft that flew--the main reason for the Richland airport was to accommodate the half dozen Piper Cubs, really, that were constantly doing surveillance work over the Hanford site for, well, all of the 40s, and probably, I would guess, until 1954, '55, or maybe a little bit before that. After the Army moved in, anyway, and there was tighter security there. But the security was tight, yeah. Very tight. Bauman: Do you have something else you want to get back to that we were talking about before? Shea: We could go back to Hanford. But I might mention one thing, for anybody that's kind of interested in sports. This is kind of off, but anyway. There at Hanford, and after that, they had a MP, or Military Police Detachment of US Army personnel. And they were--of course, most of them were pretty young men, and all. And they had some good teams, softball teams and all. But a little sidelight, one of the men, one of the MPs, after he got out of the Army, there in late 1945, he went to various colleges around the area, and universities, and tried to get a football scholarship. He’d played a little high school football, and all. And so they all said, well, no, thanks, but we're in pretty good shape. So, okay, well, that's fine. So he decided, well, I'll just go back home. So he went back home to Illinois. And then in 1947, he reappeared in the Rose Bowl, and he was the quarterback for Illinois. And they proceeded to beat UCLA, something like 45 to 14. But his name was Perry Moss. And he'd been a GI MP out at Hanford. So I thought that was kind of interesting. Going back to Hanford, there. I might--two things I might mention that were very significant, and very important, not to me or my family, but I'm sure that many of the guys in the--and some of the guys in the trailer court, probably, some of the fathers, and maybe older boys—they had some excellent baseball leagues out there. Again, black leagues, white leagues. But the baseball field they had out there rivalled any major league ballpark in the nation at that time, other than the seating. There was only seating for about 6,000, I think it was. But the grass was perfect. They maintained it. And lighting was excellent, because most of the games were played at night, when the guys would come in after work. Excellent, though, and a lot of great baseball, a lot of great baseball was played there. And then I guess it would be just absolutely wrong not to mention something about the auditorium, or I guess that's what the main name for the huge building that they put up virtually overnight. That's not quite true. But really, within two or three days, they put up this huge building that they called the auditorium. It had a regulation-size gymnasium floor, and no seating such as that, except around the perimeter. But they had many dances, big dances. They brought the Globetrotter basketball team in. And I'll have to ask Alice to help me with the name of the--what was the band leader? Alice: Kay Kyser? Shea: Kay Kyser. Brought Kay Kyser in. And to this day, as far as I know, the grand piano that they brought in for Kay Kyser to use is still in what I know as Carmichael School. Alice: Chief Joe. Shea: Huh? Bauman: Chief Joe—Chief Joseph? Shea: No. Carmichael. Alice: Yes, Chief Joe. Shea: Okay. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, the one on Lee Boulevard at the top of the hill. That building. Anyway. I guess that, unless you have other questions-- Bauman: I was just going to ask you, did you get to attend any of the baseball games, or the auditorium, stuff in the auditorium at all? Shea: A couple of the baseball games. Since they were at night, Mom and Dad kind of rode herd on me a little bit there. But I did go to a couple of baseball games. And there was one ceremony there, too, that they brought a pilot and maybe one or two of his crew in who had to been taken prisoner by the Japanese. They'd been shot down, and they'd been taken prisoner by the Japanese, but they were able to escape. And so for one of the war bond drives, they brought them in to talk to the people. And they had a big ceremony there, and it was in the evening. And speaking of war bonds, or war savings bonds, and such as that, that was a big thing. That was a big thing there at Hanford, and for the kids as well as the adults. And so it was very well contributed to, really, or bought. A lot of war bonds there. So anyway, that was good, a good way to save money. Alice: What about seeing the fellow, the gentleman who had been shell shocked, and how they dealt with him? Shea: Oh. Yeah, that was the only really sad thing that I remember from Hanford days. And then, it was a passing thing. But one evening, near me was all of a sudden a congregation of several of the, we'll call them police officers, there at Hanford had formed a ring around--and I'm talking about ten or 12 of them--around this fairly young man. And as it turned out, he had been in the service, probably in Europe. And he went bonkers. And after—well, excuse me—he had come to Hanford and went to work. But that evening, he kind of went bonkers, and so these police officers just had to kind of slowly move in on him, and get him under control. And I think they cuffed him and took him away. But that was sad, because it was obvious that he thought that these were Germans that he was fighting. These were bad guys, and he was going to get all he could. That was sad, but anyway, those things happen. So I don't know if you have any other questions about Hanford, there, or--oh, excuse me. I just thought of one thing. One wonderful, wonderful thing there at the Hanford town site--well, let me back up. You're probably all aware of the fact that in 1943, when the government moved in, they really took over three little villages: Richland, Hanford, and White Bluffs. And Hanford and White Bluffs are, I think, separated by, what, six miles, or something like that, of highway. But between Hanford and White Bluffs—and I suppose on either end, west of White Bluffs, and east of Hanford, too—orchard, after orchard, after orchard of just wonderful fruit: peaches, big Bing cherries, pears, apricots—wonderful fruit. And we had the opportunity to go out and pick there--during the summer of '43, go out and pick, and get cherries. And another thing, the track houses, the farm houses that had to be abandoned, many of us went out and cut sod out of their lawns, and put the sod around our trailer, and watered it. It was great. It was great. And many of the houses that had been farm houses, they were taken over by the upper military of the Army Corps of Engineers. And they lived there, several guys in a house. But one thing that I understand is that every year the railroad would bring in--excuse me. Unless it was a bad winter and the apricots were frozen, they brought trains in to load up with apricots to send all over the country—LA, Texas, New York, and all, because those were the earliest apricots in the country. And they were wonderful apricots, too. So they hit the market, unless they got frozen off that winter, which I guess was very, very rare. Apparently that area around Hanford and White Bluffs, the air currents, or whatever, during the winter, carried fairly mild air temperature-wise, and so anyway. But that was interesting. Bauman: So it sounds like a lot of the farm houses were still there, and the crops. Shea: They eventually—probably in the late 40s—they cut all the orchards down, and so none of them existed. You can see a lot of stumps, but no orchards. And then interestingly, probably by 1948, you'd have never known that there was any barracks, wash houses, nothing. It was completely leveled. And today, it's just a few little asphalt strips that you'd see where the various streets were, and all. But yeah. That's it. Bauman: So was it just that first summer of '43 that you were able to pick the apricots and cherries and stuff? Just that first summer? Shea: Yeah. No, I'm sorry. I beg your pardon. No, no. '43 and '44. I beg your pardon. But not '45, because we were out of there by March. But all of that summer of '43 and '44, it was great. And again, I think it's important to remember that virtually all of 1944, that Hanford town site was the fourth largest city in the State of Washington, about 52,000 people, men, women, and children. Yeah. That fruit was wonderful. Bing cherries the size of quarters. Wonderful, wonderful fruit. Bauman: Well, is there anything you haven't had a chance to talk about yet that you’d like to still, that we haven't been able to talk about yet? Shea: Let’s see. As it relates to the bond drives, and all, here's a--my mother saved this because my little fat face was in it. But they had what they called The Sage Sentinel newspaper out there, and this is just an example. This is from June of 1944. It just showed some of us kids. They had bought war bonds, and they had a little blurb there about that. Bauman: Okay. We can probably get this on film. Shea: Or you might want to make a copy of it, or whatever. You're welcome to, if you'd like. Bauman: All right. Well, I want to thank you very much for coming today and-- Shea: Well, my pleasure. Bauman: --sharing your stories and memories. Shea: My pleasure. Bauman: I really appreciate it. Shea: No, it's my pleasure. So thank you. Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:14:48 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 230 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor 100-C Area 100-B Area D Area DR Area F Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1943-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951; 1967-?; 1983/1984-1996 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Johnson, Robbley Moss, Perry 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 Bob Shea Description An account of the resource An interview with Bob Shea conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Missasion 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 2013-11-13 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 100-B Area 100-C Area B Reactor D and DR Reactors F Area Housing Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F719bed6d9c78e658d30ce6ade9bfc7c0.jpg acc5bf4ce410efe91e79d5dd08bda57d https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Feb7f32b54e254f6c381371d0ad4674d9.mp4 401431f21aed89f6ef6130d03341dd02 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roop, Jane Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Roop_Betty_Jane Robert Bauman: Ready to go? All right. OK, we'll go ahead and start. Betty Jane Roop: Okay. Bauman: Let's start by having you say your name and spell it for us. Roop: Okay. My name is Betty Jane Roop. R-O-O-P is the last name. Bauman: Thank you. My name is Robert Bauman and today's date is July 22nd of 2014. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And you go by Jane. Roop: I go by Jane. Mm-hm. Bauman: So let's start, Jane, if you could talk about how and when your family arrived here in the Tri-Cities. What brought your family here? Roop: Okay. My dad ran away when he was about 13 years old, 14 years old and he ended up in the Roundhouse at Pasco. And eventually made his way back home, but always remembered this place. And so when he was out of the service for World War II, he decided we'd move here because there was work. And so we came in 1949 and lived here until the Army base closed down in North Richland in '56, '57. And so that's how we got here. Bauman: And how old were you at the time? Roop: I was about five. Bauman: And do you have any memories, or what are some of your earlier memories of the area? Roop: I guess the earliest memory was living in what's called old Navy housing in Pasco. That was kind of a community and I remember playing there as a kid. And then we lived there for a while. And then we move to the trailer court in North Richland and I started kindergarten there. And some of my earliest remembrances are how cold it was walking to school. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: What was the trailer camp like? Could you describe that at all? Roop: Well, it was the largest trailer camp in the world and we were very proud of that. And it was just block after block of trailers. And there was approximately, oh, I don't know, let's see, 20 trailers on each side of a block and they were usually divided up, and there was a big bath house in the middle. Because at that time, a lot of the trailers didn't have washing machines or even bathrooms. So in the middle of that block was a big cement house, bathroom, wash room, and that kind of thing. And it was a wonderful place for kids to grow up. There were lots of kids around all the time and we would live very close and I remember it just being a very safe environment, especially during the summer when we would play until it was dark, and often hid in that bath house. Bauman: And what about the school? What was the school like? Roop: Well, at John Ball, it was a huge Quonset hut school. It had a long center part, kind of like a centipede. And then off of that long center part came the classrooms. And again, one of the things I remember as a kid is that you couldn't get in. And during the winter, you had to wait until the halls were open to get inside and it was very cold. And at that time, girls, you weren't allowed to were dresses—or pants. You had to sort of wear pants underneath your dress. So you would dress kind of double layer with a dress on top and the pants underneath because it was so cold and you had to wait outside to get in. But my first goal was to become a hall monitor so I could get in out of the cold. [LAUGHTER] And the younger, the first, second, third grades were on one end and the fourth, fifth, and sixth were on the other end. And it was a small school, a relatively small school. But I remember lots of fond memories of that school and I started kindergarten there and left in sixth grade when they closed it down. Bauman: And was it like K through eight, or do you know how-- Roop: I don't think we went through eighth grade. I think it only went through sixth. Bauman: Okay. Roop: Yeah. I'm pretty sure. It was just through sixth. And I think they went into Richland then, to one of the schools there. Bauman: So what sort of job did your father have then? Roop: He was first a teamster and worked loading, getting people to and from the site from a major--there was a huge bus center. In fact, I think it's still there to some extent. And he worked there as a teamster. And then after a few years, he took training and became a pipe fitter and was a pipe fitter out there until it closed down. Bauman: And where had you lived before this? Roop: We came from Oklahoma. My dad was in the Navy until, I think about after the war, '44, '45. He was stationed in Hawai’i. And after the war, we came out here, because it was a time of just finding work and it was a lot of work here. Bauman: And did you have any idea what sort of place Hanford was, what sort of work was being done at Hanford? Roop: You know, as a kid, what I remember most is all the kind of secrecy and the whispering. Like you didn't know what was really going on, but Rattlesnake Mountain to us kids was always a very mysterious place. Because it was like over there, there was something really big and scary. So I remember that being—because it dominates the landscape even today. And nobody really talked about their work, but you knew things were going on there that you couldn't talk about. Bauman: So you lived in the trailer camp from about 1950 or so? Roop: Yeah, it was about '50 to '56, '57, and there was a big Army base out there. And when they closed the Army base, they closed a lot of the trailers. It shrunk in size. So a lot of people moved from one part of the trailer court to another part if they were still employed. And so it kind of shrunk and it's mostly where Battelle is right now-- Bauman: Right. Right. Roop: --where that area where all the trailers were and the school and everything. Bauman: And what about your family then? What happened to your family? Roop: After they closed down, my dad worked, I think it was only less than a year and then he went back in the Navy. And from there then he went for training in Oklahoma, and then he went to the Philippines, and then we moved as a family to Midway Island, and then came back here. He got out of the Navy again in about '61, '60, I think it was, and then we came back here to this area and lived here pretty much ever since. Until my dad died, he lived here—1991. So we came back in about '60, '61 and he was here until he is death in '91. Bauman: And he came to work at Hanford? Roop: He didn't. He did for a while, and then he became an independent trucker, which was always his passion. Bauman: And so how old were you then when you came back? Roop: I was a junior in high school when we came back. So I left when I was in sixth grade and then came back when I was a junior. Bauman: And which high school did you go to then? Roop: Col High. Columbia High. I was a Bomber, still a Bomber. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] And what was the community like when you came back and high school? Could you describe that? Roop: Well, when I came back, of course, North Richland was no longer here. And all those usual signs and maybe people have talked about this—well, where we're sitting now was an area where we did some hunting and bringing our dogs down next to the river. And then on the other side of the GW Way was a huge outdoor theater right below that hill. And all of these kind of landscape—that landscape was pretty much gone by then. And we moved into a smaller trailer court for a little while on Stevens Drive, right off of Stevens Drive. And then my dad did go—I think he might have returned to work for a little bit out at Hanford as a pipe fitter, but as soon as he kind of got himself organized, he bought a truck and started trucking in the area. Bauman: So going back then to your earlier childhood in North Richland, were there services there and in the trailer camp, grocery stores or something? Roop: Yes. Yes, there was. There was a theater that I remember very well, and it was actually on the Army base and almost everything was. There was a grocery store and I can't remember the name of it. There was a post office. There was a theater. There was a beautiful little park that we used to ride our bikes to that kind of looked at the grocery store. Maybe there was a block between or maybe a quarter mile, but a nice little park there. Bauman: Like a park with play equipment, sort of thing? Roop: Not play equipment, but trees and benches. Yeah. And we didn't really leave the area to do grocery shopping at all. If you wanted to go, there wasn't any place to really eat. There was not like diner or a cafe. And I remember we used to go into the Thrift Way into Richland every Friday night for a roast beef sandwich dinner. [LAUGHTER] And my mother worked in that grocery store for a little while as a checker. Bauman: Do you remember the name of the theater? Roop: I don't remember the name, and it was just right there on the Army post. And then, of course, later, the one downtown--well, there's the old, The Players where The Players are now. But there was another theater, sort of where the Desert--I'm remembering the old name, but where the Red Lion Hotel is. But there was another theater there in that block, a regular movie theater. And I can remember going there as a child and mostly seeing war movies that scared me, because they made a lot of stuff like that after the war, about the war. Bauman: Were there any doctors’ offices in North--did you have come into Richland for medical appointments? Roop: Yes, yes, we did. I don't remember them being any doctors and I had asthma as a child and I was often—4:00 in the morning we were heading somewhere. But mostly all of those kind of services were actually in Richland. And certainly in '62 when we got back, it was all still in Richland. And I was a patient of Dr. Corrado’s for many years. And he's a well-known physician in the neighborhood, in the community. Bauman: Right. So at what point did you become aware of what was being made at Hanford, the work that was being done at Hanford? Roop: I don't think I really understood for years what was really going on there. I think I was an adult before I really knew that they were making plutonium and uranium and things like that. Because we just didn't talk about it. You just didn't talk about it. And I guess the only thing, really, I would say was that we had to do the drills that you do that most kids did by--with their head over, you know, putting-- Bauman: Desk cover. Roop: --underneath your desk and all that. We—in fact, that is one of the poem I wrote that's in Particles on the Wall is about. Our drill was too right to go outside and there was a huge, sandy ditch, huge, long ditch--I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of it, I brought one--where we had to go outside and lay down in the ditch face down with our hands like this, in this ditch. And so we always knew it was often very scary and we knew that we were in a place that was targeted. I think kids felt that. That we were in a dangerous place because of the area, but we didn't know why. And we didn't know what it was. And I was trying to remember when exactly I knew what they made. And it wasn't--I think for sure I was an adult. And I talked with a fellow who worked in one of the plants out there. He explained to me how those plants really worked, like a pressure cooker and everything. And do you know something? I think I was 30-some years old before I really knew. So you just had all these--the innuendo of it. Bauman: You had some sense it had to do with defense or something. Roop: Defense, and it was scary. And of course, in high school, we knew of the bomber, so we knew of the bomb. I think I must have realized that part of what they did out there was making that bomb, but I can't tell you exactly how I got to know it. Bauman: Right. So you were in North Richland from about kindergarten through about sixth grade, you said. Roop: Mm-hm. Bauman: Did you stay in touch with any of the families or any of your friends in that school? Roop: Yes. There were the Keyeses. Yes, they had kids my age and we played together an awful lot. So there was three families that I sort of knew after that, but the Keyeses I did stay in touch with and they had a son a couple years younger than I was and he died about 10 or 15 years ago. He was younger and his brother died even at a younger age. I did stay in touch with them in knew them many years after. But it's funny. I know that there are other families, but we didn't stay too much in touch. There was about four families that every now and then we'd run into. But we didn't socialize and didn't get together like that except the Keyeses. Bauman: You mentioned a little bit earlier the drill of laying down in the ditch in the sand. Were there any other things that you remember from growing up that were connected to Hanford? Roop: Like the secrecy? Bauman: Yeah, the secrecy, or anything. Roop: Well, I knew that you couldn't go across--you could only drive out on the highway that goes north so far and then there was a checkpoint. And of course, when I grew up, there was no road that you could drive across to Vantage. Bauman: Oh, okay. Roop: Okay. That was all restricted area. And I think you could go as far as what was the first gate and then take sort of a left and go west to Yakima, but all of that area was off limits. And you know, I can't even remember the Geiger counter things that I know some of the people, the poets who read in Particles on the Wall, they remember the Geiger counters and that kind of thing. But I can't say I even remember that. Yeah. Bauman: So in looking back at those years, overall, how would you describe your childhood, I guess, in North Richland? Roop: Well--and that's what my poem is about--in many ways, because it was a small community and we all lived very close together, pretty much everybody knew what everybody else was doing and all the kids played together or didn't, but everybody knew who was fighting with who. That was a wonderful part, but it had this dark kind of cloud over it that was kind of scary as a kid. And the other thing that I remember from that time in the trailer court is that we had a ghetto inside the trailer court. And not too many people really remember this, that there was still segregation and all of the black people lived in one block, sort of in the middle of the school. And I only remember--and I went back and I saw pictures of John Ball's schools, each class, and there was one black boy named Maurice in there, but he was the only one. And I used to love walking through that area because it smelled so good, of all kinds of smells, cornbread and black eyed peas and greens and stuff. And so I remember that area and one person that I was describing that to who read my poem was very upset. She said, well, that's not true, but it really was true. We did have that area. Bauman: Well, yeah. I know much of the Tri-Cities was segregated at the time too. So about how large of an area was that then, with the trailer area that was the black area, I guess. Roop: It was very small. I would say it was one block. Just one block, maybe on each side. So we're talking maybe up to 30 or 40 families, maybe, but very small and one child, one black child in that school. Bauman: And they only had one child in the school. Roop: Mm-hm. Bauman: And that was like that as far as you can remember, the whole time you were-- Roop: Yes, that there was a segregated area, yes. Bauman: Interesting. Roop: Yeah. Bauman: Do you have your poem with you? Roop: Yes, I do. Bauman: I wonder if it might be good to have you read it. Roop: Okay. I would be happy to. Bauman: Because that would tie in with the answer you've been giving to my questions and so forth. Roop: Okay. And I have that and then I also have--it's kind of a bad picture, but I can't get it any better, and you might off the internet—but of the children actually lying in the ditch. That was in The Tri-City Herald, and I found it on the archive site for the Col High Bomber site. And it does tell on that site--and I do have it at home, I just didn't bring it—of who took the picture. And I believe that that was taken somewhere in the early '50s. Bauman: Do you remember how regularly these drills happened? Roop: About once a month. Bauman: Okay. Roop: About once a month. Bauman: Wow. Okay. Roop: And so if you want me to do this, I'd be glad to do that. Bauman: Yeah. That would be great, I think. Roop: Okay. And took a class in how to read your poetry, so let me get in the mindset here. Bauman: Sure. Roop: Because I've read it a couple of places and--Okay. "North Richland Childhood," by Jane Roop. "We came from Oklahoma, Momma, Daddy, and me after the war, dirt poor, to live in a 20-by-8-foot trailer on a 30-by-30-foot lot with other electricians, pipe fitters, teamsters, janitors, proud to be part of this atomic business, living in the largest trailer court in the world. Big enough to have our own ghetto, two blocks of dark, delicious smells, frying fish, boiled greens, hot cornbread. Once a month, from the top of tall poles, warning sirens wailed. The schoolchildren, black and white, raced by swings, monkey bars, the tetherball ring, to the sandy ditch behind John Ball Elementary. Strung ourselves down like paper dolls, clinching our fear behind closed eyes. A useless attack, a defense against a nuclear attack, but we would have been easy to bury there." And I did find out later that there was some science behind being in a ditch. According to one of my scientific friends here now, they thought that if you were in a ditch and sort of down that the wave would pass you by. But as a child, it never made any sense. But that's the poem and that's traveling with Particles on the Wall. Bauman: Right. Thank you very much for reading that. That's great. Roop: You're welcome. Bauman: As you were talking, I thought of one other thing that I hadn't asked you. Were there any places of worship, any churches-- Roop: Oh, yes. Bauman: --at camp there? Roop: Oh, yeah. I don't remember them being in the camp. We went to the Lutheran church on George W. Way that is now the Chinese. And then, of course, there was, still is the huge Baptist church there. And so during my childhood, I attended both of those at different times. Yes, but I can't remember and I'm sure there must have been on the base something for people, but we didn't attend there. We went into Richland. Bauman: Okay. Great. Is there anything I haven't asked you about or that you think is important to share that you haven't been able to mention yet? Roop: Well, I was just trying to think. It was just a special time, special memories. It's funny. As kids, you do remember things that were scary. Bauman: It's also very unique. I mean, not a lot of people grow up in a place like that, connected to something like that. Roop: Yes. And of course, we were always afraid of the rattlesnakes. [LAUGHTER] And the river because at that time the river was very fast when we first moved here. It wasn't dammed up, and it was always a great threat. And one of our things was not to go to the river. You don't go down there. And of course, that's where we went, you know. That's the way kids are. But I can remember that being very frightening. Bauman: Right. Roop: But other than that, yeah. Good memories too. Bauman: Right. Well, thank you very much for coming and sharing your stories today. Roop: You’re welcome. Bauman: I appreciate that very much. Roop: Okay. Yeah. Bauman: Do you have a couple of minutes? Man one: Yes. Roop: And I was trying to remember because I lived at 825 E Street. And I think it was A Street, down by the river, but I can't remember exactly. Bauman: Oh, okay. We'll go ahead. Man one: Would you mind your adjusting your microphone? Roop: Oh. Man one: It's sort of just kind of twisting a bit. Roop: There. Does that do it? Man one: Excellent. Thank you. Bauman: So I wonder if you could talk about the housing differences with the different classes of workers. Roop: Okay. Sure. What I remember most, of course, is that all the administrative people and scientists were living in houses in Richland in the ABC houses and that kind of thing. All the blue collar workers, electricians, pipe fitters, janitors, anything like that, North Richland trailers. And then there was sort of a mixed class that lived in houses down along the river, close to the river, but parallel to the trailer court, and they had houses as well. And there was approximately, I'm trying to think, maybe one row down kind of on the river, then one row kind of back just a little bit. And I believe that that was A Street—A and B. I lived on E Street. So that's how I remember that. And then, of course, there was the Army base where people lived there as well. Bauman: Right. So you were you aware of that sort of growing up? Roop: Oh, yes. You betcha. Oh, yeah. Yes. Because living in a trailer house was always at least then, rather, I mean, you were poor and you knew you were poor. And you knew you were poor, for me, because I couldn't wear the same kind of clothes that other kids wore. And that goes back forever, doesn't it? That I can remember it was a very big deal to buy a Pendleton skirt, a wool skirt. It was very expensive, and my mother bought me one, one time. And that was a great treat. Do you remember Laverne and Shirley and the poodle skirts and that kind of thing? That's the way it was then. Yeah. So there was very definitely class distinctions. Bauman: Did you talk about it in your family at all or is it just sort of an understood thing? Roop: I think the only way it really came out was, for me, was the clothes. I don't remember--as soon as you could, you moved up into a trailer, the first one that we lived in, like in the poem, didn't have a running toilet and I don't believe a shower. So the first thing that you did was try to get a trailer big enough and wide enough so that you could have a bathroom. We never had a wash room and you hung your clothes up on a big drying area. They had clotheslines in the bath house region. And I've always thought, I bet you that's the reason everybody use Clorox because in those days, everybody got to see your linen and your underwear. [LAUGHTER] Everybody could tell whether it was white or not because that's the way things were then. And I can remember getting washed in one of those big, square, cement tubs when I got like a ringworm. What do you call that? And you had to go and be washed in that kind of thing and that was the biggest place where I could be in something like a bathtub. So I was washed in that big bathtub in the wash house. But then as soon as you could get a big enough trailer, and then, of course, the next step was to try to get a house. Bauman: A house. Roop: Yeah. Bauman: Right. All right. Thank you very much. Roop: You're welcome. You're welcome. Yeah. Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:29:25 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 241 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1949-56, ca1960-2014 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 Jane Roop Description An account of the resource An interview with Jane Roop 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 Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-7-22 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. 2016-06-24: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Richland (Wash.) 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Title A name given to the resource Pre-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project 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 Finley, Catherine Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Finley_Catherine Robert Bauman: You ready? Ready to get started? Catherine Finley: I guess. Bauman: Okay. My name is Robert Bauman, and I'm conducting an oral history interview with Catherine Borden Finley. And today is July 9, 2013. And the interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And I will be talking with Catherine Finley about her family's history and about her memories and experiences growing up in White Bluffs. And so maybe we should start. I'll ask you about your family, if you could tell me how and why or when your family came to the area, the White Bluffs area. Finley: My father, Archie Borden, was born in White Bluffs. And his mother and his father, George Borden, come down from Priest Rapids some way. His father was a government surveyor. And he come down the river and settled in White Bluffs. And Grandma Pete came from Ellensburg. Her grandma [INAUDIBLE]. And they married, and they had the three sons. George Borden made a living by running horses between the river and Gable Mountain, and the army bought them. So let's see. And he drowned in the river when my dad was eight years old in 1906. Bauman: And-- Finley: Pardon? Bauman: He operated the ferry at White Bluffs? Finley: Yes. Bauman: In addition to running the horses. Finley: George Borden also owned the ferry, and he had land. He was quite successful for that time. And my mother, she come from South Dakota. And I don't know why they made it up in White Bluffs. But they were married in 1927. Bauman: And what was your mother's family's name? Finley: Shanahan. And they had the seven children. And the oldest one just passed away last year. So there's still six of us left. And one of dad's brothers had three children. And we had lots of cousins and not too close together. It was quite sparsely settled, because of the orchards and pastures and things like that. We lived about two miles north of White Bluffs. And we just grew up. We had all sorts of things to do. We had all the animals for pets. Bauman: What kind of animals did you have? Finley: Oh, we had horses and cows and sheep and dogs and cats and lots of little banty chickens, which we packed every place. The sheep my dad kept on Locke’s Island and brought them over in the winter so they would lamb on the mainland. The cattle, the cows, stayed on the home place. We rode the cows. [LAUGHTER] I don't know if Dad ever knew that, but we did. [LAUGHTER] And now we also had horses that we rode. And that was not the main entertainment that we had or what kids do, but we spent many hours on the horses and playing with the other animals. And the neighbor kids migrated even though it was like a mile or more to the place, and we had the cousins to play with. And we played with the Indian children when they'd come in twice a year to fish, Johnny and his--I don't know how many. I think there was four or five men in the crew and their wives. And they were great playmates, those Indian boys were. Bauman: What time of year would that have been? Finley: They'd come in the spring for the spring salmon run. And they’d come back in the fall for the fall salmon run. And they dried their fish on long racks on the river, on the bar. And their horses were then turned loose on the bar with everybody else's. So we had a lot of fun with them. I think they're gone now. Bauman: And about how long would they stay in the area during the spring? Finley: They were there probably like a month, maybe a little longer, whenever the salmon run was that year. And they always had racks and racks of salmon. So it must have been very good fishing. And they fished at night. They had their canoes that they stored in dugout cellars and little wire pots. And they put hot coals in them or burned something, and anyway put them over the canoe, and the fish would come to the light. And they'd dip them. And then they'd bring them all in in the morning, and then the women proceeded to process them. [LAUGHTER] But it was interesting and a lot of fun. And we learned a lot from them. And Johnny was very, very interesting. He was the chief of the--they were Wanapum Indians. And then at the end of the season, then they would go either--sometimes they went on to the Yakima. Apparently they caught another type of fish there, down here at the Horn's Rapid Dam. Otherwise, they went back up to Priest Rapids and lived in their teepees until the dam was built. And they still lived in their teepees. They parked the car in the living room at the house that was built. And as I say, it was very interesting. And then when they closed it all, they went to the Yakima Reservation, or to Toppenish. But we played with--there was many different nationalities of children there, and we not only went to school with them, they were always welcome at home. And we were just as welcome in their home. Bauman: Do you remember any of the neighbor families or children? Finley: Oh, yeah, there was Johnson. They didn't have any children. They had a nice dairy. And Killians was a German family. Supplee was a German family. Walkers was a French family. I don't remember what the Goodners were. But they were all very successful in fruit. My dad didn't have any fruit, but he traded sheep for fruit, bartered. And we were very fortunate all during the Depression that that's what happened. So we were never hungry. We didn’t really know--I imagine the folks knew what the Depression was. Us kids didn't. We never had bought toys that I remember. My dad would carve things out of wood, out of mostly bark that come down the river, I don’t know, boats and mangers and whatever happened to be handy. But we could always go down on the bar with him--we never were allowed to go to the river by ourselves--and pick up odd driftwood. And we made animals out of them for some reason and rocks. Rocks made wonderful trucks and cars and just any old thing—corrals to keep all these stick animals in. And we went to school in a four-room schoolhouse. It was a large white building, divided in four rooms. And that was about a little over a mile from where we lived. So in the spring and in the fall when it was still warm, we walked to school. And Mr. Anderson, the school bus driver, would pick us up during the winter when it was cold. And he was a father of Harry Anderson that was quite active in the White Bluffs picnic when it was here. Bauman: Do you remember any of your teachers from the school? Finley: Yes, Mrs. Moody. Mrs. Moody, I remember her well. She taught kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, and sometimes fourth grade, depending on how many children were present. And then my second teacher I had there was a Ms. Smit. And she taught the fourth, depending on who had the most room in the classroom, and fifth and sixth. And the seventh and eighth graders got to go upstairs. They were special. They were really big folks. But then when the government come in, the last year they held school we went for six days a week so we could get the time in because the letters come in early spring, like in February, and not knowing when they would close or however they were going to work it, so we were out of school the first part of May. Bauman: So you went an extra day to make up for the-- Finley: Yeah, to make up for the school days that we wouldn't be able to go to school. Bauman: So how old were you at the time, then? Finley: I was in the--hm, gotta think. Fifth grade when they closed the school. I was a year older because I liked one grade real well. And the sixth grade I spent in Hanford. And then the folks moved and we went to Benton City. But it was fun. It was interesting, like I said. Sometimes I kind of feel sorry for kids that have so much that they didn't have to work for. They weren’t, you know, not denied--but we didn't know we were being denied anything. We didn't know we were supposed to be poor. [LAUGHTER] Or that he didn't have a car. Dad had a car, but he never used it. He rode one of the horses into work. It was just easier, and he could sleep coming home because the horse would come home. Bauman: Did you place have electricity at all? Finley: Oh, yes, we had electricity. We had indoor plumbing, until the government moved in and they cut it all off. I mean the plumbing and the water, stopped all the wells and brought our water out to us in 250-gallon wooden barrels every day. In the summer they'd put ice in them so it would be cold. Winter, they'd chip the ice off. Oh, and put us up a nice, new toilet. We really thought that was--an outside toilet with a moon and a star. Now, why that impressed kids, I don't know. But it did. Bauman: What about a telephone? Did you have a telephone? Finley: Oh, yeah, we had phones. My grandfather, Grandpa Shanahan, Mama's father, worked for the telephone company, Wilkerson and Brown out of Kennewick, had the telephone company. And then of course, when the government come in, the government had it. My dad was a refrigeration engineer. He made ice for the railroad. And in the summer, they would bring their fruit cars down, and he would pack each end of the car with ice. And they put all their produce and food in the center. And as long as it was moving, there were fans moving in it, and it kept it cold. And that railroad went back to Othello, and the Milwaukee line picked them up. Bauman: Okay. Finley: But we got to go on the train. We got to ride in the caboose. If we wanted to go to Seattle, we rode in the caboose. And the brakie took care of us, no trouble at all. Mom would just put us on the train, and by that time, my grandparents had moved to Seattle. And he'd go down to King's Station and take us off, and then put us back on when our visit was over, and we'd come back. Bauman: Did you get to do that very often? Finley: We done it probably twice a year. Sometimes we stayed longer. Sometimes it was just a short time. Bauman: Now, how big was your property? Finley: I really don't know. We didn't have a large place. The most I think, other than orchard, I think most of the land was kind of leased, because the island, he owned. And the government bought that. But I don't know how much land they had on the mainland. It seemed like an awful lot once in a while. Bauman: And so in addition to the house that was on your property, were there other buildings on the property as well? Finley: On the last house we lived in, yes, there was a barn, and there was this two-story house. And there was a large barn and the chicken coop and whatever buildings that would be on a farm. On the other one, there was a barn and a chicken coop. And they called them soldier tracks at that time because they were built for the men coming back from World War I. And there was a house and a barn a chicken coop and a nice, new toilet. That always seemed to be very important. And, well, it wasn't occupied then. Some other person could lease it for the land. I don't know how many acres were in even those places. But in one of Dad's places, it was up, and then there was a flat, and then it dropped on down to the river, to the river bar. And there was a lot of land in that place, as I remember. It looked like a lot of land to a kid. Bauman: Now again, how many siblings did you have, how many brothers and sisters? Finley: Seven. I have one brother, and I had five sisters. Bauman: And were you all born in White Bluffs? Finley: Mm-hm. Teresa was the last one. She was born in '43, I think. Bauman: Okay. So we talked about the school. I was wondering about other community events or celebrations. Finley: Oh, they had the grange hall down in Old Town, which is where the ferry landed. That was where any big gathering was held. It was a bigger building. And we had a theater that run movies. Mr. Anderson, the school bus driver, he also run the theater. And I think he brought a show in probably like once a month for kids and adults. And there was a lot of little school plays. And the high school, there was always the high school. And there was always the ball games. So there was there was a lot to do, as I remember. Bauman: You mentioned that your father wouldn't let you go down to the river without him there, is that--? Finley: An adult had to be with us. Bauman: Did you ever go swimming in the river? Finley: Oh, yeah. We swam in the river. And he went back and forth across river all the time. He had a boat, and the river was part of living. But Mom always made sure that we didn't go down by ourselves. In the summertime when the water come up, it come up clear up almost over the whole bar. And it was very swift, because it went through, cut off like an island. There Barrett's Island. And the water flowed through that in the main island, and it was swift. And the river was quite narrow then, because there was no dams on it. And I think Dad always said it went at 12 miles an hour. And there were whirlpools that his dad drowned in, was a whirlpool. And so we were well watched. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Sure. Finley: And we played with the cows. Like I said, we had the cows we rode. Bauman: You mentioned taking the train to Seattle. Finley: Mm-hm. Bauman: Did you go to any of the other communities, Pasco or to [INAUDIBLE]? Finley: They would go to Yakima. And that's where I was born, and then they took me to White Bluffs. And I don't know why they went to Yakima, because that was about 60. And Pasco must have had the hospital by then. But they didn't have a bridge across it. So they had to ferry there. And I don't know why they didn't. Probably because Benton County wasn't a county at that time. There was a Yakima County, but no Benton County. And that's where they went, and Pasco. And we went to Walla Walla and Prosser, of course. Then by the time I was born, that was a county, so then all the business had to be tended there. Bauman: We talked a little bit about when the government came in 1943 and the impact it had on the school and the school days, an extra day. I was wondering what memories you have of that. What response did your parents have to being told that they had to leave? Finley: It was very hard for my dad. Because he had lived there his life. And I think one thing that was bad, they just come in and took the property and said, the next letter, you have 10 days to leave. And nobody knew when that 10 days was there. Some of them got their letters very early. My mom and dad didn't get theirs until they closed the plant. Nobody could go into it. But the fruit farmers had to leave their crops on their trees. And that was very hard on them, and no future, no money, cash in hand, like that they could go out and buy another place. And most of them had just been farmers, so they were spread all over. I mean, they moved wherever they could get a place to live. And it was hard on them. My dad sold sheep and sold most of the cattle, kept a couple of the horses. And he moved to Benton City in '44, I think, we moved there finally. But he worked there. He kept his job there as making ice. Bauman: Okay. Finley: Though the train didn't use it for that purpose or transporting food. DuPont used it for the summer months. They had huge, large holes in the ground. They just dug down in rock and covered it with sawdust, put sawdust in it. And you covered it with plastic and put ice in it, and then covered it again. And then in the summer when the plant couldn't produce enough ice for their needs, they dug that up or uncovered it and took it out, it was just like when they put it in there. We watched him do that, going back and forth to Hanford on the bus. Because the bus ran parallel of where they were building this vast hole in the ground. And that was very interesting. Because no kid could understand what they were doing. And at the same part, they were building F area. So we watched that, what you could see of it. You never knew if you were going to get home at night on the school bus for fear they’d dug a trench across the road. Bauman: You actually stayed there. You were there for several months after they started constructing-- Finley: Yes, oh, yeah, we were there probably a year and a half after--no, we were there longer than that after we got the letter. Like I said, we were the very last ones out there. We left and the gate was--the civilians couldn't go back in then, just the workmen. They had taken out all of Camp Hanford. And all of the construction work was done, or finishing work on the plants that they had started to build. After we left, they built some more. They put H in right down where we lived, tore down everything. They tore down—they put bulldozers through most of the buildings out there, probably to prevent coyotes and rats and whatever else from occupying them. Bauman: Do you remember what you were told about what was being done out there? Finley: As I remember the letter, it just said that on such-and-such a day, your land was taken by the government. And no, nobody knew what was going on. And that caused a lot of hard feelings, because they had their share of boys that went to the service. And they weren't allowed back in to see their parents who were working there. Like the Gilhulys, they had the garage. They run the garage. And all of the town people that had businesses, if they had a boy, the boy couldn't come back, which made a lot of hard feelings. And there again, as I said, they took everything, or changed all the housing. They put many families in--they would put two families to a home if there was enough room for two bedrooms, because there was no housing for all of these thousands of people coming in. And we didn't have to share our house, but any house that had been vacated, that's how they utilized them and took down the outbuildings of any barns or sheds or things like that. They were very nice people, the ones that come in. We got to know a lot of them, being kids. It was DuPont that come and took our house. We weren't happy about that. Bauman: The families that you got to know who came, were they from all over the place? Finley: Oh, yeah, one family was from Alabama. One was from Louisiana. One was from Boston. And I can remember us kids talking and laughing. We'd laugh at them, because they talked different from us. And we talked different from them to them, too. [LAUGHTER] But they were all nice people. Bauman: And you mentioned that your father owned the island? Finley: Yes, mm-hm. Bauman: And he sold that? Finley: The government bought that. Bauman: The government bought it from him. Do you know how much money he received for that? Finley: No, it wasn’t--I don't know how much they got. First they leased it, and when they knew that it was going to be--I guess; I don't have any other reason--a longer span of time, they bought the island and turned it over to, I think, Fish and Wildlife habitat. It's still there. He was very proud of that island because there was a large Indian cemetery on it. And he guarded that with his life to keep it from being dug. And several times during the night, he'd go. If he saw a bonfire over there, he'd go down to the river and row across it and get them off the island. And also, so they wouldn't set it afire. But he guarded that cemetery with his eye teeth. Bauman: I just want to go back to the community itself a little bit again. You talked a little bit about the grange, was it? Finley: The grange, mm-hm. Bauman: And school. Were there churches that were nearby? Finley: Oh, yes. There was a Methodist church and a Presbyterian church, a Catholic church. But there was many different religions. There was Seventh Day Adventists. In 1937 I believe it was--I'm not sure about the dates, they brought--and I don't even know how many. I think there was something like 13 families of Mormons in, which was kind of sad. Because they brought them in in August, and they had no time to put wood in or gather wood or canned--only what they could bring. And it was a very long, cold winter. And they did suffer. I mean, us kids thought, oh, they must have been poor. [LAUGHTER] Because they didn't have wood. I can remember my dad going and getting a couple of the men, and we had a flume in the river, which in high water caught all the logs and everything coming down the river. And he took them down there and told him to get what wood they needed to keep from freezing. And that winter, as I said, was very, very cold. And it was a very long winter. It was just kind of unfortunate. Bauman: Were those families able to stay on? Finley: Oh, yeah. They, come the next spring, they planted their gardens like everybody else did and went to work for one of the fruit farmers. And most of them didn't leave until the government come in. They were very nice people. Bauman: The town itself, I was going to ask you, are there any--you mentioned there was a theater. Were there any businesses that you remember at the time? Finley: Oh, yeah, on one side of the street there was a barber shop and drugstore and a grocery store. And the hotel burned down. I don't know when, but in the '30s, it burned. And then there was a bank and a tavern and a little park where they had the bands and things and a post office and a tavern. They had all the good things in life. A couple of gas stations, the train depot and a creamery, or where everybody took their cream in for the Twin City Creamery to come out and get. They picked it up. And I'm trying to think what else they had--and the coal storage. The coal storage I think was the largest building there. Well, the concrete part’s still standing. They didn't take down, but all around this--or on two sides if it, because one side was next to the railroad, there was packing sheds for fruit. And Dad just filled up huge canyons with ice to ship the fruit. There was a lumber yard there. Really, it was quite complete. And Hanford was also quite complete. They each had a ferry to get back and forth across the ferry. And then there was another ferry up the river, the Wahluke Ferry, which- I'm trying to think of where their end was. I think the Wahluke ended at Burke's Corners, up above the road. And it went to Ephrata. The White Bluffs Ferry went to Othello, the road. And the Hanford Ferry went out what is now the blocks. You could get to Ringgold and all in that area. And there was a road up down the other side of the river. It went from Uncle Matt's place, you could go up to Ringgold. Bauman: I think you mentioned earlier something about a baseball team, sports, I’m wondering about, for the schools. Finley: We had baseball teams. They had I think mainly basketball. I don't remember football. But there again, I wouldn't have been interested in that. But they always had music. They had bands. All three of the towns had bands. And yeah, because somebody told me they went to White Bluffs to play baseball one time. So they must have had a team. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: When you mentioned that when your family did leave, you moved to Benton City? Finley: Yes. Bauman: And did your father have sheep and cattle there again? Finley: No, we had a milk cow for a long time, and then we finally give that up. But we kept the horses. We always had horses. All us kids rode. He did, too. He was a really good horseman. But these weren't-- mostly just us kids' horses. And he just rented pasture for those. We didn't have any land for a long time. We had a building in town and a house, but we didn't have any land. Eventually, he did buy land. And part of the kids still live there. Three of my sisters still live there. Bauman: So you all grew up, spent the rest of your years [INAUDIBLE]. Finley: Yes, we all stayed together. I'm trying think. I think Veronica is the furthest one away, and she is in Goldendale, so she didn't get too far. One lives in Pendleton. My brother went to--was it Korea or Vietnam? Must have been Korea. That was in the '50s, yeah. And when he come back, he spent his time on different islands. Thank God he didn't--he joined the Navy, and he became a mechanic, an air mechanic. And they put him on the islands. He come back, went to school, went to college, got his degree in education and went back to the South Seas and taught there until he retired. And he's just younger than I am. He bought land and built himself a house up at Chesaw when he come back, which is up by Oroville, I think, and happy as a lark. Bauman: I was wondering what you think would be important for people to know about what it was like growing up in White Bluffs? What sort of a place it was. Finley: It was warm. It was a very warm community. The people were your friends. And they helped each other. If somebody needed something, somebody would either share or give or provide for them. And they didn't do it for--just because family needed it at that time. Or if one was sick, somebody was always available to take them to the hospital, which was either Pasco or Yakima. And I think it was just-- and to be happy. The people were happy. There weren't--not too many grouchy ones that I can remember. And to do with what you have. Don't want something more if you can't afford it, I guess, in this day and age. Just be happy with what you have, and work for something better. Bauman: There's one question I meant to ask you earlier that I'll ask you now, and that is the weather in the area. I know we get high winds and dust storms. Finley: Yes, there was high— Bauman: What about growing up? Did that impact your community at all? Finley: No. The ground wasn't tore up like it is now. So we didn't have the massive--I don't remember the dust storms, let me put it that way. We did have wind. And it was very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer. I mean, it was 120 and nobody thought anything about it. Very few shade trees. So it was hot, but you could always got get a pan of water. Mom used to--the wash tubs that they had then, she'd fill one every day and put it outside and us kids played in it. And I guess we were just used to it, because it didn't seem to bother us. And cold, as I said, the school bus took us to school in the winter because it was cold, and it was a mile or a little more to school. And there was no shelter, no nothing. You just were walking on sand. That's mostly what's out there. Bauman: Yeah. Do you remember the river ever freezing over at all? Finley: I don't. I don't remember it freezing. My dad would tell about the river freezing, and that's how they brought their sheep down. They kept them on--I don't know why they took them to the mountains, either, but they took them to pasture in the summer and then wait for the water to freeze to bring them over. And they lambed and sheared before the thaw so they could get them back across the river. Otherwise they had to ferry them or drag them clear down and put them across the bridge that they had then built between Pasco and Kennewick. And that was quite dangerous, he said, because they could only run so many sheep at a time. And it took a long time to put a band of sheep across. I can remember being--we had a cow that got down the outside one time, and she froze, instead of getting in the barn where she belonged. She was a young heifer, and she just didn't know, I guess. But people prepared for it. They knew it was going to be cold. It got cold early in the year. And it stayed that way until March or April. Now, the river didn't stay froze that long. It was just cold. But it wasn't cold enough to keep that river frozen. But they took the horse and everything else across it. I mean, he remembers it. But I remember the freezing out quite far from the bank, but not freezing across where they could put animals on it. Bauman: Right. Is there anything I haven't asked you about or any family stories or special memories that stand out that-- Finley: [LAUGHTER] What kids do for entertainment? Bauman: Sure. [LAUGHTER] Finley: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] We had this real nice family down the road a ways, and they had a mule. That was one of those poor Mormons that didn't know what they were getting into. And they had two boys. And Delores and I decided one day that we would put the mule harness on a horse. We did not know that there was the difference in them. There is. So we took Dolly, the horse, and took her up on the little knoll and hooked her to this wagon. I don't know where us kids got the wagon. Somebody gave it to us. And hooked the horse. We didn't know you were supposed to have shafts or something on this to stop this wagon. Well, she went to barn with this wagon bumping her all the time in the back end. And Dad came out and was quite upset because we had knocked the door off the barn. So we went in. We took Dolly, took her back out to the pasture. And we thought, well, now we've done that, and that was because it was too steep. That hill was too steep. So Mom and Dad had to go to Yakima. And us kids stayed at home, because there was nothing, nobody there to harm us. You know? [LAUGHTER] And we left Randall, my brother. We took this cow, Dolly, and put this mule harness on her. I don't know how. [LAUGHTER] And took her up about a quarter of a mile from the place through an old cut down apple orchard. And when we waved our hands and dropped them down, Randall was supposed to sic the dog on the calf in the barn. Well, Delores didn't make it to the wagon. She put me in first, and that cow went home. When we got home, the wagon did not survive it. And Dad couldn't figure out what was wrong with old Dolly that night. She was so touchy when he went to milk her. [LAUGHTER] We didn't try that again. But there was always two of us, so if one got in trouble, we could share it. One time we took the sheep who were over still on the mainland. And he had a nasty, nasty buck, but he produced good lambs. And there again, we were warned, you don't get in that corral with that buck. Because he actually could have killed a kid, I imagine, if he’d, you know. And Delores and I figured and figured if we got two ropes on him, we could tie him to two different posts in the corral. And then we could ride him. This is a big sucker, nice long wool and everything he had. And we did. Well, finally we wore—anyway, we rode that poor, old buck ‘til he just laid down. And Dad couldn't figure out what was--his name was George-- couldn't figure out what was wrong with George that night, because he just didn't want to eat anything. We never told him until we were grown--and I guess we were both married by that time—what happened to George. Bauman: Figured it was safe to tell him then. Finley: He just looked at us and he said, well, that's probably only one of the things you done that I didn't know about, sweetheart. [LAUGHTER] But we created our own fun. And to us, it was not mean or cruel or mischievous, because we knew the cow wouldn't die. She was too ornery. And we finally broke Dolly to ride with a saddle, so that was a little safer, too. We just had fun and grew up. And I don't know what else we done. Spent 13, 14 years there. I must have done something more. We worked hard in the summer. I remember that. Because Mom had to can. She canned the fruit. If somebody butchered--it always surprised me that if somebody in the community butchered, and they had too much meat, then it was spread out. Because there was no way of keeping it. And neighbors got along well that way. Bauman: So what sorts of work or chores did you do as a young child growing up? What sorts of things did you help out with? Finley: Oh heck, I could cook a meal by the time I was in the third grade. I learned to make bread, canned. We all canned. That was a whole family project. It wasn't just one person there, because it all had to be done on a cook stove. And somebody had to bring in wood and peel fruit. It had to be continuous. And what else? I remember Mama canning meat one time--twice. And that had to be cooked for six hours. Because it was just a water bath. They didn't have pressure. Later on, I guess, there was pressure cookers. But that's how they cooked it, put it in a wash boiler. And I think it held 12 quarts, the wash boiler did. And they cooked it all day, all day long. And that stove had to be kept burning. So on that day also, if you were canning, you also made bread. Because the oven was hot. And it was busy. It was a busy time. And then in spring, they had to take care of the stock. And the fruit was a little bit earlier than what it is here. It was just like a week earlier. Of course, it ended a week earlier, too. But there was always tomatoes and Mom put up an awful lot of tomatoes and peaches. I can remember that. Bauman: So you grew a lot of your own-- Finley: Grandma Pete, my dad's mother, was a peach farmer. So they always had peaches. And she also grew a very large garden. Or they would go down to Ringgold and there was the Japanese family there that had a truck farm. You could always get your tomatoes there in quantity. Bauman: Do you remember what their name was? Finley: The name of the-- Bauman: Japanese family? Finley: No, I have no idea. We just went down there and they were wonderful gardeners. They had everything up off the ground. They planted the plants and then they put chicken wire mesh panels over it so that the tomato plant grew up through the mesh and all the tomatoes then were on the wire. They were never on the ground. I always thought that was amazing. And they had corn. They had all vegetables. I just remember the folks buying the cantaloupe and the tomatoes. But they had-- I imagine it was a good sized truck farm. It was to me then. But I don't actually how big it was. And there was always apples. And apricot trees grow wild almost, so there was always plenty of apricots and apples. There was somebody had apple trees that they couldn't use them up. And they just simply shared. They had too much, they shared. It really kind of spoiled people for today. There's a lot I can't understand about today, why people don't get along better. [LAUGHTER] But I'm trying to think what else us kids would do. We played on a pile of gravel. That was our mountain. White Bluffs was very flat. Because the bluffs surrounded the whole river. The river is on our side, but you know. And unless you went to Yakima, there's a very small opening between Rattlesnake and the Bluffs in reality, just enough for the river to flow through. It was quite flat and hot. So you could do most anything. You could swim in the irrigation ditch. Bauman: Where was the pile of gravel that you-- Finley: What? Bauman: Where was the pile of gravel that you played on? Finley: Oh, the pile of gravel? Well, I guess they were going to gravel the road. They never got it done because they just piled this big pile of gravel there across the road from us. Well, for a long time, there was a sign on it. I don't know what the sign said. But there was one on it. [LAUGHTER] But it was sloped on one side, and then you could jump off the steep side, see. Boy, oh boy, we'd run up and jump off and run up and jump off. Daddy come out and says, now you know, Joe's going to get after you for that. Well, Joe didn't see us, so I guess we thought we were safe. It's still out there today, but it isn't near as large as I thought it was. I've been out a couple of times while I worked there in the '50s. I worked out there and drove that same circuit. Bauman: What part of the site did you work at, what did you--? Finley: I worked out of 300. I delivered instruments to the areas. So I had to go to each area every day. And I've been there since then also, and the roads are still there if you know where you're going. You can get around pretty good. Now, they're not in top--some of them are still paved. Bauman: So how long did you work there, then? Finley: I worked out there two years. And then we had a family, and I didn't go back to work. Bauman: When is the last time you were out there? Finley: Oh, let's see. The White Bluffs picnic--I don't quite remember when it stopped. But every year, you could go out there if you went to the picnic. You could drive out there on one afternoon. I think it was Saturday afternoon. And you could go through town. You went through town, and down to the old ferry landing, down to Old Town. And then in later years, if you could, you could go to where your home was. If the roads were there. And I drove out a couple of times to where we lived, because we lived on the river. And the last time I went out, there was this fence and big concrete building there. I knew that's probably the last time I'd see the homestead. They had to build H. But that's all right. It was a good place to live, good place to grow up in. And you learned a lot of things that you didn't know you learned. Bauman: Well, I want to thank you very much for being willing to come here and share your stories and your memories. Finley: They've really been terrific. I will try and get some pictures. Can I just call the number on the letter and just bring them in? Bauman: Absolutely, yeah, sure. Finley: Because we have them. I just don't know where in the world I've put them. We even have one of Johnny and Daddy, Johnny Buck, the Indian, the chief. He was quite old then. But he would take his kids and tell us in Indian--my dad could speak Indian, or that dialect of Indian. And he'd talk to us in Indian. We never bothered to learn. Isn't that sad? Bauman: Did your dad know that dialect from having spent a lot of time with them? Finley: Yes, he grew up there. Johnny, as a young man, worked for his father, George, and the horses. And I don't know, but then after George died, he still come and fished, his tribe. And Dad just grew up with him. They were always part of the neighborhood. You knew they were coming when the fish started to run. And then you watched for them. They had beautiful horses, or I thought, Delores and I thought. The other thing, he had a friend. He was in Yakima. He lived in Yakima. And he would come down. And him and Daddy would visit. And us kids would listen to the stories. And one day, he turned his hands over, and they were white. And I never realized that the man was black. We had no--there was no difference in people. This man was the tallest, blackest Negro. I've seen some from Africa lately that are more recent, but he was a delightful--he was an apple grower, had a large apple orchard in Yakima. And had he not turned those hands over, I, to this day, would have swore he was just like us. And I think that is one that is very important for kids, that there is no difference in people. They're all--the Indians looked the same to me. I don't remember what this man's name was, because he did. Or my mother's parents that were strict Irish. They looked the same. There was no--we even had a Filipino family in there. He was good. He raised raspberries. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: In White Bluffs? Finley: Yeah, in White Bluffs, yeah. He raised berries. Bauman: Do you happen to remember his name at all? Finley: His name was George--I can't remember his last name. He moved to Benton City. And they still bought berries from him. Bauman: He moved to Benton City after 1943, after the government-- Finley: Yeah, mm-hm. I remember a lot of people. I mean, Mrs. Barrett, her husband was one of the first railroad men out. He worked for the Union Pacific. And they lived at Wahluke at the time of the Walla Walla massacre. And she'd tell a story. I had a lot of opportunity to learn. And she was a sweet lady. She raised three boys and a daughter. I never remember her husband, but I remember her very, very well. And Russos was another--I don't know what nationality they were, but they all seemed to have something to do with fruit. And there was just a great, big mixture of all types of people and all getting along very, very well. Bauman: Well, thank you again. I really appreciate you coming in today to share your stories and memories. Thanks very much. Finley: Well, I thank you. And I hope it turns out halfway decent. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:05:20 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area F Area H Area Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1950s Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Bordern, Archie Borden, George Anderson, Harry Buck, Johnny 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 Catherine Finley Description An account of the resource An interview with Catherine Finley 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 2013-7-9 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. 2016-06-6: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.)--History--20th century. 300 Area DuPont F Area Fishing H Area Horseback riding White Bluffs Bank (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F481704163b47c34d27908164c1fdc660.jpg 8a2e3bfe1edb0794b3cd9318e0e310fc https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fedbf9aa4f2660aeda91b37fc51893caf.mp4 c40bdc18fe18a007a6e57a94ccfefe2c 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 Pre-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project 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 Robert Fletcher Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Northwest Public Television | Fletcher_Robert </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: I'm Robert Fletcher. R-O-B-E-R-T F-L-E-T-C-H-E-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Thank you. And my name is Robert Bauman, and today is August 20th of 2013. And this interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start, if we could, by maybe having you talk about your family and how they came to this area, what brought them here, when they came-- that sort of thing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: My folks--my mother and father--grew up in Wisconsin. They knew each other in high school, and my father came out west, because my mother had relatives in Idaho, and after she graduated she came out here to stay with them and go to business college in Spokane. So my dad was fond of her and he followed her by working his way west. He was an expert milker, and he could always get a job in a dairy. Because when you worked in a dairy milking cows you had to get up at 3:00 in the morning. And so when he'd work his way from Wisconsin to maybe South Dakota, and he would see--in the depot, in the train depot--he would look on the bulletin board for openings for milkers and he always found work. And he could stay there for several weeks till he got enough money to move on. So he wound up in Lewiston, Idaho, I believe it was. And eventually he and my mother got together and they got married in Coeur d'Alene, 1912. And I had a sister born in 1915 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Francille. And another sister was born in 1918. In the meantime, during World War I, my dad had been working in a, what's called electrical substation in Coeur d'Alene. And during the war then he went over to Bremerton and worked in the shipyards at Bremerton, wiring electrical wiring on the ships. And my mother eventually followed. My mother became a secretary and could do the office work. But after kids were born, she didn't do much of that. And then after the war was over, Bremerton jobs closed up and he went to the back to work at another electric substation down by Walla Walla, Milton-Freewater. And he had been raised on a farm and he had a desire to be independent. So at that time there were developments in Kennewick and then whole Tri-City area. They were developed because irrigation water was being made available from the rivers. And in Richland, there were private developers and they would get bonds that were backed by just state. The state government wanted to support the development to get started, and that was in late 1918s, '20s. And I'm sure my dad--well, my dad told me that there were brochures that these companies would advertise that, come to Kennewick or Richland, that water was available, the climate was ideal, and there soil was great, and you could make a living on just a few acres if you knew how to farm. So my dad travelled out here. His name was Francis, and C. F. Fletcher was his-- And he bought 20 acres of sagebrush. It was what is now on--what did I say? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Spangler? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Spangler Road. He bought 20 acres there out there at the top of the hill. It was all sagebrush. And then later he bought 10 acres down below the hill where there now is a trailer park or mobile homes. He had to arrange to get the teams of horses to pull out the sagebrush and level the ground. My mother and—I believe that she had two children then, Francille, and Medo is my other sister's name, born in 1918. They came out by train from Walla Walla to Kennewick. And Morton Hess met them at-- Morton Hess had a improvised old pickup that dad said that they met them at the depot in Kennewick, and he brought them out to the farmhouse he'd rented. Before that, my dad had a team of horses, and he brought all his possessions in a wagon from Milton-Freewater to Richland that took him three days, he said, to make that trip with the team of horses. And so after he got the house rented, then he sent for my mother, had my mother come out with the children. And they lived in this rented farmhouse about a quarter of a mile away. And there were a few other houses, a few other farms being developed at the same time. So that took a lot of effort. It was 1920, and he told me that he had to put in the irrigation. The company brought water to the edge of your property and then you had to put in the pipe yourself. They were cement pipes, about three feet long, 40 pounds, eight inches in diameter. And he said he put in several hundred feet of this pipe and he thought he'd done a pretty good job. He worked hard. Turned the water on and it just leaked all over, so he had to do it all over again. He was pretty persistent. And then they had a hard time the first few years because he was small, a small person, and a greenhorn. About the only income work you could get then was to work for the irrigation company if you wanted to earn some money. And usually that was when the water was shut off and they had to clean and repair the ditches, open ditches. And he said they wouldn't hire him for a year or two because they thought well, he was a greenhorn. He wouldn't last anyway, and he was kind of small. But he stuck it out. And what happened was they had to put in some new pumps for the irrigation system, and these were larger pumps. They were three-phase motors, and there wasn't anybody immediately around that knew how to fix them, how to hook them up. Excuse me, I get very emotional. So he told them he thought he thought he could do it. He wasn't too sure. He said he could do it. He told them he could do it. He said he, personally, he said he wasn't too sure. But anyway, he went ahead with it and they worked fine. And after that, he said he didn't have any trouble getting a job for the irrigation district. And later on, several years after he got the farm started and everything, he did become manager of the irrigation district. When I talk about the irrigation district, it wasn't a huge one, but there was about 5,000 acres under water. And most of the farms were like ours, 20, 30 acres. And because you had to have a team of horses. You couldn't farm like you can nowadays with everything mechanized like it is. Lots of hand labor. So I was born in 1922, and I believe that they were still in this rented house. But in the meantime, they'd begun work on a basement, which was about half underground and half above ground with concrete side walls. And so it was above the ground enough, it had had fairly good sized windows. And there were just two rooms. The total probably wasn't more than 40 feet long and 20 feet wide. And above that they put a temporary sort of a shelter that was more of a tent house with a wooden roof and canvas with a wooden frame with canvas around it. And that was our bedroom. That was where we had our bedrooms. And it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but in the summertime you could roll the canvas up and the evening breeze would cool it off. In the wintertime we had feather beds and my mother would warm up hot irons on the cook stove, and we'd wrap them in towels and put in our beds. And we managed, thought we were living all right. There wasn't any bathroom--there was no indoor bathroom, no indoor water supply. He dug a well down below the hill. Had to do it by hand, about 20 feet deep. And the way to get water up to the house, he had a, we called it a stone boat, it was a sled. He hooked the horses to it, the sled, and to pretty good sized barrels, I suppose 40 gallon barrels or something. He'd fill them with water from the hand pump down below the hill. And he'd circle around it, bring that sled up. That was the water supply for a few days. But of course, it didn't always last long enough. And I can remember my mother carrying two buckets [EMOTIONAL] of water up the hill. Excuse me. It was a hard life for women, especially, carrying water up the hill, and all the other work they had to do then. She was in charge of the garden. Of course, we had our weekly bath by a copper tub on a cook stove. And the tub, and that's where we took our weekly bath, and shared the affair. The two rooms in the house were the kitchen and then where we ate. The other room was the living quarters and where somebody might sleep if they were not feeling well, otherwise we slept upstairs in the tent house. So those were the early days. It took them quite a little while for my dad to get established, and also get some crops down that they could pay for their living expenses. And they had Fresnos then that the team of horses would pull, and they'd scoop the dirt and dump it in the low places and level it out. And farmers worked together on that. I can remember our neighbors--as I said, most people lived within a quarter or a half mile of each other. The Barnetts and the Nickolauses lived close to us and we shared--when it was time to put in some of the crops, the Barnetts would come with their mowing machine and there would be two or three mowing machines and everything going on, and we'd go back and forth and get the job done. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: So what sorts of crops did you grow then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: We--it was truck farming. We had to raise--we had to have cows. Truck farming was not too reliable. You had to, to fall back on, you had a herd of cow--most all farmers had a herd of cattle which they had milk cows and some beef cows. And you milked the cow--you had your own milking and made your own cheese, but you could sell to the creamery in Kennewick. And we had a milk house where we'd separate the cream from the milk. And we had the Twin City Dairy, I think it was, would come by once a week and collect the milk. We'd keep the milk in a cool water place or something. I don't remember now in details. We didn't have refrigeration. Maybe they came back twice a week. I'm not sure. So we had a herd of cattle, and of course you always had a team of work horses. And I had a pony when I got old enough, about third grade I think. In school I got a pony that had been tamed--he had been one of the wild horses from Horse Heaven Hills. And a bunch of horses had been caught. And we bought it from another fella, and he as a real-- Shorty was his name, and I thought he was the greatest horse, because he could outrun any horse. We had horse races. And a lot of the kids, the only horse they had to ride was a work horse. So I was very fortunate. Anyway, we raised alfalfa for the cattle and the animals. Alfalfa and clover, and of course you had to mow the hay in the summertime and let it dry and put it up in wagons and carry it and take it into the hay stack for the winter. We also raised some acres of corn, of field corn, although we could eat some of the corn when it was quite young, but it was mostly raised for the cattle. And we had an in-ground silo where we had a—we’d bring in, when the corn was mature we'd cut it down with machetes and bring the corn stocks and ears and all and run it through the chopper and made silage out of it. It would ferment in this silo, which was about 20 feet deep and it was dug out near the barnyard. And about I guess 12 feet wide or so. As a kid it looked bigger, probably, than it actually was. But anyway, that was part of the barnyard. And with the silage and the haystack, we kept the cattle going through the winter. Because you had to have enough hay to get through and that took quite a load. And then for field crops, we had a cherry orchard of three or four acres. We raised asparagus three or four acres. And that was a job that--that was a cash crop that game on early in the year in March. And the whole family pitched in. We got up early, almost daybreak to cut the asparagus. Before school you had to have it cut. And then they'd go ahead and you had to pack it in crates to get it ready to market. So we had the asparagus, and then we had, between the trees in the orchard-- one time my dad experimented with peanuts. And I don't think they turned out too well because I don't remember him having them very long. We planted strawberries. We had strawberries that we picked after the asparagus was done, the strawberries would be get ripe. And then the cherries would get ripe in June usually. And so it was staggered out. And then we always had a field of potatoes that you'd dig with a team or horses and a digger. But before you did that, you had to get seed potatoes, and they came whole. The family would--we had a cellar in our house. We'd cut those potatoes into quarters, so there's an eye on each one and that would sprout into a potato plant. And we spent probably a couple weeks, maybe not that long, cutting the seed potatoes into where they could be planted in the field. And I'm trying to think of other crops that we had. I know he tried different ones. We had peas--peas in a pod. And I don't think that paid off too well because I don't remember it lasting too long. Oh, we had some peaches. Not a big orchard, but we had some peaches and apricot trees. Those were sort of under my mother's domain, the garden and the apricots. And she made sure that we all pitched in and helped do the weeding and planting and picking. And all of that had to be picked and canned for the winter. I can remember my mother and sisters working hard--doing a lot of work canning. And the cellar was just full of--they were quite proud to display, in those days, to display their glass jars of fruit, peaches and everything. And took it to the fair to see if they could win some blue ribbons. So we didn't buy too much from the local grocery store, except cooking oil and bananas--fruit that wouldn't grow here. Orange. Those were a treat. Just a few times during the year bananas and oranges we got at Christmastime or your birthday or something. And the store was John Dam's, John Dam Plazas down here, named after the Dam Grocery Store. And there were two men, John Dam and Victor Nelson. They ran the grocery store. And you didn't go looking for your things. You handed them a list. You wanted two gallons of kerosene for your lamps and lanterns that you needed. No electric lights. And as I said, cooking oil, and flour and sugar in bulk. And once in a while you'd get a treat of candy or something such as that. So I think that covers pretty much what the farm was like. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: The crops that you grew, the cherries, strawberries, did you sell those somewhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah. We picked and put them in crates. There was what they called the Big Y--it was in Kennewick. And it stood for Yakima I think. Yakima--there was a branch of Yakima Produce Company. And later on I worked there nailing, making boxes for different kinds of fruit when I was in high school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Mm-hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: In fact, most kids did extra jobs like that. Excuse me. I've got to take a drink. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: All right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: I was going to ask you about your farm. You mentioned some underground silo. Were there any other buildings on your farm? Any warehouse or barn or any of that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah. There was a barn from the cows, of course. And there are pictures in my booklet of some of these chicken houses in the yard, a couple of chicken houses. And a milk house. We had pigs. The pigs consumed a lot of the excess milk. You could--they'd eat most anything you had that was extra. And that was another thing we shared was when it came time to butcher a cow or a calf or a pig for meat, there was a man that was sort of a local veterinarian--I don't think he had a degree--Sam Supplee. If your horse got sick, he knew what--or an animal got his foot caught in the barbed wire, he knew how to treat it. And he'd come by. And he also knew how to butcher animals quite well. And he would come out. And I can remember that we had a hole, a pit dug out where we could put a fire in there, and it was covered with some kind of bars or metal affair. And a vat of water would be put in that over the fire at ground level. And adjacent to that would be a platform where the pig was killed. And after it had been killed and the organs taken out, they'd roll it into that vat of boiling water and then pull it back out again after a few minutes. Then you could scrape the bristles off of the pig. And Sam Supplee then would do the rest of the butchering. They'd hang it up to cure overnight, and then to cut it up. And for his efforts, he'd get part of the meat, or other people that had helped out, and that's the way that they operated. And he was a local person they turned to. There were other veterinarians in Pasco or Kennewick, but he was the one that they mainly relied on. Our horses, we had two work horses, Star and Monte. I can remember them well, and that was one of my jobs when I got home from school, after, was usually to rub them down after a day's work in the field, because they'd be all sweaty. Or on days when I wasn't at school, too, in the summertime, too take them down to the ditch where they'd drink a lot of water. They got real hot and sweaty. And then take the harnesses off. And there's lots of preparation before you could do too much. And so those were some of my jobs was to take in--you got home from school, the first thing to do was take in the firewood for the wood stove or the heating stove. And there were plenty of other things to do around the barnyard, to clean out the stall, or clean out the barn and see that horses were fed and such things as that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Mm-hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: The thing was, I think that maybe a little different than nowadays, kids knew that they were part of the family and that they were an important part of the family. And that they had jobs to do. And just it was the thing that made families close. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: I wanted to mention, too, that we did have special family friends. I mentioned the Barnetts. And they had kids that were--Dan Barnett was about my age. And my sisters had--they had daughters. Anyway, they had kids about our same age. The Hackneys were another family that lived not very far away and had a farm. And there was Richard Hackney and Dan Barnett and I were always good friends for a long time. And some other kids in that area, the Supplees. So I guess I forgot where I was here. The Hackneys and the Fletcher families and the Carlsons were particularly close. The Carlsons also had children that were our ages. And we would get together for family picnics, and especially Fourth of July we'd make our homemade ice cream and take to Pasco Park where there'd be fireworks. And then in the summertime, we always had a break in the farm work of about four or five days where we could get away from the farm. Usually it was around the Fourth of July or a little bit after. And we would get away because the irrigation ditches were shut down for a few days, about four or five days in order for the ditches to dry out and the weeds could be cleaned out. Because they clogged up with moss and other stuff. So that they would dry out the ditches and we could get away from the farm, as long as we had a neighbor to take care of the animals that we had. And there were enough other people that would do that. We'd trade off. So we would manage to get away for about three or four days and go up to above Yakima, Naches and up into the woods. And we we'd take our tents. One of the, the Hackneys, Art Hackney was a school bus driver, and school bus driver had to have their own buses. They'd own their own buses. So he could do with the bus whatever he wanted during the summertime. So he would be the one that we would load up the bus--he took a few of the seats out that could be taken out-with our camping gear in it, and some of the rest of the people would ride in that bus and others would go in their car. We'd invite some of our friends to go along too. So we'd have quite a group and several tents set up there around the lake up at Naches, Rimrock and up in that area. We had a wonderful time up in there with all our friends, and sitting around the campfire at night and hearing the stories that the older folks had to tell. So that's-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Mm-hm. A real sense of community there, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah. Part of the community. It was a close-knit community for sure. And naturally, you had more close friends with some of the people than you did with others. But as I said in my book that there was no--when you were gone, nobody as I knew, locked their houses or worried about any of that sort of thing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Mm-hm. You mentioned earlier that the house you lived in there was no running water, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: No electricity. Did you ever have a telephone? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: That's another little story. My mother, her relatives lived in Wallace, Idaho, and her uncle, aunt and uncle, her uncle was a master carpenter. And they were very close and would come down to visit us and they were very helpful. When we were, when my folks were just starting out, they were a backbone to help them out as much as they could. They bought eggs from them and they'd ship them. I have some letters that my mother saved of that period in time. You may be interested in some of those. Anyway, they would come down, and after my dad--after he had this basement house built, they was able to save up enough in about 10 years to--Josh Pentabaker was my uncle's granduncle's name--was the main carpenter. And they arranged to buy a load of lumber from a lumber yard or a sawmill up in Bickleton, and they rented a truck or got somebody to haul this load of lumber down. And this Josh Pentabaker and my dad, and I think he got some local help, to get started on building a house above to replace that tent--actually a tent house that we had above the basement house. And then they enlarged it also. They made the basement twice as large to accommodate a more modern house. And that was in 1933 or 1934. And I think it was 1934 before we occupied it. And that included indoor bathroom and running water. In the meantime, before my dad was able to build a dig a new well up on top of the hill, he had to go down 60 feet for groundwater. And so that was quite a project. But he finally got it done. And he got an electric motor then. By that time, see, there was no electricity until during Roosevelt got the REA started, rural electricity or whatever the word is, REA. And you got an electric pump to pump the water up into a tank. And then you had pressure to run the water from the tank into the house--had water pressure. And so we had running water, we had an indoor bathroom, and those were quite appreciated. I think we got electric stove--that was one of the first thing. And that was quite an improvement over a wood stove. Oh, and then there was. And he didn't have enough money, I don't believe—oh, let me tell you, or let me go back just a bit. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Josh Pentabaker got this house pretty well built, but he had to go back and do his own work back in Wallace, Idaho. And my dad negotiated with a carpenter here, a local carpenter, Vandersant-- he was a Dutchman. And my dad traded a cow, a milk cow for this fella to put in a--he was a master carpenter, too. He put in the kitchen cabinets, is what I'm trying to say, and some of the other cabinets in the bathroom and things like that in exchange for this cow. Now, there may have been other things involved, but that was the main thing. He told about that in later years, and I can vaguely remember. In addition to the basement then, we got a root cellar where we kept most of our things cold. But anyway, before he could get a refrigerator, he cut a hole in the wall of the kitchen and he made a cabinet inside, and hung outside a metal tank or a metal thing that held water. And then he ran down some gunnysack fabric and that wetted enough to evaporate and cool the cabinet inside. It was quite a contraption. But it worked enough that it probably wasn't much cooler than the basement, but anyway, it was up and it was handy. So that was when we--in 1934 I think that we occupied the house that's there now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Did you ever have a telephone during the time you were there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah, we had a phone. You cranked it. I'm trying to think whether we had it when we lived in the basement, whether we had it there or not. It was a party line, and there would be three or four people on the same line. And you answered according to how many rings. If it was two rings it was yours, or a short and a long or something like that. And of course people listened in on what was going on. We had a crank--it was, you cranked it up in order to make the signal. And there was a main station downtown. We were three miles from the downtown area up on what is now George Washington Way. And what's the name of that street? I can't remember all those--the house was on-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Spangler? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Spangler, yeah. Spangler Road. We had to--you kept up--Dad kept up with what was available. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Mm-hm. How about news? Was there a newspaper, or how did you learn about-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: There was. There was the Benton County Advocate came out once a week. In fact, I think I still have some copies of that somewhere. It was mostly local, of course. Somebody was entertaining a company from Wallace, Idaho or somewhere, or somebody was sick in the hospital. Ed Peddicord was the--as I remember, he was older than myself but younger than my parents, and he became the first postmaster when the Hanford project took over, and he was the postmaster for quite a few years before he retired from the Richmond Post Office. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you about the school that you went to. Where was the school? Any memories you have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Okay, there were, in the downtown area of Richland, the--I'm trying to relate it to--the grade school went from grade one through grade eight. And it was two story with four classrooms on the bottom and four on the upper level. I think they had electric lights, as I remember. The floors were wood floors, and they treated them with oil before school was started and at Christmas vacation. So when you came back from school--they'd wipe them up, the oil--they'd treat the wood floors. They'd wipe up the oil before classes started, but there would still be all these spots left on it. And so we had to take our shoes off when we came home at night because we would track oil, that oil. That was just for a few weeks or for a week or two. And the stoves had a jacket around. Of course they were--I believe they were coal stove--they that coal. And there would be a jacket around, a metal jacket around the outside to it, a couple of feet from the stove itself so the kids couldn't get up and get burned. But the jacket that surrounded them was probably three or four feet high, metal jacket. And we would—I remember hanging our white gloves things on that metal jacket to dry them out. And that was in the back of the room of course. That was your heat in the classroom. As I said, the bathrooms for boys and girls, most of them separate of course, were outside where you went out to the bathroom. And I don't recall any running water or anything in the—The other, the high school was, it wasn't torn down when the project started, Hanford project, right away. And it was built more--it had indoor bathrooms, was more up-to-date, more than the grade school, four levels. There are pictures of it in my booklet. So that was quite a step up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Do you remember any of the teachers from either school, or do you have any favorite teachers from that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Oh yeah. I remember most of my teachers. My first grade teacher, Ms. Randolph, older lady. And she was very good. I can remember putting our mittens up around that canopy around the stove in the wintertime, put your mittens up to dry. And I can't offhand remember, but I can visualize most of my teachers. There was Mrs.--Miss Mallory--she was single then. Taught me in fourth grade. And there was Bill Rader, our eighth grade teacher. Kind of he was a pretty good disciplinarian. If people got out of line, he had a paddle that he didn't mind using. There was--I can't think of the names, really, offhand. And then of course, in the high school I remember more of the teachers that I had. The superintendent, he also taught a few classes in, because the grade school had one class of every grade level. I started in the first grade, I was five years old, and I became six in November. And the kids that I started with, about half of the 20--I think there were 20 in my graduating class--about half of them were the ones I started in first grade with. That's how permanent the group was. There was a lot of permanency. And we moved onto this--where each grade you had the same ones, you knew the people. There would be two or three changes each year. And like I said, of those 20 or so that started, probably about half of those in my high school class were the ones I started first grade with. And so we knew each other very well. And the others I'd known quite well, too. My wife, she came later and joined when she was in about seventh or eighth grade I think, and she graduated two--I graduated in 1940 and she graduated in 1942. And in my graduating class there was 20, and hers there was only 12. I don't know why particularly. The high school, it was in freshman year you usually took Typing and it pretty well diversified. History classes, English classes. I can remember the teachers, Mrs. Deighton and Mrs. Carmichael. She's the one that got very emotional when the kids acted up and would carry on. Mr. Carmichael was the superintendent, and Mr. Whitehead, rather. We had basketball teams. We played against--Kennewick and Pasco were out of our league. They were from too big a town. So we played Benton City. I played--even though I'm pretty short, I was on the basketball team. We didn't have a football team. We weren't big enough. [LAUGHTER] The high school was only--with four classes, probably only 80 students altogether. And so I was on the basketball team the last couple years anyway. And we would go up to--Hanford was about 20 miles upriver, and White Bluffs. They were a comparative size. And to Benton City, and also to Finley. We used to call it Riverview then. It was a comparative size to what we were in Richland at that time. So we had a group that we played softball league and basketball. No football that I can remember. We weren't big enough to be in that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: And did you take a school bus to get to and from school then, or how did you-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yes. We had--as I said, Art Hackney had a school bus that they owned their own school bus. They had a contract with the district. And there's a picture of myself and my two sisters in that booklet I gave you, waiting for the bus and there's a picture of the bus. It was kind of a--it looks kind of obsolete now, but that was the way they did things then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: So you graduated high school in 1940. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: 1940. Then I went off to Cheney for a year. And decided I wanted to--didn't want to continue there. I wanted to--I thought I wanted to be an engineer, but I didn't have really the background from the school. At least I could blame it on that. So I transferred to Pullman in my sophomore year. And during beginning of my junior year, I was taken in--I was in the ROTC and we signed up for deferment or whatever you call it, but they said we could finish out the year we were in during my sophomore year. No, it must have been my junior year. That’s the third year. But it turned out that they couldn't—they took us, they drafted us and I think it was about January of my junior year in Pullman, from WSU. And at that time I was a member of Sigma Chi. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: So was that January of 1943 then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah, it was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: At some point that year, of course the Federal government started constructing the Hanford site. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Right. I came home before--they allowed us, when they called up the ROTC, fellas in Pullman, they gave us a couple weeks to come home and see our folks. So I came home, it must have been the end of January of 1943. And saw my folks, and said goodbye to my sweetheart, Betty Kinsey was her name--became my wife. And after I went back then, I went back to Pullman, and they took us shortly by train from Pullman over to Fort Lewis. And it was an old, real old train that I mention in my booklet that looked like it was one from the pioneer days. There was a--I don't need to go into all the detail, but there was a coal-burning stove in the end of this railway car for heat, and we went over there in the first of February to Fort Lewis. We were not in the army until they took us over there and were forced in it at Fort Lewis. And shortly after that, I got word from my folks that the word had come out that Hanford and White Bluffs and even Richland, it was all going to be taken over by the government for this Hanford project. And that was in, I believe they got word in late February. And the people up at Hanford, which is, of course, is where the actual reactors were, were notified and given about 30 days to evacuate. And my folks, of course, we lived--my dad was the manager of the irrigation district at that time, of the Richland irrigation district. And they had more time because that was where the workers were going to live. But in the meantime they built Camp Hanford out here where we are sitting about right now, and maybe just a little further north. And you probably have the history of Camp Hanford and all that. But anyway, they were allowed to stay I think about six months, whereas the others further up where the reactors were being built, they had to get out quick. And so my folks looked around. They bought a place. My dad, by that time, they offered some of the people work. Most of them were farmers and they wanted to continue farming. And that was my dad. He, by that time, the kids were gone. I was the youngest. The other two, my sisters, were married and off and living on their own. So he decided he'd go back to farming, and they offered him a job to see to some of the irrigation, the way it was continued. But he decided he didn't want to do that. And a number of people did take jobs here for temporary. So where was I now? [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: So your family had six months you said after they were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah, about six months. They found a place in Kennewick then, and my dad then bought some place and he put in a fruit orchard over on what became Blossom Hill in Kennewick. And we took over the old house. When I got out of the Army--I told you about that in my booklet here, that we took over their house, the two-story house that was on what's now where Denny's is at the corner of Kennewick Avenue and the Umatilla Highway. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Do you know how much money your parents were given for their-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: In those days, at that time, the government was not as benevolent in their takeover of land. And they did not really offer what the land was worth. So my folks, my dad was one of the leaders of the group that took them to court over the offer. And this lingered on for quite a while, because my dad was one of the--as a manager of the irrigation district. And John Dam that the park is named after, and two or three others, they figured that they were being offered what the land had sold for in Depression days, which had just been more or less begun to get over in 1943. And my folks and others were beginning to feel established, that here they'd worked most of their working lives for 12, 15 years getting to where they felt like they were established and could make a good living. And now they were being offered this, where they had to leave relatively quickly. And not being offered enough to buy something comparable in other areas, where they found they had to pay more than what they had been offered. So this went to court and drug on for a while. They did get a settlement that my dad was involved in. But it took quite a while and it still did not--they were not too happy about it. I'll put it that way. But anyway, they got over it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: And so you heard about this happening when you were at Fort Lewis? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Yeah, I was still in the service. I was sent from there to Camp Roberts for infantry training. And I was there until June. See, this happened--I was taken in up in February I guess it was, and we had 13 weeks, almost four months, I think it was, of infantry training there in Camp Roberts in the desert in California. And then I was sent back to New York City. I had an opportunity--then they took some people to specialized training or a specialized training program called ASTP and I was able to get into that because of my college background and I passed some tests, I guess, and so forth. And so I was back there at the time and at Camp Roberts in California at the time that all this took place in Richland, and their dislocation and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Do you remember what you thought at the time when you found out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: [LAUGHTER] What I thought about that? About all this happening you mean? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Well, so much was happening, you didn't have time to think too much about it. Because I was involved in the training and we were kept busy night and day pretty much, and then the infantry training camp and being back there. But I heard about it. They kept me up on it, and there wasn't much you could do about it, and neither could they, because that was it. You could appeal, but that was a long process, the appeal was. So they just took a time to get over it. They got over it eventually. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Are there any events or things from your childhood growing up in Richland that sort of stand out? Special memories that we haven't talked about yet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Probably quite a few things. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: A number of things I mention in his booklet that I gave you. One thing I particularly remember as a kid was I had this pony, and my neighbor kids had ponies too, or else work horses that did the job. And so we could roam around quite a bit. We had a lot of freedom. We all had rifles. We went out hunting. And the jackrabbits were quite numerous, I remember. Going just about a mile from where we are now, there was a sand hill over here off of Stevens Drive, which we called Pole Line Drive. Those days there was a sand hill over there. And there was an irrigation ditch that ran along this sand hill. And we'd go in and the boys--take our clothes off and we'd swim in this irrigation canal. There was a flume there, too, and that was kind of an interesting thing to go through. And we would take our rifles, and there was one farm that was close to this sand hill called--I'm trying to remember the name now, Sam's. Anyway, he had a--his farm was right adjacent to the open sagebrush land and sand hill. And if you were there in the evening--he had an alfalfa field right along the edge of this sort of a desert area. At certain times in the dusk, there'd be whole bunches of jackrabbits would come in. I remember we would go there with our rifles, and my friends, Dan Barnett and Richard Hackney and I, and we'd wait for dusk. And you could shoot these rabbits. And of course Mr. Sandberg I think his name- yeah, Sandberg was his name, he welcomed anybody that would get rid of the jackrabbits for him because they were destroying his alfalfa field. And so we'd shoot a bunch of jackrabbits. And they did have jackrabbit drives once in a while, and they had pictures of them. I might have some in some of my folks' stuff. But anyway, we had ponies or horses and we'd go out, and sometimes we'd go up the river from here, Dan Barnett and Richard Hackney and I. And as I said, I had a pony that had been caught on the open range and he could outrun practically any horse around. We would go up there and we'd camp out for a day and we would find some old prospectors up there. They would be panning for gold. And I don’t think, from the looks of them that they found very much, but they were interesting characters that'd tell you stories about their life. And we kind of envied them a little bit, but nobody wanted to do what they were doing. Anyway, then we would go up there and we'd camp overnight. Other times, we would go up there--I said that my folks and the Barnetts and the Hackneys had-- we had a boom in the river. We'd catch driftwood coming down for our--did I tell you about this before? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: No, okay. If I ramble, tell me. We'd go up, my folks or my dad and the other men, we would have wagons--we'd hook the work horses to the wagons. And we'd take enough food to last a couple days. And us boys would go along, and some other boys were old enough to help, and some of us were too young to do much, but to tag along and have a good time. And we'd go up there and we'd set up a camp, and the men would have a log boom up there. They'd attach logs to each other and run them out into the water. And when the water would rise in the spring, it would lift these drift logs from upstream, clear up around where Grand Cooley is now, before Grand Cooley was built and any other dams. And these drift logs would drift down, if you had a log boom out you'd catch them, as the water would--the high water from the snow melt. And if your log boom was out far enough, you'd get a whole bunch of logs in there and that would be--which then we'd go up and the men would take their team of horses and use their chains to pull these logs out of the water that had been caught in the log boom. And then they'd have to cut them up enough to put on their wagons to haul them down home. And this would take two or three days to do. In the meantime, us kids, the younger ones, we'd have a great time with shooting rabbits and doing some fishing off what was left of the log boom. And fixing our hot dogs over the campfire. It was quite an experience. And we all wanted to go. I think the girls envied us. They couldn't go. I don't remember any of the women going. But when they got the wagons loaded, they had them all--I remember they had sideboards on them, so that they would be loaded up to the maximum. And of course the roads weren't too good. The horses would be really worn out by the time we got these loads down to where we lived. And we'd have to wash them off, rinsing the horses off with a hose because they'd be all that, and it would be quite late in the evening before we made it home. So that was quite a big event in our lives, and especially for the young fellas like us, we thought that was great. I'm sure the men folks were glad it was over. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: So we had quite a few trips where we went out. I had a friend, Scotty who lived out in Yakima River, and I would go over--he was the one that I think I told you about the time that--maybe it was in my booklet. About the time that our well--the well that we dug up on the top of the hill, the 60 foot well, it had been real cold that winter, and usually the well didn't freeze, but it froze that winter. And so Scotty, my friend, he was the adventurer more so than I was. He said, oh, I can go take a blowtorch down there and thaw it out. Well, he did. My dad led him down this well. The well was hand dug and it was only about so big around. And there were iron steps put in the cement as they went down. As I said, it was 60 feet deep. Of course the water stood up in it about 20 feet or so. It would fluctuate. So Scotty went down with a blowtorch to thaw this pipe out because it had frozen the pump. And he got down there and I guess the confines of the gas or something, it exploded, and he was lucky he wasn't killed. He made it. Somehow it went upward rather than downward and he was able to get out. But his face was black and his eyebrows were singed off. And he was quite a mess from that occasion, but he didn't have to be hospitalized. They put cream on his face and I don't remember whether they got the pipe thawed out or not. I don't think so. I think it took a few days before it got the water up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: So if someone was to ask you what it was like to grow up in a community like Richland, how would you respond to that? What would you say? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: It was an interesting place to grow up because you were involved in all the activities. You were important as a member of the family. There were chores to do. You also had interesting experiences. You had time to play with your neighbors and develop your own activities and sports to a great extent. I guess probably I look back on it more with rose-colored glasses than it actually was, because I'm sure it was harder for the adults, too. Because it was kind of touch and go for them many times. There was no WPA or relief organizations. People helped their neighbors out when they needed it. I can remember a family that lived not too far from us. The man, the husband died, and they had some fairly young children, the Fraziers. And the wife was left with these--I forgot how young they were--two or three youngsters, and their small farm. And the people of the community just helped out. There was no other organization that they knew of. And later, Bruce Frasier who was in that family, who was about my age. He wasn't a classmate, but he told me years later at the reunions we used to have, he said, did you know-- [EMOTIONAL] did you know how much help your mom and dad did--I'm sorry. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: It's all right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: How much help your mom and dad gave my folks. And I said I had no idea. He told me that my dad and mother, and others--he said it wasn't just them. But they're the ones that made it possible for him to survive. And this, they didn't talk about it at all. Excuse me, cut it off a minute? Wipe my eyes here. I'm glad to get this opportunity. Don't take me wrong. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: That’s all right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: I am glad to get the opportunity to talk. There's not too many people who want to listen to it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Can I have a little drink? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Sure. I think we're just about finished anyway. I think we've covered a lot of the things that I wanted to cover. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: All right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: So I guess is there anything else that we haven't covered that would be important to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: I think we've covered everything pretty well. I've probably gone side-tracked a lot. And it was a role in that community, as I said, that they did help each other out in many ways. And that they're very independent, too. And there aren't too many of us left. We still get to have a reunion. We did-- it's getting down to where there aren't very many of us left. Last year we met at the Old Country Buffet and I had a good time. I think there may have been about 20 of us. But about half of them were descendants, children that brought their parents, who needed help to get there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Oh, okay. So this is a reunion of people from Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: The old time Richland, yeah, they lived in old time Richland. There's another-- the Deranleau, Ray Deranleau, he was quite a storyteller, he still lives here, and he was just a year or two younger than myself. And Alice Perkins is his wife, Alice Perkins-Deranleau. And I kind of think he'd be in the phone book. If not— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: And Price Colley. George Colley his name was, but there's a Colley family that he was there last year, and he's quite a storyteller. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] About what time of year do you usually get together? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Usually in the middle of September. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Middle to late September. Edith--I used to be the one that was in charge of getting the literature out and the reunions set up. Anyway, Edith Wiedle-Hansen, H-A-N-S-E-N, is the one that is doing it now. She was in my wife's class two or three years behind me in graduating from high school. And she's still here. I could maybe give you some more information on that later, if you wanted to call me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: I don't know, if you have trouble. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: I just want to thank you very much for coming in today and being willing-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: I enjoyed it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: --to have me asking questions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Fletcher: Okay. I hope that some of it’s good use. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX24634405"> Bauman: You've been very helpful. Thank you very much. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:22:15 Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1922-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Hess, Morton Dam, John Nelson, Victor Supplee, Sam Barnett, Dan Pentabaker, Josh Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 Peddicord, Ed Hackney, Art Hackney, Richard Kinsey, Betty Frasier, Bruce Ray Deranleau George Colley Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 171 kbps 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 Robert Fletcher Description An account of the resource An interview with Robert Fletcher 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 7/20/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-05-25: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) White Bluffs (Wash.) Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Hunting Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) swimming https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F585bac4d8c0e62c055afe36908c97ac0.jpg 640f44dfcdeb54e0558fb537b2670052 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3100a84e1dc7f96919968a2190dcef33.mp4 e61f73aaacc84188b5b707d8c12d6cdf Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Fox, John Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Fox_John John. Fox: Go and see if I can find any of the documents that I had written that were once classified and are now declassified. Robert Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Camera man: All right, I can adjust and play from here. Bauman: You good? Camera man: Yup. Bauman: All right. Camera man: I am. Bauman: Okay, we’ll go ahead and started then. Fox: Okay, fine. Bauman: So let's start by having you say your name. Fox: I'm John Fox. Bauman: Okay. And my name's Robert Bauman. Today is September 4th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start by, if you could, tell me about how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, when you arrived. Fox: Ah, yes. It was 1951. I had just completed a master's degree in mechanical engineering at Oregon State College at that time. And so it was early in the Korean War period, and I had been commissioned to a lieutenant in The Corps of Engineers when I graduated from college. So I was eligible to be called up from the Reserves. And this was one place where I applied for a job that didn't have any problem with that situation because they could supersede it during the Cold War period. So I was offered a job here. And I came to work in April of 1951. I didn't have my Q clearance yet. So they put me on odd jobs downtown in what was in the 700 Area for about three months until I got a Q clearance. And then I was assigned on the rotational training program for engineers, which involved three month assignments in various components over a period of a year and a half or so to give a choice of where there was a best fit for a job. Bauman: What were your first impressions of the place when you arrived? Fox: Well I had been warned, because when I was in college in the late '40s, one of my fraternity brothers had been assigned up here in the Army as guarding the plant for the anti-aircraft installations and so on. And then when he was discharged, he came to school. And he kept complaining about this being the middle of nowhere and dusty and desert, nothing to do and so on. So I had a picture of what it was like. And I expected to work here for a couple of years and then go get a job in California where I really wanted to live. In my younger years, I had lived part time in San Francisco and gone to school there in both elementary school and for a short time in high school. In fact, I was there when the war broke out—World War II broke out. And that's why I moved back to Portland. And I knew it had been very mysterious during the war. And so I was sort of prepared for it. But did not ever expect to stay very long. Bauman: What sort of housing did you live in when you first arrived here? Fox: Well, it was very full when I arrived because they were expanding again. They were constructing new piles and a new separations plant. So the first few weeks I lived in the construction workers' barracks in North Richland, what is now right near Battelle Boulevard and George Washington Way. And took the bus. I was single; I was broke; I didn't own a car. [LAUGHTER] But there was bus transportation within the city, as well as out to the plant. So I took the bus down to town for my job in the 700 Area. And then an opening came up in the dormitory. They had dormitories for men and women at the time, although there were more men than women. So I was assigned then to W21, which was on the corner of Lee and Stevens where Albertson's parking lot presently is. And that was a very social dorm. It was mostly young engineers, some others. So I lived there until 1953, when the first privately built houses were added to the city, the Bauer Day houses in the south end of town and the Richland Village houses at George Washington Way and the McMurray area north to Sacagawea School. And that was when the three of us—Jerry, and Wayne and I—moved into a Bauer Day house. Bauman: And where was that house? Fox: It was 346 Cottonwood on the corner of Cottonwood and Boise. Bauman: So how would you describe Richland in the early 1950s, when you first arrived, as a community? Fletcher: Well, I would describe it sort of from the social standpoint. For us, it was rather an extension of college life, if you will. There was a number of bachelor engineers. There were a number of secretaries, school teachers, and so on. There was nothing to do here. You realize that in those days there was not liquor by the drink in the states of Oregon and Washington. The only place you could drink liquor was in private clubs like the American Legion, the Elks, and so on. So you needed to know somebody who could get you into those clubs. You could go in the liquor store and buy a bottle and go to one of those and get a set up. Restaurants could not serve liquor. Taverns were okay; you could drink beer, or—wine wasn't very popular in those days. They had a lot of rot gut wine--Thunderbird and so on. And then taverns, you could not stand up with a glass of beer in your hand. You had to be seated. And you could not sing. [LAUGHTER] Interesting regulations. That changed in just two or three years. I forget when the law changed on that and it opened up to liquor by the drink. But that was great for the restaurants, but it killed the clubs—the fraternal clubs—slowly. But anyway, you had to make your own entertainment. And when I arrived, there had been something called a dorm club that was a social group for the singles. And it was just in the process of morphing into the Desert Ski Club. And so for something to do in the winter, I took up skiing, which I never had learned to do. And so we went on ski trips on the weekends and so on. And that became a main social activity. Over a period of time, sort of two by two, people got married off and that dwindled away in the long run. But the interesting thing is the Desert Ski Club has stayed as an active institution. I've since attended the 50th anniversary of which Stein Eriksen was a very famous skier in the '50s came and attended our 50th anniversary of the club. As far as I know, they are still going and organizing ski trips. And that was the genesis of a lot of other organizations of various types. The Richland Players for plays. The Richland Light Opera for musical performances. The I-MAC Mountaineering Club and hiking club. The Rod and Gun Club. All sorts of different clubs were formed for that. Book clubs around the library and other things. Bauman: Were there any sort of larger community events that you can recall from that period, Atomic Frontier Days, anything along those lines? Fox: There was an Atomic Frontier Days, but I can't recall when that commenced or when it ended. It wasn't anything we did. The other thing besides skiing, though, was water-skiing was just coming into vogue there. And of course, the people in the ski club took that up in the summer. And another fellow and I went together on a boat and a wooden—flat bottom wooden boat that was built really for racing in the Sammamish River, [LAUGHTER] a very shallow river. So we took that up. I remember that a couple of times I put on a water-skiing exhibition of sorts. I remember going up to Moses Lake from here with a group to put on a show. We used to go out on the highlands in the Columbia River and stay out there and bake in the sun all day and even water-ski at night and what have you. So we had a lot of fun doing that. So it was make your own entertainment. Bauman: And you mentioned that you lived in the Bauer Day home on Cottonwood. And how long did you live there? Where did you move after that? Fox: Actually, we moved in there in 1953. One by one, we got married. There was a turnover in roommates. I was the last one there. I was married in 1959. But the town was sold to the residents in 1958 and 1959. And I bought that house, because I was engaged and was going to get married and sort of kicked my last roommate out in the summer of '59. But in 1958, I also went in with a group of people to purchase land north of Richland, because the town at that time ended at about Newcomer Street. There were few houses built north of there. And the tracts of land between there and here on the WSU campus, Sprout Road, were auctioned off in various size tracts. And so a group of six of us went together and we bid on two tracts of land along the river. And one of the girls that used to go water-skiing all the time, we used to go down to the island that's just south of the island that's in front of the campus here. She always said I want to have a house on the river by that long island because that's where the best water is for water-skiing. And she got me so interested in that that a group of us went together and bid on two tracts of land along here. And then the auction, the way it was set up, we were the successful bidder on one of those tracts, although we were the second high. But we were closer to the high bid on that tract than on the other one. So we got that one. And it happens to be the tract that adjoins the campus here. And I have the—we subdivided into seven lots and sold the one that's next to the campus. And I'm on the other end of it, the last one. So I'm the seventh house down the street from where we sit. Bauman: Oh, okay. [LAUGHTER] So let's talk a little bit more about that. In 1958, the shift from Richland being sort of federal town. Fox: Yes. Bauman: Did it seem to you at the time that most people were in support of that, something that the people of Richland really wanted to happen? Fox: Well actually, that was a second go around. There was an earlier proposal by the government—I forget in what year, but let's say a couple of years earlier around '56 or so—to sell the property. Because it was apparent by that time that they weren't going to one day shut the plant down and kick everybody out. People—married people wanted an opportunity to own their own houses. And they were beginning to move away from Richland to Kennewick mainly, but also a little bit into West Richland where they could buy property and own their own home. So the government came out with a preliminary proposal, and people thought the prices were too high, considering the uncertainty of the longevity of the town itself and the investment and the risk. So they retooled that over I guess a two-year period. You can check this out from the history. And came back with a second proposal, which gave the option of buying the house at, as I recall, a higher price, but with a guaranteed buy-back at that price, should the price go down. But I think only one or two people took that option. They took the lowest price. [LAUGHTER] As I recall, I paid $7,000 for the Bauer Day house in 1958 or '59, whenever that closed. Bauman: So let's talk about your work then in Hanford. You mentioned you did these sort of three month-- Fox: Yes. Bauman: --working at different places at the site. Fox: Yeah. Bauman: After that period, where did you work then? Fox: Well actually, I had a lot of other changes through the years. But after that period, my assignment was in what was called the irradiation testing group, which managed special tests of radiation of unusual things in the piles—I'll call them piles because that's what they were called at that time originally—that were not related to the production of plutonium process directly. They might have something to do with something that was related to improving the process, but often they were unrelated completely. A couple of examples that stand out in my mind, one was a submarine reactor control rod that was for the nuclear Navy program. Of course, before they had completed their test facility in Idaho Falls. And they wanted to get some data on the durability of the design of the rod. And so that had to be placed in vertically in one of the reactors. And it was in—what was then very new—C pile. And put in place of one of the vertical safety rods. And it was particularly interesting in that, after that test was finished—because it had some tubing that came up for the monitoring and measuring of it while it was in the pile—in extracting it, it got stuck coming out. And it resulted in the longer than planned shutdown of the reactor. [LAUGHTER] Which did not go well with the production quotas. So that was a difficult time, but it was probably the most interesting one. Another one involved C pile before it started up. Actually, while I was on a rotation program one of my assignments was graveyard shift in the stacking of the graphite inside the pile. So I've actually been inside one of the reactors. And I was the inspector to see that each bar went in the right location and according to the plan for layout and nobody was tracking any contaminating material in there and so on. But also before that went into operation, there was a chamber underneath the reactor. And a scientist from Los Alamos named Fred Reines was trying to find experimental proof of the existence of neutrinos, which characteristically can pass through most any matter undetected. And so he got permission to build an apparatus called a scintillation counter chamber with fluid underneath that reacted—using the reactor as a shield from other background events to try to see if he could get a few counts of neutrino interactions in that chamber. He later went on, did the experiments in that deep gold mine in South Dakota and other locations and contributed to the verification of neutrino existence. Eventually won a Nobel Prize at the end of his career, at the end of his life, literally. So that was another just interesting thing. It had nothing to do with Hanford, but that occurred in that assignment. We used to, when I worked in that, our office was in the fire station at H Area. And so we used to visit, there was more of the old town of White Bluffs at that time. There was a cold storage facility, the bank, of course, which they're now talking about restoring. There was the old Milwaukee railroad station, very picturesque. Sorry they tore that down. And we used to go drive down there and eat lunch under the remaining trees. Later, I was transferred to the graphite group. And that was in 1954. And the history of after they started up the piles and they first discovered the xenon poisoning and so on. That story is well-told. But there was also what they considered a serious problem with the distortion of the graphite. The graphite was expanding under radiation. And so at the top of the reactor, it was visibly—not visibly, but measurably bending the tube that the slugs were in. And it was becoming more difficult to push them in and out and loading the reactor. And they thought if this keeps going, we can't continue the operation. In fact, it's my recollection--I don't have the records—that they shut down B-Reactor for some period of time in order to preserve it. And they built DR, which was a replacement for D in case they had to abandon it. But then there was much more concern about the expansion of the graphite. So they changed the inert atmosphere inside the reactor shielding from helium to a mixture of helium and carbon dioxide to heat it up—heat the graphite up—to a higher temperature figuring that this would anneal out the damage to the graphite. That did happen, in fact. And so I was assigned to keep track of how this was progressing according to the power levels of the reactor, because they were also then trying to increase the power levels of the reactor to produce more plutonium. But they didn't know how high in temperature was safe to go, didn't have good ways to measure the temperature in them. We were measuring the profiles. And so that was a very interesting task. And I was there doing that until 1956, when Hanford Laboratories was formed. And the Hanford Laboratories was formed and given the project for recycling plutonium in nuclear power reactors, which was their first peacetime mission for the Hanford Plant—or purely exclusively peacetime—unclassified, nothing to do with production of plutonium. But aimed at getting the maximum amount of energy out of the uranium ore resources. And so that would involve design of the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor from start to finish and the operation of that. That was a heavy water reactor, entirely different type of unique design. And so that was a very interesting project. So I was fortunate in having some very different job assignments throughout my career here in different technologies. And that, in fact, is what kept me here [LAUGHTER] for so long is that ever-changing job challenge. Bauman: So how long were you at the PRTR? Fox: I was there from 1956 until early 1960s, till about '63. I forget the date it went critical and into operation and I then moved on to other things because I wasn't associated with the operation of it. But it also has a very interesting operating history, because of a particular experiment that was done there that went awry. Bauman: Do you want to talk about that? [LAUGHTER] Fox: Well, I think it's well worth getting somebody who knows more about it who was involved in the fuel technology. Particularly today when there is a project at Savannah River for building mixed oxide fuel elements from the plutonium that's recovered from the weapons reduction program. And they have a project there that's in about the same sort of situation as the Vitrification Plant here in budget and schedule and so on. And yet, in the 308 Building in the 300 Area, mixed oxide plutonium, uranium oxide fuel elements were manufactured for the PRTR back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. That plant has since been torn down. But the experiment that went awry was to run—the fuel rods in the PRTR were made of zirconium clad mixed oxide fuel elements, very similar to what's normal for nuclear power reactors. And that was the whole idea, that they were different mainly, and that they contained plutonium from the beginning. But it was decided to run an experiment to see how hot you could run those. If you could run them safely with the core of the mixed oxide molten in a fuel element that's about so in diameter. And I forget the melting point, but it's higher than 2,200 centigrade or something like that. And one of the fuel elements melted through the cladding and the pressure tube holding it and so on and seriously damaged the reactor. And had to have been—it was a big repair job. And I'm sure that's all recorded. I was not associated with it, but of course I heard about it [LAUGHTER] at the time. It's a story well worth telling, I think, about that time. Bauman: So after your assignment at PRTR, then where did you go from there next? Fox: Well, then we were working on trying to develop further reactor concepts. We did a little work for NASA when they were working on a rocket reactor that they had a design that was competing with Los Alamos for nuclear rockets. But that came to naught. Eventually, the successor to the Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor was the Fast Flux Test Reactor, fast reactor fuel. And that was just beginning. That was after Battelle took over the operation of the laboratories in 1965. So that's beyond the time frame for your main interest. But in the late '60s, the group I was in was working partly to support Exxon Nuclear in their private fuel manufacturing venture, which they later sold to Siemens, and which Siemens later sold to AREVA, which is still in operation of manufacturing commercial reactor fuel. But that grew out of the lab. And some of the people, in fact, one of them who used to work for me that I just had lunch with at the Kiwanis meeting ended up working for Exxon and so on, and he retired from that. So that was a spin-off project. The FFTF project was turned over in 1970 to Westinghouse Hanford and taken away from Battelle. And at that time I had the choice of going either with the FFTF project or staying with Battelle for who knows what. And I decided to stay with Battelle for who knows what. I decided to get out of the nuclear business and move on to other things. Bauman: Hanford, obviously, is a site that emphasized security, secrecy, to a certain extent as well. Fox: Yes. Bauman: How did that impact your work? Or did it in any way? Fox: The security? Bauman: Security and secrecy. Fox: I didn't think it impacted it all that much. When I was working the 100 Areas, you know, it was a secure area. Nearly everything we did was classified. We had classified filing cabinets. We kept everything. We had to account for all the documents in our possession, or sending them into the library, so on. So there was more or less an accounting thing we had to destroy any drafts, procedures, and so on. You didn't want to forget your badge going to work. [LAUGHTER] After I retired, I still occasionally had a dream about going to work and somehow getting in the building and then discovering I didn't have my badge and thought, how—[LAUGHTER] what's going to happen? But you know, I think there were a few occasions when I forgot my badge. But it was never a big issue. I was—eventually in Battelle, I had very few classified documents. And it became more of a nuisance to have a classified file cabinet and so on. And then they can through on a campaign to reduce the number of security clearances. And they asked me to give up my security clearance. I didn't have any problem with that because it relieved me of that nuisance. It wasn't a problem to me about discussing it with anybody external. I think there was probably a little more cross talk between different projects. For example, at the time I came there were some projects that were a little more secret than others, like the P10 project for production of tritium at B Reactor. And some of the guys in the dorm were working on that. And they would talk about the problems with a metal liner, the glass liner, or this, that, or the other thing. We didn’t know—you got some idea of what that project was like, but you didn't really know the whole flow sheet for it or all of that. But you were aware that it was going on. So, just stuff like that. Bauman: President Kennedy visited the site in 1963. I wonder if you were there when he visited? Fox: That's right. You could go out there and you could take your camera with you. And you could take a photo of President Kennedy giving his speech, which I did. And that was not long before he was assassinated that fall. I forget the date, but it was maybe September of '63. Bauman: Mm-hmm, yeah. So you got a photo of him while he was giving his speech? Fox: Yeah. Yes, I did from a distance. I didn't have a good telephoto lens, [LAUGHTER] unfortunately at the time. Bauman: Do you remember anything else about his visit? Fox: Not especially. I don't remember what he said. Bauman: Were there any other events or incidents or things from those early years working at Hanford that stand out to you that you remember? Fox: A sort of an off-the-wall type of one. This was back earlier on when I was at the fire station at H Area. And at that time, there was a fighter aircraft based at Moses Lake, Larson Air Force Base. And again, it was protection for the Hanford plant. And a pilot from there had a flame-out over the Yakima firing range somewhere and ejected and landed on the Hanford plant. And he landed in a tree. And they had to—Hanford patrol had to get him out of his parachute out of the tree. [LAUGHTER] How ironic in all of that space that he could find a tree to land in. [LAUGHTER] But the—I’m trying to think—there were other events. There was an incident with the startup of K West Reactor. I think that's another sort of plant war story to tell. And I don't know what's been said about that. I recall there was a deadline to meet for the startup of the N Reactor. And that was practically willed into happening [LAUGHTER] before the stroke of midnight or so on. And you know there were sort of war stories to be told about that. Bauman: What would you consider the most challenging aspects of working at Hanford, especially in the '50s and '60s? And what might have been some more rewarding aspects of your work there? Fox: Well, the challenging aspects were trying to get more production for the Cold War and trying to determine what were the safe limits on operation for the piles, the temperature limits, avoiding incipient boiling in the tubes in the reactor core. And I assume that there were similar issues with the chemical processing plants. Again, because of the compartmentalization of the technology, I never worked in the 200 Areas. I had no understanding of the processes there or the issues there. And the infamous green run that you've probably heard some people talk about had occurred before I came here. That was very early in the Cold War, but they still talked about it. Individual radiation exposure limits were more—I wouldn't say they were casual—but compared to today's standards, they were relaxed. Procedures for doing things were not as cumbersome as they are today. It's practically impossible to get anything done today [LAUGHTER] under the work rules and procedures by comparison. And yet, it got done and generally safely. The only really serious accident that I can recall that involved radiation was the one in the Plutonium Finishing Plant with the glove-box with the americium. And I can't recall the employee's name got the bad exposure with americium and had treatment. But I don't know anything about the specifics of it. One technical challenge that was not met that I can recall, and I had one of the assignments on the rotational training program, which I mentioned earlier, was in the fuel manufacturing area in the 300 Area. I don't know if you've interviewed anybody who worked there, but the fuel process had an aluminum can about eight inches long and about a little over an inch in diameter. And you stuck the uranium slug in it. But where you did that in order to bond it to the slug, you stood over a pot of molten aluminum silicon alloy. And you had a holder that held the uranium can and the steel tube. You lowered that into the pot of molten alloy. And the operator manually pushed the solid uranium slug into it and then lifted it out and set it aside. And then it was cooled off and cleaned off and sent over to weld the cap on the aluminum can. Well, General Electric looked at this and said, this is a cumbersome manual process. And these workers are standing over this pot of hot molten alloy. Not a pleasant job. And we ought to be able to automate this, so they set up two competing approaches to automating it. And one was, let me call it a tinker toy set up approach. It's a disparaging term, but attempt to replicate the manual process with machinery to repeat—robotic, I guess, is a better word to use--to replicate that process. And I had a short assignment for three months because I was a mechanical engineer on doing that. And I made a couple of suggestions for it, which didn't work out as it turned out. So I didn't contribute anything to make a success of that. And it was ultimately unsuccessful. The other was for the design group to design a machine to do it by some alternate process. And there was a third process proposed that was more mechanical bonding process, but that was never tried out experimentally. The ultimate result was no process failed. And they used the manual process for as long as the whole production reactors existed. The N Reactor, the dual purpose reactor, used a completely different process because it required high temperature materials. Bauman: So then what would have been some of the more rewarding aspects of working at Hanford for you? Fox: Well to me personally, it was interesting because it was, of course, an entirely new technology at that time. And it was apparent to me that the Hanford graphite reactor technology was not suitable for power reactors in the long run. It got me to thinking about that. I had the opportunity also later toward the end of the '60s and the early '70s to teach a course here at what was then joint graduate center in reactor design. And also for three or four years to help with a spring quarter design course at the University of Washington in Seattle as an adjunct there in their spring design graduate level course on reactor design. So that, again, was very interesting, the interaction with students, and particularly at the University with foreign students. It's a clear contrast between American educated students and foreign educated students and trying to stimulate different ideas or taking a different look at things in the design course for how to apply the basic knowledge or principles or how to make trade-offs when you also had to get into the economics of things. The Hanford plant really didn't have much of an economic element to it. It was wartime, and you know it's almost at any cost—not quite that way, but-- So it led me to be able to think of things differently and think more of the getting into application versus theory. Bauman: Mm-hmm. Most of the students that I teach now were born after the Cold War ended, or many of them were, and don't know much about it or certainly don’t have many memories of it. So I wonder what you might say to either those students that I would have or future generations about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Fox: Well, I didn't think of it as anything special. And quite frankly, I think that I see these ads on television daily now about Cold War warriors or so on contributing to the Cold War effort. And I never viewed it in that or through a quasi-patriotic way. It was an interesting job. It was more interesting than a lot of other jobs I might have had in a career. And the fact that it in some way contributed to the beneficial end to the Cold War was okay, but I don't feel it deserves anything special. I mean, there are quite a few other things that needed to be in place to prevail in the Cold War—the whole rocket missile technology, the miniaturization of the weapons, the nuclear weapons, the hydrogen bomb, which Hanford had little contribution to, except the early production of tritium. It just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Bauman: I wonder if I could ask you, at what point did you get involved in city government? And was that in any way any connection to your work at Hanford at all? Fox: No. No, no connection. I've always had some interest in government, maybe inspired by a high school civics teachers named Wade Williams at Lincoln High School in Portland. And a high school alumni bulletin I just got last week named him as one of their outstanding teachers of all time. And he was a controversial guy, a very provocative guy. Staunch Republican in an era when everybody was a Democrat and a successful baseball coach [LAUGHTER] teaching government or social studies. But when we had kids in school I was on the school board for eight years in the late '70s and early '80s. Because I was concerned that the school that they built across the street here was mal-designed for the high school. And that the school was off on an education fad of the decade, was dictating school design according to some idealistic model that wasn't very practical in practice. But I just basically believe it’s a citizen's responsibility to give something back to the community as best he or she can, according to their abilities, whatever way works. And I felt I had something to contribute along that line. When I was on the school board, I was a dissenting vote on eliminating the teaching of world history at the junior high level, because students aren't interested in that kind of thing. And I'm not a believer in ignoring history, which is why I'm here today, isn't it? We're talking about the history of Hanford. When I retired, I wanted to do something more. And I got on the Parks Commission and ultimately, on the city council. Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about your time working at Hanford, or that you haven't talked about yet that you think would be important to talk about? Fox: Well as I've been saying to a number of people in talking about the Reach and the CREHST Museum and so on and some of the issues they have their currently, I think is important not to think just about the wartime mission or the wartime plus the Cold War mission, but it has led to other things. As I think I mentioned by a couple of examples I previously gave that it lead to peacetime missions. And part of that was a deliberate federal policy to say, okay, we've started this community here. There's a big investment in that community. We need to find a way to support some economy there after the wartime mission is completed and the plant is shut down. And so it led to peacetime missions. And that's led to the evolution of what's now the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a whole science and technology. And there are unforeseen consequences of that. And the unforeseen consequences aren't always bad. [LAUGHTER] They seem to be for any action taken in the Middle East. But here, it's led to a very vital research laboratory. And we wouldn't have a branch campus of a university here today without that. And that's all an asset to the community. When the Hanford plant was originated, people came from all over the country to work here. It built a more diverse community of backgrounds and interests than in any other city its size in eastern Washington. And that persists now. It's a legacy from that. And it's built on and built on and built on in those directions. Out of the lab came the original patent for digital recording, little known, totally unrelated, so on. What else will come out of it in the future? We can't know. But I think we can estimate that something will come out of it that will be for the greater good and we'll see. Bauman: All right. Well, I want to thank you very much for coming in today and talking with us about your experiences. Appreciate it. Fox: Okay. Thanks. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:01:38 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 185 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview H Area VIT PLant 300 Area K West Reactor N reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Fox Description An account of the resource An interview with John Fox 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 Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-9-4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 300 Area General Electric H Area Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.) K West Reactor N Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F91bc830435e20ab2f167731f6753a29d.jpg 07c79fb937ae0c69b708d6ee69024c9f https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F44d03d7ad701c05fcea08001a735079b.mp4 a1c266e40348c4f877dd5bfacbd661ab 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 Pre-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project 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 Madeleine Gilles Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Northwest Public Television | Gilles_Madeleine </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Robert Bauman: My name's Robert Bauman, and I'm conducting an oral history interview with Madeleine Gilles. And this is July 2nd of 2013. The interview's being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And I'll be talking with Madeleine Gilles about her family's history, her years growing up in Richland. So let's start with that, if we could. If you could tell me about how and when, why your family came to Richland. Anything about when and why they came here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Madeleine Gilles: Well, they came from Montana--Butte. I was about a year and a half old I think. And I guess they wanted to change from a miner to a farmer. And he was from-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Croatia it looked like. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Croatia, yes. And my mother was American. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What were your parents' names? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: What? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What were your parents' names? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Mr. Patricia and John Serdar. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: S-E-R-D-A-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And did you have any brothers or sisters? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I had two sisters which are a year and eight or nine months between the three of, you know. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Mm-hm, okay. And so when you came to Richland, did you have a farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I don't know how he came by a farm, but I know that he had 10 acres on a flat. And my mother's father, my grandfather, lived up on a little hill above us. It's now out at, behind that Richland airport. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Okay. That's where the land was? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes. It's still fenced off. There's nothing on it. [LAUGHTER] And it was by the irrigation ditch where we lived on the hill part. And the irrigation ditch had that flume across the little bitty gully onto downtown Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And you used irrigation water on farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: From that. Yes. They had weirs that went out to the fields and filled up. And you could water from there. They built little wooden waterways to where they wanted it, and then they'd have rails. And they'd flood the rails and then move it on to the next part of the field until they got it watered. And the ditch riders came by and kept watch on wherever it come out from the irrigation ditch. I forgot what they called those. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What kind of crops did you have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: We had alfalfa and a big garden and strawberries and grapes and raspberries. So we were busy. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] And did you have any animals on the farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. We had about ten cows. And they pastured over where the golf course is now. Oh, I forget the name of it. It's a pony. [LAUTHER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [INAUDIBLE] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Horse name. Anyway there's a golf course down there now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Where the pastures were? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Where the pastures were, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so, the alfalfa, was that a crop you grew and sold? Or was that used for your animals? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, it's to feed the animals in the winter. You cut it and stacked it and put it on a wagon and hauled it over and threw it up on a haystack. [LAUGHTER] One way or another, in the barns, they used to take the horses and somehow off of the hay wagon. They wrapped it up, and then the horses went ahead and drew it up into the loft. That way. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so, what other buildings were on your property besides the house itself? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: The barn. And we had a cellar, a ground cellar, and it was covered with dirt and had to open up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What was stored in there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, canned fruit and things that--sauerkraut in the barrel and anything like that. And then we had where we kept the potatoes and the turnips and all that stuff in another building. And we had chickens. Of course, they harvested the turkeys in the fall. I don't know where they sold them, down to the butcher or somebody. And then we had the barn down the hill farther in front of the haystack, and that was--and there was a barnyard of course. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Growing up, did you have jobs that were yours on the farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. Worked all day outside and in the sun. [LAUGHTER] Hoeing weeds and picking strawberries early in the morning. We worked for people who had lots of asparagus. We cut asparagus early in the morning. In the spring, you know? And my mother worked in the packing shed, and they packed the asparagus ready for market. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Was this someone else in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I don't know. I think they shipped it. They shipped it in wooden crates. Not too big because they'd get smashed. And the strawberries, the same way. We picked strawberries. We picked apples. We picked pears. We did those kind of things for other people, plus we picked our own fruit so our mother could can them. And we was busy. We had to bring the cows from the pasture home in the morning after cutting asparagus—about 3:00 in the morning, you get up, cut asparagus, bring the cows home and milk them and take them back. Get ready for school. It was busy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: That's a lot of work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, but it didn't hurt me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you have time to do fun things--swimming or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yeah. We went down the irrigation ditch down to where it kind of stops down at where there's land and it kind of opened up a little space where kids could come. And we'd go swimming and take a bath [LAUGHTER] with soap. Didn't do much good because you had to run back up the flume home. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: But anyway it was--and well, at school, we did our sports, softball and basketball and went to different little towns for competition games. And see who'd go to Spokane. We went one year, but we lost by--for basketball--lost by one point. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah. I saw a picture of a basketball team-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, I was in it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: In the picture, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What position did you play on the basketball team? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Pardon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What position did you play on the basketball team? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Guard. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Do you remember any of the other young women who were on the team? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: John Dam’s daughter was. She was forward. And I forget her name, but Margaret somebody was center. And I don't remember them all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: You must've been a good athlete then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, I guess I was. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Well, there's also in that book, a note that you had won a race. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: A race. Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: At a picnic? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. At the end of the year, they'd have school competition between the grades and stuff. And that was for my running. Because we did a lot of running in soft sand. So when you go on hard surface, you could really go. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How did you get to school? Did you walk to school? A bus? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, no. A bus came, and we could see it when we lived on the little hill above the flat surface where we were at first. We could see it. Then we'd take off and run down to the corner and catch the bus. And then he'd pick up all the rest of the kids and go down to Richland. The school was behind John Day and Nelson's mercantile store there. There was a gas station there and a church where we had baccalaureate and all that stuff there from the grade school. And the high school was down the road from the grade school. Richland High. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Right. Do you remember any of your teachers from? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, Carmichael and—oh, I don't remember. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Any idea how big, how many-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Kids? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Kids there were. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, I think there was about 500 people. So they must have had at least three or four kids. So multiply that. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: We had a lot of kids. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: I want go back. You mentioned your parents earlier. And your father was an immigrant from Croatia. Did he speak English? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Not very well. There was nobody for me to talk to but the animals. [LAUGHTER] Because my mother didn't converse with him. Because she didn't know his language. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And how had they met? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, at a dance in Montana--Butte. And he knew her father in the mines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: I see. And they got married and moved out-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. However, they were advertising at that time for homesteading in the '20s, you know. I was born in 1920. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: How they got there, I don't know. Because they never talked, and I didn't know what to ask them anyway. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Now, did you have electricity at all in your home? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. Kerosene light, lamp, and lantern to go to the barn and milk in the winter and stuff like that. Had kerosene. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And did you have--how did you get from--did you have a car at any time, or was it horse and wagon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: First of all, it was a wagon with a bed in it. We rode it in the back, and they rode in the front of course. And took a long time to get there, [LAUGHTER] wherever we was going. They belonged to the grange. And we'd go there for their meetings and dances. And my mother played piano, and she played for the drill team and for the dances along with other musicians. And they used to have house parties in the wintertime. They'd clear the floor, and whoever could come to play--and if there was a piano there, my mother played. And they danced or they played cards or--that was their entertainment, so to speak. Go from house to house to play cards. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Do you remember any other events? Were there 4th of July-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. We'd go to the park. What is that park called? Where the golf course is--on the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Howard Amon Park? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, no. It's a golf course on the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Columbia Park? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. They'd go along there, and people would come. And they'd make homemade ice cream, and they'd do their wieners or whatever—chicken, it usually was--a lot of fried chicken and pies and cakes, and they had a good time. And then, as I remembered, they used to shoot firecrackers off of the old green bridge and do their fireworks there. So everybody'd go down by the river there and watch them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: The fireworks there. There was a ferry that would take people across the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you do that very often? Take the ferry across the river? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, we didn't. But we did go down to the Columbia, down to the boom where they caught wood and trees and stuff and get our wood for the winter, or if you happened to be lucky, get a part of a tree or something. They'd saw it up and have some wood to build something. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you interact with any Native Americans in the area very often? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. When the fishing season was on, they used to go up to the Yakima someplace where there was a little dam. But they put their tents out across the ditch from us, and they'd have little tents. And then they'd have a three-sided tent where they'd have their fires out there and cook their fish and dry it and stuff like that. We had to drive the cows by the trail, went right by their camping site. [LAUGHTER] And my mother used to say to my little sister, "Rosie, if you don't be good, I'm going to give you to the Indians.” [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: What about any neighbors or were there children from other families-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: --there a lot? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, Arstolds and-- they didn't live close. They had their own acreage and stuff. And we used to go to their house a lot. And Bumgarnters and--gee, I can't think of their names now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: That's okay. So in terms of the weather here--it can get pretty darn hot as we know today— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: --in the summer and pretty cold at times in the winter with no electricity. What was that like? Do you have any memories of the heat or the wind or the winter weather? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, we just made do. We had wood for fire. In the cook stove was the heater of the room. We only had two rooms on the hill, and the one house we lived on in the flat was a big one room thing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: And my grandfather, after he died, we moved up there. And the cook stove kept us warm, but it didn't go all night. [LAUGHTER] You had to get up in the morning and put the kindling in and light it and get it going. And in the summer, you just stopped. And again, in the shade, that's all you could do. And it got really hot because there was no trees. No trees. And now you have green and trees. It makes it cooler. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Did you get many dust storms? Do you remember many dust storms? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. Lots of hard sand would blow against your legs when you was going back and forth to the pasture. Ooh. That really stung. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How about any wild animals? Were there coyotes? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, coyotes, and rabbits. They used to have rabbit drives. A lot of men would get together so far apart and they'd drive the rabbits in front of them and then shoot them. Because they were a real menace. They get into your garden and eat everything up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah, I've heard about those before. Eating the crops were the problem, or the gardens, yeah. So I understand that you had a little bit of an accident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes, I found a blasting cap that my dad had brought from Butte to blow up the sagebrush. It was big and tough to make more land, you know. And so I found an old one, and I thought it was full of dirt, picked at it and it blew up. Took my fingers off. But I made it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How old were you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I was 16 and very upset about it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so did you have to go to a doctor or a hospital? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, went to Lourdes, and Dr. Spalding took care of my hand. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And was that the only hospital? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Only one. And it was 13 miles, and the neighbors that had bought the flat--one room shack--took me over there. It was 13 miles or something. And I had to wait for a baby to be born before they could take care of me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: But they decided to keep my hand and not cut it off because it looked so bad. So I have a hand, just not the digits. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: How long did you have to stay at the hospital? How long did it take to recover? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Well, I stayed there longer than I need to do because I didn't have any place to go. My mother and father got a divorce, and she was very ill with arthritis. It's the kind that just comes overnight, and I forget the name of it. But it's a bad one. And so she and I were in the hospital the same time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: So they kept me there, and then I went to work--for three months they kept me, and I worked folding bandages and stuff before they autoclaved them or sterilized them. And then I worked at the doctor's home for his son--to take care of his baby son. Then I got to go down and eat at their restaurant in the evening. So I was just the daytime stuff, and I stayed there. And I was there till I decided that I needed to go to school and learn to work over. So I went to the Catholic school in Spokane--the House of Good Shepherd it was at that time. And they took wayward girls, but they decided my sisters and I would be a help at the place to do other things. But to mind the rules the same as they had to, which was okay with me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So how long were there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh about two and a half years. My sister Mary was there 13 years, and Rosie was there 10 or so. But they did like Mary. She run the movie machine and helped the nuns. And I worked in the kitchen, and of course I learned to work. And worked in the where we ate in the cafeteria. And I got to go with the nuns when they went soliciting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So did you grow up Catholic then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Was there a Catholic church in the area anywhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, we had to come to Kennewick. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: My mother brought a few children, and my sisters over in the summer for us to take our catechism. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So Kennewick was the place to go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. So we got our proper papers to be a Catholic. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Do you remember what the name of the church was in Kennewick? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: St. Joseph's as far as I know. That was the first church, and I think it was on—I don’t know--down by the canal. Now I don't know where it is for sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Yeah. I think it's on Clearwater now, but it used to be on-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And now I think it's on-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, yes. I know where that one is now, but I don't know where they moved the old church. Yeah, it's on Garfield--the new church, St. Joseph. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So after you were in Spokane for about two and half years. What happened to you at that point? Where did you go from there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Pardon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Where did you go after you were in Spokane? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, I worked at a home and took care of invalid fellow and his baby when the family was gone. And I worked in the kitchen and fed the baby and all this. And they rang a bell for me [LAUGHTER] to come and wait on the table and stuff. And then they split up the families. The mother and father and the husband and wife moved out. So then I came out to--where did I go? Oh. I have to think. Where did I go? Oh, I went back to Richland, and I lived with a family that--he worked on the freeways and highways building, and she was home with two or three kids. And so I stayed there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: And in the summertime, we'd get to go to up in the mountains where they built highways. I forget the name of the one we was that one summer. Anyway. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Remember the name of the family that you were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, Drieslers. Jack Driesler, and Nellie. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And then you said your parents got a divorce around the time you were 16, also. Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so what happened to the family farm when your parents got divorced? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: The government bought it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And so did that happen when you were in Spokane that the government bought-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Or later? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. I was at 16, and I was born in 1920. So that was what? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: That was 1936. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And the government came in '43. So it would've been later. So did both your parents stay in Richland after they got divorced? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. He went back to mining up in Metaline Falls where his brother lived. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And how about your mother? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: She stayed here and married a guy that he lived out there by our school teacher. But when Hanford bought them out, they moved to Prosser and had a mint farm. And then my mother, she died young. She was 53. She died in '55. She had like emphysema and kidney problems. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: You mentioned that your grandfather had some land them on the hill above you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Now, did he stay there until '43? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No. He passed away before we moved up there. So that's how come we moved up there. Some of this is mixed up, I know. But I think it's off. [LAUGHTER] Been a long time ago. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about, any--either events that really stand out in your mind or really special memories or anything like that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Not that I can think of at the moment. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: There was a continual-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Speak up. I can't-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: --relationship between Rosie who was the youngest girl and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: We were raised together. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: --Mary. And they ganged up against Mary and pulled all kind of pranks like— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Off-camera man: --chucking cow patties at her and stuff like that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So a little sibling rivalry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, she wanted to boss everything. [LAUGHTER] When she hears that, she'll--she's still alive. And Rosie wasn't going to have that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And Rosie was the youngest. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. She was feisty. She passed away. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And all three of you were in Spokane for a while. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: So what happened--your sisters, when they left Spokane, where did they go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Rosie went with my cousin Tony to Waukegan, Illinois and got a job there where they made pills-- filled pills. I don't know what you call it. But anyway, she got a job there and lived there about five years and came back out and met her husband out at the area. He was a--he drew--what do you call it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Draftsman. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Draftsman. And she was a secretary. And they met and married and moved back to Wenatchee where he was from, up there. And lived till they both passed away. Mary is still here with her husband Jim. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And then how about yourself? When the war came, did you move out of the area? Where else did you live besides-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Oh, I was up in Seattle working at the Swedish hospital. And for a while, I worked at the Bon Marche, downtown Seattle and helped the baker in the morning and cleaned the steam table. They had a little restaurant at that time, the Bon Marche did. I helped the baker make pies and cakes and stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: And when did you come back to Richland or to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: 1986. 50 years later. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Changed quite a bit probably since you've been last living there. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah, I'm lost yet! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: I was wondering what you would think would be important for people to understand about the community of Richland that you grew up in? To understand sort of what it was like to grow up there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I think it was a great life. And children worked and there wasn't so much vandalism. And of course, there wasn't that many people, but they were good people. I can't really think of anything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Well, thank you very much for coming in here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: This was terrific. Some really good stories and memories, and I really appreciate you being willing to come and talk with us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: There's probably a lot more, but I'm sorry I don't remember it all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Well, what you remembered is great. Thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Okay. You're welcome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: It wasn’t too bad, was it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: No, I just wish I knew more. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: No, well, what you remembered is really— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: You did a terrific job, I’m proud of you. You obviously knew a ton of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: Good, good, good. As I said, some of those memories are great— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Camera man: Can I take a picture before you go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: --because people now don’t know— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: They had no electricity, they had no water, I mean you had to pump it out— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Bauman: It’ll go along with your information. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: When we put together all the stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: I hope it’s a good one! I don’t take good pictures anymore. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: Oh, well, we all say that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Gilles: All right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX120208943"> Man: [LAUGHTER] </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:37:27 Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1920-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Serdar, John; Gilles, Mary; Gilles, Rosie Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps 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 Madeleine Gilles Description An account of the resource An interview with Madeleine Gilles 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 7/2/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-05-30: Metadata v1 created – [ J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick(Wash,) Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Hanford (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) swimming https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F82c04966c9ad4d75be52520235b0f436.jpg 0cfd3eabf5f6f11bc4ae97cf18f78000 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F5ac81b95ffc5c268e001b40efe232954.mp4 912843de88d1ba96be6a1ee7dfb001cd 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 Elizabeth Gladden Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Northwest Public Television | Gladden_Elizabeth </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Elizabeth Gladden. Capital E-L-I-Z-A-B-E-T-H. Gladden. G-L-A-D-D-E-N. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Great. Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: The first year I was there, I was a Feemster. I was unmarried. And then we got married this second year. So my maiden name was Feemster. So the Social Security people told me to keep the F. Originally my middle initial was an E. But to keep the F of the maiden name to keep their records straight. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Sure. Right. And how did you spell your maiden name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: F-E-E-M-S-T-E-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Okay. Great. Thank you. All right. And my name is Robert Bauman. And we're conducting this oral history interview on July 7, 2014, on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So I guess let's start with maybe how you found out about—what were you doing before the war, maybe? And how you found out about an opportunity to teach at Heart Mountain. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Okay. As I said, Pearl Harbor is the one that started it all. And from there, the Army thought that the Japanese on the west coast would be a danger. And they wanted them moved. And we found out later that that wasn't true, that they really weren't a danger, that California just wanted the Japanese out, and this was a good opportunity to get them out. And I was teaching in Nebraska when Pearl Harbor came along. And then I finished that year, and the next year I moved to a town called Osceola in Nebraska, which was a little better opportunity. And I taught one week when I got a call from the Davis teachers' agency, telling me that they had a good job for me in Wyoming. And it sounded very good because I was getting $1,000 there, and out in Wyoming, I would be getting $2,000. So I just doubled the pay for a couple months' more work. My father thought I was going to the end of the world. But I resigned then at Osceola. I don't think the school board was very happy with me. And I packed up and came out to Heart Mountain. And it was, I think, the second week in September when I got out there. Some of the teachers had gotten there already. The principal and school superintendent had been on the job for several months. And they had tried to get everything organized so that we could be an accredited high school. And then we started school I think the first week in October. Several weeks I was there beforehand, we sorted books and got assigned to our classrooms and got things set out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Do you remember what your first impressions were when you arrived in Heart Mountain? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: What? What? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Your first impressions of the place. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden. Oh. [LAUGHTER] I remember writing the folks and saying that it was all right if you looked up. The sky was pretty and blue, but not if you looked around. No, it was very, very bleak. It was hot. And all you saw were these black tar paper barracks. And you just saw the trainloads of evacuees coming in, and you felt sorry for them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: What sort of housing did you have there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, the first year we lived in Cody, Wyoming. There was no gas, so people weren't traveling. So we lived in a—what do you call it? It was a motel. A little motel. And a lot of the faculty lived there. There wasn't enough room at Heart Mountain yet. They had built dorms out there, and some of the single people were out there in dorms. But there were no apartments for the married people at all. And then in the next year, we had a fairly nice apartment, except ours also was not dust-proof. We had lots and lots of dust. But we did have electricity and water and a refrigerator. And all the evacuees had when they arrived was a big room. The rooms varied in size, depending on the size of the family. Some of the rooms were 20 feet long, and some were much smaller. Families varied from six on down to single. They had one lightbulb hanging down from the ceiling, no running water. The latrines and the showers were all outside. There was one for each block. And there were 20 blocks. So it was pretty cold. They said some of the mothers didn't get anything done but bundling up their children and taking them out to the bathroom and back in again. It was pretty, pretty sad. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And for the single people, were there separate dorms for the single people? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, the evacuees were in the same ones, but they had a smaller apartment. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Oh, okay, I see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: They say the women went to work immediately, getting sheets and so forth, dividing up the space so they'd have a little privacy. And I guess the latrines at first were just wide open. There was no privacy in them at all. But the Japanese were quite ingenious. They began to do things. They said Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck got a lot of money from tools that the internees had ordered. Some of them were trying to patch up the leaky holes in the barracks and so forth. They had one pot-bellied stove in each room. They didn't do adequate heating jobs, of course. Of course, that's what we had too, up on the hill. We had a pot-bellied stove. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so what did you teach then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: I taught English, and I also had a math class. I taught freshman and sophomore English and Algebra. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And about how many students did you have in a class? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, several of the classes were quite small. But they never got over 25 or so. They were pretty good. And I would say that the discipline was heaven. We had none of the discipline problems that I had when I got back to Pasco. [LAUGHTER] I think they were all kind of beaten down at that point. They seemed cheerful, but I don't know. They must have thought they couldn't get by with anything, because they very good. And of course the original schools were in the barracks. And there were no desks. They had the long benches that the kids sat in, and they had to do their writing on their lap. And I had an assistant to help me grade papers, which was nice, because I'd never had that before. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So the whole time you were there, there were no desks? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, just in the barracks. In '43, then, the high school was built. And it was heaven compared to what we had. It went up within a year. But it had a big administrative building--section in the middle. And then it had two big wings on it. And they had a Home Ec department in one section. They had a shop. They had a science department. They had a big gymnasium and auditorium combined. And we had enough textbooks finally. So it was very, very much improved over the first year. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: What about eating facilities? Were there cafeterias, mess halls? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, the kids always ate in the mess hall. You see, each block had its own mess hall where they would go, along with their bath facilities. And they would go to the mess hall to eat. I might say that at first there was a little unrest. They claimed they weren't getting the proper food and so forth. But they kind of worked with the administration. And later they didn't seem to complain so much about the food. Then we had a separate cafeteria up on the hill where we ate at noon. And we complained, because the meat was always lamb. I was so tired of lamb when we got through. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: I guess that's what was available in Wyoming. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Right. Yeah. Well, another thing that's of interest when we're talking about food is that they had their own chicken ranch down at the bottom they put in. And they also had a bunch of pigs down there. And the second year, the late summer, 1945, they took over the land across the street--across the highway—and they put in a huge garden. And they had every kind of vegetable imaginable down there. And the people around Cody said that it wouldn't grow. It wouldn't grow there at all. But we had an abundance of fresh things then. And it was in the fall of 1945—1944, rather—when it got really cold, and they were afraid the potatoes were all going to freeze. So they dismissed school. And they plowed up all the potatoes. And the kids went out and picked up potatoes. The faculty, too. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So about how many internees were there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: We had 10,000 in the camp. And there were times when we had about 10,700. There were 120,000 Japanese that were evacuated. If you had a sixth of a Japanese blood in you, you were evacuated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And obviously all the internees were from the west coast. Were they mostly from California? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: All along the coast. They were sent from Washington, along the coast. It went down that were also taken. There is this movie—maybe you've seen it--that is very, very good, number of years ago. And I can't remember the name of it. It's based on a family that was evacuated from over on the coast. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so there were some residents there from the Tri-Cities area, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, yes. My understanding is that the Columbia River was the dividing line. Everybody west of the Columbia River went. But some people east—and I know there were a couple families in Pasco went, because they were afraid. Sentiment against the Japanese was very, very bad, and they were afraid to stay. And they came back. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Now did you know these people at all when you were there? Or were these people that you heard about later? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, once the war was over, it was over, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So for students who were in the high school when they first came to Heart Mountain, but finished high school during the war, were they able go to college somewhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, while they were in camp those three years, if they had the resources and they found a school that would accept them, college students could go out, as long as they went east. And we had a number who went out. And also there were a few of the laborers who went out to get better jobs that were allowed to go. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So you went there in the fall of-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: In the fall of '42, and left in the late summer of '45. Was there five years--or three years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Overall, how would you describe your experience teaching there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, I would say it's very good. We had a nice social background with other Caucasians. And we knew a few of the Japanese. But somehow we didn't get very—there wasn't an opportunity, really, to get very close to them. I might say that the administration did a great job in trying to get things organized, along with the help of the outstanding leaders in the Japanese community. And they had Boy Scout groups and Camp Fire Girls and Girl Scout groups. And they had dance clubs and everything that would keep the kids busy. And when it got really hot, they dug a great big swimming pool. And the kids went swimming. And then in the winter, they skated there. Some of them had never seen an ice skate before. And they had great fun ice skating. They couldn't get out on the hills, though, to go sledding. They had to stay in camp. Oh, I might say there were about 19, I think, guard stations around the camp. And they were up high, with very powerful searchlights. And nobody could get out without being caught. And as we went in and out the gate, we had to have badges on. And the Army was stationed down at the base. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: You mentioned, when I talking to you earlier, that you had teaching assistants or assistants that helped you, grading? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yes, I had two students. They were kids who were already through high school. And they would help grade English papers and math papers. Sakiko Yoshimura and Metsu--Metsuku--Mets--suku—what's her name now? I've forgotten. I saw it in the book. Yeah. Yeah. And we kept track of--one of them went back to Japan the minute the camp closed down. And the other one was a seamstress. And she went to California. And when my daughter and I were traveling one day, we stopped to see her. But we lost track of her later. We don't know what happened. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Did you ever get a sense, or any of the internees ever say anything? They expressed any sort of disappointment or anger or anything about being in the camp? Or did they not really talk about it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: No, we were told when we went that you'll never get a job in a private school again. If you go teach those Japs. You're through. And they were crying for teachers when we got out. There's no problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So once the camp closed, then, what happened to you? What did you do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, when the camp closed--well, school was over in 1945 in the last of May. And all teachers were through. But if you wanted to stay on, and they needed you in some other department, you could go. And I was always interested in hospital work. In fact, that's what I thought I wanted to be when I was growing up, was a nurse. So I went to the hospital. And my husband went to the housing area where they were boxing up the household goods that the Japanese acquired and put them on the train. Incidentally, each one was given $25 a ticket to where they wanted to go, and that was it. But I had a lot of experiences in the high school—in the hospital. And I was so grateful for the opportunity. Being a Caucasian, I got to do things--administer medicine and do things—that otherwise the Japanese didn't get to do. And I remember so well. One of the doctors came in and grabbed me one day. And he said, come here, I need you quickly. Lady's going to have a baby. So I was there and he put out his gloves for me to hold to put them on. I was only woman in the room besides the doctor. And I got to see a baby born. And that was before I had any children. And it was really, really interesting. And another experience, there was a time, there was one of the fellows dying, an older man. And she got me and said, I think you need to see this. So she took me in, and we watched his last breaths. And when he was gone, she says, now we have to take out his false teeth and take him to the morgue. They had a morgue in the hospital. So she says, I want you to go down with me. And so I did. And shoved him in the freezer there. Then we came back to the room to clean it up. And she says, oh, I forgot to put his false teeth in. But she says, you don't have to go with me this time. I'll go down and do it. She was a graduate nurse, of course. And the salary scale, I don't think we've talked about, was very interesting. There were three scales. I was making over $200 a month. And the highest any Japanese internee could get was $19 a month. And some of the nurses got a little upset at one time. But they wouldn't do anything about it. They had set the scale for $19 for professional. And then I think it was $16 for in between. And the laborers got only $12 an hour. They said they couldn't pay the laborers more than the Army--an Army private got. And that was $20 a day, not an hour. $20 a day. So they didn't make much money. That was one reason they liked the work outside, if they could. Get a job on the outside. Because the administration demanded that they be paid the same way as a Caucasian on the outside. The governor of Wyoming wasn't very helpful. He wanted them to be slave laborers, practically, and work for $12 an hour. And the WRA--that's the War Relocation Authority--said no. You have to pay them same as you pay Caucasians. So some of them got some extra money that way, if they could be cleared. I mentioned to you the newspaper. We had a fellow who was trained in journalism. And he immediately started a newspaper. It started within a week I think from the time he got there. He got his staff together. It was an eight page newsletter--or newspaper, rather--that came out once every Saturday. And that kind of kept the evacuees in touch with what's going on in the outside world, as long as rules and so forth in the camp. And he had some pretty good editorials, where he was questioning things. And I do have some copies of those that I'll give you, if you want them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Now did those newspapers have to go through-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: I don't know how much censoring they did. I wouldn't be surprised, but what they had some though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Were there radios allowed in the camp to listen to? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Get updates on was happening in the world? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: There were always rumors, always rumors. [LAUGHTER] We had a fellow up in the dorm area that got the greatest delight out of starting a rumor and seeing how long it took to get around. Oh, there were rumors about how there were Japanese on the coast, and they were going to invade. There was balloons that were going to be coming over, and so forth and so on. But nothing ever happened. There was never any incident at all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Do you have any idea how large the staff was that worked at the camp? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, dear. I think there were 200 in the administrative area. And teachers--I don't know for a school that size—it was a big high school. We had the eighth grade in the high school, too. So it was a pretty big school. And our classes weren't big. I remember one summer, I taught solid geometry, and I only had about eight students in there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And was there a graduation ceremony? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes, yes. When they graduated, there was a big ceremony. We had a big auditorium, as I said, which was also a gym. And it was well used here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Was there a church or churches in the camp? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes. The WRA started out with two churches, a Catholic and a Protestant. And the Buddhists wanted their church. And two-thirds of the group were Buddhists. And the WRA refused, but eventually gave in. So eventually there was a Buddhist church, and the Catholic and the Protestant. We went to the Protestant church and got very well acquainted with the minister and his wife and had them over for dinner. Nice couple. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Do you remember when you heard about the war ending? Or any of that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes. We were eating lunch in--oh, no, no. When we were eating lunch, it was when Roosevelt was pronounced dead. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Oh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: And my husband was down in the lab, because he was always fooling with radios. He was building his own radio. And he came rushing up and said that Roosevelt had died. And this was during the lunch hour. I forget the date. But the war--well, it's an interesting story about how we heard about the war. We were married in '43. My sister was married in '45. And her husband was working at the University of Chicago. And the department--what do they call it? The one where they were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: The Manhattan Project, or-? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah. Well, it's part of the Manhattan Project. And he knew what we were doing out at Hanford, but we didn't know what was going on out here. And so the fellas were in the living room--I remember--and we were out in the breakfast nook at York, Nebraska, at my parents' home. And Stanley--my brother-in-law--came running out to the kitchen and grabbed my sister by the arm and said, come in and listen to this. He said, I want you to hear it. And you tell me what you heard. And she did. And then he said, well, that's what I've been doing. So that was how we know the war had ended. They'd dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. They always said Hiroshima, not "Hiro-SHEE-ma." </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So now did you and your husband meet at Heart Mountain? Or, how did you meet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: I met my husband at the University of Chicago. I was there one summer. And we got acquainted. And we corresponded. And he'd come to Nebraska and so forth. Then he ran out of money. He was working on his Ph.D. So he took a job at Whitehall, Montana. And he was there the year that I was at Heart Mountain, the first year. And then he wanted to come down. And of course they gave him a job. And we were married then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so after the war ended, how did you end up in Pasco then? How did that happen? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, that was when--we stayed in Heart Mountain until almost the end of the summer. And then my husband was interested in getting a teaching job in Washington. So he started applying for jobs along the Columbia River, any big town. And Pasco was the first one that answered his letter and said, we have a science job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: What were your first impressions of Pasco? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Terrible. [LAUGHTER] Terrible. It was the last day in August. Very, very hot. We were in what they call the Riverside homes, down the river. Big room. We must have had a refrigerator. I don't remember it. But the cupboards were open. No doors on the cupboards or anything. And of course there was no electricity. I mean, you couldn't buy any electric gadgets. You did your cooking on a range. And if you can imagine that, on the last day of August--then it was then that C.L. Booth, the superintendent, asked me if--or I said, do I have to stay here? And he asked me what I did. And I said, oh, I've been teaching school. And he said, come on up and we'll you a job. So then I taught a year. And then we quit to have our family. And then I went back later. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so you already knew about Hanford before you came here, though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah, we found out. The end of August, I guess, or in August, whenever that was, when my sister and her husband were there, because they'd just gotten married. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So what was Pasco like as a community in the 1940s, 1950s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, we stayed the first night at the new Pasco hotel on Lewis Street. And before we got our Riverside apartment. And it was pretty hot. I wasn't much impressed. My husband always wanted to go to Hawai’i. And he thought, well, we would be on our way to Hawai’i, then. He thought it would be nice to teach over there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: And so you stayed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: So we stayed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So that would be 70--almost 70 years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah, well, it was 70--I figured it was 72 years since I'd been at Heart Mountain. We came to Pasco in '45. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: '45? 69 years, I guess. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: About 20 years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: ‘45 to now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So if there anything I haven't asked you about-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well I think we’ve- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: --Heart Mountain? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, there was one thing that--the Nisei were subject to draft. And they had to fill out a big form. And they had a couple questions on there that a few of them wouldn't sign. One of them, are willing to withdraw all allegiance to the Japanese emperor? And the other one, are you loyal to the United States? Would you be serving the Army? And there was a committee that formed. And some of them thought their constitutional rights had definitely been tramped on. And that they wouldn't sign, they said, until they were given their freedom back. But the 442nd contingent that you know about, that was so very, very famous, they were all made up of Japanese. And a lot of Japanese took part there. But because of the questionnaire and so forth, and some of them got a little belligerent, they were arrested. And there was one fellow who really wouldn't give in. And he was put in jail for three years I know of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: So you knew about that, about the questionnaire. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Uh-huh, yeah. That happened while we were there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Were there a number of young men from Heart Mountain who did end up going to the military, joining the Army? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Oh, yes, yes, a lot of them. Which I think was pretty wonderful. The way they've been treated, that they would actually go. But they were showing their loyalty to the US. They claimed they were still US citizens. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Well, this has been very interesting for me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, it's fun to review it. I hadn't thought about it for so long. But it's interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: At some point, when you were here in Pasco, did you ever get to know any of the Japanese-Americans who lived here who had been in Heart Mountain? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well, my husband had Jerry Minatoya I think, in class in Heart Mountain. And when he got here, he had him in class in high school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: There were a number of Japanese families living in Pasco, though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in and sharing your experiences and your photos. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: Well it’s been—I'm sorry my voice is so cracky. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Bauman: No, it’s wonderful. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227730302"> Gladden: You're welcome. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:32:00 Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1945-2015 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Booth, C.L.; Minatoya, Jerry Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 226 Kbps 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 Elizabeth Gladden Description An account of the resource An interview with Elizabeth Gladden 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. 2016-05-30: Metadata v1 created – [J.G] Subject The topic of the resource Pasco(Wash,) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/7/2014 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. 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Ice Skating Pasco (Wash.) swimming War Relocation Authority (United States) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fea9f9be8e167dfb935591d617ccc4c54.jpg 8c3738fec6884afa34e5950678c91640 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff7b408a8660a5970b818fe119251bed5.mp4 f60b636cbba2fd60f67abb2a10310008 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Hendrickson, Wally Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Hendrickson_Wally Robert Bauman: If I'm not talking loud enough, let me know. Wally Hendrickson: Okay. Bauman: And if you need to stop to take a drink of water— Hendrickson: Oh! Okay. Bauman: Fine, no problem. Whatever. Hendrickson: Though Hanford wasn't involved, I once went to Vietnam to remove the highly enriched uranium fuel at a research reactor. But that was out of Idaho Falls. Bauman: Oh, okay. So it wasn't it directly connected to your work at Hanford? Sort of? [LAUGHTER] Hendrickson: Peripherally, some of the fuel came to the 300 Area and was used in the TRIGA Reactor here for work done on FFTF. Bauman: I think it would still be interesting to talk about that at some point during the interview. Are we all ready to go? Man one: Yup. Bauman: Well let's start by first of all just having you state your name. Hendrickson: I'm Wally Hendrickson. Bauman: Okay, great. And my name's Robert Bauman, and we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. Today's date is July 30th of 2013. So I thought we could start by first of all just telling me how, when, why you arrived at Hanford. Hendrickson: It goes way back. My mother's cousin worked here from the early '40s on. And I knew about the reservation because of family visits. But I first came to work here in 1955. I was an engineering student at University of Idaho and got a summer job here with General Electric--that was a contractor at that time--for the summer. Oh, it really suited me. I've been very interested in science and technology all my life. In high school I wrote a paper on disposal of radioactive waste. And I have four engineering degrees. I've really enjoyed technology. And I had the idea--idealistic young fellow [LAUGHTER]--that engineers could do a lot of good for the community. Bauman: And so what was your--you said you had like a summer job here when you were a college student. What sort of work did you do then? Hendrickson: Yes, it was for technical people—technical students. And it's to give the student a chance to get an early experience with a large technical organization. And, of course, the managers here would look at the students and wonder if they would want to have them when the students graduate. And I've worked here for one year in 1957 - '58, and I was a tech grad, with a few the listeners may know. At that time, a technical graduate like an engineer, or a physicist, or a mathematician would be given four three-month assignments to work in different areas at the site. And I remember—oh, later for that. I was really pleased at that opportunity. And one of the four three-month assignments I remember so well was water treatment. We treated Columbia River water for its use as cooling water in the breeder reactors—or production reactors, I think they're called—that we had here to make plutonium for weapons. And we cleaned more water than the city of Chicago. And our criterion was solid particles, not dissolved stuff, but little dust things that float around in the river and organic things. And I believe we sought to have the particles no more than 0.01 parts per million. And we had tricks that, I think the rest of the world still hasn't caught on to. [LAUGHTER] After the normal type treatment-- Is this dragging on too technical? Bauman: No this is interesting, keep going. Hendrickson: Well, most municipal water treatments were much like ours, except ours was really jazzed up. And they'd put in a chemical that would form a flock. It looks like a tiny piece of cotton floating in the water. And when it forms it readily picks up some dissolved material, but particularly particulate material. And that would settle when the water flowed through a very, very large swimming pool. And then water would go to filters. And they were really fancy filters. I wonder if the rest of the world has caught up with that technology. And we'd add Separan, which was like Lucite, a polyacrylamide, which would give a particle in water with a number of valences so it would attract particulates and enmesh them. And they would settle out or be filtered out. And I was able to work with two really great guys. One was a lawyer. [LAUGHTER] He'd minored in chemistry in law school, and graduated during the Depression, when you couldn't buy a lawyer's job, so he taught chemistry in high school. And there was a law, whose name I don't know, that enabled the government to essentially draft people with skills critical to the war effort. And he first went to a munitions plant, and then here. And I remember he set out to educate me. [LAUGHTER] He told me about the first breach of promise suit in America; that was during colonial times. Where a man died, his life agreed to marry the neighbor, and then thought that oh it's too soon. And he sued her for breach of promise, and was given property from her. That's because in those days it wasn't thought quite proper for women to have property in their name. So he actually lost something. Bauman: So what was this lawyer's name, this man's name? That you were-- Hendrickson: I can't remember now. He was big, and I think he died in the '70s. And I talked to his wife when I came back here in the '80s, and she said he remembered me and would talk about me. Bauman: So that was one of the four areas you worked during your-- Hendrickson: No, that was a full time employee. But I was a tech grad during that time and three months in water treatment. Oh, and another very interesting assignment was looking at the water of the river--or rather, looking at the contamination that mostly the cooling water for the reactors would contribute to the Columbia River. And one bit of--I guess it's a biological thing—that amazed me, phosphorus-32 would be made by fast reactor, fast neutrons, on the aluminum cooling pipes in the reactor tubes. And it would produce phosphorus-32. I think I'm mixed up here. I'm not sure what the target was, but anyway it would get into the water and algae would pick it up--hungry. They're hungry for phosphorus. And the concentration of phosphorus on a weight basis of the algae is 300,000 times what was in just the water. And my colleagues, they would say, well, what does that mean? How is it does it affect health? And they found that whitefish--if they didn't eat the algae, they ate something that had eaten the algae. And it would get into their bones. Now, when you eat whitefish, you usually don't eat the bones, but they didn't calculate—they didn’t take that into consideration. And they knew that some people fished quite a bit out of the Columbia and feed their family the fish. So they calculated what this exposed people to. And if they fished all through the year, and ate all of the fish and ate the bones, they would be getting close to limits for nonprofessional radiation workers. And I was really surprised when I heard about people saying the information regarding exposure of citizens was kept secret, because the very year I was here, '57-'58, the Public Health Service studied radioactivity in the Columbia River and wrote a report, and I had a copy of that report. Bauman: So were levels of phosphorus sort of the main finding from the work you did in terms of the possible impact on— Hendrickson: Yes, though I believe some aquatic worm at the mouth of the Columbia would pick up cobalt-60. And they were hot. Of course, people don't eat the worms. And I don't know if the fish do or not. There was so much work to study what became of the radioactive materials in the effluent, and what kind of hazard that was. And I remember—I'm sort of a chemist too. I remember reading the reports of the radiochemists about the techniques they developed and applied to analysis of radioactivity in the water—either effluent or the river itself. There are people that got to go up and down in a motorboat catching fish for some of this. [LAUGHTER] But much of the radioactive analysis had to come after quite a bit of chemical separation. A lot of things will get radioactive. And if you try to count a dry sample, it would be impossible to distinguish between those radioactive material, or nearly so. And they would use standard inorganic chemistry to separate different isotopes. And this place ran 24/7, and they liked to keep close track of the effluent, so they would build automatic systems to sample and automatically go through the chemical separations. If you've ever been in a hospital that has their own lab, you'll see big machines that are just amazing at being able to analyze for different organic chemicals in the blood. It's all automated. Nowadays, it just comes out printed on a sheet, sounds easy. But there was a time when it was very laborious. Bauman: Do you know if there were any changes made to any procedures in terms of water after the results of phosphorus and that sort of thing? Hendrickson: Well, changes--now I don't think there were many. They did they spend a lot of time finding out what was in the effluent, and what it would do to people. And my recollection is it that it was quite a ways away from any limit, any conservative limits that we operated from. I had heard, though, that the water treatment plant at Kennewick in those days filtered out radioactive particles. And if one went over to the filter bed—I suppose this is after the water's gone down—with a Geiger counter, it was quite radioactive. That was in 1957. Yeah, let's see. Oh! Yeah, this is embarrassing. My bosses said, well, some reactors are better than others in reducing phosphorus-32 material, why is that? Is it a function of the water treatment? So I was set out to set up one reactor. It had split water supply systems. So one reactor ran as normal, and the other half of the reactor ran a little dirtier. And we ran it for quite a while. Stuff builds up on the tubes, fine particles. If you see something in a pond, you might—well, certainly you'll see algae growing on it, but you might see accumulated clay particles. And then we purged the reactor. We ran in diatomaceous earth, which is nearly pure silica from little diatoms, the bodies of little diatoms. And that would scour the fuel elements. And this is done periodically to keep the amount down that we generated. And we took samples, then, during the purge, and they didn't make sense. And a couple weeks before that, I'd gotten some records from an accountant who was stationed over at the coal fired plant that generated steam. And I told him I need to see these records, and this is why. And he says, well, but there is no correlation like you suggest. And I got the records, and yeah, there was no correlation. [LAUGHTER] And my bosses had to admit that they didn't realize that. I suppose they'd gotten some idea during a short period of time that wasn't typical. Bauman: So, how long as a whole did you work at Hanford, and what other areas did you work in? Hendrickson: Well after '57, I started a doctoral program in physical chemistry at Washington State University. It was a very difficult time for me. Let's see, we had gotten a raise as teaching assistants there, up to $200 a month. And I had a bachelor's and master's in chemical engineering. So I didn't have as much chemistry as the other graduate students. It would pretty hard. And I kind of washed out, partly for financial reasons, and took a full time job at the research reactor in Pullman. Now it's called Harold Dodgen Radiation Center is the name. And he was a wonderful man--full professor of both chemistry and physics. Wonderful man, and so well trained. He was from Berkeley, as were some of the other faculty that I had. Well, I eventually got another master's in nuclear engineering and a PhD in engineering science. And then I came here for six months as a summer prof, they call them. Bauman: So what year would this have been? Hendrickson: That was in '71—July of '71. I came and unloaded my earthly possessions on a day that was 113 degrees. Oh! When I went to Pullman, I left the 13th of September, and the heat wave had not yet broken. And to that date, we had had 100 days above 90, and 30 days above 100. That was before anything like air conditioning in buses was thought of for [LAUGHTER] the people that worked here. Yeah, I would be away from home 11 and a half hours a day, be picked up by a shuttle bus that would deposit me at the big bus lot and then take a big bus out to wherever. And it was a toss-up of whether we should have the windows open or have the windows closed, because the air was so hot. Bauman: As so what were you working on then? Hendrickson: The four tech grad assignments. And I've spoken of two—water treatment, and another looking at the radiation impact on the Columbia River. And then I worked with the group that--they called them material and processes. And when something had to be done--a lot of things fell in that category—and they would finish up engineering if it were a new piece of equipment. And then see to procurement. Or they would work on a better decontamination material. When something gets into the contaminated water, the contamination will absorb onto the surface and stay there. And to get it off, you have to do some pretty strong chemistry. And [LAUGHTER] I've seen car loads of decontaminating reagents laying out in the sun, and I'd go test them. It's amazing what industry--Turco was a supplier of these decontaminating chemicals. And they would send us batches of new stuff that they'd worked up. Then we would test them here with our contaminants, and we give the results to them. But they wouldn't tell us what was in the samples they had given us. And I thought that was kind of a dirty trick. And then, I remember one fellow was working on epoxies. And I'd used epoxies at the research reactor in Pullman, so I knew something about that and thought it was interesting. Now there's a fourth one, but I can't remember what it was. Well, after I finished the doctorate, I came here for six months and then had two and a half year postdoc at the Naval Ordinance Laboratory. Then I worked at Idaho Falls at the chemical reprocessing plant and got run out of there and came to the DOE at Hanford for 20 more years—ten years with FFTF and ten years with the radioactive waste tanks. The waste coming from reprocessing fuel--reprocessing to recover the plutonium. And for a while, they were recovering the uranium, because we had huge quantities here that they wanted to use. They would put it back into service at another reactor. When I was here for six months as a summer prof--excuse me. That was really challenging, and when it was all over, I finally realized that what they had done was given me the unsolved problems of 17 years of operation. And it was daunting. One thing I worked out with caveman techniques—no computer, [LAUGHTER] nothing like that. But I had to know the chemistry used to separate CCM and strontium from the radioactive waste. And they were separated and put in a different place at high concentration. And then, those long half-lived isotopes, fission products, would not be in the humongous million-gallon tanks of waste. And they can use ion exchange resins to take out strontium. It's harder to do cesium, but they could do that, too. Bauman: What years would this have been that you were working on this stuff with the tanks and so forth? Hendrickson: Well in '71 as a summer prof, I did six months. And then, when I came back in '80--I came back to Hanford in '80, and I worked through the end of the century. The last ten years I worked on the tanks and the tank farms. Because of my technical interests, I would often get safety issues and the documentation that money is spent on in great quantities at facilities like this--environmental and safety documents. What was your question again? Bauman: Oh, my question was just about the time period that you were working on the [INAUDIBLE]. Hendrickson: Oh, time period. Yeah. It was in the '70s. And at the post-doc at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. I worked for a man that had been extracting and measuring cesium in natural waters. That means in a lake, a river, in the coastal waters, and up, I want to say Kamchatka. There's a string of islands that go from Western Alaska down, almost to the Siberian coast. And a lot of bombs had been tested in the atmosphere, and the fission products go up. They absorb on bomb casing material and sand and whatever happens to be for it to absorb on. And then it falls into natural waters. And the government, through its various agencies, keeps a track—kept monitoring this. And my mentor at the ordnance lab had been following cesium. And the sodium, potassium--oh my goodness, what's next? I want to say--it's been a long time since I had a chemistry course. They're very difficult to remove from anything. They don't readily form insoluble products. But there are a few compounds that can be precipitated from an aqueous solution to a salt that's insoluble that will take out some of these very soluble ions. And for cesium--cesium was a third one. Below sodium is lithium. If they mix a solution of nickel chloride, nickel sulfate, with a solution of sodium or potassium ferrocyanide, a precipitate will form. It'll be nickel ferrocyanide. And it starts with a couple of these getting together, and then some more bump into them, and more and more, until you get a real crystal. Well, when this goes on, the cesium is picked up, just as if it were a sodium. No, that's not right. It gets into the crystal structure. It's a foreign body, but it is incorporated into the crystal structure. And it's really a good extractor. It sucks up cesium to a very low concentration level. Well, then they can filter that out, and the cesium, as I said before, doesn't go to the big, million-gallon tanks. And that was good. We liked to keep track of our radioisotopes. Now these waste tanks, million-gallon waste tanks, everything goes in there. It's a dog's breakfast of processed chemicals and some things that shouldn't be in there. Now, as a kid, I knew about black gunpowder—potassium nitrate and sulfur and charcoal. And I knew how it would explode. Well, our tanks are chock-full of nitrates, which give off oxygen for the burning of sulfur and charcoal. It's an explosive, and a good one. Well, there you've got this oxidizing agent in huge quantities. And you've got nickel ferrocyanide intimately mixed with this oxidizer. And the cyanide radical is a carbon and a nitrogen. And carbon gives off a lot of energy when it's oxidized with CO2 or CO. So people would naturally wonder what might happen. And people study it, and people write papers on it, and senators say, oh my god, you find out what's going to happen! So they had a $25 million program to find out what happens in this mixture of oxidizer and ferrocyanide. And they assigned it to me. I had published in the area of cesium extractants and knew something about the chemistry. [LAUGHTER] And before I got very far into it, I tried to find out what was known about it. And there are guys here they call the graybeards. It was a senior process chemist. And they had thought it over and decided it's safe if it's wet. So that was in the back of my mind. And you may know about the—what is that? Committee? Nuclear facility safety committee, I think. Really smart guys, cream of the crop that really know their sciences. And they were set to looking at the government's nuclear facilities, because there were a lot of noise--horrible things are going to happen or have happened and the government's covered it over, that sort of thing. Well, that became one of their concerns. So, I've worked in civil service all of my life. I say I've never had an honest job. When problems come up and our government says that there's a problem, and we got to fix it, then a bunch of people are gotten together as part of a bureaucracy, and they take care of it. A lot of times, after that problem's gone, they still take care of things. But a very capable--Westinghouse at this time--man, and I can't remember his last name, Jim. He's a PhD physicist. He wrote up a program to thoroughly study this issue. And it was just talk what this National Committee wanted--that kind of approach. So we did five years of really good chemistry. And at the end, well, we proved that if it's kept wet, it's safe. But more importantly, we learned that the cyanide is decomposed. It's a rather energetic substance and readily reacts with other things. So it's not a cyanide anymore. And it's soluble in water, it's in the salt cake. Well that was a fun time. And I quickly learned that, okay, what is needed to satisfy the committee is to do good science. And by doing that, we may very well find a solution. And then the contractor and I had to close these issues. I think there were four or five reports we had to write to convince people that we have conscientiously studied and assessed the hazard and then state what remnant hazard there is, and get their buy off, and then I could go do something else. So there's a lot of management or bureaucratic processes that bedevil the technical manager nowadays. Bauman: Mm-hm. During that time when you were working at the tanks, were there any problems with leaking or any of that sort of thing at that point? Hendrickson: Oh, that and another things. [LONG PAUSE] I'm kind of uncomfortable talking about some of that, because there are people screaming the sky is falling! And there are some real problems, all right. [LAUGHTER] But throwing them into public conferences is kind of difficult. But it'll be handled with bureaucratic methods. And I--[LAUGHTER] when people say all things are terrible at Hanford, I say not to worry, there are plenty of hardworking taxpayers. And I'm afraid that they take it in the neck many times. But then, what is done out here in the cleanup is just amazing. I have always been concerned about radiation on health. And, of course, the bureaucratic approach, which worked very well--the health physics people here—Parker, an amazing man. What was done in radiation protection here at Hanford was first class, and, I think, very conscientious. I've heard about the very earliest limits of radiation exposure. At the time we started fissioning here, started the reactors operating, most of the data came from radiation therapy given to people, usually for cancer, but other problems as well. And the radium dial painters--do you know what that is? Bauman: Mm-hm, yeah. Hendrickson: People would get watches and clocks with radium mixed with the phosphorus, so it would glow. It glows all time, but you can see it in the dark. And they would be painted in, and the ladies that did that had little artist paint brushes. And they'd dip it in. And if they had to make a fine line, they would put it in their lips and rotate it. And died horribly from--radium's chemistry is like calcium, it goes to the bone. And it's a bad way to go. But they started out from that level. And I think they were very rational and very conservative. Since '44, we've learned a great deal, and we've lowered the limits. Bauman: You mentioned earlier that you spent a period of time working at FFTF. Hendrickson: Yes. Bauman: I was wondering if you would talk about that a little bit at all? What sort of work you did there, and your experiences in that work? Hendrickson: Bear in mind that in World War II, there were a number of things that were very useful and high technology. And America developed them and used them, and they contributed significantly to the successful outcome from our viewpoint, anyway, of the Second World War. And, of course, radar is one, sonar. I lost my train of thought. [LAUGHTER] Just a minute. Of course, I think the power levels of our early, primitive, first-built production reactors was up in several thousand megawatts of heat released. They were pretty big reactors. And people in the know said, that's a lot of power. Can we use it to power submarines that would not have to come up except for food and water, and could be submerged for a month? Well, smart guys in the Navy and the Atomic Energy Commission made it happen. And very soon, they had prototype power reactors online making electricity, putting it into the grid. And according to the cost estimates of the time, it would be very economical to produce power that way. And a lot of utilities got into that. And big companies like Westinghouse and Combustion Engineering, Babcock and Wilcox, and GE made power reactors and sold them, and they were run in this country and largely were very successful. And so people say well, let's look at the slope of this line. And by, I think it was the year 2000, we're going to have 1,000 big power reactors operating. And that's going to eat up the world's known supply of uranium. What will we do then? And, of course, a physicist said well, you can breed plutonium, and it makes a fine fuel for power reactors. And they proved that. And FFTF was a big part of the technology developed. And because of this projection, they made decisions in the late '60s—projections of 1,000 power reactors being used in America in the year 2000. In the late '60s, the Atomic Energy Commission committed itself to developing breeder reactors and started a really smart program to get the kind of knowledge necessary to use that kind of a reactor system. And for generations, the electric power generation in America had been increasing 7% a year. And people that we never give a thought to had seen to having that power available for us. And they put reactors in. They thought reactors were good, and safe, and economical. Well, the FFTF was kind of the last of the great efforts along this line. And they were going to build a demonstration plant at—not Chalk River. That's Canada. Do you recall that—? Bauman: No. Hendrickson: Well, they were going to build a prototype. It means a big, nearly full sized reactor. And the lead time on some of the stuff, sometimes the lead time is three or four years just to get billets to run through the rolling mills of a special alloy needed. So there was a lot of planning going on and ordering components. And the Arabs don't like our politics in the Middle East. And cut off delivery of oil, the price went way up. I'd heard that the cost of oil at a seaport in Saudi Arabia cost $0.25 a barrel, because it's so easy to drill, and it's easy to get out. And you can plan ahead on things like that. But our growth rate just, phew, and growth rate of electrical demand went down. And I don't know where it stands now, but the whole world went through [LAUGHTER] a technological crisis when that happened. And we had kind of a recession in this country. And a lot of the industry did not build in anticipation of growth. And they stopped building reactors. They finished the ones that were being built. And this projection of meeting 1,000 reactors in 2000 was way off. I think we've had around 200 power reactors. I'm not sure, something like that. But we kept this program going in spite of economic changes and projected electrical demand changes. Though what we did here was wonderful science. The Japanese just shook their heads when we decided to shut down FFTF. In their country, they don't do things like that. They should have run FFTF until the wheels fell off, because we'll need that data some time. And the materials development that took place at FFTF is just amazing. I have thought of NASA as doing wonderful things with science, and big projects that cost billions. But I think what was done here in fuel and materials developments is of that quality and that nature and being a very big effort. Bauman: Let me ask you, during your working at Hanford—the different times you worked here—what you see as your biggest rewards working here and maybe your biggest challenges. Hendrickson: Well, [LAUGHTER] certainly from my standpoint, a wild technologist, I appreciated that technical experience they were great things done here. And it's easier, just off the top of the head, it's easier for me to say the benefits I got. And I got to go to work in very large, very focused management systems. And I saw quite a bit of development of the individual engineers. The contractors were good at that, at least when we had long-term missions. Well, of course, in the early days when plutonium was the product, I didn't have any qualms about that. I kind of trusted of the government to be halfway humane if it were used in war. But at some point, I realized the system was crazy. The CIA in 1972 said that--I think it was '72, in a newspaper clipping I read--that we had more bombs at that time than we would ever use in a war. And we just kept producing until the environmentalists used the environmental regulations to shut down the production facilities. The CIA was dead right about having all we needed. And bureaucracies, once they get started, are self-fulfilling. Bauman: You just mentioned the shift from production to clean up. Obviously, the mission changed. And you were here during both phases, I guess. I wonder, can you talk about how that shift impacted your work at all, or changes you saw as a result of that sort of change in mission? Hendrickson: Well, the turnaround of the mission occurred before I got here in '80. It was thought--when I got here, we were deep into clean-up. When I worked as a summer prof in '71, I talked to the old timers. And they told me this one tank level goes up and goes down--up and down on a rather regular basis. And they didn't know why. I had no idea why. And now we know very well. I think we spend around $100 million getting that knowledge. And it was touted as a great incipient disaster. We're going blow those tanks up and blow that waste all over. So it was known, and it wasn't worried about at one point. People do get complacent, I guess. But then again they sited these facilities out in this unpopulated desert. Some people from the east--when they came out here--they come to the airport and get in town, and then they have to drive 55 miles out to the facility. Most of the world doesn't think that way. So we built in great depth of protection in simply where we sited it. One thing that they did--they released huge quantities, industrial quantities of carbon tetrachloride that was used in extraction and cleanup of plutonium. And they released it to the ground. I think there were thousands of gallons. And that's not smart to do that sort of thing. We released radioactive streams to the ground that were very, very, very low in radioactivity. And I don't worry about that sort of thing. It's not going to lead to any harm—in Wally's opinion. But some things [LAUGHTER] that they found out there are really amazing. These old timers that worked around the tank farm said they would throw radioactive tools, dirty, contaminated tools down in the tanks, and they would throw radioactive machines that they didn't want any more down in the tanks. This is just hearsay. [LAUGHTER] And the tanks whose level would rise and low were studied. I think it was around $100 million. They found out that there were radiolytic gases given off, and gases given off by chemical reactions. Even after decades in the tank, still going on. Well some of the gas attaches itself to particles so it doesn't bubble to the top. And that heavy sediment at the bottom gets lighter, and lighter, and lighter, and then it rises up and goes to the surface. And the gas bubbles expand, and they break. And you've got explosive gases in the tank. Well, guys told me that some of the fellas would like a match and drop it down the tanks, and light a piece of paper and let it float down into the tanks and go, woof! That's not firsthand information. [LAUGHTER] But people sure can get worked up about things. Bauman: Security and secrecy are sort of always connected with Hanford. I wonder if you could talk about that all in terms of maybe the first time you were here in the 1950s--did you have a special clearance at all, and did security, secrecy change at all from the time you were here in the '50s--you were here later in the '80s? Hendrickson: That's a subject I have strong feelings about. I think they did a very good job. And I trust their judgment that it was necessary. Yeah, it was part and parcel of living in Richland. I was told at one time, you had to have a security clearance to live in the town of Richland. And I think there a lot of the old timers here. I believe Richland has a very low crime rate, a carryover from those times, I think. People that they wouldn't give a security clearance to lived someplace else. They didn't come here. Of course, I was young, and what's the word? Impressionable. And I saw all of the guards and had a badge and would flash it. It got so when I'd go to a grocery store, I'd take my badge out. [LAUGHTER] Nuclear weapons kill people by the hundreds of thousands, or millions for the big hydrogen bombs. And we wouldn't want the technology, or bomb material, or the bomb itself in the hands of people that we don't want to have it. And when you think of the consequences of failure in the security area, you realize why they are so thorough. Now the rules are thought out carefully by experienced people. And the rules are pretty well written out. And people are able to follow those rules. So I think we owe a lot to the safeguards and security programs that have been part of this world. Bauman: I wonder if you could talk about, overall, your thoughts on Hanford as a place to work. Hendrickson: I was surprised when I came as an undergraduate at how happy the people were with the Tri-cities. They liked it. I'd come from mountainous timber land. [LAUGHTER] Being out here in this sandbox was something different. I think people like it here. As a technical guy, I was glad I was in this environment. I think the Richland Police Department is a couple notches above the average. I think that's a carry-over from the effort made in this area by the Manhattan Project. One bad thing about Hanford is that it would have economic ups and downs, really severe ones. And a number of times in my experience here, I've seen weeds growing in cracks in the sidewalks and closed businesses. It looks like we'll have a good economy here, this handling the cleanup is going to take decades. And I think they even haven't planned too much for the very end. Bauman: Before we started recording, you were talking earlier--you mentioned something you had worked on during the Vietnam War. I know it's not directly related to Hanford, but I wondered if you might want to talk about that a little bit more. Hendrickson: Well, there was a connection with Hanford. After I left that post-doc at the Naval Ordnance Lab, I worked at Idaho Falls with the Atomic Energy Commission, within a group that looked after the fuel reprocessing plant. And we would call it the chemical plant. And after I'd been there about a year, a message came from headquarters that they wanted volunteers to go to Vietnam to take out the highly enriched uranium that fueled a TRIGA-type reactor at Da Lat in South Vietnam. And they wanted people with health physics and TRIGA-reactor experience. Now I'd worked on a TRIGA reactor for ten years, and kind of by that a lightweight health physicist. And my buddy was a GS-14 health physicist at Idaho Falls. And he had been president of the western section of the—let’s see—the Health Physics Society. So he and I talked and said, yeah, we'll volunteer. And we were the only volunteers out of about 20,000 AEC people. When I worked at the radiation center in Pullman, I chummed around with a lot of the graduate students and post-docs. I really enjoyed that. And one of them developed into a friendship. He was a Vietnamese physicist trained at the University of Saigon. And some of their degrees are taken as the same level as the Sorbonne degrees in France at that time. And he worked on a nuclear engineering master's program. And he was earmarked to return to work at the reactor that was being built. It was quite a complex--they even had their independent power--diesel electric generator. Well, he wanted to stay for a doctorate in radiochemistry and started on that, but his country demanded he come back. And he worked at the reactor. And he and I corresponded. And he told me about meeting a small pharmacienne—I guess that's the technical—the feminine form of pharmacist in French. And I'd hear about his courtship and had a baby. And then he didn't answer my letters. And when I was in the DC area at the Naval Ordnance Lab, I called the Vietnam embassy, and the man I got had been my friend's boss at the reactor. And Ti was dead—La Banh Ti. And I'd learned about his experience- - he, and his wife, and his little girl Christine had gone up to Hue, where Ti's father lived for the Chinese New Year. That's a real big thing in Asia. Well, of course, that was in the time of the Tet Offensive. And Hue was overrun, including the citadel. And the American and Vietnamese forces eventually pushed them back. Ti had been seen by some of the Viet Cong, and one fellow knew him and fingered him. And he was taken as prisoner to a park and kept there. And after the Viet Cong realized they'd better retreat, the prisoners were taken out to the edge of the city and put in a ditch and shot, which isn't as bad as it might be, because sometimes they would douse them with gasoline and light it. Well I knew about the reactor in Da Lat from my association with Ti. And we--John Horan and I--John died probably 20 years ago--he was an airman in the Second World War. We said, yeah, we'll go. And that was sent back to Washington. That was Friday. And I went with a scout group up in the hills outside of Idaho Falls. And I'd made two toboggan-like things out of old skis with the seat on it, and the boys played with that. I went hiking, and I came across a pregnant doe. And I followed the tracks. I heard the noise, and I realized eventually that it was a pregnant doe, so I broke off. But I was doing that on the weekend. And Monday I took flight for Vietnam. And I didn't have a passport. So we made arrangements for special treatment with a passport office in San Francisco. [LAUGHTER] It was a hassle. The guy that was supposed to take care of that detail had gone to a dentist and not told anyone. When Horan got back, he wrote a bad letter to that guy's boss. But we got it. We finally got it--we got a visa from the Vietnamese and flew over--that's a long flight. And we were met at the airport by the first secretary--political military. He was a career department of state man. I think he's still alive. He's in his mid-90s. Just a first class person. Well the first thing he did when he recognized us was remind us that we were volunteers. It went downhill from there. We were to go up in a small plane just to reconnoiter, see what conditions were at the reactor. And, let's see--that must have been a four-seater. There were four of us that went up. Jay Blowers was his name. What was it--Air America, run by the CIA. And I couldn't see the compass--I sat in the back. But I could tell the direction by the sun. Instead of flying from Saigon north-northeast to Da Lat, we went directly east out over the South China Sea, and then north-northeast, and then directly west. And when I'd figured that out, I said why? And they said, well, the Viet Cong has very respectable anti-aircraft capability between those two cities. And I thought, okay. But when we got there--I think it's at 5,000 plus feet, and it's a wonderful place after you've been down at sea level in the tropics. And the French used it—developed it as a vacation area. And there was a college there, and a school for noncommissioned officers. And I saw all kinds of agriculture—oh, yeah, there was an agricultural school of some kind. Well, we came to an area that was nothing but clouds. And there were mountain peaks around. And we went round, and round, and round, trying to find a hole. And we were just about to the point where we would have to leave because we only had enough gas to make it back to Saigon. And the pilot saw a hole, and he went shoo! like that and leveled. And we were going straight towards a mountain. He went shoo! like that. And there was a landing field and plopped down on the field. It was so fast, I didn't get to react. I wasn't used to that kind of flying. Well we found the reactor in very good condition. And they had a fork truck which wasn't in good condition, and we needed a fork truck to lift shipping containers. The ones we got were brought by air from Bethesda Naval Hospital in DC. And they were 55 gallon drums. And they had a pipe--an ordinary plumber's type pipe. It was kind of big, though. Must've been six inches. And there were some lead around it. And then concrete around that. And they were pretty heavy. So we needed heavy handling equipment. And they had a bridge crane. Now, a lot of research reactors are built like this one, which is that in a round building, straight walls, and then a dome. And there's a ridge up at the top that a crane—polar crane, I think they call them—goes like this. And they had some problem with it, but they said it would work. And the water was in excellent condition, though they had shut it down since '68. The head of the reactor, the manager became a close friend, and he has died. You know this was in '75, March of '75. This is interesting; Wally did something smart--two things smart. When we were in Saigon, we quickly went over to the Vietnamese atomic energy office and said we're from the government, and we're here to help you. And we’d gotten sign off by the political type that was over such things as research. And we said we want your help, we want to go up and see what's there, and what we need to get the fuel out. And how hot is the fuel, stuff like that. Of course, they didn't know, because they hadn't fooled with it for seven years. And they had shut it down. I thought whenever, in the nuclear field, they do something like that, they write a safety report. So I asked, do you have a safety report? May I see it? And in the report, typically they do the thought experiment of, well what happens if the fission products are dispersed in the air, the whole bunch. And so I saw that they had figured out the amount of cesium and strontium. Those are the long half-lived elements. They wouldn't have gone down a little bit in seven years. They had that all worked out. And I said, well, from that amount of so many curies, at this distance, you'd get this dose rate. But we'll only take out one fuel element time--piece of cake. It's no problem. But anyway, we took out a fuel element, because we wanted to survey it. And Horan had bought our emergency response box. We had dosimeters and radiation instruments--some of them we got from Berkeley. I don't know how that was arranged. And we would take the fuel out with a long hose that had a gripper at the end. The TRIGA had a little post sticking up that was sort of arrow shaped, and a neck. And metal--a mechanical thing on this garden hose went on that post and clamped onto the neck. And we'd pull it to the surface. And that particular hose system had a history of dropping the fuel elements. So we immediately grabbed the fuel element in the bare hand and disconnected it. And a guy over there, about eight feet, would read it with a G-M tube. That's what this case was. Well the guy with serving instrument was down on the steps a ways. And he walked up, which also brings him closer. And we could hear the count rate--zeeeeee. And it stops. And people experienced with high sources and G-M tubes know [LAUGHTER] that it's saturated, and it's really hot, and you better get away. And Horan says oh, we got a divide by ten thing. We'll put that on it. Well, the thing that goes bad in counting the radioactivity is in the Geiger tube itself. So the divide by ten was useless. And we got--I said, well, let's just stand back farther. [LAUGHTER] And we got a good reading, a valid reading. That tickled me, that the Idaho health physicist hadn't picked up on the instrumentation they had for emergencies. Well let's see, I guess this might have been the second trip up there. But anyway, there was a little fence around the grounds and a guard's house at the entrance, and a lean-to made of bamboo on the side. And a family was living under that lean-to. And they had several children--one was really small. And I talked to them, and they didn't know English, but I talked to them anyway. And the little girl had--I don't know if they call it harelip, but anyway her two front teeth were growing on jawbone that was in front of her lip. And wars are expensive, and a lot of things are neglected because of that. I really hate to see war anyplace. Problems like that can be dealt with so easily. But I had some time, and I offered to give the children a tour through the reactor. I guess the guard spoke enough English. So I took them, and pointed to the crane and pointed to this great—oh dear, the reactor was in a silo-like concrete shield with water. And then we climbed a step up to the top. But anyway, I pointed to different things, and then I took them into the chem labs, and there was a model of the reactor. And I said--oh, see that reactor out here? Here's a model. And the oldest girl, you could just see her face light up. She understood, and she explained to the kids what it was. Well, then we went back to Saigon. And communicated with headquarters—Atomic Energy Commission headquarters. I found out that this was handled at a very high level. The White House decided who was going to pay for the recovery, and an Air Force general was given responsibility for transportation. And an AEC fellow course handled the AEC part. And I've met him. Bauman: And the connection to Hanford was-- Hendrickson: Well. Oh! Oh yeah--do you have time? I can tell more about actually moving the fuel. Bauman: Just a little more, yeah. Hendrickson: Well, we got the fuel out. The C-130 was overloaded, and we didn't know it. And the airport runway was on top of a hill, and we had to fight off people that wanted to take refuge in our plane and be taken out to the south. And the plane was backed up. And the engine revved up as high as it'll go with the brakes on, and then the brakes are released. And it starts out about like a baby buggy, just rumbling along and the engines are straining. And it did pick up speed, but at this time I could see out the pilot's window, and we didn't so much take off as we ran out of runway and there were farmhouses outside the wings. And we got back. And then these heavy casks were loaded on a different kind of airplane--C-141, and taken to Johnson Island, and then to the States. And some of the elements came here to Hanford and were used in the FFTF complex for experimental work. And I met the director of that reactor. He is a good man. Bauman: Now, that's quite a story. Are there any—beginning to wrap up here--anything I haven't asked you about or anything you think is important to talk that we haven't talked about yet? Hendrickson: Anything else I think might be important? Bauman: Yeah, that I haven't asked you about or that we haven't talked about yet that you'd like to say sort of briefly here at the end? Hendrickson: Oh, there are a number of things--I probably could think a little bit. Maybe I'll make some notes and contact you. Bauman: And we could always schedule another, Hendrickson: If it seems worthy, I'll contact you. Bauman: Okay. I want to thank you a lot for coming in today. I really appreciate you sharing your memories and your experiences. Hendrickson: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: All right. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:32:02 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1955-1957; 1980-2000 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1955-1957; 1980-2000 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. La Banh Ti Horan, John Blowers, Jay 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 Wally Hendrickson Description An account of the resource An interview with Wally Hendrickson 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 Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear instruments & methods Nuclear waste disposal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-7-30 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-8: Metadata v1 created – [RG] CIA General Electric Hanford (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 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Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Bauman Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Danny Henry Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 220 kbps Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Northwest Public Television | Henry_Danny </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: My name is Danny Henry. Spelling is D-A-N-N-Y. Middle initial is R for Ray, R-A-Y, Henry, H-E-N-R-Y. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: All right. Thank you. And my name's Robert Bauman, and we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities on July 2nd of 2014. So let's start maybe by talking about how and when your family first came to the Tri-Cities. When that was, and why they came. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay. Actually, my father first of all came to the Tri-Cities. And he came to the Tri-Cities, I believe it was somewhere around '48. It was in the mid or late 40s. And he actually came out from the South, from Arkansas--Atkins, Arkansas, Polk County. And he was married to my mom at that time, but she stayed back in the South, and he came out to work for the government during the war effort. And he worked out here for some period of time. I don't know how long, but he liked it out here. And so once his mission was done, he went back to the South. And then later years, came back out and found work with the railroad. And then eventually he started working construction. And he became a laborer, and worked construction. Then he came back out to the site, and worked at N Reactor for some period of time. And I can even remember back in the 60s when John Fitzgerald Kennedy came out here, the President, to give a speech about the N Reactor. I was a kid. I think I was probably about seven or eight years old, maybe 10, somewhere around there. And then he decided to stay out here. When he came back out to the Northwest, back out to Washington, decided to stay out here and got work, and then sent for my mom, and she came out. And so they made a life and stayed on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Hm. Do you know how he originally heard about Hanford? It's a long way from Arkansas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: My understanding from my older brother, which is 20 years older than me, he said that he actually received direction from the government, or allowance from the government, and received gas credit, or chips, or whatever, in order to drive out and to show up at the Hanford site at some designated time. And so him and another one of his friends both drove out, and they went to work out here during in the 40s. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So he was recruited in some way or something, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So then you were born in the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes, I was born in Pasco, Washington in 1953, May 7, 1953. And I graduated Pasco High School, went on to college, and graduated from Evergreen State College, and then returned back here to the Tri-Cities and found employment out at Hanford. First of all, it was with Rockwell, and with the fire department. I'll back up a little bit. During the summer of when I was in high school, two summers, I did work out for J. A. Jones at that time in the 300 Area, and I actually worked as a printer, or learned—as a summer job, and learned how to print on these old, offset printers. And did that for two summers. And so when—actually I had graduated from college and came back. While I was at college, I did receive an emergency medical technician certificate through the State of Washington, and so it was a good shoo-in to go to work for the fire department as a firefighter. So let's see. It was Chief Good at that time who hired me. And at that time there was only a few that had EMT certifications. And Chief Good had told me that there was no intention at that time to actually have the fire department respond for emergency care. They had always called the Richland fire department, or Kadlec, or some other emergency services. And so I didn't really see a whole bunch of future in staying there at the fire department. So I heard that they were hiring down at N Reactor for reactor operators, and the pay was a bit better. So I thought that would be a challenge. And so I applied. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so you got a job there, then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. I started working at N Reactor, I believe it was late 1978, and went into the reactor operator program, and eventually—well, started in the fuels department, and then had the opportunity to get into the certification program for the control room. And decided I would take on the challenge. There was a lot talk back and forth with the other operators. Some was pro and some was con. No, it's not really better to work in the control room. It's better to work in fuels. But I seen a challenge of being able to actually operate a reactor. And I really wanted that certification. And so I did go in the certification program. And after, I think, two years, two and a half years—I think the class started out, I think it was like 24, 26. And the final certified reactor operators, I think there was six of us. I could probably name them. Yeah. And all the other operators dropped out, and they went back to fuels, or they got into the trades, or just left the company. But I stayed on and was certified. It was very, very challenging, very hard. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Right. And so how long was that training program again? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: The training program, I think it was about a year and a half, two years. With all of the qualifications, you had to be trained on all the different systems. You had to get checked out by the senior operators, and they would ask you questions, and make sure you were proficient in every one of those before you got the sign-off. So you had to complete all of that, as well as take tests, periodic tests, on the systems. And when you had finished all your actual qualifications, then you were allowed to take the eight-hour exam. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, okay. Hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And so once I had finished up mine, there was testing. And I took the eight-hour exam, and passed the eight-hour exam. I think I probably took about 10 hours to finish it, but that was fine. And passed the exam. And from there, you were then allowed to do a walk through, where a senior trainer would take you out into the facility, and basically ask you anything he wanted to, all the way from the front face, to the rear face, to the confinement valves, to the emergency cooling system, and anything in components or valves, and circuitry, and all of that. And I passed that, and did quite well. I spent a lot of time actually—when I was an operator, the duties primarily was laundry, because there was a lot of SWPs, or radioactive clothing that was used. So someone always had to maintain laundry. And then also some of the duties was housekeeping. Some of the duties was actually patrol, where actually you went through the reactor, and made sure all of the outside systems and everything was in correct alignment, and there wasn't any out-of-spec conditions. So I spent a lot of time out in the reactor. At the time when I was out, I took it upon myself to take prints with me, and actually verify and look at a lot the systems out there, so I knew them pretty well. So that was one of the things that really worked for me when I did my walk-through. I was really ready for that. And I think I scored highest in my walk-through of the three tests. The final test was the oral exam. And the oral exam consisted of a senior person from training, senior person from operations, senior person from nuclear safety. And they all sat on your board. And I think there was one other individual also, I think may have been quality assurance, maybe. And basically they sit in a room like this, and you sit in front of a table, and they ask you questions, and you answer the questions. And they had the choice of asking you whatever questions they chose to, as long as it related to reactor operations, up to and including the electrical distribution systems that powered or brought power to the reactor, as well as the power going out, steam systems, all of the different auxiliary systems part of the plant. But anyway, I passed that exam also, the oral board. And so then I was granted my certification. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: A pretty grueling process. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: It was, very much. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so how long were you an operator, then, how long did you work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Actually, as a certified operator—I maintained my certification, I believe, for a year and a half, maybe two years. There was a requalification. I think it was about a year and a half. I did operate the reactor, the nuclear console, the AA console. That probably doesn't mean anything to you, but the water systems, or the actual nuclear panel, where you actually pulled and maintained power, and adjusted power, and also a lot of the air balance systems, and the secondary systems, where the steam was produced and sent over to Washington State Public Power. We sold steam. It was a dual purpose reactor. And worked on all of the panels. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so before you were an operator, you worked in fuels, you said. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So what sort of work did that entail? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: The fuels operation--[COUGH] excuse me—was actually--the fuel that would come, that would be the spent fuel that was discharged out of the rear of the reactor would come out, go down, and go what was called a trampoline, and go into the water, and hit this metal mesh chain type of trampoline to slow it down. These fuel elements were, I think, as I remember, somewhere around 50-60 pounds. So coming out of the back of the reactor, they were there pretty heavy. And so then they would roll down into conveyor carts, and that's one of the duties as a fuel operator, doing charge discharge. You'd basically take the fuel after it went through the cart, move it out, index it, take it out, and then place it in various different storage compartments in the back face of the reactor, or actually in the basin, what was called the fuels basin. And then also--that was the primary job of a fuels operator, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so how long total did you work at Hanford, then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Total time at Hanford is 35 years. I've been out here 35 years. It's been a long haul. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah. And so you started in the late 60s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: '78 or '79. I believe my actual start date was 8/1/1978. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So you were there for a little while, and at some point the mission shifts to clean up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: How did that impact the sorts of things you were doing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Well, one of the things about being--as an operator, is that you work shift work. And so I actually worked shift work, I think, for like three years, rotating shift, A, B, C, D; graveyard, swings, days. So I never got used to that. I had a family. I was just starting a family and stuff, and I wanted to be able to spend a lot more time with my kids and my wife on normal hours. So I looked for another job at N Reactor, and there was an opening for actually a process standard engineer/nuclear safety engineer. And so I applied for it. I got the job, and was responsible for maintaining standards, process standards, which is day-to-day operations. If there was any changes or deviations to the operations, there had to be approval. There was an approval process. And so I was kind of responsible for maintaining that, reviewing it, and then approving it through the control room, through my management, in order to make any changes to reactor operations. Pretty much that was that job. It was straight days. I liked that. Five days, I was off the weekends. It was great. And there was some other opportunities also during that time in that position. I wanted to mention, I had a very good mentor. His name was John Long, and he was the nuclear safety engineer, or nuclear safety manager, manager of nuclear safety at that time. And John was very instrumental in assisting and helping me, and I really do appreciate his efforts. He's deceased now. But anyway, John helped me quite a bit when I was in that position. There was other opportunities also. I moved from there, and became—actually went into the planning aspects of outages. And so the reactor would run for so long, sometimes there was a planned outage, sometimes an unplanned outage. Unplanned outages usually were because the reactor scram for some reason. Maintenance had to be done, something had to be fixed or repaired. So for the actual planned outages, I became a planner/scheduler, or took a position as a planner/scheduler, and actually planned to do various different maintenance. What that consisted of was drawing out a long-term plan, and when the reactor was down, to manage that plan, and for the systems to be fixed, repaired, coordinated for the least amount of time so the reactor could actually come back up and running. We were being paid. And it was one thing I wanted to mention about N Reactor. There was a lot, a lot of good spirit. The people who worked out there, they really knew that they were on a mission. This was during the Cold War, and we knew what we were doing, and it was just a lot of good spirit. You know, when you'd ride the bus out--by the way, I rode the bus back and forth. And when you'd be on the bus, and the reactor was down, and you'd get past the fire department, and you'd make that last left turn, people would just kind of wake up. And they'd be looking, and they were looking to see if that green light goes on. There was—on the board, there was a green or red light. And someone up front would say, yeah, we're up. And it was just a lot of that kind of spirit of wanting the reactor to run. I really, really liked that. So being a part of the--doing the planning and scheduling, or a position as planner/schedule was a real shoo-in to going to work as outage manager. I then became an outage manager, where actually I managed the outage center. And the outage center basically coordinated, on a daily basis, on a shift basis--there was six of us, and I guess you could say we were kind of elite, we were very picked to run that, because it was so critical to the mission—and your responsibilities was to make sure that things got done as scheduled, as planned, and that you had the craft resources to do them. You coordinated with the operations folks, the fuel folks, the engineering. That was your job, to coordinate all those efforts. A lot of the things that happened in the plant and the repairs actually required that you have engineers in place in case there was questions, technical questions, changes to paperwork that had to be authorized, and so on and so forth. So that was part of the job as outage--primary job as an outage manager is to make sure of that. And you reported directly to upper management, and sometimes DOE. So you were responsible on a daily basis to coordinate and have those meetings, and ensure that work got done and statused at the end of the day. So shortly after that, they announced that—or probably, I guess, maybe about six to eight months in that position--they announced that N Reactor--after Chernobyl--they announced the N Reactor would no longer be on the same mission, and it was going to shut down. So I moved from there to another job. I actually left N Reactor, and went to 200 Area, and worked as a nuclear safety engineer, over for—I'm trying to think right now. I can remember who I worked for. I worked for Arlen Shade. But actually, my responsibilities was over B Plant WESF. And at that time they had just started to bring back the capsules that was basically sent down to--I forget exactly--Decatur, I think. Yeah. And anyway, these capsules, there was some problems with them. But anyway, they were bring them back. And so I was right as part of that. I don't know what happened to that mission, but I served there as a nuclear safety engineer with oversight responsibilities over people at WESF for a period of time. And then after that, let's see. I almost have to look at my resume to think. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: It's really been--it's actually been that long. Of course you're going to be cutting and doing clips and stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: So I can just-- Oh, by the way I have a--I actually pulled this out. This was actually my certification. Wally Ruff's name over to the right there kind of faded. It must have gotten wet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, yeah, huh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: That's the original certification. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: [INAUDIBLE] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: What's that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: --the control room on the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't know exactly what you guys would want, but I just grabbed some stuff. This was my 30-year recognition with Fluor. I don't have a 35. I don't know. They didn't give out a 35-year recognition. I don't know why. Let's see. Where am I? Process standards, senior outage planner, outage manager of nuclear safety, principal engineer. Oh! Yeah. Then after that there was—actually, when I was--as the nuclear safety principal engineer oversight over B Plant WESF, there was a position that came available for a manager for OSHA compliance, OSHA safety and health program. We had previously been benefited, let me say, with headquarters coming out, and they were called the tagger team. And they basically came out to the site, and they went through the whole site, and they were doing assessments. They had a very, very large group, and they assessed the site, with the effort to give feedback to the improvements that needed to be done at Hanford. Well, part of the actions, or corrective actions, was to develop an OSHA type of assessment program that would look at occupational safety and health, industrial hygiene, and in some aspects, I think, fire protection. Anyway, there was a position open, and I did not have the background in occupational safety and health, but I talked to my manager, and talked to my manager, and finally I convinced him to put me in as a temporary position, just as an acting manager. And so he went ahead and authorized that. So I then moved from the outer areas down to 300 Area, and from there, he basically said, okay, Danny, you want this position. You think you can do it? He says, okay, here's a stack of resumes. You have two staff and that's it, and a student worker. Okay, so you need to first of all hire and find some people that are qualified to be inspectors in occupational safety and health, and hygiene. And then you need to have all this done, by the way, and a program developed in four months. And so that was quite a challenge. It was really a challenge. I did hire—went outside and hired some people, and they were good people. We were a very good team. I didn't know about occupational safety and health, but they taught me. I knew I could hire people that were smarter than me. And I actually hired--and maybe for reference, one of the people was Judy Larson I don't know if she still is living. But she was a certified industrial hygienist. She was working for PNNL, and she transferred over. I also hired a student that--well, no, he actually had graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, and he wanted to do fire protection. So I said if he came over I'd get him trained up. And so he came over. And I also hired another individual that was an industrial hygienist—or two other individuals, a Clinton Stewart, and the first occupational safety and health person I hired, his name was Steve Norling. And he would be a good person to interview in the future. I would recommend that you do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: How do you spell the last name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Norling. N-O-R-L-I-N-G. Steve. He's a good guy. He still works PRC. I haven't seen him in a few years, but I think he's still out there. But anyway, we developed a program. We put the program together, hired a contractor to actually help us with the writing of the program, and we set it up. And we actually went out in the site, and first of all, we had to compile all of the buildings, because we were basically responsible for all of the Westinghouse people, and all of their facility. So we had to figure out all of the facilities in the whole site. And then we had to have some kind of system to figure which ones we would go look at first, based upon risk. And so we developed that program, and to make a long story short, the tagger team came back out to check the corrective actions on all of the site, and when they got to us, our program, they had no findings, absolutely no findings, zero findings. And they only had one recommendation, in that we needed to involve the employees more. And so then we transitioned into the Voluntary Protection Program. But that was very outstanding. And that really impressed my management. So then from acting manager, I was made manager of the organization, and proceeded on to continue my career. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So what time frame was this, roughly, then? [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Oh, let's see. That was May 1991 to September 1992. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay. Let's see. From there, I transitioned into basically manager of safety programs assessments, which developed. And basically our mission at that point was to develop baseline hazard assessment programs for facilities. And basically, for each facility that you had operations in, to go and do a baseline hazard of everything, both the occupational safety, industrial hygiene, the nuclear aspects of it, and any other types of hazards, so that for that facility, all of the known hazards of that facility would be known and could be communicated, and basically programs and systems set up in place to keep the workers safe. From September 1992 to February 1994, I worked in that position. And after that, I worked as the manager of the Voluntary Protection Program, or actually manager of Industrial Safety Planning, which consisted of managing the Voluntary Protection Program for Westinghouse and for Fluor Hanford, doing their contract transition. And of course the Voluntary Protection Program is still out here on the site, as you probably well know, and there's different--but I was very instrumental in getting that program off zero. After that, I worked as operations engineer. I transitioned and went back out to the site, to 105 K-East and K-West. I worked as an operation specialist in development of the Canister Storage Facility and the Cold Vacuum Drying Facility out at K-Basins and at 200 East, is where the Canister Storage Building is. And then also K-East and K-West storage facility. I was assigned to the shift office, and worked as an OE, Operating Engineer, basically under the direction of a shift manager. And basically managed the facility's work activities, coordinated those on a daily basis to get work done, assigning work to the craft personnel, releasing work packages during lockout/tagout, and various different aspects of operations for that facility, managing that facility. After that, let's see, that was from 1998 to 2002. And from January 2002 to present, I've worked as a management assessment coordinator. And responsibilities are primarily to develop the Management Assessment Program and Integrated Evaluation Plan database for DOE-RL. And let me explain, that Integrated Evaluation Plan is basically a database that takes RL's assessments and our assessments, and basically puts them together, so we have one integrated plan. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: I see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And that effort is to actually benefit, or to alleviate, or eliminate redundancy in assessments, teaming with the site and doing various different assessments, rather than they doing one and we doing the same one. Yeah. So that's currently where I'm at right now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So you've had several different sorts of positions. You've worked at N Reactors, and K-Basins, and different parts of the site. Of the different jobs you had, over the 35 years, different places you've worked, what was—was there a specific job or place that was sort of the most challenging and/or most rewarding, that you got the most sense of accomplishment or reward? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah, there was. I would have to say probably the reactor operations was probably, I'd say, number one, because I know there was no other African Americans that had ever certified at N Reactor, and then later on I found there wasn't any others in any of the other facilities of the plants. So I felt very good about that. And it was very challenging. The second area would have been in developing the OSHA compliance program, because that was basically, I knew basically nothing. And I had to go find people in order to work that were much smarter than me, and be able to develop a program that would actually meet the muster of headquarters when they came back out. And it was very challenging. I stayed up quite a few nights thinking about it and worrying about it. And yeah, it was very challenging. But it was a very, very well-put-together program, and it met everything that they were looking for. So I'd have to say those two positions were the most challenging, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: When you were talking about working at the N Reactor, you talked about riding the bus, and the sort of spirit, the sense of mission, I think, in the Cold War-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So when the Cold War ended in 1989, 1990, did that sort of sense of mission change? Did it shift somewhere? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: I guess I couldn't really expound on that, because what I was speaking of was during the time I was working at N Reactor. And once the Cold War ended, I was at that time working--when did the Cold War end? That was-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Well, I guess it depends, right? The Berlin Wall came down in '89. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: When the wall came down. Okay. Yeah. I was—where was I at at that time? Yeah, I was actually up in the 200 Area. I was oversight. I was a part of an appraisal team doing integrated safety appraisals out of the 200 Area. So I had transitioned away from N Reactor some years before that. So I didn't really feel a difference with what I was doing. The real thing that I seen that really affected a lot of the people at N Reactor was when they announced that it was not going to—it no longer had a mission. It wasn't going to be restarted. The reactor was run very hard, run very well, and produced a lot of power, and was very good in its mission. And there was just a lot of pride there. And when that was announced, there were a lot of people that really was hurt by that, because it was a reason to come to work. It was really a reason to come, and a reason to work for something. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: I want to go back to something you talked about early when you started talking. And you mentioned President Kennedy's visit when he dedicated the N Reactor. So do you remember that? Did you-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: I actually remember that very well. And in fact, it was my father, and my mother, and my sister, and me, and my friend, Ronnie Brown. I haven't seen him in years, but I understand he's doing well. My dad brought us all out to the site, and drove with all of the, what seeming like thousands and thousands of cars, you know, we were just kids, and all the way out to N Reactor. And yes, I definitely remember that. I can remember the helicopters coming in, and the dust flying, and all that. And I didn't know that President Kennedy's hair was red. [LAUGHTER] But on that day, seeing him that close, because me and my friend, we kind of wormed all the way up as close—we were just little tiny kids, so people let us by. And we got up there, and we were able to stand up on—there was like different seating that people had brought. And we just kind of stepped up on one of the little seats that were there, and we had to get our heads up over the crowds. And we could see him when he stepped out of the helicopter, and he walked over to the podium. I can remember that, just like the yesterday. I also remember that day very well because my sister—it must've been over 100 degrees there--my sister was suffering from heat exhaustion. I remember when we actually came back, my mother was taking care of her. She was getting water into her, and everything. That was a very vivid day. That was a very, very, very good day. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: What I also wanted to ask you was, like growing up in Pasco in the 50s and 60s, was it a segregated place? Or was it—what was it like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Not when I came along. Not actually in the 60s. I hear stories about the way it was, but I don't know. I went to Pasco High School. I went to Stevens Junior High School. It was all integrated. My grade school was Whittier. It was integrated. It just was East Pasco, and it was primarily blacks. But also there was Hispanics and whites all went to that school, but it was predominantly black. Then after, actually, when I finished sixth grade, they divided sixth grade, and then seventh, eighth, and ninth. It was junior high school. I was selected, because of where I lived in East Pasco. I was assigned to go to Stevens Junior High School, which was, at that time, way across town, and nothing, hardly anything around it. So we rode the bus over to Stevens. But prior to that, the majority of blacks, African Americans, Hispanics, basically went to McLoughlin Junior High School. But McLoughlin at that time was what is now Pasco City Hall. That used to be McLoughlin. [LAUGHTER] But my brother goes back, I mean my brother's deceased. And he passed away, in fact, about a year and three months ago. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: This was your brother who was about 20 years older? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah. He actually went—the high school at that time was McLoughlin, which then became City of Pasco. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Okay. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And Whittier was the grade school, junior high school when he went to school. I do have some pictures of him. He was part of the patrol that went out and let the kids across the street and stuff. Yeah, he had the little patrol hat on, and all that. I have all those pictures of him when he was really young. And by the way, my brother, he is 20 years older than me, but he graduated from Pasco High. He then entered the Army--or no, he was drafted. He was drafted, and he actually fought in the Korean War. And he corrected me. Every time I said Korean War, he said, no, it's the Korean conflict. It was not a war. [LAUGHTER] And he served two terms in Vietnam, and was wounded. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: What was his first name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Thurman. In fact I have a—here—obituary out of the paper. But he had what I consider a pretty impressive military career. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah, 20 years of active service. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yes. Two terms in Vietnam, a very unpopular war. Me growing up in the 60s, it was, gee, I've got a brother that's overseas fighting, with all the racial strife and stuff here in the United States. But he was very proud of his country, and he was willing to go and do whatever he was assigned to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: And so you had an older brother, and how many other siblings did you have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: I had a sister. I actually had a half-brother and a half-sister, that—they didn't live here. They lived--Margie lived in Wichita, Kansas. And my other brother, half-brother, lived in--I think he lived in Wichita, Kansas, too. I didn't really get to know him that well. I got to know Margie pretty well. Then I had my sister, Marilyn. She graduated from Pasco High School. A teacher for 34 years in Yakima. She just retired about three years ago, I think. And still living in Yakima. But she taught school. And those were all of my siblings. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So would you say that Pasco, Tri-Cities was a good community to grow up in? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Yeah, I think so. I really think so. No, I don't have any--I have to just--not so much the community as much as pointing back to my parents. I think I had very--I've seen other people, my friends with different parents and stuff. And I think I had some pretty good parents. My dad was very industrial. He worked construction as a laborer, but he had rentals. And he had--and of course, I came along much later. But he had houses and rentals, but he worked construction. And him and his best friend, Mr. Louzell Johnson. He was a bricklayer. My dad was a laborer. They kind of was a team. And they worked, and they built a lot of houses throughout Pasco, Kennewick, and Richland back in the 50s and 60s. And he worked on a lot of the dams on the Snake River. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: The building of a lot of the dams. And I can just remember--well, I can remember my mother talking, and also my dad. And on Sundays we would take drives, and he would take us way out to where the dams were being built, and stuff like this, for something to do on Sunday for the family. And I didn't pay any attention to it really. But I can remember. I can remember. Those were very good times. My mother, she worked at the Navy base that was in Pasco. Have you heard— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yes! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: --that there was a Navy base there? She worked in the laundry at the Navy base. And then we came along, my sister and me, and so she just stayed home and took care of us, and my dad worked. But I spent a lot of years painting, and fixing hot water tanks, and unplugging sinks when I was a kid. I was very cheap labor. [LAUGHTER] So I learned to do that stuff really early in life. So that's pretty much my parents. They were very good people. Anybody you ask, they were very good people. There’s the obituary of my mom. I didn't get the obituary of my dad. I didn't find it. I have it somewhere, but there's this picture here. Anyway, go ahead. I just—I’m kind of rambling. So you can--it's a good thing you're editing this, and you can cut out all the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Are there any other events? You talked about the JFK visit. But any other events that sort of stand out in your mind from growing up, or from your years working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: You know, I can't really--not really. Not really anything that really, really stands out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: So overall, then, in looking back at your 35 years working at Hanford, how do you assess it as sort of a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Overall, I'd say that Hanford, for me, it's been a very good place to work. I was given opportunity. You know, I had opportunity. And anyone that's going to achieve anything in life, if they prepare themselves, and when the opportunity comes, they step forward and they take it. I mean you can't much ask for much more than that. My dad gave me some advice, of course, when I first started working out there. You know, he said, make sure you keep your eyes open, and you watch everything around you. And do not worry about if there's people against you, because God will always put one person there for you. And I always remember he told me that. And so I think about that, that different times during the time I worked out there, the people that have been there, that have assisted me and mentored me, and helped me to continue to do better work, a better job, and basically to feed my family and keep on living, as my mother would say. Yeah. I can't think of any other outstanding--there's been a lot of accomplishments, just small little milestones that have been made in safety and our management's commitment to safety, and our management's commitment to the workers, and making sure that they are heard, and that they're actually dealt with, and talked to, and gotten back to when they have safety concerns. And I guess there's a lot of pros and cons about that. But I see safety as being not just the number one thing at Hanford, but being integrated in all that we do at Hanford, is how I see it. And so I know there's a lot of things—I've seen the media. I've seen there are things that are going on out there that I don't know about. I have not worked in some of those areas. But for all of the areas that I have worked and been in, that has been the primary concern, is safety. And you compare to what we have out at Hanford, compare it to out in the real world, and we have a lot of commitment and concern, and actually management standing up, and taking responsibility for things, and actually dealing with them, trying to correct them, and working to try to make events or things that happen not reoccur. I actually brought a--you can get back to your questions, but I'll forget. But I actually sent off--you know, I seen it on television, and then a fellow employee told me about the Cold War Patriots? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: And you probably know. I got my little certificate. And I got, actually, the pin. Whoops! I actually got this pin that came with it. And I have it—of course I can't bring my badge in here, because it's a Hanford badge. But I stuck my little pin on the badge, and so I thought that was kind of neat. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Yeah. Actually, I talked to the Cold War Patriots last week about the project here. Well, I don't have any other questions for you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Oh, okay! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Unless there's something else that we haven't talked about yet, or I didn't ask you about that you think is important, to-- We can--Eric can actually film some of this sort of once we’re done talking. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Eric: Yeah, anything that you showed him we’d want to get photocopied. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay, sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: They could always integrate that, then, into the interview. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay, sure. Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Anyway, thanks very much for coming in-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: You bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: --and doing the interview. I really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Okay, yeah. You know, if you don't step forward and make sure that you're a part of history, you won't be. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Absolutely. So how did you--I was going to ask you, how did you hear about the project? Did [INAUDIBLE] contact you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: Actually, I was at a PZAC meeting--President's Zero Accident Council— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX133128238"> Henry: --meeting--and there was an individual that works-- </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 200 Area N Reactor 105 K-East 105 K-West K Basins 200 East Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1953-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1978-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald) Long, John Ruff, Wally Larson, Judy Stewart, Clinton Norling, Steve Brown, Ronnie Henry, Thurman Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:52:04 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 Danny Henry Description An account of the resource An interview with Danny Henry 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. 2016-06-1: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/2/2014 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear instruments & methods Pasco(Wash.) Richland(Wash.) 105 K-East 105 K-West 200 Area 200 East 300 Area B Plant WESF K Basins Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 N Reactor Washington State Public Power Supply System. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1e70e5f6902f36a8dce5b5ec4f9229c3.jpg 2299143b7462e91e44a8263168c065d0 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F668060df69888e4182ac2a6dd4aa0020.mp4 1c1a7cedc234e0082608686d3d8c0ae2 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 Samuel Moore Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Northwest Public Television | Moore_Samuel </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Robert Bauman: My name is Robert Bauman, and I am conducting an oral history interview with Samuel Moore, correct? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Samuel Moore: Right, Samuel-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: This date is July 9, 2013. And the interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. And I'll be talking with Mr. Moore about his experiences working at Hanford site, living in Richland and so forth. So maybe let's start actually from the beginning, if you want, could you tell me how and why you came to Hanford, how you heard about it, how you got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Okay, I'm going to tell you how I got here. My father was working at a cook in the mental section of Camp Chaffee, Arkansas. And he came home, and he says, there's a better job at Hanford, Washington. So he left and came out. Then he told them that I can't be here without my family. So they put us on, I think it was a troop train, and it stopped in Pasco and set us off. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Could you--where is Camp Chaffee, Arkansas? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: It's east of Ft. Smith and that, so. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And how old were you at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: About eight. And then we come in--put us off of this I'll call it a troop train, because there was a zillion soldiers on it. And it picks up and they took us to Kennewick to a place called Naval Housing. And that's where they put the people coming in for Hanford workers to stay until a house was available. And we stayed there, and then from there we moved to this nice little square building which had a flat top, set up on stilts. And it was called a prefab at 1300 Totten Street. And that means that we lived at the end house. The telephones were on the telephone poles at the end of the block. So when the phone would ring you were told to answer the phone and go get whoever it wanted who. So that's the way we started in Richland. And we lived there for I don't know how long. And then we moved to different houses around Richland until I graduated from Columbia High School, which was Columbia High School in Richland at that time. Now it's Richland High. And then after that I did a short job with a construction company. And then I went to work for General Electric, running one of their blueprint machines when they were getting ready to build the REDOX Building and the PUREX Building. So I'd go, I was the first one in to warm up the machines and run them for a while. And then after while I got uplined and I could deliver those suckers out into the area. So that was my starting with General Electric then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay, so let me go back a little bit. So what year did your family arrive then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: 19--it was either 1943 or '44. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay. And your father, was he a cook here also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No, no. He'd come out and he was a, as we call them today, rent-a-cop. He was a patrolman out there. And he worked as a patrolman ‘til he retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And you said that your first job was with General Electric, and what year would that have been? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: About 1953 or 4. Then I went from there, like I say I was in the blueprint sections and all that. And then I had a job—I got a chance to become an engineer's assistant. And then when they were going out and building different things, so that helped me get into the other sections of General Electric and so on. And when that one cut, I transferred into radiation monitoring. And that was when they had the Hanford labs, and the old animal farm was at 100 F Area. So I worked in that group until--I forget what year it was. I'm not good on years and dates. But when they decided they were going to re-tube all of those reactors out there in the hundred areas and so they could put bigger slugs in them and all that stuff, I worked on that until about 1957. And they said, guess what? We're not going to pay you anymore. So I left here. But I stayed with the government job. I went to the Nevada test site and blew all the plutonium up that they made out here. So then I came back to Hanford in 1960. So then I was still in radiation monitoring and worked all kinds of different places, tank farms and everywhere else out there that I could think about. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So it sounds like you worked all over the Hanford site. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: All over the Hanford site, that's right, yes, everywhere. And I worked a lot of the times at the burial grounds in 200 West Area. When they would take the big wooden boxes to PUREX and REDOX and they'd fill them. And then they'd pull them up, and they'd put a big long cable on the whole string of cars, and that box was way down that string of cars. And then when they get up to the burial ground, the train and it would coordinate, and they'd pull it back. And as the cable would come around, and when the box got to the trench, the train would stop. And they'd just spin it around and down in a trench. And then we get the honor of riding the bulldozers to set those freights so they could cover them up. That was one of the deals. And the other times I worked in a lot of the tank farms and pulling pumps and putting new bearings in those pumps and all that kind of stuff. It was an experience, believe me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Yeah, I'm sure it was. So a lot of this was with radiation monitoring? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: It was radiation monitoring. And I was in radiation monitoring until 1980-something. And I had a little problem out there, and they wanted me to release some stuff. And I said, uh-uh, not me, it ain't mine. So they said, well we've got this other section over here that you should be in, so I got into the safety part with respiratory protection. And I was trained to repair the breathing air things, like the firemen use. I was trained to do that, fix the PAPRs, and the escape packs, and all that stuff so. And check over places for where they—oxygen levels to where they could go in and work and all that, so that was my last eight years of Hanford, was in the respiratory section I'll call it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And so when did you retire then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: In 1994. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So almost 40 years minus the years that you were with-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, yeah. Well as the way I said, when I came back to Hanford in 1960, they told me it was a temporary job, it would probably only last six, eight months. Well, I found out that at Hanford a temporary job is pretty permanent. It only lasted 33 and 1/2 years. It's a temporary job there, so I guess at all turned out pretty good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: I guess you could consider that temporary. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Temporary, yeah. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So many interesting things that you've worked on. So let's go back to the early years. First, in the 1950s and you talked about radiation monitoring, something with radiation, you did blueprint and stuff, but then radiation monitoring? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: And then radiation monitoring, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay, and some of that was with animals? Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, I went into the animal farm on some certain times, but I wasn't assigned there for anything. The big one I was assigned to was what they called the 558 project, which is when they re-tubed all of the old reactors. And that was, you'd go in and set dose rates for all the people when they're working. And so it was a deal. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And now Hanford, of course, is a highly secure site, right, lots of security, secrecy to a certain extent. Can you talk about that at all? I mean, in terms of getting to work or at work, how did that impact you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Most of the places where I was, the secure part of it wasn't that strict. But other places like, some of those buildings, yeah, they were really a strict situation. And when I go back a ways, when my dad and we lived in this—I call it the slum house on Totten Street--nobody knew what was happening. Nobody knew. I didn't know what the guy next door was doing, and they didn't know what my dad did. Until I think it was 1944 or '45 when they announced what they were really doing here. And it was kind of a shock, that deal, so. That was my deals of the secrecy out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Now, did you have to have special security clearance? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yes, yes, I did. I had special clearances, yes. I had everything but the very top secret one. And that was real handy because when I left here, I went to the Nevada test site. I had to use the same secret pass. And then the same thing when I come back. It was very, very--what am I trying to say here? I mean, I'm an old guy. I'm just about at the end of the road here. Most of my work, like I say, was the tank farms, and those places, where secrecy was not involved in that. And it was like times when you'd have a spill, you dig it up and prepare it to the burial ground. A lot of that was the work that we did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And you said your first job was at General Electric. Obviously, there are different contractors. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Now, who all did you work for over the years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, we went to General Electric. Then it went to there was one called Isochem, Rockwell, oh there's a whole slug of them, I can't remember all of them. So it seemed like every time you'd turn around, they were turned over to somebody new. But it was Westinghouse when I decided I would better leave before I had a real problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So can you talk about what was happening there toward the end that made you want to leave? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, I was, like I say, I was working on the PAPRs and all that kind of stuff. It got to be a real drag, you know. And everybody was doing that then. It got to the point where every time you turned around, everybody was wanting this, and wanting this, and wanting this. You're only one person. And I was a guy that did most all the fixing. So I decided--to my wife, I said--I call her the voice from the other side. She said, what's the matter? And I says, well, before I mess up on one of these pieces of equipment and kill somebody, I think I better retire. So we just decided, okay. And she worked for the Hanford Project, too. And of course she was much better off than I was. She worked for one of the big managers as a secretary. So we just decided that was it. And we had our nest eggs saved up and said, okay, it's retired and we're going to see the world. And we did that until my one eye decides to go bad. Then we had to stop. Other than that, I'd probably been in who knows where. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: While you were working at Hanford were there any significant events, or sort of, things that have happened that sort of stand out in your mind specifically? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, and I was trying to think. It was about 1962, graveyard shift, 233-S, it caught on fire and it burned. And it was a big mess. That's where I wound up with my shot of plutonium in my bones, as I'll say, from that fire. And, of course, back in those days you didn't know what was what, so they worked on it and cleaned it up. And but there's a couple of contamination things that sticks out in my mind. One of them is, we used to bury the material from 300 Area which is, I guess you would call a Westinghouse, Battelle or somebody. And we used to dump them into caissons in the backside of the 234-5 Area. And we had one of those that kind of broke open and messed us up a little bit. Took us maybe six, eight, hours to get cleaned up so we were able to go on our merry way. But those are the only two that really stick out in my mind. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Did you miss any amount of work as a result the exposures when you had those? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Nope. Nope. They just cleaned you up and said go back to work. You all have to remember that back in those days, all of the things that happened in a lot of places, we didn't know. We didn't know what the repercussions was going to be. We didn't know that. Now, this is why we're paying for a lot of stuff right now is because we didn't know how to do all that stuff. But like I say, there's a lot more people that know a lot more about that Hanford stuff than I do. Like I said, it's been many a year since I worked some of those places, too, that I can't remember some of the stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Sure, sure. The radiation monitoring group, how large of a group was that? And how many employees do you know, have an idea who worked-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: There was probably about 60 or better. But each company, I think, had a group of their own. The 200 Areas had one big group. The 100 Areas had a group. And then 300 Area had a group, so you put them all together there was probably more than 60-some. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Okay, and just to—you said there was a fire in, you think about, 1962. Was it the 200 Area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yep, in the 200, down behind the REDOX Building. That just, poof, was it and it went, so. And I think the reason they had the fire was because somebody had some greasy coveralls and stuff and didn't take care of them the proper way, and the first thing you know, poof, they were on fire. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And this was where there was radioactive material? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, it was back in the radioactive area, so everything got messed up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And at the time you probably didn't know necessarily everything, but you've had some health problems since then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I won't say that my health problem is caused by the contamination that I had or was dumped with. I've had quite a few of those. I've had a melanoma cancer in this ear, and I had a very large contamination that got in that ear and area. So I've had to have some surgery done there, skin grafts and that kind of stuff. But so far it hasn't slowed me up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: I'm going to shift gears a little bit here. Were you working here in 1963 then when President Kennedy came to? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And do you remember at all? Were you there that day? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No. Well, I was on a project that day, but I was not out where he was. I was one of the, I guess how would I say this, the lower steel, so I took care of the work over while everybody went to that. But yeah, I was here. I came back from Nevada on September 13, 1960, and I worked till '94. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And then I wanted to ask you a little about Richland. So other than when you first got here, it sounds like you lived in Richland most of the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: How would you describe Richland as a community at the time, as a place to live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: It was very good because at that time, when you were there, you didn't even have to worry about locking doors. I mean, everybody was—it just one big thing. It was a government town and everything would deal like that. And nobody really did—didn't have the vandalism or anything like that around town. And as you probably know that, if you're familiar with Fred Meyer’s on Wellsian Way down there, that was a swamp deal, because that was where Richland got their drinking water. Like I said, I lived in 1303 Totten the very first time and then we moved from there down to on Benham Street. And I don't know how to say this, other than the way I normally say that, but that was down where we called the turd churn. That was the sewage plant down there. Then from there I moved back up to Swift. And then in--I was trying to think when it was, 1963 or so, they did away with the old irrigation ditch that came through Richland and goes underneath Carmichael, because that's where they flooded the cattail place down there for the drinking water in Richland, and let it seep down and pump it up. And they busted everything up and back about then I was reading the Villager, I think it was, the Tri-City paper, and there was a lot for sale on Totten Street. So I bought it and went out and looked at it. It was the old irrigation ditch. And I built a house over the old irrigation ditch, and I still live there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And you—when you first arrived you were a child. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: What was it like going to school? I'm assuming that there were people from sort of all over, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: All over. Yeah. And you just walk to school. And it was, like I say, there was no buses or anything, you could walk to school. And everybody just seemed to fit right in, you know. Nobody had any qualms whether I was from Arkansas or anywhere else. But like I say when the first house there in Richland, Wright Avenue was the last street in town. And beyond that was one of the most fabulous cherry orchards that there was. And when you were a kid you'd slip over in the cherry orchard and get cherries and take them home to your mother. And she could make you some jams, jellies, or whatever pie, or whatever. But it was a deal. There was quite a group of kids that came from all over the country. And they just seemed to fit in, none of this gang thing or anything like that. They were just, everybody was all buddy-buddy, you know? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: You mentioned you went to, what was then Columbia High School. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: How about elementary and middle school? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: And in elementary school when we moved the one that I really remember was Lewis and Clark down on the south end of town. And I went there until one of the, I'll call them students decided to burn it down. And they burnt Lewis and Clark down. And so a lot of us were told to go up to Marcus Whitman and finish off the year up there. So we did that. And then them from there on Carmichael, the junior high, was being built and I think they opened it up at about a mid-year. And I was one of the ones I went there the mid-year into Carmichael and then over to the high school after that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And so what year was that the Lewis and Clark burned down? Was that like in the late '40s then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah. But the funny part of it is, not too many years ago they arrested a fellow down in Portland. And he was laughing about burning the building down. So I guess they couldn't do anything to him, but they found out who burned it down now. Yeah. Well, there was Lewis and Clark, Marcus Whitman, Sacajawea which was right there by Central United Protestant Church was the old Sacajawea school. And then there's Jefferson which is still going. And our fabulous people are trying to shut it down, move it, and do something else with it. But who knows what's going to happen. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Do you remember when you were growing up and going to school and living here at that time any community events, parades? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Oh, yeah! Atomic Frontier Days was a big—the big, big thing. I have breakfast with a group of Columbia High graduates and I can't remember what her name is, but she was one of them that used to run for the Queen of Frontier Days. And there was a couple others. But that was the big thing. And they used to take—Howard Amon Park turned into booths, and just like a big fair down there. So it was things, and then all a sudden they decided to move everything around to the Tri-Cities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And was that in the summer? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, that was always in the summer, you know. And then the big hydroplane races, they would come in, but they were the old ones that had the 1,200 or 1,300 horse-powered gasoline engines in them, the noise makers. But that was about the extent of the things. And if we go back I can remember the floods came through and when they build all the dikes that they're tearing down now. But I don't think they got to worry about that, being as the dams are still functioning. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Do you remember some of the floods? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Oh yeah, I can remember the flood deals, when they built the road up to going to the Y. They had to build all that up because you didn't get to Kennewick when the flood was on. Well, it was right up to the George Washington Way road there by wherever the guy that has the petrified stumps down there. The water was just across the street from his house, was right up to the edge there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: So I want to go back now to Hanford itself and your work experiences there. You talked about some specific things you did and some specific things. How would you describe Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Hanford was a real good place to work. It was really good work, and good place to work. Mainly I think because you didn't know everything that was going on. So you knew that you had your section, what you were doing, and you didn't want to make waves or something like that. But to me, Hanford was a good place to work. There was a lot of--I had a lot of good friends that came up through the, I call them the ranks. They were, like I worked in the blueprint and there was guys that drove the mail trucks. We wound up as a real knit group of people there. They work out of the old 703 Building, which part of it's still there. And we used to have Coke breaks and go back there. And everybody put a quarter in the pot and then get your Coke bottle. When it was all through whoever had the bottle that was from farthest away got the kitty. So it was a good place to work, really. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And I guess is there anything you would like future generations to know about working at Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well, I would like everybody to know that where this country really screwed up was when we dropped that bomb and blew up everything. We kept everything too secret. They should have let everybody know what that was and what was happening. Today we would have had a better deal of doing what they're doing today if they'd done that, I think. Now that's my opinion and no one else's, but if they would have just let them know what was going on, and what happened, it would have been a lot better. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And then is there anything that I haven't asked you about in terms of either your job at Hanford—or jobs, I should say, at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: Or living in Richland? That I haven't asked you about, that you'd like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: No. Like I say, Richland was a good place to live, though, and Hanford was a good place to work. I mean you did your job, and everybody else did theirs, and everything worked out just fine. There's a lot of things that I'm not too sure of what happened. But a lot of those places they did have things when they were doing experiments for the Navy and all kind of stuff out there. But I didn't get in on any of that stuff at all. It was one of those deals, you go in and you dress out, and most the time the monitors were the first ones and the last ones out. So that was the deal. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: When you did that, did you wear a badge? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, TLD, thermoluminescent dosimeter. So you always had a badge on. I understand that some of the guys used to take theirs and set them aside so they wouldn't get too much radiation, so they would be eligible for overtime. But I wasn't into that overtime route. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And so how would you know? How did it register that you had too much exposure? How was that read? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Well they put it into a meter that would read what the thermo was. And the original ones were--what am I trying to say? Film, there was a film. And they would read the film of what, how much had been exposed to that. And that's how they got your dose rates there, how much you took. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And did that change at some point to some other method? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, they used the film badges to start with. Then they flipped over and they found out they could use these, what did I call them, thermoluminescent detectors, which is you put at charge on them. And I guess the radiation would discharge the charge. So they'll know how much was used off of it. And then you had pencils that you read, that would tell you, that would read if you were supposed to take, let's say, 50 MR. Well you'd set that when you come out, you'd be there and there was always time keepers. There was a time keeper in that group that was taking how much your exposure was, and how long you had been there, and calculating it to when you should get yourself out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And they would let you know that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: And then they'd tap you on the shoulder and say, go. So then they’d go out. And then there would be somebody out there that would get them undressed and check them, clean them, and make sure they were all, no contamination on them and either send them to lunch or home. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: And that sort of procedure-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: That procedure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: --throughout the time-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Throughout the whole time I was there, yeah. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: All right. Well thank you very much. I really appreciate your being willing to come in and talk to us. And very interesting-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: Yeah, like to say, there's things out there that my mind just doesn't pick up on them right now. So probably middle of the night at one o'clock, I'll wake up and say, golly, I should have told him this. But no, that's the deal. But really, Hanford was a good place to work and to me, it's been real good to me. I got a good retirement off of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: All right. Well, thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: You bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Bauman: I really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: You bet. And seeing now that he's got the shut off, I'll tell you about my week. I took my motor home and went to Ilwaco. You know where Ilwaco is on the Columbia River? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Man three: Yeah, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX100368582"> Moore: On the way over there. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:35:10 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) 703 Building 100 F Area 200 West Area 300 Area 234-5 Area 200 Area 100 Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1953-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1953-1994 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 Samuel Moore Description An account of the resource An interview with Samuel Moore 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. 2016-06-16: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 7/9/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region 100 Area 100 F Area 200 Area 200 West Area 234-5 Area 300 Area 703 Building Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff3d85bde00e86e0c74863a946d82d95d.jpg afffa7c79551d98dda0f88b751d2c406 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8b04b9ce1b21e1ea75e4060d99aac9f3.mp4 50f96b20387d4d3089b3a6aceecfbccc 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 Leroy Noga Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Northwest Public Television | Noga_Leroy </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Leroy Noga: Leroy Noga. But I usually go by Lee all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Robert Bauman: And your last name is N-O-G-A? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: N-O-G-A, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. Today's date is October 15th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. So let's start if we could just by having you talk about how and why you came to Hanford. When that happened, what brought you here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I had hired--in the state of Minnesota. And they painted a picture of all the pine trees and everything, and several of us come out here in 1955. So I drove out here--it was January in '55. And from Spokane to here—it was at night and it was foggy where you could cut it with a knife. I couldn't even see the white line on the side, hardly. Anyway, I stayed at the Desert Motel in Richland. And next morning, got in the car and I see all this stuff that looked like I was on the moon or something. Sage brush. Where's all the pine trees, you know? I couldn't believe it. Everybody's got a picture of Washington with the beautiful pine trees and everything. [LAUGHTER] Including us from Minnesota. Anyway, so then of course I hired in with GE. And stayed in the dorm, men's dorm. And that was another shocker because I'm a ballroom dancer and used to going to several ballrooms in Minneapolis. Big ones--the Prom, the Marigold. And I would always never have a problem to pick up a woman--a nice looking woman to dance with. And here everything was--the women were afraid to go out. They stayed in the dorm and there wasn't anybody to dance with. I was very disappointed and I thought, as soon as I get enough money, I'm leaving town, and I'm going on. I was single at the time, of course. But then I went to work in K Area and K-West. Around suddenly and after I got to see the area a little bit. Of course, I'm from Minnesota, land of the ten-thousand lakes--we actually got a lot more than that. But here it was rivers, and I was unfamiliar with rivers. But after I got acquainted just a little bit, and found out how the hunting was--very good duck hunting and pheasant hunting at the time. I thought, hey, this isn't so bad. And then I tried the river fishing, which was quite different. And that wasn't so bad either. I was able to catch fish. And then I did dance with a local girl that said, well Lee, just stick it out a little while. It kind of grows on you. And I still remember that statement, and I'm still here— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: --after all this time. And I wouldn't move. Of course the area has changed a lot. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: And we had dust storms then. A couple of us bachelors, we stayed in a Bower Day House. And after one dust storm, I think we had about a half of inch of dust on the floor the next day. And that was typical. They weren't too well built, as far as keeping the dust out. And I can remember another time there living in the same house where we had a big snowstorm and then we got a chinook after that, chinook wind. Which we used to get a lot of those warm chinook winds, of course. And I remember the water had melted so fast, that the water had washed a full six pack right in front of our house. And I thought, well that's nice. [LAUGHTER] And anyway, as far as--you were going to ask me some questions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. Well I going to--about how long were you in the dorms then? And then how long did you live in the Bower Day House? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I was in the dorms--gee, that that's going way back. I don't remember. Maybe a year a year or maybe a little longer. I remember I missed a piano, because I used to play the piano. And I rented a piano and put it downstairs in a dorm. It was kind of something you don't usually do. But I did it anyway and played. And we ate breakfast every morning at the Mart which is now the Davidson Building, I think it is--right there across from the post office. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Big mart, everybody was eating there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: What was Richland like as a community in the 1950s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, everybody kept their doors open. Never locked them. It was a government town so it was very safe. With no crime like there is now. You remember the officers’ club and stuff out the area where they had--well the government tried to keep us here, and so they had big functions out there. Dances and name performers out there. And I was out there a few times--out here in north Richland. The government, of course, didn't want us to quit. And some of us stuck it out, like myself. And I worked for ten years for GE and then GE pulled out. And that's something that really irritates me to this day because--I don't know if--you probably don't want to televise this, but anyway, I think that was timed. The government always has these contractors come in and then they change. And I was—they had a ten year contract to be vested. But they had an age clause. You had to be 28 years old and I was a one month away from that. So I either had to go back east and work for GE back there—but I had a family of four now. And of course I didn't want to go back there and leave my family here. So I didn't get vested. And then different companies come. And Westinghouse, and on, and on. And every time I really had a nice job—I really loved it--a different company would come in. I had to change companies or I had to change jobs. I finally got tired of it and I quit. And I started my own business. And I might mention this--while having my own business, I did security systems, and fire systems, and stuff like that. And I was the first company that installed the first security system out here in the 300 Area. It was ultrasonic over the fuel rod of the pool. And so I thought that was something that maybe someone else didn't do out here, related to the area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Right. And so what year was that then? Roughly around the time period that you quit and started your own business? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, it had to be after ten years. I quit—I don't remember just exactly what year I quit out here. I worked for Battelle. And then I think Westinghouse come in. I think that's when I quit. Rather than change companies again, I just got tired of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Let's go back--if it's okay to go back a little bit. You mentioned your first job was to K-West. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: So what sort of job was it? What sort of work were you doing then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well I was instrumentation, of course. And did all the instrumentation out there. It was a very--I liked it because it was such a variety of different instrumentation. And then some of the really nasty work we had to do as an instrument person was go on the rear face with the water dripping down. All dressed up in rain gear, gloves, and everything double, you know. And the radiation was so intense back there that you could only spend about 15 minutes, 20 minutes, or something. And you were back there to replace these bad thermal temperature devices on the rear face. I didn't really like the working in the reactors too much. And I tried to get into the 300 Area labs, which I finally was able to do. They didn't like to let us go out there in areas, but I finally made it. And then we--in the 300 Area that was very interesting, too. Because there we got the moon rocks and we analyzed those. And I worked with chemical engineers and whatever to get the right instrumentation. Whatever they needed to put that stuff together so they could do what they want. It was interesting work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: We had what they called multi-channel analyzers at that time. We didn't have computers yet. It was—the computer age was just starting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: If we can go back again to talking about working on the rear face of the reactor. You said, you could only be there for about 15 or 20 minutes. Was that only 15, 20 minutes that day, and then you couldn't go back in again that day? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah, you were burned out for--well I can't remember the period. You were burned out. You couldn't go back there for maybe a month. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Wow. And so I assume you had some sort of dosimeter, or badge, or something like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah, you had pencils and stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Mm-hmm. Which they read when you came off the rear face. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Were there ever any times working there that you had an overexposure, or anything like that? Or any of your coworkers, or anything along those lines? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I was never overexposed, I don't believe. I think there probably were some incidences but-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: None that you were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: No. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: They were pretty careful--radiation monitoring were pretty careful to always check the time and they always read the dosimeters. And that was pretty well adhered to. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: And then you said you moved to the labs. Is that the 300 Area, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: And you worked there for several years, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah, I worked there for—I don’t know—eight years or so, maybe. And then when I quit, I came back as the--I quit for, I think 12 years, when I had my own business. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: And then I came back as a manual writer. It was an engineer’s title. I forget the glorified name I got. [LAUGHTER] But it was a manual writer writing procedures N Reactor. Instrument procedures for the--because I was an instrument person. It was an ideal task for me, as an engineer to write the test procedures for instrumentation. For the instrument people there at N Reactor. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: And which company was that, for then? Which contractor that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Phew. UNC. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: My mind isn't very good as far as old stuff because-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: That's good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I just remember the stuff—lucky to remember the stuff today. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: One of the events--sort of big events in this period--President Kennedy came to visit in 1963. Where you working at-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Kennedy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. President Kennedy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I remember that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Were you on-site? Did you see him? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I was wondering if you could talk about that at all and describe your memory of that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I just remember that he was here and I saw him. That's about all I remember about it. Yeah. That was quite an event. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Do you remember anything about the day at all, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, everybody was just really happy and pleased that he came. He was pretty well loved, you know--as a man. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I wonder--you mentioned earlier--some of the security at Hanford and obviously it was a place that emphasized security, secrecy. Did that--in what ways did that impact your work at all? The sort of focus on security or secrecy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I don't know how far you want to digress from—wherever I want to go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Wherever you want to go, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well talking about security brings up something that I thought I'd mention. And that is after I got to work there at GE for a while, and talking with regional monitoring people, and stuff like that. They got to know me, and I got to know them, and they found out that I was interested in old cars—antique cars. So one of them told me about--there's an old Chevrolet cab convertible out there in the boonies. Somewhere between H Area and F Area. And I said, oh really? And I thought the guy was just blowing wind maybe. I didn't really believe him at the time. But then I got still interested. I got to talking to him and maybe another monitoring guy, and it sounded like there really was one out there. So I looked into it further and I thought, well if there is, how do I get it? How can I get it? So I talked to Purchasing and Purchasing says, well you'll have to bid on it. And I said, can I bit on it? And if so, I don't even know if I can find it. I said, is there a minimum that I can bid for it? No, no minimum. Just fill out the papers. So I bid a minimum of $25. And I got a security clearance to go off the road. Because this was just out in the boonies. No roads, just out in the sage brush to look for it. Somewhere between H Area and Rattlesnake. So I asked a friend of mine who had a Jeep if he'd go out there with me. And we used his Jeep and we hooked a trailer behind, and off we went. We got permission to go out there. And we drove around quite a bit. And we finally found it. And we winched it on. And then I thought, well now I wonder if I can get a title for this thing from the state? [LAUGHTER] But being the contract from the government, and that I bought it--the state didn't hesitate at all. And I got a title for it. And this is one of the originals from an old homestead out there. You could still see some remains of the homestead. Of course the government went and destroyed everything. And most of the automobiles--I don't know if you know this--but most of the automobiles that were out there, the government made a special attempt to destroy all the engines. They took sledgehammers and busted the engines up. They made special attempts to--so the automobiles would never be used again. I don't know why, but that's what they did. This one somehow escaped. And the engine was still in it. But the head was off of it. But it was still restorable. And I have not restored it yet, after all these years. But now comes a time when I'm trying to get somebody interested in it. And if so, restore it and give it to him. Because I don't have that many years left. I'm hoping that somebody might help me a little bit financially to do it. And I would then donate it to whoever. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: But you still have it after all these years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I still have it. Yup. It's been in the garage for all these years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. That's interesting that it was a car from one of the old town sites—old home sites there that was still sitting out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I had not heard that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yes. I brought it up because it is a very rare incident. And I think I'm probably the one and only that has done something like this. At least maybe the first one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: And I'm also the first one, like I say, to put a security system out here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. So thinking back on your years working at Hanford, what were--and maybe you've already talked about this--what were the most challenging aspects of your work there and the most rewarding parts of working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, most challenging? Hmm. Oh, you know, it was all challenging, really. [LAUGHTER] It was very different. The instrumentation—when I first went out there, I was not a technician. I was a trainee--I had to be a trainee first. And my technician was not all that—didn't seem like he was there that long either. He didn't know all that much either, I don't think. [LAUGHTER] And I can remember one incident, they had an instrument that had mercury in it. We had to be careful how you calibrated it. And it wasn't my fault, because I was just a trainee. But my technician blew the mercury out. It went all over the control room which was not a big--nobody really appreciated that too much. That was challenging. That was kind of challenging. You had to be very careful, as an instrument person, with what you did. And if you worked in the control room, like in--what's the first--the reactor they're making a-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: B Reactor? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: B Reactor. If you worked back there at the panel gauges, you had to be very carefully that you didn't bump something, because they were very sensitive. Any movement, jar or something--and you could trip the reactor while the reactor was up. And you had to calibrate some of those things while the reactor was up. You actually had a lot of responsibility there. If you knocked the reactor down--and you could--you didn't hear too many good comments. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah. How about the most rewarding part of your work in Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, when I—I don't know. There was a lot of rewarding things. When I came back to work again after a 12 year hiatus, so to speak, they closed N Reactor down, and I had to find another job. There weren't that many jobs available at PUREX because there was a lot of people looking. PUREX had a job for a project engineer job. And I interviewed for it and I said, well I'd kind of like this. But I don't think I'm qualified. I said, I'd like to have it, but I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'm qualified. Because I don't have a degree. A chemical degree is what you should have had for that job. But down the senior engineer that was doing the hiring--he called me and he said, Lee, you've got the job if you want it. So I thought, what the heck, I'll try it, you know? [LAUGHTER] But I was able to find the niche there where I was needed. And it just so happened they were replacing all the electrical main panels, you know--and everything like that. So I was then the project engineer for doing that. And the people from Kaiser, who actually came out and did tests and everything--I had to approve everything that they wrote up. And from the PUREX standpoint to see if it was safe, and so on, and so forth. That was rewarding. It was a challenging job. And then from there, I went to Kaiser. And there I got a job writing procedures for electrical code violations. So I had to write procedures to correct all—bring all the stuff up to code. This was a little bit out of my element, because I was an instrument technician. But I just got the code book out and learned quick. And that was rewarding, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I wanted to go back to-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: I wore a lot different hats out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah, right. I want to go back to almost sort of first question I asked you. You said you came from Minnesota and you'd heard these sort of stories of Washington State, or whatever. What were you doing in Minnesota before you came here? And how much--what did you know about the Hanford site itself? Did you know what was being done at the Hanford site, and that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, I guess I should have known more. I really didn't know anything about it, particularly. I was just young, I guess. The recruiter came through and it sounded good. The money sounded good. And some of my--I went to Dunwoody Institute there. That's where I hired out from in Minneapolis. And some of the other students also hired in with GE. So I thought it probably was a good thing to do to start out. Good experience. That's actually what I trained for there at Dunwoody was instrumentation. I went there--I tried to go to college, but I didn't have any money really to support myself. And it was even tough to support myself at Dunwoody because I didn't have no help at all. I had to work part-time every night. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Do you remember how much your first job at Hanford paid? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Oh, boy. [LAUGHTER] I don't. But there was overtime, of course. It paid pretty well. Although I've made more even before that, one time. It's a little off the subject again. But I worked on the Garrison Dam in North Dakota. And here again, I wore a different hat. Me and a buddy of mine, we hired in--we bought a brand new toolbox, put it a saw in it, hammer, and blah, blah, blah. And hired in there at the Dam as journeymen carpenters. The union--which is real strong--they'd been needing people so bad that the union official didn't check us out, which he should have. And big money. I saved the checks for a long time. We went double-time. Worked on Sundays. An astronomical amount of money. But then we got greedy because we heard they were making even more on the outlet side. I think I worked on the inlet side, and we when on the outlet side. Well, I worked there about two weeks and then union guy got wise and we had to quit. I can't remember but I it was a couple of hundred dollars a week, which was pretty good money at that time. I don't remember. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: You talked earlier about finding the car, and being able to purchase the car, I guess. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Were there any other sort of unique things that happened or things that stand out in your memory during your time working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: No, other than meeting a girlfriend out there. [LAUGHTER] I don't know. I worked in almost every area out there. I worked in all the hundred areas. I worked at PUREX. I worked in 200 Areas, 300 Areas. I worked in almost every lab in 300 Area. I worked in 325, in all of them, 329. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Of all the different places you worked, the different jobs that you had--was there one that you enjoyed the most, that was--looking back on it, you'd say it was maybe your favorite job that you had out there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, all the work I did in 300 Area was very pleasing to me. And of course after that things changed a lot when they start shutting down things. I really did like N Reactor. I will say that. They were the--of all the places I worked, it was like a family. They were the friendliest, nicest bunch of people to work with. Everybody seemed to know everybody, and you know, it was very pleasant. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: So it's a group of people you worked with that made that so enjoyable. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Yeah. Yeah, the whole N Area was just--I really hated to see that close. It was, like I say, like a family. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: So if you look back at your time working at Hanford, overall, how would you assess your experience working in the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well it--other than what happened to me changing jobs all the time, other than that bitterness--really my employer was the government. And they should be the ones that--I shouldn't—break in service, and all that stuff. You shouldn't have lost it like I did. I lost it when I quit. And then I went back to work there again. But that's the bitterness I have. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Which you'll probably leave out of this interview. [LAUGHTER] But other than that, it was a--I'd never tried it really. It was a wealth of experience and rewarding. Like I say, we did interesting things. Counted moon samples and it was very interesting--always. All the experiments we did, it was different. The engineers were always trying to think of something different to do. How to lower the background so that you could count very low background stuff and radiation. It was always interesting, always challenging. And then after that when the work there at 300, when I quit and went back, it wasn't fun anymore then. I mean, then things are closing down, pretty much. I closed PUREX down. I worked there and then they quit. They closed down. N Reactor closed down. And everything was closing down. That's when the fun stopped, kind of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Yeah, I was going to ask you then obviously, at some point, the effort shifts from production to clean up. And I wondered how that impacted some of the things that you did? Was it that you saw a lot things shutting down at that point? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, after things started shutting down, of course just overall morale went down. And the sense of purpose didn't seem to be there anymore. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: I teach a class on the Cold War. And a lot of my students that I teach were born after the Cold War ended. And obviously, you were employed at Hanford in the 1950s and 1960s--the height of the Cold War in many ways. If you were talking to someone who didn't really know much about the Cold War, or was born after it ended—how would you explain or describe Hanford during that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Well, let's see. That's a big question. How do I feel about it? Do I approve of how the government just took over things and ordered everybody out without any money? Reimbursement until much later? How do I feel about that? Well, I've got mixed emotions about some of that stuff. How do I feel about dropping the bomb on Hiroshima? We made the stuff and how do I feel about that? I still have probably mixed emotions about that, too. But I guess it's something we had to do. I have to accept that. One thing I will say, what went on at Hanford could never have happened in the time frame that it happened there at Hanford. How they designed and built like the PUREX Building, for instance. It's simply amazing. Outstanding workmanship and performance. It's unbelievable, almost, what happened in that short period of time. And it was a very dedicated workforce. Of course we didn't know a lot of what we were doing when we first came out here really. But we just did our work. It was interesting. And we all really were dedicated and liked our job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about yet? Or is there anything else about your experiences at Hanford that you'd like to talk that you haven't had the chance to talk about yet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Gee, I don't know. I have a son that still works out—more or less works for Hanford. And he is getting a furlough, maybe today. Because our government’s shutting down. Mixed emotions again. [LAUGHTER] As far as Hanford, like I say, it was a good experience for me. And I'm not sorry I came out here. Not sorry I went to work for Hanford. Lots of good memories. And a lot of my friends, a course though who are gone. I'm one of those hold-outs. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, just so many of my friends that hired in when I did, they're no longer around. I'm 83 right now, so. Yup, time goes fast. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and sharing your memories and experiences. I appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX145880437"> Noga: Thank you. </div> Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 Kbps Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:41:57 Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview K Area K-West Area 300 Area H Area F Area N Reactor B Reactor Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1955-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1955-1960 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Leroy Noga Description An account of the resource An interview with Leroy Noga 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. 2016-06-17: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/15/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear instruments & methods 300 Area B Reactor F Area H Area Hanford (Wash.) Hunting K Area K-West Area Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 N Reactor Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0a5f95a067cc15c8bfd7705114ca6269.jpg 9e12f751613b211e66d587db18607e0a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F99406b7ecf1307fceba5c8061e9a614a.mp4 c229c9e2af641822b5c55f7020ad8681 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 Myles Pasch Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Northwest Public Television | Pasch_Myles </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Robert Bauman: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. And I'm conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Myles Pasch, today June 11th, 2013 and we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities, and I'll be talking to Mr. Pasch about his experiences working at the Hanford site. So good morning, and thank you for being willing to have me talk to you today and be our first subject in this project. Appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Myles Pasch: Welcome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So what if start by just having you tell me how and why you ended up coming to the Tri-Cities area to work at the Hanford site. How did that come about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well I come about, my mother was working here when I got out of the Army in '45. Why, she already had a job lined up for me out here, and so come out here to take that job that they--the job actually didn't materialize, but I start working with the electrical distribution as a lineman's helper, because of the experience in the Army. I was a communications system in the Army, and so I started out in the line distribution as a ground man for the line gang, and about six months later why the Corps of Engineers turned the telephone system over to DuPont and with the telephone experience I had, they--I mean if you put me in the telephone system and I worked in there then until I--until my retirement. And various jobs from cable splicer helper, to cable splicer, to lineman and supervisor of the installation and maintenance crews, and then supervisor's office. Finally end up in engineering section by the time I retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So you worked in a lot of different places, but mostly on electrical and phone. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Just about all of it on phones. Phones, phones, and phone lines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And what sort of job did your mother have when you arrived? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: She was in the T Plant, 221-T Plant cleaning instruments and that from the separations group when they--vessels that they had to use for transferring materials and so forth and she was cleanup on that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Oh, okay. And when had she begun work here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: She began work there when they went into production. She worked at Hanford during construction in the mess hall, and then she transferred to DuPont and started working soon as--right after they went into production instead of construction. My dad also worked there. Both in construction and in--and he went into patrol, the Hanford patrol, when they went into production. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And do you know how your parents ended up coming here for work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: I really don't. I was in the Army at the time that they did come out here, and so I'm not sure how--other than I know they were living in northern Wisconsin. There wasn't much going on there, and so I know that they tried to find something in the war industry to work on, so they applied for and came out here to Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And did both of your parents continue working at Hanford after the war also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes. Fact is, I think my dad retired in '52. My mother retired when DuPont phased out and they went to General Electric. She phased out with DuPont, but Dad stayed in until 1951, actually, when he retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Right. So you said you initially worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and then DuPont? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: No. I worked for DuPont when I hired on in July of '45, but the Corps of Engineers was running the telephone systems at that time rather than DuPont, and they turned the telephone systems over to DuPont in January of '46, and at that time I transferred right over to the telephone section and worked there until retirement. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. So what might a typical work day have been for you back in the late 1940s early 1950s? What sorts of things might you have done in a typical workday? Where might you have gone on the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well, we had to go wherever they needed telephone service, and it was installation of the wiring, telephones, and maintenance of them. And so wherever they needed telephones, we went. I worked in the outer areas all the time, very little in the 300 Area. Most of my work was in the two East-West, and the 100 Areas, wherever they needed a telephone repaired or put in, why, there's where we worked. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: How large of a crew or group did you work with usually, would be out there doing telephone repairs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Usually there was about eight or ten men on the telephone installation and repair group, and there was anywhere from one to four cable splicer crews going splicing cable. Especially when they really start opening up in the late '40s early '50s, and they start increasing the size and that of the telephone systems. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So I imagine over the 37 years--is that how long? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes, 37. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Imagine over the course of those 37 years the telephone systems changed quite a bit. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes, we started out with--when the Corps of Engineers had it, they started out with common battery switchboards with operators on them in each area, and each area had a 100 or 200 line switchboard, whatever they needed. And when they turned it over to DuPont, though, they'd already had installed a automatic switching station. So right after they turned it over to DuPont, why it switched over to automatic switching stations and the operators were taken off the project. And then it wasn't many years later they had to increase the size of that. They went from a Strowger switching system to a North Electric all relay switching system. And just in the--well not what, in the early '80s or late '70s, why, they switched over to a computer-controlled switching system, which is what they are still using out there now is a computer-controlled. But they went from say 100 lines in each area to several thousand lines and now, and the increase in people and buildings that were put in during that time. During that period of time. When I first started there, there was only three reactors and the East-West Area each had a separations building, but the only one that was actually in use was the 221-T Plant. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So were some of those buildings more challenging to work with install or fix phone lines? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yeah, some of them we had to get special permits, special clothing, monitor buttons, and pencils, and badges to go into them. Probably only allowed 30 minutes in some spots. They were restricted to how long you could work in there and so forth, because of the radiation. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. So did you have a radiation monitor or some sort when you did that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: We had a radiation monitor. Our badge was a radiation monitor. Whenever we went into an area, why, we got a couple of pencils that you put in your pocket that rated different types of radiation. Some buildings they had to have even another different pencil in your pocket in order to work there. Because there was different types, different radiations. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And, so you mentioned you worked in T-Plant? In there as well? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Oh, yes, I worked--fact is that was one of our most challenging ones. We went there to work, and you had to drive dressed in double protective coveralls and boots, and gloves, and hoods, mask, and then when you went out, you had to strip all that and you couldn't drag your tools out with you. They stayed, either stayed or got thrown away. So in that one you were very limited on how long you could work in the canyon. That was in the canyon itself. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Yeah. Now for the site itself, when you first started working at Hanford site, given high security and secrecy, did you have to get a special security clearance, or--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: I had a Q clearance all while I worked there. I had a Q clearance, which allowed you into everything except top secret buildings. The only thing about Hanford there is a need to know basis. You never learned anything about anything else that was going on except if you were doing it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: When you first started, were you--how did you get to Hanford? Were you able to drive your own vehicle or did you have to take the bus? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: We took a bus out. You could drive your own vehicle off the area, park it outside the fence and that, but most people rode the bus out. They had bus transportation to all areas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And did that continue for most of the time that you worked at Hanford, or did that start to change? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: That continued. Most of the time I worked at Hanford, except the last few years and I was manager or supervisor of the business office. I was working in the 700 Area in the Federal Building. Was then based in there. So at that time I no longer had to ride buses out. But then the last three four years I worked, I was back out in the areas again, but of course I was driving company car out for instructing people on the new telephone systems. They'd set up meetings and I'd go out and instruct them on how it worked and what they could--what they could use of the communication systems. There was a lot of stuff they weren't allowed to use by DOE because it was expensive and unnecessary. So some of the things that they could have had and used, why, they weren't available to the plant operations. Some of the top management had them, but a lot of the systems was not available to the regular—most of the divisions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Now because of the security at Hanford, and secrecy, were there any sort of special phone--concerns about communication, using telephones. Was there any special security or anything like that, related to telephones? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: They always stressed security. That, talk and sink your ship, and so forth and that, to keep people from talking, and of course they had monitoring systems that they--the FBI had one set up in one of the buildings there where they could access any phone in the plant if they had the need to monitor to see if anything was going on that shouldn't be going on. And they then recorded them on little old spools of wax. Little drums of wax recordings that they used to use way back when. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Really? [LAUGHTER] Wow, that's interesting. Did that impact your work at all, the connections at all, or how you did the telephone lines at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: It just gave us more work. I mean we had to--and that was top secret, we were not allowed to discuss that with anyone that this was set up was there, available to the government. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: I’m going to shift a little bit now and talk a little bit about the area, the Tri-Cities area. When you first arrived where did you live? And what were your first impressions of Richland or the area here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well it was--lived in a--with my folks. They'd rented a three bedroom prefab, because they wanted us to come and live with them while I was there. So we lived in that prefab for the first six months, then we moved into one of the B houses down the south end of town. And it was pretty desolate, lot of wind, no trees. [LAUGHTER] And I thought every time the wind blew, why, they'd lose about half their—half their employees would terminate—termination winds they used to call them. [LAUGHTER] And of course the--none of the cities were any too large at that time, and they just grown a lot since. But Richland was all government owned, all the homes and everything was government owned until about '53 they sold the--about '52 or '53 they started selling the houses to the resident who was in the house. And I moved out just before that. We'd moved out and went to Kennewick, so we didn't buy one of the--one of the plant houses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Now had you--did you know anything about the area before you came here? Had your parents told you anything really about-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Not a thing. Just come for the job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So what was the community like in those early years in the late ‘40s early ‘50s? Because I would assume most people had come from all over the United States to work. What was that like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: They come all from all over from the United States and they--everything in town was government owned. So they had a big recreation building. They had two theaters and they had the recreation building where they would contract some major musicians to come in and play, oh, probably once a month they'd come in and play for a dance there for the people. About the only other--well, we had the bowling alley and one tavern in town. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, the bowling alley and the tavern and two theaters. So a lot of the recreation were just people parading up and down the streets on a Sunday when they weren't working. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: So there were theaters to go to. Were there any parades or those sorts of events going on in the summer at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Every year they had parades that the government sponsored. Either parades or art in the park and such as that, that they got started. So there was quite a bit going on, and like I say, every so often they'd get a big band, one of the big bands in to play for the dances. And each department would manage to make a couple of parties every year to keep their people happy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: You mentioned the termination winds and often a lot of people came and went. What made you stay and your family stay there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Oh, I guess I liked the job. [LAUGHTER] It was just what I had always had been doing was telephone work. So I liked the job, and the pay wasn't too bad. And we had all—a lot of free time. I mean on the weekends and that, and it wasn't too far to go out to find recreation in the areas. Fishing or boating or just sightseeing. So we enjoyed—and we enjoyed the climate and that here compared to in some other areas we lived in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Not quite as cold as Wisconsin, I guess.. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Yes. That's-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: I wonder if there were any major events or things that happened while you were working at Hanford that stand out in your memory. I know President Kennedy was here in 1963, right, to sort of open the N Reactor. I wonder if you remember anything about that or are there any other events that really stand out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: That was one time that they even let school out so that school kids could go out there. And our son was in the band, so he was out there playing, and the whole family was out at the N Reactor when President Kennedy was there. Were able to spend the afternoon out there. Fact is, they even got a chance then to take them by the building I was based in at the time, which is out the old BY telephone building. Got to take the family by there, and so we had a family picnic there at the BY building on the way home from the outing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: That's probably the first time family members had a chance to be out-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: That's the first time they were allowed out there at all. I mean if you didn't have a badge you didn't go out there, unless you got special badge to go out into the area. But they had the checkpoints at 300 are and out at--on the highway coming in from the Yakima area--the highway where that highway 24's junctions with it. They had a gate out there, and one out by the--before you got to 300 Area and you had to have a badge to go through there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. And were you able to drive your cars out for that event? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: You could, but they were inspected. Trunks inside and outside as you went through, and--but you could drive your car out. But most people did use the bus. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: I wonder if--what would you like future generations to know about Hanford? What it was like to work there. What it was like living in the Tri-Cities, especially in the 1940s and 1950s and those years in early Cold War years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well, I don't know. [LAUGHTER] That's a--other than the fact, that it was one of the main things that stopped the World War very soon. I mean they saved--people worry about them having killed a lot of people, but they saved a lot lives. And if you look at it in the long run, well, they saved one amount of lives with the production at the Hanford plant. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: It seems like your work experience in 37 years was generally very good. You liked your job, is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Most of the time it was good, yes. It was--there was ups and downs, but it was as a rule it was pretty good. It was a good job and it was a sure job. I mean as long as you did your work and kept your nose clean, why, you had a job for as long as you wanted to stay. I could've stayed on beyond retirement age if I wanted to, but I was ready to go traveling. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: And how about the Tri-Cities as a place to live? You mentioned you moved to Kennewick in the early 1950s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: We moved to Kennewick in 1952, and lived there until 2011. I moved back into Richland, about four or five blocks away from where we first started out in Richland. [LAUGHTER] So I liked it in Kennewick, but it's crowded. We found a real nice location out in Richland that we liked and I built a home there, and we--I moved out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Well that's really interesting about your work and seeing the different changes right, with the telephone system and changes at Hanford. So you started with DuPont. What other contractors did you work for over the years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Well, DuPont, and General Electric, and ARCO, and Westinghouse, and main one, Rockwell. Fact is, I've spent a lot of time—Rockwell was one of the last ones that I just transferred over to Westinghouse as Rockwell phased out just about the time they were phasing out and combining a lot of the companies. Rockwell went out and I've worked with--or with Westinghouse for just a short time, then just to carry over until they got it--got all their programs going again right. There's a lot of change every five years at least, why, they were changing contractors, and was always a big change. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Was there a contract you worked for that you really enjoyed working for maybe more than some of the others? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Oh, no. They were all pretty good. I mean they were--had a job to do, and I was working in the same telephone department all the time. We just transferred under different management, and seems like all of those contractors were nice to work for. I mean, they were all—seemed just one as good as the other. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. Is there anything that I haven't asked you about? Or any memories that you have of either working at Hanford or living in the Tri-Cities that you think is important to share that I haven't asked you about yet, or haven't talked about yet? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Not off hand. I can't think of anything. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Okay. Well, I really appreciate you coming and sharing your memories and your experiences working at the Hanford site and being a part, especially of those early years at Hanford. I really appreciate it, and thanks very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: Other than being a little nervous, why, I enjoyed it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Man two: The only thing I can think of—well you-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Woman one: Last week my daughter came here when we came for the chancellor thing. And she's 15, and they had studied it somewhat in school, but she had some really strange thoughts, and not really positive thoughts about things that had happened here. And I was wondering if maybe you, since you lived through it, if you could make that—the reality of life at that time more real to them? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: I don't know, it just--there was a lot of restrictions and that, that you had to consider, going through that. And the security involved with it was very strict, but I can see where it was very necessary. Any of that restrictions and the production that they made, like I say, saved a lot of lives overall, if you'd have continued with the war as it was going. Why, it brought a stop to it in a hurry. And I think we should be thankful that it did that rather than carry on for invasion of Japan and whatever would have happened after that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Bauman: Well again, thank you very much. I really appreciate you being willing to be the first person to be interviewed as part of this. You get all the little nuances of everything so I really appreciate Mr. Pasch. Thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Pasch: You're welcome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438"> Man one: Okay. Stop the tape. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:26:50 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 249 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 100 Area 221-T Plant 700 Area N Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1947-2013 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Myles Pasch Description An account of the resource An interview with Myles Pasch 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 Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/11/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 221-T Plant 300 Area 700 Area Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) N Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3e4aaec73e6f6c9ba18a36475c893e05.jpg bde01b50c49fdd19de9845aaa9a2a017 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fab86fcd9bafe1ad87121451929b5f8b0.mp4 bf4cb3c2a0e804cfdad85f1d48db7166 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 Laura Arata Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Leonard Peters Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Northwest Public Television | Peters_Leonard </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Leonard Peters: Leonard Peters. L-E-O-N-A-R-D P-E-T-E-R-S. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Thank you. My name's Laura Arata. It's November 19th--already--2013, and we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. So I wonder if we could start, if you could tell us a little bit about how your family came to Hanford and where you were from. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I was born in Denver in August of '43. My father came out in June or July of '43 from Denver. And so my mom, myself, and my brother were there in Denver, and when I was two months old we came out with another family, the Carl Eckert family. And it was my mom, Mrs. Eckert, their daughter--who was about my age--and my brothers. So five of us came out in a car in October of '43. And my dad was working out here. And so that's how we came out, was in an old car. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: And what was your father doing at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: He was a truck driver. He drove for Remington Arms in Denver, who was DuPont, and he also worked for Bechtel up in Alaska. And he came down and went back to Denver and was driving, heard about this place. And if you'd like a very interesting story-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Always. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: He was driving for an Army officer. A colonel or something, I'm not sure. Kind of a--I'll say chauffeur, but it wasn't really a chauffeur. But my dad had heard about this place. And he asked his--I'll say colonel--about it. And very few people knew about it. But this colonel says, well, I can't tell you anything about it, but if you've heard of heavy water, it has something to do with heavy water. Of course my dad, heavy water didn't mean anything to him. But you know, hindsight. It's kind of interesting to me this colonel knew a little bit about what was going on here. As big a secret as it was, not that many people knew. But he had some idea of what was going on. I found that very interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Yeah. And how long did your father work at the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: From '43 until he retired in '73. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Okay, well, we'll come back to that. I want to ask you just a few questions about the area. Obviously you were very, very young— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I'm sorry. He passed away in '73. He retired in '67. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Okay. I'll have more questions for you. [LAUGHTER] Do you remember, growing up, what sort of housing you lived in, what the situation was like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: My first memory was an A house, 1520 Thayer. We moved in there about 1945. So that's my first memory, though we lived many places before that, as my dad's Q clearance bears out. But my memory goes back to the A house in 1945. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Did you live there for quite a while? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Lived there until around '56, '57. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: And could you describe that house a little bit, for anyone who doesn't know what an A house is? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: An A house is a duplex, two-story. You have neighbors literally right next door to you. It was a three-bedroom, all upstairs. And of course back then there was no air conditioning, and it would get hot in the summertime. I can literally remember summers, 109 to 110, 112 degrees. And the only air conditioning was a swamp cooler. So it was pretty miserable, but yet you didn't think about it because that's just the way it was. The government literally furnished everything, from throw rugs to table, chairs. I mean literally everything. Coal. We had a coal-burning furnace, and like once a month or so on, they would deliver coal. And you had to make sure there was a coal bin that had slats in it, and you had to make sure that the slats were in, because if you forgot to put the slats in you'd have coal all over the basement floor. And so that was kind of interesting. My dad, every morning, would have to get up and stoke the fire and get it going in wintertime, because we used to have some pretty bad winters compared to today. And so that was, again, just part of living in this area. Dust storms. You've heard of the termination winds. The wind would blow and the curtains would go back and forth and just wave in the breeze, with all the windows closed. And you'd have a quarter of an inch of dust on the windowsills and everything. But there again, that's just the way it was. I can remember one story--my wife tells that when her mother came out with her and her brother, met at the train station, and the father was there to pick them up. There was a windstorm right then. And her first words were "Sherman, get me a ticket back home." And they ended up dying here, and buried here. And I know my dad, he swore he would never—he wanted to go back to Colorado, but again, he was buried here and lived here all the rest of his life. But what else can I say on the government? Everything—you know, I've heard of people—we never did do it, but people get tired of a chair or something, they'd break it, call housing. They would need another chair, and they'd come out and replace the chair. And if you had—back then they had fuses, as opposed to breakers. Blow a fuse, call housing, they'd send an electrician out to change the fuse for you. I mean, it was pretty amazing, really. And it was good quality furniture. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Cool. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about growing up in Richland in the '40s and '50s, sort of what the community was like at that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: It was a fairly small town, of course. I think--and this is just my memory--it was about probably maybe 23,000 people, was all. Something like that. And it was truly a Leave It to Beaver era. People laugh at that, but that's exactly what it was, because if you stop and think about it--in order to live in Richland, you had to work out in the area. In order to work out in the area, you needed clearance. And it was not unusual to have someone knock at the door and be an FBI agent investigating someone or something. I mean, it was very controlled. And so there was no crime to speak of. Nickel and dime stuff. But there was one murder, in all those years. They never did find the killer. But no, we'd play out all night and folks wouldn't think a thing about it. That’s just the way it was. And in the summertime, like I said, as hot as it was, all the windows and doors would be wide open and wouldn't think a thing about it. And people kind of knew one another. Not that you knew everybody, but that small a town and everyone working out there. Everyone rode the bus, so there was a camaraderie with not only where you worked but also on the buses. And people I think really did try and watch out for one another. But no, growing up, it was great. One kind of fun story. We used to hooky-bob. You know what that is? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: I don't. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Okay, what we'd do in the wintertime when the roads were snowy and icy. You'd hide behind a bush, and as a car went by, you ran out and grabbed the bumper and had them drag you around. And that was a lot of fun. That was one of the winter sports. But it was kind of interesting. I can remember, newspaper front page showed a bus with a glove on it. The story was, it was a hooky-bobber and his hand was wet and it froze to the bumper, and--make a long story short, it was on the dangers of hooky-bobbing. But it just happens that the guy that that glove belonged to graduated a couple years ahead of me. Name was Jim Crum, who is now an attorney for the US government. But no, it was a fun time. I mean, Friday night shows was wall-to-wall kids. Very seldom was there a fight or anything. We'd hang out at the Spudnut Shop, or there was another place called Tim's. Someone that had a car would drive around the Uptown area about 30 times, just looking for gals or whatever. I mean, it was an American Graffiti time. Have you seen American Graffiti? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Yes, sir. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: You see that, and every person in there--Hey, that was so-and-so; that was so-and-so. I mean, it was so accurate to our high school days. It was a good time to grow up. Wintertime, of course, we had Christmas tree forts, and if there was snow on the ground we'd have snow forts and choose up sides and have snowball fights hiding behind our snow forts. We would, if there was no snow--or even if there was snow after Christmas--build Christmas tree forts. Stack them up and have a roof on it, even sleep out in it. But if a neighbor down the street--you know, if they had a Christmas tree fort, about one or two in the morning we'd sneak down and steal all their trees. And we'd have a bigger fort then. We would sleep out a lot in the summertime, because it was hot. I can remember we would sleep out maybe 10 o'clock at night or so. There were still orchards, cherry orchards in town. Up on Van Giesen. We lived just around the corner on Thayer. We'd get up, go down there and steal cherries. We'd steal quite a few cherries. Then the next day we'd sell them house to house. What else was there? The buses were a big part. The buses were fun, because there was two groups. They were both run by the government, but there was what they called the city local, which took people from point A to point B as far as downtown and uptown, different places. Then there was the outer area buses that took workers to work and brought them home. But there was two different--not bus companies, but groups of drivers that drove for each group. But not only hooky-bobbing, but it was always fun to--as buses passed--snowball them, and throw snowballs at them. Just fun things. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Some good winter sports. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Could you talk a little bit more about these--you mentioned Friday night shows, and also the Spudnut Shop. Could you describe those a little bit? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I mean, everyone went to them. All the kids went to them. And you know, you're talking the '50s, where rock and roll was just coming in. I wrote a piece one time on--I really think that we were born at a nice time, because we can remember big bands, we can remember that type of music and how rock and roll came in. And of course parents didn't like rock and roll at all. It was evil, and all this. But a lot of the movies, some of the movies, had rock and roll stars. I can remember people dancing in the aisles while the movie was on. Things like that. I can remember one gal was dancing what they used to call a dirty bop. They ended up kicking her out. [LAUGHTER] But no, there was dancing and hooting and hollering. Before the Uptown Theater opened was the Village Theater. And that was when we were younger, but that's when they showed the serials, whether it be Superman or Whip Wilson or whomever. But every Saturday we'd go to the show. There'd be a cartoon as well as one or two double feature. That's back--we were young, but a fun thing then, I guess, was to have your popcorn boxes. They were boxes at the time. You'd flatten them and throw them and make a shadow on the screen. That was the big deal. But the Village Theater was so strange because it was all kids, basically. Because the Richland Theater, which is now The Players, was more the adults. The Village Theater was for little kids. But you would walk down the aisles, and was a kind of carpeting, and you'd stick, stick, stick, stick. I don't think they ever cleaned it. Pop spilled on it, candy bars, and everything else. That was fun. Then they did build the Uptown Theater, and that was more adult movies. But on Friday night, it was lot of science fiction. That's where you saw Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolfman, and all that. Then the midnight shows had really neat--they'd have a midnight show, and we wouldn't get home until three in the morning, but no big deal. You'd walk home. No big deal. I don't know if you can do it today, but there'd be half a dozen of your friends walking home with you, just having a good time. But the Friday night shows--I started smoking quite early. I don't smoke now. But I can remember, for mowing the lawn and peeling the taters and things that, I’d get $1 a week allowance. And with that dollar I could buy a pack of cigarettes, which would last me a week, get into the show, and have like a dime left over. So I mean, a dollar, I was in fat city. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Do you remember how much a movie cost, about that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: First ones I can remember was $0.11 or $0.12, and then it went to $0.20. And I think during my high school days, if I remember right, it was probably $0.35, something like that. I'm not sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: All right. I'm fascinated by the Spudnut Shop and Tim's. Can you describe those a little? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Well, Tim's was where Dr. Chavla placed his--it's kind of caddy-cornered from the graveyard, the old graveyard. And it was a nice place. A fireplace in it and everything. That's where the kids hung out. And it wasn't really a pizza parlor, but it was kind of a pizza parlor sandwich place. It was our high school days, and it closed, I'm not sure exactly when, but became Einan's Funeral Home. It went from the restaurant to Einan's Funeral Home. And then Einan's, of course, moved out on the bypass. But the Spudnut shop, it's bigger now than it was. It used to just be just a few booths. But I can remember Spudnuts were, let's say, $0.10. And for a Spudnut ala mode--that was a Spudnut with soft ice cream on it--that was $0.15. And if you had $0.15 for that, you was in pretty good shape, because we didn't have money like that. And there was another place just two doors down from that that was the Fission Chips. But it was interesting the way they spelled fission. It was fission, like nuclear. It was Fission Chips. You can see some old pictures of the Spudnut shop, and just a couple doors down, you'll see the Fission Chips. But we'd hang out in the Spudnut Shop before the movie, and then maybe go there after the movie. And that's just where everyone hung out. When we had a car later, more in our high school years, we hung out at a place called Skip's. It was where Les Schwab is now. That was kind of the hangout there. I don't know if you want this on there. It's not very nice. But Skip's, there was a young girl worked there with a cleft palate. One the guys that we kind of ran with, he had a cleft palate also. He was about three years older than me. But he pulled in there, him and friends, and she said in her cleft palate way, ,ay I help you? He said yeah, give me a such and such. And she got mad, you don't have to make fun of me! Because she though he was just making fun of her. Kind of a sad story, but kind of humorous also. The movies was a big part of life. Of course, swimming. We used to swim in the Yakima a lot. And the old pool, what we used to call the big pool, down in what's now Howard Amon Park—it used to be Riverside Park--there was a swimming pool there. And the flood of '48, '47-'48, it flooded the park. And so they done away with that pool and built the present one. That flood was quite a deal. I can remember going--the bridge was out--going out of Richland, and they had a pontoon bridge. And that causeway wasn't there then. It was just flat. But I thought that was so neat. We was going across the bridge, and you see pontoons all the way across it with lumber to drive on. And that always impressed me. Down around Gowen and things, I can remember the basements flooded from that flood. And it was quite a flood. That's when they built the dam or dike around Richland and Kennewick and so on. The—I was thinking of something else, and lost it. But no, the flood was quite an event. I worked with a guy named Ralph Schafer, who had a private pilot's license, and they hired him as a bus driver. But they let him go from bus driving long enough, because the only way to the airport at the time was to fly from Richland to Pasco. So they hired him to ferry people to the Pasco airport in his private plane, because basically there was no way out of Richland, until they put that pontoon bridge in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: I wonder if you could talk about--obviously you went through school here. Do you have any memories--there were also some residents that were here prior to 1943, that were still in school here, that were moved off of their family lands. Did you go to school with anybody who had memories of that, that you recall? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Not to my knowledge. You hear all kinds of stories and things that I don't know. I know I've heard that one family--or some people, I'll say--when they were, quote, kicked out of White Bluffs Hanford area, they moved to Prosser, Sunnyside, somewhere up there, and swore they'd never set foot in Richland. And whether that's true or not, I don't know. But I know there's hard feelings over it, rightfully so. But no, I don't know of anyone. I know we had a lot of construction workers in trailer parks in north Richland. There was a big trailer park, and they had an elementary school out there, John Ball. And once they got all the houses built that they were going to build, I guess, they closed the trailer park and closed John Ball and had them all into town. But I can remember living on Thayer, going to school at Old Sacky—Sacajawea, the Old Sacky--that for some reason, for two-three days they sent me to Spalding. I had to walk to school, which was maybe three, four blocks, five blocks. I can remember big piles of dirt, having to climb over them to get to school. And the reason for that was they were building the ranch houses at that time. So I was probably first grade, I'm guessing. So they were still building in the late '40s, early '50s. In fact, Bauer Days and the Richland Village came later, after the letter houses. But school--no, I honestly can't remember any kids there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: No problem. We're here to get your memories, so. A bunch of other things I want to ask you. One thing, you said your father worked in Hanford until '67. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: He retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: He retired in '67. So he was working in the area when President Kennedy came, in 1963. Do you have any memories of that event? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: No. I was in the Navy then, so no. I know my wife said that she went out to see him. And there were so many people you could hardly see him, but she went out to it. But no, I got out of the Navy in October, '63. I was on a train back to Denver to visit relatives. It's kind of sad. I was sitting in the club car playing cards with strangers, and the porter came in--a black fella--says, [EMOTIONAL] the President's been shot. And we all--aww, go on, he's pulling our leg, he's joking. Then I says, you don't joke about something like that. We were somewhere around Wyoming on the train, and then they was able to get a radio station over the PA or whatever it was. Sure enough, a little bit later--that he had died. And that's how I learned of it. I'll never forget that train ride. Got to Denver, and it was just strange. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Of course. And we're right on the anniversary of it now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. Yeah. But my dad, I don't know if he went to see him or not. I mean, he was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. He came out of the Depression. He was born in '03, so he'd been through a lot. I can remember him saying that he'd vote for a yellow dog before he'd vote for a Republican. He was the old Democrat. But he did vote for one Republican. That was John Dam, who was running for county commissioner. They were personal friends. He said that's the only Republican he'd ever voted for. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: One exception. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: So did you work at Hanford at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: You did. So could you start filling us in on that a little? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I worked 40 years out there. Hired on '65. And luckily my dad was still working, so we overlapped. We were both drivers. And I started out as a laborer, though they called them servicemen--basically a laborer. And I got set up to bus driver. And in '61, had a layoff. And I could have stayed, but I thought, man, let's see what else is out there. And I went and worked for Battelle. I was with Battelle for about 13 years in inhalation toxicology. Long-term study. Plutonium, curium, americium studies on dogs. And in about '84 I quit Battelle and went back to transportation, because money. You know that all your college folks know that biology is not real high-paying, unless you're a PhD or something. But a BS in biology's not much. But no, I really enjoyed that. In fact, when McCluskey's glove box blew up, about 200 Areas were exposed to--I forget if it was curium or americium, but there hadn't been a lot of studies on those. And like I said, I was working in inhalation toxicology, and we got two or three big contracts right after that to study the health effects of curium and americium through inhalation. He was an amazing man, because I worked with PhDs. Immunologists, veterinaries, hematologists. You name it, we had the discipline there. Pathologists. And they didn't give him six months to live, with what he got. And he ended up living probably 20 years or better. It is quite an amazing story. You can go on the internet and look up Atomic Man, and his story's in there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: We actually interviewed the gentleman who was in charge of the cleanup, cleaning up his hospital room. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. I don't know if it was this guy I worked with, what we called a radiation monitor. Now they're HPTs or something. But he was with him, scrubbing him and things. His name was Larry Belt. He'd be a good interview for you. I worked with Larry for a number of years. He was our radiation monitor when we exposed dogs and so on. But he said, you can't believe the pain this man was in. He said, we had to literally scrub him with brushes, because he had stuff embedded in his face and so on. Terrible. He says, submerge him and scrub him. No, Larry Belt could tell some stories about it. But back to my job. I quit Battelle for financial reasons and went back to driving. Drove a bus for a lot of years. They shut the bus system down, and I went and worked driving a truck, and drove ERDF trucks hauling the solid waste from out around the river and so on. Did that for a number of years and retired. I taught HAZMAT classes for the last about ten years. But buses were the fun job. A lot of stories there. One of our drivers named Carl Adcock was driving down Delafield, taking the day shift home--so it was about four or five in the afternoon—and a little girl was standing out in the middle of the street playing. About five, six years old. Stopped his bus, pulled the brake, got out and spanked her butt, get out of here! Got back in the bus, and the passengers were just--what are you doing? You could get in trouble for that. And it was his daughter. But no, we've had people have epileptic seizures on the bus. And there's all sorts of things like that. A lot of stories. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: You must see a little bit of everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Oh, yeah. We had poker games, bridge games, on the buses. They had cardboard tables. Four people would sit down, put their table between the aisles and play cards. They had a bridge game going from 100F, which was where the animals were before they built 300—the animal life sciences 300 Area--but they had a bridge game that was going steady for at least 30, 35 years. I mean, it was different people. You know, someone would retire, someone else would take their place. But it started out at 100F at lunch break and then on the bus, and it continued. When we were at 300 they were still playing. Again, it was different players, but it was the same game. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Wow. There's something I wanted to ask you about. Returning back to when you worked in inhalation toxicology at Battelle, did you work with the smoking beagles? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yes. That was my first job, was smoking. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: We just interviewed Vanis Daniels-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Oh, yeah. I know Vanis. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: --last week, who worked with the smoking beagles. Can you describe for us the process of getting the beagles to smoke two packs a day? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Well, the hard part's lighting 'em. No, the reason for the study, as I understood it, was uranium miners were dying early, and they wanted to know why. Because it could be cigarette smoke--because most of them were smokers--uranium ore dust or it could be radon daughters. And so we had a group of--I forget now. 70 dogs, 60. Something like that. And 10 of would receive smoke only, cigarette smoke only. They had a table, kind of a horseshoe. The mask fit over their muzzle with a cigarette in there, and like every seventh or tenth breath, a little gadget would open and their breath would suck in the smoke. But then ten of them would receive uranium ore dust and radon daughters. There was a large chamber that held ten dogs around it, and up in the top there was a grinder thing that would grind the ore dust and sprinkle it down in. I mean, it wasn't noticeable, it wasn't thick, but it was in there. And then we had radon. I think it was water bubbled through it that would give the radon gas, and it would get into the chamber. And then we had another ten that would receive cigarette and the radon. And then a control group that didn't receive anything. They were called sham. You'd bring them in, go through all the same routine, but they wouldn't receive anything. And just see what the effects were. And it was a lifespan study, so you'd look at the dosage and how long they lived and what affected them the most. So that's basically what it was. One story I heard--probably true--was that the Russians said that our limits were too high, should be lower. So that maybe prompted it, I don't know. Then after that when we got to 300 Area, 100-F moved into 300 Area, and they closed 100-F down. And then they had a group of just smoking dogs. And it was more difficult in the sense that we had a mask that fit over their muzzle, and they could trick it. They could breathe out of the side of their mouth. When they did it at one area they trached them, and there was no cheating that. It was direct. There was no getting around that. I learned a lot. I mean, that was one of the most exciting jobs. And the learning curve was just like that. I really learned a lot about physiology and biology and chemistry. You work there that long, and you learn a lot. Because part of my job was necropsy--or what they call autopsy, but necropsing the dogs. And we always said we took everything but the bark. I mean we literally disarticulated them and took every piece that they had. Every organ, every bone, separated it. The reason for that—we wanted to know where the plutonium or curium or whatever went to in the body. Where was the body burden? Was it in the lungs, was it in the bones? And interestingly enough, we exposed Pu-238 and 239, and the 238 would be a bone-seeker. The bones would have high doses. But in 239, the bones hardly got anything. It was all soft tissue. So they learned a lot from that, as far as where these elements--what they seek. The target organs, if you will. I don't know if all that should go in this. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Fascinating. I really love hearing about it. Could you talk a little bit about--obviously, during those times, security and secrecy was still very much a part of working at Hanford. Did that impact your work at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Oh, a lot. You know, being raised--from my oldest memories, it was secure. And I can remember when I was probably about 10, 11, 12 years old I went in for a library card here in Richland. They asked who my dad worked for, and I was scared to tell them. Because the security--my dad never told me what was going on out there. And I knew security was a big deal. And I says, I don't know. I kind of knew, but I--And she says, well, what does he do? And I says, well, he drives. So then she wrote down General Electric. But no, I mean, it was paramount even as a kid. I can remember—and this is kind of funny hindsight--but kind of put yourself in that timeframe--I can remember calling my brother who was seven, eight, nine years old--would have been in the early '50s, McCarthy era--I can remember calling my brother a dirty communist. And my dad just came unglued. He would rather have me call him S.O.B. than that, because that wasn't something you messed with in the early '50s, with the FBI and everything else. But I mean, security was bred into you, I guess. And when I hired on, it was still, but not like it was. But many of us still had that same mentality. I can remember when they started releasing things to the public. That always bothered me, because this is secure, and people don't have the need to know a lot of this stuff. Security was a big deal. I mean, you didn't go anyplace without a security badge. They could stop you, search your car, and everything else. So it was a high priority. There was seclusion areas within the area. You might get out in the area, but you might not be able to get into a certain area. When you got in that area, you couldn't get into another area, like dash-5 or Z-Plant or REDOX or PUREX. You needed extra security on your badge to get in these places. So security was very tough. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Could you talk a little bit about how Hanford was overall as a place to work? Anything you found particularly challenging or very rewarding about your time in the area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I think it was great. You know, let's face it, it was great for a lot of people that worked here. I mean, good pay—relatively good pay, and a lot of people raised their families and sent them to school on this pay out here. And as far as working out there, we really had fun in the early days. And by the early days, I mean when I hired on. Because I felt very lucky that when I hired on, most of the old-timers were still working. And by old-timers I mean them that hired in the '40s. So a lot of the stories, a lot of things that they knew and interesting things that they talked about, I was privy to. And that was great. And it was, to me, really a fun place to work. I really enjoyed it. Later I can remember saying more than once in the '80s or '90s, this isn't fun like it used to be. And it wasn't. But you know, I was younger then, and that made a difference. I was about 21, 22 when I hired on. And so times changed. I think in the early days--by that, my early days--there was what we call maybe some dead wood. And they might have five people to do a job for two people. But I mean, it was good, it was job security. Well, then came the cuts and so on. I think that made it a little different, because one thing that's bothered me over the years, there's been layoffs. But you can check the records. Many times after these layoffs, within six months they're calling them back, because work has to be done. We might cut 500 people, but that job is still there, so they called a portion of them back. Which, to me, doesn't make sense. But I don't think there's the fat out there that there was at one time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about? Any other stories that stand out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: I think the racial thing was a big story in the early days because there wasn't that many black people working out there. And I can remember us--I mentioned earlier that Richland didn't have hardly any blacks. We had one black I'm aware of. He was a shoeshine guy at the Ganzel's barbershop. His picture is still in there. But I can remember--I must have been six, seven years old--I saw my first black person. I was in a car downtown with my mom. And I saw him, and I just saw his hands and face. And I can remember wondering, I wonder if his whole body is that way—we just didn't see them. We had two black guys in high school. C.W. and Norris Brown, who was terrific basketball players. And the main reason their family moved was because of those two boys. It was a different time then. I don't know it should go on record, because I don't know if it's true or not, but talking about the early people that worked there, one of the stories that I heard--and like I say, whether it's true, I have no idea. But they were out working, and they had a burn barrel. It was very cold. A barrel full of wood and so on, a burn barrel. The construction workers were huddled around it, and this one colored individual this kind of bulled his way in. He wanted to get up to the front. And the story goes--whether, again, true or not, I don't know--a carpenter took his hammer and ended it. And that wouldn't surprise me, though I don't know if it's true or not. Because there was prejudice. A lot of the people that came here were from the South, and it was a different lifestyle. I know that they had separate camps for the blacks and the whites. And it was segregated. So I can remember when I was driving the bus here, we only had--to my recollection—one black in all of transportation. There may have been more, but I think only one. And it wasn't until probably '63 or '64 that they really started recruiting blacks. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: I understand there were labor organizers and people who came in with the NAACP and that sort of thing to sort of assess conditions, which would have been about the time you were working in the 100 and 300 Areas. Do you have any recollections of that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Well, the one black that I told you about was a serviceman—labor. Same group I was in. And he was the head of the local NAACP. His name was McGee. And the way you became a driver was seniority. In other words, if this driver retired and you were next in seniority, you'd get that job. Well, he was the next one up, as a laborer, for a driving job. They wouldn't give it to him, for obvious reasons. Well, he fought it through the NAACP and he ended up becoming a driver. But they was not going to give him that job because of his race. Battelle, to their credit, was the first ones to make an overt effort to hire black people. And that's where--gentleman you mentioned earlier. And Battelle had--not overwhelming, but a number of blacks working for them. And in inhalation toxicology we had a number in animal care as well as in the crafts. So I would say from '63 on, it started changing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: So this is kind of my last question--we'll have students accessing these interviews. Most of my students now are too young to have remembered the Cold War. It's sort of an older-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: So maybe if you could just talk a little bit about what it was like being part of this Cold War effort, and what you'd like students or future generations to know about contributions to that process. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yeah. I know there's different views on this, but I feel very strongly about--because I knew a lot of GIs from that time frame—had two uncles that were in the war. And you know, the atomic bombs, and we made the plutonium here for the bomb, literally ended the war. I am a firm believer--had we had to invade, there'd been hundreds of thousands on both sides killed. And they talk about the badness, rightfully so, of the atomic bomb. But you look at the conventional bombing of Germany, and it was as bad or worse as the atomic bombs. The firebombing of Tokyo. Things like that. So as bad as the atomic bomb was, it did end the war. You'd had to live through it. Now, as far as the Cold War goes, you know, the place wasn't supposed to last much more than ten years. And that's what everyone thought. Well, then the Russians got the bomb. That changed things a little bit. And it was scary. I mean, like I said earlier, me calling my brother communist. I wasn't old enough to really realize what was going on, but I can remember--would've been during the Korean War--my dad came to my brother and I and said, I want to know where you guys are all the time, because we might have to leave town in a hurry. That was the mentality of that time. We had air-raid sirens throughout the town. I can remember every--I believe it was Monday at ten o'clock, they would go off to test. But there was one right behind Jason Lee, where I was going at the time, and it was loud. Every--I think it was Monday or Tuesday, at ten o'clock they'd go off. Because we literally were on standby. We didn't know what was going to happen. And the Korean War and then the McCarthy era, it was a scary time for adults. You know, as a kid, you didn't notice it, other than watching others. But I think Hanford had a lot to do with ending the war. Which ushered in the Cold War, because of the proliferation of the weapons. And you have to give credit to whomever for tearing down the wall, for bringing somewhat of a peace in the world—I say somewhat. I think it was our spending billions of dollars building up our—you know the old saying, peace through strength. That's what Reagan did. He was a big spender, but he got the job done. But Hanford was unique, because I can still remember there was anti-aircraft placements out there. When I hired on, all the old track houses were still there. I worked on a fuel truck, and we would fuel here and there and then we'd go out into the desert area, if you will, and look at these old houses that were still standing. And the old icehouse was still there. And a lot of these buildings were still there in the '60s. And why they had the need to tear them all down, I don't know. I think it was a shame. But they tore them all down other than the bank and the school. I believe about all that's left. No, it was a different time. Like I say, I can still remember my dad telling us both, I want to know where you are in case we have to leave town. I mentioned earlier, the FBI--it was not unusual to have an FBI agent knock at the door and talk to my folks about so-and-so. We had neighbors that lived in the same house—in our A house, our neighbors there was there one day and gone the next. It wasn't unusual to--you're out of here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: Certainly a different time. I want to thank you so much for coming in and sharing your memories with us. I really appreciate it. We'll film all these goodies you brought us, if that's okay-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Peters: Yep. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237872738"> Arata: --before we have to go. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:57:05 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 194 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area 100 F Area Z Plant Dash 5 Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1945-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1965-2005 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Belt, Larry Daniels, Vanis Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Leonard Peters Description An account of the resource An interview with Leonard Peters 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. 2016-06-21: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/19/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 100 F Area 200 Area 300 Area Dash 5 Plant Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) swimming Z Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd3a31e8f531859f8cf4173f7e777e4cc.jpg 2a38262e6623571282c597a9daca931b https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7c6061bb308050f0219a8db9b6ffcf03.mp4 98f9b422199605caf34957b60917b70d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Petersen, Gary Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Petersen_Gary Gary Petersen: Sure. This is easy. Robert Bauman: All right, let’s see. Petersen: Hair's combed, eyebrows are trimmed. Man One: Yeah, you sure do look pretty. Petersen: Actually I'd rather watch her than— [LAUGHTER] Petersen: Is that-- Bauman: Unfortunately, you're supposed to look at me, actually. Petersen: Oh. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Yeah, I’m sure. All right. Does that work there, on the mic? Woman One: Mm-hmm. Bauman: It’s okay? Man Two: Mm-hmm. Bauman: Okay. Man One: We can start whenever you’re ready. Bauman: All right. All set to go? Woman one: All set. Bauman: Excellent. All right. Well, Gary, I think we're ready to go. Petersen: Fire away. Bauman: All right. Well, let's start first by having you say your name and then spell it. Petersen: Okay. It's Gary Peterson G-A-R-Y P-E-T-E-R-S-E-N. That's important, the E. Bauman: Yes. You're right. My name's Robert Bauman and today's date is June 5th of 2014. And we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So, Gary, let's start with the beginning of your time here. Can you tell us about when you came to Hanford and Tri-Cities, what brought you here? Petersen: Well, that's a good question. [LAUGHTER] Okay. Actually, I came first in 1960, January, 1960, with the Nike Ajax Missile site at the top of Rattlesnake Mountain. And I was temporarily assigned up there--well I was assigned up there, but three times a day we'd get on the back of a two and a half ton truck and go down to the mess hall down below. And I knew I was going to die, so I asked be transferred to any place and I got sent to Korea. I said never come back to the Tri-Cities, but as you can see, I did. The second time, though, is probably the one you're after. I decided after the military that I needed to get an education, so I went to Washington State University and got a Communications degree with a minor in Electrical Engineering. I had a job with Ford Motor Company all lined up, but I wasn't too enthused about going to Detroit. That was January of 1965. And so my college professor, Chuck Cole said, gee, there's a new company opening up in Tri-Cities. Why don't you stop by? So I stopped by on a Friday, went to work on Monday with Battelle, which became Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So there's how I got here. Bauman: So, that first time, in 1960, why did you want to transfer? Was it the ride down the mountain? Petersen: Three times a day with an 18-year-old driving, and you drop 2,000 feet, and at the bottom there's a 90 degree corner, 16 degree grade, and it was January. I knew that one of these was going to go off the road. So I said I've got to get out of here. So I put in request for transfer, and I transferred. Just like that. To Korea. Bauman: Right. During the first time here in 1960, did you spend any time in town? Petersen: We did, much different than--actually most of the servicemen, and there were quite a few of us at the four batteries, would go to--there was a bowling alley and a dance hall over in Kennewick, just off of Clearwater that was surrounded by fruit trees. Now all of that's gone and it's all businesses and so on. Clearwater's full, but at that time, it was all orchards. It was pretty nice. Bauman: What were your impressions of the place, other than not liking that ride down the mountain? Petersen: Well, you have to remember it was about like probably what the first military people saw when they came by here in December, January of 1943. I mean it was cold, it was brown. No trees. It was a barren place, even in 1959. So I can imagine what Colonel Mathias thought when first flew over this place. From the top of Rattlesnake, as you can imagine, you saw the entire Hanford site, so it was pretty barren and bleak. Bauman: Going back a little farther, where had you lived before this? Where did you grow up? Petersen: I graduated from Womack High School, which is up the Okanagan. I lived on an apple orchard. Again I was used to being around trees, and you come to the desert--I can imagine, any time between 1943 and 1959, ‘60, ‘61, ‘62, this was a pretty barren place. Bauman: And so in 1965, you took the job up at Battelle. Petersen: Yep. Bauman: What was the job? Petersen: The job to start with was a communications person. I became the manager of the news of service. The advantage I had was I got everywhere on the Hanford site, except the tank farms. I've stayed away from the tank farms successfully for a lot of years. But I spent a lot of time out on the hundred F reactor, which was the biology and aquatic biology site at the time. I got all over the site, including back up to the top of Rattlesnake Mountain a couple of times. So it was really pretty nice. Bauman: When you came back then, in '65, where did you live? Petersen: Lived originally in what were called the stilt apartments. They're on Jadwin. They've been fixed up since, so you would never know that they were stilt. Stilt, meaning that they actually had posts that held up the second floor. The posts were the garage for the people who lived there. But they're not far from the Chevron station, kind of in North Richland. Lived there for quite a while. And then the last of the homes that were built prior to 1958 went for sale. Those were called the Richland Village Homes. And there were two-bedroom and three-bedroom, either one-car garage attached or unattached. And they went up for sale for—I bought one—three-bedroom with a single car garage attached—for $6,200. Pretty good buy at the time, and I ended up paying less than I was for rent in the stilt apartments. I thought was pretty good deal. Bauman: What was the community of Richland like at the time in the mid-1960s? Petersen: The community was still just finding its way out of what I call the federal government ownership. In 1958, the city became an incorporated city again. And it was 1958 that the federal government to city back over to itself. And so between '58 and '65, it was a city that was still trying to find its way as a city, other than as a federal funded city. It was unique in that aspect. Battelle was well the first companies, too, to come in here—although it had a government contract, it was one of the few to come in here and be from the outside. Man, up until that point it was DuPont and then General Electric and then in 1965 is when the AEC decided to diversify the Hanford contract. They split it up into eight pieces, and so Battelle was one of those pieces. The others were HEHF and the operations and so on. There's been 35 contractors in here since 1965, and Battelle was one of the early ones. Bauman: Now, before your first arrival here in the 1960, the Ajax site, were you familiar with Hanford? Did you know what sort of work that was going on in Hanford? Petersen: Well, I did only because I spent some time up at Fairchild Air Force Base. They also had a Nike Ajax missile site. They were trying to transfer some people from Fairchild to Hanford. And so I learned a little bit about what Hanford was. The nice thing at the time is everybody--all the military guys said, oh, you're going to love the Tri-Cities because it's way warmer than Spokane. So I thought, sure, and then you come down in January and it was cold, at the top Rattlesnake you get winds up to a hundred miles an hour. It was not one of your pleasure spots at the time, but the view was great. View was great. Bauman: So, you knew something about Hanford at that point. Petersen: Knew that it was a military installation, federal installation. Knew that they made the material for the atomic bomb. Knew that there was a reason for the Nike Ajax missile site to be there, to protect the site. So, yes, that much we were pretty clear on, and the military took their job very seriously. There was a no fly zone over Hanford. No commercial flights, no flights of any kind other than military itself. It was pretty well protected. And on top of Rattlesnake, I might just add, that was the radar installation. It was at the highest point, so the radar reached a long way. You could see planes coming well, well in advance of them ever getting through to Hanford. What was interesting is sometimes we would notify Fairchild or McChord, and you'd actually have fighter jets intercept planes that wouldn't veer off. That was a unique feature of what you did on top of the mountain. The other sites, they had radar installations, but that one was pretty unique. That was pretty good. Bauman: Yeah. So in 1965 when you came and were working in communications, what sort of responsibilities did you have there? Petersen: Well, one of the assignments that was unique was to take tours to indoctrinate all new staff members, and that was for everywhere on the site. Over the years, I've taken literally thousands of people on tours over the site. At the time, it didn't seem like it was that great of a job to be able to take people around the site, explain what the reactors were, what the 100 Area, 200 Area, 300 Area, those kind of things. But as it turned out, the longer I did it the more I realized that the work that was going on here was critical. The Cold War, was still fairly active, so it became important to me to make sure that people understood what kinds of things went on here. It wasn't until later that I became interested in what happened pre-1943. As you keep tromping across the land, you start saying, oh, there were other things here too. But it was pretty good. Bauman: Those site tours for new employees, were they able to go pretty much everywhere on site? Petersen: We could go everywhere except into the area that had the plutonium, which is now known as the Plutonium Finishing Plant. Where there was restricted classified, the real concern was both tritium and plutonium. You couldn’t say the word tritium back in those days. You could plutonium, because they knew it was the material for the plutonium bomb, Fat Man, came from here. But tritium was something nobody talked about. And so those areas were restricted and that was mostly in the tank farm area. That was were chemical separations took place, so we stay away from those. It was okay by me. Bauman: Well, that does raise—obviously, security, safety were very important at Hanford. In what ways did security at Hanford impact your job? That's obviously one way. There's certain areas you couldn't go, right? Petersen: There were replaces you couldn't go. The badges--all of the badges at that time were designated to which areas you could or couldn't go. It was readily identifiable on your badge whether you were allowed into say, the 300 Area or the 100 Areas with reactors, or the 200 Area. And within them there were other exclusion zones, too. There were restrictions placed in each of those locations. Typically somebody that worked in 100 Area wouldn't ever be allowed into the 300 Area, or into the 200 Areas. The reactor areas were the 100 Area, the 300 Area was the research area, and the 200 Area was chemical separation. They were pretty segregated as to where you could go. Bauman: In communications you mentioned that you couldn't say the word tritium. Were there other things you couldn't talk about or write about? Petersen: You couldn't talk about quantities. As a matter of fact, there was a real restriction early on. One of the things that I found in the process of working in communication, there were nine production reactors around the Columbia River on the horn. In the summertime in particular there were periods where all nine reactors would be working. Sounds unique when you think about it today, but in the summertime June, July, August they actually measured the temperature of the Columbia River before the first reactor and after the last reactor. As I recall, if the Columbia River temperature was raised by close to ten degrees, then they would have to start shutting down the reactors, because the flow back into the Columbia River was that warm coming from reactor. In order to protect the fish and things in the river, then they really monitored the river very carefully. The reason I point that out is you also never talked about how much water went through those reactors because there was a fear that the Soviet Union could figure out the quantities of production simply by measuring the amount of water that went through those reactors, or the temperature increase from one point to another. It sounds odd today, but that was one of the strictures of what you could and couldn't talk about. It was a pretty quick--they were very careful about quantities. Bauman: And I assume that you had to, when you were hired, had to go through security clearance process--? Petersen: Q clearances were standard. There was one level above that that was called CRYPTO for a while. I don't know what happened on those, but that was for individuals who got around most of the site. They were a unique feature at that time. Bauman: Where was your office located? Where did you work out of? Petersen: Well my office moved all over. Originally it was in the old army headquarters—and this is in 1965. Battelle, when they first came in here, moved into a building that was called 3201. Later they changed it to the old office building—OSB was what it was called, old office building. But that was before the Battelle buildings were built, which became known as the Sand Castle. We lived and worked from January of 1965 until probably the spring of '66 before we moved into the new Battelle-owned buildings, the Sand Castle, which are on Battelle Boulevard now. And then later I moved out into the 300 area. I was in and out of 100F area. Those kind of places. So, yeah. How we doing? Bauman: You knew the site well. Petersen: Well, except for the 200 Area. That was a real restricted area, and maintained that for quite a number of years. Bauman: You talked about giving tours to new employees, sort of the indoctrination to the site. How about for dignitaries, government officials, did you do that? How about the general public? Petersen: The general public rarely, if never, I don't think we ever did that, but government official Catherine May was the first congresswoman I took through. She was a congresswoman from 8th District. I took Senator Magnuson through. Later Tom Foley, so quite a number of those over the years. In later years we started getting some foreign visitors, as well. But early years congressional officers, congressional staff, the governor. Dan—Governor—the name just few out of my head. The governor of the State of Washington, Dan--? Bauman: Evans. Petersen: Evans. Thank you. He later became also a senator from the state. He was a first governor that I helped escort across the site. Most of those, it was unique to be able to take visitors like that around the area. Bauman: Do any of those tours especially stand out? Were any officials particularly interested or excited about it? Are there any sort of strange stories from that? Petersen: [LAUGHTER] Well, Senator Magnuson was a unique individual. He actually came out quite a number of times. And one of those times we were in the 300 Area, and I was working at the time for Westinghouse, Westinghouse Hanford Company. He came out to actually, quote, break the ground on FFTF. We were in a building at the time, a four story office building in the 300 Area, and I'll never forget, I was assigned to make sure he got up to the podium. His vehicle came in front the building, and then drove around to the back of the building, so I ran back and met Magnuson back there. I'd known him before. Frankly, honestly, he was drunk as a skunk. I didn't think he was going to be able to make it. He says, just get me to the podium and I'll be fine. I didn't think it was possible. But he got up, he gave an excellent speech. A little wobbly, but I don't think most people knew that he had been drinking. This was 4:00 in the afternoon or so, and then he left. I might point out, it was about a year later, 1971, that President Nixon came out. There was quite a scramble, because at that time there were no buildings for Westinghouse. Westinghouse was kind of spread all over, so when the advance team for Nixon came out, they decided that the proper place would be the Battelle buildings. This sounds odd, but there was a real infighting between, at that time, Atomic Energy Commission, Westinghouse Hanford Company, and Battelle over what signs would be displayed where. Because Westinghouse was interested in making sure—this was for FFTF, and that was a Westinghouse project. On the front of the podium, of course, was the President's seal. He spoke out in front of the buildings, but behind that—or around that, Westinghouse came in the night before and put up Westinghouse circle W signs around the site. Just an example of my boss at the time, who was one of the vice presidents, said I don't care how you do it, but I want to sign that says Battelle that they can't take down and will be located visibly for all the cameras. So we stole a door off of one of the rooms in the Battelle building. I don't know if you've been the buildings or not, but they're very tall doors. They're nine-foot-tall doors. So we actually, that night, took one of the doors off, put Battelle on it, and put it up on the front of the building up high so it was right behind the podium. Westinghouse--we had to do that after midnight. That door actually was at the entrance to Battelle for—I don’t know—the next 20 years. They finally took it down not long ago. But that was relative to President Nixon showing up. That was pretty good. Bauman: Stealing and moving doors. Petersen: Well, everybody wanted their name and with the President of the United States, and so that's what we did. Bauman: Did you get the chance to meet him when he came? Petersen: I did. One of the things I still—my family still values—is Pat Nixon was along with him. My oldest daughter was one year old, and because of what I was doing, we managed to get my wife and daughter into what was called the VIP area of the presentation and so on. She didn't get to shake hands with President Nixon, but Pat Nixon came by and actually held my daughter for a brief minute. We got a picture of it and it is still on the family someplace. Bauman: How about foreign dignitaries were there any-- Petersen: Foreign dignitaries, those came later, too, after the SALT agreements. On the signing of the SALT agreements, there was real concern both on the part of Russia, Soviet Union, and the United States for how much materials were still being made or not made. There were a number of Russian visitors who came over to verify which reactors were still operating, which ones weren't, how much material was still going through the canyon facilities, those kind of things. We started for the first time, seeing some of the senior Russian officials come through. The one that still strikes me and my memory is Admiral Sarkisov. He was head of the Russian Navy, and he came out both to see at that point the start of the reactor vessels from the submarines. Today, we have about 124 submarine and cruiser missile reactor cores out on site, but at that point I want to say we probably only had eight or ten, maybe 11, 12, something like that. But he also wanted to see those and verify that the submarines had actually been decommissioned, cut up, and so on. We toured both the reactor areas and the submarine vessel area. Of course, that's where my story about FMEF comes from, too. There was a building out there that was built for FFTF called FMEF, Fuel Material Examination Facility. On the way out to the site, Admiral Sarkisov asked, what is in that building. I told him it was a shut down building. We went out and toured the site. We toured the top of Rattlesnake Mountain with him, too, which was pretty unique. But we toured the site and coming back in, he asked if he could see that building, inside the building. So I called security. It was a closed building—it was locked up. And so they met in they let us in. As we came out, Admiral Sarkisov says, well now I can move the satellite. I asked what he was talking about. And he said, well, we've been watching that building since it was completed, and we couldn't believe the United States would build a building of that size, that massive size, and then not use it. So we knew that was connected underground some other place, because we never saw any cars come. So the Russians actually thought that that building was so secret that they had an underground entrance that came from someplace else. But he saw it was simply not used. And it is unique building. It's a billion dollar building. Bauman: That's a great story. When you were giving the tour with him, was there an interpreter present when he was-- Petersen: There was always an interpreter. As a matter of fact, one from both State Department for us, for the people who were the escorts, and then he had his interpreters, too, so there was both. The group was probably ten people or so: site manager, and then others of that--there was people from state--you didn't let them wander around by themselves. Pretty unique. Bauman: Well, you said you've been connected to Hanford since 1965-- Petersen: Mm-hm. Bauman: I'm sure you’ve-- Petersen: Almost 50 years. Bauman: --been privy to a lot of interesting events and stories. So I’m going to ask you to tell me some of those, but there's one in particular I know, and that's the alligator story. Petersen: Yeah, the alligator story is good. Bauman: All right, you can talk about that. Petersen: The alligator’s pretty unique. The aquatic biology was located in 100-F Area. That's the last reactor in the downstream flow of the Columbia. So they studied the impacts of the reactors on fish, miniature swine, beagle dogs, they had African pygmy goats, but one of them—Merc Gillis was a doctor of veterinary medicine—graduate of WSU, I might add. He said that he wanted to study the uptake of strontium-90 in a thick skinned animal, because strontium is bone seeker or thick skin. So he convinced the manager of the site, of biology site, that we ought to buy some alligators. The story varies depending on who you're talking to. Bill Bair will give you one side of the story, because he was one of the managers out there. I'll give you another one. But I know for a fact at least six alligators were purchased for the studio strontium-90 uptake. Bill Bair says there were more, but I still wonder about that because I was in and out of there a lot. But these alligators were about two and a half feet long and they put them in a retention pen in the Columbia River, but it was also where the effluent from the F Reactor came back. The water would pass through the reactor, put into retention basin for a short period, and then put back in the river, so it was warmer than the river. That's part of the point. It also was the first place where the water returned to the river, so that was where the strontium would be taken up by the alligators. That's the theory. Well, two months, three months after they put the alligators into this retention pond, there was a big storm. The pen came down and all six alligators got out. This was under the AEC at the time, too—they managed to catch five, but they missed one. It was months later that a fisherman over in Ringgold, downstream, fishing caught this last alligator. Of course, he was trying to tell friends about it, and on and on. But, he had to protect the proof, so he took to a taxidermist office in Pasco and had the thing stuffed. Well, one of the technicians from aquatic biology was walking by the taxidermist shop, saw this stuffed alligator. So he ran in, grabbed the alligator, and ran out, which now makes it more or less of a public story. This was in 1963, before I got here. But the story comes around. Anyway, AEC tried to bury that story. No, we've never had an alligator out there. We don't know anything about alligators. They actually, I think, had it classified for quite some time. But when I got here in '65, my boss was a guy named George Dalen and I had been here for about a year. He says, it's time to give the alligator back. I had no idea what he was talking about, but this is where I entered the story. So he pulls out this stuffed alligator about like this, and he said it was, I think the guy's name was Aaron, he said track him down, because he was the fisherman. He paid to have it stuffed, and we're going to give the alligator back. We'll just let the story go away. So I did. I found the man. Unfortunately, the Tri-City Herald ran a story about this big about the alligator, and once every eight or ten years, they use one of these clips when they do the previous in history. DOE came in and they claimed to know nothing about any alligators, ever, ever, ever. It was in the technical library that they finally found the documents that showed not only did they have alligators, but the other five, they moved from 100-F when they had a fire out there, down to the 300 Area where life sciences built a new building. So I know that there were six alligators, five, one stuffed, and Bill Bair says that there were a few more than that, but I don't know that. That's the alligator story. Better told over beer, I might add, but not bad. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Are there any other stories during your time at Hanford--incidents, events, things that you were involved in in your job [INAUDIBLE]? Petersen: The biggest one is one that I think this community has forgotten completely, and that's Apollo 11. Apollo 11 was the first lunar landing. When Apollo 11 came back to the moon and splashed down in the Pacific, it turned out that in 329 Building, there was a room that was used for very low level radiation detection. It was a room made of pre-World War II battleship steel. It was used for a lot of reasons for measuring very small quantities of radiation. Battelle actually put in a bid with NASA to study some of the first lunar materials that came back. So they had splash down in the Pacific, and we had a man named Dr. Lou Rancitelli, who actually waited in Houston for those materials to be flown from the Pacific, off of the aircraft carrier, back to Houston. He had a briefcase—big briefcase—chained to his wrist, where he brought those back through Seattle and then to the Hanford site. He arrived here about one in the morning, I might add. There were only a few people--Doctor Perkins, myself, a couple of others, who were waiting. We kept this all secret, because we weren't supposed to tell news media or anybody else that this was going on. But Lou got the materials back, and the next day we started petitioning NASA to allow us to display those moon rocks here in this community. The second place in the whole world that moon rocks were displayed was the Federal Building here in Richland. We managed to display them for three days, and there were lines four abreast around the federal building to look at those rocks. They'd go by and ooh and aah because it came from the moon. But almost to a person, everybody says, looks just about exactly like what we see out here in the desert. You couldn't tell them apart. But the fact that we had those lunar materials, I mean that was--wherever you were, you watched TV of the landing on the moon in 1969. That was a huge event. It was after that that Nixon came to town, but hardly anybody recalls that at all. It's just a forgotten piece of history, but at the time, it was pretty big. It was almost--and I missed it—it was almost like when President Kennedy came out to dedicate the Hanford Generating Project attached to N reactor, and that happened in 1963, just before I got here. Big events. Bauman: Yeah. Yeah. Any other happenings or stories that stand out in your mind? Petersen: I wasn't a part of what was called the Green Run. Others will have to tell you about the Green Run. But one of the stories I covered, and that's one of the only ones that I was out near the tank farms. Atmospheric sciences is out between the 200 East and 200 West. It has a 300-foot-tall atmospheric tower at that site. They've all been removed today, but going downwind from that 300-foot-tall tower were, number one, four or five 200-foot-tall towers and then five or six or seven 100-foot-tall towers. They would regularly release very small quantities of radioactive iodine, most usually put into colored smoke so they could track both the visual as well as radiation and see how long it took to go downwind and disperse. Just to show you how we were at the time, the photographer and I who were covering that piece as a story thought, well not only did we want to shoot it so you can see it go, but get underneath it so you could watch it as it--It's not a very smart thing to do today, but at the time it seemed like a pretty good idea to be able to watch that stuff as it drifted and deposited. So, we did the story. AEC never let us release it, but we kept the story internally for quite a number of years. I don't know what happened to it now, but those kind of things went on fairly often. You need to know where radiation goes, and that was a piece of it. Bauman: Do you know roughly the time period that would have been? Petersen: Well, it would have been probably '68 or '69, someplace in there. There has been more study on the Hanford site--atmospheric studies, geologic studies, temperature swings, those kind of things, than almost anywhere in the United States. They really tracked how the weather changed, how the wind moved, what the ground flow is from rain, those kind of things. It was--going to atmospheric physics lab in the 200 Area was an experience. At one point I managed to take a TV crew up, because if you climb a 300-foot-tall tower in the middle of Hanford, you could see just about everything. It turned out that we got the film crew up, they took the pictures, and then security looked at the pictures and said you have pictures of classified areas within those pictures, so they took a whole video. All of the climbing up and down was for naught. So, a pretty good place. Bauman: You mentioned earlier that when you first came and started giving tours, you really didn't know much about pre-'43 events. Petersen: True. Bauman: When did you become more aware the communities that were out there and start learning more about that? Petersen: I had the real fortunate opportunity to meet Bill Rickard, and I hope you've interviewed him. Bill is a gentleman of the first order, but Bill has probably walked that site more than any single person. One of the early things—I got acquainted with Bill. Bill ended up taking me on walks across parts of Hanford. The first time that he took me out was to Rattlesnake Springs, which is up a gully on the face of Rattlesnake Mountain. It's just an experience to go with Bill, and that was mostly on—we call a bugs and bunnies--but it was mostly what was all of nature that's out there: deer, elk, coyotes, even fish and so on. But Bill knows that site probably better than any other single person. So every chance I ever got to go out with Bill, anywhere, that's where you first got the sense that there was something here pre-1943. That's when I first saw the irrigation piping. That's where you first saw the home site--we've had two major fires across that site, and both of them ended up and taking out things and were still left. There was a home up by a Rattlesnake Springs that actually still had furniture in it. It was burned down in the first fire. So Bill knew all that stuff, and so the experience of going out with Bill was really unique. I wouldn't trade it for anything. That's where I started thinking, well—actually, Bill led me to a person named Annette--I can't think of it. Bauman: Heriford? Petersen: Heriford. Annette is the one who—she was in the class that would have graduated from Hanford High School out there on site. She worked for Battelle, PNL at the time. I got real acquainted with Annette, and then I helped Annette have the first reunion of her class out at that old Hanford School and that would have been, my gosh, maybe '78 or so. 1977, '78. And Annette could tell stories about what the old Hanford town was like and White Bluffs, and how rich and agricultural area it was. She was an amazing lady. It's too bad that she passed away quite some time ago. She was a real historian. You talk to those, and all of a sudden it becomes real. She's the first one that I talked to, not Bill Rickard, but Annette Heriford that that explained that some of the people had less than two weeks' notice to move off that site. You think about it and you say, that's just not possible. But it happened. Then you start feeling for the people who—there were roughly 2,000—the numbers change, depending again on who you talk to. The one on one side, the federal side, says there's only 1,500 people out there. But if you look at the historical records, you know that there were probably about 2,100—kids and the whole works. Some of the early census didn't include some of the children, or the sheep herders that moved back and forth across the site. In talking with Annette, you finally got the feeling that was something else here that happened before 1943. That's what got my attention. Good that you know her name, too. Bauman: Yeah. Why did you think that was important, then, for people to know about? Petersen: It was probably a little later than that that I also became acquainted with some of the Native Americans. I've got to know some of those over time, too. The relationship of the people who lived out there, both with Native Americans and the site—I’ll change directions for a minute, too. My family at that point lived in Wenatchee, so when I first came in 1965, in order to get to Wenatchee from here, you had two choices. You'd either go around through Pasco and up through Moses Lake and back, or you could go out to Vernita where there was a ferry, part time, and it didn't work at night. You'd ride the ferry and go across. That was prior to the bridge being built and so on. As you go out there, and see the ferry, you'd also see the structure that now I know is Bruggemann Warehouse, and you'd meet some of the people who were either former residents or Native Americans. Then you stopped and you waited for the ferry. You got a chance to talk to some of the people as you went back and forth. There was a lot of discussion about what was this site prior to. But growing from Vernita to Vantage that was pre-Mattawa days. Now I can visualize what Hanford must have been, because Hanford was an agricultural area, prior to—it looked like Mattawa today does. When I first started driving up there, there were no orchards between Vernita and Vantage. Now you look, there's orchards and vineyards and all kinds of stuff at Mattawa. Hanford was that, but it was that before 1943. You have to visualize what it was like, and it was amazing. Hanford really has a perfect weather pattern for early produce, and it was one of the first in the state to produce and all kinds of things--peaches and pears and cherries and walnuts, all kinds of stuff. How we doing? These guys need a break. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: You started in '65. You're now at TRIDEC. At what point did you move to TRIDEC? I know you worked also at Westinghouse and [INAUDIBLE]. Petersen: My wife kids around and says I can't hold a job. That's the point. I typically work for a company for about seven years and then move companies. So I worked for Battelle for a while, then Westinghouse for a while, then what was called WPPSS, Washington Public Power Supply System for a while. But I retired from Battelle in 2002, and the Hanford manager for the site was Sam Volpentest. Sam was 99 years old at the time, and his doctor, who's also my doctor ended up saying, Sam you can't fly to Washington, DC anymore and go after money. I'd known Sam since '65, I met him in '65, and Sam called and said, Gary, I know you retired, but would you come back to work part time, ten hours a week, easy job go to Washington, DC for me and that's it. He had the nerve to die at 101. He lived for about a year after he hired me to do those trips. And when he passed on, as a result TRIDEC at the time said, well, we need somebody full time to do this. I wasn't real interested, so they said we'll make it part time job. You only have to work 25, 30 hours a week. It hasn't been that since. Away we go. It's nice because if they want to fire me, I'd love it. I'll go and play golf. It's a good deal. Bauman: Can you talk about Sam Volpentest a little bit? Obviously, a very important figure through most of the Tri-Cities. Can you talk about his significance a little bit? Petersen: Would be happy to. Sam was an incredible politician. He never ran for office that I know of, but he knew politics from the top to the bottom. He was friends with everybody from Governor Rosellini to Senator Magnuson, Senator Jackson, Speaker of the House, Tom Foley. He knew politics. If you read the book so that was just written about Sam, it has a lot of facts, but until you knew Sam--and I was fortunate. Another part of my assignment, when I first got here in '65, TRIDEC was called TRICNIC. So it had a different name. It was Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council. And Sam was not a writer. As a matter of fact, everything he did was longhand, very pretty penmanship, but he couldn't put things down on a typewriter for taking to Washington, DC and so on. Battelle, one of their offers to the community was to provide somebody who could write to Sam to write their newsletters, to write their congressional letters, to write things. I got to know Sam when he was in a little office on the Parkway. Later he moved into the Hanford house. Sam was a mover. Most of the ideas that Sam accomplished didn't start with Sam, but he would hear an idea and he'd say, that sounds good. We're going to do that. For example, he started TRICNIC/TRIDEC in 1963. In 1963—you've got to go back in time—every road in and out of the community was two lanes. There was one airline only at the time, and Sam knew that in 1963 the government, AEC, was starting to shut down the reactors. Sam and Glen Lee and Bob Philip formed TRICNIC and they did that to try and offset, with federal dollars, the coming shut down of the production mission at Hanford. In the process, they also determined that in order to develop a community long range, you had to have transportation. Even though most people think that Sam concentrated on Hanford, he actually--and Glen Lee and Bob Philip—all really focused on how do we make the Tri-Cities bigger and better than it is? Four-lane highway was first, but airlines were second, and the third one that really was not well-known at all was education. And they went after a Center for Graduate Study for this community, which became WSU Tri-Cities. They decided that you had all of this intellectual property at the laboratory at Hanford, but you needed something for their families. I don't think it was a sit down and let's do a vision and do all these things. I think it came in pieces, where they actually decided they wanted certain things. Sometimes the fallout was better than what they expected. As an example, the breeder reactor program, which started in 1968, '69, was going to be a major, major new AEC mission. Sam went after the breeder reactor program, and he didn't get it. Savannah River did, what was called Clinch River Breeder Reactor. But he got the secondary issue, which was FFTF, which is a small test reactor that led to. As it turns out, over time the administration killed the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, but they kept FFTF going. Or, another example is we lost out on a mission that Sam really wanted that I think was called SMEVs—and maybe I'll explain it, but maybe not. And we lost that one, too, and so Sam went to Magnuson and said, we need something. Give us something. A couple days later, the story goes, Magnuson called up and said well we had a federal building planned for Montana or Wyoming or something, but they really don't want it. How about we put a federal building in the Tri-Cities. That's how this Federal Building came about. That was Sam. Sam was tenacious. He either liked you, or he didn't like you. There were people he wouldn't let in his office, period, but others-- Phenomenal memory. He could pick up a phone and call congressmen or senators from other states without ever looking the number up. He would pick up the phone--he never believed in talking to staff. He would talk to Senator Magnuson. He would talk to Chet Holifield. He would call them up personally and say I need this or I need that. He was incredible. Bauman: That's a great story. How was he able to have such persuasive powers with Magnuson, Scoop Jackson, a senator also, Tom Foley, right, these US Senators? Tri-Cities is still fairly small, population-wise. Was it his tenacity? Petersen: Well. It was his tenacity, but it all started with Governor Rosellini. And the fact that Sam, for a period before he came here, was in the Italian something club in Seattle, which was Rosellini, Magnuson was an honorary member. He, Sam, belonged to the Seattle club, which is still there, downtown Seattle. He made politically--he recognized that you needed political connections no matter what. When he came here and then he had the backing of Glen Lee, Tri-City Herald, the combination of those two—Sam took every advantage he could find. His advantage with the Tri-City Herald was, if he thought we needed something, then Glen Lee would support it editorially, and they would go after the politicians collectively and get it. Sam liked to take credit and he did many, many things, but it was really the combination that he put together that was pretty unique—partnerships. It took him a long time to play what I call both sides of the aisle. Typically he was a Democrat. He was a solid, solid Democrat. But he started realizing that there were Republicans that you had to deal with as well, and he needed to work with them over time, and he did. He built friendships across the whole gamut. And active, I mean, he was amazing. If you ever got a chance to go—Sam was small, but if you ever got a chance to go to Washington, DC with Sam, it was an experience. It was unbelievable. He knew where he was going. He didn't have to look at a map. He walked everywhere. I'll say he was a cheapskate, but he was a penny pincher. If a hotel cost $110 a night, he'd find one where you’d get it for $109. Sam was that kind of an individual. But he knew The Hill like nobody else I've ever seen. He knew the underground parts of The Hill, too. He didn't like to get out in the weather, so there's a whole both subway system and hallways between the House side the Capitol and the Senate side. Sam knew all of those underground links, and he'd just take off through those tunnels and go from one side of The Hill to the other side of The Hill. Amazing. Bauman: And he lived a long life, so he had-- Petersen: 101. Bauman: --connections with those politicians-- Petersen: Long period of time. He recognized, too, that he was outliving his supporters. He outlived Magnuson, he outlived Jackson. The one that was constant was Rosellini and Rosellini and he were the same age. And so Rosellini lived to 100, as well. Pretty good. Bauman: What about Glen Lee? What sort of role--what was he like? Petersen: Glen Lee was a bulldog. He's a big, imposing man. The thing that I think the Tri-City Herald should have done was kept his office as a mausoleum. His office was a piece of history by itself. He had pictures with Presidents, he had pictures with governors, he had memorabilia from all over the place. If you asked Sam and Glen the same question, you'd get two similar, but different answers. Who caused something to happen? I'll give you one story that is really unique. How did Battelle get here? Sam had a vision of how Battelle came; Glen Lee had a vision of how Battelle came. Fred Albaugh, one of the lab directors had a story about how Battelle came to be here. And Sherwood Fawcett, who became the first director of the lab, had a different story. I believe they're all correct, but they're different. Each one takes credit in a different way, and so Sam claims full credit for bringing Battelle here. He was at a meeting in New York and he knew that the lab was going to be bid out. He ran into Burke Thomas, who was the president of Battelle, and Sherwood Fawcett, and sold them on the idea coming. That's Sam's story. If you listened to Sherwood Fawcett, Sherwood Fawcett said that the president of the company actually was a graduate of the University of Washington. He wanted to open the lab somewhere in the state of Washington. Burke Thomas found out that this lab was going to be bids, so Burke told Sherwood go and bid on that and win it. Two different sides of the same story. I don't know which one is right. Bauman: You've been connected in Hanford for quite a few years now, and seen a lot changes take place. Obviously, one of the key changes was the mission of the place itself, from production to clean up. I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit in terms of how you saw that and the impact that had on the area of Hanford itself? Petersen: I'm happy to. I'm going to connect it back to Sam a little bit. One of the changes that was major was going from AEC, Atomic Energy Commission, to an organization for a short period called ERDA, which I forget now what that stands for. They were only and operation for a year and a half or so, and now to DOE. Most of the new missions for the Hanford site didn't come from within the federal government, they came from the community. As the production reactors were being shut down, Sam and Glen in particular saw that we needed to find new missions for Hanford. One of the first ones was a Hanford Generating Plant, which was operated by Washington Public Power Supply System, but attached to N Reactor. N Reactor was the first dual purpose reactor in the United States, and the vision was it was going to last a long time because it was the newest one and it produced 800 megawatts of power. Sam and Glen said, let's get the HGP here, because the United States wouldn't dare shut down a reactor that's producing 800 megawatts of power, so that was one the early ones. But as you started to see the reactors come down, they looked for other missions. One of the first ones was a thing called BWIP, which is--everything has an acronym, but a Basalt Waste Isolation Project, which was actually in competition with both Nevada and Texas to become the nation's repository. BWIP, that's a misnomer, what I just said. BWIP was actually the study of the geology of basalt for a repository, but it wasn't going to be the repository. It was a study site. If it worked, if it showed that it could work, then there would have been some other place on the Hanford site they would have dug deep down into the basalt and made a repository. Deaf Smith, Nevada, Yucca Mountain, and here were one of the visions of Sam and Glen and wanted to become the repository for the nation. All of a sudden there was a move in Congress that said we're going to select one and it's going to be Yucca Mountain. And so shut the other two down. And actually BWIP, the Basalt Waste Isolation Project, was shut down within a period of two to four weeks. There were hundreds of people who worked out there. When that shut down, Sam then went after that Clinch River Breeder Reactor program. The breeder reactor program ended up getting FFTF so there was certain things that happened in a sequence that he was always looking for that new mission, whatever it was. One example, the one that Sam loved to do, and I stumble on every time, is Sam also heard that MIT and some others were going after this deep space exploration project. There were two sides to that, at the time. One was SNAP, which is the Space Nuclear Application Program and the second side was what became LIGO, the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory. I can only do that once. But Sam loved that one because he could spit it out. He had that one memorized and he loved to go into a congressional office and say—rather than LIGO. So Sam is the one that really pushed for that project as well. Always, they had a vision of trying to capture new missions for Hanford, and it was never really—the push never came from DOE or ERDA or AEC after the original mission. They all came from the community. And we’re in competition with Oak Ridge, Idaho Falls, Savannah River, for those kind of things. Bauman: Another one of the changes that's taken place at Hanford since I've been here is there are a lot fewer buildings on site now than there were. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, and what that means, you think, in terms of the history. Petersen: I'll start lightly and say it's a conspiracy. The conspiracy is every building that I've ever worked in out there, with the exception of FFTF, has been torn down. [LAUGHTER] So I think they're out to get me. At the top of Rattlesnake Mountain were the Nike Ajax building, they've been torn down, and buildings and then the 300 Areas that I had offices in. What we're seeing today, though, is the success of cleanup, particularly along the river corridor. I will say that the Department of Energy and the contractors have done an amazing job of cleaning up this site. When you look at the changes, particularly in the 300 Area or the reactors themselves, the change is phenomenal. I forget, I think there's something like 280 buildings have been taken off the site, and the landscape has changed. The big, tall smokestacks are gone. The water tanks that were out there are gone. The skyline has changed drastically. And they've done it, too, with an intent to try and return it to original habitat. Most of it is what's called brownfields, but they have done a tremendous job of actually recovering a lot of the vegetation the original look of the land, with the exception that this was agricultural area, so it's different. But that's a huge, huge change. And most of that's been in the last five years. It's a different thing today than it was, 1965. You just see it all over the place. Bauman: You've been giving tours for years. I can't imagine how many tours you've led. Petersen: I don't know. A lot. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Do you have a favorite place on the site of the different places you stopped for tours or maybe when you went out with Bill Rickard? Is there a place that you really--? Petersen: The B Reactor is unique, unique, unique. There is no place like B Reactor. When you go in to B Reactor and you realize that 50,000 people were brought from all over the United States, and some foreign countries, they didn't know what they were building. They didn't have computers. They didn't have portable radios. They didn't have portable phones. And they, start to finish, built B Reactor in 11 months. That's just plain incredible. When you look at the craftsmanship of doing that, the best analogy is still from Jim Albaugh, who was the head of the Boeing program for 787s. We took him on a tour of B Reactor and he came out and he said, this would be like trying to bring in 50,000 people, have them build their own community first, because they had to have a place to live and eat and so on, and then tell them build a 787, but you've got no computers to do it with. And you've got to buy all the materials and manufacture them. So B Reactor is unique, unique. I can't say enough about B Reactor. But there's a flip side, too, and that is I've also become enamored with pre-1943. When what I think about that, it's really the city of White Bluffs, and the fact that there's still a ferry landing out there, there's a bank building out there, there's sidewalks out there. You go out and when you're alone, you go out by yourself, you can just visualize this community that used to exist. Then all of a sudden, they're moved away and 50,000 people come in in a period of weeks, just a very short period of time. They have to build a town, and then they start building things like B Reactor. And to know is all done, really, under the direction of a 36-year-old individual and a Corps of Engineers, it's unbelievable. I know a lot of cocky 36-year-olds, but I don't know anybody like Franklin Matthias to do the things he did with 50,000 people. Unbelievable. My favorite place is B Reactor. It's got to be right there. Bauman: Well, I think you and I could just go on talking for hours, probably. Petersen: [LAUGHTER] I think we're close. Bauman: But I do wonder, is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you want to talk about, maybe that I haven't asked you about. Any stories, or anything that's really important that you want to mention? Petersen: There's a piece that has yet to be done, Bob, and that piece I've talked to several people about. That piece is trying to capture either the individuals or the families of the people who were here prior to 1943. I think it is extremely important for us as a community to find those people, identify them, bring them together, allow them back out on the site for the first time. I took the Bruggemann family back out. That was the first time--did this about three years ago. That was the first time they had been back since 1943, and to go--it's like anybody's heritage. If you have a chance to go back and see where your parents or your grandparents--or you, as a child, grew up--the vision is different. Things are smaller, but—the feel of the place. We need to find those people and give them credibility and standing so that they have the opportunity to see their heritage. It turns out that exactly the same time as people were being moved off Hanford, the Japanese were being moved off of Bainbridge Island. Exactly the same time. And they all had to be off by August of 1943. In the case of the Japanese, the federal government has actually done some very nice things. They helped some of the families regain their land. They put up displays of all kinds to say this is what happened. But here at Hanford, of those families still are scattered around the United States, and they have very little to remember the site that they knew by. When you think about--and I'll use the Bruggemanns because I know them the best--you think about Bruggemanns who had 1,400--they had 640 acres, but they leased more—and they had sheep, they had cattle, they had a working staff of something like ten to 20 people on and off, up and down. They were given two weeks to get rid of all that stuff and move. We've got to get that. We've got to capture that. We've got to help them. That's the piece. How’d we do? Did you guys go to sleep back there? Man two: Huh? [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Well thanks very much, Gary, for sharing your stories. Like I said, I'm sure you and I could go on talking for quite a while. Petersen: I recognize, too, you're really after the people who were here from pre-'63, but '63 to '65 or so. But I'm a Johnny-come-lately, so I look at it different. Bauman: You know a lot of the history of the place, the stories. Petersen: There's pieces that are really pretty fun. There's some of the stories, honestly, that you probably will never hear, because they have different twists to them. Some point, not with an audience, I will tell you there's another side to the Apollo 11 moon rocks that got here. It's a very unique story that only a couple people know, how they actually came to the site. And it was tough. Bauman: Thanks so much, Gary. Petersen: Yeah. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:08:37 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 260 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area N Reactor 200 East Area 200 West Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1960-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. ca1965-2014 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. May, Catherine Foley, Tom Nixon, Pat Bair, William (Bill) Rickard, Bill Volpentest, Sam Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Gary Petersen Description An account of the resource An interview with Gary Petersen conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator 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 2014-6-5 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 100 Area 200 Area 200 East Area 200 West Area 300 Area B Reactor DuPont General Electric N Reactor Plutonium Finishing Plant Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005 Washington Public Power Supply System (WOOPS) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fed25944dab4903146b0422e355ce7f2d.jpg 4c5ec9de7b2c58b0a02aa1b112e4fdb8 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fbac10c255985e6bd8454dc3880c7a868.mp4 0536d4ccbf8f9f6ffa0583d6596b8741 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Petty, Bob Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Bauman: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. And I'm conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Bob Petty. Today is July 10th of 2013, and the interview's being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. And I will be talking with Mr. Petty about his experience working at the Hanford site. So, Mr. Petty, if it's okay with you, I'd start with how and why you came to Hanford, where you came from, and when. Robert Petty: My mother and father came from Arkansas. My dad came in August of '43, my mother in 1948. And I was born and raised here, born in 1948. And I--well, I'm retired from the Department of Energy. I first started working out here at the age of 11. Bauman: Okay. Petty: My father was in transportation. He would put me in the trunk of his car. And since his brother, my uncle, was a security patrolman, would wave me on through, or wave my dad on through. And this went on for several years. And my dad kept me hidden for those two years. And on numerous occasions, kind of a funny type of note, people had hit deer and killed them. Of course, my dad being the back woodsman that he used to be, stopped and put the deer in the car. And one particular time, I was in the trunk with that deer. And I am screaming, I want to go home, I want to go home. Well, we didn't go home. But I was a laborer. Helped build WNP out here for the nuclear plants, and decontamination and decommissioning of numerous reactor facilities. Pump houses, power stations, and things of that nature. There were some good times and some bad times. The controls that what I would expect I don't think were in place. And starting in 1971, we started doing D&D, and I was allowed to go anywhere I wanted, with the exception of in the reactor facility itself. And we did go into some potential hotspots. And at no time were we told to wear a mask or have a dosimeter. And at no time—all I had was just a badge that had Bechtel on it. And so nobody ever told us to--you know, working around the asbestos—of which I have asbestos-related disease—that you need to protect yourself from not only asbestos, but from potential chemicals, maybe radioactive contaminants and things of that nature. And so I eventually went to work for the Department of Energy in 1990? '91? '91. And I retired as a management analyst due to my health. And then shortly thereafter, I went to work as a senior technical advisor for CH2M Hill. Bauman: I'm going to ask you to go back a little bit- Petty: Sure. Bauman: And go back to the stories first of as an 11-year-old, your dad taking you out to the site. So he was in transportation? Petty: Yes. Bauman: And do you know--so he came during the war, correct? Petty: Mm-hm. Bauman: How did he—from Arkansas. Do you know he heard about Hanford--? Petty: Well he--my dad originally was in the Civilian Conservation Corps in central Arkansas. And he had heard about this place out in the desert. And when he got here, I do remember him telling me--he passed away in '82, that, oh my god, what have I got myself into. It is hot. There are windstorms that you just couldn't believe how bad they were. And so he came up here. My mother and father were married at the time. And my mother did come out several times, and then went back home, and eventually settled out here later. And so he was a truck driver, then a bus driver. And then after my mother moved out here, she worked out here from '48 to I think about 1950, working next to a hot box. And she became contaminated. And she eventually died of lung cancer, bone cancer, skin cancer, and multiple myeloma. But when she was contaminated, she was pregnant with me. And I am involved in litigation over this. But trying to prove something is not easy. Bauman: Where was she working at the time? Petty: She was working in the 3--I think the 300 Area. I don't remember which building it was. I am not positive the location, but I think it was there. Bauman: And what was her job? Petty: I really don't know. No, I couldn't say that for sure. My mom has been dead for a number of years. And so there's a lot of questions you don't get to ask that you would like to have asked. Bauman: And you were born in '48? Petty: Yes, November of '48. Bauman: And did you have other siblings? Petty: Yes, I have three sisters. Four sisters, one is gone. So I have three remaining sisters. And one now works at Oak Ridge, and I have two that live—one in Pasco, one in Kennewick. Bauman: And when your dad first came to work here, he came basically by himself? Your mom would come visit sort of, and then-- Petty: Yes, yes. Bauman: And did they have any kids at that point, or it was just the two of them? Petty: No, no. My oldest sister wasn't born until June of 1944. But my mother had went back home, then came back numerous times. Bauman: When your mom was working here, and you said she had symptoms of being exposed, did she know what she was working with at the time, do you know? Petty: Not really. And now there are procedures in place where if a woman is pregnant or think they may be pregnant, they're not allowed to go in any potential hotspots. That was not the case back then. Bauman: So your father would basically sort of smuggle you, I guess you could say, into the site? Petty: Lack of a better word, yes. Bauman: With the help of your uncle. Petty: Yes. Bauman: So what would you do when he got to work with you, then? What did you do during-- Petty: My dad originally started out as a house mover. And one of my particular jobs was I'd get underneath the house and cut the piping loose, take all the asbestos off of the piping, snakes, cats, dogs, dead or alive, indifferent. And odd jobs around that he thought I could do, and so—oh yeah. Bauman: So what houses were you moving? Petty: Back in those days, most of them were structural wood buildings from the Hanford site to whoever wanted to buy them. Bauman: So houses that were on the Hanford site, had been there prior to the war? Some of the older houses? Petty: There may have been several, but most of them were either on-site or from Camp Hanford. Bauman: Oh, okay. And so his job was to move those off. Petty: Right, correct. Bauman: You crawled under— Petty: And there are many, many of those still around today. Bauman: And so how long did you do that? Petty: Up until after my dad passed away 1982, I decided to sell the remaining equipment and what we had. I didn't want anything to do with that portion of the business. And so from then, I started going back to school. And I have numerous college degrees. And so eventually I went to work for the Department of Energy. Bauman: So when you were 11 and 12 and out onsite helping your dad, were there other workers there who knew you were there? Petty: My dad tried to keep me isolated. There were the people around, and they knew what was going on. But they didn't say anything. And there was kind of some camaraderie—you scratch my back, I'll scratch your back. And so they didn't say anything. Bauman: So you were born in '48. Did your family live in Richland, then? Petty: Yes. Originally came to Pasco, lived in Sunnyside, then shortly moved on to Richland. Bauman: And where in Richland did you live in the '40s and '50s? Petty: I think it was 1311 Marshall. Bauman: And what was Richland like at the time as a sort of place to grow up? Petty: Richland, since August of '43 through December of 1958 I think it was, was a government town. And they came in and said, you're going to do what we tell you to do. And since this is a government town, secrecy was of utmost importance. And I didn't remember a whole lot about that per se. But I do remember numerous times where we had to duck and cover in grade school. And we had drills and things of that nature. But on the whole, I do remember Richland being very hot, maybe because there were hardly any trees. And there was so much construction going on around Richland, new homes being built. Bauman: My sense is that people, workers, families, came from a lot of different places. Was that sort of true? Did you experience that the families that you knew, friends growing up, that they had come from all over the United States? Petty: My dad did tell me when he first came out here there were people from all over the nation, just about every state in the union. And the men stayed in the men's barracks and the women stayed in the women's barracks even though they may have been married, until their name came up for a house. And times like that were very tough on my mother and father. And I do remember meeting numerous people when I was young telling me that they were from maybe New York or Connecticut or something like that. Yeah. Bauman: And when you were growing up, do you remember any special community events, parades, any of those sorts of things in Richland? Frontier days? Petty: I do have pictures of parades. And I have a book from Richland--or Hanford, Hanford Days, Richland Days, I think it is. And it shows parades in there also. And I do have several pictures of parades that we had here in town. And so those were good times. Played Little League baseball, we formed a baseball team and didn't do very well. But on the whole, I think pretty much the only thing we did was--well in summertime—was go swimming. They had a small pool in Howard Amon. But for the most part, we didn't do very much. Bauman: Okay, let's talk more about the work you did at Hanford. When did you start working at Hanford? Not with your father, but-- Petty: I first started in earnest--I became a laborer in the local laborers here in town. And went to work at FFTF back around '70, the early '70s. And some things that went on, I won't say on camera, because they're not very nice. And when FFTF was first started, it was projected to be about $79 million in costs. And that particular job, being a cost plus contract, ended up being almost $800 million, which you see today, in fact. And my job was just basically a laborer. A broom, shovel, hammer. Bauman: During construction--? Petty: Yeah. And it was not uncommon at all to have six or eight laborers on a one-man job. That was very common. Bauman: And that was--you were working for what contractors? Petty: Working for Bechtel, Chicago Bridge & Iron. Yes. I think Mellon brothers. Bauman: And that was in the early 1970s. Petty: Yes. Bauman: And then earlier, you had mentioned going places--you said you were allowed to go sort of anywhere, no dosimeter. Could you talk a little bit more about that, like what sorts of places you were talking about? Petty: A lot of the buildings that you see--or have seen in the past, you'll see pictures of them, many times there was as much below ground as there is above ground, like in the water treatment facility, for instance. We would go down below ground and take out all the scrap iron and stuff like that, all the wiring, all the piping. There were wells, numerous wells around those sites that we went in. And they had a thick brass shaft. We would go down into the well and cut that off and scrap the brass out. And there were numerous of those around. Bauman: And this was sort of all over different places on the site? Petty: Yes, yes. And so subsequently, the--I was young, but--and then when I became a laborer, and we pretty much just had the free run of all the facilities, with the exception of the reactor itself. And at no time did I ever think I was in danger. I was born here, lived here, raised here, and worked here. I have no problems going out there today. Bauman: Now I know, especially during the war and early Cold War years, security obviously was very tight. You had to ride in the trunk of your dad's car to get through. When you were actually a laborer, was there still a lot of security? Did you have to have any special clearances, anything along those lines? Petty: There was security, but since my dad was a private contractor, no. Although you had to go through a checkpoint—several checkpoints in fact, entering and leaving. And they would check your vehicle for maybe any contraband, drugs, weapons, or alcohol. And if your car did not have a sticker on it, it had to be searched. But since my dad at times had special privileges, was not. And so here's a little story that—I put myself through school. And I was working weekends, but working full-time here. And I gave a tour to a group of senior citizens from Boston. And I got everybody on the bus, and a little old lady with a cane sat up next to me and we got to talking. And she says oh goody, I want you to take me out and show me where the cowboys can shoot the Indians. And she actually believed that they did that today out here. And she asked me what kind of work I did. And I says, well, this is a former nuclear weapons plant. Well, what do they do out here? Well I said, they made plutonium production for nuclear weapons. And she got up and moved to the back to the bus. And that paradigm has not changed in many people's minds. And so they still have a perception of if they get anywhere near here, they may become contaminated. Potentially, maybe yes. But highly unlikely. Highly unlikely. And so I had the perception when I worked out there I'm not going to get contaminated, or I'm not going to get sick or something like that. Well, I was wrong. But I have no compunction about going in places like that. Bauman: So you worked for Bechtel. And then in '91 you moved to DOE? Is that right? Petty: Yes. Bauman: Okay. And what sorts of work did you do there? Petty: I started in procurement, since I have a procurement degree, working contracts. And after three years there, I moved to the different side of the house. Worked on environmental safety and health as a management analyst. And I was more of a technical person, wrote, maybe, technical reports, read them, made recommendations to the assistant manager, who was the boss of my director. And although I have numerous college degrees, I am not a scientist or anything like that. I'm more of basically just a paper pusher. Bauman: When you were working out at the site, were there ever any sort of events that stand out in your mind or things that happened? Fires, or anything--incidents like that, I guess. Petty: I was involved in a very serious accident in which my dad was demolishing and standing too close to a building. And I don't know if you've seen a very, very old silent movie where a silent film screen star was standing in a building and the entire wall just came over on top of him. But he was standing in the doorway, and it missed him. And that's what happened to me. The entire wall came down, and I was standing right in the doorway, and it missed me with the exception of one of the beams had come down and caught me on the head. And I have permanent damage as a result of that. There was a very large fire here which I think covered about 240,000 acres at one time. On national news, people had the perception of this is going to be the end of the Tri-Cities if something goes wrong. Well, nothing was going to go wrong. And there are too many protections in place, and these buildings are too well-fortified to have anything escape. Bauman: The incident where the wall fell down around you, how old were you at the time of that event? Petty: I was about 15--16, something like that, yeah. Child labor laws weren't very stringent then. And so I think people got away with a lot more than they should have. Not only with work environment, but it's also--if I can put this very delicately--men living in men's barracks and my mom living in the women's barracks, and there was a barbed wire fence separating them. And my dad told me that the only way that they had relations was through a barbed wire fence. And during the day, they didn't see each other very often. But they would go to dances, and maybe occasionally a vacation. But I don't remember any of those. Petty: Did your dad have any other stories about his time here before your mom was here permanently? Bauman: You know, I remember when my mom came up--well, she went back home numerous times in the '50s. And everything she cooked was fried. Fried everything. And she would take the grease and make into gravy, and I thought that was the best food in the world. But now my veins kind of cringe. And that was the way—predominantly, I think, a lot of the diet that people had back then. But I do remember catching several rattlesnakes out here when I was young, at a young age. Which—I don't remember playing with them, I do remember catching them. And I would just let them go. Bauman: President Kennedy visited the Hanford site in 1963. Petty: Correct. Bauman: The NPR. I wonder if--you would have been 15 at the time, roughly? Petty: Yes, I was 15 at the time. At the time I seen him, he was maybe 40 feet away. And of course my mom thought he was the best-looking man she'd ever seen. And I thought it a very, very interesting, very cool, you know, I get to see the President of the United States. Which he wasn't the first--or he was the first, but he was not the last. But overall, I thought John Kennedy was very, very likable. Bauman: What else do you remember about that day or him being here at the time? Petty: When he first arrived, I looked out there and I'd seen a mass of people. And I do remember first thinking, all these people can't be here for the president. But they were. And I really didn't grasp the ramifications of maybe his political influence being the president. And I really wasn't interested in that type of thing when I was growing up. And it kind of dawned on me that this is important. He's a very important man, one of the most important men in the world. And so that had kind of a profound effect on me, and I eventually went into--took government courses in school. Bauman: Any other times when you were working there at Hanford that you remember dignitaries coming, or other presidents or anything like that? Petty: We were working on-site one particular day. And somebody was using a cutting torch, and we had started a fire. It was during the summertime. And tremendous amount of cheatgrass around. And I do remember we had started a fire, and it got out of control very quickly. And I thought the building that we were working on was done. But luckily, we got the fire department there in time. And it had consumed several acres and a portion of the building that we were working on, but we ended up saving it. A little scary. Bauman: About when would that have been, roughly? Petty: '72. Yeah. Bauman: And what area of the site might that have been? Petty: That was 200 West, I think. Yes. Bauman: Overall, how would you describe Hanford as a place to work? Petty: In the '40s, '50s, '60s, there was a mindset that it was just a job. And even when I worked out here in the '70s and '80s, I felt it was just a job. And then when I went to work for the Department of Energy, the mission had changed from nuclear production to cleanup. And so to kind of put it in perspective, my grandfather worked out here, my dad worked out here, his brother—in fact all his brothers, all his sisters, all their kids, my sisters. And people have the perception of, well, I'm from here. All my relatives worked out here. Well, you owe me this job. Well, that's not true. And when I worked at DOE, the manager came in one day and we had an all-employees meeting. And he said, all you employees are very well-educated, make very good money, have numerous college degrees. We do not owe you a job. And that's true. And I feel that's the same way here at Hanford. We do not owe them a job. Most of those people are very well-educated. And so in the next 20 years, things are going to be ramping down, probably more so than they are now. And today's paper said that one firm here in town was going to be reducing their staff by 90%. And I think people need to become aware well, the well is going to run dry. It was good while it lasted. And I made very good money here. And I knew my time wasn't going to be here forever. But people I think need to change their paradigms, and I certainly changed mine. And we had some very, very good times out here, and a few bad. And since we have changed to environmental cleanup, everything we do is scrutinized. And from if you spill a quart of gasoline or paint, it has to be written up and you have to make a report. Just to give you an idea of--very, very stringent. Bauman: When did you notice that change? Was it when it shifted from production to cleanup more, or was it--? Petty: I think I first started to know the change about 1988, I think it was, when they first--what happened at Chernobyl. I think that was a major turning point. And then they seen the similarities between Chernobyl versus the N Reactor. Although I don't think that could have happened at the N Reactor. And I think from that point on, from the point they shut it down here at the N Reactor, they started to focus more on environmental cleanup. Bauman: I want to go back a little bit and ask you a little bit more. One of your first jobs was working FFTF? Petty: Mm-hm. Bauman: That became somewhat of a controversial facility, to a certain extent. Petty: Very much so. Not so much--well, it was a cost plus contract. Not so much during the construction and operation. In the initial operation it actually was never really used. There wasn't a whole lot of controversy. But the controversy came later when the government wanted to shut it down. And that's a tremendous amount of money just to let loose of. And it could have done a lot of good. But the government finally decided that it would be best if they shut it down. And a great number of people think it was political, which it may have been. I don't know. Although I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself, and I'm not going to say anything about that. Although when they did shut it down, I do remember doing a number of correspondence with different people from Washington, DC, here at the Hanford site and at DOE here regarding to the FFTF. Bauman: I wonder for--you said things have changed, obviously, at Hanford site over the years. And I wonder for future generations, people 20 years from now or 50 years from now, what would you like them to know about working at the Hanford site, what it was like? Petty: Well going back to 1943 when the site was first picked, this isn't something they had ever done before. And their number-one priority, number-one goal, was to end the war. And now their number-one priority is to clean up this mess. This isn't something they'd ever done before, either. This is the largest cleanup project in the world. And subsequently, I think that a lot of this new areas that they're going into is how do they clean up these certain types of chemicals or radiation or contamination. And there's so many things that they don't know and they don't know how to treat. They've never done it before, like the Vitrification plant. This is never something that they've done before. And they say it's going to work, take this liquid sludge and turn it into glass logs. It'll probably work, yes. But it's not something they've ever done before, and I think generations down the road need to realize that we cannot stop plutonium production. There are many, many environmental groups out there, but other countries in the world, all over the world, are now getting nuclear weapons power plants, the potential to produce nuclear weapons. It is not going to stop. And if we stop producing plutonium, uranium, for weapons, nuclear power plants for nuclear or electricity production, then if we're not moving ahead, then we're falling behind. And we are falling behind now, at least in my estimation. And so I think we need to change the paradigms of our youth that this can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing. And if we make it safe enough, with the controls in place, there should be no problems. Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you think would be important to talk about, or any other memories from your experiences working here that you-- Petty: No. Bauman: --want to share? Petty: Have you been on-site before? Bauman: Yes. Petty: Okay, so you kind of understand what's going on out there and the history portion. I do hope that the B Reactor museum comes to fruition, because I think we need to leave a legacy for our children and our grandchildren and generations farther down. And I think it's extremely important not to forget that, but also be respectful and mindful of what we did and hopefully never, never, ever again. Bauman: Well thank you very much for-- Petty: Sure. Bauman: --coming in and talking to us today. We really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:37:49 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 250 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948-2013 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 Bob Petty Description An account of the resource An interview with Bob Petty 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 Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Waste Vitrification Plant (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-7-10 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-19: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 300 Area Department of Energy Housing Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963 Richland (Wash.) Secrecy Vitrification Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8281eeea60bc11443576c297c088680a.jpg cc17aca4ceedb233f5ec5376253ee16c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1a4fe936fb05b5f5d96e8988d8fc182a.mp4 034eb209cfdf1e2030c91dc16e22815f 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 Pre-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area prior to the Manhattan Project 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 Leatris Reid Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Northwest Public Television | Reid_Leatris </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: My name is Leatris Faye Boehmer Reid. B-O-E-H-M-E-R. It's pronounced "bay--" "bay-mer." And I was born in North Dakota in 1930. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Just before we get started on that, I just need to get the date on here, make sure we have everything. And so we're recording this on August 27, 2013. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay, August 27. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And we're recording it in your home in Walla Walla. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Yeah, let's have you talk about your family and how your family came to White Bluffs. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: First? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I came here in June to White Bluffs, Washington in 1935 or '36. I'm pretty sure it was '36 because I had my sixth birthday there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So you said you were born in North Dakota and moved to White Bluffs in 1936. Why did your family leave North Dakota and head to White Bluffs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, we had a terrible Depression, as you know. And I was a Depression baby, and we just simply weren't—there was no work, there was no money. We just simply had to get out of there. We lost a little boy at two and a half with what they call membranous croup at the time. But it was actually, what it was was that awful--oh, kids have it. It's asthma, terrible asthma. And he just couldn't make it. And I think it just broke my mother's heart. She had just lost a baby. So then I became the baby. But I think I was almost six, so--She had written all over Washington, Oregon, because she knew that there was fruit there. And there was food, and the temperature was reasonable. And so she wrote all the little towns that she could find in Washington and Oregon to find out what they did there, what they grew, and what the chances were of people surviving. And she got one for Mr. Reierson that owned the grocery store in White Bluffs, and one from the man who had the bank. And I can't remember his name. But she got glowing letters about the fruit. She got glowing things about that there was work. There was packing sheds, there were alfalfa fields to take care of. And there certainly were. They didn't stint on it and it was not exaggerated. So that's how we came to be there, and find it we did. It was exactly like they described it. It was probably the best thing that ever happened to us, because we would have starved. We had no money even to pay for that little boy's doctor bill that we left. So then I was the littlest one, and we had six left. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so talk a little bit about your parents and your siblings, what your parents' names and your siblings' names-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, my oldest sister--who I dearly love and still is alive and I'm glad--is 10 years older than me. And her name is Dorothy Lorraine Boehmer-- "bay-mer"--Foyer. And she lives in Everett, Washington, and she will also probably make a statement to you. But she's my oldest. And then I had a sister LaVonne. I had a sister named Helen and a brother named Virgil, all of them the same name, Boehmer. And I had a little brother. I had a sister named Darlene also. And she didn't live at White Bluffs. She stayed with my great-aunt and uncle in Minnesota because they had no children and they wanted to educate her. She was very smart. And she had been treated badly at school in North Dakota, and she didn't want to go back. And they were visiting us. So my mother said, well, you could have her for a year. And of course she--they became so attached to her. And she loved them dearly, and they were good to her. And they did visit us at White Bluffs. And they liked White Bluffs when they came. But it was the best thing that ever happened to us to move to White Bluffs. They had work in packing sheds, like I say. They had--the kids were very receptive to us. And everybody there just opened their arms. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I wonder if you could describe the place you lived in White Bluffs. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, we lived at Lulubelle Johnson's house, and we were buying it from her. But we never realized any money out of when it sold to the government. But Lulubelle Johnson had a son named Ford Johnson because Lulubelle Johnson was a niece of Henry Ford, made the automobiles. And we stayed there at that house and it was just—it was wonderful. We had good neighbors, fruit orchards all over. All over. When they said that you will find all the fruit you want, they really meant it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so what sort of fruit was on the farm you grew up on? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, we had--we grew alfalfa. If you didn't grow alfalfa, you grew fruit. But we had a good well on our land, and alfalfa was a good-paying crop. And of course, we had a cow. And if we had too much alfalfa, we could sell it. So it wasn't something that went bad. And the fruit--every kind of fruit. First time I ever tasted cherries or even seen a cherry tree was there. Or ever ate an apricot or seen an apricot. Or even apples--we had apples there—wonderful. And the whole valley was full of that. It wasn't just one little orchard, it was lots of orchards. It was covered with orchards and alfalfa fields. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Did you have electricity? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We did! First time we had electricity. We had electricity shortly before we moved from North Dakota because I remember my mother had a Maytag washing machine that she had just bought and paid $2 a month for. [LAUGHTER] So we had that all packed up and ready to go and our tickets--the government gave us tickets to get out of a depressed area. And we took the Empire Builder--brand new--to Spokane, and came into White Bluffs on a fruit train with our little parcel of stuff. And they welcomed us with open arms. And they were [AUDIO OUT] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So you mentioned that there was a well. Is that--how were your crops irrigated with it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, well, we had sprinkler systems. They weren't like they are now. But what we had, you dug the ditch across the field. And then you made little rows out of that on both sides. And you would run it from the well pipe into that big main ditch. And then you would take the little ditches and close them up. When you've got enough irrigation water, you'd close them back up. And that's what we did. That's how we did it. And that's how they water the orchards. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And how about running water? Did you have-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We didn't have running water in the house. We went out and got it by the bucketful off of the well. There was a little faucet and you could either pull it up with a bucket or you could turn the faucet on. There was a pump. [LAUGHTER] It's the same one you watered the yard with. But it was grand to have all the fresh water you needed because we paid $0.25 a barrel in North Dakota for drinking water because it was a rancid and acrid. $0.25 then was a lot of money. We washed clothes with it. My mother would take it after she washed clothes and scrub her floors. And they were white from the lye in the soap. And then she would put it on her garden. But we never had bugs on the garden. [LAUGHTER]. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So I was gonna ask you--who were some of your neighbors? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Let me see, Beldins. Beldins were one of our neighbors. Summers were some of our neighbors. And I can't even remember what--his kid's name was--oh, I can't say his name. He kind of talked with a nasal. And my dad called him Snazzy Summers. [LAUGHTER] I don't know where that came from. But anyways, he was--he had a crush on my sister Helen. And Helen didn't like him. Of course, she was only about 12 or 13. I don't think she had boys in mind. She was kind of a tomboy, too. They were some of our neighbors. And we lived-- the Abercrombie place was north of us. And down below us was an abandoned place. And they must have made wine of some kind, because they grew grapes and the grapes were still there. They grew right down to the water. We would go down and get these great big, beautiful Tokay red grapes. And they were right there by the river so they had enough water. But then the whole farm was completely abandoned, probably because of the Depression. I really don't know. But they were the neighboring ones. And the Grewells lived up above us. Helen and Gerald Grewell was their name. And Helen Grewell was my sister Helen's very favorite girl. They’d run around all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And how about you? Who were some of your best friends-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, Patsy Borden was my best friend for a while. She was probably my best friend, yes. And she was the granddaughter of the Saths, who were related to the Wiehls who run the ferry. And Ida Mae probably was another little friend. She was a nice little girl. I liked them all. We actually--there wasn't a whole lot of--kids had to go home and go do things. It wasn't--I remember the Kilian children because they were German. And they came there, I want to say about '37, '38. Hitler was already busy in Germany. And they came home. And they Mrs. Supple used to raise sheep. Her and husband--they were German also, very, very German. Nice people, but she thought Hitler was doing such great things over there for the German people. And so Mr. Kilian went over and had a long talk with her and said, you know, you are putting yourself in a dangerous position, because this is not going well in Germany. He might be doing things for the German people, but he has things in mind for the world. And I thought, how kind. How provocative and kind that was. It wasn't necessary for him to do that. He really didn't know them. But he had heard things. And in a little community, things like that get around. It isn't gossip, it's just fear. But I thought that was very kind. I was only about 7, 8 years old. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I was going to ask you about-- did you have certain chores or responsibilities-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Always. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --that you had to do on the farm? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Everybody did. Everybody did. Mine was feeding the chickens and gathering the eggs. And we had a little hen named Grandma that mother picked out of the shell, and Billy Rooster, who I guess was named after me. He turned out beautiful. But little Grandma Hen was sterile, so she must have been too weak. But she kept her in the warming oven for an extra couple hours, and she picked her out of the shell. She was sterile. And she would run around stealing everybody else's chicks. She would have a couple of Rhode Island Reds, and she would have a couple of little Leghorns, and maybe a little Barred Rock or two. And she'd huddle them up and boy, she'd fight them off--she's going to keep these kids. Well, Mrs. Sath was such a sweetheart. They lived in the--next to us. And she brought my mother some duck eggs-- white Peking duck eggs. And she said, why don't you just set her. She's dying to and she doesn't know--she'd fight them off. And so they set about 10 eggs under her because duck eggs are pretty good sized. And she hatched out every one, and she was so proud of them. Oh, boy, she'd just stomp around that farmyard like she really knew what she was doing. And she just took them down to the horse trough one time. And they found the horse trough, and they jumped in. And she just went berserk--"come back, come back." And so it got to be a morning thing. Every morning she'd take them to the horse trough because they had to have their swim. But she raised them. [LAUGHTER] Those things were fun things. We didn't have TV. We had a little, tiny radio that we could listen to for the news. But it wasn't a thing you had on all day. But Billy Rooster used to hear the music and he would try to keep up with it. And my sister Dorothy would always do the lunch dishes. She'd say, Billy Rooster, are you out there singing to this music? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: It was very wholesome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Mm-hm. What other sorts of things did you do for fun? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: The river. Oh, the river. The river was a godsend. We learned to swim the first year, the first summer we were there. And we had a raft. The dads had got together and built this big raft. And if you could swim out to the raft—I was not supposed to, but I did. And the little Lowe boy wasn't supposed to, either. He was just learning to swim. And he went under. And my sister Dorothy was a really good swimmer. And he went under for the third time. And she went down and got him, got him out on that--pulled him up. And there was a couple of guys up there pulled him up on that raft and they turned them over on his stomach. And the water just poured. And he lived. But he wouldn't have lived. And every one of those kids at White Bluffs were just as devoted as that to the river. That was our playground. We had to do our work in the morning because it was cool enough. And the summers over there were--boy, they were hot. But we could go in and get in the swimming pool then, our swimming pool. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: You mentioned a little bit ago having a radio. Did you have a telephone also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We finally did have a telephone. And it was only a dollar a month. That was right uptown. We'd never had one of those before. It was a party line, so if there was an emergency, you had to give up the line. If there was an emergency--if you didn't, they would take your telephone out and you'd never get a telephone again. So that was good and responsible. And I think Mrs. Westling was the telephone--she had it in her home. She and her daughter, I believe, operated it, I'm pretty sure. They lived up by the bank, I remember that. But I can't tell you--we didn't have names on the streets that I know of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so did you get your news mostly on the radio? Was there a newspaper also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: There was. There was a little newspaper there. And I believe it was for Hanford and White Bluffs. And my brother actually worked for that newspaperman. First you start out just because he thought it would be fun. Phil asked him, he said, would you like to know something about publishing a newspaper? And so Dutch went and worked for him. That's what we called him--we didn't call him Virgil. And he went and worked for him. And they did publish a little newspaper. It was a weekly, just once a week. And, of course, they had all the Ladies Aid tea parties, things like that, things at the church. Everything was in there. Yeah, a little gossipy paper. It wasn't malicious. It was just who had a luncheon at their place or whatever. And so, when he got older and came out of the Army, he went and took formal newspapering, went to college and took it. And he became a newspaperman. Boise Statesman was one of them. And he went down to California. And he worked down there for a while, about 10 years there. So that was good for him. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: He got started in-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Yeah, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: What businesses do you remember being in White Bluffs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, I remember Reierson's Grocery. And I remember around the back of it was a little creamery where you could--in fact, they picked up a can of cream at our back porch every morning, because we had, by then, two cows. And one was a Guernsey and one was a Jersey, and they both had lots of cream. So we couldn't use all the cream, even for six kids. [LAUGHTER] So they would come and pick that up. And my sister, Helen, always did the ironing. She liked to iron. That was her job. And so he would come, and here she'd be on that back porch, early in the morning, starting the ironing. [LAUGHTER] And he says, I don't think you've gone to bed. He was a kidder. But that was what she did, and she was excellent at it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So there was Reierson's and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: And the creamery. And there was a little garage back there, and I can't remember the name of it because we didn't have a car. But there was a little garage back there. And there was Pop English's drugstore. Everybody knew where that was. Pop English and his wife had no children. But they owned this little drugstore. And they made the best ice cream in the world, and he sold it there. And you could have an ice cream cone for a nickel. I mean it was an ice cream cone. And a dime was a double dipper, and it had two shelves and then one cone—it went down to one cone. And that was a dime. And it was hard, if you had a dime, to decide whether you wanted to do that or not. I remember my mother used to give us two pennies for Jesus to take to Sunday school. And I always put one in. I figured Jesus wouldn't care if I have a rope licorice from Pop English's. And years later, I told her, I said, Mama, if I would have known that Jesus didn't want my money like I do now--he wants our love, has nothing to do with my two cents--I would have brought you home one. She says, your Sunday school dress was the messiest thing ever. She says it was always was covered in black. And, she says, the rest of the girls I could just press the back of that little white dress with some water and make it good for next Sunday. And she says, they could wear a Sunday school dress for all month [AUDIO OUT] but you. But she says, I never knew that. And I said, well, I says, if I would've known better, which I know now, you'd have had one, too. [LAUGHTER] By then I was about 47 years old. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, talking about the school in White Bluffs, how large was it, how many students do you think there were, and maybe the teachers that you remember particularly-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I would say that, in my first and second grade class, there was 18 that I can name off, that I can remember. We had a little boy come there named Carter House. And I think his father was something to do with engineering. Allard, Sam Allard kept the irrigation system and the electric thing, and I think Mr. House had something to do with it. But we had never seen a child look like this before. He looked like he stepped out of a catalog. He had this blonde-- beautiful boy-- had this little blonde hair all cut so nice. And he wore little argyle knee socks and little suit pants and a little white shirt and little slaps on his shoes. And I thought, my gosh, that's the cutest little boy I've ever seen. And, of course, he didn't know how to share. And one day I was swinging on the swing, and Alice Moody looked out the window. And here was this little boy grabbing that swing and taking it away from me. And she says, we don't do that here. She says, you have to wait your turn. She says, when Leatris is done with it, she says, you can have it. It'll be your turn. [LAUGHTER] But they were probably nice people, it's just that they weren't White Bluffs-oriented. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And so you want to talk about Alice Moody a little bit? She was your first-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Ah, she was a wonderful teacher. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --grade teacher, is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Wonderful lady. She taught first, second, and, I believe, possibly third. And there was probably, I would suppose, 18 in the first grade, and probably close to that in second. And then there was the third grade. And we had—we did not have separate rooms, but we had little partitions that she would put up so that we would keep our attention. And we did have monitors. Everybody helped everybody. If there was a little boy that needed help with numbers and somebody was good with it, she would assign them to help that child. It wasn't--it was probably the most together community. If something was unfair on the playground, it was put a stop to right away, sometimes by the children. And teachers, if they were in their room, they kept a window open in good weather because if there was anything wrong in the playground, it was either reported or taken care of. And I can't remember fights on school. I can't remember that, ever. It would never have been tolerated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: How did you get to school, did you walk-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --or did you ride the bus? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Everybody walked. The only children I remember that came in on a bus--oh, what was his name—Mr. Fisher's school bus. Mr. Fisher, I believe. And he came in on a little bus--with a little bus. And I think they were probably from out toward Saddle Mountain and farms like that because they had to go to school. But I do remember a little bus. And I don't even remember that it was painted yellow or anything. I think it kind of reminded me of maybe a van. But it had windows in it and it was kind of squared. It seems like it was dark gray. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Mm-hm. And so far was the school from your home? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, I, let me see. We had to pass Saths’ orchard, the whole length of their orchard, and then Beldins’. And then we had to walk across the front of Beldins’ and their [AUDIO OUT] was pretty good sized. And then we had to walk up past Summers' up the hill to our house. So I would suppose it was probably a mile. And some of them walked a lot more than that. And Mrs. Moody used to bring kids in with her when she came to school because she drove to school. And she was around the Reach, around the--it was last reactor. And Old Town used to be there. The whole town used to be on the river at one time. But they moved it away because I think they were progressing. People were moving in, spreading out. Orchards were filling in. And I think that's why they probably moved the town. But we had a movie theater. We had a movie theater. And somebody from the Tri-Cities came over with a movie. In the summertime, we had a movie once a week, probably in the evening early, about seven. And then, in the wintertime, it was kind of hit and miss whenever they could get over or whatever, I don't know. I can't remember. But we did have movies there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Do you remember any movies that you saw over there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: No, I wouldn't remember that. I probably wouldn't even have understood it. But it wasn't anything that was offensive because they didn't do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Where was the movie theater in relationship to some of the other businesses-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Okay, across the street from Reierson's Grocery, and also across the cross street where the railroad came to fill the cars, that was right across the street from Reierson's Grocery as you come in to White Bluffs. Then there was a main drag. And there was a railroad hotel there, because they had railroad workers that, when they went out to do things to the railroad--the rails out there--they had to have people. And then they also rented to other people if they came in and there was a room empty. And it was right across the street from Reierson's Grocery from this one that's burned off. And behind there was a building. And that's where they had the movie theater. And it was just an old building, I don't know. It had seats in it--not wonderful, but seats. And then they had a balcony on it, too, so that was good. Kids would go up there and of course, you know. One time we had some holy rollers in there that rented it. [LAUGHTER] And they were rolling around on the floor. And my brother and his buddies were up there taking toilet paper, throwing rolls down there. They were all in little--I don't know, rolling around. [LAUGHTER] The Spirit moved them, I guess. Boy, they got in trouble for that. [LAUGHTER] But it was used for a lot of things. If they had a community meeting or something, they'd either use it, the high school or that little building, depending on what it was about. Sometimes it was a farm meeting, or a new spray that was coming out, or what they should do and shouldn't do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Mm-hm. I was going to ask you about any community events that you remember, either picnics, or Fourth of July things, or boat races-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Boat races we had right there. They did not start in Tri-Cities. They started at White Bluffs. It was wonderful. Mr. Kilian used to slice his big watermelons and sell them for $0.05. [LAUGHTER] Pop English used to sell his ice cream cones. Oh, and the Ladies Aid always had something going--cookies or something or a bake sale. And it was just a fun time. And we had a band. We used to gather up a band and have music there. It was pretty good. And in the spring, we always had a little May Day thing. And we had a maypole. And they would twine the strings around it like they do. And we had a program--quite a program--at the high school. And we had one that we were in that was the doll dance. And Alice Beyers was supposed to be the French lady who had the dolls. And so we had these cute little dresses on, little ballerina-type dresses. And she would come around and wind us up. That was the first start of it, and we danced to the tune, the doll dance. [AUDIO OUT] old, old, tune. And each one of us she wound up. And we started dancing. And we would dance around this maypole. And that was part of the program. And we had--oh, I remember my sister had a reading. "I want to live in the house by the side of the road, and be a friend of man," is the way it goes. And each stanza ends with that. And every single--my mother tutored her, her teacher tutored her--and at the end of every one of those stanzas when she got up there, "I want to live in the house by the side of the road and be friendly with men." It brought down the house, of course. Oh, my mother was so embarrassed. She was so embarrassed. [LAUGHTER] So when she-later in life--when she had a beautiful garden and a family of her own, I found that on a plaque that you put out in your garden, an open book with this on it in a plaque form. And it said, "I want to live in the house by the side of the road and be a friend to man." [LAUGHTER] I said, this is for old memories, Helen, and she laughed. She had a good laugh out of that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: You mentioned earlier your Sunday school dress. What church did you go to? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, I think at that--first, we went to the Presbyterian, but then they closed that. But then we went to the little Lutheran church I think was up in back of the bank. And we went there for a while. But my dress was always a mess. I come home with licorice all over it because, of course, I had to stop and take one of those pennies, buy a licorice at Pop English's drugstore. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Do you remember any other churches in the community? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I do not. I don't remember that there was Catholic church there. I don't remember that there was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I wonder—I know that the Wanapum people were in the area. I wonder if you have any memories of the Wanapum Indians, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, yes. We had--I don't know that they--they were Johnny Buck's Indian tribe. My brother knew Frank Buck. He had two wives. One was old and had white hair, and her name was Deloria. And I don't remember the other one. But they were fine people. They came in and they would gather fruit off the ground because it was ready to dry. They would catch fish out of that river and smoke it and just grab your nose and want you to go down there and have some. And they were just fine people. They came in usually before cherries--you would see them before cherries--and then you would see them every day out in the orchards. And nobody ever charged anybody for that. They could have all they wanted. And my mother actually learned to dry fruit. And oh, that smelled good, just waft up and grab you by the nose. And they put it in little, thin sheets like cheesecloth. They'd make a rack with willows--make a rack, weave it, and put it between maybe stumps of willows, little tiny seedling willows that were coming up. And they would make these racks. And they would put this cheesecloth over it to keep the flies away. And they would dry it. And they would dry fruit all summer long--peaches, cherries, apricot, apples, everything. And they taught my mother that if you soak them just a few minutes in saltwater, they will not turn brown. And they won't salt the fruit. And so she learned how to do that. And the fish—oh! When they smoked that fish, you wanted to go down there and just have some. It just smelled delicious. They had a mixture they mixed up to put on it so it wouldn't dry it out. And they would take the whole bone out of it. They'd slice it. They take the scale off, the skin off, and the ribs out. And they would place that between these same little cloths and dry it. And they would smoke it from beneath and they'd keep that just really low. Oh, you could smell it all over the valley. You'd just--oh! And it was delicious. They did a good job. And they were interesting. Interesting, interesting people. And you know it was a good [AUDIO OUT] for kids. I remember my brother used go up, 14 or 15 years old, he and his two buddies Leo and Louie Russo--Leo Goodner and Louie Russo- and they'd go up to Saddle Mountain, take a little flour and little baking powder and maybe some salt and some lard. And they'd go up there and stay for a couple days. Nobody thought anything of it. There was a little spring up there and it was always green. And they'd just camp out and snare a rabbit or whatever. They just couldn't--they just loved it. Usually he went in good weather, yes. But we didn't have bad weather in summertime. But you wouldn't let a 14-year-old kid out now, three of them all by themselves? [LAUGHTER] But they had wonderful times. And it was a good place to raise kids, and it was good place to be raised, too. Really good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: I want to ask you about the sheriff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, Roy Bean was a fine man. I think I told you about him coming to get the boys to take the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: You did before we started recording on the film-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, he was a deputy sheriff out of the Tri-Cities. And I think the main thing--the office was up in probably Yakima, I'm not sure. But he had two little girls. And Roberta went to school with me. And Loretta came along later. She was younger by a couple of years. But he came to our house one morning, and he--we were just up. Dutch wasn't up yet, my brother. But he said, I wonder, is Virgil up yet? And he said, no, he said, but I'll go get him. He said, what's he done now? And he says, he's sure going to get it if he's gotten into trouble. And he says, now I want you to understand. He says, there's nothing going to be trouble about this, Joe. He says, I want you to go get him up. He says, his two buddies are in my car. And, he says, we're going to do a little favor for some people. And he said, I don't want any repercussions about this. I don't want any questions about it. If I hear of any beatings about this, he says, I will deal with it. And my dad went in and got Dutch up. And he came out and got in the car. He was dressed. And they went up to the packing house, which is right across from Reierson's Grocery. And he says, now, we're going to go get that car, which you pushed down this incline last night and released the brake. And he says, we're going to push it back up that slight hill. It was probably down there about seven, eight blocks. Well, it was uphill, now. It wasn't so easy. But, he says, I'll help you with the brake here. And he said, we'll keep this released. And he said, we'll push this back up. So he got those three boys--probably 14, 15 years old--to push that car about seven or eight blocks up to be iced. And he came home. He was pretty sweaty and he was pretty tired. And he wanted some breakfast. [LAUGHTER] But nothing was ever mentioned about it. And he was a fine man. He knew how to handle people. And he wasn't out there to bully anybody or--and later, he came to a family reunion. We called him up and invited him, because we knew he'd lived in Milton-Freewater, him and his wife. And, of course, Roberta-I kept track of Roberta because she moved here. That was his oldest daughter. And so I was glad to meet them. And we invited him to the get-together. And he mentioned that. And he laughed about it to Dutch. Dutch was a little uneasy when he thought we were going to invite the Beans. [LAUGHTER] And I said, he made a good joke out of it. He says, I've used that a lot of times, he said, on how to and how not to. And he said, you turned out pretty good. He says, turned out pretty good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Someone else I wanted to ask you about-- when we were talking earlier, you were mentioning a man named Ellis John-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, Ellis John was an interesting person. He lived down in old town in just one of the abandoned buildings. He had been on some kind of a merchant ship. And somebody on that ship that worked with him attacked him. And he was beating on him, and he killed him. And so they sent him to a penitentiary. It was a kind of an accidental killing. He didn't mean to but he was really--that's what I got out of it. But he lived there. He came to White Bluffs because it was such a nice little town. He came through there and he liked it. And he was an artist, a real artist. He did pictures of people. And he would make a few bucks, did paintings of them. And when I had my 10th birthday--my mother used to leave vegetables and fruit on his porch because she knew he didn't have a garden. And she always left vegetables and fruit if we had extra--because we always had extra--on his porch because he was kind of a recluse. But he would come out and talk to you. He was pleasant. And when I had my 10th birthday, my folks bought Muriel Beldin’s girl's bike for me to ride. And it was a smaller bike. And he painted roses on the fenders of that blue and white bike. And I had the prettiest bike in town when I moved to Walla Walla. [LAUGHTER] So I always remembered him because I was fascinated with--in fact, I took art in school because I was so fascinated with him. He would sit there and sketch somebody and--right in front of your eyes-- and make it live. And you wondered how he did that. He used charcoal a lot, and pen and ink, and paint. Just-- and I always felt bad because his life was kind of wasted there. He could've been--I mean he could make a likeness of anybody perfectly. But he chose to be there because we accepted him, and we respected his privacy. He had been through a lot. And I don't think he was a murderous person. I think it was something that happened. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So when and why did your family leave White Bluffs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, in 1937, Hitler was very busy. And by 1941, he was even busier. And in June--in April of 1941, we moved to Walla Walla. My dad says, there's going to be some military. He says, you can bet your sweet life. He says, it's big enough to have some military. And he said, I want to be where there's some jobs. And so we moved to Walla Walla. And there was a veterans' hospital here and he was a veteran. And he said, I just think it'd be better, because they had surveyed our area in 1937, '36 or '37, I'm not sure which. But we kept surveyors at our house, so we knew they were surveying for something. And it took them, oh, a couple years to survey all that area that they were looking at. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: But you didn't know what they were-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: They didn't even know what they were surveying for. They were hired by the United States government. And they were employees of the United States government. So we kept Mama and Daddy Redd, we called them. And they were nice people. They had no children, and they just loved us. They just--she taught us really good things, things that we hadn't learned from our mom. Mama didn't know how to make fudge. She'd never had that much sugar to spare in her life. [LAUGHTER] So we all learned how to make fudge and penuche and good stuff from Ma Redd. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So you knew they were working for the government, but you didn't know-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We didn't know. They didn't know. But they were there about, I would say, two years. So I associate it with the Manhattan Project because it's a logical. Hitler was busy. Oh boy, was he busy. So I don't know. It might have been, it might not have been. We thought it was an irrigation project. We were so excited, because an irrigation project [AUDIO OUT] would have given us more, see, I mean, you could have irrigated more land. But-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So how were you when you left White Bluffs and you moved-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I had my 11th birthday here. It was in the spring of 1941. And we didn't have war until 1941, December 7. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So as a 10- and 11-year-old girl, what did you think of leaving White Bluffs and moving to Walla Walla? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Oh, I thought I was going to die. For one thing, they had a Holstein cow over at Margaret Stearns's where we lived in her little house when we came here. And my father took care of her yard and milked her cow and separated the milk. It was a Holstein cow. That's like skim milk. I didn't drink milk for a year. I couldn't handle it. I mean, we were used to--we had cream on top of the milk. And then we sold half of it to the little dairy. And, I says, this is what we slop the pigs with. I'm not drinking this. And they worried about me--I wasn't drinking milk. But it was probably better for me, but I wasn't used to it. I wasn't used to it. The Scandinavian blood in me calls for that milk with the fat in it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Did you keep in contact with the people from White Bluffs after you moved here to Walla Walla? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I knew Bonnie Morris was here, and her sister, Ruth--her sister-in-law, Ruth. They were both Morris girls. And I don't think they were sisters. I think they were cousins because we had two Morris families there. But Ruth went to school with my sister Dorothy at White Bluffs High School. And I went to school with Bonnie Morris, who went to White Bluffs Grade School. And I'll tell you what, I was sure jealous of that girl. She could do handstands and cartwheels all around the White Bluffs Grade School and not stop. She could do a flip over and throw herself up and come down on her feet. And I just--I was just amazed. She was a couple years older than me, or I thought she was. But I don't think so. I think she was probably close to my age. She probably--maybe it was one year. But she was a fantastic athlete. Even the boys envied her. I mean, she could just flip around like a circus performer. And here I was, a tomboy, but not delightful with things like gymnastics. There was always somebody we envy when we were kids. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So in 1943, a couple years after you moved away, the federal government came in and-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Cleaned out everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: --everybody had to leave. Did you hear about that from people you used-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: My sister was living there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, she was, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: She was living in the Johnson place. She said nobody ever came and got the beautiful antiques she had upstairs. She had a teapot that came over on the Mayflower. The legs were--it was a silver teapot, and the legs were actually worn completely off. And it had the Ford name on it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So which sister was this, then, who had-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: That was Dorothy, my oldest sister that I love so much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: And why had she stayed there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: She stayed there because she had husband who was a truck driver. And she was expecting her first baby and didn't really know what else to do. And he was gone. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Was this someone she had met in White Bluffs, then, or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: She met him in Kennewick. She was working at Kennewick General Hospital at the time. And she met Vern Fouracre. And they got married at our house. In fact, we chivareed them at our house. And that was probably when--I was 13 when I was an aunt, so Colleen was born in '43. And she wasn't born there. She was born—she was pregnant when she was there but she was born after that. And that's when they moved them out. They had to move everybody out. And I always wondered whatever became of Mrs. Johnson's beautiful things, because they were museum things. They should've been in a museum. They shouldn't have been in an attic. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Right. Where did your sister and her husband go, then, when they had to leave? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, they went back to Kennewick. And Colleen was born in Kennewick. Was born in--[AUDIO OUT] Then she came to Walla Walla. And she had a little boy a year or two later. She had four. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Have you ever gone back to-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: We went to the Hanford-White Bluffs picnics, I think, four or five times. And then, of course, the people who were doing the arranging for it--Annette Hereford and I can't remember the other boy. I can't remember the boy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Man off-camera: Bob Grisham, maybe? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I believe, I believe. They graduated high school with Dorothy. And they just were getting too old to do that. And it was hard thing. And people were dying off. But Alice Moody was at the last one. I was, too. And I loved seeing her. And I knew her immediately. She looked just like herself, just exactly. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: So when you went to the reunions, it usually was a picnic, right, at the park, Howard Amon Park. Did you also do a tour-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Mm-hm. We did, we did. We could take our car in. First time, I think they had a bus for people who had no transportation, because the Tri-Cities had--they were old. Some people weren't driving anymore. So they evidently had acquired a bus for some that couldn't. And whoever had room in cars, we took them. But ours was always full because our kids were just fascinated by this. And we went to the dinners, little banquets that we had you. Mr. Reierson was there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: What did you think when you had a chance to go back and see the land, the area where-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Broke my heart. Just broke my heart. We had a hard time finding--we wouldn't have found where our house was, except there was a water tank associated with this pump. And it set out front. It was made--and a lot of the people had them. Some of them had brick with a liner in it. But this one was cement and was kind of cone-shaped, and evidently was a holding tank for the house, or whatever. I don't know, I'm not sure. But it was there. And that was still there. They hadn't knocked that down. That's the only way--and it set up on a hill. It was the first row of hills as you came down toward the river--dropped down the river to Old Town. And so, that was how we found it. But there wasn't any stumps of trees left. There wasn't anything left. They actually had the crew of conscientious objectors at McNeil Island come down and cut the trees and the wood out of there, and took it back for fuel by truckloads. And that was the last, just before they released--they were already starting to build the reactors and things and dig the systems underneath, and storage thing under the--But it was a wonderful place to grow up, and I don't know that they'll ever get it cleaned up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Anything that we haven't talked about yet in terms of White Bluffs, any stories or events that stand out that we haven't had a chance to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I just think it was the best place to the world to raise kids because there was a community spirit-- that I never saw favoritism. I never saw belligerence about minding rules. I always saw a humanitarianism. If you knew that your husband or your neighbors or anybody was having a problem, you didn't make it your business. You didn't gossip about it. It wasn't a usual. It was more of any empathy, more of a sympathetic, let's just do what we can for them. I never saw the malice toward anybody because they were poor or maybe did something wrong. If there was a wrong committed, it was straightened out and talked about by the two people that did it. And it was left alone. And they had a tavern there. [AUDIO OUT] And, even there, it was not tolerated for people to act like a bunch of savages or fights or--It was a place to go have a cold beer if you wanted one, but I don't remember a lot of drunkenness or--I don't think he would have--Harry somebody was his name. It ended up two people owned it, but I can't remember what their name was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, the tavern? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: And we were gone, but they told us about it. And I can't remember, but that was the last of it. And it was just a little tavern. I probably, I don't know--it was probably four or five little tables and maybe a row along the bar. I remember standing out there one time because my dad went in to have a beer with a friend. And I said, well I'll wait out here and eat this ice cream cone from Pop English. [LAUGHTER] I knew what to do with it. He was a fine man. He actually organized the White Bluffs band. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Oh, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: The high school band. And he made room for everybody. Everybody had-- Ola Meeks could do the baton twirl, and she taught two other girls to do that. And they had white pants with a--it's either black or navy blue stripe down the side--and a white shirt, just a plain little white shirt. The girls wore a white blouse. And everybody had a part in high school band. And they went up to Yakima and they took first place. That little-- and competing against Kennewick, Pasco? It was amazing! Somewhere we have a picture, and I don't have the picture. I can't find it. [LAUGHTER] But Dorothy just loved it. She played a drum, and she just loved it. And they did a good job. No, it was a fine place to grow up. And it was sad, because it really was a neighborhood community. And there were people who had plenty, I mean, they had--there were well-to-do people there. But they didn't flaunt it. They were no different when they went to the Grange meeting. Or whether they were entertaining, it was not—there was not any class distinction. And especially at school I noticed it. That's unusual. That's unusual. And we welcomed it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you very much for letting us come here and talk to you today, and for sharing your memories-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: Well, you use what you can. I know you you'll cut, because, of course, you can't. You have to do what you have to do. But I know that people are going to give you some wonderful stories, stories about how they were accepted. And I'm sure every one of those people that you interview will tell you the same thing, that it was a wonderful community. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Bauman: Thanks again very much. I appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX45489217"> Reid: I appreciate your coming. </div> Location The location of the interview Yakima, Washington Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 227 kbps Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Boehmer, Dorothy Boehmer, LaVonne Boehmer, Helen Boehmer, Virgi Boehmer, Darlene Ford, Henry Borden, Patsy Moody, Alice Bean, Roy John, Ellis Fouracre, Vern Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:59 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 Leatris Reid Description An account of the resource An interview with Leatris Reed 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 8/27/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-06-22: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource White Bluffs (Wash.) Walla Walla (Wash.) swimming Walla Walla (Wash.) White Bluffs (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ffd574834b9e91334555bb134407a78ff.jpg c7a06ce1bcaa7cf7ff7b35701c99c37a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F935d35ec4e72a2fdefbfaff051d8a29d.mp4 8bcb13d04c4911f897a5aaab7e50965b 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 Jack Rhoades Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Northwest Public Television | Rhoades_Jack </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Robert Bauman: Okay. We'll go ahead and start. And if we could start by having you say your name and then spell it for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Sure, my name is Jack L., middle initial for Lewis, Rhoades, R-H-O-A-D-E-S. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Great. Thank you very much. And my name is Bob Bauman and this is October 16th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start with, if you could talk about your family's background. What brought them here? What brought you and your family here to the Tri-Cities, and when, and that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Sure, well my dad worked for DuPont in the early '40s--like '40, '41, '42--in a TNT plant for the war effort, and he had a college degree in chemistry. So when the Manhattan Project kicked off in late '43, he was one of the people selected out of DuPont's Joliette Plant to go down and train on the chemistry of plutonium at Clinton Works, which later became Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It was located in Oak Ridge, probably an Army Depot at the time. And when he was transferred to the Clinton Works, why, my mom and my younger sister and I—I would have been about four then—went back to the ranch in Colorado and lived with her parents until my father got transferred up here to Hanford in like April of '44. And we finally got a house, or were on line to get a house, by August '44. And so what I can remember--I mean I was a young kid, but this was pretty traumatic, all the excitement of the war effort--but my mom got a telegram, which was hand-carried out to the farm by the postman. And it just simply said, go to Denver, get on train such and such. There'll be a one-way ticket for you waiting, get off at Hinkle, Oregon and the government will take care of you from there. So it was amazing because the train had some servicemen on it, but the preponderance of people on this train were women, just like my mother, headed to Hanford with two or three screaming kids. Everybody was trying to carry a couple suitcases, trying to carry a kid or drag a kid. We got off the train in Hinkle, Oregon—which is out like the armpit of America—and it was dark. It was probably midnight. And the Green Hornets, or the old Army buses, were there with a bunch of MPs. And the soldiers were really great. They helped all the women get their luggage off and loaded us all up into buses and drove over-- course we had to go the long way around Wallula Gap to Hanford. And the parking north of the Federal Building was all administrative and dormitories. So my dad had actually been in a dormitory there with a roommate for six months. And so he was out front waiting when the bus got there, along with tens of other guys. And so his roommate had gotten moved to another room, so there was like two cots in there. And my mom and dad had one cot, and my sister and I had another cot. And we lived there for several weeks until his name came up and we moved into an F house on—it's Jadwin now, but it used to be Goethals—down in the 300 block. There used to be Campbell's Grocery Store across the street. That's the way life started for us. I was five at the time, but my birthday was in late October, so I started the first grade in Lewis and Clark, which was one of the first schools that was occupied by students because they were still building the houses toward the north. I think maybe Marcus Whitman was in place, and later on Jefferson was built. But there were so many kids that when my mother took me to school, I was assigned to go to school from 6:00 AM to noon. And then other kids came in and went from 1:00 to like 5:00 or 6:00 at night. And so nobody had a car. You just were on foot. And then of course, the government had the Green Hornet buses for transporting people around town to a limited extent, but mostly for transporting workers out to the 200 Area. My dad was actually was the first plant manager of T Canyon, which was one of the two bismuth phosphate plants for producing uranium from the fuel from B Reactor. He later became the manager of 231-Z. When they first started processing plutonium, the end result at Hanford was plutonium nitrate, and they had to reduce it. It would come out of T and B Canyons as a fluid liquid. And so 231-Z then condensed it down to like a green Jell-O, and that's what they flew to Los Alamos. And then Los Alamos actually converted the green Jell-O to the metal which went into the first Trinity explosion. And even though everybody knows about Nagasaki because of the plutonium there, there was actually a third pit that was available. And after Hiroshima, Tibbets flew back to the United States to get the third pit in case it was needed. But, fortunately, the Japanese surrendered. So after the war was over, my dad got promoted up to what was called an area supervisor. He managed all of the plutonium activities because they'd started a new building that was called 234-5, or Z Plant. And Z Plant was the plant that produced the pits during the Cold War, and that's the nuclear core. So what they made down at Los Alamos for Trinity and Nagasaki, they transferred the production and the production line up to the building in 234-5 and he was a manager of that. I remember, in later years, my dad talking about the building was divided into two parts. There was the top secret half and the secret half, and the workers didn't know who was on the other side. They had entrances from different directions and they never communicated. And the whole building had—the doors were like a bank vaults, not three foot thick, but they were steel bank vault doors. And he said he had to memorize over 100 combination locks in the building. And to him, that was one of the more challenging tasks that he had to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And how long did he work at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: We left in '50, and it ultimately caused his demise. But he had, according to the health physics people, he ended up dying of stomach cancer. And so there was a 50-50 chance that it was caused by working at Hanford. But he had developed really severe ulcers. And they eventually had to cut out half of his stomach because it just perforated and he kept almost bleeding to death. And so we moved to Texas and he went into business with one of his brothers in Odessa, Texas selling real estate and insurance. And later moved back in about 1960 and he then worked for United Nuclear, and he was a manager of extrusion press for N Reactor fuel. And then later on was hired by DOE and was a director of safety for DOE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And what was your father's name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Paul Gordon Rhoades. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And so during the war period when you were in first grade, did you have any idea of what your father was doing? What he was working on? What his job was? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: No, absolutely nothing. And he was absolutely paranoid about the secrecy aspect. I can remember that vividly. And I can remember when news of the bomb was released on the radio, and my mother called him on the phone out at the plant. When she said, did you know that the bomb they dropped on Japan was made in Hanford? And he slammed the phone down, wouldn't even talk to her. He viewed working at Hanford as the same way a marine would view going ashore in Iwo Jima. It was his duty. In fact, he was not really for going after the compensation stuff that I think was voted in in 2000. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Did he at some point then talk about what he was doing out there? What he-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Not much really. I mean, he did have anecdotes, like talking about the Green Run, when they released iodine-139. And one of the things I remember him talking about was arriving at work in a bus. And ruthenium is something that can't be filtered out in the sand filters on the plutonium processing plants, and so it would condense on the side of the towers because the chimney was so tall that it would cool off and then it'd condense on the inside of the--Well, every once in a while there'd be a change of conditions and this stuff would flake off, and go out the top of the stack, and be like snowflakes falling on the ground, and they have a short lived half-life. So the guys would get off the bus. They'd have to put on gauze mask and booties and everything, and walk into the building, and then get decontaminated before they entered the building. And then that was the start of their eight-hour shift. But there was no question that production was paramount. And there's no question in my mind that what DuPont did with the knowledge that was available in those days for designing the canyons and the reactors, was nothing short of brilliant. And even though people are upset with the environmental contamination--because we basically have got five square miles--or five by five, 25 square miles that's contaminated from the soil to the groundwater out there in the 200 Areas. But compared to what they did in Russia, which was dump it straight into the lake that fed out under the Arctic Circle, DuPont took advantage and was farsighted beyond belief in my professional estimation. I just marvel at how DuPont did on designing the reactor, and designing the canyons, and having them work safely. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: You say your father didn't really talk about it a whole lot--his work—did he ever express any concerns about safety at all or was he-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Never. In fact, DuPont was--as I grew up, and then as I worked later and they were down at Savannah River, and when I was working at Hanford--DuPont probably had the highest reputation for safety of any large organization in the nuclear industry. At Savannah River, if a guy climbed up a ladder, and did something stupid, and fell off and broke his arm at home, and he came to work and they found out that he had been unsafe at home, then he had time off. I mean, he was punished for what he did on the weekend because he was not thoughtful in his safety process. But DuPont, I held them in extremely high regard, high reputation. And they were, when you think about it, they did this for a dollar. They definitely were part of the war effort that sacrificed for the good of America. They weren't in it to make money or anything like that. They just were doing what they were paid to do. And they got out as soon as they could. And then they came back and did a second stint when they were asked. They were the only company that the government trusted. So they built Savannah River. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I want to go back to talking about when you first arrived and you were five years old, do you remember any sort of first impressions that you had, or early memories of first arriving in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Oh, it was, of course, for a kid in the first grade, it was exciting because everybody was the same. They were all on foot, and they were all new. In fact, that kind of curiosity anecdote was on the first day as I was walking to school with my mother, and we got about half way to the school. And another woman who's coming in on a side street, and she had a little boy. And my mother just about passed out. It turned out it was her college roommate, who they hadn't seen since she graduated from college. And they both had gone their separate ways and it ended up that they are actually living in the house behind us. And they renewed their friendship from college and it went on until they both passed away. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: You mentioned that in first grade, you started at 6:00 AM. There was so many children that was a way they could serve the needs of all the families with children. How long did that last? Did that last through first grade or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah, it probably did last the first year. But by the time the year had gone by and as a year progressed, they were building hutments out alongside the school. So basically, the first grade was about the only time I went to school inside of a building. And maybe the sixth grade up in Jefferson, I went inside a building, but the rest of time I was always in a hutment. There were just more kids than there was space. But yeah, that was sparse. I mean, you didn't have a car. The only entertainment was playing bridge and softball. They had a very organized adult softball league, so that was the entertainment. There was no stores to buy Christmas gifts or anything. You ordered whatever you wanted out of Sears and Roebuck in July, and it got back-ordered, and you got it in the following July. But when Griggs opened over in Pasco that was a big thing because when I wanted a bike. And when my dad bought me a bike, basically, he had to borrow somebody's car. And we drove up to Yakima, and then he came home and assembled it, and turned us loose. For kids, the basic entertainment was skating. And they had concrete tennis courts up by Lewis and Clark--on the south end of Lewis and Clark--and so that was the only surface that you could roller skate on, because you had those old clamp on roller skates that you tightened with a key that just hooked on to your heel and the sole of your shoe. And so we were just constantly roller skating. There wasn't other entertainment. There was just recess at school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Were there any movie theaters, anything like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah, there were. There were two movie theaters. And every weekend your dad gave you a dime. And you could get in for a nickel, I think, and get popcorn for a nickel or something like that. Probably everything you stood in line for—I mean everything—there was just a line beyond human belief. Like when it was haircut time, the only barbers in town at that time were down at the Allied Arts, down below Jackson's bar. And so, I don't know, they had two or three barbers in there. So Saturday morning, the boys and their fathers would show up to get their haircuts. And so there'd be a line of 100 kids. There wouldn't be no adults. They were all up at the bar playing pool and having a beer while the kids stood in line waiting to get a haircut. But when Ganzel’s came in was like night and day. Even shopping at the grocery store, you had to become friends with the butcher. If you didn't know somebody in the grocery store, and they befriended you and gave you a heads up that, hey, there's some marshmallows coming into town, why, you just did without. You ate a lot of canned fruit and vegetables and stuff like that. And people were always doing their own chickens and putting them up. But it was just pretty spartan. They gave you a house. I don't know if my dad even paid any rent. Basically, they gave him grass seed. They gave him coal. We just had a real nice house. And my parents had borrowed somebody's pickup, and they'd driven up Yakima and bought some furniture, and brought it home one piece at a time. But we lived down there on Goethals for, probably, from '44 to '49, or something like that. And then we moved up on McMurray, and then we left in '50 and went down to Odessa, Texas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: What about institutions like churches? Were there churches for people to go to on Sundays in those early years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: We didn't. It wasn't because my parents didn't believe in God, it's just like we didn't go to church. I mean, we'd have had to walk. I'm not even sure where--I honestly do not remember where the closest church would have been. I'm sure there were churches, though, because the government set off areas for parks, they set off areas for schools, they set off areas for churches, very thorough. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: What about any community events that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Not much. They had Richland Days. They had like the polio March of Dimes drives. Actually it was probably after—between, let's say, '45 and '50—when Camp Hanford really had gotten established and they had moved in missile people. This was just a sizable number of soldiers up there in North Richland, but they had much better facilities for entertainment--movies and all--it was just built newer. And so even though my dad didn't serve in the service, he had a lot of friends that had been in the service, and so we could go to movies up there. And they had outside entertainment that came in that you could go to. We never did live out at Hanford or anything like that. My ex-father-in-law actually came here and he lived out at Hanford for a while. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: So you said your family then moved away in 1950, and then came back in 1960? Your father came back? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yeah, about ten years later he came back. I'm not too-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Did you come back at that point also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Well, I was in college, so I came up here after I graduated in '61 and went into the—they still had the draft at that time—so I volunteered for the Navy, and ended up flunking a hearing test and flight school. So I got washed out of flight training. And Vietnam hadn't started to build up yet so they weren't desperate for pilots. So after I got out of the Navy, I came back up here and stayed for a short while and got a job. I had a mining, engineering and geology degree, so I got a job in Colorado in a molybdenum mine, and worked there for a couple of years, and decided to go back to college and get a degree in metallurgy. And so I went to WSU and graduated from there in '65, went down to Kaiser Steel in California. By then, my dad had moved from working for the contractor into working for the AEC. Now, I'm not too sure—I'm sure he just probably just wanted me and my wife and their grandkids closer to them—but anyway, he told the people in personnel that I had a metallurgy degree. And one day I got a call from Wanda Cotner, that was the branch chief over the personnel hiring, and she asked me if I'd come up for an interview. And she said that she could give me a nice raise if I'd think about joining the AEC. So I ended up accepting the offer. And when I got my Q Clearance, I moved up here in July of '67, and worked for DOE as an individual contributor over PNLs. It was a Hanford lab. PNL, I guess, had taken over by then. They had a number of very important metallurgical programs on understanding how plutonium reacted, especially in the reactor with neutrons hitting it all the time. So I advanced very nicely. And by the early '80s, I was assistant manager for--it was then ERDA or AEC--for all the compliance programs at Hanford--that'd be safety, and QA, and environmental, and security--so all the compliance structure at Hanford. Then, probably, in about '84, I guess, I moved me over and I was assistant manager for all the nuclear operations at Hanford. So I had the 300 Area for the fuel fab for N Reactor. And we still had N Reactor running. And FFTF was starting up, we had PUREX running and T Canyon. I probably had a billion dollar budget back in the '80s just for all the nuclear operations here at the site. So we did the first comprehensive EIS that was ever done in the Department of Energy for the tank farms, built the last double shell tanks that were ever built. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And how long did you work at--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: I worked for about 20 years for DOE, and the AEC, and then I took an early retirement in, must've been like 1988. So it must have been about 21 years I worked here. So I left Hanford and went over to Idaho Falls and was as a manager over their capital construction projects. And then I got transferred to Rocky Flats. After the FBI and EPA had shut down Rocky Flats, the Department of Energy terminated the contract with the contractor. And actually they didn't even compete the contract. They just, literally, gave it to EG&G, which is almost unheard of, to not compete a major contract. So I was in charge of—they had shut down Rocky Flats operations. And so when EG&G came in, our charter was to restart the plant. And so I was the project manager over restarting the plutonium operations at Rocky Flats. I got promoted up to being assistant general manager over environmental remediation. And then I got a call from Lockheed down in Houston and they were trying to break into the DOE business. And so they hired about 20 experienced people that had worked in and outside of DOE to put together proposals to run these big contracts, whether it be Oak Ridge, or Rocky Flats, or Idaho, or Nevada Test Site. And so then I worked for Lockheed and it then became Lockheed Martin. But I worked for Lockheed from like '93 to '96, and I was a general manager of one of their environmental remediation divisions. And I transferred back up here, which was probably about the sixth or seventh time I've been through this town. But when Lockheed Martin and Fluor won the Westinghouse contract in '96, I got transferred back to Richland. So I'd made a circuitous loop that had gone from Richland to Idaho Falls to Rocky Flats outside of Denver, down to Houston, the Nevada Test Site, and the back up to Hanford. But I ended up, after I retired from Lockheed Martin, I went to work for a small business here at ATL International. They currently run the 222-S Laboratory. I was a vice president for them over all their Hanford work. Eventually, I just decided to go out on my own. So I consulted from about 2004 to the end of 2011. And by then, I looked around and all my contacts had either died or moved to Arizona or Florida. Even today, I probably don't know two human beings that are still working for a living. But this place has been--and DOE has been—absolutely a blessing to me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I want to go back. So your family left in 1950. Then you came back in '67, roughly? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: No, I came back in '61. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Just for a short period of time. Just long enough to enlist in the Navy. And then when I got ready to start flight school, I took a hearing test. And believe it or not, the physical requirements for all branches of service are the same. It's just that they check people that are going to be in the Air Force or in the Navy, they just check certain things closer than they do if you want to be a marine. And so I was just borderline acceptable in the hearing. And since they had an abundance of pilots and the Vietnam War hadn't escalated or not, they ended up giving me an honorable discharge and reclassifying me as 1-Y, which is, it has to be a national emergency to call you back up. I came home and then went to Colorado and went to work in the mine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: When you came back here for the job working at Hanford, I was wondering, what ways had the community changed since you were here as a child going to school? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: You know what, to me, at a macroscopic view of the Tri-Cities, the biggest thing that's changed is the number of people. Richland is still uptown and downtown. Kennewick is striving to open up that area between the two bridges along the river. But the biggest thing is now there are probably three times as many people. There was probably 90,000 people between the three towns early in the '50s. And now there's probably a quarter of a million people. And so the biggest changes is that the roads and streets haven't been modernized--or the stoplights--to handle triple the traffic. But the wine industry obviously is a major thing, because when I was a kid growing up here—When they talk about termination dust storms, they were not kidding, because I lived in eastern Colorado and my parents had lived through the Dust Bowl, and I knew what dust storms looked like. And when they hit Richland, your house—I remember my mother, she—when they vacuum--you've just got sweep broom and a wood floor, and your sweeping it up, and throwing it in the yard with a dust pan. But the irrigation changed all that. There's just so much more moisture going up in the air that the dust storms are few and far between. And the humidity has gone from like 10% or 15% probably to 35%. And the summers have gotten less extreme. When I was a kid, it was not unusual at all for July--from the first of July to the end of July--to be 110 to 115 degrees. I've seen it 117 degrees here. And now, just look at this last summer, we had a few days of 101 or 103. But the climate has mellowed out with the extremes. Like in '48, the Columbia River froze clear across from side to side. You could drive a truck across it. The same year as the big flood. So the extremes have gone away. And instead of the real dips and curves a sinusoidal curve, it's more shallow extremes. But the fact that they now have Meadow Springs, and they have Clipper Ridge, and West Richland, of course, has expanded from a nothing. When I was a kid there was just basically a few people that liked to have farmland lived out there. There was probably as many people living in Yakima as there was in Richland, because they couldn't build houses fast enough. And those that worked in the 100 Areas or the 200 Areas, it was just as close to come in from Yakima as it was to drive from Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: You talk about a number memories from your childhood, are there any other things, events, or particular memories that really stand out from those early years in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: You had to make your entertainment. And you had to wait in line for everything, including getting a car. Jeez, it must have been '48 before we got a car. And in the Sunday paper there was an ad that said, call a number in Seattle, and get on a list for a Buick. And so my mother did that. And about six months later we got a call and said come pick up your car. We got on a train over in Pasco that just had wood benches in it, and we went over Snoqualmie to Seattle, and got this new '48 Buick, and drove it home over Snoqualmie Pass. People from all over the neighborhood were kind of ogling this car because anybody else that had a car basically were driving some pre-1940 model, because during the '40s they didn't make cars. But that was a vast improvement for us to have our own wheels. But self-made entertainment. When we lived up on McMurray—of course, all these guys that came here from the '30s and '40s, all the entertainment they had as they grew up as kids was self-made also. So playing pool was a big activity. And so my dad bought a pool table over in Pasco, and we had it in the basement. And on the weekend, he and all of his buddies iced down beer and played kelly pool all afternoon, that was the entertainment. And probably that night those same guys, with their wives, had a little potluck at somebody's house and played Bridge. My parents played bridge all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you, then, also about your working at Hanford. Hanford for so long focused on production. You mentioned that production, production. At some point, of course, it shifted to cleanup. I wondered if that shift impacted your work at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Well, by the time I left Hanford it was still in a reduced production mode. The writing was on the wall that environmental restoration was the future of Hanford, not production. We fought to keep N Reactor going because it was dual purpose. But especially when they passed the RCRA, or Resource Conservation Recovery Act, that was the first major commitment by the US Government for an environmental cleanup. And they sent that law, or bill, out to all the field offices and asked for the field offices to comment on what effect it would have on their operations. And Dixy Lee Ray was the commissioner at the time. And I must've been a director of safety at the time. So we got together with the contractors and we labored over this. And fortunately, I have a knack of being able to synthesize complicated things into a very concise statement. And when we got through reviewing this, I wrote a letter for the manager of the field office. And it was about this long, and it simply said, this will shut down nuclear pit production for the United States of America. And from that point on it was one lawsuit after another as Congress tried to extend its will on the defense industry. But at the time, like when I was a Rocky Flats, the reason they were so anxious to restart that plant that was the only plant in all of DOE complex that didn't have two--like there was Hanford and Savannah River, there was Los Alamos and Livermore Design Lab. So there was a duality in everything. But when they removed the pit production from Hanford, instead having pit production at Savannah River and Hanford both, they built a new plant at Rocky Flats. And it was the only plant that made pits. And so it was a choke point. And when the FBI and EPA shut that plant down, basically, we had nuclear subs that were out in the ocean with 20 missiles and there was no spear point on the end of the spear. They were not loaded because we were not making pits. So that was why the defense industry was fighting with Congress on the environmental cleanup was because we were not in a good defensible position nuclear-wise during that Cold War years if we had the boomers out in the ocean that didn't have a number of warheads on top of them. And that's why EG&G got the contract because DOE believed that they could restart the plant and start making these pits. So even though the environmental law was saying you should be shifting quickly to environmental restoration at Rocky Flats, the headquarters people over defense programs were telling you under the table, get this plant running. We need these pits for the defense of America. So it was real catch-22 for the management of the Rocky Flats plant. But eventually, it became obvious that they were never going to restart the plant and so everybody shifted into a full environmental restoration mode. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: During your years working here at Hanford, what would you consider some of the more challenging aspects of your job, the work you were doing here, and maybe some of the most rewarding aspects of your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Well, you know--[SIGH] I mean, rewarding is a hard thing to define because that was one of the primary reasons I took early retirement. Let me just use Yucca Mountain as an example. When I hired into the AEC in '67, the United States Government was looking for a repository for nuclear fuel in Lyons, Kansas. So that was '67, and here we are, 2013, and we're no closer to solving that national problem today than we were 40 years ago. So the satisfaction that comes with mission accomplished was always very difficult to achieve. It was more of a case of frustration on my part that the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence. If I was going to go any higher in DOE, I would have to go to Washington, DC. Because I was already an SES and that's as high as you could go without a congressional appointment. But the most challenging thing was that when Alex Fremling came in to be the manager of DOE, he brought a complete new, fresh environmental sensitive outlook to the plant. And so trying to deal with the public interface over leaking tanks—106-T was a big bump in my career. I went from a nobody to a branch chief just with one tank leak. [LAUGHTER] But he was very environmental conscious and he was very safety conscious. And so he ratcheted the whole system up, not just one notch, but numerous notches. Because when they built the nuclear industry, they did not have safety standards for the nuclear industry, because it was a brand new industry. So if you looked at the operation of the uranium side, then they used the safety standards of a steel mill and a blast furnace to do the safety standards for Fernald and these other uranium enrichment places. And if you look at the chemical processing in the canyons, they looked to the petroleum cracking industry for safety standards. And if you look to the waste disposal, which was the operation of the tank farms and the burial grounds, it had the same basic safety standards and the interest as a commercial landfill. And so it wasn't until the nuclear Navy was born and Rickover installed a completely different safety philosophy because he was going to have 200, or 300, or 400 sailor—lives were dependent on everything functioning perfectly. And Alex Fremling was bright enough and young enough to recognize that. And he brought that standard into Hanford. So there was just a real crash program on upgrading the operational procedures for tank farms and other waste disposals. Skin contaminations were accepted as—like a guy working on your car, he accepts the fact that his hands are going to get greasy. But Alex didn't accept that. He said, you know, we're going to have zero accidents. And we're going to have zero skin contaminations. We're going to be open with the public on any of these tank leaks. And the problem was we didn't have, really, the skill to measure how these tanks were doing—whether we're losing material or not losing material. And even though you could measure the depth, the interest of whether it was unacceptable to leak was not there. And the reason for that was that when the first tanks were built, they were built in 12. So there's four rows of three, and the separation process was simply a settling process. So the waste would come into the first tank and fill up, and the solids would drift to the bottom. And then it'd overflow into the second tank, another lighter batch of solids. And then it would flow into the third tank, and more solids would fall out. Then it would flow into the ground. And so if you're putting stuff in the ground for ten or 15 years, and using nine exchange properties of the soil to capture the radionuclides, then what's the big deal about a tank leaking a little extra waste? You've already put a billion gallons of stuff into the soil, what's another 100,000 gallons? So that was the mentality that Alex faced with the contractors when he came to Hanford. I give him credit. He single-handedly changed that. And he took on the challenge to do the very first environmental impact statement on tank waste for the whole agency. He was the guinea pig. He was the front runner, or the blazer, for the DOE on environmental issues. And so I honestly think that Hanford, even though, because of the design of the plants, there was no way to retrofit these plants to not discharge stuff to the soil, but there was a way to monitor it better and be more acutely aware of occurrences that you didn't want to occur. Whether it was stuff leaking on the ground on top of the tank, or whether it was stuff leaking into the ground through the bottom of the tank. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: So what time period are you talking about here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: This would have been in late '70s up to, probably, '87. And Mike Lawrence came in '87. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: And it's Alex Fremling? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Yes, Fremling. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: How do you spell the last name? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: F-R-E-M-L-I-N-G. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: So that's when you noticed a shift definitely taking place? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: No question. I was a student of, that instead of resisting these changes, I embraced these changes and I was rewarded for that. But the mentality of the DOE—or it was ERDA at that time, but the mentality of the workers in ERDA were no different than the mentality in the contractors. I mean, we'd been doing it this way for 30 years, why are we changing? He conducted the first operational readiness review probably in the nation for startup nuclear facilities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: How were you able to change that mentality I guess into the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: You know what, I'd say, probably, through the award-fee process. It's through the money. When I first got here, contractors had contracts, but there was never any real evaluation of whether they deserved their fee or didn't deserve their fee. So once we instituted an award-fee process in which we itemized the areas for improvement, then quantified A, B, C or D or F, you could then quantify. If they had $10 million fee that's up for grabs for this quarter or this six month period, you could quantify how well they did to meet those goals. So it was very intense and it was a steep learning curve, but it produced results. And we changed contractors, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Mm-hmm, right. So this was when you would have been in charge of compliance programs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: First, yeah. After I was a branch chief, I was an assistant division director. Basically all of my career was in nuclear operations, especially with the tank farms. And even though I moved over to be the director of safety, and then on to be the system manager for compliance, you were just viewing operations from an independent standpoint. You didn't direct nuclear operations, but you did appraisals, and you did audits, and you did oversight, and you graded a contractor on his performance independent from operations. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Was it during your time there, I mean, at some point of course there were a lot of questions raised about the tanks. And in terms of the public, questions about tanks leaking and that sort of thing. Did you have to deal with any of that sort of thing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Listen, I spent—if I wasn't making presentations to the public or defending our actions to the public, I was doing so in front of Congress. There was constant barrage and it was difficult to communicate because by this time the environmental support groups were springing up to put pressure on DOE to perform and to clean up and to accelerate. And, of course, you control certain things, but you don't control your budget. Congress controls your budget. And so it was difficult at best, and it was contentious. It's constantly contentious because it was like I was speaking in English and they were listening in Greek. We couldn't communicate, because they were just totally upset with what the government had done to end the war. They forgot that what was the end result was stop the war and save millions of lives in the invasion of Japan. And they had forgotten that. And it was just on the bad things that have been done to the environment. And I'd be the first to agree to that--I don't think that in hindsight, if you went back and re-ran it ten times in hindsight, I don't think anything would have changed. Because the same pressure to beat the Germans to the nuclear bomb and the same pressure to end the war in the Pacific would not change. And so you'd only have the capability to do what your technology was advanced enough to do at that time and place. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: I wonder if there's anything that you haven't talked about, or I haven't asked about yet, either in terms of your years growing up here as a young child, or your father's work, or your work at Hanford, that you'd like to talk about, or think it would be important to talk about. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: I would just simply say that I think that the people and the contractors in the government, as well as contractors, have always given 100% to do the right thing. And they don't get much praise. And they are constantly vilified because they're missing milestones and stuff like that. But there is just some extremely technically challenging work to be done out there. It's been a flywheel for this site since 1943, and it's going to continue out probably to 2075. But they'll never clean the site up, and they'll never walk away from it. They'll have some 25-square-mile pad out there that has all kinds of markings on it, don't drill here. But they're making tremendous strides in cleaning up the groundwater and removing the stuff along the river. I never dreamed in my wildest dreams that they could clean up all the burial grounds and trenches along the river and the buildings. Each one of those reactors had the facilities enough to run a small city, and now all that's left is a cube. You could paint dots on it or something like rolling dice across the prairie. But I just think it's been remarkable how much they've cleaned up and how safely they've done it. You don't ever read of anybody getting killed out there, or maimed out there, and they're still using a lot of heavy equipment. The safety standards are extremely high and it’s part of the reward, the carrot in front of the donkey. If you're safe and have a good safety record and you make progress, you get your fee. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you very much— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Bauman: --for coming and talking to us today and sharing your memories and experiences. I appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX78204124"> Rhoades: Great, thank you very much. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:09:30 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 180 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 Area 300 Area 100 Area Z Plant N Reactor Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) Fast Flux Test Facility B Reactor 234-5 Building 222-S Laboratory Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1967-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1967-1988 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Rhoades, Paul Cotner, Wanda Ray, Dixy Lawrence, Mike Fremling, Alex 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 Rhoades Description An account of the resource An interview with Jack Rhoades 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 Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 10/16/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 200 Area 222-S Laboratory 234-5 building 300 Area B Reactor Fast Flux Test Facility Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash. Kennewick (Wash.) N Reactor Pasco (Wash.) Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX Richland (Wash.) Z Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0bbdf6a73347ae16117663fa3c0f3544.jpg 0a7fbec0d7b9cdbbbc594862f0810905 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4c1debbbefc16cc98b17e2f1e99f32ef.mp4 73c4bc36b7c80cbf73578d12b86dd627 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 Philip "Rick" Riccobuono Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Northwest Public Television | Riccobuono_Philip_Rick </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Robert Bauman: Okay. All right. We're ready to get going. So we'll get started. So first we could just have you say your name and spell it for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Philip Riccobuono: The last name is Riccobuono. R-I-C-C-O-B-U-O-N-O. And it's pronounced Riccobuono, but the "u" is really silent. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Okay. And your first name is Phillip, but you go by Rick. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Phillip, and I go by Rick. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And my name is Bob Bauman. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Is it Don? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Bob. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Bob, that’s right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And today's date is November 6 of 2013, and we're conducting the interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-cities. So let's start by just having you talk about what brought you to Hanford. When did you arrive? Why did you come here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay. I arrived here on March 9th, 1950. I was in an army convoy that brought me from Fort Lewis to here. And at that time the Pass was only two lanes. And I had no idea where the heck I was going. None. They said Richland, Washington. And we left from Fort Lewis. And it was a 24-hour trip by Army convoy. It was a cold, cold place. When we'd come by Benton City, and we could look off to the lights—and I was in the lead Jeep in the convoy with our captain. And he looked over there, and he says, see those lights? [INAUDIBLE] And I said, yeah. And he says, that's where we're going. And at that time I said to myself, oh God, why did you bring me here? And I've been so grateful for him for doing it and bringing me here. And that's when we arrived and we went into the barracks. And then they told us that the next day they would take us out to the forward area. And we had no idea where that was. We knew there were nuclear reactors out. That was about the only thing they said. So we went out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how long had you been at Fort Lewis? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: We spent Fort Lewis over Christmas. It was about three months. We arrived in--let's see--in about October, we left Fort Bliss, Texas by train. We had to load up our 120 millimeter guns that we used for the AAA battalion to guard this place at Hanford, which we didn't know anything about. And we took all our gun training there in Fort Bliss, Texas. And then when we got done, they said, well, we're going to go to the state of Washington to Fort Lewis. And we did that. Stayed there for three months over the holiday, Christmas holiday. And we were all homesick. Cold and snow. And then on March 9th--actually March 8th, they said we're going to go on a convoy, and we're going to go to Richland. And it's going to take us at least 20 to 24 hours because we had a convoy of trucks and a whole battalion of the 519 AAA Brigade was going there. And I was a radio man so I rode up front with the captain. And it was a cool trip. Very slow. Convoy speed is only 30 miles an hour. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And how old were you at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: At that time I was 19--18. I joined the service when I was 17 to get an education, because I had to go to work when I was 13. And I never went to high school. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So when you went to Fort Lewis, was that the first time you had sort of been on the west coast? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: [LAUGHTER] When we just got out of New Jersey was the first time I had been out West. I spent all my life there and the Bronx, New York. And going over to Fort Dix was quite an experience. And they decided to send us to Fort Bliss, Texas for basic. I had no idea that they were going to put me in the artillery. And they did, after our basic training. And then they told us about—the 120 millimeter artillery gun is the first of its kind that we've ever had on the ground, the largest artillery gun that they made. It was never used in war, because it was made later. And to give you an idea of just how big it was, if you want to know that information. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: It takes a shell and a projectile. The projectile weighs 50 pounds, and the shell weighs 52 pounds. When we first seen them back in Fort Bliss, Texas, we're looking at this, and I said, I hate to see the noise this thing is going to make when it fires. And they explained to us it'll shoot out over 100 feet. It is real loud. And they taught us how to do that. But I got assigned to the communications. That's why I was in the Jeep, I told you, in the convoy because I had to operate the radio. And that's why we come here. We had our gun training and came out here, and our mission was to guard the reactors. And they would put us in strategic places. There was only four batteries of guns, each containing four guns. And I was in C of 518. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And so where on the site was that then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The first site, if you're familiar with where the reactors are— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: D and DR Reactor. DR is the one that faces the river, which is still about, probably maybe a quarter of a mile. We were stationed between the reactor and the river. And there was a farmhouse from the original people, farmers that lived there. And we set up our command post there. Set up our four guns, that was our primary set up. And that took us a while. And that's where we were stationed in communication with the other three batteries that were out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how many men was that then at each of the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Well, to each battery it's approximately 115 to 118 if you're at full force. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Okay. And so there was a--you used a farmhouse that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, it was the original house where the farmers lived that they had to evacuate. I felt sorry for those poor people. They had beautiful homes. This was a nice home, and it was still in good condition. And so our captain of the battery—we set up our communications, which they called the command post there in that building. And that's where we maintained the radio and switchboard. So at that time, we have to keep in communications by radio because we had no landlines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And did you use that the whole time that you were stationed out there, used the farmhouse? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: No, we moved to several sites. After we left there, we moved to the site of F Reactor. Now if you—say you're coming from the south where the reactors and river would be on your right side, it would be the first reactor that you come to. On the road there, we made a left there, in the area of F Reactor. Went about—200 yards is the railroad—we went over the railroad tracks and then set up camp in that area. And that's where we stayed pretty much the other half of the time. We spent over a year, year and a half at DR and then the next time we spent, until I got discharged, was at that communication area. In fact, since then a lot of times I've taken people to the original site in the DR area to show them where our site was. In fact, our baseball field is still there. Actually, we played softball. And the guys, they are just amazed. You mean, that was there 50 years ago? I said, it's still is there! And I showed it to them. But it was--that was our site. We lived in tents. It was always dirty. And as I was telling Dave when he first interviewed me. He asked me how long do we stay out and how we would set up. And the object was to keep you out there three months. The fourth month, the whole battery would get leave into town. So they always maintained three gun sites for protection. That was the plan. And I hated it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: You hated being out there for three months. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Well, yeah. Because you don't have any facilities at all. I mean, to go to the bathroom, you dig a trench out there. To take a bath—you'd die laughing—we used wheelbarrows. Put water in wheelbarrows and take our bath. [LAUGHTER] One time, a friend of mine when we first got there, he was in the wheelbarrow. Now, you got to picture this maybe 250-pound guy sitting in the wheelbarrow. There was no room for water. We laughed. And this is how we bathed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: What about food? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Food, we had our own mess hall and everything, which was transferred out there. And this was all—we had a mess tent, plus our tents that we lived in and stayed in. And all we did was maintain the guns all day long, clean them. What else could you do? And it was real hot. In the first summer in the DR area, we craved ice water. We craved cold water. Now, the patrolmen used to always come by the sites and visit us and talk with us. And they knew what we needed. So they said, give us your canteens. And we gave them a bunch of canteens, and they would take it back to their post and fill it up with ice water. Just a good dose of ice, and brought us back the ice water. That was really a treat. But that's what we did. You did your own laundry out there. You washed your own clothes out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: How did you do your laundry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Well, the same thing. We'd take a bucket of water and just put soap and water and then washed them and hung them up and everything. They showed us how to do, and we did it. And it was all dirty and dusty. It was not the army I expected to be in. In fact, I was out in the service for three years, nine months. I think I only slept in a barracks three months of it. In Fort Lewis was the only time--that's the only time I ever had a barracks situation. But, you know. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So, you said, it sounds like for the most part you were maintaining the guns. That was really the-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, that was the main reason. That was our mission. At that time, they had a no-fly zone over the area. No one could fly over the area. What they did do was—if you're interested in it—is that they used to have practice run from bombing from the Air Force coming to Hanford. And our job was to detect them, because we were there 24/7—and that's a phrase they never used at that time. And when they flew here, they would fly here sometimes 2,000 miles or 1,000 miles, the long range bombers, without us knowing it. And we had to find out. We had to detect them. And I'm proud to say that we did most of the time with our radar and our outpost and everything. And they did a lot of that just to practice on to make sure we were on the ball. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Were there ever any incidents where someone flew over who wasn't supposed to fly over? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Oh, yes. I've heard about that. They were watching on radar from the army bases around. Yes. From Fort Lewis especially. We've never really had an incident where I can think of where somebody actually flew over the reactors. Even the jets, you would see the contrail north or south, but never directly over. It was just no-fly zone. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So I would imagine a lot of the time you're doing, taking care of the guns, and there's probably some time where there's really not much going on. How did you pass the time, I guess? Would you stay entertained? Or playing softball, I guess? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: It was kind of fun what we did a lot of times. Sometimes—the worst times was Christmas to spend out there. And we had a ukulele. We would go out there and sing on the ukulele. Besides that. And playing baseball on our time off, even with the officers. I mean, they were just as bored as we were. And they entertained us that way in the day time. But we didn't have any telephones--there were no cell phones--where we could communicate with the people that we knew in Richland. So mainly what we did was maintained guns, did a lot of practice all the time to see that we were on the ball and doing the right thing. And being in communications, it was my job after I became Communications Sergeant to maintain communication by telephone. You had to use landlines between each gun with the radar section. And they did have a scope for an observer to make sure that we were on target. Now, radar was just introduced at that time. And if you're interested, I could tell you how they did it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay. What they did was--a 120 millimeter I think has a--it travels 3,300 feet a second. And it moves pretty fast. The object of it—the projectile was set to go off in mid-air. It doesn't hit a target. It explodes with a timer. It has the capacity to kill anything within 35 feet radius of that projectile. So the object was for the four guns to fire within a 70-foot radius. So anything in that zone was destroyed. But in order to accomplish this, they had to be synchronized to fire at the same millisecond, at the same time, and they did. And they would hit the target every time. The first time. They were really good. It was really interesting how they did it. They'd load the projectile in first in the top portion of a 120 millimeter. To accomplish this--that they fire at the same second and that are timed exactly alike on all four guns—they had to set the timer on the projectile. So in my time when they had training, I used to go out there on the gun and help load. Put the projectile in first. Now the gun--and I think there's about four or five people--four people there—had to set that projectile before we fired. So actually it would be in sequence with the other three that would go off. And to do this, they would get the command to set the timer, and all four guns had to set the timer at the same time, load it, and fire at his command. It was really something to see. I enjoyed watching it. I enjoyed helping loading it. But boy, oh boy. That's why I’m wearing hearing aids today is because of that. And the only time they ever fired them at Hanford was one time in almost three years that I was there, less than three years. Just for settling rounds so the guns would set inside. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: To give you an idea of what they did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how many guns were at each of the sites? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: It was four guns at each side, and we had four sites. Then they brought in another battalion of the 518 and 519 were brought in together. So they wound up with eight sites. And they were all in communication with each other. And they had just one landline that we put in between each other and the command post in North Richland. And we never had radio contact with North Richland, our command post, which they ran the whole thing from downtown North Richland, out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And you worked at the sites by DR-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Our site was by D and DR. I do know where the other sites were. They had one at the Two East Area near PUREX and where the Vit plant is. And then you had one site behind there near 240. We had another site there by the river between K Area and that area. And when we go in town and left just a minimum crew, sometimes you worked there as a minimum crew. You would have to travel to the other sites with the few men that we had for our food. And that's how they did it while the rest of the 100 people went in town and had R & R for a week—for a month actually. And that was the procedure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So I was going to ask you about that part, too. You said--so you would be on for three months and then you'd sort of have a month leave. So, during that month you just go into Richland, and I mean, and what was Richland like at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Richland was very, very small at the time. And I could still remember my first time that I had time off. If you could figure where North Richland is now, very far on top of the hill there--yeah, go by the school, and you go up the hill here? Off to the left were dorms—which two people could live in in those times. It was about two blocks in. Those dorms went from here all the way to the highway. The Bypass Highway, the main, where they meet. But anyway, we walked here to George Washington Way, that two, three blocks to that corner up on top. We were wearing uniform--me and my best friend--and we stood there, and we were looking to hitchhike, but we didn't have to. The first car that came by stopped. And it was a husband and wife and they had their daughter with them. And they said, are you soldiers looking for a ride into town? I said, yes. So they gave us a ride into town where they live. And I still remember their names. Their names were McCormick. And until the day they passed away 30 years later, I still knew them. That's how friendly the people were. Not only Richland. All three towns. And they--what they would do, the people—would invite the GIs on holidays if they were in the area to their homes. They were very friendly. Very friendly. Because being 18 years old, we were more interested in the high school girls. [LAUGHTER] But the town of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco, they accepted us very, very well. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And did most people know what you're doing at the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Oh, they knew we were with the artillery, and they knew we were out their guarding the plants, but we had no idea how those plants worked, how they did it. The closest we was is by DR, the first time when I told you about the house. That was within stone's throw. That's about as close. And then later on, the one on top of the hill by PUREX, at that time—if you're familiar with the process, the fuel elements had to be dissolved. When they dissolve them, they would exhaust it through those big, high stacks that you see. And they would use nitric acid. We didn't know this at the time, but we would see that smoke. A lot of times was light white. But when they were dissolving, they would actually turned rusted color. And this is how they exhaust it. And that's about the only thing we knew. We never did know why it changed colors. Not until after I went to work there. But that's--they didn't tell us any of that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So as young men on leave, were there things to do in a small town--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, a lot of times. What we used to do, like if we had that week, but we still had to have a three-day pass to leave, and we still had a post there to stay in. And the mess hall was still on the main street there—that block that's still there. And we ate there, and we ran to a lot of training. They utilized that time in training and updating us on the training and what was going on. We’d go to classes. And then I--the Korean War broke out, if you want to know about that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: When the Korean War broke out, I was scheduled to be discharged in January. My enlistment was up for three years. But I couldn't. I would--all leaves and furloughs and discharges were frozen because of the war. General Mark Clark was the leader of the West Coast. He's a pretty famous guy. And now we're under a different mode out here. We were worried about in case what would happen if they would have ever try and bomb the Hanford, we didn't know. And they didn't want to lose the personnel that were there that had the experience, like I did, from the beginning and a lot of us did. They kept us there. As the war progressed, a lot of us did volunteer. I was one to volunteer because I was tired of being out there for over two years and living in a tent. If I'm going to live there that way, why not help the country? So I volunteered to go to Korea. It was three of us that did. But we went to Fort Lewis, and they rejected us and sent us back. And we never knew why until years, many years later why they rejected us. We had a reunion, our 50th year reunion—it was that long before we found out! Our 50 year Hanford reunion, we invited our officers that had been here a time that had retired. And one general who was still in command of the west coast came to it. And he said the reason why--that was my question. Why were we turned down? Why was I turned down? I mean, I was healthy enough to go to combat. Because I was really stupid, too, for volunteering. [LAUGHTER] Not really. But anyway, he told us because if we ever got captured by the Koreans, they would torture us to the point that we would tell them the sites. We would know all the sites, and that's what they would want to know. So, and you would give them that information, because that's what they would do to you. And that's why we didn't go, and weren’t unable to go. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So you were sent back here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Sent me back here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Until when and how long were you still stationed here then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah, I was stationed here. They extended me for nine months, from January to September. And President—at that time, it was Harry Truman. And he gave us an extension. But during that nine month period, I met my wife. So maybe it was meant to be. Remember I said, Oh, God, why did you send me here? Well, I think he knew what he was doing. I got to meet my wife. We decided to get married whenever that would be. Because I didn't want to get married while I was there. I made that decision to stay here and go to work here. But I did have a very big problem. In the beginning of the conversation I told you that I didn't even go to high school. Minimum education was a high school diploma. And I did not have one. So I didn't know what to do yet. To get a GED diploma you had to have--you had to be 21 for the state of New York. So I went to our recreational captain. His name was Reeves, I'll never forget. Bless that guy. I told him I had a problem and that I wanted to get married, but to go to work here, I had to have a high school diploma. He says, we'll fix you up on that. I says, okay. He says, when do you get discharged? I says, I don't know, but they keep telling us in the fall. He says, well, you're going to get one chance at a test because after that, if you fail the test you would have to wait another year. But you're going to get discharged. So we're going to get it right the first time. Consists of five tests and each takes about an hour. Wow. But he said, don't worry about it. He says, I'll get you to study all these things and everything and you'll be ready for the test. And I says, I got a problem with that, too. He was really perplexed. He says, why? I says, I don't know how to study. And he gave me the funniest look. He says, you don't? I said, no. I says, I never went to high school. He says, okay. He said, we'll take care of that part. I'll teach you how to study. And he did. He babysat me for the next two months, and I passed the test, got my GED, wound up going to work but that took a little time because I was uneducated. And we got married, and I had no job. My poor wife was working. And it was tough. I kept going to the employment office there for General Electric, which was running the plants at that time. They said, we have nothing for you. There's nothing going on. And I'd bug them. I’d go back every week or two. And finally, in the first part of December, I says, hey. You know, there's got to be something. I said, I'll take anything. He says, no, we don't have anything. And then he said, well, we do have one job, but you don't want that. I said, what is it? He says, washing clothes in the laundry. I says, I'll take it. He said, you will? I says, hey, I just got married. I can't find a job. I will do anything just to get to go to work at Hanford because then maybe once I get in I could transfer. And he says, okay. And I did. And that's how I got started. And I worked for a year, and I transferred out. That's another story. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So did your wife grow up here or was she just here working? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: She grew up in Prosser. She was born there in Prosser, went to school in Wapato and graduated from Wapato and became—went to secretarial school and became a secretary and went to work here. And that's how I met her. I met her in town. The only really, what they call a hang out in town was the old mart. It was kind of like a big coffee house, and everybody would gather there. And that's where I met her. They--the girls lived in dorms. They didn't have housing, and they worked out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So you said you--so what was the frame here when you ended your service with the army and then you got the job with the laundry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: How long did it take? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Or what time—year are we talking about roughly? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: December, just two weeks before Christmas. I got hired in 1952. And then I worked there for 38 years and got September 22nd. And our anniversary was the 26th in September. I had a lot of things happening. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So your first job was working in the laundry. Where was the laundry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The laundry was in Two West Area. Soon as you came in through the gate, it was off to the left. We still-I worked there a year and didn't know. I did see--I was wondering what this guy did. He came in to survey laundry bags that came in. And I asked him. I saw him with this thing. I didn't know what it was. Of course, it was a Geiger counter, but I didn't know that. And he was going over these bags. I said, what are you doing? He said, I'm surveying to see if they're contaminated. And I says, oh. I said, contaminated from what? And then he looked at me kind of funny. He says, well from radioactive contamination. That's waste. I says, oh. I says, and that's your job? Yeah. I said, how do I become one of those? What are you called? He said, radiation monitor. I said, wow. I said, that sounds like an interesting. He says, it is. And I never forgot what he did. I said, in other words, they can't do anything without you. He said, that's right. So I put in for it. And I got turned down. The answer was no. But I did go into engineering assistant in metallurgy, which was the fuel elements that they put in there. I did do that work. And then, finally, I met someone doing that work. It was the first time I ever went into a reactor. What we did in that job was to inspect the fuel prior to radiation and then underwater in the basin behind—in the big reactor building. We worked from 30 feet away, put it on a cradle, and inspected that same fuel element so that the engineers could see what the difference. Because when it ruptured it, the reactor would have to go down because uranium is canned to stop that from happening. And when that ruptures, it increased—it becomes contaminating, contaminates the cooling water. And, therefore, they had to divert it to a crib. When that happened and reactors go down. So they were assigned, the metallurgists, to do this to stop this, to find out why they were rupturing. And that's how I got a job as an assistant. It was a nothing really job, but it was kind of interesting. But it was done in the rear face of the reactor where the fuel element was discharged. There again, people would come by and ask us what we were doing. So I told them. I said, we are inspecting the fuel just like I just told you. And this one gentleman came by. And he says, could you explain to me what you're doing? I said, sure. Come on over here. I said, you got to put on a lab coat, the minimum protective clothing, and look down the periscope to see the element and see what it looks like after it's been irradiated. And he looked at that, and he says, oh, that's what they look like up close. And I said, yeah. And I write the description on it, what it looks like after irradiation, the same one that I inspected prior to irradiation. He says, wow. And I says, yeah, the engineers use that information to stop—see what causes ruptures, so they can make them better so they don't rupture and the reactors could run. He said, wow. So every day he came by. Then he asked me, he says, do you enjoy your work? I says, it's fine, but it's not really what I would like to do. He said, what would you like to do? And I said, you know those guys that go around with the Geiger counters and check for contamination of radiation. He said, you mean radiation monitoring? And I said, yeah. I said, I would like to become one of those. He said, you do? I said, yeah. He says, okay. That's all he said. This was the beginning of the week. He comes there again on Friday, and he said, Rick. He says, Monday I want you to report to this here place and gave me the address and where it was at. And I looked at him. I said, what for? He says, they're starting the training class for radiation monitors, and it would take a period of 18 months. He says, you want to become one. You are one, but you have to go to training. It takes 18 months, and if you don't pass, you're out. So you have to do it. I looked at him, and I said, how did you do that? He goes, well, I ought to. I'm the supervisor of it. I'm the director of the whole thing. [LAUGHTER] Needless to say, ‘til the time in my whole career, I had him to thank to where I progressed in the field of radiation. I found out so many things about it. I could keep you here for hours. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: What was his name? Who was that? Do you remember? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I think his name was Preston. I'm not sure. Because then I didn't get to know him. I didn't get out very often to see him, to say thank you. But he got me in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So I wanted to ask you. So which reactors did you work at? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: All of them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I was in B Reactor. And we celebrated our--1962. We reached a milestone in the year 1962. And we held a—we had a little celebration of it. And safety. We had an excellent—zero, no safety accidents, no nothing. And we had a little party for that. In fact, the picture is still there that day that I--that was with me when we had a little scare. And that was in B Reactor, which is--you know what it is today? In fact, I finally got to take my wife out there and showed her what I did. She was just--you know, like you walk through the door and all of a sudden you see this reactor. You've seen B reactor. Okay. It is breathtaking. I wanted to take her around to my office and to the basements and tell her exactly what I was doing. But some of the monitors that were there had remembered me where I helped train some years ago. And they said, we know who you are. So B Reactor was one of them. We only had one that would be on swing shift and graveyard. There was only one assigned there to a crew in each reactor. See? So you are responsible--it's the reason why I enjoyed radiation monitoring—you're responsible for all the work that goes on for the safety of the people to go in there and not—you had to go with them, set the dose rates, airborne contamination, and all that. I loved my job. It was interesting. And this is what we did. And we had a small crew of about maybe 12. But I enjoyed the job because it had substance and responsibility. And you become like a family. Working together, swing, graveyard, and the different projects that come up that you had to do during shutdowns. And they would have crews to come in to help discharge the metal, which was called, what they call a supplemental crew. And so, essentially I worked on all the reactors where they needed. And I did have over ten years. It was very good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Did you have to wear special protective clothing at all when you guys would monitor? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: All the time. We set the standards. That was my job. Set the standards of you say you want to go into zone and do this, I have to ask you why. You had to have a reason when you go into the radiation zone. Well, we're going to do this, and we're going to do that. Okay. This is what you have to wear. You have to be trained in the uses of how to dress and undress in the zone. And we also would send them in to keep time if they've had higher readings and levels and how long you could stay there. Now, they also have changed the program where they trained all the people to do that. But it was my job, essentially, to take care of them. And it was very difficult at first because I was pretty young. I was in like my mid-20s, and then you have maintenance people and other people, that are 40, 50 years old. And you had to be very careful how you handled people. And I was told that that was my biggest asset, to be able to communicate with people. Because you're a service group. And we had to take them into the zone. And a lot of them don't like when a young kid does and tell them this. But you soon learn that, you know, we had to do it because that's your job, and they understood. Once they knew you, they were over the hump. It was interesting. I loved my job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: And you said you did that for about ten years? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Then we went to separate—they were shutting down the reactors. '65, that year, and when they shut down the reactors, I was going to be out of a job. And the plant manager, and his name was Roy Dunn, he came up to me and called me in the office. And he says, Rick. He says, you've got to get out of here. They're going to shut this down maybe in a year, two years. But we are a different plant. We want to go where you're going to have a job. And I said, where would that be? He said, separations. The tank farms, which you already know about. Without that there, you wouldn't have anybody out there. [LAUGHTER] And so I transferred over there. And when I did, it was a different world because of—in the reactors, you deal with gamma, beta, neutron radiation and beta contamination. But you also have alpha radiation, which is produced only after this fuel element has been irradiated and separated to get Pu-239 creating this alpha. And I had no experience with alpha. Piece of Kleenex. If you had, say, a spot of alpha contamination, as an example. If you put a piece of Kleenex over, it would cover and you couldn't detect it unless it was really high. Then it would emit gamma. Then you could detect it. But that was a rare case. Most of the time, you couldn't detect. And you had to use certain instruments for alpha. And that's what we had to learn in separation portion of that. And that's a whole new ball game from the reactor. It's amazing. Only a government could make plutonium. It was so complicated. So complicated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: So how long were you over there then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: From '65 to the time I became--until I retired. In my last five years. The building--are you familiar with the PFP plant? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I've never worked there. And being in radiation monitoring that long, I got promoted into management. That was the building that they assigned me to, the most visible building in the world. And that was a lot of fun. You know, it was challenging. Because they're making the final product there. They’re taking a liquid and solidifying for transportation into the fuel element that they want, which is the ammunition for the atomic bomb. And that was my last five years in management there. We did fine. We had a lot of incidents. Like I said, I could talk to you for hours on that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Are there any that really stand out? Any incidents that-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah, you want to share one of them? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Two of them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Sure. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The one I want to share with you is in my last year in reactors, and it was in--they ran 24/7. Because we had to make plutonium. They never shut them down unless they had to. All of a sudden, we're going to shut this down for the weekend. My boss comes up to me. He says, I've got a job for you for the weekend. He said, you're going to be working with these personnel, and we're going to remove a fuel element from the side of the reactor. Picture the reactor as a big box. All the elements go out front-back. But this one came in through the side. He said, we're going to remove a fuel element. I want you to take care of that job. I says, okay. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it was the Navy that was doing it. So, I got to meet all these officers. And I says, what are you going to do? What's your plan? And they showed me, explained to me. They used a bowling ball type of a cask, which is about half of the size. It had to fit on an 18-wheel flatbed. But it was about 15 feet up and this one little whole that was only about six inches in diameter or less, sideways. The object was to go send a cable into the cast, into the reactor, hook onto the fuel element, bring it out. But it would be exposed to air about six to ten inches, and in that time, it would release a high level of radiation. And I was there to make sure that we were far enough and to an exposure level that we were able to work with this. We got it done. We were about approximately 100 feet away. And when that came out, it was--it couldn't be more than about 20 seconds to go through by that space and then into cask, then the readings would subside down. They would subside to less than about five, which is workable, so they can transport it. We did. We got done with the job. I think it was about three of them that we got to do. And it took us two ways to do it. We got invited down afterwards for a party at--it used to be called the Desert Inn, that big hotel here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Red Lion. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The Red Lion. No. Is that the one in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Yeah. The Red Lion. Right. So we went over there, and, he says you're always asking me. He said, what we're doing and what it's for. And he says, and I couldn't tell you. And I said, that's right. So during the party, you know, we had dinner and everything. He comes over to me. He hands me the telephone. He says, it's for you. I had no idea who the hell is on the other of that. I got the phone. I said, hello? He said, I'm Admiral Rickover. I said, Admiral Rickover? You mean, you're the godfather of the Navy--of nuclear ships. He said, that's me. He said, I just wanted to thank you. He said, you've done a great job with the men. They all told me what you did. And I just want to personally say hello to you. And he said, I know you had a question, but why. I said, yes, I do. He said, well, I can't tell you why. He says, but you’ll get the answer in about three months. I said, how? He said, just read the newspaper. And then he says, pat yourself on the back for something that you helped do. That was the end of the conversation. I had no idea why. No idea. And you listening to me are probably wondering what it was. I get up one morning, read the paper. The Nautilus submarine went under the North Pole for the first voyage ever. Because of nuclear power, it could stay underwater that long. Where was it the nuclear power fuel elements came from? Come from Hanford. So now I knew. I was real thrilled about that. And I hardly couldn't believe it. But that was one of the best. I've been on a lot of dirty ones there with contamination. But that was the number one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Any other stories you want—any incidents that really stand out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay, we up one morning there. And this is after we went into separations away from the reactors, years later. I get up, and my wife says, they had an explosion at Hanford. I said, what? They said, that's all over the news. It's on national news. I says, they can't have an explosion with the--that's an atomic explosion. I said, that can't be done. They could have what they call a criticality. You're familiar with the criticality? They could have that, but they can't have an explosion as such. So watch the news. I got up and went, oh, sure. What had happened was that they had an explosion. This man got highly contaminated and operated. Very highly contaminated, and they were going to send him to the hospital. But they didn't know. But we didn't know. I called some of my fellow workers, and they were telling me. I was working on the swing shift, the 4:00 to 12:00 shift. So all that morning, I'm listening to that, and the news is going on. And I'm working at B Plant, which is a different separation plant. This happened in the 234-5 building, PFP plant, and I had not been there. So that's what I found out. What had happened was that this operator was working in there, and they had--it was a steam compressor of sorts that they got over pressurized, and the pipe did explode. And in doing so, it wasn't a big--it was just enough to break the windows of gloveboxes that they work in. And when it did that, he had the right protective clothing on, but it hit him in the face. See? And it went through, and he got all highly contaminated from the head down. So what they--I go to work at 4:00. Different area, East and West. I'm in the East Area. And here was my boss standing there. The plant manager standing there. And they says, we want to talk to you. So we talked. My boss said to me—and he is long gone, his name was Bernie Cyrusek. He was our big head honcho, what a wonderful man. He said, here's what I want you to do. He said, you're going to go downtown. They're going to use that new decontamination building. The operator that got contaminated, his name was McCluskey. We want to get that building cleaned up tonight, on the rest of the swing shift and during the night on graveyard by 8:00 in the morning so his family could visit him. You know, your grandfather, your husband. His family wanted to see them. And so I'm going to send you down there. I said, why me? He gave me the simple answer. Because I'm telling you to do it. They're not familiar with alpha contamination, now—remember what I was telling you about alpha? They were working in the 300 Area. They did not deal with alpha contamination, and they did not know what to do. So they had to have experienced people. The ones that went in there brought him in an ambulance and everything. And to make a long time short, we had to go down there. And they briefed us to take two operators with you to clean up the room. And the president of our company, he said, we want you to stay so far away from that building because it's going to have people from the press there. So we're going to wait 'til dark, and then you're going to come around the back of the building. And I said, whoa, whoa. Stop. And he looked at me, and he said, what? I said, you want us to do a job, right? Now you want to handcuff me. You take care of the press. But let us do our job. We're going to do it the way we have to do it. And you're back there. If you think you're too close, you move him back. But we're not going to wait 'til dark, a certain time. We're going to do it. Once we start, we have to go and do it. He looked at me, he said, okay. So they did. And we went in there. And the biggest problem we had: the nurses. They had to administer medicine to him. We got all dressed up, two layers of clothing and supplied air to go in the room. The room is about the size of this room. It's like a part--like watching a science fiction movie, the dark, the lights. Here's a man laying on a gurney. He's bare from the waist up to his head. He's just laying there. And he's got two white pieces of gauze covering his eyes. And the rest of him was bare. The problem was that he got contamination into his eyes. So they were administering water solution to kind of keep flushing his eyes out. That's, you know, the doctors have to be careful there. Of course, it would be puffed up. And he was laying on the gurney. And this nurse was sitting there. Two pairs of cover up. The temperature in there is 104 because they had to shut off—that's the first thing we did was shut off the air contamination. We could not expose airborne contamination to the atmosphere. So we had to shut the air conditioning off. That was the first thing we did. And I looked at that. Like I said, I thought there's a scene from a science fiction movie. Went over there, to the eyes. There's a table there. Some of the men in radiation monitoring were not familiar with how to work with alpha contamination. Okay. You cannot reuse a lot of the stuff, what the doctors were using. And they had all their instruments on the table. So we took the bag and put a box, emptied it out, and just cleaned it out and dumped it in there. And the guy said, what are you doing that for? I said, would you like a doctor to work on you with contaminated tools? No. He said, use new ones. And that's what we did. We got it cleaned up. So we're working back and forth. Every two hours, we take a break and go outside. So I asked them, I says, the nurses. Where are they, the ones that were here during the daytime? I said, are they still here? They said, no. We sent them home. You did? And I said, who surveyed them? He said, the guys did. And I said, were they naked when you surveyed them? They said, of course not. I said, well then you better bring them back, and you better go check the houses. Remember what I told you about that tissue? I said, they've got a bra on. They've got their panties on. I says, how do you know they didn't contaminated under their bra? Any of that. I said, that happens. It happens all the time out at work sometimes you get contaminated in your shorts. So you have to be very careful. It can come back and bite you [INAUDIBLE]. If they say that you got contaminated during incident because you didn't do your job right. He said, well, what would you do? I said, well, right now in the midst of training are some females, the first ones ever to do our job. I said, call them. They know have to survey. And take them with you to their homes and everything to make sure everything's clean. So that's what they did. They got them all checked out. By the grace of God, they did not get contaminated under their bra, to the skin, and we did it the right way. And they were very pleased. They had never thought about that. Well, you know, when you do it as often as I had, I knew what to do. And we did. And we got it done. 8:00, his family went in there. I was ready to go home. We got it cleaned up. We got him cleaned enough so his family could visit. They had to wear protective clothing, but we got it so that the air samples were down below limits so there was nothing exposed to the air. That was my second biggest incident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you. You had at least a few different jobs working in different areas. Did you have a job that was the most challenging or one that was the sort of most rewarding in your years working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: That one there was very rewarding. Because the room was highly contaminated with alpha. It was bad. I mean everything that we had to throw away to be sure and go back and re-clean it and re-clean. We worked on it pretty close to 16 hours. And the two same operators in there. And then we had to bring in the other operators to help us to help them. But they had to do it certain ways because, like I said, they weren't familiar with alpha contamination. Radiation was not a factor, was not a factor at all. See, a lot of people don't know the difference between contamination and radiation. So it was not a factor. You could work there as long as you wanted. But contamination was terrible. And we got it done. And so it was very rewarding to get that and to know that his family got to visit him. And you know, I never got to see this guy or talk to him. But they were very grateful. That was rewarding. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: How about the most challenging work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: The challenging part of it was getting it done in the timeframe and teaching the others. And especially the--when I found out that the women went home. I was worried about that. Because nurses have to do their job when they're there. You know, help the doctors. And I wanted to be sure that they were clean and didn't take it home with them. We got that done so that they didn't. That was very challenging. We got that done. But there were other ones, too, but not on that level that is. Because they still talk about it. In fact, I met an engineer that I talked to who’s doing something of how they decontaminated that building. He says, I wish I would have known you before we did it. See, because the building has been brought down. But you have to throw it away. We buried the ambulance that he came in. The whole thing was buried. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Where? Out on site somewhere? Where was it buried? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: I forget what area. But they had to cover it to move it. We did not want them to move it as such. So we had the seal it. The first rule of any contamination spread, the very first rule, you have to contain it. You don't do what the Japanese did in that island, I mean, after that tsunami. They forgot the first rule. You've got to contain the contamination. You cannot make it go airborne. That's dangerous to the population. That is what we always keep in mind. And that's why we went over there, and we did that to that ambulance. We wrapped it all up. And, of course, the monitors already had that done before I got there. But what they also had to do was the 30 miles of roadway had to be surveyed from PFP plant to the hospital. You know, you spend time, and you hear the phrase, there's no experience like experience. And in my case that was the case. As I became more experienced, the more I got picked on to do these dirty jobs—which I didn't mind because a lot of times I volunteered. I wanted to see what was going on. I should have been a woman. I was inquisitive. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: I was going to ask you, if you look back at your years working in Hanford, overall how would you assess Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: That's a good question, and I have a very good answer to that. I really didn't know what the answer was until I visited other sites. I knew I was going to get to retire within the year. And then my boss—I mentioned his name, Bernie Cyrusek. I said, you know what I never did is visit another site? I know what we do here, but we don't know what the others do there. Rocky Flats, Los Alamos. I said, I would like to go to that site and visit my peers and see how they do their job compared to us. Well, he said, you're going to get, you know, a year. He said, in less than a year now you're going to get retired. He said, but I'm going to do it because you're in there. So he did. I even got to take my wife, but I had to pay her airfare. And the first place we visited was Rocky Flats, and they went over in to New Mexico and went to Los Alamos. Have you ever been to those sites? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: I've been to Los Alamos. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: Okay. You've never been to Rocky Flats? Rocky Flats had a lot of problems, maybe some I shouldn't--I can't talk to you about. But the one thing that I noticed that they did at Rocky Flats, which was a no-no—We have lunchrooms out at work, the reactor. You're got to have a place to have lunch, right? That's a sacred place for being clean. We don't want anybody eating food that has any possibility of having contamination around. Our lunchrooms were surveyed all the time at work. And I notice this. When we're out at lunch, I'm seeing people with lab coats going in to eat lunch in them. So I asked my fellow managers, I says, why are you allowing this? He said, what? I says, see those people? They have what we call SWP clothing, which is the acronym for them for protective clothing. And he said, well, there's nothing wrong with it. They're surveyed. I said, who surveyed them? He said, well, they do it themselves, surveying. And I said, and you trust them that they're clean, and you're going to go eat right next to them? I says, I wouldn't. I would do it with our own people. I said, why don't you have your own people do it? Well, they won't let us. Well, I says, then you tell them we're not going to eat there You're not going to eat there. Because it should be clean. They should not wear any protective clothing in the lunchroom. That's a no-no. Well, we can't do it. I said, don't give me that. You're the supervisor. You're the manager. You set the rules. The guy above you don't set the rules. He may override you, but you set the rules. It's your responsibility to keep the safety of the people. You've got to do your job, and you're not doing it. He says, I know you're right. And I said, well, then do it because when I report back there I'm going to tell my boss the one thing I didn't like about Rocky Flats. And I did. [LAUGHTER] Los Alamos. They were a lot better. They were a lot better. They didn't allow things like that to happen. They had one thing that they had there that I wish we had had. There were so many radiation zones that we needed to know the exact readings of the airborne contamination, like here in this room. We're breathing this air. Is it clean? What you have to do is go in there with the portable, take the air sample off of that in the room, locate it. Take that sample paper off, bring it in, count the sample, and then we decide what the limits are from what our readings are. But in Los Alamos they had a different system, which I liked. They had probes on the air sample, which this detector would tell you what the level was at a remote area. So wouldn't it be nice to have a room that you could tell anybody at any time what the level of airborne contamination is? Once that alarm goes off, you could shut it down right now. And this reduces the amount of people that might be in there to get airborne contaminated and ingested into their lungs. I said, that's our job to do this. And I think Los Alamos gets an A for that. There's other things, but I won’t talk about that. So when I came back, I found out how really safe Hanford was. When somebody would ask me, do you think it's safe to work out there? I said, do you think I'm a dummy? Am I going to work out there where I'm not safe? One thing at Hanford always did, and I'll emphasize this. Safety comes first. And they did it, and they meant it. And I thank them. Because they taught me that. They taught me that in everyday life. I am very proud of Hanford's safety record. They did a good job. And that's how I found out they were the best one. And it was just the other two. They weren't as good as we are. We're number one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and talking with us. I really appreciate it--and for sharing your stories and experiences. It's terrific. Thanks very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Riccobuono: You are quite welcome. I really enjoyed it. You just brought back some good memories of my life. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX266709561"> Bauman: Awesome. [LAUGHTER] </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:10:56 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 179 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview F Reactor DR Area VIT Plant Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX K Area 300 Area B Reactor PFP plant 234-5 building Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1952-1970 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Dunn, Roy Cyrusek, Bernie 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 Philip "Rick" Riccobuono Description An account of the resource An interview with Philip "Rick" Riccobuono 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 Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 11/6/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-21: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 234-5 building 300 Area B Reactor DR Area F Reactor K Area PFP plant Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant (PUREX) VIT Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1f3f2ad4eabfdc6465a8afa210779012.jpg 269c664e01e416ed126dfd99c1175b8c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F7daa69ce21ddcd39044ef6f3581c873d.mp4 9cadf5113faa28298003da2a0f4ba0f5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Rickard, Bill Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Rickard_Bill Robert Bauman: Turn the microphone on here. Man one: Yeah. Bauman: Okay. Man one: Go ahead and just get comfortable. And whenever you’re ready. Bauman: Okay. All right. We're going to go ahead and get started. I need to put my glasses on so I can see what I’m doing here. So if we could start first by just having you say your name and then spell your name for us. William Rickard: Okay. My name is William H. Rickard Jr. W-I-L-L-I-A-M H. R-I-C-K-A-R-D Junior, J-R period. Bauman: Thank you. And my name's Robert Bauman. Today's date is December 4, 2013. And we are conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So maybe we could start by just having you tell us a little bit about your background--where you're from, when you came to Hanford, what brought you here, that sort of thing. Rickard: Okay. Well, the first time that I ever heard the words atomic bomb, I was rifleman in an infantry company for the Chinese combat command in a place in China called Chihkiang. Chihkiang was a dirt airstrip. There were about 100 soldiers there. Our main duty was to guard an ammunition dump at an airfield. In August, 1945, I'd been in the Army for 15 months. I was 19 years old. The captain called us together and said that United States Air Force had dropped a bomb in Japan. It was an atomic bomb. Of course, I was extremely glad that the war was over. It was a few days later, I stood on the same airstrip and a Japanese airplane flew in. Only I'd been in the Army in January, February, and March, and April along the Burma Road in China. During that stay in Burma, slept on the ground every night. Kept my M1 rifle with me all the time. When I got to China, I got a bed for the first time in four months. So Chihkiang duty was pretty soft compared to Burmese duty. And when they dropped the atomic bomb, I knew I would be going home. Well, they had a point system in the Army. I think you needed 65 points. And you got points for combat experience and so forth. Well, I was one point short. So guess what. I got assigned to a military police company in Shanghai, China. For six months, I was an MP in Shanghai, which is probably more dangerous than my stay at Chihkiang. But anyway, I finally got home. Like most veterans did, I used the GI Bill to get a degree. I graduated from the University of Colorado in 1950 with a degree in botany. And I got a job at the University of Colorado at that time installing weather stations in the Front Range. While I had a job, I decided to go to school some more, and I wanted to be a high school teacher so I could teach botany and biology. Well, I graduated from Colorado in 1950 and got a master's degree in 1953. And then I decided, well, maybe I ought to think of teaching in college. So I applied for a research assistant appointment at Pullman. So in 1953, Barbara, my wife, and I went to Pullman. And there I graduated in 1957 with a Ph.D. with Dr. Daubenmire. The first job I got was as assistant professor of biology at New Mexico Highlands University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. But it was a part time teaching job. The other part was a field research job at the Nevada Test Site. And the purpose of my work at the Nevada Test Site was to study the impacts of atomic explosions on the botanical aspects of the Nevada Test Site—Yucca, Frenchman Flat and Jackass Flat. I worked there for four years and saw the last above ground explosion, which was during the operation of Project Hardtack and Plumbbob. While I was at the Test Site, I met Jared Davis, who was working at Hanford. He was in the biology department and he offered me a job at Hanford. So I moved to Richland in 1960 and was employed by the General Electric Company. At that time, most of the interest was on developing peaceful uses of atomic energy. And one of these was to use nuclear explosion to dig a harbor at Cape Thompson in Alaska. And part of our job there was to get baseline data on the biota of the Arctic, and also to measure how much radioactivity had already been deposited by the years of nuclear testing by the United States and Russia. So that was the start of that. And I worked up there for a couple of summers. And I worked with Jerry Davis there, and Wayne Hanson, Don Watson, and Roy Nakatani, and Leo Bustad, and Frank Hungate. Frank was my boss for a while. And Jared Davis was the boss. But my real interest at Hanford was, although I did the uptake of radioactivity from soil to plants, I was really interested in perhaps getting a part of the Hanford site set aside as a kind of a research park. Had lots of help from various people that thought this was a good idea, particularly Rexford Daubenmire at Pullman and Herb Parker, who was manager of the Hanford Laboratories. We conceived the idea perhaps establishing Rattlesnake Mountain as a research natural area. And with the help of other people, particularly Benton County Commissioner at that time, and the building of the Highway 240 from Richland to Vernita Bridge, that set Rattlesnake Mountain apart from the rest of the site and offers a good excuse to--since it was primarily a buffer zone, that this would be a good place to establish the reserve, which eventually turned out to be the Arid Land Ecology Reserve. Which in 2000, was turned over to the Fish and Wildlife Service as a part of the Hanford Reach National Monument. So most of my research activity was done on ALE Reserve after the work we'd done in Alaska. Bauman: And so what sorts of work were you doing at ALE Reserve? Rickard: Well, the first project we started on was the impact of cattle grazing on shrub steppe. And we did that in conjunction with the International Biological Research Program--yeah, International Biological Research Program, which was divided up into various sections. One part was grasslands of North America. And the ALE Reserve is representative of sagebrush steppe vegetation in the Northwestern United States. There were other sites in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado, Montana, North and South Dakota. And that lasted for several years. Then as time went on, I got older. And most of the work that I did was then associated with environmental impact statements. Even did the first environmental impact statement from what was the WPPSS plant at that time--the Basalt Waste Isolation Program. And I finally retired sometime. I don't know. Can't remember. I was 65 years old. But while I worked for the General Electric Company, I also taught school at an Army barracks down where the bus lot is today. And I taught the first class in plant ecology. And among my students over the years was Lester Eberhardt, Dick Fitzner, and Dennis Dauble, and Brett Tiller, president of Environmental Assessment Services. So for 30 years, I've taught as an adjunct professor at Washington State University in the Tri-Cities. Bauman: And where was that located again, when you first started teaching at the Army? Rickard: It was an Army barracks. That was the building that was the beginning of the WSU campus. One of my first students was Les Eberhardt, Dick Fitzner, which later were killed in an airplane accident in the Yakima Firing Center. But over the years, many people that worked at Hanford had taken my classes. Bauman: I want to go back, if we can, to when you were talking about your work in New Mexico, at the Nevada Test Site—it’s interesting. What sorts of things did you find in your research there? Rickard: Well, one of the first things that--these were small explosions—ten to 40 kiloton range, maybe up to 100. And they fired them one a week. Of course, when you watch one of these things from ten miles away, from a shot that's on a tower, maybe 500 or 600 feet off the ground, first thing you'd see is just a flash of light and then as the ball forms, it's just a whole mess of colors--purple, orange. And then it disappears and a whole lot of activity, just a massive amount of activity. And then things catch on fire. There's creosote bush, yucca trees a mile away just ignite like kitchen matches. And then the cloud develops and the big stem and the mushroom cloud. But the vegetation just disappears. It's just cooked. But even after a few summers, the surviving vegetation comes back. And the physicists at the test site that made these things, people from Los Alamos and Livermore, about the only thing they noticed that after a year or two after the explosion, that the ground was bare and then it would get green. And that was a big surprise to the physicists. But was quite common to plant ecologists, because the plant was Russian thistle. It would blow across the landscape, scatter seeds, and the first invading plant was Russian thistle. Just like at Hanford, where you plow up a field and leave it, what do you get? Russian thistle, and then a whole lot of other plants come in. And in time, it would recover because most of the radioactivity wasn't at the site, it was gone. It went someplace else. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Hmm. Interesting. And then your work in Alaska-- Rickard: Yes. Bauman: What sorts of things did you find in your research there? Rickard: Well, the main thing there was my colleague, Wayne Hanson, he was interested in the food chain of American Eskimos, and the fallout from nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific and Russia and various places. The northern hemisphere got most of the fallout, and in heavy fallout areas, with rain, like in Arctic Alaska. And the flora there was occupied--a great part of it was lichens and mosses, which were the food of caribou. Radioactive fallout comes down with rain and snow. And if you have a long lived plant, it keeps accumulating on the leaves until the leaves drop. And then they hit the ground and decompose, and cesium and strontium, which are about a half-life of 30 years, eventually get into the soil and then can recycle. In Alaska, the mosses and lichens, they don't die right away. And they keep accumulating radionuclides, and builds up so that it has very high levels of radionuclides as compared to trees that drop their leaves, grasses that die. And lichens are an important food of caribou in the wintertime. So they accumulated large burdens of radiocesium. And then the people, the diet of the American Indians and Eskimos of Alaska consisted of caribou meat. So the people had higher levels of radiocesium than people in the United States. That's a health physics concern, which is like Ron Kathren, that's their job. Bauman: Yeah. So you talked ALE a little bit, and your involvement in that. And you mentioned Benton County Commissioner. Do you remember a Benton County Commissioner who was-- Rickard: I don't remember his name, but he loved wildflowers. And at that time, the county was interested in building a road from Prosser to Vernita Bridge. They wanted to go through Snively Canyon. But the Department of Energy didn't think that was a good idea. But we had to convince the county that it wasn't a good idea. And the county commissioner, he decided that he ought to side with the Department of Energy. Bauman: So what was it about—why the desire to create ALE, I guess? What was it about the area that you thought was-- Rickard: Just the desire to create a natural area, probably dates back to the days of Theodore Roosevelt setting apart National Forests and National Parks. And we have nice National Parks in the country--Mount Rainier in Washington, and Olympic, all representing mostly forested areas. Rocky Mountain National Park, Yosemite. But nobody was interested in saving sagebrush, sagebrush grass habitats. This was primarily because sagebrush was not viewed as a useful resource. In fact, it was a pest. And rangeland managers thought it was a good idea to get rid of it. And when the first travelers crossed southern Idaho, they burned it because it provided fuel. But they hated it because it didn't provide any food for their cattle or sheep. So it was then regarded as a pest. And every Bureau of Land Management started campaigns to get rid of it. But before you got rid of it, we had to understand if it had any good. But this was a tough sell. You're not going to sell this, that keeping it has any benefits. But it's also wise if you have a resource that you can destroy it, or at least you ought to understand how it works. It's been here a long time, and learn the mechanics that has enabled it to stay this way. And the biggest threat to the shrub steppe was people. When Lewis and Clark came here, there was several resources in Washington State that people could use right away. One was the fish, one was the forest, the other was grass. So it's no surprise our first white people in Washington used the grass. They brought in cattle and sheep. Then came the magnificent discovery of the plow that now you plow up this stuff and raise crops. You could even raise more crops with irrigation. So it started to disappear. Half the sagebrush steppe in Washington disappeared by 1914. So this resource was getting smaller and smaller. So at least some of the people think that, well, maybe we ought not get rid of it all. And the Hanford site was an unusual opportunity to do this, because people who were farming were moved. This is the first time in history that a productive, cultivated land was converted to a lower use instead of a higher use. Higher uses are urban areas, places like Hanford, industry. Lower uses are cattle grazing. But the highest use of all is probably research and education. So here we have an opportunity where we had towns completely destroyed, abandoned productive fields that are now allowed to go revegetate by themselves. And they have. For the last 70 years it's been slowly changing back to what it would be, but it's been impeded by a lot of alien species that came with agriculture. Among these are cheatgrass, Russian thistle, and others. So it's important to have a place where you can just monitor the changes that take place over time. Bauman: I want to also ask you about something that you're involved in, the National Environmental Research Park? Rickard: Yes. Bauman: Could you explain that, what that was? Rickard: It was the national--all the DOE sites--not all, but most of them--belonged to the National Environmental Research Park. Oak Ridge, Savannah River, Hanford, Los Alamos. I think those are the--and Savannah River, yeah. And the purposes of the park was just to serve as places where we could do ecological research in different kinds of ecosystems. Bauman: So there are scientists at each of those places and parks? Rickard: There were scientists at each--it was never as popular at Hanford as it was with the other parks, partly because ALE Reserve had already been set aside acting as a National Environmental Research park before the other sites. Idaho is also a member. The Department of Energy, as far as I know, decided not to support that, but did support ALE. Bauman: We're going to go back to when you first came to work at Hanford, 1960. Had you been here before? Rickard: I was here--I went to Pullman in '53. And I'd been to Richland. Bauman: What were your first impressions of Richland, have you thought-- Rickard: Well at the time, I thought it was kind of--a lot of other places in Washington I'd rather be. [LAUGHTER] I think it was in August when Barbara and I--we got here in September. No, in '53, Barbara and I drove down from Pullman to Celilo Falls because I wanted to see Celilo Falls before it got covered up by a dam. We stopped in Pasco, and it was 112. [LAUGHTER] 112 degrees in the shade. We decided this wasn't a real nice place. Of course, we'd been at Indian Springs, Nevada, too. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So what about when you came back in 1960 then, what did you think of the place? Rickard: Well, I was impressed, really, mainly with the people. When I worked at the 100-F Area, the first couple of days I stood by the 100-F Reactor and thought that maybe in a few years that this reactor would be closed down and that there'd be Russian thistle growing around the edge of it. The N Reactor closed in 1965. So in the five years that I was here, the F Reactor wasn't working anymore. I thought that was probably a good thing. Bauman: So you worked initially for General Electric? Rickard: General Electric, yeah. Battelle came in '65. Then I joined Battelle, so I was one of the first people. Bauman: So did you work essentially sort of in different places all over the site? Rickard: I did. I was on the ALE reserve at the old Army camp. At the buildings there for ten years, perhaps. I was at 331 Building. When I retired I still worked as part time for Battelle—PNNL then. And in other years, I've worked with the--what was the—NORCUS program. It was a DOE-sponsored, program where faculty and students from the campus here, could be assigned to PNNL and work. And I did that for a number of years too. And many of the graduate students that we had came through the NORCUS program to PNNL. And we had students from all over the country that spent summers here at Hanford working on ALE. We had graduate students that worked on elk. The first studies of elk on the Hanford site were done by graduate students. They had people studying small mammals, bald eagles, deer, coyotes. I don't know how many graduate students from the University of Washington, Montana, Oregon State that over the years actually got master's and doctorate degrees through what was then NORCUS programs. Bauman: So it was a teaching place as well? Rickard: Teaching program too, yeah. Bauman: Wanted to ask you--President Kennedy visited this site in 1963 to dedicate the N Reactor. Do you have any memories, or were you there when he was here? Rickard: No. I remember when he was here, but I didn't go to the celebration. I think I was probably out of town or maybe assigned to someplace else in the '60s. Bauman: I wonder, of the different kinds of work that you did at Hanford, the different projects you worked on, what was sort of the most challenging thing that you worked on, and maybe the most rewarding part of your work? Rickard: Oh, I think probably the most rewarding part was the working with students, working with the actual people. And then I think the day that the Arid Land Reserve appeared on the map. Bauman: Sure. Rickard: That was probably the-- Bauman: And what about the most challenging aspect of your work--was anything that— Rickard: Oh, I never found them particularly challenging. I just took heart--I think one of the professors at Washington State told me, research is about 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. So, it's work, but it's enjoyable. And there's always some satisfaction in learning something you didn't know before, no matter how small it is. I don't imagine it's nearly as important as somebody that discovers a cure for cancer or heart disease or something. But it's pleasant when you can just discover something that you didn't know before. Bauman: So when you look back at your years working at Hanford, overall, how would you assess Hanford as a place to work? Rickard: I think it's been a good ride. I liked teaching, but I enjoyed the research more. I'm more of a researcher rather than a teacher. But I think they belong together. Bauman: Is there anything that--event or incident or something that happened when you were working at Hanford sort of stands out in your memory that-- Rickard: Oh, I think the thing that probably stands out, not in a good sense, but it was when Les Eberhardt--[EMOTIONAL] [VIDEO CUTS OFF] Rickard: I'm sorry about that. Bauman: That's fine. No problem at all. Okay. So I just have one or two more questions. One was, I wanted to ask you about--so you started in 1960. Rickard: Yes. Bauman: I wonder what sort of changes you saw take place at Hanford--either in technology or in what was being done. Rickard: Oh, there's been lots of advances since I started. Certainly computers, GPS, DNA analysis. All these things advanced field research. DNA is very useful now in plant taxonomy. A recent case about the White Bluffs bladderpod. Perhaps you know about the White Bluffs bladderpod, an endangered species. Argument whether it's a real species in danger or whether it's just a variety of a more common species of bladderpod. So I think probably Endangered Species Act has a great deal to do with the desire of people to protect rare endangered species. And certainly, the Arid Land Ecology Reserve does that very well. It preserves samples of native vegetation, and the impacts that people have had on the natural environment. Particularly in Native American people and their view of the environment is much different than the people that want to use the environment. So all these technological advances have helped answer these questions. Bauman: Obviously, at some point, the mission at Hanford shifted to cleanup from production. Did that start happening while you were working at Hanford? And if so, how did that impact what you were doing, or did it? Rickard: Well, Hanford has a long history of recognizing that particularly the production reactors were releasing radionuclides into the river and to the ground. And there was a great deal of concern of whether these radionuclides and associated toxic metals really had an impact on the river and the biota that use the river. Over the years, the number of Canada geese that nest on the islands has been well documented. During the years the reactor operations, geese populations increased. Populations of bald eagles increased. Populations of deer decreased. Populations of quail increased. Even though with the closure of the reactors, some animals have not increased. When you got people work--there was no hunting. There was no grazing. There was no farming. But some of the animals continued to go down. Two of these--one was the sage grouse. Another one was the sage sparrow. These animals, the birds, depend upon sagebrush. Sage grouse eat sagebrush. Sage sparrows, they nest in sagebrush. Although you can destroy sagebrush by plowing or burning, burning has always been a part of the shrub steppe. It always takes out the shrubs. In time, the shrubs comes back. It burns, the shrubs disappear. And if the area is very large, the amount of fire is very small. So that there are substantial populations of sage sparrows and sage grouse that as the sagebrush returns by itself, they move back. Got down to the point where you have a small amount of sagebrush and if it burns, it takes years to come back. And even though at Hanford, it wasn't destroyed by farming anymore, fires have been a tremendous impact. So the number of acres of mature sagebrush today is very small. Not because it's been plowed, but simply because we had a lot of wildfires. And the sage grouse disappeared in 1960. The sage sparrow is nearly there now. So the sage grouse is now up for consideration to be an endangered species. It might be a good idea to restore sagebrush to Hanford, or sage grouse to Hanford by planting sagebrush. Bauman: So I guess one last question then. In your years of studying the ecology of the area here, what was sort of the most significant impact of the Hanford site on the ecology of the area? Rickard: Well, land use on the Hanford site, it's been different. It's different. There's no place else in Washington that ever supported plutonium production. It's the only place where productive land has ever been stopped agriculturally. I think it's important just for us to keep watching and monitoring and reporting this as time goes by. I think that's the future of it. It'll be cleaned up. But we've got to decide what to do next. And in my opinion, I think probably that if we were really interested in saving sage grouse, for example, on the Hanford site, that the best use would be a commercial nuclear power plant. Occupy a very small area. Develop the rest of the land back to habitat suitable for sage sparrows and sage grouse, and use it for recreational purposes. I don't think that the public is going to go for farming or things like that. So a combination of industrial facilities with wide areas of natural habitat would be the most likely use. That's my opinion. Bauman: Well, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to discuss, or anything I haven't asked you about? Rickard: I think I'm pretty well exhausted. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Well I, want to thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your experiences. Rickard: Well, I certainly appreciate your help here. Bauman: Thank you very much. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:42:32 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 194 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 100-F Area Reactor N Reactor F Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1960-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1960-? Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Davis, Jerry Hanson, Wayne Watson, Don Nakatani, Roy Bustad, Leo Hungate, Frank Parker, Herb Kathren, Ron 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 Bill Rickard Description An account of the resource An interview with Bill Rickard 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 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 2013-12-4 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-22: Metadata v1 created – [RG] 100-F Area Reactor F Reactor General Electric N Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F16b66f3e1c1cb8b8ed294a6dddb21740.jpg ad0e3f5431004fd43548afb7264e924a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fc0f13b96fadf7bb738c566537000019d.mp4 1271c49a08b7d223b0499f5b78e53ec9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Trent, Frank Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Trent_Frank Frank Trent: Well I don't know. Robert Bauman: I just let people tell their stories is really what the primary thing is. I have some questions to try and help it along a little, but--So we're going? Man one: Yeah. Bauman: Okay, great. All right. So maybe before I ask any questions, if I could have you say your name and spell it for us. Trent: Okay. My name is Frank Trent. And I live in Richland, Washington. Bauman: And the last name is T-R-E-N-T? Trent: Yes. Bauman: Okay. Great. And my Name's Robert Bauman. And we are conducting this oral history interview on February 12th of 2013 on the campus at Washington State. Trent: '14. Bauman: What's that? '14. Trent: [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Thank you. You would think by February I would have figured-- Trent: You want to start over? Bauman: No, we're good. I'll just say 2014. It's still this form that has it. There we go. So I wonder if we can start by maybe just telling us what brought you to Hanford. How you came here? What brought you here? And maybe your initial impressions of the place? Trent: Well, I first came here in 1950, in the winter of 1950. And we came over the pass. At that time, it was—there was no Snoqualmie Pass at the time. It was the one out on 410 highway going over the mountains. Closes every winter. Bauman: Not White Pass, huh? Trent: Nope. Bauman: I don't know. Trent: Maybe it'll come to me. Anyway, we came over the pass in the back of a Deuce and a Half truck. And it was a whole company of us. And pre-military set up here. And we came in and there was snow about 200 feet in the air where they plowed it often, blew it into the mountains. And all you could see is walls of snow on both sides. But anyway, we came on in down here and lived in a pup tent. You don't know what those are probably. You do? Bauman: Mm-hmm. Trent: And two people teamed up. And here you had something about the size of a blanket. And it was thinner than a blanket. It was called a--the material was made like a tent material. And we called them pup tents. There was two people. And each person carried a half of it. And then when you went out into the fields or combat or wherever, you set that tent up. And that's where you lived. Well, it was pretty cold here. And we wound up burning anything we can get a hold of. It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves. And these little pup tents, they only had a little opening you could make, or you'd get too much stuff in there--air, cold air. Bauman: Do you remember any specific things that you burned? Trent: Show polish. Anything that would get heat. Paper, shoe polish, anything. And that was the worst I guess. And we had one guy freeze to death. I don't know. It was cold. I started driving a water truck. And I wound up in the back of the water truck. It was a Dodge, 3/4 ton Dodge pickup. And it had a cover on it. So I slept in there. And during the night, the water container froze and busted. And I got water all over there and it froze. And I was sleeping in ice. [LAUGHTER] Me and another guy. But that was the shock of it when you got here was there was nothing here but desert. There was a few trees, but people hadn't started raising too many trees at that time. If they did, they weren't very big. That was my--and when we went out, we went out on the Project and stayed out there for three weeks. They had four groups. One group was off all the time. And the other three was covering around the clock. And we set up 120 millimeter gun emplacements, set up in a diamond formation. And then off to the side in the openings of the diamond formation, there was four 50 caliber machine gun nests. And we could fire. And we did. We fired tracers, and every so often, a tracer would come out. They were timed so that every so many shells, and then a tracer would come out. That way you could follow that tracer with your—aiming your gun. But they were also hooked up to, at a later time, to the radar. And there was radar guided. Anyway, that was the emplacements. And we had a full crew there 24 hours a day. And we went up to Yakima and took our guns with us. Two of them I think is all we took though. They were beginning to set up that firing range up there. And we were doing pretty good at shooting that thing. And evidently, the radar got off a little bit with their calculations. And wound up, we shot the cable off just off the tail end of the airplane. They left. They didn't want any more. They says, we're going and we're ain't coming back. So that's part of it. Anyway, that's the beginnings of my arrival here. Bauman: Where on the site were you? Trent: Are you familiar enough with the old Y? You go through the first barricade, then you drive for, I don't know, about halfway to 2 West, 2 East. Maybe not quite that far, but there's a turn off there. Goes back towards, still 2 East, that 2 East area. And then you go on down and pick up 2 West. And we turned off just after that barricade out there at the Y. It may be two miles down from that Y area, there was a turn-off. And there was dirt, gravel and dirt. That's the old military highway road. And we were back in there probably five or six miles. You could see Rattlesnake very plainly from there. And a later time, when they built that road down through there going out to Yakima—Horn Rapids High Road—and at a later time, why, you could see that road and traffic on it from out there. Because I went out there with a group on our 50th military reunion and we made a new visit there. And cars were going by. Then there was no road back there. Anyway, at that time, if the cars that had been there--we were that close to where the highway's at now. There's a big knoll out there, just a rounded hill of sand. And that was between us and the Rattlesnake Mountain. So that'll give you a general location of where we were. It was A Battery, 518th. Bauman: Okay. So where were you from originally? Had you ever been to this part of the Northwest before? Trent: No. I come out of Harlan County, Kentucky. Lot of hills down there, rolling hills, but nothing mountainous like we know them now. Born and raised on a farm. Family of 17—18, counting me. And one mother and father. And we raised everything we could raise to eat ourselves. And the only thing we bought was stuff like staples that you had to have that you didn't grow. My dad was a coal miner, and the older boys actually raised the foods that we needed. Fed the animals, and ate the animals. And then in, let's see, October the 8th, 1949, I and two other guys from that area joined the service. I rode a bus. It was raining, about 6:15 in the morning. Got on the bus and never looked back. We went from there to Harlan and got in a military bus. And they drove us to Corbin, Kentucky. And that's right in there near Knoxville. And from there, we got on the train. We went to Louisville and then to Fort Knox. So that's how I got to that. Then we spent three or four months, I don't remember, in basic training. And then we shipped out in trucks for this side of the mountain, for Washington. Well first, we came out by train. And then we got into buses and trucks and went up to Fort Lewis, and Fort Lewis over here. We were selected as the first group to arrive in the Tri-Cities to help set up. Bauman: Oh, okay. So how long were you at Fort Lewis then? Trent: Just long enough to not want it. We did a lot of advanced basic training, crawling through mud and dirt and dust. And when you come out of there, you couldn’t see nothing but eyeballs. You was hot and then you put your arm down to crawl forward and then shooting over top of you with tracers. And the dust would puff up and it would stick to you, sweat on your body. So that was an experience. Bauman: Yeah. So you said when you were out of the site, you were there for about three weeks. Then you'd have a week off, then you’d go back. So in terms of food when you were out on site, what sort of food did you have? If you were in the tents all the time? Trent: Well at the beginning, before we really got set up, we was eating what you would call combat type rations. They'd come in containers and it was dished out after it was heated up. Our stove was a Bunsen burner under pots and pans. And we’d go through a line and dunk our mess kit in the boiling water and get any germs off of it that way. And then we ate dinner, and then we come back and had another container we dunked it in and brushed it out. And then dunked it in clean boiling water again. So that's how we kept stuff kind of sanitized. And a lot of people got dysentery from it. But mostly, it wasn't—we didn't have it too bad. Food wasn't too bad. And at a later time, after we got to set up, we had a regular mess tent and cooks. And we ate good. Sand in it, but we ate. Bauman: So did you know anything about Hanford before you came here? Trent: No, and I didn't know anything after I got here. But none of us did. We just knew we was guarding this installation, and we would be on around-the-clock duty. If you were asleep, the alarm sounded, everybody went to their stations. And we had a number of planes come through. And we had to get our big guns on it. And we would track it until they gave us the order to shoot. We only shot one time out there. And that was basically to settle the guns in and orient them so when they shot at something, they got fairly close. Those 120 millimeter shell casings were probably about that long. And the projectile was probably about that long. And they were timed: after you shot one of them into the air, they were timed to the target. And then they blew up. And supposedly it would supposed to knock down anything within a—I think it was 75 yards radius. So it could get anything in four directions. And we come close to getting the target plane. Yeah, it wasn't funny to the pilot, but it was funny to us. Bauman: So then when you had a week off, where did you go? Did you go to town? Trent: We had barracks in town. And that's the barracks here in North Richland. If you're coming up George Washington Way going north and you come to that rise in the road, and then you can level and go down toward Battelle. Just as you cleared the top of the road, there was a steam and boiler plant, steam generating plant just off to the left. And then the road that went by that—that was one of the first roads. We generally would turn on that. All of that area back down in there was barracks. And you can still see some of the pedestals that they sat on. And then over on the other side of GW Way there was—no, I guess it's still on the same side. They just add roads dividing the camp. And we were fairly close to a service station over on the highway, highway Stevens if you're going out to Hanford. We were just off of that a little bit—our outfit was. And from there, whoever was ready to go in and go back out, why, we took off in Deuce and a Half trucks. And we'd go out in a convoy and relieve the other outfit that was out there. And while you were gone, your camp was taken over by a new group. And that rotated. Bauman: So, on sort of a typical day, what might your duties be? What sorts of things might have happened? Trent: Scavenging. We made trips around out there. They probably figured out what we were doing, but they didn't seem to bother us because we didn't have nothing but tents at first. And so we'd scavenge enough stuff until we could put some stuff together to get in out of the wind. We couldn't get away from the sand though. But we did that and then done our duty. And we went off duty in the late afternoon and after dinner, we was off for the evening unless you got an alarm, an alert. And immediately, whatever you could get on, why you got on, and you got on those guns. Got everything turned on and adjusts your azimuth and elevation, and be ready to fire whatever come through if you were told to fire. Bauman: So how long did you have just the pup tents? At what point did you [INAUDIBLE]? Trent: It's probably about two months. And they come in and put up what we called a trip tent. And it's big enough to hold about ten people, five bunks down each side. And then later we put in wooden floors in them, and so we'd raise them up off of the ground a little bit so we wouldn't be sleeping right next to the ground. So, they brought it all out, and we had to put it together. Bauman: And so how long were you doing this? How long were at Hanford in this capacity? Trent: I was out there almost three years, And this discharge here. And by then, I was married and had one kid when I was discharged. Discharged in February of '53. And from that point, I found whatever I could to work at. But it wasn't much for a while. Finally I put in an application for General Electric, and they hired me. And that was my first trip as a civilian out to Hanford. Bauman: You mentioned you got married. Did you meet your wife here? Trent: Yes. Her dad came in '43. Actually, he came in 1940 out to the Northwest. And he went back to Memphis again. And from that point, he was working just across the border in Arkansas, out of Memphis. And some guy come through, I guess from the government, and put the word out, anybody want to transfer or go move to Washington? We've got a project up there we're building, and we need help. Anybody we can get to go. And he came out with that group and worked out here. And a year later, she came out. Well first off, he came in '40, went back and came back in about '43, in '43. And then he was here about a year, and then the kids came out. They came out by railroad, and no supervision. I think she was 12, my wife, 11 or 12. Her mother had—she would have been 12--because her mother had died earlier, tuberculosis. And she came out, and the rest is history. He stayed here and raised his family and worked at Hanford and wound up--one day, they came in and they had nobody that could really read a blueprint and follow it. And so they come around looking, and somebody said, go see Mac. He'll do that. And that was the beginning of his rise, which didn't go very far. He was some kind of a maintenance supervisor out there. And they come and got him and he said, let's see your prints. And he looked at them a little bit. Yeah, he said, I can build it. So they took him over there and he built the building for them with a crew. But they'd already started building. He had to tear it all down because it was wrong. And then after, I don't know, maybe six months, seven, I was in passing, and went into the drugstore at O’Malley’s—you remember where that was at? Okay. That had a little soda fountain in there. And I went in there and me and another guy and ordered a milkshake. And she said what kind do you want? I says, any kind you got. I don't know, just a milkshake. She figured she'd fix me, so she went back there and made me a suicide milkshake. Everything in the fountain went in it. That drink’s pretty good. So that's where I met my wife, 1950. And we were married in December after that. Bauman: That's a great story. Trent: Raised three boys. One of them is a Microsoft jet pilot. Flies for Microsoft. And one of them, well at this particular time, is in Edmonton, Canada—construction manager of some kind, hot spot guy. And the other one, Frank, is working in construction over on the west side. And he is living in Brown's Point in Tacoma, right on the ocean. Bauman: Yeah. So you mentioned at some point you got a job with GE. What sort of job was that? Trent: Anything to get on. I started out doing manual labor and mowing lawns. And I probably had about five or six months of that. And then I was transferred to White--not White Bluffs—Riverton. And I was doing maintenance work and oil changes on the railroad engines. And many times you'd have oil clean up to your elbows. And I don't know what they did with the oil. We drained it out into containers, and they disposed of it. Probably illegally, in these days. And from there then I went to work at 2 West. And I worked T Plant, U Plant,--at T Plant 221-T, 224-T, those two plants. And then I worked also, that was T-Plant. And then U Plant, I went to work down there. They needed people down there, so they sent me down there and done the same thing down there in U Plant, because the areas were almost identical in operation. And then the stuff that came out of there went to REDOX I believe. And they run through the procedures there, separating stuff out and boiling it down to what they were really looking for. And so anyway, we handled a lot of powdered uranium in that 224 Building. And after it was centrifuged, the heavy metal uranium powder was thrown out to the sides and stuck to the sides of the centrifuges. And the liquid was settled back down and drained back out and recycled back through I guess. I don't remember exactly the procedure. And we'd ship that uranium out of there and put it in barrels. And it was shipped out, I don't know where it went to. Maybe some of it went to Oak Ridge, I don't know. And then that was in operations. And we worked the hot zones. And they had us when we'd go into one, we'd have the RAMU people. They'd check you in, and when you had up to your limit on exposure, you'd come out. Go in and take samples and clean up in areas that were really hot spots. Bauman: When you did those sorts of things, what sort of protective clothing did you wear? Trent: Well, we would go in and change into SWP clothing and hoods. We had our regular shoes and we put covers over the shoes, plastic over the covers. And your pants legs were all taped down so that nothing could get through. And gloves, of course. And it was all taped down. And the last thing that went on was a mask. You had a canister of air. And I think you had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes and you're out of air. You better be out of there, or at least close enough where you could hold your breath and run to get out of there. Yeah, we worked the hot zones quite a bit. Sometimes we'd have to work until we were triple exposed to get a job done. And then of course we was relieved out of that until we were even with the scale of exposure. So that when you back in, why, they basically had you at zero exposure for starting back up. There was a lot of sitting time, because they had to have the people. And if you didn't keep them there, you didn't have the people to do the jobs. So rather than fire them, they'd put them on clean work. And if they didn't have that, you sat in the lunch room and played cards. Then from there—I went in and later, I went from the 2 West Area to the 100 Areas, and was in power operation there--boilers, refrigeration, air conditioning, and pumping stations that pumped water for the reactors. Bauman: So you were at several places on site then? Trent: Mm-hmm. I worked 100 B, C, D, DR, 2 West, not 2 East, but I'd been in 2 East a number of times. 2 West, I think that's about it out there, Riverton of course, at the beginning I was in Riverton. That's the old railroad station that hauled stuff in and out of Hanford. Bauman: So of those—of the different places on site that you worked at different jobs that you had, did you have one that you enjoyed the most? Trent: I enjoyed operating equipment--boilers, steam engines, pumping water, of course, electric, diesel generators. We had on our river pump station, we had pumps down there that'd pump 105,000 gallons per minute each of water. And if something happened to those pumps, then the diesels come online automatically. Now the diesel size was the PT boat that John Kennedy used when he was in the service. They were two diesel generators of the same size that came out of the—or were installed in the PT boats. And they were pretty good size. They would pump the same amount of water as the big electric box. The lines, I don't know what size they were now. I seem to remember 100, 102 inches in diameter. Pretty good sized piping. And if something happened, the scram, why, of course, they had to have water and generally pumped through with the diesels if something happened to a pumping station. So you always had backup. There was one incident in the 200 Area's power house. We had a backup generator down there generating electricity to use in case of power outages or whatever. And they were set on automatic standby. And my father-in-law was at that with his crew, was there doing work in that area. And it was in an open, kind of an open area. The showers were in that general area too. Never had a problem with any of those diesel generators. And they were in there eating dinner. They set a row of lockers up to separate the area. And that was where they ate. And that's where they went in and took showers before they went home. Or they come out of hot zone, they still had to take a shower. And they were in there having dinner, and for some unknown reason, nobody hung around. They ate their dinner, and they got up and went out back to the job and whatever they were doing I guess, early. And the generator tripped and came online. There was something wrong with the governor. And a diesel generator when it turns loose like that, and it can't get fuel from one place, it'll get it from another. It went on up to critical speed and blew up. And it embedded metal about three inches into concrete, solid concrete. So that's how bad—it could have wiped out everybody in that room. It wiped the room out. All their lockers and everything, that was gone. But that was one of the incidences that I remember that happened. Bauman: Do you have any idea roughly what time period that might have been? Trent: Phew, no, I don't. It would've been in the low '50s, early '50s. Because he went to work there in 2 West when I first came here. Yeah, his crew worked 2 West, 2 East. So they rotated around, wherever they were needed. But that happened to be in the 2 West Area where that generator blew up. Nobody was hurt. Pure luck. Bauman: Earlier when you were talking, you mentioned that when you were in the army stationed out here, you didn't really know anything about Hanford or what was going on? Trent: Well, we know we were guarding the installations there. And we knew that workers came in by buses and left by buses. And then later years—first you couldn't drive a car out there of any kind other than government. And then later years of course, that was relented and people could drive out there to their area. But mostly we were in and out of there in buses. And we came in nothing but bus to the 1100 Area, which is over here, off of Spangler, south of Stevens. And we came into there and unloaded there in a big parking lot in there while we had our cars parked there. So that's the routine. Everyday, we get up, the buses come through town and picked you up, all you to the 1100 Area. You changed to your area bus and get on there and it'd take you to right straight to your area, and off of there and check you through the security. And the same way when you come out. Security would check you out, you'd get on the bus, they'd haul you home. Bauman: Was there at some point that you ended up driving your own car out? Or would you take buses? Trent: I did a couple of times, but it wasn't worth it. There's too much fuel. But fuel was cheap then, compared to now. Still, you had to—and we came out when John F. Kennedy came out here. The whole family went out. And I was at that time working at 100 N Area. And we got 100 N Area up. And I was on duty the night they went critical and put the reactor in operation. That was the first dual purpose reactor, 100 N. Bauman: Do you have any specific memories about when President Kennedy was here? What the day was like, or remember anything about him arriving? Trent: The only thing I know is we were--they had the place set up for visitors to come in. And they had a lot of chairs. And a lot of it was standing room only because they didn't have enough chairs. They were getting ready to build the Washington Public Power Supply System’s generating system out there. And the pumps, those pumps I swear that they were longer than this room, each pump, steam-generated or steam-powered. And that was 109 N, was that generating place. And people were rotated shift-wise the same way—ABCD was the shifts. And of course, the fourth one was off. And then while that one was off, a spare would come in. So actually it's five crews. It was interesting. I worked water side of it for a lot of years. We had one guy that worked out there that was scared to death of something he couldn't understand. And he could not understand the big piece of equipment operating. And he was scared of it. And one night on duty—our shift was, and the chief engineer said Frank, can you get down to 181 real quick. I says, well, yeah. So anyway I headed out, grabbed the first pickup I could find in the parking area there and drove it down to 181. Both diesels were running backup. Don't know what happened, still don't. Anyways, I found him. He was sitting back in a corner away out of sight of the diesels. He was standing there in a corner shivering, just scared—petrified. So I got him out and put him out in the pickup. And I say you stay out there and let me take care of the problem here. So anyway, I guess I took care of the problem and then got him out there. So I got the generators under control and asserted the diesels under control, put them back on automatic and standby. And then the other pumps of course, got them going in the order I was doing the job. And I went and got him back out there. And when I reported in and wrote the incident up, he came to me, I don't know, very short time thereafter. And he says Frank, I'm going to quit. He said, I'm married, I've got three kids. I can't get into the military. And that's what I want to do. So he said I'm going to divorce my wife and I'm going to volunteer for the Coast Guard. And he did that. And the next thing I know, he put a transfer in from the Coast Guard into the military, army. And they accepted him. So he got into the military even though he was married. And a few years down there, well I guess it was nothing but two or three years, or a year or two. Anyway I got a call from my son who was a warrant officer flying helicopters down in Louisiana, Texas and Louisiana area. But anyway he--I guess, yeah, it was Texas. Killeen, Texas. He said do you know a Dave Eggar? I said, yeah. He said you won't believe this, but he's the guy in charge of training us in these helicopters. [LAUGHTER] And he had went through the school, learned how to fly the helicopters, and wasn't afraid of them at all. And he wound up leading that group that my son was in through their training program. And my son flew choppers down there. He already had his private pilot license. He got that before he got out of high school. And anyway, he spent his time in the military and he started flying with them. Wound up at his own company with two jets and a chopper and a little fixed wing, twin engine plane. And then 9/11 went and wiped him out. His business went to nothing. So then he started with putting his pilot's license out there, his experience in getting letters out. And he got a call one day from Microsoft people and went to work for them. He's still doing it, all over the world. Bauman: Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you had mentioned when you were in the army here and you would have you week off, you stayed in barracks. Once you got married, what sort of housing did you have? Trent: The first house we got was a small--I think it was about a 20-foot trailer, used. And a lot of the early Hanford people would move trailers in out there. And added onto them as a matter of fact. But as they had kids in a small trailer, where do you put them? You put a room on it. And that's what we did, we lived in that trailer. And then we lived there up until I was discharged. And then we bought a trailer. And I was working for a guy that didn't like the idea of me buying a trailer. It was a single wide. But it was about, I don't know, probably 50 feet long, somewhere in that. It may not have been that big. It was big enough, it had three bedrooms. And bought the trailer and moved it in and set up in and fat, dumb, and happy. But he didn't like the idea of me working for him who was selling trailers and buying it from somebody else. So he fired me. [LAUGHTER] So that was our first home. And then we were forced to move out of the place out there next to the Battelle area, just south of Battelle. We had to move out of there because I wasn't in the military anymore. When I did go to work for GE, we got a house, prefab. I think it was a--first one was a two-bedroom. And then we got a three-bedroom house. And we lived there until they started selling the town back to people. And I was interested. They set it up in blocks. So they would complete the transfer of one block by contracts to the owner that lived in it. And some of the prices were, for the two bedrooms, were like $2,500. And three bedrooms was just slightly more, like $3,000, $3,200. And I don't think any of them ran over $5,000, any of the homes. And lo and behold, I got an eviction notice. I was laid off in between. And two days after they evicted me and I got out of that house, they sold my block. So I didn't get a house. [LAUGHTER] Anyway, that was kind of how we got started. Finally, I left here and worked down in Colorado for about a year and a half, two years. And put in a transfer back there, a transfer or quit and came back to—I was out here on vacation a week's vacation, ten days I guess. And I dropped by the unemployment office and they said yeah, we'll put you back to work. So anyway, I went down and terminated. Gave them my notice and came back out here and went to work. And I worked there until—see I don't remember now, '50—hmm. Late '60s, because I left the project completely in '68. And I was out there one day and boss came in and said, Frank, he said, I understand you talked to so and so. He’s an instrument guy, a contractor that installed instrumentation and tubing for those instruments. I don't remember his name. And he told you were a job was at. And I said yes, he did. Anyway, he said, did you go down for an interview and talk to those people? And I said no. He says, why don't you do that? I said why? I was working at Battelle. Well, he said, you never know. I said yeah, I can go down and talk to him. I went down and interviewed. Went on back out. Still hadn't heard nothing from him and boss came by again and asked me about it. I said, don't know, just sat in there fat, dumb, and happy waiting for things to happen. And then his boss came down and he says Frank, you take that job if they offer it. And after three months, if you decide you don't like it, you come back and we'll put you right back where you're at. You won't lose no seniority or anything. Lo and behold, it was the beginnings of the university here in North Richland. And I came down here and they put me to work. Punched out construction and—helped punch out construction and get them out here. And got everything in operation and moved the staff in. And the rest is history. I left here in 1995, right at 30 years retirement. With military, I had more than enough time for—I think it was a year and a half. 27 and three-quarters or something like that years--and then of course I had five years of service to attach on so, retired with 30 years. Bauman: When you look back at your time looking at Hanford, overall how you assess Hanford as a place to work? Trent: Well compare that to where I came from, and it was a gold mine. Because we were hand-to-mouth. And we had to raise everything by hand or horses or whatever, and some cows, and raised all of our eats and stuff like that. So, we worked. We didn't have no spare time. From the time I was seven, I had a hoe in my hand working. And my brothers, the same way. Girls took care of the house, the boys took care of the outside. We had a pretty good sized garden. And we also had large acres of corn and beans, cornfield beans, potatoes, large patches of potatoes. So we have plenty to eat. Never did lack stuff to eat. But when you look at the lifestyle, and you didn't know where your next shoes was going to come from or your clothes, because money—cash money was hard to come by. And dad worked the coal mines, so he didn't make a lot, but enough to feed his family and keep going. So it was pretty nice to get out here where you can make a decent living. I think I was making--I think I was making about $75 a week, net out, when I first started. Bauman: When you first started working for GE or for--? Trent: With GE, yeah. And I also worked the 300 Area. And I helped start up the Sandcastle out here, Battelle where they're at now. The first buildings, there was three of them. And I was down there to get the equipment started and get it running. So I did that until the union got me and forced me out. So that was another reason it made my decision easier to leave there. I had four layoffs from Hanford due to cutbacks. And seniority, it didn't matter who you were or whatever. Seniority won. The other guy sat there and laughed at you and said I told you. You'll be out there working your tail off and he'll be sitting on his fanny reading or whatever. Doing his job, but nothing extra. You get a guy that would get in there and work, it didn't matter. If you didn't have the seniority, you were gone. So I got caught in four layoffs. No, three. The fourth one I quit and came down here. But it was a nice way to make a living. Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming in today and telling us about your experiences both in the Army and working at Hanford. Appreciate it. Trent: Same. Bauman: Thanks very much. Trent: You bet. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:56:19 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 192 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site ca1950-2014 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. ca1950-?, ?-1995 Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview Y area 2 West 2 East T Plant U Plant T Plant 221-T 224-T 224 Building 100 Area B Area C Area D Area DR Area 200 Area Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Eggar, Dave Kennedy, John F 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 Frank Trent Description An account of the resource An interview with Frank Trent 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 2014-02-12 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-8: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 100 Area 200 Area 224 Building B Plant Building 200 East Building 200 West C Reactor D and DR Reactors General Electric Housing Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963 Richland (Wash.) SCRAM T Plant U Plant Washington Public Power Supply System (WOOPS) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fcf048689636f43deed4c23ae7d4d4d14.jpg dc383eed74d4438fdac9c7ad9c068eca https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3841380e69217cef6aa70840d8479a53.mp4 e48c0d6128bcde0bbba8a20ce7f31cef Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Bauman Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tyler, Bill Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Tyler_William Robert Bauman: Now you can give it right back to her? William Tyler: Yeah, I plan on it. Man One: Exactly. All right, get this off your face there. Bauman: Does your daughter live here in Richland? Tyler: She lives right across the street from me. Bauman: Oh, does she? Oh, there you go. Well, you can really give it to her then. [LAUGHTER] She can't avoid you. Tyler: Well in fact, we work together at HAMMER. Man one: I’m rolling. Bauman: All right. Well I think we're ready to get started. So let's start by having you say your name and also spell it for us. Tyler: My name is William T. Tyler. W-I-L-L-I-A-M, T, T-Y-L-E-R. Bauman: And you go by Bill? Tyler: Bill, yeah. Bauman: All right. And today's date is August 28th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So let's start, if we can, by maybe having you talk about what brought you to the area. When did you come to work at Hanford, and what brought you here? Tyler: We came out here on vacation from Oklahoma in 1947 to see my dad's brothers and sisters. And we were going to stay for a week or so. And my dad applied for a job here and got it, and we stayed. I thought it was the end of the world. This was not a pretty place in 1947. But I went in the Navy in 1950, got into the nuclear program and came out here in 1955. Went to work at Hanford. Worked as an HPT until '82, I believe. And then I went into management in health physics. Bauman: So HPT, you mean health physics technician. Is that was HPT is? Tyler: Uh-huh. Sorry. Bauman: That's okay. So how old were in 1947 when you came on vacation? Tyler: I think I was 15. Bauman: Okay. What sort of job did your father get? Tyler: He worked in transportation. Bauman: And you already had aunts and uncles who came here? Tyler: Yeah. Bauman: So you said you thought this was the end of the world. What do you mean by that? What are your first impressions of the place? Tyler: [LAUGHTER] Well, my first impression is we got here July the 5th. And my aunt and uncle had a little cafe on downtown Kennewick, on Kennewick Avenue. And it was about 104 degrees out. And we were driving down the street looking for it. And my dad says, man, I wouldn't live here if it's the last place in the world. And back then there was not a lot of trees. There was in Kennewick, and a few in Richland. But every time the wind blew, it was dusty and the tumbleweeds flew, and a lot of dust storms. In fact, they call them termination winds. Because everything was booming out in Hanford and every time the wind blew, people didn't like that and they'd just pick up and quit. So they called it termination winds. Bauman: Do you know when your aunt and uncles came here? Tyler: My aunt was born here in Kennewick. My uncle came out here in '37, '38, somewhere along that area. Bauman: Oh, okay, so you'd had relatives here before the Hanford site. Tyler: Oh yeah. Bauman: And so when your family first came in 1947 and you dad got the job and stayed here, where did you live? Tyler: We lived in Kennewick for a year. And then we got a house in Richland in 1948 at 635 Basswood. Bauman: That was a government home then? Tyler: Uh-huh. It was ranch house. And we moved in Thanksgiving Day of '48. And my future wife moved in next door the same day. I didn't know that was my future wife, but it turned out to be. And I still live on Basswood. Different house, but-- Bauman: So did you go to high school here then? Tyler: I went to Kennewick. I started in Kennewick because that's where we lived and I didn't want to transfer. So I rode the intercity bus every day to Kennewick and back. I graduated in 1950 and then somebody in Washington wanted me to join their services. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So how would you describe, outside of your first impression, how would you describe the community of Richland in late '40s, early 1950s? Tyler: It actually—it was a very good place to live. I didn't realize it at the time. It was smaller, much smaller--probably 5,000 people in each of the cities. It was a good place to live if you could ignore the wind blowing and the dust storms and that sort of thing. But it kind of grows on you. I know I wouldn't live anywhere else. Bauman: In those early years when you were here in the '40s and '50s, do you remember any particular community events that stand out in your mind? Tyler: Yeah, Atomic Frontier Days, the Grape Festival in Kennewick, and then the fair. Nothing big or spectacular, but it was something to do. Bauman: Can you describe Atomic Frontier Days a little bit? What sorts of things-- Tyler: Well, normally they had a queen and a parade of course. And it was just kind of a—I don't know how--just a parade and kind of a get together type thing for the people that lived here. Bauman: So let's talk about your work a little bit now. You said you started working in '55. Tyler: ’55. Bauman: So can you talk about who you worked for at time and a little bit more detail about what sorts of work you did? What area of the Hanford site you worked in? Tyler: Okay, I started February the 22nd, 1955. And my first work assignment was 200 West Area tank farms. And then I went up to the REDOX facility which was a separations facility. A couple months later, then I went to U Plant. And then I went to T Plant, which were all separation facilities. And then I went over to PUREX in December of 1955. That was prior to startup. We started up our first spiked run was I think March or April of '56. And I worked there until '62 I believe. When I worked there, we also was switched with the 100 Area HPTs, or RCTs, or radiation monitors for exposure reasons. Because they got a lot more exposure than we did, so we would switch with them. And I got to work in all the 100 Area reactors except N when they were running, and some of the 300 Area. Bauman: So just about everywhere? Tyler: Yeah, I worked basically in every facility out here except 234-5. Bauman: And so was GE the contractor? What contractor did you work for? Tyler: GE. They were the prime contractor. And they left here in '66 I believe. Then Rockwell and Westinghouse and Fluor Daniel and MSA. Bauman: So as a health physics technician, what exactly did that mean? What sorts of things did you do on a daily basis? Tyler: Well as you know, there was a lot of contamination, radiation. And our job was to set the dose rates if people were going into a radiation area. We would go in, set the dose rates, stay with them. Got to make sure that the dose rates didn't increase while they were in there. We surveyed them out when they were done with the GMs and alpha detectors to make sure they didn't take any contamination home with them. And that was our prime responsibility. We maintain control of personnel exposure rates and their contamination, if they had any, and made sure that everything was as clean as we could get it. That's the short and sweet version. Bauman: Yeah. And you did that, obviously, at all these different areas you worked at on the site? Tyler: Everywhere, inside, outside, burial grounds. Bauman: Were there ever any incidents while you were doing this where people did have excessive exposure or anything along those lines? Tyler: Yeah, there was a lot of them. When GE came here--well, they were the prime contractor. Back in those days, you really couldn't talk about your job. You could say that you worked at Hanford and that was pretty much it. But yes, there was a lot of good memories and bad memories. Some really high exposure rates almost on a daily basis, because everything was running. And what will go wrong probably does. And it was very interesting work. It was something different every day. It's the kind of job that you look forward to doing and working. I did. I really enjoyed it. Bauman: So what was the process or procedure if someone had an overexposure? Tyler: Well, you had your dosimetry, which—Battelle read that. So you know what they got. And that's the record that's with you forever. At that time I think we worked--[PHONE RINGING] Shit. We worked under a 50 millirem per day limits, or 300 a week. And sometimes you would exceed that. But we were issued dosimetry everyday when we came to work. And you had a film badge which was read I think once a month. But they kept a running record of your exposure. That's why when we, when 100 Area radiation monitor--[PHONE RINGING] Hello. Can I call you back, Ian? Okay, thanks. Sorry. I don't know how to turn it off. Bauman: So we're talking about the dosimeter-- Tyler: Yeah, they kept records of all your exposures. And then every month they would send you a copy or let you know what it was. But if before the end of the year was out, if you were running short of exposure, then they would transfer people--particularly the radiation monitors--to different areas. And they what they were doing was using our exposure instead of--and letting their people cool down a little bit. It was just a way of equalizing the dose rates to the personnel. And it worked good in theory. And there was some--and I probably shouldn't say this—but there was some little minor ripples in the water, because people accused the other people of hanging back and now I got to come save you, that sort of thing. But it was all in fun. Everybody knew how serious the job was. And that was just part of their job. Bauman: And so how long did you work as a health physics technician then? Tyler: I think until 1982 and I went into management in health physics. At that time, they called us managers. And I was the manager of East tank farms until 1988. And then I transferred over to the West Area environmental group and took that over. My responsibilities were all of the outside radiation contamination areas. Burial sites. '89 I retired. Came back three months later and went to work in the environmental restoration part-time. And I did that until 1995. And then when Bechtel came in, I left there and went back to health physics side and become a evaluator at HAMMER for radiation protection, which I still do. Bauman: So you still work for-- Tyler: Two to three days a week. Bauman: So you mentioned earlier the sort of secrecy of some aspects of Hanford. Obviously secrecy, security were a very important part of. I wonder if you could discuss that at all, any ways that impacted your work? Tyler: GE had a very rigid plan of how they wanted things to go. And security of course was top secret. If you went—and a few people did--they go down and have a beer at the bar and they get to talking. And you never know who you're talking to you. And there was cases where people didn't have a job the next morning. Because security would overhear them. And you were pretty much done. So people didn't talk about their job. They didn't even talk about it with their family. Security was very strict. When you—well, for instance, when you go to work in the morning or if you're on shifts, same thing. You would catch the bus at the bus lot. Get on the bus, go through the barricade at the Y. If I was going to PUREX, we'd go up, pull in to the front gate of PUREX. You'd get out, off the bus. Go through the badge house. Pick up your dosimetry. Go out. Get back on the bus. The bus would pull inside the gate. Get back on the bus. Go down to PUREX. Get off the bus. Go through their badge house. And they would check your lunch bucket and all that. And then go into the building. And then in the evening, just reverse that process and back out again. So they were very strict. If you drove your car, you could not drive it past the main gate of East Area. You parked outside. And when you could drive inside, security would check the glovebox and the trunk and whatever was in the car. So it was very regimented. Bauman: I wanted to ask you about, in 1963 President Kennedy visited for the opening of the N reactor. I wondered if you were there and have any memories of that event at all? Tyler: I was not there because I was on shift at that day, or I probably would have been. Bauman: Mm-hm. Obviously, one of things that happened with Hanford is the shift from focus on production to focus on clean up. And I wonder if that shift impacted your work in any way? Tyler: Yes. Like I said before, I was the manager of East tank farms. And my office was at Semi Works, which is in 200 East Area, which was a pilot plant for PUREX. Semi Works was running. We were doing strontium cesium runs. But then when the edict came out that we were going to phase out and clean up, one of the first facilities--well I think it was the first facility—that we started tearing down was Semi Works. And D&D did the work. But we shut it all down and demolished the building and just imploded it in place. Built a dirt berm over it, cleaned it up. Most of the cells and the tanks are still in place, but they're full of grout. And then there's concrete over it. And what we did was tear down—this was approximately a three-story building with three stories underground. So when we tore down the building—it had a lot of piping and columns—we tore down the building and left the west wall standing. And we filled everything we could get inside like the basement and concreted it in place. And then we undercut the west wall. And this is probably four foot thick. And got a couple of Caterpillars and chains and hooked it over the top of the west wall. Pulled it down over like a lid. And then dirt berm over it, and there it is. And the stack that was there—the exhaust, the big stack—they imploded that and laid her right alongside the building. One guy did that. We deconned it first, and he came in, and a dynamite expert told us where we was going to put the stack and put a stick out on the end in the ground like they do now on the TV. And laid that stack right down on that stick, all by himself. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So that definitely did make for significant changes then, the shift from production? Tyler: Very significant, because that was kind of pilot test for all the other anticipated deconning and decommissioning they we're going to do, which is still going on. Bauman: Let's shift now and talk a little bit about HAPO. I wonder--I know you've been involved with them quite often. I wonder if you can talk about your involvement when you became involved in HAPO and how that came about? Tyler: Well let's see. First, HAPO was a GE acronym which stands for Hanford Atomic Products Operations, which was the name of GE's part of this. GESA, which is another credit union down the street, was the General Electric Supervisors Association. GE was very particular about their managers or supervisors were a step above the blue collar worker. And I think they still maintain that. If you were a supervisor, it's white shirt and tie. And you don't fraternize with--So when the credit committee wanted to get started, that's the name they chose, just HAPO. And it's '53. And I was looking at one of the early--the record book. And I think there's five or six of the charter members of the first—that I worked with that were radiation monitors just like I was. But I never joined HAPO until my wife was--she likes C First. And I never joined HAPO until I think '71. And then a friend of mine that I worked with talked me into getting on the committee that approved loans, credit committee, which I did. And then I got invited later to go on the board of directors and got voted in and been there ever since. I really enjoyed it. It's a great credit union. Bauman: So is it the board of directors then, primarily is it either current or former Hanford employees? Tyler: No. It used to be when we were federal, you had to work out here to join HAPO. And then they relinquished or changed the bylaws so that anybody could join HAPO. If you give them $5 and signed up, you were a member for life. But initially it was you had to work here to join. Bauman: And you said you didn't join until '71. What led you to decide to join at that point? Tyler: The guy I carpool with, one of them, convinced me that I should do that. [LAUGHTER] And I didn't like C First. I never did like C First. But my wife liked them because you got at the end of the month, you got all of your checks back. And she liked that. But I joined HAPO and started my own checking account. And then she finally joined shortly after I did. And now the rest is history. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So, I know you weren't part of the formation of the credit union. But I wonder if you can talk about it a little more? If you know more, were the employee unions at Hanford involved in the credit union, establishing that? Tyler: Yes. Bauman: And anything you can talk about that? Tyler: Helen Van Patten was one. GESA started it first. And then the blue collars said well, we got to have one of those. The first store was down by the Spudnut Shop. I think we had one or two employees. And everything was in a ledger, handwritten. Joe Blow borrowed $25. It was very basic. But fortunately, it kept growing and membership increased. Bauman: So the unions saw it as a way to provide credit union opportunities-- Tyler: Right. Bauman:--for blue collar workers or laborers or whatever? Okay. So I want to—going back to your work at Hanford, what are some of the more challenging aspects of your work, and maybe some more rewarding aspects of your work? Tyler: That’s a good question. Probably one of the most challenging was the responsibility when you're out on a hot job where the contamination levels are great and the radiation levels are great, and you have a whole crew of people. It challenges you to--it's always in the back of your mind that something's going to happen and I'm not going to see it, or I'm not going to catch it. And somebody's going to get overexposed. And that's always in the back of your mind. Because--and I have to beat my own drum here for a bit—radiation monitoring and health physics now, whatever they are, it's a very challenging job. You're responsible for--you're taking care of people. And they trust you. And they expect you to look out for them. And it's a lot of responsibility, but most everybody accepts that gladly, because they know how important it is. Because you're responsible for--you could get somebody really overexposed, and who knows what the consequences are? As far as rewards for that, I think is the satisfaction of when the job is done, that you knew you did your best job. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got overexposed. Nobody got contaminated. And the job got done. Bauman: Were there any events or incidents or anything, sort of unique things that happened during your time working at Hanford that sort of really stands out to you? Tyler: When I first hired in, like I said, I went to REDOX. One of the problems they had shortly before I got here was they had a ruthenium—they ran some ruthenium and they played it out in the stack. And then it broke loose. And it kind of went out in the desert and on the ground. And you had ruthenium chunks of—it looked like white paper that built up on the inside the stack and then finally broke loose and fluttered out and went everywhere. And one of my first jobs with a GM and a walking stick was walking out through the desert and finding these things. Little specks, big specks, didn't have any trouble finding them. [LAUGHTER] They were very hot. And I remember we used the KOA cans from T Plant, which were little round cans, metal cans about that big around, about this high with a snap-on lid. And that's what we put them in, with dirt for shielding. And then buried them. But there's been a lot of incidents of hot burials from PUREX. I remember some where we used a burial string. We used a locomotive, a whole bunch of flat cars. And then at that time, they'd build big wooden boxes. And I recall one big one that had enough lumber in it to build two B houses. Huge—it sat on two flat cars. And we put it in, and we took readings over the top of the tunnel as it went out of the tunnel towards the burial ground. And it read greater than 500 R. And as you know, 500 R for an hour is a lethal dose rate to 50% of the people, 60%. And then you go down the railroad track behind B Plant, pull it across the highway which patrol barricaded the road. So you pull the string across the road and then back it into the burial ground. And then you had to sink—this box was built on skids. And a big long steel cable lay on another flat car, three or four flat cars away from it. So you would pull that. And you would pull it down into a burial trench. And the Cat would be down there ready. And the train would back up and they would grab that cable, put the eye on. Hook it to the Cat. And then the Cat skinner would pull the cable off. And the train would move up until the boxes sit here and the cables here. And the Cat's down here pulling. And then we'd get up to the--and there was a dock where you could slide it off. And you would turn that box and pull it in. Pull it down into the trench, down to the other end, wherever you wanted it. Unhook the Cat. Leave it. Pull the Cat out. And then they would backfill that box. And that's the way they did the burials. And it worked great except when the box collapsed unexpectedly. Bauman: Then not so great. Tyler: Yeah, that's not a good--that happened once or twice. Bauman: During your years working out there, were you ever concerned about your own safety, health, protection, in any way? Tyler: Well as stupid as it may sound, no. I never was. Because I always figured I knew what I was doing. And I received some very good training in the Navy, which helped. But I never worried about it. I always trusted me. Bauman: Were you a member of a union when you were working at Hanford? And what union was that? And I guess, what sort of relationship did the union have with management here at Hanford during the time you were here? Tyler: Good and bad. [LAUGHTER] I used to be chief steward for the radiation monitors. I went through two negotiations. And after the last one, I decided I didn't want any more of that. Chief steward's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it. Bauman: What does that mean exactly? What—chief steward-- Tyler: Well, you're the union rep plant wide for all of the HPTs. And I had this grandiose idea that I could just change everything. It's a great idea, but it doesn't work. It's a job that somebody has to do. And it's a job that is thankless. Because somebody's always mad at you. Whatever you do, in some of the people's eyes, you could always do better. And it's just not a good job. [LAUGHTER] But I enjoyed it. You learn a lot. And you learn both sides of the fence--how the company thinks and how the union thinks. And then you try and compromise. Bauman: Were there ever any times you were here where there was a strike or any sort of-- Tyler: Two--'66 and '76. Bauman: And were those sort of across the site? Tyler: Yep. And in '66, after we settled the '66 strike, GE left. Bauman: Was that one of the reasons they left? Tyler: Yeah, well, they had planned to leave. And then that's when--because when GE was here, they were the only contractor. And then when they left, they kind of broke it up into the 200 Areas and the 100 Areas. And it's always been different contractors, not just one prime contractor. Bauman: Do you remember what some of the key issues were in '66 and '76 in terms of-- Tyler: Wages. Wages were always the key issue. Well, I take that back. '66 or '76 was, they were going to do away with the buses. And that was a key issue for everybody. It didn't happen, but it was a--that was when they spent all the money redoing the bus lot. And then a couple years later, they did away with the buses anyway. But we did get air conditioned buses. Before we had old buses, the old green buses. Well like the ones sitting down at-- Bauman: The CREHST Museum? Tyler: Yeah. Those were some of the newer ones. The older ones were international buses that looked like a truck. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer. But they worked. When they did away with the buses, see, that did away with a lot of jobs in the bus lot. Maintenance, everything there, which was a lot of people. Bauman: So part of that was about jobs and issues of transportation? Tyler: Mm-hmm. Bauman: Anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about or that you think we should talk about? Tyler: Well, we've covered pretty much every--well, we've covered pretty much everything I think. I don't really know what you're looking for. Bauman: Just your experience. That's why I wonder if there's something that you experienced some event or something that I haven't asked you about yet that you think would be important to— Tyler: Well. When I retired, I took the first early out and then got bored to death and came back. When I was in the environmental group in West Area, a good friend of mine was an environmental manager outside the site. But he talked me into coming back part time and become a waste shipper and a waste handler. Which was--I'd never done it. I knew what it was. But I finally relented. I enjoyed it. It's entirely different. Because I was kind of burned out on radiation protection, and I wanted to do something different. Didn't want to retire, but I wanted to do something different. So I went to the classes and become a certified waste shipper and a waste handler. And we took care of all of the sites outside of 200 East, 200 West. All the burial sites, all the drilling sides, the river, pretty much everything. And it was very interesting. Until '95, when I decided I didn't like the contractor. [LAUGHTER] And I went back to health physics. Bauman: Most of the students I teach now were born after the Cold War ended. Obviously most of your career, the Cold War was going on during most of the time you were working at Hanford. So I'm wondering what you think would be important for young people today and people in future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War? Tyler: I'm trying to remember. We had the strike in '66. And there was almost another strike four or five years later. In fact midnight was the deadline when we were supposed to go on strike. And at 11:30, we got a notification that the President had put a stop to the strike because of the situation with the Cold War thing. And I think that's the first and the last time that ever happened. But as far as-- Bauman: So then about 1970 or so? Tyler: Early, yeah, '71 or '72 maybe. No, it was before that, because I was still on shift. It was probably '68, '69 maybe. But as far as the Cold War, it's still going on in different forms—my personal opinion. You look back at history--and I've lived through a lot of it--nothing has really changed. Like what's going on now, and the Bible says there'll be war and rumors of war. And that's correct. Because whatever our President does—whatever he does is going to be wrong in a lot of people's eyes. It's kind of like if you don't do it, you should have. And if you do do it, you shouldn't have. [LAUGHTER] It's a different type of cold war. Instead of—we used to worry about Russia. And I'm not too sure that—maybe we should still be worrying about Russia and a lot of other countries that--Things have changed. But they haven't—the basic things that caused the Cold War hasn't changed. There's all kind of weapons. I don't know. Bauman: All right. I think that's all the questions I have for you. Tyler: Okay. Bauman: I want to thank you for coming in today. Tyler: Thank you for having me. Bauman: Pleasure to talk to you. Tyler: Good. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:47:27 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 244 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 West Area U Plant T Plant 100 Area 300 Area 200 East Area Tank Farms 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. 1955-1995 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John. F 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 Bill Tyler Description An account of the resource An interview with Bill Tyler conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear waste disposal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2013-8-28 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-18: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Bechtel Building 200 East Building 200 West General Electric GESA (General Electric Supervisors Association) HAMMER HAPO (Hanford Atomic Products Operations) Reduction-Oxidation Plant (REDOX) Richland (Wash.) T Plant Tank Farms U Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd83f3c4d7f86b6e52d6cbf8bf71d5112.jpg e7da9ff9782316d22c5ae28c305ce461 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F8e0756e3663c4eed74b608601031114e.mp4 7aec6edb4ebd55efc217150d9f8e2d36 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 Jerry Yesberger Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Jerry Yesberger: I go by Jerry Yesberger, Jerry, J-E-R-R-Y, and then Yesberger, Y-E-S-B-E-R-G-E-R. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Robert Bauman: All right. Thank you. My name's Robert Bauman, and today's date is December 9th of 2013. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So Jerry, let's start maybe by having you tell us when you first arrived in the area, what brought you to Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Okay. Well, I was born and raised in Colorado. Went to University of Denver, and I graduated with a BS degree in 1950. And let's see here. Then I worked for a short time in Colorado, mainly because I wanted to come back from the state of Washington—to the state of Washington. I was in the service from '43 to the end of '45. And I spent some time in the Seattle area and everything, and I really liked it. And so when I got back to Colorado, I applied for jobs with State of Washington and everybody. Then there was an opening at Hanford. And at that time, everything here was General Electric company, as you probably already know. There was no contractors other than GE, and they ran the community. And everything—there wasn't anything other than GE here. And my first job at Hanford, which lasted about five years, was in the public health department, which we had most of our activity concerned for the community here, rather than the site, although there were some activities during that that we were asked to perform, such as—oh, I can remember that I'd been out to the site for some things to do with health matters and so on that I was asked to do the work on, and I did. And after about four, four-and-a-half years, the city became a city away from General Electric company, and I wanted to stay with Hanford. So I applied—well, I don't remember how exactly I got there, but the radiation protection department in Hanford Laboratories at that time. And again, this was a time when everything was one site. There was no contractors other than General Electric—offered me a job in radiation protection. And my radiation protection time lasted an awful long time, because I retired in early--oh, gosh. Say, it was 19—but anyway, I had 36 years' service. [LAUGHTER] And my first job was out here in the 300 Area, and GE at that time gave new people an awful lot of training. And I was trained as a health physicist. And I spent, oh, gosh, the first few months training. And I spent, oh, gosh--they had a project here called 558 Project, and what it did was go through the old reactors, all of the old reactors and replaced the tubing in the reactors. And each one of these assignments lasted, oh, three to four months. So we started out in B Reactor and finished there. And my job was I had a crew of radiation monitors working for me, and we worked shift work, because there was a big, big construction job. And it took about three to four months in each of the old reactors out there to go through these, replace the tubing, and so on. So I followed those from B to C Reactor to 100-DR to 100-H to 100-F doing the same thing, essentially, because we went through there. And then following that time, I went back into 200 West Area, where I worked on projects and so on. And rather than work--I didn't have radiation monitors work for me then, but I had always assigned projects myself to work on. And I did that in the--I have worked in every area on the project out here, with the exception of FFTF. I did not work, and I did not have an office there. But every other area I had an office and these things. So it was kind of really a broad orientation program and so on. I want to back up just a little bit. In the service, I was in the Coast Guard. And this was from '43 to '46. And I was a pharmacist's mate, and again, the training was real, real good. And the last year or so, I was on a ship, USS Aquarius, and it was an attack cargo ship. And our job was to take troops. We had Marines that we had aboard, and we had training to have them land on something. And boy, they really trained us. To make a long story short, we got an assignment, and we knew we were going to move our ship. But we didn't know where or what for. But it turned out it was that they were preparing to invade Japan with troops. And I never saw so many ships in my life, where we all had troops, and we were ready to train. And we practiced getting on these landing barges, and, of course, I was a medic, so I had to go in with the troops. But I never had any real active duty due in that time, prior to that time, because I was always out doing these other things. But we were ready to go in, and so we had actually moved into where we would make our move, and guess what. The Nagasaki bomb was dropped. Well, of significance there is the plutonium on that bomb was made at Hanford. So that was really an interesting aspect of it, and I've always been so, so, so, so interested in that aspect of the thing. Well, shortly after that, the war was over, and everybody was discharged. And then that's when I came back and went from there, like I said, prior to this. But I thought that was an interesting aspect of this whole thing. So I worked for the General Electric Company for about five years in radiation protection doing all of these things I've been telling you all about. And again, I had very, very, very good assignments. Probably my most treasured assignment was I was the health physicist for biology, out in the 100-F Area. And I spent a year out there, and that was because of all the animals--the pigs and the dogs and everything, and my job was to write radiation procedures for them to do where the monitor and I had radiation monitors reporting to me out there during that time. Well, following that—I don't know how this developed, but the Atomic Energy Commission, which it was at that time, got my name, and they asked me if I would be interested in federal employment. So in the 1st of January, 1960, I switched jobs from the General Electric Company to the Atomic Energy Commission. And my job, there it turned out that I was a headquarters person, because we were doing what they call compliance inspection of people that are used in the state of Washington, Alaska, and Washington. Anybody that had a license for radioactive material, they had to be inspected. I was one of these inspectors. And it was a very, very interesting job. It involved a tremendous amount of travel, however. And we were always—when I went up to Alaska several times to inspect people, and there were only for us in this whole division, by the way. [LAUGHTER] So there was only two of us that made any inspections. And so I liked it. I like it, because I like people. But I worked at that, and it turned out that we were called Region 8 Division of Compliance, and it consolidated with Region 5 in California. So I didn't want to go to California. So I was offered a job with Atomic Energy Commission here in the Richland operations office, and I stayed there until I retired for my service. But I was with—most of this time, by the way, where I was transferred, I was in the health and safety division at RL. And at that time, there was no—we had one manager for this whole site at Hanford. We didn't have, like they do now, one on for the 300 Area, and all this kind of stuff. So we had our own health and safety division, so our entire--everything we did was associated with Hanford. And so that's where I finished my career in 19--with the federal government. I did work, however, two years after retirement for a company called MacTech, and they were a contractor to DoE to work on specific problems and so on. And I worked with them for a couple of years. And I also worked on the employee compensation program for about a year, and then finally retired. That's kind of it in a nutshell. I hope I didn't confuse you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: No, no. I do want to go back and ask a couple of questions. So when you first came to Hanford in 1950, what was your first impression of the area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well it was a shock. Number one, I had never been in eastern Washington in my life. I got a job offer, and I thought it might look like Seattle, but it didn't! [LAUGHTER] So that's my impression. But I wouldn't trade this area for the whole state of Washington now. I love it. We raised our family here, and I'm a big booster of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: When you first arrived, where did you live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, my first housing was a dorm for about three months, and then we moved into a B house, which was a duplex. And we lived right across from Lewis and Clark School here in Richland, and we lived in there for a year or two. Then they sold the houses here, and a fellow that I worked with down here, he didn't want to stay here, so he was living in a ranch house, which I bought. And I'm still there. [LAUGHTER] And we live on Torbett here in Richland, and we've been here ever since. We had one child that was born in Denver, and then our other three, and we finally had a girl, which I was so happy for. I love girls. [LAUGHTER] And she lives here, by the way. And she's the only one that lives here, and she's a special education teacher for the handicapped at Richland School. That's what she got her degree in. And she loves the work, but I couldn't do it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember how much you paid for that house? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: We paid about $6,500. We sure did. And prior to that, they furnished the oil, the painters, everything that was here was done for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember what your rent was on the B house? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah, it was about $30 a month. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: $30 a month. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you have any other memories of the community in the 1950s, what it was like at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, yeah, somewhat. One of the things that mystified me was that we lived in Richland, but blacks could not live in Kennewick. They would not rent to--you couldn't buy a house in Kennewick if you were black. And that always, I thought, was unreasonable, because we had several blacks that worked with us in the AEC here that were wonderful. And I still don't have any--I love them all. I like everybody. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So when you were AEC, they weren't doing the hiring of African Americans there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: No, they hired them. Oh, yeah, AEC, there was no question on that with the government, but boy, you couldn't live here. And we had several blacks in our division, and it worked out great. No, the community--do you live--I mean, do you folks live here? Well, when we got here, there was nothing north of Van Giesen. Nothing. And so boy, did we see that grow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Yeah, I imagine you’ve seen a lot of change and growth. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: The week we got here—well, let's see. It was about--I lived here for about, well, maybe three months in the dorm, until we got housing for my wife in that B house. And it was great, the idea of that housing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Yeah. What was the dorm like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: I didn't have any problem. Of course, I missed my family. We had a boy at that time living in Colorado, and he now lives in Snohomish. And again, we had the big army camp in North Richland, where we had just thousands of trailers and everything. And that was quite a sight to see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So you said you first job was working for the health department, or public health? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, it was the health and safety. Yes, it wasn't the health department at that time, but it included their functions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: What sorts of things—that first job, what sorts of things did you do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, we used to do all kinds of inspections, of course. But restaurants, schools, the water department in Richland, just broad health things that required health overviews. So that was the job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: You were working for GE, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: How many people were working in the health at that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, we probably had 20 or 25. We had a doctor that was in charge of us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And then you said you went into radiation protection, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes, from that function. And the main reason is because GE—went to a community, rather than being GE-managed. We had to elect a city councilman. It was a city. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember what your thoughts were about that, about Richland becoming an independent city at the time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: No, I think we all accepted it. It was good. Obviously, when you work like that, you're interested in benefits. And I think that swayed a lot of it for me to stay with GE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Right. So when you moved to radiation protection then, you said you had to have a lot of training at that point? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And for the jobs you were doing, did you have to wear special protective clothing at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Can you describe that? Sort of what sorts of things you had to wear. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, basically, they're just white coveralls as the one here, and they're still using the same white coveralls out there, just like we did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: How about security at Hanford? What was that like when you first came? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I think it was very tight. It was very tight. They really stressed security and safety. Safety was—in my estimation, my experience, General Electric was the most, the best contractor I ever worked for in my life, because they had emphasis on safety and health and really stressed it, you know. Much better than possibly they did in later years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So was there sort of ongoing training for safety? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, yes. Very, very, very, very--GE was very safety-conscious, and they were so good to their employees. You never read anything about anything happening in the newspaper or anything like that. They got it to their employees right away, and it was a pleasure. And the rest was a pleasure too, but not like--I miss GE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And you talked about, was it the 558 project? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: With changing the tubing. So what was your job? I know you went to each different reactor as they did that. What sort of things were you doing for that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: My particular job was I was what they called the radiation supervisor. And so I had about eight radiation monitors with me all the time during each outage, and we went from one to the other. And their job was everything had to be monitored just like they do now, in and out of the areas, and move it, and take it to disposal areas, and everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So was it monitoring the employees’ exposure rates? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes, monitoring the employees and the jobs that they're doing, because we had to develop the radiation work procedures, which they were working at. And this would vary during the whole outage. And they were very tight at first, and there was any grinding or anything or heat or anything, you had to have special requirements for that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So of the different jobs you had and the different parts of the site that you worked at, was there a job or something you did that you found the most challenging, and/or something that was the most rewarding of the things you did at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, probably the most rewarding job I ever had here was Hanford, was I was here with Richland operations office, and during the americium accident in 1955, I think it was, and my job, at that time, was--as a matter of fact, I got involved in that particular incident at about 5:00 in the morning after it happened at 4:00. And I went out with the doctor, a fellow by the name of Dr. Breitenstein, and he and I went out and met Mr. McCluskey out in the area, before they got me into the decontamination center. And my job was really I represented RL in the whole aspect of the care of that patient during the months and months that he was here. Because he was confined, couldn't leave, and everything. And my job was to--as a matter of fact, I came right out to see him every single morning that he was in there, and we became very, very, very, very good friends. And it turned out I was a pallbearer when he died. [LAUGHTER] And it was a rewarding experience, because to begin with, he was such a great guy, and he accepted all of this and was never down, but he couldn't hardly see. He was grossly contaminated. And my job was to keep people at RL down here, the Richland operations office informed of what the situation was with him, and to notify headquarters, keep them informed, because it was a real significant accident, the worst we've ever had at Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So you mentioned that he had suffered probably with his vision. What other sort of injuries or-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, what happened, he had put his hand in this glovebox out in 234-5 Building, and it exploded, and came out and hit him in the face. So he was just so grossly contaminated, and he had to have a radiation monitor with him every hour that he was down there. And I became so familiar with that accident and everything, and I felt it was the most rewarding for me to have something like that to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember about how long he had to stay hospitalized? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, yes. He was down there for probably a year. A year. We got hot food. It was provided to him by Kadlec Hospital down here, and he had a nurse with him down there at all times. And his wife was living down there with him also. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: And where was he then? Was he at the hospital, or was he- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, there was facility at the back of Kadlec Hospital, which is no longer there. And this facility was called Emergency Decontamination Center, and he was there. They had beds and everything in there, showers and everything. And it was a specific facility for that case, to tell you the truth. And it's since been torn down, which I think was a mistake, myself, because if you ever had another one, you couldn't have been a better facility for it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: You mentioned you were in close with him, and were a pallbearer at his funeral. How long did he live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: He lived about, I think, about three years. And then he died of a heart attack. It wasn't radiation. But he certainly had radiation in him that would cause cancer if he had lived too much longer. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Are there any other incidents or sort of unusual events that happened when you were working at Hanford that kind of stand out in your mind at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I happened to be a trained accident investigator, and I had to go to school and learn all this kind of stuff. And I probably investigated more accidents than anybody ever has at Hanford. But we’ve had fatalities, and we had big spreads of contamination. We had several things that cause it, plus, we also responded to off-site accidents. And I had what we call a radiological assistant team that reported to me, and I went out on those where there were trucks that would spill radioactive material, where there was--this is kind of a little odd. I probably shouldn't even mention it, but you'll appreciate it. But we had a truck of uranium billets overturn on Lolo Pass, and these billets weigh 15, 20 pounds, but there's hundreds of them in this truck. Those things went all over the highway up here in Montana. I responded to that one. And one of the things that I was never trained on was guns. But, well, we were up there probably about a week recovering all of those billets that spilled over, because they all had to be accounted for. It was very strict on that. But we were out from town out on this pass someplace, and somebody had to sit in the truck with a gun at night to make sure nothing came, if anybody came from the highway or anything like that. Well, they gave me a big shotgun. I don't even remember what kind of gun. I couldn't have shot that damn thing if I'd had to! [LAUGHTER] And I still can't! [LAUGHTER] But that was kind of humorous. But we couldn't have the guy that could shoot be there all the time. So we all spent about three or four hours a night out there by ourselves. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: How long were you out there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: We were out there a couple of weeks. But I responded to lots of--the worst probably the most one that I responded to as the team captain was we had a spread of contamination at the University of Washington at the reactor. And I actually, again, there was some plutonium that came from Hanford that they were analyzing up there, and there was a spill. And the reactor at the University of Washington was greatly contaminated with plutonium. And I had a team. I had three or four people that went up with me to respond to that, and we were there two or three weeks there helping them get that all in, and we did. We got it all cleaned up, but there was some minor depositions. But boy, if that thing would happen now, the way it's anti-nuclear, it would be horrible. But this happened to be in spring break when all of the kids were away. So we lucked out on that on that thing, but we all had to wear protective clothing that two or three weeks while we were doing that. But I was the team leader on that particular accident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you remember what the time period was when that happened? What year that might've been? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, gosh, I can't remember that. But I responded to probably 30 or 40 spills and so on that were all over the country in Oregon and Washington. And then we had spills in Oregon that we had to go down to, because at that time, the state didn't have people for that function to overlook at that. So we did their work for them. And I did that for, like I say, about four or five years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So did you usually respond if it was like material that had come from Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: No, it could be anything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Could’ve been anything, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Could be anything. I loved the job, and I loved the people, because I like people. But it was so much travel. I was always gone from Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So that was probably one of the more challenging aspects for you is just all the travel. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah, it was. We had young children, and it seemed like I couldn't go out and come back, there wasn't a million things broke. [LAUGHTER] So that's the way it went. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: I wanted to ask you about President Kennedy's visit in 1963, if you went to that that day. Do you have any memories about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I got two memories. I got a call after that article was in the paper from the Seattle--no, she was from, I think, a public relations firm down here, one of them, that asked me about it. So I told them everything I knew. So I told them about this one friend of ours that happened to get up and shake Kennedy's hand. Well, of course, they were interested more in that than were what I had to say. [LAUGHTER] So the big article in the paper, he gives his report. He didn't even mention my name. [LAUGHTER] No, I didn't care. But my son-in-law was there when they called too, and they quoted him in the article and everything. But poor me. No, I wasn't looking. I wasn't really looking for my name to be any place. [LAUGHTER] Yes, I was out there. It was, of course, it was in the fall when he was here, not long before he was assassinated. But it was such a hot day, and I think all of Richland went out to it. There was just car after car going out to that area, and some of them boiling over from the heat and all this kind of stuff. But it was a very, very excellent program. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So as you look back at your years working at Hanford—how many was it? Thirty-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Gee! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Something like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: About 36. It was 36. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Well, as you look back at those 36 years, overall, how would you assess Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, I thought it was excellent and very safety-conscious. It couldn't have—in my aspect—been a safer place to live in my life than I did here at Hanford. And like I say, I worked in all the reactors. I worked in the separation plants and everything, and it was interesting. I think it was rewarding, the fact that you could clean up stuff. So it makes me real--we had such excellent facilities out here at that time. But all those buildings are gone and torn down, and they could've been used for so many things now. And I think that was a really big mistake. But they didn't ask me. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Well, is there anything I haven't asked you about that you think would be important to share or talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Well, you know, I don't know. I think you might want to look at my submittal in the Parker Foundation on that thing and see what I said at that time and the answer to their questions and so on. It went well. And I just feel so fortunate to have been here all this time and be so lucky and still be here. I'm the luckiest guy in the world, and I'm very happy that I was at Hanford. I've got several awards while I was here for my work. One of them I do want to show you, because I'm really probably real pleased, but I was elected a fellow in the National Health Physics Society. I received awards, several from—I was president of our local chapter of the Health Physics Society. I received several awards from those people. I was really well thought of while I was here at Hanford. And I was real pleased. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: So were you involved in the Parker Foundation as well? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Yes, I've been on it since--I still am. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Do you want to talk about that, like how you got involved with that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: I was asked to join it by Dr. Bair, who is still there. And I know you know about Ron Kathren. Everybody knows Ron Kathren. Well, I play cribbage with Ron Kathren every Wednesday at my house now. We play cribbage. I just think he's such a great person, and such a great health physicist, that I was so lucky to know him. And they asked me to join, and I've been real active, until this business with my wife, which I took a leave of absence. And I haven't been able to go there, because I can't leave my wife. But I still pay my dues and go there, and it's been a good organization. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Bauman: Well, I want to thank you for coming today in this cold weather and coming and letting us talk to you. And then maybe we could get a shot of your award that you brought in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX169569796"> Yesberger: Oh, okay. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:39:12 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 195 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 200 West Area B Reactor C Reactor 100-DR 100-H Area 100-F Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1950-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1950-1970 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Bair, Bill Kathren, Ron 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 Jerry Yesberger Description An account of the resource An interview with Jerry Yesberger 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 Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12/9/2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-18: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100-DR 100-F Area 100-H Area 200 West Area 300 Area B Reactor C Reactor Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 Kennewick (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe14e4177541d86d726108ff0ae769395.jpg 09ca8e040f8702ef5a35ef159d767c68 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9c057bb8e9f110352e26b93ab36a49ec.mp4 6baf716dfe1500e5c0f22fb821d2eb4a 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 John Young Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Northwest Public Television | Young_John </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> John Young: R. Young. J-O-H-N R Y-O-U-N-G. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Robert Bauman: All right, thank you. And today's date is October 22nd of 2013. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: I'll agree on that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Okay. Sounds good. And we're conducting this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: So let's start by having you tell me when you came to Hanford? What brought you here? How you got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: When did you come to Hanford—to work and Hanford, and what brought you here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: You want the whole story of how I got to Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: It'll take me 15 minutes. I wrote a letter up to here after I saw an article in the newspaper saying they were looking for employees. And after that, they accepted me from the standpoint that they would find out whether or not I was qualified. And for the next two months, the FBI and other agencies went through my history and got information from my doctor and so forth. And in early June—well actually, yeah—they finally decided that they would offer me a job. Or they offered me a job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: And so where had you been living before you came here? What year was this, also? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Where were you living before you came here, and what year was this that you moved here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Oh no, I didn't have any employee but here before. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: But where did you live before you came here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Where was I working? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Where did you live before? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Oh, I lived in Albany, Oregon. And I worked there as a carpenter because my dad made houses. So anyway, when I found out that I was supposed to arrive on July the 8th, I started from home on July the 7th. I wanted to be sure that I got here. Now, something I should tell you now is that during that spring, the Columbia River was at its highest violation you might say, or amount of water, in history. And it had wiped out parts of Portland. And there were only two bridges on the Columbia River, in the United States. One was the Bridge of the Gods down by Portland, and the other one was a bridge up by Canada.[LAUGHTER] So I didn't have any choice of how to get here. So when I left home, I drove up to Portland on back country roads because the main roads up to Portland were all wiped out by the water. Got to Portland. It was 17 miles east to the Bridge of the Gods. And that was actually a very funny ride because the road I was on the south side of the river and railroad track were the only two things on that side of the river. And I could drive along there and look out over the top of the rails on the railroad, and I could see that the flood two feet below the top of the railroad. Anyway, I got to the bridge safely. Went over the bridge, and I knew that the road on the other side going east from the Bridge of the Gods grows gradually up the ridge on the north of the river and eventually goes over the top of it and go down into the Yakima Valley. And I got about halfway up that ridge when the engine on my car blew out. [LAUGHTER] And fortunately it was right at a little town there that had some place where they could fix my car. So I spent the rest of that day there while they were working on the car. And they got the car ready for me by 8:00 the next morning, which was the 8th. So I drove on up over the top of the ridge down into the Yakima Valley, because I knew that if I could get into Yakima, there's a main road coming from Yakima down here. I got down to the bottom of the hill there, started towards Yakima. And I got two miles, and they found out that there's three feet of water over the river—over the road, pardon. So I turned around, went back. And there was an industrial area there. And I found a guard there and said is there any way I can get down to here. He said oh yeah, go back up to the road to Yakima and then go east. And when you get down, about 30 miles, there's a bridge over the river. So I took it and went in to Richland, getting there about noon on the 8th, which was fine for my getting there. So I ate my lunch, went into the Federal Building--which was only a one story building at that time—and I found out where the manager of personnel--well, new in personnel were. Walked down to his office, walked in his office. And he had about five desks in there. He was on one of them right by the door. And he was busy working on it. So I stood there, I'll say, for over a minute when he finally looked up and saw me. So I reached out my hand to him and said who I was. He stood up. He opened his mouth wide. And he stood there for over a minute, utterly amazed. When he finally got himself together, he said, how in the world did you get into Richland? What had happened was the management of Hanford had concluded that nobody would get into Richland for the next month. And that's why he was so astounded that I got into town. There was a [INAUDIBLE] if you want to call him that and overlooked the fact that I was a westerner. And I can go anywhere in this country that I want to, because I was raised on a cattle ranch down in Central Oregon. And I knew where to go through the, I'll say, backwoods. And that's how I got there. So anyway, their question then became, what are they going to do with me? Because they'd shut down the orientation class for new employees, so I couldn't go to work out in Areas. What were they going to do with me for a month? Now the first thing they did is they got me a room out in the barracks in North Richland. And then they told me to report to the production scheduling office in the Federal Building the next day, which is a top secret operation. And the purpose of that office was to determine which tubes in the reactors should be discharged the next time they had an outage at the reactors. And consider that there's 6,000 tubes out there. They had a new calculation system because they had a calculator which was designed to do that calculation to tell them what the amount of uranium was, or the amount of plutonium was in those process tubes. And such a method of calculating did not exist anywhere else. It was a special calculator designed by Marchand. Well anyway, I spent the next month in that office. I had a copy of the manual for Hanford—it was a top secret copy. And I could read that and find out everything that went on in Hanford in their manual. And then at the end of that month, when they finally opened up their orientation operation, I went through that process. And then I went out to the 100 Areas to go to work. I was assigned for six months at B Reactor as an assistant, well, operator for the reactor. It was a training period. It's a General Electric process. Any time the General Electric Company—at that time anyway—hired a new employee that had an education, they would put them out into one of their operations or many of them to give that person training on what to do in the job that they're going to get. And when they got through with the six month part that I was out there, they then assigned me to day work out in the 100 Areas. And I spent the next 17 years out in the 100 Areas as a senior engineer, one of the few that they had out there. Now I had to earn that title of senior engineer. But I was working on increasing the productivity of the reactors, reducing the cost of operating reactors, reducing the amount of radiation well, affecting workers out there—things of that type, for 17 years. At the end of the 17 years, they started shutting the reactors down. So I resigned. Went to the 300 Area and joined several organizations down there. [LAUGHTER] You know, there's so many of them floating around there, it's funny. And I spent 33 years mainly working in the 300 Area. But what I did was such things as licensing nuclear reactors, seven of them on the east coast of the United States. Congress had decided that all of the nuclear power plants in the country should be licensed. And the AEC, when they got that, they said well, you should work in the East because we don't want any bias. So those seven reactors are spread all away from Florida clear up to Minnesota. And after that, that was just a typical action for, oh, about one year. I was still an employee here. And if you want to know what I've done for the rest of that 30 years I spent at Hanford, I've got it listed here if you want it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: This is something that I've had. I filled it out as appropriate just so I could answer questions of the type that you've made. And if you want to make a copy of this-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Oh, sure. Yeah, we can do that afterwards, yeah. That’d be fine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: But you see there's—oh, what is it--about 15 boxes all in there. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: I want to go back to when you first arrived in the area in 1948. Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What did I do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: You first arrived in the area-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: I just arrived in '40--well, you mean in the Northwest? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: No, I mean in the Richland, Hanford area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: In Richford, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: What sort of housing did you have when you first arrived? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: There were in Hanford at that time, large buildings--some of them still exist--which had multiple rooms for people. And some of those buildings could hold as many as 25 people. And I was single. It was very handy from midtown. It's not out in the sandy places they talk about in this article. [LAUGHTER] But that sand, he talks in there so much—a couple of times anyway—actually was not Richland. Except for little locations where one building might be built. Most of Richland was grassy. And if you're in Richland, you're not getting any sand blowing around. And if you read their article there, they talked about the sand when there were on construction locations. Well that's normal throughout the whole state of Washington. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: So what your first impressions of Richland when you first got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: When I first came in? I got a story for you that you're going to wonder if you want to publish it. I, like I said, drove into Richland on the 8th of June and got my lunch. Ate my lunch, went into the office there. And I guess I told you that this fellow said how in the world did you get into Richland? So from that time on, I was working. And I was working out in 100 Areas. The first six months, I was working at B and D Reactors. And my position was assistant shift superintendent. See, they had shut B Reactor down for, must have been four years because they wanted to keep it available in case they had to get some more plutonium for the military in a hurry. And that was the only time I was on shift. After that, my work was what you might call typical engineering. You can call it nuclear engineering if you want to, but it's general types of engineering—reducing operating costs, increasing production, reducing the radiation doses to employees, those types of things for 17 years. Ended up as a senior engineer. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Of the different sorts of jobs, different parts of the Hanford site that you worked on, was there something that you found most challenging, most difficult, and/or something that you found sort of most rewarding about what you did? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: I don't understand your question. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Well, you had at least a few different jobs. You worked in the 100 Areas, right? And then you worked the 300 Area. Where there certain things that you did that you found sort of more challenging, or more difficult than others? And were there certain aspects or certain jobs that you had that you really found especially rewarding, that you really enjoyed a lot? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: The main difference was that when I was working in 300 Area, the reactors were reactors of the types that were used everywhere else in the United States. The Hanford reactors were very specific reactors because their only purpose was to produce plutonium. Whereas the other reactors in the United States were primarily built to produce electricity. It's a different design. And it also had more, shall we say, more opposition by the public. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. And that's a subject that you might want to address, because the people who are supposed to be the experts on radiation generally refused to use the information which says that low level radiation is beneficial. That makes a lot of difference. That low level radiation is so beneficial. In my case, I got 15,000 radiation dose. All of it was low level radiation. There might have been some high level in there, but I can only tell you what the badge has, you know? [LAUGHTER] And that's something that you might want to mention in your articles if you publish them. There are numerous people here, particularly in Hanford, that refuse to recognize that fact that low level radiation is beneficial. And like I say, there are scores of documents that say that low level radiation is beneficial. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: You talked about your badge. I wonder if could talk about safety at Hanford? Did you have to wear any special clothing equipment of any kind to do your work? What sorts of ways was safety sort of part of what you did? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well, I was cleared for every type of limited information. I got that when I told you I went into that one office on the first day. That was a top secret operation. And top secret gives you access to anything, assuming you had a need for it. I spent—let's see, how long were we in Oak Ridge? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Woman one: One year. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: One year, yeah. I spent one year in Oak Ridge on a committee which had somebody for every one of the AEC outliers, you might say. And the purpose was to determine where to protect their materials could be manufactured if somebody needed them. In other words, if you want high level radiation dose or something. I was dealing with people from every one of the major AEC outsides. But I would have ranged all in the various types of work that involve radiation. For instance, I was a manager at preparing environmental impact document for fusion reactors. And that document was presented in a meeting to the international fusion organizations in Germany. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: About what time period was that? Do you know? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Oh, my. Let's see. That must be about 1990. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: During your years working at Hanford, were the any events, incidents, events, special occasions, things that sort of stand out in your mind from your time working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: You mean the reactors involved? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Oh, could be, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Yeah, we head one out in the 100 Areas. For essentially all of the reactors, when they milk the reactors, they—of course the reactors are made out of graphite. They ran tests on graphite and so forth, and they learned that they could operate the reactors with a fairly low temperature of the graphite. You get too high temperature and you know you might hurt the material. And as we started raising the power levels of the reactors out there, the graphite started expanding. And the result was that in some of the older reactors like B Reactor, the graphite expanded enough that it pushed the shields off the outside of the reactor. Well, push them apart you might say. And the result was that the radiation inside of the reactor was leaking out through the crack at the top of the far side wall on the reactor. And there was a line of radiation going out that crack out through the wall in the far side of the reactor and then up into the air. And the result was that there was about a 20 mR radiation dose on the ground outside of the reactor. And that's one thing I worked on. They went back into the files of the DuPont people. And by checking through those files, they discovered that if we raised the temperature of the graphite, the expansion would stop. And if you go too low, the graphite would reduce in volume. And so we had to go through a special study to try to figure out what this would do to the reactor. And the result was—you see, the normal tube in the reactor was straight through the reactor. But when the graphite started expanding, the tube went up in arc and came back down because the highest temperature graphite was in the center of the reactor. So we figured out what was the proper temperature of the graphite—of actually of the gas in the reactor. And we ended up with the top tubes in the reactor going in, going down, going up, going down, and coming back up and going out the back. That's the type of things you ran into doing something like those reactors. And by doing that, it sort of drove the people replacing process tube on the reactor having to figure out how to get the tubes in the [INAUDIBLE]--[LAUGHTER]--through the reactor. If we had not done that, eventually the reactor would have fallen apart. In other words, if we hadn't figured out what was causing the problem—because this reactor would just keep expanding, and finally that outside shield would fall over. Or we'd have to somehow rebuild the shield up there to keep it in place. That's just a typical job that you'd have. You might spend six months on that. I had another one. I was working with a fellow who is an expert on water purification. And see, we were cooling the reactors with Columbia River water. It had to go through the water plant to clarify the water to get the sand and what have you out of it. And when they first designed the reactors, DuPont had discovered that if you did not have the right concentration of materials in the water going through the reactor, the tubes were bending up into two inside the reactor. And in order to prevent that happening, they were use the sodium dichromate in the water on the reactors. One part per million or something like that, but it's still, we're spending about, well, over $1 million a year buying that material. And I was working there with a fellow who was an expert on operating water treatment plants. And we got together and looked at this sodium dichromate that was used as we said--and we were buying that by the railroad car load. And I think the total cost was a $1.4 million a year for that one material as I remember it. And we looked at the price of it. And we looked at the price of buying the two components for making that material. And we had enough equipment in the water plants that we could make that material, the sodium dichromate. So we bought the chromate and the sodium, and we cut the costs in half from about a $1.4 million down to $700,000 a year. So we saved $700,000 a year. That's the type of things you work on. All types of things you get involved in. For instance, when they built the reactors back in World War II, there was a shortage of steel. So many of the pipes, particularly the ones underground, were not made out of metal. And when you heat and cool the other types of pipes, they start leaking because they crack open. So we had to figure out how to solve that problem or reduce the amount of sodium dichromate getting into the Columbia River. We worked it out, reduced it considerable. Those things get a little complicated. I don't want to go through all the detail. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: So it's involved a lot of problem solving? Your [INAUDIBLE] anyways right, problems with the reactor or whatever you would work on solving those issues. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: If there were problems with the reactors, then you would work on solving some of those issues, work on solving the problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Yeah. In other words, you have really two plants there. One was a water plant to provide the water to the reactor. And then the reactor was the other plant. Now what you do with the water, what you get out of that, is just how you get it back into the Columbia River with a minimum of radiation. And you know, that raises an important thing that I haven't mentioned it to people here in the Tri-Cities. I kept records on what the radiation was in the Columbia River. And when we were running the reactors out there, we were running, you might say, tons of radioaction into the river. Yet the amount of radioactivity in the Columbia River here at Richland was essentially zero. It had disappeared you might say, or bee diluted if you want to put it the other way during the travel of the water from out there by the reactors into here. And when I see these articles in the newspaper about they're worrying about the fact that there's radiation out there in the 200 Area and it will leak out into the ground seven miles or something like that from the river, I'd be willing to bet that there wouldn't be much radiation getting down to Richland. And the other thing is that it would be low level radiation, which is beneficial if it does get down here. I don't know if you want to put anything like that in what you publish because the nuclear engineers don't want it to be published. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Overall, how was Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: What was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Overall, how was Hanford as a place to Work what did you think of Hanford as a place to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well to me, that was a typical job, In other words, I had to travel 35 miles to get to my work. But people do that all over the country. It was an interesting job because we were working on increasing our knowledge of the subject. It's different than running one of these dams out here where you're generating electricity you know. All you're doing there is pushing a button once in a while. But by doing the right things out there, we saved millions of dollars. And we also reduced, you might say, the effects of radiation on anybody by making sure they didn't get any high radiation doses. But the most important thing about it is that we were, you might say, at war with the rest of the world. As long as we had to make that plutonium and reap you might say, keep Russia at a distance. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about in terms of your work at Hanford that you'd like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well no, other than the fact that once I went to work in the 300 Areas, I worked all over the United States. Because I happened to be, you might say, an expert on nuclear reactors. A good example is that the government decided they wanted to have every nuclear reactor, I'll say described, to be sure what it is and how much radiation so forth is involved. In other words, if they did that, they licensed them. And that was quite an interesting job, because I worked on seven reactors back on the East Coast. And of course, I worked for one year in Oak Ridge. And that involved all of the AEC facilities. Bauman I want to thank you very much for coming in today and sharing your experience with us. I really appreciate it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young: Well, always glad to be helpful. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: Thank you very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Young; I would like to see the facts published in your story that low level radiation is beneficial. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX210620110"> Bauman: I'm making these, we're making these available for anyone to look at, the [INAUDIBLE] stuff. Thanks again, appreciate it. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:39:31 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 193 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 100 Area B Reactor D Reactor 300 Area 200 Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1940-2013 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1940-1990 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with John Young Description An account of the resource An interview with John Young 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 Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland. 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-15: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area B Reactor D Reactor Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe562453b5a9810bb8400e0a780749652.jpg 19c463c013a7a2ea8e9413b017cfd710 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd4988a2f752925db95342438fe97dd91.mp4 7a3c130b03e6994e51dc0c9d0d65fb73 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Okay, great. So let’s start off here. First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, my first name is Delbert L. Ballard. Leo for center. D-E-L-B-E-R-T, B-A-L-L-A-R-D. And I go by Del, commonly. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: All right, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview here on February 18th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Ballard about his experiences working on the Hanford site, living in this community. First of all, can you start us off just—walk us through your life in sort of a brief term before you came to this area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I was raised on a dryland wheat farm in Montana, so I know what work is all about. And I was a student in a little high school that was only seven of us in our graduating class. So I was sort of a country boy, and went to college at Montana State University. And I graduated from there in 1951. Just prior to that, the General Electric Company, of course, had been there to do interviews. They were scoping for—recruiting for engineers and I was a civil engineer graduate. There was other recruiters through, too. I had an offer from a San Francisco shipyard, and another from the Soil Conservation Service in Montana. But I wanted to get a job with GE. So I’d had the interview, but no really positive award or recognition that they were going to give me an offer. They were interviewing a large number of people. So graduation day came around and I still hadn’t gotten a letter from GE. But the mail came that morning, and lo and behold, there it was. So I was really pleased at that. So my initial job right out of college was coming to Hanford and working for General Electric Company as a rotational training—in the rotational training program. They had hired that year, the previous year, actually ’49, ’50 and ’51, they had hired about 300 or 350 tech grads. And I was one of the later ones getting here; I didn’t get here until July. So most of the good jobs were assigned. But in the rotational training program, my first assignment was a rather mundane assignment to the transportation department. Next one was a more interesting job with the inspection department. That was over in the shipyard in Bremerton. At that time, Hanford was undergoing I believed what they called the Korean expansion. The Korean War was underway and in full force at that time when I got out of school. As a matter of fact, I thought I was going to be drafted, but I tried to enlist and—I’m diverting here a little bit, but—tried to enlist in the Air Force to be a pilot, but my eyes weren’t good enough, so I got rejected for that. [LAUGHTER] So when I knew that the GE job was a deferred job, I thought, well, that’s an alternate I’d just as soon pursue. So anyway when I got here on the rotational training program, that’s what it was. Individuals were assigned to different locations for training purposes and for filling job needs. The second assignment was, as I said, inspection department in the shipyard in Bremerton. At that time, they were fabricating—the shipyard was fabricating the biological shield blocks for the C Reactor. It was one of the expansion efforts at Hanford, increasing the production capacity. So that was an interesting job over there at the shipyard doing inspection and learning a lot about inspection techniques and components and so forth. Another month after that, I was rotating around the Seattle area inspecting other components that were being manufactured for the C Reactor. C Reactor, as you know, was the one that was built right alongside of the B Reactor out at Hanford. It started up in ’53, I believe. But out of the rotational training program, I was assigned into construction area out in the 300 Area. They were fabricating laboratories for building the laboratories out there. Radiochemistry, radiometallurgy, pile tech, machine shop, and a library at that area of the Hanford—300 Area was just under construction. So I got assigned to help in the field engineering in that job. It was an interesting project. I learned a lot there in that job. And from there I went into other project engineering work, including in later years, the K Reactors were under construction and I was involved in laying up the graphite of that reactor, K East Reactors. I stayed in project engineering with GE all my life—or all my employment time was with GE. They left here in ’64. Yeah, Battelle came in ’65. Two of the projects that I followed after K Reactors, one of them was the critical mass lab in the 300 Area, which was a facility for evaluating critical shapes and sizes for plutonium missiles. It was a research job, research facility. That project was a lump sum construction and plant forces for the completion of putting the process equipment in. The next job I had was the High Temperature Lattice Test reactor in the 300 Area. That’s a reactor that probably hasn’t gotten much publicity. It was a small graphite reactor. But that was a job I was very proud of, because I was the sole project engineering function at the time. The design was done by an organization that was just brought on as GE was being phased out. It was the Vitro Engineering Company. They had a detailed design of the job, and the construction was done lump sum, and then J. Jones did the reactor installation. I can tell quite a bit of detail about that reactor, if you’re interesting. [LAUGHTER] But it was an experimental facility also for evaluating different lattice spacings for graphite moderator reactors. It was electrically heated—it operated up at 1,000 degrees centigrade, so that graphite, looking through the peepholes in the reactor, you could see white hot graphite, which is sort of an interesting thing to see. But that project was not large in comparison to today’s funding levels. But it was a three- to four-million-dollar project. I finished the job and closed it out with less than $200 left on the books and no overrun. [LAUGHTER] So I got a commendation for that job, which I was quite proud of. But from there, then I diverted into other project engineering jobs. One was in Idaho Falls. We had a test facility over there, putting in test loops in the engineering test reactor. That was closer to reactor operations type work. We had to modify an operating reactor. But that was some of my interesting project years before I got into jobs later on, which was the FFTF and the FMEF. Fuels and Materials Exam Facility. I always make the statement that every project, or every job that I worked on up until the FFTF was completed and put into operation. Every project after FFTF was shut down and closed down before it was completed. [LAUGHTER] So that was kind of a breaking point for me. Hanford, of course, reached its peak in production, and I can talk something about that as far as reactor operations is concerned. But I wasn’t really in operations, I was in engineering, and had jobs all over the Project. So I never was tied down to one location. It was interesting. So I had an interesting career in a lot of different projects. I enjoyed my work, and had a good time and a good married life and I can go into that, too, if you wish. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: So you say you were with GE this whole time? You didn’t switch over to different contractors as they came in? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, yes—no. I just with GE until they left. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: I see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: And then Battelle came in ’65. So I was with Battelle for ’65 until ’70 when Westinghouse took over the Breeder Program. Initially, Westinghouse was just brought in for the Fast Flux Test Reactor, to manage that. And I happened to be working on a development job. That’s one I haven’t mentioned yet. [LAUGHTER] When Westinghouse came in, I was assigned—that was my first manager job. I had a group, or a section in the 321 Building in the 300 Area, and a job which was identified as the hydraulic core mockup. And we designed, built and operated models to evaluate the design configuration for the FFTF. So we built water models to look at a lot of different features: the reactor vessel arrangement, and the core arrangement and the structure. And the inlet planning and outlet planning. We built several models. The two biggest ones were the inlet model, which evaluated the sodium distribution in the inlet planning and feeding characteristics for the fuels channels. I worked on that job for seven years. And then during that time, of course, FFTF came under construction. Our group actually influenced the design which was being done by Westinghouse back east. There was a lot of the features in the arrangements and shapes of the vessel and the flow distribution and the core that was determined by that hydraulic core mockup test facility. Then when they started putting the reactor together, I was assigned to construction out in 400 Area. I spent the whole year inside the reactor vessel, helping the engineer put the parts together. One of our humorous comments about FFTF was, from our perspective was FFTF, do you know what that stands for? Yeah, it sounds for feel, file, to fit. [LAUGHTER] Fill all the tight tolerances and all the arrangements necessary to make everything fit and throw it together. It was well-engineered and well-designed, but it was still—engineering problems had to be resolved in the field. So that was another interesting project. Following that, then I spent seven years on the FMEF, the Fuels and Materials Exam Facility, designing and coordinating the design—the management of the design, which was done by an off-plant architect engineer. And there, again, that was a project that was not completed. It was shut down when the Breeder Program was curtailed. So, following that, I could go into more details where we did for various and sundry work, but it was all toward the new mission for the Hanford site, which was cleanup, starting in that field in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. I retired, officially, in ’89. But I worked consulting for four years after that. So my career actually spanned from 1951 to 1994. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: How disappointing was it when FFTF got canceled? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Pardon me? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Was it disappointing when FFTF got canceled? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: It was very discouraging, yes, that they were going to close it down. When they drilled a hole in the core support structure, like drilling a hole in my heart. [LAUGHTER] Matter of fact, I’ve got some pictures to show that I was the last person in the FFTF vessel before they closed it up and started it filling it with sodium. Matter of fact, after that closure—after the photograph that I have, I’ll be happy to show you—they had an accident with the fuel charging machine which went up to the top of the travel and the upper limits which failed and it dropped down on the core and broke some of the components that I was so—[LAUGHTER]—proud of getting installed properly. Core support structure. And we had to go in there and do some repairs. But then I, after that, I left the FFTF and went to work on the design of the FMEF. [SIGH] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Did life sort of change day-to-day when you switched these contractors? How different was it working for these different companies? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: The only change that I could see was the difference of the color of the paycheck. [LAUGHTER] As a matter of fact, when we transferred from—let’s see if I can remember which contract that was—was it GE to Battelle or Battelle to Westinghouse? I don’t remember, but the end of that day, we were terminated and I happened to be at a party down in one of the local pubs which I didn’t very often frequent. But somebody said, who do you work for? And I said, at the moment I’m unemployed. Because that was the day we left one contractor and started with the next one. But the transitions were quite smooth, I would say. I mean, of course, policies changed and your managers changed. At one time, in a two-year period when Westinghouse came in, I think I had 13 different first level and second level managers above me change without in those two-year period. So there was a lot of personnel changes. But a lot of us working closer to the ground floor, there was very little change. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: So, let’s back up a moment. What were your first impressions of Hanford and the area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I came here in the summer—it was in July. I got here on July 3rd of 1951. I was assigned to the barracks out in North Richland—women’s barracks as a matter of fact. That’s when all the dormitory rooms were filled up in Richland for the men’s dorms. So I was assigned out there for my quarters. The next day, I learned that you didn’t have to drive the buses around, you could ride the city buses or the plant buses. Plant buses, to ride to the area was five cents, and city buses, I don’t remember whether they were five cents or free. I rode that bus the next day that I went to work, and it was 105 degrees that day. And I thought, my lord, what have I gotten myself into? [LAUGHTER] This is horrible temperature! But I was young and willing to accept anything that came my way, so I guess I didn’t think it was too serious a problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: How aware were you of the mission of Hanford before you came here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Very little, probably. I knew that it was working on the war effort, but at that time, nobody really—well, yeah, I guess it was known they were producing plutonium or weapons for atomic weapons, but as far as the details concerned, I knew very little. As any engineer—young man right out of college might be. Because I didn’t know what the plant—the structure was. But they gave—they told us and we got the information from the co-workers and the other students. It was quite interesting, because all the youngsters that were working, everybody—not the majority of people, but a large percentage of them—were fresh graduates. The older bunch were the 30- and 35-year-olds working on the site. That’s when I met my wife shortly after that in ’53. But we were married in ’53. But I met her in ’52 at a social that was put on by YWCA, Young Women’s—YWCA organization. They had church-sponsored dinners one night a week and that’s where we met. So we’ve been married for 62 years now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Were there a lot of those sort of social events? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: A lot of those that happened. As a matter of fact, the organization—I was the third set that the president and the secretary of that organization got married. [LAUGHTER] She was the secretary when I was the president of the organization. [LAUGHTER] Which was sort of comical, I guess. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: What sort of things did you and your wife do in your spare time in the ‘50s and ‘60s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I guess bridge playing was one, and social events. We went—there was—they had a group that she was involved in called the Fireside Group that had functions and went camping and things like that. But we played a lot of bridge then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Where did you live? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I was living in the dormitories, of course, when we were married. I lived in North Richland in the women’s barracks for a short time until the rooms became available in the dormitories in Richland. That’s where I was living when we got married. Of course, housing was another whole story. You had to put your name on a list to get a house. They were all assigned by the government. All the housing was, of course, controlled and owned by the government. So you had to get your name on the waiting list to get a house. We were fortunate; we got a duplex, a C house up on Wright Avenue. I got that assigned in less than a month before we were married. So when we were married, we had a two-bedroom duplex house up there available. That’s where we moved in and lived there until 1957 when the government decided to disperse the property. They started selling vacant lots in 1957. We were a junior tenant in the duplex, so we couldn’t make an offer on the duplex. The senior tenants had the right to buy the duplex. So I was quite aggressive in my ownership philosophy, decided to buy a lot. We purchased the lot on Newcomer, the first property that was sold. And we built a house. I started building in March of 1958. As a matter of fact, we built—our house was the third privately built house in Richland. We had a house and were living in it before Richland was incorporated. They incorporated the city in July of ’58. That was of course the second official designation as a corporation because Richland, of course was a corporation—I mean an incorporated city before the government took it over in ’43. We built that house and I have pictures that I brought of the fact it was one of the first ones in Richland. And we’re still living in the same house. I don’t know what that says, but [LAUGHTER] I guess stability for one thing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Were you involved in local politics at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: In what? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: In local politics at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard; No, not really. They asked me a few times if I wouldn’t run for the city council, but I never did. No, I’m not a politician. I didn’t want to get involved in that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: So you described a number of different jobs you were doing over the first two decades or so that you were here? Could you walk us through, at least for one of those, what was sort of an average work day like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, let me see. There was one—I guess all of them were similar in a lot of respects. I was doing—on those jobs, I was doing project engineering. And that meant the coordination of, and the I guess you’d call it management, although there was, of course, the organization like GE, there’s so many levels of management that comes through that it’s a little hard to say you managed it, because you have so much supervision and overhead actions that are taken on a project, for example. But on most projects, the engineer—the project engineer would write the project proposal based on what the technical department would have as input for a required facility, for example. Like the high temperature lattice test reactor, the physics department had specified the programs that they were involved in would want to look in more detail at the lattice spacing in graphite reactors, for example. So they would write a document which would specify what their objective was and what their basic criteria was for that facility. And project people would issue—maybe take that and issue an order for another group to do the detailed process—conceptual design, or do it themselves. We’d do it sometimes on small projects. We had projects all the way from modify one laboratory all the way up to a whole facility. So it’s hard to describe the same process for all of them. But it was office work, engineering work. Some of the times I was in a design group where we actually doing detailed design work. But most of my work was in the project engineering field where we were seeing the work done by others. Or specifying details or managing the people that were doing the detailed design work. But it was office work, and of course when construction started, that’s when the project engineers were more in control, because they were directing the contractors as far as the field work was concerned. It was always an interesting job, an interesting challenge, I thought, preparing contract bid packages. Office work, lots of times the projects were out in the field, of course, out in the Area. We’d drive government cars to go to work. That was an advantage. Of course being in engineering rather than operations where you had more control of your time from the standpoint of individual management. Because we’d use government cars for transportation. We didn’t have computers in the early stages, obviously. When they came out with DSIs, Don’t Say It In Writing, that was a big move, too. [LAUGHTER] But certainly a lot of progress and a lot of technology changes over the years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: How much were security or classification a part of your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, it was certainly in overview all the time. All the documents, if a job had classified work on it, you had to get the documents classified, and follow the restrictions for those particular elements or documents, whatever’s involved. Most of the time, of course, construction was not too rigidly controlled or administered, I guess. In later years, because the, for example, research work was not really high classified. Most—a lot of it wasn’t. But it was something that was always there. Of course the badging was always—I remember one time incident I had which was funny—rather humorous. I was in a meeting out in one of the hundred areas, in a back room in some building and we were having a discussion. All of the sudden a door burst open and two patrolmen came in and said, where’s Del Ballard?! I’m over here. [LAUGHTER] Hey, come with me! They took me by the arms and whisked me outside and outside the badge house. I said, what’s going on? What’s the problem? They said, you don’t have a badge! I said, what do you mean I don’t got a badge. I looked at it and it was somebody else’s badge—name on it. They had given me the wrong badge! [LAUGHTER] So they were, I guess, vigilant in their control. But some of the times you thought it was a little overreach. It was always there, that’s for sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: You mentioned a couple jobs not necessarily at Hanford—I think you said Idaho Falls at one point, or other locations around? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Yes, we had a project—I guess I sort of skipped over that—in the Engineering Test Reactor in Idaho Falls. The fuels people here—research people—wanted to do some testing in the Engineering Test Reactor with certain issues or problems that they were trying to develop from the fuel technology. So we put in two high pressure loops over there. Again, I was the project person on it. I didn’t do the design work, I did the procurement and the construction management. Philips Petroleum was the operating contractor over there at the Engineering Test Reactor. So I went over there and saw that those loops were completed and put in place and in operation. It was in 1958. I spent, well, most of that year over there, back and forth. My wife was really unhappy, because that was the year that we had started our house. So I had—coming home on weekends and trying to keep that sorted out. Because we had a foreman working with the carpenters building the house. So it was kind of stressful for her. Yeah, and then I had to go back for the next year after that for some cleanup work on the project. It was another project that was managed by Hanford, but installing a reactor over there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: I’m curious how sort of insular Hanford was, versus how much it was common for people to get advice from outside of the Area, or to travel to different facilities and learn what they were doing, or share what you were doing with others? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I think that’s probably more prevalent in the technical field than it is in the construction area. Yeah, there certainly was in a nuclear complex, there was—and we did have travels. I did visit some other sites. Occasionally the laboratories on some of the projects we had. But most of that was done by the technical department, not the engineering department. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: How much has the community changed, and in any particular ways during the time you’ve lived here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, it’s gone from a small community to a much higher-traffic area than it used to be. But the people say it’s still pretty mild. Of course I’ve traveled to Los Angeles quite a bit; I had relatives in Los Angeles. And I’d grow accustomed to that mainly down there too. But it’s still—the Tri-Cities is still a nice place to live, I think. It doesn’t have a lot of the big city hubbub that other places do, but it certainly has changed a lot from what it was when I came. My wife came in 1944. Of course that was when it was sand and dust piles and no trees and no grass. It was a lot like that when I came, too, although it was developing. But the first few years that the Manhattan Project workers were here, they had some pretty rough goes. Of course the government would operate a city was an entirely different situation than we have now with private ownership and private management of the company—or local management of the company there. When the government operated the city, it was—you’ve heard these stories before, I know. Even lightbulbs were changed by the employees of the government. [LAUGHTER] So that was a big change. But when we got married we were renting from the government but as soon as they sold the houses we built our own and were on our own. So we’ve lived pretty much as a private city in all of our married life. So that hasn’t been a major change. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Anything else—nothing else in particular I’m fishing for here—did anything else come to mind, as far as changes in, I don’t know, spirit of work at Hanford or changes in the communities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, the government management of the Hanford site has certainly undergone lots of changes, much as our society has, I think, over the last 50 years. When GE operated the plant, I felt and a lot of us felt that the program was defined in general in scope and the contractor was given a block of money and there they went. They did the job. They didn’t have the oversight or the detail management or the daily exchange as much with the government, I think, as they do now. I think that’s been a change in philosophy or change in detail of management more. A lot of it is because the public’s been more closely involved. Like the different committees that are involved in the oversight with the DoE that they didn’t have at that time. Of course when the Manhattan Project started, it was even further away than that. Nobody outside the Project knew what was being done. They were building the atomic bomb and nobody knew was done except the organization involved in it. Now, anything the government does it’s public knowledge and has 100 different reviews over a period of a decade before they get anything done. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Of course all these decades we’re talking about here are during the Cold War, and nuclear weapons are wrapped up in a lot of that and nuclear power. Was that ever something that was on your mind, or that were you aware of? Or was that just something that was going on far away? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: No, I think the Cold War and the conflict with Russia was well-known because of all the cautions and concerns about the atomic weapons and people—during the crisis that peaked in the early ‘60s and we were in hard conflict with Russia. A lot of concern about what might happen. It was a different era and there was a lot of awareness of the potential that there could be a nuclear conflict. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Did it ever impact your life, or your wife’s life more or less directly? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I don’t think we—we thought we were protected, we thought we had the national security to take care of it. And I guess we didn’t really worry about it—it was something you didn’t really dwell on, I don’t think. Although they told the students and the kids—some people did build bomb shelters. My neighbor, Dr. Petty, they had one at their house under the lawn in the front yard. When they built the house, they put in a bomb shelter. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: [INAUDIBLE] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Nobody knew about it but them, but I knew about it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Did you ever see the inside of the shelter? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: I never was in it, no. But I know it’s there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Let’s see. So I guess we’ve sort of covered this. Could you describe the ways in which security and or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I guess from the work that I did in the engineering specifications and drawings and documents that related to projects, we had to worry about the classification on them. You had to worry about the access—access to different projects at different facilities. Of course you had to have the right clearance. So it was a restraint on work in some respects. But it wasn’t a major impact, I don’t think. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: In more recent years—well I guess I don’t know how long—you’ve been working with the B Reactor Museum Association and other groups interested in the history of the local community. Can you tell me how you got involved with that and sort of the history of that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Sure can. I retired in ’89. And then as I said, I went back to work on a part-time basis. But during that period, the Environmental Impact Statements had been written, and the mission at Hanford was changing from production to cleanup. All the documents and all the philosophy that was being disseminated was, we were going to tear everything down and dispose of everything in the Project. I was the representative to the Tri-City Technical Council. It was a group of only local affiliate—all local agent—sections or groups from the technical society’s engineering—civil, mechanical, electrical, nuclear, women’s organizations—all the technical organizations had what they called a Tri-City Technical Council. And we met monthly and addressed the issues for technology dissemination or issues that might affect the community from what we might recommend or so forth. From that group, we learned—we knew what the DoE was getting into, transition-wise into the cleanup of the site. They were going to tear everything down. And we said, well, we don’t want that to happen to some of these historic facilities. The B Reactor, for example, was the world’s first production reactor. And it was very consequential from the history, both of our nation and the world, as far as that. And also the kick-off for nuclear power. So we said, we ought to do something about that. So we formed a committee. I was one of the people of that committee. And we met in July of 1990, was our first meeting. We talked about an organization and how we might form a group that would lead toward the preservation of B Reactor. We decided to form an association. So we had an attorney draw up our bylaws and we formed an organization called the B Reactor Museum Association. We got our state corporate action—I forget what word they use to describe the initiation of the organization in January of 1991. But I consider the organization being formed in 1990. And our objective was to educate the public about the historical significance of B, and to do what we could to preserve the reactor, to see that it was preserved. To gain access and to develop exhibits and so forth for the exhibits. So that was where we started, was way back in 1990. And all during the decade of the ‘90s, we were meeting and fighting with the Department of Energy because they had milestones after milestones that were established on the cleanup and disposal of all the reactors. B was put into the list later on, but it was always on the list for cocooning, as all the reactors would be. We got those milestones extended over the years. And finally, with persuasion and meeting with legislators, Sid Morris and I met with Sid Morris and—I don’t remember the year now, but it was one of the first times that he was sympathetic for the theme that we preserve the historical relic. And of course, later on Doc Hastings. We had many meetings and persuasions with all the legislators. Of course, Cantwell and Murray got on board over the years. It later progressed into the fact that we want to have a study to see if the Parks Service could preserve it. One time during the late ‘70s, I believe it was, several people thought that the REACH would be the only chance of preserving the B Reactor. They would be the ones that would sponsor the tours and provide for the access and so forth. I said, no, I said, I don’t believe that. I said, I think we want to get the Parks Service involved because I don’t know that even the REACH is going to have the muscle to do it. So we got meetings with the legislators and we got a study authorized for the Parks Service study. That was after two or three years of trials and tribulations. It was finally approved. When the Parks Service first came out—you’re probably aware of the fact that they didn’t have—they just had Los Alamos as the sole main site for the park. And we said, that would never sell. It had to include all the sites: Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Hanford. So they revised their study and made it a three-site park. It was eventually approved and then later legislation—Doc Hastings and Cantwell got the park legislation authorized. BRMA of course has been involved—has been the agency chipping at their heels all the way through all this. [LAUGHTER] We finally got credit for it. For many years, they didn’t really recognize BRMA as the organization that made it happen, but I think we had an awful lot to do with what made it happen. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Were you ever associated with any of the other local history-related groups? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, yes. We were affiliated with the CREHST museum. We worked with them and the REACH also. But we were the ones that were pushing—BRMA—the B Reactor specifically. We still have a lot of partnerships. We had memorandums of understanding with DoE and the CREHST and with—I guess we don’t have one with the REACH but we still meet with them. Matter of fact, they’re working on this new exhibit for the Cold War exhibit. Of course they’ve got—there’s four of us from BRMA that are on those meetings, but there’s a lot of other community leaders involved, too, obviously. And that was what happened is we were the—BRMA was the organization that was in the trenches early on. But later on, the whole community and the region and the legislators all got on board. So there was a lot of emphasis and support for getting it preserved and getting it converted, or made into a national historic park. Have you seen the plaque out there at B Reactor that says we’re the ones that initiated the plan to preserve it. So, yeah, I’m quite proud of that. I was one of the founding members of the organization. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Why did it matter to you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, it’s important, I think, to preserve the history. It’s a significant part of the nation’s history. And if it’s going to be educational for the—a good place for the students, the young kids to come up and learn what the nuclear industry’s all about. I still say—and I’ve said for twenty years—that—I don’t know how many years down the road it’s going to be, but I think nuclear power’s going to be a major source of energy. Commercial electrical as well as all the other fields—medical and research. It still has an important place to play in our total nation’s history, I think. And we need to know how it started and what problems it caused. Let’s not generate those again. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: What would you— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: So that’s the story that’s going to be told in the park, and I think a lot of people—that’s some of the emphasis. People come out and see the comments in the paper, all the negative comments. Well, that’s true, but the story’s still there and needs to be told. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in Richland during the Cold War? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I don’t know. It was a challenge, I guess. The success—I’m glad that we developed the bomb rather than Hitler. Like how Fermi said, he said when he was working on fission in Italy in the late ‘30s—the 1930s, yes. He always said he was eternally grateful that he didn’t learn how to control fission then. He said if he had have, Hitler would have started the war with them, rather than us ending the war with them. So I think they need to know what the conditions were at the time that the Manhattan Project was built and what the world was undergoing at the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: What else should I be asking about? What else is there that we should discuss? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: I don’t know! I think I pretty well spilled everything I know. Unless—I don’t know. I could mention about my—as you know, I was not here during the Manhattan Project. It was over when I came in 1951. My wife and her family was a different story. They came with DuPont in 1944. So her dad was a DuPont employee and he came out here at that time and saw the conditions in employment problems that they had at that time. He was a machinist and had actually directed the tech shops out there for many years. So he probably—that family has more history of the Manhattan Project than I do. Mine is just history. It was—I’ve had an interesting career and I guess I’ve enjoyed it here and it’s been a wonderful place to live. I think it will continue to be if we have people that keep our city from growing into something that it shouldn’t be. [LAUGHTER] But I guess I don’t have any new subjects to talk about unless you have new questions. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: I think—that’s my list for now, but thank you so much for being here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, it’s been a pleasure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: All right, great. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Tom Hungate: I had a question. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Please. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Hungate: One of the jobs you had—you had a wide variety of jobs; all of them sound fascinating to me. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Oh, they’re interesting, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Hungate: One caught my ear, because I’ve seen these. Tell me what it was like when you said you worked on the K Reactors to lay—you said you were laying up the block. Tell—describe what that process was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I wasn’t involved in that deeply as a lot of the fellows were. I can’t remember his name right now, but the primary engineer that had the graphite technology. That graphite was machined in the 101 Building. Well, actually the old reactor’s was in the old 101 Building in White Bluffs. They built a new building, the 2101 Building in the 200 East Area which was specifically for the graphite machining and layup—test layups. Those blocks were built to very tight tolerances. The graphite came in in square blocks from the manufacturers and they had to be machined to the final configuration. Those tolerances were very, very tight, like plus or minus two mils or five mils at the most. The blocks were basically four-and-three-quarters inches by four-and-three-quarters inches by 40-some inches long—the main block. After they were machined to very close tolerances, they were test stacked in the 2101 Building, laid up ten tiers to be sure that the tolerances of the assembly were precise. And from there they were packaged on pallets in sequence that they would go in, in reverse sequence, so when they took them off they were ready to be stacked up. And then they were shipped—brought into the reactor vessel, lowered down into the open process area in the center part of the core and pulled off the pallets and just stacked, piece by piece. There’s pictures available that you see of the old reactors. There may be some of K Reactors too, I don’t know, but show inside the reactors when they’re laying up with the blocks. Of course everybody’s in whites. Your cleanliness control’s very important. And of course, obviously, sequence was very, very important, to have all the blocks in there. But from my perspective, I just watched—I wasn’t doing the work, I was just part of the process that was putting them in there. It was very closely controlled and very temperature controlled—well, no, I don’t know about the temperature. The building was under limited temperature control. But the cleanliness was strictly controlled, and the workers of course had been assigned with each pallet that came in, they knew where it went and how it was to be laid. But that was the same process that was used in all the reactors for graphite layup. But that’s amazing, the way they built those things. You have all the penetrations, like—I can’t give you the numbers. K Reactors were bigger than the old original reactor. The original reactor had 2,004 process tubes. You probably all know the story of that, too. [LAUGHTER] But what I started to say was, the alignment of the holes in the blocks, of course, had to line up with the holes of the penetrations of front and rear faces precisely when they put them in. So it was like putting a watch together on a 40-foot-square [LAUGHTER]—40-foot cube. Very precise work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Were there any mistakes? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Pardon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: Did you ever see any mistakes? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, no, but if there were they were corrected as they went, because they had two or three levels of inspection verified that they were going in properly. There may have been some, I don’t know. I was not in direct control of that job. I was more on the K Reactor, I just was in oversight. I don’t remember what my position was at that time, but—the B Reactor, for example, you know what happened there when they started it up? It died because of the xenon poison. They didn’t have enough neutron flux levels to override that poisoning effect. That’s when they had to add the additional fuel channels outside the original 1,500 that they had that the physicist said was adequate to drive the reactor. So that was an interesting job. They had to—the later reactors, they had more knowledge of what the requirements were. So the design wasn’t—it didn’t create a problem on initial startup like B Reactor did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: We were trying to outline or highlight—what sort of innovations came out of Hanford, what sort of inventions did you see—what new knowledge or techniques did you see created at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, there again, you need to talk to the physicists and chemists and people that were in the fuel design areas. There were so many changes made to the fuel designs. They went from—of course these were only applicable to the graphite reactors the modern fuel originally were eight inches long when the distortion that occurred in the graphite, that was because of the structure change due to the radiation in the graphite. The channels were distorted to the point where some were so crooked that the eight-inch channel—the fuel wouldn’t go through the channel. SO they went to four-inch people—four-inch long fuel assemblies in some of those bad channels. And then of course another knowledge was the design of fuel assembly, you went from strictly external core where they just had an annulus of water around the outside cooling the fuel assembly. It went to a center core; they had internal cooling—a flow channel through the center of the element. But as far as the physics of the elements, they went from totally natural uranium, originally 238, all naturally derived with 0.7% 235. They went to some enrichment in the reactors to increase the power level. But there was physics changes all along, as far as being able to control and just knowledge of impurities and what the effects were in the nuclear physical—the physics involved in the reactor. But of course, then the Breeder Program, we didn’t talk about that. There’s a lot of advancements made there. FFTF was a marvelous machine and it produced a lot of new information from greener technology. That FFTF was—I spent ten years on development—seven on development and three on construction, so. But I wasn’t—I’m not a physicist and wasn’t into the technology as much as the people—I was more into construction, design and construction. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: A lot of knowledge there, too, that you—hands-on knowledge. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Well, I always pride myself on being able to fix problems. We had a lot of things on assembly or putting the stuff together that just—problems or interferences or arrangements that weren’t thought of in design that we were able to resolve in the field, and that’s why I got into—I’ve been building houses for Habitat now for the last 15 years. [LAUGHTER] It’s a little different from putting reactors together, but I get a lot of comments from the instruction people in Habitat. This is not a reactor; we don’t need to have those tolerances. [LAUGHTER] But I say if you make it right, it looks a lot nicer and it goes together better. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> O’Reagan: All right, I guess that’s the list of questions I’ve got. I guess we’ll end it once again. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX9056486"> Ballard: Okay, well, appreciate. </div> Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O' Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Del Ballard Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:52:34 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 249 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 321 Building 400 Area 200 East Area 2101 Building 101 Building C Reactor B Reactor K Reactor High Temperature Lattice Test Reactor Engineering Test Reactor Fast Flux Test Facility Fuels and Materials Exam Facility Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1989 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Morris, Sid Hastings, Doc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Del Ballard Description An account of the resource An interview with Del Ballard conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland. Nuclear instruments & methods Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/18/2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-08-10: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 101 Building 200 East Area 2101 Building 300 Area 321 Building 400 Area B Reactor C Reactor Engineering Test Reactor Fast Flux Test Facility Fuels and Materials Exam Facility General Electric Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) High Temperature Lattice Test Reactor K Reactor Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ff94d2996a41bb42451cb4c2277070e99.jpg f3dfb8cfffc8a88f464ad65796b1208b https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2f0d6a8c9fc260c9cd52ec998cdd8d60.mp4 c73deb8f268f89a07d4b7cfe5cc47900 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Douglas O’Reagan: Okay. Well, thanks for being here, first of all. To start off, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Sue Olson: Sue, S-U-E. Olson, O-L-S-O-N. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Okay, thank you. And I am Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral interview here as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. It’s February 5th, 2016. This interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. So just to get us started, would you please tell us something about your life before you came to Hanford? Where you were growing up and so on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: I was born in Claude, Texas. I graduated from Panhandle High School as valedictorian in my class. I went to Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. Then went to University of Texas in Austin, Texas. I was—[COUGH] Excuse me. I was in college in an accounting class at the University of Texas in Austin when World War II was declared. I heard the President declare World War II. So at the end of that year, I took a civil service test as clerk typist and I started working for US Corps of Engineers. I first worked at Pantex Ordnance Plant in Amarillo, Texas, and I had to transfer to Tyler, Texas to an army replacement training. And then after that, I received a teletype that I was to enter in for Hanford. We had received a teletype from a lady who had transferred up here, and she had said, don’t come here. It’s rattlesnakes, sagebrush, and dust storms. [LAUGHTER] So I transferred to the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. And Manhattan Project had three areas—I worked for the army major who was in charge of one of the areas there. DuPont was the contractor there. And at Oak Ridge, I met Robert Olson, who was with me at DuPont. Before I met him, he worked at the University of Chicago to work on the Manhattan Project—he worked on at the University. And he transferred to Oak Ridge; I met him there. We were married there, and then we transferred to Hanford, with DuPont. We arrived here October 1st, 1944. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: What sort of work did you do at Oak Ridge? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, he and I were at DuPont getting ready to work. The work on the Manhattan Project was to develop the bomb. That was what it was for. And he worked at Oak Ridge. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Do you know what sort of—was he working in chemicals or physics? Do you know what sort of work he was doing there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: No, because it was all secret. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: I see. And did you say you were also working there as a clerk? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: I worked as a secretary for the Army Major, who was in charge of the X-10 area in Oak Ridge. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Okay. When you arrived at Hanford, what sort of work did you undertake here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Oh, I signed up to be secretary and DuPont was the contractor here for the first year or so. And they sent me out to 200 West Area to be in the stenographic pool. I was the only secretary there. There were several departments, and all the departments brought their paperwork in to me. [LAUGHTER] And I took dictation for all of them who wanted to write letters of any type. Then they sent another girl out—another secretary out, but she couldn’t take dictation. So I did all of that. There were several departments. I don’t remember the names of all the departments, but it was a major process. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Was it similar to what you were doing at Oak Ridge, or was it a new kind of work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: It was the same kind of work, secretarial work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Right. What was your impression of the Tri-Cities when you arrived? Was it like you had been warned? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: No. [LAUGHTER] We drove along the highway south of town, and Bob looked over and said, there it is. And we could see a few houses. We went to the hotel to check in at the hotel, and the hotel was called the transient quarters. [LAUGHTER] The hotel in Oak Ridge was called the guest house. We were in the hotel about three days. Then we moved into—at that time the houses were assigned to people. There were only the two of us, and so they moved us into a one-bedroom prefab on Winslow Street. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: In Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Winslow Street in Richland. And there was one street behind that, and behind that street was desert, all the way out to the river. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: What were your impressions of the house? Did you like the house? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, the house was adequate. It was 600 square feet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Had a question and it went right out of my mind. [LAUGHTER] Okay. So could you tell us, what was an average day at your job? You said you took dictation, but what other kinds of work— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Typing. In 200 West Area in 1944, it was typing. Except for the people who dictated. One man came in one day and he dictated the evacuation process, which took him several hours to do it. And the evacuation process—if it had ever had to happen—the process was that it would be on buses—cattle car buses. [LAUGHTER] The seats were on the sides of the bus, vertically, not horizontally across as they are in most buses. But there was never an evacuation process. There was preparation for it, if it had happened. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Interesting. I understand the transportation to get to jobs on the Hanford site was difficult. Did you take buses? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, there were buses. There were buses, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Was that a long commute? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Yes. I don’t remember the number of miles, but it’s a long commute from Richland into the West area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: What was your husband working on? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: He worked on—it was a group of scientists that were—13 or 14 or 15, something like that—and they wrote the separations process. Which was part of the process. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: I guess that was probably a different part of the Hanford site from where you were working? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: No, it was in 200 West Area, too. Yes. And it was a group of scientists who had transferred from Oak Ridge along with Bob. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Right. Could you please describe Hanford as a place to work? It’s a broad question. Let’s see—what were some of the more challenging aspects of your job? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, that I typed for eight hours a day. I typed or took dictation eight hours a day. No coffee breaks, nothing like that, and everything was confidential. Nobody discussed their job with any other person. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: I would guess you would have had to have had pretty high clearance to be taking dictation on all these sensitive matters. What was that process like? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, I worked in Two West and then I transferred to B Plant, and I went to 300 Area. My next job, I worked for Wilfred Johnson when he was assistant general manager. And I worked in the 703 Building. I had Top Secret clearance there. So I had kept the filing cabinet locked. I took dictation from him. The rest of it was the type you’re making phone calls. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: When did you find out about what the goal of the Hanford site was, to make the weapons? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: When the bomb was dropped, I read it in the local paper. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: What was your reaction? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: I was happy. That the US was going to be safe. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Right. Do you—trying to think how to phrase—is that your impression of that’s when everybody around you found out as well, or was it sort of a general surprise that the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Yes. It was a surprise to everybody, I think. That’s my opinion. Except the men like my husband who were working on it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Did you continue working at the Hanford site after the war? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Yes. I worked there for ten years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Did your work change substantially once the war was over? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, as I said, I worked as a secretary in 200 West, and then I moved to B Plant. And I worked in B Plant, and then I went to the 300 Area and was a secretary for the head of metallurgy. And then I had the job as—I was then an executive secretary for Wilfred “Bill” Johnson. And I retired after that period. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Did the workplace environment change in that time? You mentioned there were no breaks at first. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Change in what way? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: You mentioned it was very focused work during the war, no breaks, really concentrating to get the job done. Did that become more relaxed eventually, or was it still the same pace? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Not in the jobs I worked on. Everybody was there to work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: No coffee breaks, nothing like that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Interesting. How about—can you tell us something about your life outside of work during the wartime? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: We skied. Bob was from Wisconsin. He was a skier. And I grew up in Panhandle, Texas, and I did not ski. But I took lessons. And we skied on weekends. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Where would you go? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: We went to the closest one, over by—the closest one, which was south of East Richland. Tollgate. We went to Tollgate and skied there. And then we went up to the Snoqualmie Pass, and we skied there when it had only three rope tows. Before they put in any kind of lifts. It was—and I don’t remember the year for that, but—shortly after we got here, we went to Snoqualmie Pass. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Did the social environment—did life in Richland change for you outside of work once the war was over? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, there were a few more activities, because while the war was going on, there was nowhere to go. [LAUGHTER] We had a friend from Oak Ridge we played bridge with part of the time, and then we skied weekends. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Did you feel it was easy to meet new people when you moved here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Did I feel--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: I’ve heard some people say that when they first got here, they had a very easy time meeting people; I’ve heard other people say when they got here, they were so focused on the work, they didn’t get to meet as many people— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Oh, no, no, because we had friends from Oak Ridge who were transferred who were scientists. And people who were at work in that kind of work. So we visited with them, and they—we all had a little group, all the people that came from Oak Ridge. So we had several friends. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Let’s see. Could you describe any ways in which security or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, of course. [LAUGHTER] No visiting, no coffee breaks—we worked. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Did the secrecy continue outside of work? I’ve seen in some communities that people feel that they can’t talk about the work, and that sort of gets—someone last week was describing how she sort of felt she had to be on her guard about speaking about her work. She was afraid of that. Did you feel any sort of sense like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: We didn’t discuss—we did not discuss work, because we were busy with whatever we were doing—playing bridge or dancing or skiing. So there was no reason to discuss work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Sure. When you retired from being a secretary, you mentioned you eventually got into real estate. Is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Was that right away, or did you have a [INAUDIBLE] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: No, it was not. My husband died in 1974, and so I was at home. I did volunteer work for 20 years. I had no plans to go back to work, but after his death, I decided to work in real estate. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Will you tell us about your volunteer work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Oh, yes, Kadlec Hospital Auxiliary, and Mid-Columbia Symphony Guild, and Girl Scouts. All types of volunteer work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Great. What kinds of things did you do at the hospital? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Volunteer work. I would go down at 7:00 in the morning, and I answered the phone in one of the departments—I think it was the children’s department, that was part of what I did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: And when you started getting into real estate, can you tell me about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Yes, yes. I took classes at CBC. I studied hard for it, and I passed the test. I started to work for a company called—let’s see—Sherwood and Roberts. They were a company that had offices in this state and California and some other state. I worked for them four years, and then I transferred to other companies. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Did that job change over time? I know the communities started expanding during that period— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Oh, well, yes, there was more work as the company got larger. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Could you describe any ways in which you think of the Tri-Cities as changing over the first couple of decades you lived here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Well, it got larger. Larger, and they built more houses out past Winslow [LAUGHTER] Winslow Street. Well, of course it changed. There were more activities. Everybody was more—and there were people transferring in and out from large companies. There were a lot of people who came here who had worked for other companies that came here. And some had worked for General Electric or whoever the major contractor was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Let’s see. Of course, during a lot of this era, the Cold War is going on as well. Did you feel that that was something sort of just off happening in the world, or was that something that you felt impacted your life? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: The Cold War? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Yeah, of course, there’s sort of this global conflict going on. There’s a lot of still building nuclear weapons, there’s thinking about use of nuclear weapons. Some people have described sort of a fear during that time, and other people have described they were happy—they went about their work and it didn’t bother them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: No, there was no fear to me personally. I was happy to see that the US was doing a job extremely well. I hoped it would continue to be good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Let’s see. This is a general question. How would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the period that you lived here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: I think they should all be very proud of it, because it ended the war. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Right. Is there anything that you think children growing up today might not know about this period? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: I have no idea whether they know or not. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Sure. Is there anything you think, beyond—sorry, I have to—trying to think through, just—as people have lived here for some time start thinking back on their lives in the community, how they would like people to think about the history of the local community? I guess you’ve answered that to some degree: we should be proud about the contributions of the time. I guess what I’m trying to get at is—what was different in, say, the ‘60s or the ‘70s, in living in this era than it is today? Anything come to mind? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: I don’t think there was anything different from living in any good community or city. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: One of the local community leaders here—we understand you knew Sam Volpentest— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: --who contributed a lot to the local history. Would you describe your knowledge of his impact, what he was working on when you got to work with him? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: He was a major impact. He saved the Tri-Cities time after time after time. He made contacts in Washington, DC and he kept them. He flew back and forth frequently. Without his perseverance, the Tri-Cities would never have become as good as it had been. He kept sure that Hanford was going, which, at that time, was a main project in the Tri-Cities. And the best one producing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: I always like to ask—what have I not asked about that I should be asking about? What else should I be asking you about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Oh, I don’t know. Nothing else. [LAUGHTER] I think you asked very well, thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: Well, if anything comes to mind, or anything you’d like to expand upon comes to mind, we’d of course love to hear it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: All right, thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: But otherwise, thanks so much for being here. It’s been very interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> Olson: Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX15306174"> O’Reagan: All right. </div> Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O' Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Sue Olson Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:18:53 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 245 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 West Area B Plant 300 Area 703 Building Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1944-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1944-1964 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Olson, Robert Johnson, Bil Volpentest, Sam Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Sue Olson Description An account of the resource An interview with Sue Olson conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2/5/2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-08-09: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 200 West Area 300 Area 703 Building B Plant Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6c10e7cd5c77c67e2ed1ebcce4a63ef6.jpg 87ee9053e27e2c67bb21a94229a21fe3 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fdad70d298e5bf3f027f0463a19488be2.mp4 b415b0ea09ed2f30f8b71066b333122f Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Douglas O’Reagan: My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Everett A. Weakley on January 13th, 2016. Interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And I will be talking with Everett, or Ev—would you prefer Everett, or--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Just—yeah, Ev or Everett. Either one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Douglas O’Reagan: Okay. About his experiences working on the Hanford site. Okay, well thanks for being here. So—you were just telling me while we were having some camera issues—I’d love to hear about sort of how you got involved with the Hanford site, what you were working on that brought you here, and then your sort of early years, what you were working on here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, they came up to University of Idaho and recruited people. And I was one of the ones they recruited. So I came down here, and they put me on work at the tritium program extraction process. So I was a process control engineer at that time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Do you know why they recruited you? Were you working in physics? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: They were after engineers, especially chemical engineers at that time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I see. Did you know anything about nuclear science specifically? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, no. We didn’t know squat. [LAUGHTER] Of course. Because we were up at University of Idaho. But it was a lot better than being drafted and sent to Korea. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: How much were they able to tell you about the job before they hired you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Very little. Very little. They didn’t tell us what was going on. They came down here and they put some people—engineers in this job, some in this job. I was selected for tritium extraction. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Could you tell me about your first experiences on that job? What sort of the first month or two like? Do you remember? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, they put us on shift work. I think it was called XYZ shift. And it was only five days a week, but it was—changed. So they were going 24 hours a day, but only for five days. It was a glass line at that time. Tritium was extracted and then you had to send it—you had to pump it out through palladium windows—that’s the way they got the hydrogen out, and the tritium and the deuterium. And then we had to collect those in glass containers. It was all hooked up to the system. And then we were designing one for a metal one. So I went in on the metal designs also. And most of that work was done in the shops down in—oh, what do they call it—the old Hanford site. They had a lab—or a place down there, and they did most of the work—construction work. And then they assembled it all. It was interesting work, actually. Because they kept me out of the Korean War, also, so I was happy about that. I didn’t want to go over there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Part of what we’re trying to get an idea about is sort of—what was it like working on the Hanford site? Is there anything that sticks out to you about the way things worked? Or the structure, or anything like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, since I was a single guy, they put us in the dorms. They ran out of dorms, so they put us—there was two dorms that were down in the women’s dorm area. So they put us in one of those dorms down there. I remember there was a—what the heck street was that? Anyway, those women’s dorms were right close there, too. And then we’d go up and eat at the Mart, which is still here, but it isn’t called the Mart now. And we’d walk through this field of—I think they were prunes or plums or something like that. And you’d go through there and you’d get attacked by the birds. [LAUGHTER] They would actually attack you during the daytime. So it was a lot of things going on. For dorm club, we’d go down to—oh, the Blue Mountains, and we’d go up to Mount Hood, and hunting and fishing was always what I did. It was a good place. Lot of people. It was interesting, because everybody was new, had come in. It was quite the exciting time to see all these people from all over the United States. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Did you live in the dormitories long? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, let’s see. I lived in there until I got married in ’53. Then we got a B house on Van Giesen Street—one end of it. And I wasn’t the oldest tenant, so I could not buy that anyway. I wouldn’t want it anyway. And then they started selling houses; I got a H house, south end of town and had to remodel that. Had to dig out the basement and all that. By that time, I had several children, so I kind of had to make room for all these kids. Took out the chimney. My wife did not like the coal-burning stove down there to heat the place. So we put in electric baseboard heat. Swamp coolers on the windows. Re-put new—took the chimney out. Had to put new roofing on. All that sort of thing. And later on, we moved to where we are on Pike Avenue now. Then we had more kids. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Keep you busy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: That’s right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: What was life like in Richland in the ‘50s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, it was kind of—there was always something to do. Mainly, down along the river in the park. We’d go down there for entertainment in the evenings. There’d be dances. And then I took up square dancing, my wife and I. So that was in different places, but mainly at the end, it was down in the—what do they call it, down there now? At the park. Oh, community house. It’s still going. I think this is their last year. We used to be on what’s now a hole in the ground, on the south end of that building, was where they used to have a structure. That’s where we danced, it was in that. And they had a kitchen in there; everybody’d bring food. It was a nice time. Had a lot of fun. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: So you said—do you feel it was easy to get integrated into the community, to be a part of the community at that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: What do you mean? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Well, I’m just thinking in terms of your—you’ve been describing a very interesting social scene that people can get into. I’m just thinking, there were a lot of new people coming into town. How—you yourself, of course, experienced this—what it was like to be a new resident in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, mainly you were in dorms. So, you were all right out of college. Here you are, a bunch of college kids, here—men, and then college women right next door to them. So there was a lot of dating going on. Then we’d go over to Pasco, to the Elks Club at that time. And on Friday nights, they always had a fish dinner. We’d go over there and dance and eat. That was a good time. That was ballroom dancing, it wasn’t square dancing. That was later. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: So returning to your work for a minute, I guess to some degree you’ve done this, but could you sort of describe a typical work day, and did that change over the long course of time that you were working there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, when I went out there, I had to work shift work. XYZ shifts. You’d work daytimes, evenings, and nighttime. I didn’t like that too well. Then when I went to 300 Area, I was all daytime, which I liked. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: How much did the work you were doing change as you got these successive promotions, as you got the new jobs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Yeah. I mean, when you were an engineering assistant, was your—I’d assume—if only because it’s decades earlier—how different was your work than when you were principal engineer or senior principal engineer? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, the added responsibility, of course. And I spent a lot of time in the old reactor fuel and then I wrote a lot of documents on how to—the canning process. And that’s probably in here—I’m pretty sure it is. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I noticed here, it says that you are an expert on fuel manufacturing environmental issues. I wonder what—when did that become a priority? The environmental issues, was that something that was always part of your work, or did that develop over time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Environmental issues—you worried about what was going out the stacks, especially in 313. We had slug recovery—we’d take the aluminum—the ones that were reject—and they would dissolve the aluminum cans off in caustic, and they always had this exhaust going out. If you didn’t watch it, it would suck out quite a bit of moisture with it, and that would have caustic in it. We had trouble with the women walking by—their nylon hose would disintegrate. And they didn’t like that. I don’t blame them. And you could feel it—you could feel it on your face. They had to fix that up, of course. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Were safety issues or the environment ever something you were concerned about working there? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah, I was always worrying about—And then at the 306 Building, making fuel elements for the N Reactor, I was involved in that—a lot of things. I had to make trips to the aluminum companies that made aluminum products for us. Bought them back east, and some of them in California. So I did a lot of traveling, going to these different places, trying to get improvements made in aluminum ore, and later on, Zircaloy-2. That was Wah Chang made that down in Oregon—made Zircaloy-2 for us. That was interesting. So you’d take a drive down there and visit their plant. And then you’d go to these other places and visit those plants. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: These were to get components for the fuel manufacturing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: What’s that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Were these trips to get components for the fuel manufacturing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: They were making components for— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I see. How much—let’s go with this. Could you describe the ways in which security and/or secrecy impacted your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, you couldn’t talk about what you were doing, and we knew that. I made a lot of trips—I went to National Lead Company in Ohio at Fernald. That’s the ones that we would get our uranium cores from, for the old reactors. Then I’d go down to Mallinckrodt in Weldon Spring, Missouri, and that’s where they started making the billets that they’d send up to—on Lake Erie. There was a place that’d take the big billets and make smaller billets for the N Reactor. So I was always traveling around. Then at the same time, I was going down to the Savannah River plant and checking on what they were doing, because they had the same people. Like me, engineers that were busy and they’d get together and compare notes, and try to get the lower prices on some things. Especially aluminum components for the old reactors. Nothing much you could do about the Zircaloy: it was pretty well fixed. The only plant I never go to was the one that made the braze rings for the N Reactor fuel. That was back in—and it had beryllium in it. And I never had gone to there. I don’t know—I just plain missed it for some reason. I don’t know why. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Was it easy to communicate with all the engineers and workers at these plants, or did the secrecy ever sort of inhibit that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, no. If you’re buying, say, Zircaloy stuff, you go right down here in Oregon and talk to them. And that’s what we did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Same way back east on the aluminum plants. Did a lot of traveling. My wife didn’t like that, I don’t think, but we had to travel a lot. And it was old airlines at that time. [INAUDIBLE] had an airline to go to Spokane. You could catch a plane from there, it takes six hours to get into—now takes just a few hours. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Was it unusual that you were traveling that much? Did other people also travel that much from the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, a lot of people were traveling. It’s hectic now. I won’t get on an airplane anymore, so heck with them. [LAUGHTER] I’m retired; I don’t do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Do you feel the security or secrecy of the place changed much over the decades? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah. When I started here it was really secret. They didn’t want the Russians to know anything about making tritium. But the secret got out, because somebody in Savannah River—or down at Oak Ridge probably told them. So nothing we could do about it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: But oh, yeah, they tried to keep it secret. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: What were the most challenging and/or rewarding aspects of your work at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Ooph! That’s a tough one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: It’s a big question. Any particular times that you were working on a project that was really stumping everybody? Any real challenges there that stick out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, there’s always challenges to make things safer and better, and don’t dump stuff out into the atmosphere, or down the drain out to the ponds. Because at that time, they ponds along the river. And it discharges—a lot of stuff went into that pond. They tried to clean that stuff up, but—oh, yeah. When you have time to go through this, you will find a lot of things in here that I worked on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Is there anything in there that you’re particularly proud of having accomplished? Or that sticks out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, I lasted the whole—until I got laid off. [LAUGHTER] That’s an accomplishment—I didn’t get crapped up with anything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Did you like your job? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah, I liked it. Oh, sure. It was a challenging job. I wrote a lot of manuals. That’s one of the things I did, a lot of manual writing when I was out there. There are still some of those around on the processes of lead-dip canning process, and co-extrusion process. I did a lot of writing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Have the Tri-Cities changed much in your time living here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: And how? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah, since I came in ’50? Oh, yeah. There’s a lot of changes. They couldn’t even allow the blacks to live in Kennewick. They had to go over in Pasco, for instance. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: So we didn’t see too many blacks, actually. Now towards the end, they started hiring some people in that were blacks. I had no problem with them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Yeah, we’re trying to get a sense for how the community has changed over time. I know that’s a vague question. That’s certainly an interesting point about the demographics of it. Anything else about sort of the social life, the number of things going, anything else like that that sticks out to you on how the community’s changed over the decades? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, I always had been hunting and fishing. So when I came here, I took up hunting and fishing again. Some of the people that I—I belong to the Rod and Gun Club—joined that many years ago, and I still belong, even though I got rid of my guns last year. I don’t go out and dig goose pits in the middle of the winter anymore. That’s too cold. I didn’t like to eat geese, anyway. [LAUGHTER] But I had a lot of good trips hunting down the Blues and up north of Spokane, up in that area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: One of the things—well, okay. Let me go to this one next. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and/or living in Richland during the Cold War? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Hmm. That’s an odd one. Well, for one thing, we couldn’t announce what we were doing anywhere. If you could, you made sure you didn’t. If they said, hey, you’re from Hanford. But it didn’t bother me on traveling too much. Because I’d usually go on to aluminum vendors or Zircaloy-2 vendors. Or I’d go to Savannah River plant, which has got the same restrictions as we have. And it was a free exchange then when you went there or you went to National Lead at Fernald. It was free exchange with the people there. So that was just like being at work. So I had no really problem with it. I didn’t really like traveling that much. But there was nothing I could do about it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: You were mentioning your collaboration people at Savannah River. Can you tell me more about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: What’s that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: You were mentioning your training people at Savannah River, is that right? Or just trained people who eventually were at Savannah River? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: No, they were—I met one of them. But they sent people up in tritium extraction. Because they built that plant for tritium. The guy that was running the tritium extraction plant was one of them that I trained. And the last trip I made down there, I met him and went into the tritium extraction plant with him and talked to him. He gave me a tour of what it was like. It was a lot different than what we had out here, of course. Then they shipped their stuff again to Oak Ridge. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Okay. So, I’m also interested in how people commemorate their community, how people celebrate the history, or try to remember the history. I understand that you’ve been involved in some of the historical groups around here. Can you tell me something about that? Why you thought that was important, why you got involved with those groups? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Are you talking about the Richland Rod and Gun Club, for instance? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Well, them and also the B Reactor Museum Association and so on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well the B Reactor Association, I was one of the earlier ones, before they got the Indians out there. It was interesting, because I was on the ground floor with them. In fact, I was in a meeting this week with them. I still belong to them. Just like the Rod and Gun Club, I still belong to them, even though I don’t—got rid of all my guns because I don’t go out and dig goose pits in the wintertime anymore. So it was interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I always find that there’s an awful lot of things that I don’t know that I should be asking. What could you—what would seem important or interesting that you might want to talk about, or think might be worth discussing that I might have not thought to ask? Anything that comes to mind? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Hmm. Not right off the top of my head, it isn’t. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Sure, that’s fine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Yeah. We’re just trying, as I said—we’re most interested in getting a feel for life in the Tri-Cities throughout the Cold War, up to the near present. And just how things have changed over time. What it was like to be a worker on the Hanford plants, how work on the Hanford plant changed over time, what it was like living in the community and getting to know people. So really, a broad set of things, but there’s always questions I don’t think to ask. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Okay. Well, you might have some ideas when you go through this later on. They gave me this, had my payroll number on it and all that. My service dates, 6/19/50 is when I came here. And payroll number 51500 was pretty easy to remember, thank goodness. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: As you went through this, did anything— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Huh? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: As you started reading through this again, did any memories leap to mind? Did anything about it sort of jog any fond memories or any surprises? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, we always had surprises. We never knew what was going to happen. Item—let’s see, what is that? Item four. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: I would ship pyrophoric uranium Zircaloy chips and fines back to National Lead. And we had surprises there, because they were supposed to use metal pallets. Somebody brought in wooden ones. And they put all these things that we had full of concrete and chips and fines in it, and they had to take them over across the street into a building. And when they did that, they heated it up and it broke one of the containers, and it caught fire on the shipping containers. They weren’t supposed to use shipping containers. That was a hell of a mess to clean up. Because we had a fire, had to clean all that up then. But we actually shipped the stuff back there and they recovered the uranium and reused it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Well, I think that’s the written questions I have here. There are certainly a lot more interesting stuff here. Again, if anything comes to mind you would like to speak about, we would love to hear a bit more. Also, it mentions here that your historical knowledge of site activities, particularly in 300 Area, has been extremely valuable in the preparation of the RCRA and CERCLA documents and planning. Could you tell me anything about that initiative? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Whereabouts are you? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: It’s number five, sub-point A. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, okay. I did a lot of document writing and preparations of these RCRA and CERCLAs documents and planning. And I worked with—what’s her name? Michelle Gerber? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: I worked a lot of work with her, as she was a kind of historian. You’ve probably met her, of course. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I know the name, but I haven’t actually met her, I don’t think. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: You haven’t met her? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I don’t think so. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Amazing. I’m surprised you haven’t met her yet. Anyway. She needed a lot of work. I would find things in 300 Area when we were cleaning out for the old reactors, getting 313 cleaned out. We would find movies. I’d ship that out to her, and then she made a CD out of it, I think. It showed the canning process, which had never been done before. It was— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Do you think the history of your job is going to be well-preserved? Do you think the records are still there that can reflect on your times, your work? That is again, sort of an open-ended question here. I’m just trying to think through how people will remember this time in history, and sort of the work that you were involved in. You’re mentioning you found this film and were able to get it out there. But probably some materials didn’t make it out, for security reasons or whatever else, or just weren’t preserved. Do you feel that people have an accurate memory of the time as you look through? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, most of them, I think, do. I always rode a bicycle around, between the buildings out in 300 Area. I would collect lead parts that I’d see laying around and get rid of them—or pick up anything else. So that I would ride those into the building. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: I saw—I was out at the DoE’s artifact collection—historical artifact collection. They have some bicycles out there that I guess were what you were describing, people traveling around the site. Was that common? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: What do you mean? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: You were using bicycles to get around the site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Well, it was in our area. Oh, I used it all the time. And it had a basket in the back wheels. I’d put something in there—I would collect lead brick or something like that, and put it where the lead’s supposed to be and kind of clean things up. Well, it was a pretty good-sized area, 300 Area, so if you had to go down to the south end for some reason, you wanted to get there and get back. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Right. Okay. So as I said, I think these are the questions that we had prepared, sort of the general ones here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: You might have some questions when you—well, you can use anything you want out of this write-up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: Yeah, I think this will be a great help. This has been very interesting from my perspective here. We certainly thank you for your time. Yeah, I think that’s at least our first set of questions. But maybe if anything occurs to us, or to you, maybe we could send follow-up questions? Would that be okay, if any questions— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, yeah, you can always get ahold of me if I’m around. I don’t go travel too far since I’m 88. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan: All right. Well, thanks very much. We appreciate your time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: Oh, she’s still back there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> O’Reagan. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX195563363"> Weakley: [LAUGHTER] </div> Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O' Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Everett Weakley Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:32:21 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 240 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area N reactor 306 Building B reactor 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-? Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Gerber, Michelle 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 Everett A Weakley Description An account of the resource An interview with Everett A Weakley conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1/13/2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-08-08: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 300 Area 306 Building B Reactor Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) N Reactor Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd03ed5496b28bc5658b6cedbb7811a1c.jpg cdf4ad783592d80ab92e4e8de08a9132 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd07e75b7aa3d6bdc185fd241f7c3d1c0.mp4 f04f6245b14fb6b4a256f244212221ba 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 O'Reagan, Douglas Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Walkley, Evelyn Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Douglas O’Reagan: First of all, will you please pronounce and spell your name for us? Evelyn Walkley: Evelyn Walkley. E-V-E-L-Y-N, W-A-L-K-L-E-Y. O’Reagan: All right, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview on February 18th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be speaking with Ms. Walkley about her experiences around this area—around the Hanford area and the Tri-Cities area over the 20th Century. Well, thanks for being here. I understand you moved here when you were just a little girl. Walkley: That’s correct. My family moved here in late 1943. So I was ten years old and in the fifth grade. And my father was a journeyman carpenter, so he was recruited to come out for the Hanford Project. Told not to bring his family, because there wasn’t housing. But he brought his family. O’Reagan: Do you remember anything from your life before moving here? Walkley: Yes. We came from Oklahoma and I remember being on a small farm there. The year, or a year-and-a-half before we came here, we had lived in Leadville, Colorado for a few months. Again, my father was working on some—actually, it was a training facility for the Army, I think, up in the mountains of Colorado. I remember being there, and I was in the fourth grade. Very, very crowded school, and you shared your desks and you did not throw away a piece of paper unless it had been written on margins, front side, back side, because the supplies were in short supply. O’Reagan: What were your first impressions of—was it Pasco you moved to? Walkley: Yes. I can remember us driving up—we came over the hills of Pendleton and at some point, hit the Columbia River. I can remember, as a fifth grade kid, knowing that Washington was the Evergreen State. We were getting very close to Washington and I couldn’t figure out where the trees were—how—where is this? We came in to Pasco on a very hot Sunday. We spent the day trying to find a place to live. And there wasn’t one. So that night, my parents parked by the city park in Pasco. We were pulling a trailer and somehow or other, they could raise the lid on this and my parents slept in this trailer. My brother and I slept in the car. That’s where we spent the very first night. No, I take it back: that might have been a Saturday. And then the next day, we went around looking for a place. We found out about this trailer park that is roughly in the area of 10th and Clark in Pasco. Essentially, this was an alfalfa field, and if you had a trailer you could park there. We did not have a trailer, so we pitched a tent that we had brought. The first week we lived in that tent, and there was just a ground cover. My dad started to work. At some point in the next few days, he was able to build a floor and the sides part way up this tent, and then rafters to make it so that you could stand up in it. We lived in that tent for a year. After the year, they were able to buy a little cabin on this place. Of course, none of this—we must have had electricity, but I know that we did not have running water. But at any rate, then they pulled the tent over beside this cabin, and my parents then basically—the cabin was our living room, kitchen, and my parents’ bedroom, and my brother and I slept in the tent. When we were all in the tent, my dad had built double bunkbeds. My parents slept down and my brother and slept up. Because we were all in this 14 by 14 tent. So it’s pretty cozy. O’Reagan: How did the weather treat you? I would think that would get pretty hot and cold in the seasons. Walkley: It was. It, I believe, had some sort of a cook stove. And probably that’s what my mother cooked on. I can remember pretty clearly us being newly in this tent and my parents going to get groceries. And during that time, there was wind blowing. When they came back, everything was covered with sand. I can remember my mother just setting down and crying. She hated it; she wanted to go back to God’s country. But you’d learn to live with sand. Now, it was much better once we had a floor. I can remember my mother bringing in clothes from the clothesline and that they were frozen—and it was kind of freeze-dried. But she’d bring them in, and they’d thaw, and somehow or other dried. But it was—if the wind blew, the wind blew, and the tent flapped all around. And if it was cold, it was cold in the tent. And if it was hot, it was hot in the tent. But other people in this trailer park, and other people in the whole area were in similar circumstances. We did not use our car at all while we were here, because the gas rationing points went to whoever my father carpooled with to get to Richland and Hanford. So any place we went, we walked. So you walked to the movies, standing in line. You walked to the grocery store, which, at that time, downtown Pasco was centered in 4th and Lewis, and just two or three blocks around from that. So we walked all of those places. Walked to school. I went to Longfellow School, which—I don’t know how far that was, but I’d walk on 10th Street, and they were building homes to the west side of 10th Street. When the wind would blow, that sand would come off of there, and would just beat against your legs. I can remember that being a stressful time, because there wasn’t any concern about air pollution. And I’m sure that watering trucks were not available to them, and they were building homes as fast as they could. That was because, essentially, the homes in Pasco ended about 10th Street. So it was—when I think about it now, I think it was really pretty primitive and we were sort of poor folks. But then, so was everybody else. And this was all for the war effort. It was—I think the country was 100% into the war effort. Way different than Vietnam and Korea. So we were saving aluminum foil off of pieces of gum. I’m sure we turned it in to someplace. I never knew where that aluminum went to—probably the trash. O’Reagan: What did you do for water? Walkley: Oh. We must have carried water from some central faucet. I don’t really remember the carrying the water. But I know we didn’t have any running. I think we did have an electric light. I don’t remember any other electric appliances. We may have had them. I was a ten-year-old kid. I didn’t pay attention. But I know that we did not have any indoor plumbing. There was a wash area in the facilities that we used for at least the first year. The second year, I think we maybe had a washing machine of our own. You just carried water, heated it on a stove. Hot water tanks are really nice to have in a home. And running water. O’Reagan: We haven’t spoken to very many people who lived in Pasco in this era, so this is really, really fascinating stuff. Can you tell us about any of the other people who lived near you, or any of the other children you met? Walkley: Most of the other children that I recall early on were native children. They had grown up here. I think that most of the people that I recall in the trailer park were adults. Because they probably heeded don’t bring your families. I know that my parents recruited an aunt and uncle to come up. My uncle worked out on the Hanford Project someplace; my aunt worked at what’s called Big Pasco, which is the big warehouse areas on the river in Pasco. That was all an Army supply depot. My aunt said they had everything from sewing needles to tanks that came in there and were dispersed out. My cousins were older. The place where we lived, that had essentially been an alfalfa farm. I remember my parents talking about our landlords, which were—Fosters was their name—that he had to grow alfalfa and hay to feed his horse. And he had to have the horse because he needed something to help him till the ground. So this just seemed like, stop both of those things and you’re better off! And they did, because they were renting out. I have no idea what we paid to have this tent area. The area in the trailer park—most of the trailers were homemade. There was one Spartan trailer there. I think, maybe, the CREHST Museum had a Spartan trailer. It was aluminum siding and curved front windows. It was a mansion. There was one of those. But I have no experience with the camps that were in Richland and with all of the servicemen that were in Richland. I was a kid, and we didn’t get to Richland, because we were walking. It was—like I say, my mother hated it. She couldn’t wait until the war was over and we could go back to God’s country. But she did find out in 1945, when we did go back for a year and a half that God’s country was economically depressed. So we came back here permanently then in 19—late ’46 or early 1947, and have been here ever since. But as—I believe that the windstorms were worse then, just because of the farming and the construction that was going on. I don’t know that the winds were any worse. But it was a lot dirtier then than it is now. Part of it is different farming practices, not as much construction. And then the people that—when there’s construction sites, now, they’re running water trucks back and forth. And they weren’t doing that in 1944. O’Reagan: Were you still living in that cabin when you moved back, or did you move somewhere else? Walkley: No, when we moved back, we actually moved into a basement apartment that was on 3rd Street in Pasco. I don’t remember the number, but it was north of what is now Pasco City Hall. At the time that we moved there, it was Pasco High School plus a junior high school. We were about three blocks from there, and at that point, then, I was in the seventh grade. Like I say, that was Pasco High School and Pasco Junior High School. Then at some point, my parents purchased a home that was out in the middle of nowhere, and essentially it was—there was no housing around it. This was on Brown Street in Pasco, and from Henry to Court, except for their house, there were no other houses. 5th Street to 10th Street, there wasn’t—and that house had just been—I don’t know when the house was built—pre-war, I’m sure. And it was old. They purchased that in probably 1948 or ’49. And essentially there was just a dirt road—two-lane road going to the house. And then it was kind of normal life. O’Reagan: Was your father still a carpenter throughout this time? Walkley: Yes, he was doing carpentry work until he retired in like 1968, something like that. And in the meantime, they had purchased a little farm on Road 68. It still is a little farm on Road 68. But he was watering and taking care of a few acres of concord grapes while he was also doing carpentry work. O’Reagan: Can you tell us about going to school at, you said, Pasco High? Walkley: Yes. So when we moved back, I was in the seventh grade, and went to the high school, because the junior high was there and, at that time, the north wing was just being built. So you could tell by that that Pasco was really still quite small. My husband and I were in school together, but we did not actually start dating or anything until after we were out of high school. But he actually was a native born, one of the few in the area. His mother actually was born in Walla Walla and he was actually born in Walla Walla, but they lived west of the—what was Central Pre-Mix. It’s somebody else now, but the gravel pit that’s out on West Court Street. They lived on the river where Court Street takes a right angle turn and goes away from the river. So I would say he was part of the downriver people, because their well had to have been Columbia River water. But, like I say, he was a native. His parents had a Chris Craft indoor—not indoor—inboard motorboat—I don’t think I’m using the right term. But at any rate, the government came and said, we want to use your boat. Because they were doing sounding on the Columbia River, and the boat that they had, that apparently was a five horse outboard motor, would not hold the current. So we want to requisition your boat. So apparently my husband’s dad said, well, you can have the boat, but not without me. So he went to work in his boat. And if it was good weather, they did surveying—sometimes in the river and sometimes not. I think if the weather was really bad—and I don’t know whether he went to work or not—but at any rate, at that time, there were really just two big boats on the river, his and I think Havstad’s, which—the Havstad House was what’s now called the Moore Mansion, that’s by the Blue Bridge. So he was—his—my husband’s parents, Glen and Elvira Walkley, were natives. He was PUD commissioner for years and years and active in the community. But let the government use his boat during the war time. O’Reagan: If you were describing your education, your time in high school to students today, what would be different? Trying to get an idea for what life was like. Walkley: Different—that’s the like of automobiles. There was one student that I can recall in the whole high school that would come to school in a car. My husband would also come to school in a vehicle, partly because of the distance that he lived, and he was involved with sports and so there was nothing like an activities bus. But I can remember being in the third floor of that building in the home ec room and looking down and see him coming in. And sometimes he rode in a Cushman scooter, and he’d get off and take off sheep-lined leather clothing, if it was cold. Sometimes he would come in a pickup, and sometimes he would come in a truck, because he was a farm kid. Once in a while, he would come in his folks’ Cadillac. And none of us—most of us—just didn’t know about Cadillac cars. The big fishtails on them. But otherwise, people walked to school, or the kids way out in the country rode the bus. It never—for one thing there would not have been the cars available, and you would not have been able to afford them if they had been. I think that’s probably the biggest thing. Of course, the idea of cell phones—we wouldn’t even have dreamt about that. But our communication was talking to one another. O’Reagan: I guess you still covered—you say you had home ec—I guess you covered the same classes though. Walkley: I was on a track for going to college. But I was taking—the other thing, probably is they’re doing more advanced studies than we ever did. The highest math that I ever had was solid geometry and trigonometry. We didn’t have any calculus. The other thing is the role of girls. There was one other girl in those two upper math classes; and physics class, I think there were only two girls. Now I’m sure it’s just not that way. Plus, the classes are much bigger. Now, the chemistry class—because I think a lot of people must have had to take chemistry—it was pretty well covered, but not physics. I have a story about college. I went to what was then the College of—Washington State College. I went there for two years and then got married, so went a year at Occidental in Los Angeles, and then finished up at what was then the College of Puget Sound, which is now University, like WSU is a University. My major was economics and my minor was geology. When I was at the University of Puget Sound, one of the requirements was a summer geology trip on the San Juan Islands. I was the only female in this geology class. My husband was in the Air Force. They politely told me that if I would not go on that trip, they would not require it. The reason was they had no facilities for a female on that trip. One weekend campout that we had, they wanted to know if my husband could come. Oh!—I was dumb—I said, sure. You know, is it okay if he comes? Yes, we would like him to come. So he didn’t have duty, and so he came and we slept in the back of our station wagon. And, again, I was so unaware that I didn’t realize they wanted him there as a chaperone because I was the only female in this geology class. That’s something absolutely unheard of—I mean, that sort of thing would not happen today. O’Reagan: That’s really interesting. Was it your ambition, initially, to go to college? Did your parents have thoughts about you going to college? Walkley: It was my idea to go to college. My parents, I don’t recall them ever encouraging it, or ever really discouraging it, except that I was so excited when I graduated, because one of the things was I got a $50 scholarship. Well, the economics of things was the $50 wasn’t going to let me go to college. So I did work for a year after high school, and saved money. Because the first year that I went to Pullman, I went there with just about $1,000. And that got me through that first year at college. I must have made enough money in the summer that I could go back the second year. That’s also unheard of now. I think my mother would send me $2 cash a week, so I could—I had $2 cash: I was rich. And even at college, very few students had cars. For one thing, there wasn’t parking, and for another thing, you just didn’t. A few must have, because I know I carpooled with somebody to go and come. But that was different. I happened to be at WSU when Bing Crosby’s twins were going to school there. They had a car, and they would park in front of the library building. Was some sort of a Ford convertible. And they would set there, and I’m sure they were chick magnets, because of their name. But very few students had cars. O’Reagan: So you transferred from Washington State College to Occidental, you said? Walkley: Yes. O’Reagan: Why did you transfer? Walkley: I transferred there because my husband was going to college at California Institute of Technology, Caltech, who’s part of the LIGO system. And that’s where he was going to school. So we lived in student housing on the Occidental campus, and he commuted. But he was a year ahead of me, because he didn’t have to—he didn’t stay out the year that I did. He graduated, and then he was in the Air Force ROTC after—late summer, he was called into the Air Force. We were in Ohio for a while and then he was stationed at McChord. So that’s why I finished up at the University of Puget Sound, which was, like I said a college then. O’Reagan: So was he called up for the Korean war at that point? Walkley: We were between wars at that point. My history is foggy, but it was—I wish I could remember when the Korean War was. O’Reagan: ’55, I think. Was this the ‘50s, the ‘60s? Walkley: I know that he served two years. His ROTC class was one of the last that their commitment was two years. He was an engineer. The Air Force had really wanted to try to recruit pilots, but Caltech let the Air Force know that, no, we’re producing engineers and scientists and those kind of folks. You’re better to use them in that than to train them as pilots. So he went in as an engineer and had two years, and then after that, there was no Air Force reserve here. So he would just go to Fairchild during the summer for some training. But there was a period of time that he was on a 24-hour notice that if they’d call him up, he had 24 hours to report someplace. So that might have been Korea. That would have been in the ‘60s. But I hate to kind of show my ignorance of history. O’Reagan: I’m a historian, I get dates wrong all the time. Walkley: [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: So when you were assigned to go to college, was that just to better yourself? Was it because you wanted to get a job out of it? Walkley: I don’t know that I had any lofty reasons. I think it was because I thought that this was what you should do. Neither one of my parents were college graduates. But I had seen my parents working on the farm before the war, and I guess I thought that that’s just what I needed to do to be able to support myself. Now this was before women’s liberation. It was all before that. And then ironically as it turned out, about the time that my husband was getting out of the Air Force, this opportunity to farm what had not been a historical family farm—they had purchased—and Van’s folks, he and his sisters had purchased this farm, because they had had ground at the Eltopia area, which was the Bureau of Reclamation came in because of Grand Coulee Dam, and they chose to not keep any land there. So in a tax-free exchange, they turned the money into buying the place that we farmed. Well, that opportunity to farm came up, so we did a 180-degree turn, and instead of him being an engineer and building highways, which is what he did before the Air Force, we started farming. And did that for 57 years. O’Reagan: What did you grow? Walkley: When we moved to the farm, it was all dryland. And this farm was east of Ice Harbor Dam, about five miles. It was all dryland, and so we grew dryland wheat. Because of the farm program, you couldn’t grow all wheat—so we would grow barley and/or rye. In the mid ‘60s, that part of agriculture was fairly depressed, and so my husband had the idea that we’d start watering things. So we started irrigating supplemental, just. And then over the years, we kept adding to this irrigation system. So when the farm was sold in late 2013, half of our acres were irrigated and half was still dryland. So all of that was my husband doing, but we turned a piece of land that was barely giving us a living to something that was really a pretty good diversified farm. O’Reagan: Why don’t we pull open a map here and see if we can—just get my chair forward here. See if we can get a view of where we’re talking about here. Walkley: Okay. O’Reagan: Okay. Walkley: Okay. All of this really dark area is probably the Snake River Vineyard, and we were next door to them. So Highway 124—got to get my glasses focused here. O’Reagan: Sure. Walkley: So basically, our farm was here. And then we wind around some. And then here, this section right in here was not us. Oops! That was a little too much. And so we pumped out of the river at—that’s the spot where we pumped out of the river. So basically, we’re—and this corner section. And then all of this was really hilly, sandy area. So that’s where we farmed. And the dam is here and Charbonneau Park is right in this area. O’Reagan: That’s a lot of territory. Did you have to get help in farming all that? Walkley: The first few years, when it was all dryland, we only had help during harvest time. Once in a while, we’d hire somebody just temporary, just doing tractor work. Mostly, my job was chasing parts and cooking for the harvest crew. Once in a while, I’d have to drive tractor for a couple of weeks. This was not anything I really enjoyed doing. And then also bookwork. I did the bookwork for the farm all the time, including the taxes. And I did that until—well, basically, our daughter had a major stroke in 2007, and this took a lot of time with her rehab. So some of our taxes, I had to have a CPA do during some of that time—some I still could do. So I was the bookkeeper and the cook. O’Reagan: Did other people farming around you grow the same things you did? Walkley: They did at first, but about the same time we put in irrigation, so did the neighbors. After a year or two of having potatoes, the neighbors then—I think they weren’t selling—then basically went into Snake River Vineyards and concord grapes. And then on the other side of us, it for a long time was still the same—it was either rangeland or the same sort of farming. And then Broetje Orchards went—well, Broetje Orchards and AgriNorthwest. AgriNorthwest, the area that they had out there actually started with some local farmers in Eureka, and that was called K2H. And then it was AgriNorthwest. They went into—virtually everything, then, that they farmed was irrigated. It definitely changed the landscape, changed the economics of it all. A lot of the ground that we would irrigate, we would rent out. Only when it rotated to wheat or maybe soybeans, then, if it was potatoes or a sweet corn or alfalfa hay, we rented that out and then just did the watering for it. We took care of our irrigation system, the sprinklers, and managed all the water. O’Reagan: Where did you learn to farm? Was this knowledge you had from your parents? Walkley: No. Van had—when his parents had had land in the Eltopia area, that was dryland wheat farming. So he knew about that. My experience was on a small farm in Oklahoma that was basically a subsistence farm. We had enough cows that we could sell milk to the PET milk company, and a few acres of orchard so we could sell apples. But it was 50 acres of very diversified sort of farming. So that did not give me a lot of experience with over 5,000 acres of dryland wheat farming. My husband knew how to do this, and he was very smart. So we’d go to growers’ meetings and somehow or other, we made it. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: That’s interesting. I’m interested in how people develop their farms, learn new techniques, that sort of thing. Was the Growers’ Association a big deal in the area? Walkley: Yes. We were involved with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers on a county level. And the County Extension puts on programs. We belonged to the grange. There’s educational things. Visiting with the neighbors. We had to learn how to take care of the ground, because western Walla Walla County, at least where we were, was really lots of sandy loam. Similar to some of the Horse Heavens. So you have to treat that gently, or it’s going to blow away. So we learned, we did different things. One year I can remember, my husband went to Christmas tree sales lots the day after Christmas. He loaded up a truck with Christmas trees. We put those out on sand hills to try to hold it down. We’d spread straw for years and years and years on sand hills. And in fact, when we sold the farm, that was still something that we were doing to try to hold down sand hills. We were also using straw in tracks that the sprinklers make. So you’re using straw in dryland and irrigated both. But back to the wartime, I’m just thinking about how that was. Of course there was various kinds of not just gas rationing, but shoes—I mean leather, and other things. The attitude is so different now. We were content to not be able to buy as many bananas as you wanted, because if they had bananas in, you were limited to buying six of them, for instance. We were all in the same boat. I don’t recall of there being complaints about this. I don’t know if some of those shortages—how people would react to them now, when we’re used to so much abundance. But that’s just what you did. And as for what was happening at Hanford, that was on our radar. We knew it was secret—you know, my dad was just building things. And in fact, he did a lot of building not out on the Project, but in the City of Richland. So some of the older warehouse buildings and things would have been buildings that he worked on. As a ten-year-old, this just did not faze me a lot. When we moved back, the flood of 1948 certainly affected us. My mother at that time was working in Richland, and she was able to take the train from Pasco to get to Richland. And then she stayed there for the week, and then get back again, because the highway bridge—which was the old green bridge, which is gone—that was flooded. And the road through Columbia Park that was the main road, that was flooded. So you couldn’t get there from here. I can remember it all because then I was having to take care of the little strawberry patch that we had. My father was, maybe at that point then, doing construction in Pasco. I don’t recall him having the trouble getting to work that my mother had. But much smaller population center. Schools, much smaller. It was just a very interesting time. I think you all are doing a great job with this project, because the people that really did know about Hanford and everything that was going on, you’ve got to get them interviewed before they die off. Because we’re getting to be pretty old! [LAUGHTER] To have lived through this. O’Reagan: Were you ever interested in local politics of the area at all? Walkley: Well, only to the extent that my father-in-law was an elected PUD commissioner. When we were really in the political realm, then we were living in Walla Walla County, and so divorced from the Tri-Cities politics. Of course, nobody asked me my opinion, so nobody gets the benefit of my years of wisdom. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Were you aware of the down-winders controversies? Were they in your area? Walkley: Yes. We were well aware of those. I sometimes do wonder if—now my husband had—in 2000 was diagnosed with lymphoma. And lymphoma, they think, has multiple causes, and maybe it’s multiple triggers that have to trigger at the right time. I wonder if that had anything to do with drinking Columbia River water. I don’t know, and it isn’t anything that I would pursue. What happened with the iodine releases and the winds, I’m not part of that. I did wonder when Mount St. Helens blew, why there wasn’t a better forecast of where those clouds were going. Because I thought, Hanford area should have had a lot of information on the winds and where things go. So it was surprising that, say, Ritzville and Pullman and various places didn’t know after it blew that—okay, because of the conditions, this is what you’re going to be getting. That was a surprise to me. Way off the subject. O’Reagan: No. Did that impact your life? Walkley: It impacted it only peripherally. The clouds were certainly something that I’ve never seen that kind of a cloud before. We didn’t have a lot of ash falling on us for some reason. My daughter was home that weekend, and driving back to Pullman for her was a real experience, because the ash was bothering her visibility. As it turned out, every morning they’d get news, well, don’t go to class this day. So she didn’t need to be there for a week, but she didn’t know that at the time that she’d left home. So it affected her that way. What was usually a two-hour, two-and-a-half-hour drive took her five or more. When she did call that she was there, she really sounded like she’d been through a stressful experience. But then it’s not very often that a volcano blows its top and does its thing. O’Reagan: During all this time, in the background there’s the Cold War going on and a lot of the fear about nuclear exchanges and all this. Was that ever something that impacted your life or your family’s? Walkley: Only that if I would go to, say, a state meeting of a group that was anti-nuclear, I could indicate that no, we’re not—as the crow flies—not all that far from the Hanford Project. We’re able to grow crops and not glowing in the dark. And also say things like, when you have tanker trucks driving up and down I-5 that’s carrying liquefied natural gas—have you thought about what kind of a hazard that is? We listened to the fire department radio when the railcar blew up in the Wenatchee railyard and devastated that area. If that train had been in the tunnel, or in Seattle when that happened, the devastation would have been unbelievable. So there are just risks and hazards all over. To our knowledge, this was an area that they were mitigating the risks. I think at the very first, in 1945—I don’t even know that the scientists knew all of the risks, because they were learning, too. But as they learned of the risks, they were taking steps to modify. Probably we’re living in one of the safest areas. O’Reagan: You say you raised children here, too? Walkley: Yes. Two children, a boy and a girl, both graduates of WSU Pullman. My daughter still lives here. My son lives in Missouri. O’Reagan: Did they go to high school around here? Walkley: They went to school in Burbank. Grade school and high school. And then both went to Pullman right after high school and graduated. My son graduated in 1980, and at that—so he decided he needed to get out in the world of work and took a job with a—actually, at that time it was called Allis Chalmers, Combine Division. So he was still involved with the farm. He was in the experimental section of combines. Then met and married a Missouri girl and she had roots in Missouri, so that’s where he’s been since college. My daughter graduated in 1982, and she worked for—started out with the Farmers’ Home Administration. It’s morphed into part of the Farm Service Agency. She was making farm loans. But in 2002—she moved various places in the state, but in 2001 she managed to get back to working at the Farm Service Agency in Pasco and was helping some on the farm. Then in 2002 she, as she said, quit a good-paying job for longer hours, less wages—what’s not to love? So she was, as she said, following Dad around to learn farming. So she was our main combine driver. But we had other employees at the time, but she was the combine driver and was at the staff meeting every morning at 7:00 and was probably going to be in a position to take over the farm until she had a major stroke in 2007. And that changed those plans. O’Reagan: Okay. So we’re also interested in the agricultural history of the area and among that, you said you were near one of the vineyards of the area? Walkley: Right. The Snake River Vineyards, which is the concord grape vineyard. That’s, again, just east of Ice Harbor Dam. I understand it’s one of the largest concord grape vineyards in the world that’s under one ownership. You know, if you look on maps, the whole Columbia Basin is called the Great American Desert. But with water, this magic elixir, you can grow anything in these soils. The amount of diversified agriculture in the Columbia Basin is astounding, if you really would see what all is grown there. There’s things that I don’t even know about. Very, very minor crops that maybe are major in the world. I really think of the Columbia Basin as a breadbasket that is feeding the world, parts of it. We have a really rich agriculture base. The big driver for that change was Grand Coulee Dam, which was power for the Hanford Project, and flood control some, and irrigation. That was really—I see that as a driver a lot for the economic—what’s happened to our area, in its growth. Certainly a big driver is Hanford, but there’s also a huge driver with the agriculture. I don’t even know everything that’s grown there. But I expect that there’s a hundred different crops grown in this area, very productively. I think that our yield of potatoes per acre is better than Idaho’s. At one time there was this saying, well, a good Idaho potato’s grown in Washington. And then Idaho potato people didn’t like that. But there certainly is potatoes and sweet corn and field corn and seed corn and peas and lentils—well, lentils are more Palouse. I think we don’t, maybe, give agriculture or farmers the recognition that they have for what they’ve done for this area. O’Reagan: Did you ever—were you sort of sticking with crops you knew and had expertise in, or did you think about changing crops for ones that were more profitable at different times? Walkley: Oh. My husband was always trying different things. Sometimes we were just before our time. I know that he grew some hard white wheat one year. We had to haul it someplace special, not in the area, to market it. We experimented with various things. We grew buckwheat for a year or two. We grew soybeans. In fact, when we grew soybeans, the Farm Service Agency and the crop insurance people had to get through—well crop insurance mostly—run through some hoops, because there was no history of soybeans here. We’ve grown canola. And so my husband was always trying something new. That was just his nature. He was really the driver of what turned that farm into dryland and to diversified. Because as I said, he was very smart and he was always thinking of, how can we do things better? We had older equipment, so it was hard to put GPS on some of them, but we were able to. And we had one fella that worked for us, started working for us in 1974. When we were trying out some GPS, my daughter said, Guadalupe will just hate that. He is not going to want to do that. Guadalupe loved the GPS, because, he said, now I can watch the equipment better, and I don’t have to worry about where I’m going. So the employees embraced it, too. I’m sure that if my husband was still alive, for Christmas he would have purchased a drone. But—yeah, he was very smart. O’Reagan: Can you tell us about some of your workers? Walkley: We’ve had all sorts of workers over the years. Like I said, first it was just during harvest that we would have extra workers. Some fellas worked for us—they would come back, year after year. At one time there was three Pasco High School teachers that drove combine for us during the summer. They—every year—would come back. Part of that was because of my cooking. But they seemed to enjoy working for us. Guadalupe, as I say, started working in 1974. When I sold the farm, he was still working for us. He liked to work, and he liked to work for us. Trying to think of some specific kind of workers. Our foreman was from Texas. He was from an area in Texas where they mostly speak Spanish; so was Guadalupe. I know when our last set of employees—people that are still working there—one is from Mexico, with a green card; he’s legal. But a fair amount from Texas. And they started out as migrants, picking asparagus. Then settled down and are full-time folks in Pasco. I think you asked me something else. I’m trying to think what it was. O’Reagan: I think that was—the most recent question was just sort of about the workers. I guess we could branch out from that to—were there any sort of big changes or trends or—you were telling sort of the history of agriculture around there. Anything that comes to mind. Walkley: Well for our farm, and the biggest change that affected me was we went from three combines and three drivers and various truck drivers and me cooking for all of them to one big combine and hauling our grain out by semi. So I still did cook for the combine driver, because it was Nannette, and later my grandson. But it wasn’t the same. Early on, when we were running three combines and all of these trucks, I took a hot meal to the field at noontime. So I had figure out how to keep things hot and how to keep things cold. The combine drivers would eat while the truck drivers were greasing the machines. Then the truck drivers would eat. And if one was at the elevator, you just waited out there until they got back and ate. Wherever they were in the field, I needed to find them and I needed to be there at 12:30 to have that lunch ready for them. That all changed. Early on, the combine drivers would stay out on the farm, and I was feeding them three meals a day. Later on they didn’t do that. I will say that for truck drivers, my husband found that our very best truck drivers were females. Part of that is because they would listen; you could teach them. Because they knew they didn’t know how to drive these trucks. Now, found out that the boys—now, they didn’t know how to drive the trucks, either, but they’re not going to admit it, and they’re not going to listen. The best truck drivers, typically that we had, as a generalization, were females. They’re easier on the equipment, and they’re teachable. And some of them spoke at my husband’s memorial service. As did some of the fellow workers that we had. To me, the driving truck was the worst job on the farm, because you had to park the truck so that when the combine was emptying, chaff wasn’t blowing back on the combine. Because early on, there were no cabs on these, and no air conditioning. My husband, who was driving combines said, I’m eating that dust all the time. I am not going to eat it while I’m unloading. So the driver always had to be parked just right. The truck driver’s just always getting in trouble because they weren’t parking just right, or they were getting stuck. I’m sure that some of these poor truck drivers would just do their best, and they would be stuck, and they’d have to call the combine. There was the times that my husband could, maybe, dig a little or put a thistle underneath a tire, get in and drive that truck out after this kid had been working and working, trying—and it must have just—if it would have been me, it would have just made me gnash my teeth! But that happened more than once. One of the girls that drove truck for us, at his memorial service said, I got stuck, and she said, I didn’t want to get stuck. I knew not to do that. But I got stuck, and Mr. Walkley had to come over and help me. And he came over and I was just so worried about it, he was going to be so mad at me. He came over and he said, do you know how to not get stuck? Don’t drive. And she said, that was the end of it. And he got me unstuck, and it was all okay. [LAUGHTER] But living on a farm is just—it is also very different from someplace else. Especially when you live there, because you’re always on the farm. Something comes up in the middle of the night. You’re just there, and you handle it. Once we got irrigation, there was a lot of things. My husband would get up in the middle of the night and go out and check the sprinklers. Or he’d get up and look in the bedroom window. We had a pressure gauge, and if that pressure wasn’t what he thought it should be, go out and check the farm and see what’s going on. So it’s a 24/7, 365 job. At least it was for us, because we lived on the farm. O’Reagan: Well, there’s always a lot that I don’t know the right question to ask. Walkley: [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: What should I be asking? Walkley: Oh! I have no idea. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: We’re interested in-- Walkley: You’re supposed to be guiding me. O’Reagan: Sure. Walkley: Because we’re really digressing into farm and farming history. Which is different than the Hanford Project. And so I don’t know the right questions, either. O’Reagan: Well, so, we are interested in Hanford and the impact Hanford had on the community, but that’s not the only thing we’re interested in. We are interested in the agricultural history of the area. We’re interested in what it was like living in or around the Tri-Cities throughout this whole period. Day-to-day life, or how things have changed. Walkley: Yeah. In day-to-day life, because of the rationing, and us choosing to put our car up on blocks, we walked everyplace. We went to the movies a fair amount, which is, in a way, kind of surprising to me. But when you went to the movie, you had to stand in line. And the line could be a block or so long. But I remember standing in line, but a bus coming up with the Italian Prisoners of War that were here, that were housed in the Big Pasco area. They didn’t have to stand in line. They just went on in as a group. I could understand that, but yet—[GRUMBLES] And the entertainment was going to the movies. Now, I think for the military that was here, there was a USO building on the north side of the big park in Pasco. They would have things going on there. And I know in Richland, there was all kinds of actors, for instance, that came and entertained the troops and the folks that were working there. But that wasn’t part of our life, because we didn’t live in Richland. But I can just remember walking, doing a lot of walking everyplace. Doing without certain things—now, we never went hungry or anything like that. But there were frills you just didn’t have. Somehow or other, you entertained yourself. Partly because—I know for my dad, he probably put in long hours of working. You go home, you eat and you go to bed. The next morning, you get up and eat and go to work. But for a kid, for thinking about going to a Playground of Dreams or going here for entertainment, walking the malls for entertainment—that just wasn’t part of our life at all. I can just remember kind of playing out in the dirt. Because there weren’t a whole lot of lawns, and I know where we were living, there wasn’t. There was the remnants of the alfalfa field. Later in high school, my friend and I would—I didn’t realize it, but we were essentially babysitting her little sister. She lived in a regular house on 10th Street. At that point, we were living out in this house in the middle of nowhere, it seemed like. But to go from my place to her place, we’d have to drag her little sister’s stroller through the sand. Just that—of course, we didn’t have—there was no television. We had radios, you’d go to the movies, and that’s where you’d get a lot of the news, because they would run a newsreel first—before the main. There’d be a newsreel and there’d be a comic and maybe even a sing-along with a little bouncing ball, and you’d all sing. That is totally unheard of. Have you gone to a movie where you’ve—the whole people are singing something? O’Reagan: No. Walkley: And the words are on the screen with a little bouncing ball. But the newsreels—that’s where we got our information—video information, anyway—about the war, and what was going on. I remember listening to Edward R. Murrow and Walter Winchell, who was talking to “North and South America and all the ships at sea.” I can remember December 7, 1941, and us being glued to the radio. Probably it was a battery-operated radio. When I was a kid in Oklahoma, we did not get electricity until maybe 1939 or 1941. So we had no electricity, no running water, no indoor bathrooms. The house was eventually wired and we’d come home from school looking to see if the meter was on the meter base, which meant we had electricity. You had to pay for a minimum of kilowatts, whether you used them or not. We would watch that. And the minimum, as I recall, was 35 kilowatts. You use 35 kilowatts in half an hour now. But we had a fixture with two lightbulbs in the living room, and a matching fixture in the bedroom with one lightbulb. And this was brilliant! I mean, we could see so good! I remember those two light fixtures. I don’t remember what was in the rest of the house. Later, we had an electric-driven cream separator that was very tall. It was as big as I was. You had to crank it first to help get it started before you could switch it on to electricity. I just remember my job was cleaning the innards of this cream separator. If you’ve never done that, that is a hateful job. But something that everybody ought to have to do at some point, is clean an electric cream—now I liked putting it together. It’s very interesting, very fascinating. I liked taking it apart and putting it together. I disliked washing it. But that’s not anything you want to know. Agriculture-- O’Reagan: I also understand that unlike Richland and also in a lot of ways unlike Kennewick, Pasco had a more diverse population in a number of ways. Was that ever something you experienced? Walkley: Yes. We did. We had some Japanese families. And because, as I understood it, the line that divided whether or not the Japanese had to go to internment camps was the Columbia River. So the Japanese in Kennewick were taken to internment camps. The ones in Pasco were not. But the Japanese area in Pasco, their businesses and where most of them lived close to their business, that was off-limits to the military. The first meal that we had when we came to Pasco was at the M and M Café, which was down by the underpass in Pasco. And it was run by the Japanese. First time in my life I’d ever had oyster crackers. But that area was—and I’m not even sure if the military was here at that point—but later on, that area was off-limits to the military. Now, some of these were second generation Japanese, and they were no threat to this country. They were fine, upright people. There were a few blacks in the area, and basically they were in the east Pasco area. They were—my understanding—very discriminated against in Kennewick, but allowed to be in Pasco. We had a black student in my high school class, and he was one of the class officers. His name was Duke Washington. He was a very good football player, and in fact played football for WSU—College at that time. As I understand it, when they were going to play some team in the South, the WSU coach was told, don’t bring that boy with you. But the coach said, we’re bringing him—and they did. And he was a star football player. Now, I—again, I was young and ignorant—I think I was unaware of a lot of things—I don’t know that he was discriminated against. I expect that he was. But I don’t recall a lot of blacks being in our high school. And there should have been, for the number of black people that lived in east Pasco. So I don’t know whether they weren’t welcome in school—I’m not sure what that was really all about, because I was not aware enough of what was going on in the community to know that. That’s probably another difference between when I was a student, and students now. Because I think that students now—probably a lot of it is social media—they know what’s going on in their community. I thought I knew what was going on, but I don’t think I did. So all of this awareness of social things—I think that’s very different than it was when I was in school. And then we didn’t learn things in high school that students are learning now. Because I know I never had any calculus. O’Reagan: All right. Well, that’s all fascinating stuff. Anything else that leaps to mind before we wrap it up? Walkley: Oh, I’ll probably think of oodles of things when I go home. O’Reagan: Well, we’re certainly open to follow up discussions. That oftentimes leads to even better discussions once people have time to think about what else there is to say. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:24:53 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 249 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1943-2016 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 Evelyn Walkley Description An account of the resource An interview with Evelyn Walkley 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. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-2-18 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-08-5: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Richland (Wash.)--Social conditions. Housing Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F076444117ae2c86647ee8d705fe3c145.jpg 8976c055d68251fc4d46ba983b6f47fb 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 Douglas O’Reagan: First off, would you please say and spell your name for us? 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. O’Reagan: Okay, thanks. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral interview history here on January 11th, 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? 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. O’Reagan: Had you heard about Hanford before you came here? Freshley: Not really. I really hadn’t heard about it. It was all secret, you know? O’Reagan: Right. Were you aware of the sort of connection with the atomic bomb before you got here? 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? O’Reagan: ’45, I believe? Freshley: ’45? O’Reagan: I think so. Freshley: That—oh, okay. O’Reagan: It was the very end of the Second World War. Freshley: Yeah. Well, I might’ve heard of that. Yeah. O’Reagan: What was your first impression of Richland and this area? 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. 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? 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. O’Reagan: What kind of work did you do at Hanford, and where on the site did you work? 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. 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. Freshley: Uh-huh. 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. Freshley: Mm-hm. O’Reagan: But what is annealing? 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. 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! 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. O’Reagan: Interesting. Freshley: So I had an early experience with a graphite-moderated production reactor. O’Reagan: What was it—you said you moved on from graphite to something else? 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-- O’Reagan: Plutonium Finishing Plant? Freshley: Pardon me? O’Reagan: Is it the plutonium finishing? 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? O’Reagan: I know the individual terms. 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. 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? 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— 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? 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. O’Reagan: How much were you instructed specifically what to do versus sort of innovating yourself or figuring stuff out as you go? 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. 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? Freshley: Overall? O’Reagan: Yeah. 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. O’Reagan: Why did you choose Battelle? 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] 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. Freshley: I haven’t gotten to the end of GE yet. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Okay, great. I’d love to hear more. 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. O’Reagan: Is this still the late ‘50s or have we gotten into the early ‘60s yet? 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. O’Reagan: It sounds dangerous! 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] O’Reagan: This probably couldn’t happen today [INAUDIBLE] 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. O’Reagan: So did you get the data that you wanted from this rupture test? 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. 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? 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. O’Reagan: So this wasn’t classified, or was it more of a sharing agreement with [INAUDIBLE] Not classified then? 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. O’Reagan: More like trade secrets, then, rather than— Freshley: Pardon? O’Reagan: So, more like trade secrets, then, rather than confidentiality. 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. O’Reagan: Yeah. Freshley: Yeah. But the program was very successful. I think I have some documents that describe it, if you’re interested. O’Reagan: Yeah, absolutely. 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. O’Reagan: I imagine that’s something the government wouldn’t want other places to be doing then. 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. O’Reagan: Was the tritium work also unclassified then, or was that back to the classified world? 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. 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? 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. 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? 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? O’Reagan: Yeah. Freshley: You don’t do that. O’Reagan: Right. Let’s see. 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. 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. 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. O’Reagan: Interesting. 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. O’Reagan: What was it like living in Richland, let’s say the ‘40s and ‘50s first and ask for the later parts afterwards. Freshley: Well, I can tell you my experience. O’Reagan: Yeah. 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. 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? 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. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. What was life like in the community around there? Do you remember any sort of community events? 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. O’Reagan: I’m new to the area. 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. O’Reagan: Great. Freshley: Pretty normal, I would say. Wouldn’t you? O’Reagan: Sure. Freshley: [LAUGHTER] 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? Freshley: I can’t relate to that. I was not politically inclined like some people you know. [LAUGHTER] 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? Freshley: Over what time period? Oh. O’Reagan: In the time you lived here. Freshley: Well, like I said, I’m not politically oriented, so if there were these things happening, I was pretty isolated from them. O’Reagan: Okay. Could you describe any ways in which security and/or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? 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. O’Reagan: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in Richland during the Cold War? 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. O’Reagan: Okay. So what haven’t I asked about that I should ask about? What else is there I should be asking about? Freshley: Well, how do I answer that? I don’t know. I think we’ve covered my experience pretty thoroughly. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Well, we don’t have to dwell on it if nothing comes to mind. Freshley: No. O’Reagan: It is an open-ended question. Freshley: Well, what happened, after we bought our ranch house, the government didn’t come around and change our light bulbs anymore. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Oh, really? Did you have to—how much of a transition was that once you sort of became a homeowner? Was it--? 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. O’Reagan: All right. Well, thanks so much. This is very, very interesting, very useful. 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 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F04d6fb5586fd89129d3054b0c41df249.jpg f52f36f03b18e6ca3ad0ecc3929059b2 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F151938c82a3c7912af7b3e83b9747fbf.mp4 fc9eebb9af727b3febf2c6cc28d97d6e Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history with Jerome Martin on June 1st, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Jerome Martin about his experiences working at the Hanford site and his involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. And you—just wanted to use your legal name to start out with, but you prefer to be called Jerry, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Jerome Martin: Yes, I do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Jerome’s a little too formal. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Right. Just for the technical purposes. Sure. No more, we will not mention the name— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Again. [LAUGHTER] So for the record, you did an interview with the Parker Foundation sometime in 2010. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I believe it was earlier. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Or possibly earlier. And some of the Parker Foundation videos, as we know, were lost. And so this video is an attempt to recapture some of the information that would have been in that oral history, but also add some other information, and also to give you a chance to talk about your involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. So just as a introduction to whoever views this in the future. So why don’t we start in the beginning? How did you come to—you’re not from the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Not originally. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: All right. How did you come to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, a little quick history, I got my bachelor’s degree at San Diego State College and then I was a radiation safety officer at San Diego State for about three years. Then I had an opportunity to go to the University of Colorado in Boulder, where, again, I was a radiation safety officer and on the faculty of the physics department. After several years there, an excellent opportunity came up for me here at Hanford with Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So I moved here in 1976, and had a great opportunity to work with many other more senior people here at Hanford that had been here since the beginning. One of those, of course, was Herbert M. Parker. He was former director of the laboratories under General Electric, and then retired, but stayed on with Battelle as a director. I had a few opportunities to interact with him, and was quite impressed. I have heard stories about, he was a rather demanding taskmaster. And I could kind of imagining myself trying to work for him, but it would have been a challenge. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: What do you feel is important to be known about Herbert M. Parker for the historical record? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I’ve had an opportunity to review many of his publications. They were quite professional and very well researched, and in many cases the leading authority on several topics. So I was very impressed by his publications. I didn’t have a direct opportunity to work for him, so I don’t know about his management style or other things. But that was the thing that impressed me the most, was his publications. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: What topics did Dr. Parker write on—or do his research? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: His early professional career was in medical physics. He was at Swedish Hospital in Seattle for many years. Then he was called upon, as part of the Manhattan Project, to set up the safety program at Oak Ridge. He did that for about a year or so. Then he was called upon to do the same thing here at Hanford. So he came here and established the entire environmental safety and health program for Hanford. Of course he had all the right background to be able to do that, and he was able to recruit a number of really talented people to help him with that. So I think Hanford ended up with what could be known as the best environmental safety and health program, among all the early AEC and then DoE laboratories. One of the things that impressed me most by that program was the record keeping. And I had an opportunity to work on that in later years. But the way the record keeping was designed and set up and maintained was quite thorough. It was designed to be able to recreate whatever may have happened according to those records. It turned out to be very valuable in later years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Who instituted that record-keeping? Was that Parker? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I don’t recall the name of the individual that set it up, although I know Ken Hyde was involved very early on. He may have been at the very origin of it. But I’m sure Parker certainly influenced the rigor with which that program was established. In later years, John Jech was manager of the record keeping program, and then my good friend, Matt Lyon, was the manager of that. I worked with Matt, then, on American National Standard Institute’s standard for record keeping. We incorporated into that standard virtually all of the fundamentals that Parker had established initially. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: The first name was John— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: The second manager of records was John Jech. J-E-C-H. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Do you know if he’s still living? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: No, he’s not. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: And what about Lyon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Matt Lyon passed away about ten years ago, as did Ken Hyde. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: What’s that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Ken Hyde—I think they all three passed away about ten years ago. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah, give or take. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: So you mentioned that the record keeping was designed to recreate an incident as it happened. Do you know of any such—or can you speak to any such times when that record keeping system was crucial into a safety issue? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: The one that comes to mind is one of the more I guess infamous incidents here at Hanford. It occurred just around the time I arrived here in 1976. It was sometimes called the McCluskey accident out at the 231-Z Building. There was an explosion in a glovebox that resulted in very significant contamination of Mr. McCluskey by americium-241. And the response to that incident, and then all the following treatment of Mr. McCluskey was very well documented. In fact, those documents then became the basis for a whole series of scientific papers that described the entire incident and all the aspects of it. So that was one major case where excellent record keeping was very valuable. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Excellent. And what—I’m just curious now—what happened to Mr. McCluskey? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: He survived for about ten years after the accident. He initially had very severe acid burns and trauma. But he was very carefully treated for that. The americium contamination that he had was gradually eliminated—not eliminated, but reduced substantially. He survived for another ten years after that incident even though he had heart trouble. I know several people that assisted in his care, and it was quite remarkable what they were able to do and what he was able to do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. Did he ever go back to work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: No, he was 65 at the time of the accident. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: So he kind of went into medical retirement at that point. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Right. Yeah, I can imagine. So you said you came in 1976. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: And what did you—what was your first job, when you came to Battelle? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, I worked in what was called the radiation protection department, later called health physics department. My first assignment was called ALARA management. ALARA stands for maintain our radiation exposures as low as reasonably achievable. I would monitor the exposure records of Battelle workers, and watch for any that were the least bit unusually high, and then look for ways that we could reduce those exposures. And I monitored other things like average exposures and the use of dosimeters and things of that nature. The overall assignment was to generally reduce the workers’ radiation exposure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: How successful do you feel that the department was in that effort? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I think we were very successful, and it went on for many years, even after I had that assignment. I remember one time, looking at a report that DoE put out annually on radiation exposures over all the major DoE facilities. Those average exposures, highest individual exposures, and things of that nature. Battelle and Hanford had among the lowest averages of all the other DoE facilities. So, I believe it was a very effective ALARA program here at Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Do you know if that report was ever made publically available? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Oh, yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah, those are published every year by DoE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, great. I’ll have to find that. Sorry, just scribbling down some notes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: At one point, Battelle had a contract with the DoE headquarters to actually do the production of that report each year. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: And I was involved in the production of it—oh, three or four years, as I recall. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. So you mentioned that you had moved on out of that program or department, so what— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Right. Well, I started getting involved in management at kind of the bottom level. I was an associate section manager, and then I got an assignment as section manager for the radiation monitoring section. I was responsible for all the radiation monitors—or as they’re now called, radiation protection technologists—the radiation monitors for Battelle and two other of the contractors here at Hanford. It was kind of ironic that I was located in what used to be the 300 Area library, and my office was on the second floor. And my office was the former office of Herbert M. Parker, when he was director of laboratories. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: It was an honor to have that space, and recall memories of Mr. Parker. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow, that’s great. And how long did you do that for? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I did that two or three years, and then another opportunity came along in 1979—no actually, it was ’79, but I guess I’d been on that management job for about a year and a half. In September of ’79, which was about three months after the Three Mile Island accident, we had an opportunity to make a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide support for their staff in emergency planning work. At that time, NRC was making a big push on all the power plants, all the nuclear power plants across the country to enhance their emergency planning programs. So we began about a ten-year project with NRC to supplement their staff. The NRC established the requirement for annual emergency exercises at each of the nuclear power plants, where they had to work up a scenario, and then they would activate their emergency response staff to demonstrate that they would know how to handle that accident scenario. We served as observers. We had teams of observers with the NRC staff. We did a total of 800 of those exercises over a ten-year period. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: So we had a lot of staff out there, doing a lot of travel. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Yeah. So that would have been—so you said for power, would that have been for all of the power reactors in the United States? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yes. There were 103 plants at the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. Did you do any in foreign countries? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I didn’t personally, but we did have some staff that went to a similar kind of program with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and visited foreign nuclear power plants. Some in France, that I recall. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. So you said 103 power plants? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: In the US, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Actually, that was the number of reactors. There was a fewer number of plants, because many of them are two or more reactors at a site. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay so the 103 is the number of reactors? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I believe that’s correct. At that time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: How did Chernobyl affect your field and your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: That’s an excellent question, because that was in this period. Of course, the Chernobyl accident happened in 1986, and I was working directly with NRC at that time. I was project manager on that NRC contract. When Chernobyl happened, there was an immediate reaction, and NRC had to study the Chernobyl accident as well as we could, and then determine what could be applied to US power reactors by way of improvements and emergency planning. One of my managers, Bill Bair, was part of a US delegation led by DoE and NRC to actually visit the Chernobyl area shortly after the accident, interact with the Russians, and do lessons learned that was turned into a series of DoE and NRC documents that tried to extract as much useful information as we could from Chernobyl and apply it here in the US. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Right, because if I’m not mistaken, the design of the Chernobyl reactor—there were reactors of similar design in the United States. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Not exactly. The Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel. There were a few reactors in the US that also did not have containment vessels, but they had other safeguards. The N Reactor was one of those. Unfortunately, I would call it an overreaction of the US government to a reactor with no containment. Severe restrictions were put on N Reactor, and some re-design was required that ultimately led to the end of N Reactor. It’s interesting to note that at that point in time, which was about 1986, 1987, N Reactor had generated more electricity from a nuclear reactor than any other plant in the world. So it’s unfortunate it came to an early demise. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: And—sorry, my ignorance here on the technical aspects. You said some of them don’t have a containment vessel. What does a containment vessel look like and what role does it play, and why would there would be reactors with one and without one? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, N Reactor went back to the early—the late ‘50s, I believe when it was designed. It was designed similar to the other reactors here at Hanford that were intended for production of plutonium. But N Reactor was a dual purpose, in that it also generated 800 megawatts of electricity. But it had a similar kind of design to what you see out at B Plant, for example. So it didn’t have the same kind of containment vessel that other modern pressurized water reactors or other nuclear power plants have that is designed in such a way that if there is reactor core damage, any radioactivity released can be contained and not released. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Or released in a very controlled fashion. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I see. Kind of like a clam shell that kind of covers the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, it’s basically—yeah, in many cases a spherical kind of containment. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. Excellent. So after—obviously the demise of N Reactor, ’86, ’87, is kind of the end of operations—or I should say of product production—product and energy production on the Hanford site. So how did your job change after that? And what did you continue to do after the shutdown? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I wasn’t directly affected by N Reactor shutting down. And the other production reactors had been shut down before that, so I wasn’t really directly involved in that. But I had yet another opportunity came up that turned out to be really a challenge for me. The Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas is the primary assembly and disassembly facility for nuclear weapons. At that time, it was managed by a company called Mason and Hanger. Mason and Hanger had that contract for many years, and DoE challenged them to rebid the contract. So Mason and Hanger reached out to Battelle for assistance in teaming on environmental health and safety. So my manager talked me into being involved, so I went down to Amarillo and visited the plant and worked with the team there on the proposal that had to be presented to DoE. And we won the contract. Of course in the fine print it said I then had to move there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Ah! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: But it turned out great. By that time, my family was pretty well grown, kids were through college. So we moved down to Amarillo, and I went to work at Pantex. We really enjoyed that. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Amarillo’s a very nice town, a lot of nice people. The work at Pantex was very challenging. I enjoyed that very much, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Great. So how long were you at the Pantex plant? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, I was manager of the radiation safety department down there for three years, which was my original contract obligation. During that time, we were very closely scrutinized by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board, which was an organization established by Congress to be a watchdog over DoE. Their method for watching DoE was to watch the contractors very closely. So they would scrutinize everything we did, and then challenge DoE if they found something. They pushed us in a way that was good, because one of the things they promoted was professional certification. I’m a certified health physicist, certified by the American Board of Health Physics. At the time at Pantex, I was the only one we had there. But the DNFSB pushed us to add more, so I got more of my staff certified. There was a similar program for technicians called the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists, and at the time, we had two of my staff that were registered with NRRPT. Again, they pushed us to promote more training. By the end of that three-year period, I think we had ten of our technologists registered and certified. So we really improved the credentials of our staff. We instituted some new programs, again, related to ALARA radiation reduction. Probably the most interesting or challenging day of my life occurred down there in 1994. We were working on disassembly of the W48 program. The W48 was a tactical weapon used in—that was deployed in Europe—it was never used. But it was a very small, cylindrical nuclear weapon designed to be shot out of a 155 millimeter howitzer, which is amazing just to think about. But the plutonium pit in this device was surrounded by high explosive. It turned out to be rather difficult to disassemble this particular design of nuclear weapon. It also turned out that the plutonium pit had a relatively high dose rate, compared to others. So the workers were getting some increased exposure to their hands in the process of working on this. So we were concerned about their extremity dose. So we worked up a method for doing a classified videotape of the disassembly operation, so that we could study each step in the process to find ways to improve worker safety. Providing shielding, remote tools, things of that nature. The process on this was to take the plutonium pit and high explosives and put it in liquid nitrogen bath for a period of time. Then bring it out and put it in a little tub-like, and pour hot water on it. The HE would expand rapidly and crack off. And for the most part, it worked very well. Well, there was this one particular pit that we were working on when we were doing the videotape for this study. Apparently the HE wasn’t coming off the way it should, and so they had to repeat this process over and over. They brought it out of the liquid nitrogen, poured hot water on it, and the plutonium—the cladding, the beryllium cladding on the plutonium pit actually cracked, due to the severe temperature change. The workers who were working on this were trained very carefully that if that cladding on the pit ever cracks, get out of there fast, so you avoid a plutonium exposure. So that happened. One of the technicians heard an audible crack and saw it on the surface of that pit. And they all evacuated immediately. They got just outside the door of this special facility, and they called our radiation safety office, and fortunately my three best technicians were standing there by the phone. They said, pit had cracked. And so they got over there as fast as they possibly could. They recognized the danger of having an exposed plutonium pit, and how that can oxidize and cause severe contamination very quickly. They decided to put on respirators to protect themselves, but they didn’t bother with any of the other protective clothing because they wanted to save time. So they made an entry where the cracked pit was, still there with the water bath on it, and the video shooting this picture. They took samples right on the crack and on the water and all around it. They managed to take that plutonium pit and get it into a plastic bag and then they doubled bagged it and then they triple bagged it and sealed it up. Then they came out. Of course, the samples revealed that there was indeed plutonium contamination coming out of that crack, but they had contained it very quickly. When we made a later entry to retrieve the video tape that was still running, and we looked at the timestamp on it. From the time the crack appeared until they had it in the bag was seven minutes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: That’s about as fast as you can possibly expect a response team to come in and secure a situation like that. And so, following that, of course we had the incident debriefing, and I had to chair that. But we very carefully went through and recorded every little thing that happened from the time they were working on the disassembly to the time they exited. Got that all documented, and then the videotape of course documented all of that. The scrutiny by Department of Energy, the Amarillo office, the Albuquerque office, Headquarters, any number of others—we had a lot of attention that day. It was a long, hard day at the office, but very exciting. Following that, we had to debrief many other investigation committees and others. But we had that videotape to rely on, and that just was invaluable. That’s my—that was probably the most exciting day of my life, down there. [LAUGHTER] Got a follow-up to that. That W48 weapon was designed by Livermore. They came in at a later time and did a post-mortem on that cracked pit. And when they did, we discovered that the amount of plutonium contamination there that was available for distribution had it not been contained, would have totally just made that facility useless. I mean, extremely expensive clean-up, if it ever got done. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Not just the room, but the entire facility? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, mainly that room. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: That room. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: But it was a very big room, and a very valuable room, specially designed. But the quick response of our radiation safety technicians and getting that contained saved that room and millions of dollars in expense. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. And so this was a weapon that was the size of a howitzer shell? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: 155 millimeters. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. And what is the—I don’t know if you know this—but what’s the explosive power of that—is it—I guess it could be— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, it’s just like the atomic bombs used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about 20-kiloton fission device. The plutonium pit is designed to implode and cause a super-critical reaction. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: But fired out of a howitzer, instead of— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Fired out of a howitzer, perhaps 20 miles or something. And then you can somehow coordinate the careful detonation of this-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: --device. It boggled my mind. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I guess that’s best that that was never ever— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: There’s quite a large number of different nuclear weapons. Many of them were tactical weapons used in Europe—or deployed in Europe during the Cold War. Many other more modern ones are part of Polaris missiles and other large bombs that can be deployed by B-52s or B-2s. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah. There’s quite a wide range of different models and designs. I didn’t know that at the time, but it’s fascinating. I remember one day standing in one of the disassembly rooms, and they had this nuclear weapon in a cradle standing there on the floor, and they had the top off of it. And I could just look down in the top of it. I couldn’t touch it, but I could look in there and just see the engineering in one of those things was just amazing. Just beyond belief. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I bet. I can only imagine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah. But I’ve gone off on this nuclear weapons story and departed from Hanford. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: It’s okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Maybe I should come back. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I think that’s a very interesting story. I certainly—I’ve also, like I said, heard of plenty of bombs—ICBMs, missiles, but I’d never quite heard of a howitzer-type fired weapon. But also just the fact that your team and your field was able to prevent a really nasty incident is pretty amazing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: It speaks to your profession and your skill. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, like I mentioned, the professional credentials. Two of the three technicians who responded were certified by NNRPT. And they had the right kind of training, knew what to do, did it very well. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Great. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I had an opportunity a year later to nominate them for a special DoE award for unusual—not heroism, but effective response. And they won the award that year. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: That’s great. So how and when did you leave Pantex? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, the first time, was in ’96—no, I’m sorry, in ’93—and I had a special appointment back at DoE headquarters in Germantown. So I went back there for two years to work with the branch of DoE that was like an inspector general—the internal inspection branch, if you will. Very similar in scope to what the DNFSB—Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board—was doing. Scrutinizing all the DoE operations at the national labs and other facilities, and trying to always make improvements. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: So I worked with the DoE headquarters staff on many different audits that we did at other DoE labs. At the time, I specialized in dosimetry, both internal and external dosimetry, and other operational health physics parts of the program. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. So when did you come back to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, I had a couple other interesting assignments in there. After DoE headquarters, then I went back to Pantex for three more years. And then another opportunity came up on an old facility near Cincinnati that needed to be decommissioned—decontaminated and decommissioned. And I went to Oak Ridge first, worked with the Foster Wheeler Company on the design of what became the largest radon control building that had ever been done. I was the radiation safety officer for that project at Oak Ridge in the design effort. And then we moved to Cincinnati for a year and I worked at the Fernald facility in actually building this radon control facility. What we were trying to deal with were these large concrete silos that contained residual ore material from the Second World War. They have to go back to—when the Manhattan Project was trying to bring together the necessary uranium in addition to the plutonium that was produced here at Hanford, they were using a rich pitch blend ore that was coming from what was then called Belgian Congo in Africa. It was shipped from there up the Saint Lawrence River to a facility near Niagara Falls. And then it ended up being processed to extract as much uranium as possible. But there were these residuals. They ended up in these concrete silos near Niagara Falls, New York as well as this Fernald facility, just outside of Cincinnati. So we had three big concrete silos that—I don’t recall—they must have been 80 feet in diameter and 50 feet high. So they held a lot of uranium ore residuals. It contained a fair amount of radium, which gave off radon gas. This facility was located not too far from a residential area. So it became a greater concern for getting it cleaned up. We put together this radon control facility that had these huge charcoal beds and you could pipe—you could take the head gas off of this silo, pipe it into these charcoal beds where the radon would be absorbed, and then the clean air would circulate. So you could fairly rapidly reduce the concentration of radon inside the silo to much lower levels. In the process, the charcoal beds got loaded up by absorbing radon. There came a point where you had to heat up that charcoal to drive off the captured radon. We devised a clever scheme with four different beds where we could kind of keep one of them recirculating on all times and have the other three working. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: So you say drive off the captured radon, where would it be driven off? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Over to the next charcoal bed, which hadn’t yet been completely saturated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh! But then eventually you still have charcoal that— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: but it decays with a 3.8 day half-life, and that was built into the plan, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: But if it was to escape, right, it would get people very—it would contaminate or get people sick, or--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, it was pretty carefully designed not to— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, but I’m saying that radon— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Oh, if it escaped from the silo. If there was no control of it—a certain amount of radon was escaping from the silo. For the most part, it’s a light gas, it just goes up and the wind blows it and disperses it. So it was very difficult to even measure anything offsite. But there was that concern there that we were dealing with. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: But if enough of it was released at once, then there might have been an issue? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Like if the whole roof of the silo was suddenly removed and it all came out, that could be a problem, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Interesting. I didn’t realize it had such a short half-life. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah. So I did that, what amounted to ten years of offsite assignments. About that time, my wife and I got tired of moving. So we came back to the Tri-Cities, and our kids are here. I came back to work at Battelle for another few years before I retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: When did you come back to Battelle? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I came back in 2001. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay. So then you worked for—it says you retired in 2006. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I retired about four years later. And the last major project I worked on was also very interesting. It was the project for customs and border protection. It was to install radiation portal monitors at seaports. This was shortly after 9/11, and there was a concern about dirty bomb material being imported by any means. We had one part of the project dealt with seaport, another part airports, and a third part postal facilities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: So I worked on the seaports part, and I had the Port of Los Angeles was my assignment. Another one of us had Port of Long Beach, which is right next door, which are the largest seaports on the West Coast and have the largest number of shipping containers coming in. So we devised a method for monitoring those shipping containers as they were unloaded and making sure nothing was coming in that way. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Did—oh, sorry. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Very interesting project. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I don’t know if you can speak to this, but was anything caught by these monitors? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yes. But not dirty bomb material. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Turns out they were so sensitive, they would detect any kind of elevated background radioactivity. For example, kitty litter is a little bit elevated in background. Any kind of stone product, and there are various granite and other stone products imported from different places. Those had a high enough background activity that they would trigger our monitors. So we would run all these containers through a set of monitors, and any that triggered that amount would then be sent over to a secondary monitor, where they’d examine it more carefully, verify what was actually in the containers, sometimes inspect them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: So recently our project staff got a tour of some of the facilities at HAMMER. And I believe we saw one of those monitors. Would that have been the same? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Mm-hm. Big yellow columns? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Yeah, that they run it through. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yep, that was the one. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: So you helped design— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: We helped design—oh, I didn’t really get involved in design. That was done by some real smart people out here at Battelle. But I was onsite trying to get them installed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: And tested. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. That’s really—that’s fascinating. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah, it was. I had a chance to do a lot of fun things when I worked at Battelle. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Yeah, it sounds like it. Sounds like maybe I need to go get a job over there. Maybe they need a traveling historian. So, where—what have you been doing since you retired? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, for about five years, I worked for Dade Moeller, which is kind of a spinoff company from Battelle. And they had a major contract with NIOSH—National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health—as part of an employee compensation program for radiation workers. Initially, the way this was set up was we got the actual radiation exposure records for former employees and examined their measured radiation exposure, and then did some other calculations that would tend to take into account anything else that they might have been exposed to but was somehow not measured on the dosimeter and many other factors to kind of add up their maximum possible radiation dose. And then that was compared—this is where it got a little complex. There are many different types of cancer that can be caused by radiation at a high enough level. Some types of cancer can be caused by a radiation level lower than some others. So it depended on what type of cancer the individual had as to which—how we measured their maximum possible radiation exposure to the likelihood that that cancer was caused by radiation. We did a careful calculation using probability and determined that if their cancer was at least 50% probable that it was caused by radiation, then they were granted an award. Well, we did that for several years in a very careful, scientific way that was well-documented. Then it became political. A lot of former workers, then, applied for another category within this overall compensation program that they called Special Exposure Cohort. Which meant that it didn’t matter how much radiation exposure they had, if they had the right type of cancer, they could get the award. And it’s kind of degenerated that way. But for many years, I think we did it right. I also had an opportunity to work on another part of that project where we did what we call the technical basis documents, where we reconstructed the history of how radiation exposure records were developed and maintained at each of these different sites. Every one varied a little bit. I did the one for the technical basis document for Pantex in Amarillo, because I was familiar with that. But I got to do several other interesting sites, one of which was Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Going there and interviewing some of these old-timers and looking at their old records, I found that there was a chemistry professor at what was then Iowa State University. He was called upon by the Manhattan Project in 1943 to help them improve their methods for extracting uranium metal. The old process that had been used by the Curies and other early scientists was really quite inefficient. But this professor developed a method used in a calcium catalyst that was very effective. He was able to purify uranium metal much quicker and in larger quantities. The story was that he would have to get on the train every Sunday afternoon and go to Chicago for the meeting with the Manhattan Project and report on the progress of his research and so on. One week after successfully isolating an ingot of uranium metal, he took it with him in his briefcase. Went into the meeting with Manhattan Project and clunked it on the desk, and passed it around. He said that this is a new method for producing substantial quantities of uranium metal. All the scientists around the table kind of poked at it and scratched it and so on and didn’t believe it was really uranium, but it was. And they finally decided that he had made a great breakthrough, so they sent him back to Iowa and said, make a lot more, fast. And he did. So he had the material they needed, then, for the Manhattan Project. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Interesting story. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Yeah, that’s really fascinating. So how did you become involved with the Parker Foundation? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: About ten years ago—almost ten years ago—my friend Bill Bair and Ron Kathren and a couple others on the Parker Board invited me to participate. Matt Moeller was chairman of the board at that time—invited me to participate, and I just joined in, and found it very rewarding. I really appreciate what the Parker Board does in the memory of Herb Parker and in the sense of scholarships and other educational programs. So it’s a pleasure to contribute to that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Great, great. You moved in 1975 or ’76? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I moved here in ’76. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: ’76. And you mentioned children. Were your children born here, or did you move here with them? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: My oldest daughter was born in San Diego, and my younger daughter was born in Boulder, Colorado. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: So they were six and eight, I think, when we moved here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: What were your impressions of Richland in the mid-70s when you moved? Did you live in Richland or did you--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: We did. Yeah, we lived just a few blocks from WSU here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: In North Richland. It was a very different community, but one that I came to know and respect. Because at that time, education was really paramount in the minds of parents and the school system. And my wife was a teacher. So we really took an interest in that. My kids got a really good education here in Richland. Went to Hanford High, and then did well in college. One of the main features of Richland at that time, I think, was a superior education program. Some of the other history of Richland with old government housing, and then we got a new house, and things like that are entirely different, but also very interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: And is that what you kind of are meaning when you say it was a different community? I guess I’d like to unpack that a little bit more. How—in what ways was it different? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, a large part of Richland was originally government housing, and you only had to drive through town, you could see all the evidence of that. And then on the north side of Richland, they had opened up—beginning in 1965, I believe—development of newer private housing. We got here just in time to get in on a new house, and worked out fine for us. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Great. Was there—being next to a site that was primarily involved in product production, plutonium production—was there a different feeling about the Cold War in Richland per se than anywhere else you had lived in the United States at that time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: There definitely was different feelings about the Cold War and living anywhere near a nuclear power plant. I remember when we were working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at many different reactor sites around the country. In many cases we would have public meetings to introduce the local folks to what we were trying to do to improve the emergency planning. There was a lot of concern about living anywhere near a nuclear power plant just a few years after TMI. I tried to explain to people how I live within 30 miles of nine nuclear power plants. But I understood radiation. I understood the risk, and I understood what could go wrong or how to deal with it. And it didn’t concern—didn’t bother me that much to live here. I found that to be generally true of a lot of people in Richland that were part—working at Hanford and were well-educated. They understood the risk and they could deal with it. Whereas many other people were just afraid. And I attribute that to what I call now about a 71-year deliberate misinformation program on the part of mass media to scare people about radiation. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I like that. I’m writing it down. How do you feel that the—do you feel that the ending of the Cold War changed your work at all? I guess the reason why I ask— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: It did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: --these questions about the Cold War is because it was the impetus for much of the continued production of the material. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yeah. I was in Germany in 1988, just before the Berlin Wall came down. I was also there in Berlin in 1984, and we actually crossed through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin on a special tour. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: It was quite amazing. I was in Berlin for a meeting of the International Radiation Protection Association. I took my whole family; it was a tremendous adventure for them. But we were able to be part of a special US Army tour that went through Checkpoint Charlie. I think they did this once a week. And we had a little tour of East Berlin while it was still under the control of the USSR. We visited their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and they had a little ceremonial changing the guard there. And we visited the square in Berlin where Hitler had burned the books that one night in 1939. And then we visited a huge Russian war memorial, and there was a building there where the Germans had surrendered in 1945. There was quite a story about that. But I was really impressed with this huge Russian war memorial. There were five mass graves that each held 100,000 soldiers. It was done in kind of the Russian style, with statues and other honorary symbols to clearly show their respect for the lives of all those soldiers. But that was an impressive sight. But I was there again in 1988 just before the Berlin Wall came down, and you could kind of see the end of the Cold War coming. So it was a great opportunity that I had, working for Battelle, being able to travel like that, and do many exciting things. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Did you get to ever talk or meet with any of your counterparts on the Russian side? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: After the Cold War ended. And what was that like, to finally work with what had been considered the enemy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: It was quite unusual. I was scheduled to go to Russia a week after 9/11. It almost got canceled, but I managed to go. I was giving—they were having a conference for young scientists and trying to introduce them to international concepts of radiation safety. So I gave my paper and four others that we did to that group. It was located at what was the Russian equivalent of Los Alamos, their design facility. There weren’t very many Americans had been in there up to that point. So I was watched very closely. [LAUGHTER] And not allowed to see much, actually. But it was a very interesting exchange. The papers I was presenting were prepared in both English and Russian. And then we also did what they called a poster presentation, where we had a big poster with diagrams and everything—again translated to Russian. So we were able to put these up at this conference for these young scientists. They, I think, got a lot out of it because it was in their language so it was easy for them to understand. Working with an interpreter was a new experience for me. I would give this oral presentation, so I’d say one sentence and the pause. The interpreter would repeat that. I’d say the next sentence, and—kind of an awkward way to do an oral presentation. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I can imagine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: But their hospitality was very good. This was in 2001. So the Cold War had been over for quite a few years. But we were trying to establish better relations. I think it was quite effective in doing that. I had another opportunity to work with Russian scientists on an NRC program, again where NRC was trying to provide training to their equivalent Russian inspectors for nuclear power plants and explain to them some of the ways that they did inspections, things they looked for, how they documented findings and things like that. We had four Russian inspectors and their interpreter come over from Moscow. I was their host in Washington, DC, and we worked with them there with the NRC headquarters for a week, providing training. And then we brought them out to Idaho to the Idaho National Lab, north of Idaho Falls, and went to a large hot cell facility at Idaho. A hot cell is where they have a heavily shielded enclosure with mechanical arms that do things on the inside. It was quite a sophisticated facility and somewhat unlike what the Russian counterparts were used to. But it was a good learning exercise for them. We kind of went through a demonstration of how we would do an inspection—a safety inspection. So, I had those kind of opportunities to interact with Russian scientists and found that very exciting. Very interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Did you find that there was anything that you had learned from them at all? Or do you feel that the US was much more advanced in radiation protection and health physics? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, I kept my ears open when I was talking to them, but they didn’t reveal much. [LAUGHTER] So, we didn’t pick up much that way. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: We were trying to help them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Right. Were you at Hanford during the Russian visit to Hanford when they toured the Plutonium Finishing Plant? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: No. That was after I retired, I think. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay, just curious. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I heard about it of course. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I’m sure. That must have been a pretty big deal from the standpoint of both countries. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you would like to talk about? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I think there’s one thing I remember from when I did this interview the first time that I wanted to mention. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I’ve been talking about all the varied experiences I had, and excellent opportunities over the years. But I think one of the perhaps most impressive things that I was able to do was to be able to hire several good people into my organization. I won’t mention names, but there were several that I call superstars that are now leaders in the field. I was able to bring them in right out of college or from another job, and hire several really good people that certainly enhanced our program, and then gave them great opportunities to grow and expand. Like I say, they’re now leaders in the field. That was one of the most rewarding parts of my job. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: That’s great. Maybe you can give me their names off camera and we could contact them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I think they’re already on your list. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Oh, okay, good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: But I’ll do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Well, good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: We’ll do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: They should be. Tom, did you— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Tom Hungate: No, I’m fine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Emma, did you have anything? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Emma Rice: No, I’m fine. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Okay. Well, I think that’s it. Jerry, thank you so much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, that was fun. Did we stay on target? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I believe we did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I wandered a little. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: That’s okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: There’s some stories there that might be interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: I think the stories help keep the oral histories—they have a human-centered focus and they’re interesting for people to watch. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I hope so. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: And I think there might be a couple things that merit some more research in there that personally, for me, I’d like to find out some more about. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Especially the howitzer thing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Oh, yeah. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Hungate: One thing I’d just like to ask— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Hungate: You’ve been involved in a lot of things over a broad range of time and experiences and I just kind of wonder what you would feel is the one—maybe the item or two that you’ve worked on that will leave the most lasting impact? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: The most lasting impact. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Hungate: Or that you wished had been developed more that didn’t quite complete, you’d like to see more work done on it, it was either defunded or it was— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Well, I’m thinking of several different things now. I’ll just have to think it through. The work we did with NRC to improve emergency planning on nuclear power plants I think was very effective. And that’s still being maintained today. Work we did with DoE at Pantex on nuclear weapons. You mentioned the end of the Cold War, that’s when many of these tactical nuclear weapons in Europe were brought back and declared obsolete, and so we were doing a massive disassembly operation on those. I learned a lot about nuclear weapons and found it fascinating. We implemented some methods at Pantex that I think are still in use in the maintenance programs that they do now. But we were able to, I think, substantially improve on radiation safety at Pantex. Certainly to the point where we were finally blessed by DNFSB and DoE. I think the quality of that program has been maintained. There’s several other projects that I’ve worked on over the years, but I guess there’s no one thing that stands out that I would be concerned about that it was defunded or ended or somehow went downhill. I’m sure that’s happened, but I haven’t kept track of everything. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Being as nuclear power and nuclear weapons have different objectives, and you mentioned this retirement of a lot of nuclear weapons, do you feel that nuclear weapons still have a role to play in security— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: I do. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: You do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Martin: Yes. Because the Russians still have a lot of them, China has some, the French and English have a few. It’s what I call the mutual deterrent, which is a term that’s been used. It just means that we don’t ever want to use one again, but if any one of those countries had some kind of an unbalanced advantage, it could be used. So if we have this mutual assured deterrence, it keeps that in balance. So it’s important to maintain that stockpile. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Interesting. Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Hungate: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500"> Franklin: Great. </div> Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Jerome Martin Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:02;33 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 N reactor 300 Area B Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1976-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1976-2006 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kathren, Ron Bair, Bill M. Parker, Herbert Hyde, Ken Lyon, Matt Jech, John Moeller, Matt Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Jerome Martin Description An account of the resource An interview with Jerome Martin conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-29:Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 6/1/2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site. Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region 300 Area B Plant Battelle (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) N Reactor Parker, Herb 1910-1984 Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9b9a473b596f5a77ab1eca9de21bcbc7.jpg a47fef2418adfc10000ab94ad0f2ef61 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1c8d5add285c766719f8e3d9016ca78c.mp4 de64b4641f2df7bcd6977637f9220e2f 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 <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Douglas O’Reagan: First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Stanley Goldsmith: Stanley Goldsmith. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Okay, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Goldsmith here on March 21st, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Goldsmith about his experiences working at Hanford. Okay. Could you tell us about your childhood up through—just briefly tell us about your life up through college and entering the Manhattan Project. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: At Hanford here, or at Los Alamos? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Before that. Your life before the Manhattan Project. Where were you born? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia. In 19—March 25th, 1924. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Can you tell us about your life before the Manhattan Project? Up through college? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well I— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Why don’t I move closer, that might— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: I was raised in Norfolk and went to Virginia Tech to take—to get a chemical engineering degree. I entered Virginia Tech in 1941, and I graduated in 1945. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: And then you entered the Army, is that right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: After graduation, I was drafted into the Army, and assigned to the Manhattan District of Engineers. Eventually, after waiting in several different places for my clearance, I wound up at Los Alamos, where I worked from 1945 to ’47—1947. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did you just find out about what the goal was once you arrived? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Yes. After I got to Los Alamos, we were told what the objective was, and all about the problems. This was different than the other nuclear sites were. This mission was kept secret. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: What element of the project did you work on at Los Alamos? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: At Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: At Los Alamos. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: At Los—I worked on processing the uranium-235 for the first atomic bomb. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: What did that involve? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: That involved converting uranium oxide that had been enriched with 235. That involved processing it from an oxide to a fluoride so it could be reduced to a metal. And then machined into the shapes they needed for the bombs. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Were you figuring out your process as you went? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: No. The process had been pretty well established. This was more like just individual laboratories processing individual amounts of u-235 to get it to the point where it could be reduced to metal. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Who did you work with? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: What? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did you work with anybody? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Who else was in your lab? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: That was a long time ago. Let’s see. There was Al Drumrose and a Purcell—I don’t remember his first name. There were two other—well, maybe a few other more people. But I guess I just don’t recall the names. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: So what brought you to Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: What got me to Hanford? I left Los Alamos to get a graduate degree in chemical engineering. When I graduated, I got a job here at Hanford as a nuclear—as a reactor engineer. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: How did you hear about the job? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, I knew about Hanford, and I sent out letters of inquiry about positions that may be open here and at other sites. And I got the position here in 1950. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: So you wanted specifically to work at Hanford or other sites—what was—did you have specific goals of what you wanted to do? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, I liked what Hanford had to offer. So there was no question about that. They satisfied what I was looking for. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: What were your first impressions of the area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, it was shocking to say the least. It was like out in the wilderness. And when I arrived in 1950, General Electric operated the whole site, including the housing and all of the utilities and so forth. They assigned me a house that—I don’t remember what the rent was, but it was very inexpensive. And then in 1960—let’s see, it was about 1960—between ’61 and ’65—they divided the work at Hanford among several—among four or five contractors. One of them operated the laboratory, one of them operated the nuclear reactor, and one the separations plant. I stayed with the laboratory. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Could you walk us through an average day when you first—say in 1950 or ’52—what sort of work were you doing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: What sort of work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: The average day—you want me to start back there?—is that my worksite was located about 20 miles from Richland. You could take a bus operated by the plant, or you could drive. But you had to go through an entrance gate—entrance—not a gate, but a station. And then we had to show our passes—badges. Then we went out to the site where we were working. In this case, at that time, I was working at F Reactor. As a reactor engineer, I rotated positions at the different reactors. So the work was—you asked me about the work—the work was, I thought, extremely interesting. And I felt very fortunate in that I felt like I was on the forefront of a new technology. By the time I got up here, there was a lot of emphasis on the peaceful use of nuclear power. I got involved in work for improving the nuclear fuels that was currently being used. This was because I was with Battelle then, and Battelle had a joint contract with the DoE where they could use part of their facilities—well, the major part of the facilities were for DoE work. But they also had a contract which they called 1831, and that was for doing private work for industrial corporations involved in nuclear work. I spent a lot of time on that, trying to—my group was trying to improve the performance of the fuel. Wanted to get higher powers. So that the fuel—we could produce fuel at a faster rate—I’m sorry, produce plutonium at a faster rate by increasing the power of the reactors. I worked as a reactor engineer for about four years. Then I took the position of manager of nuclear fuels research and development. We worked on developing or designing nuclear fuels, analyzing the fuels that had been used in the reactors to see what improvements could be made. Let’s see. We had a lot of interactions with the commercial fuel designers. As I mentioned, there were two contract billers. And this was done on the 1831, which allowed Battelle to use some facilities that were DoE’s—some facilities on the plant in their private work. So I’m trying to think about the timing, now. The main—after working on DoE projects for about five years, I worked on a private project that was sponsored—that was funded by Exxon—they’re now called Exxon Nuclear. They were interested in getting into the nuclear business, because they had a lot of claims on land that have uranium. They wanted—they decided to utilize those claims. Get the uranium, then processing it for use as nuclear fuels. So at that time, I think there was only one Exxon employee involved in this. They took over part—a major part of that, as Exxon Nuclear—took over a major part of Battelle. We were moved out of the buildings that DoE built, and we were located in Uptown in Richland in the industrial—just completely isolated from the other nuclear work that was going on. We designed a nuclear fuel for Exxon Nuclear which evolved into their first commercial fuels. During that time, Exxon Nuclear began to have their own staff. But we stayed with them until about 19—early 1970s, we worked with them. And then their own employees could take over from then. After that, I worked on fuel cycles. On seeing if we could design different types of fuels with different types of materials, like thorium, on the fuel cycles. And we—let’s see. This was work for DoE. And we continued that work—my group continued working for DoE. They were working on the nuclear reactor regulation, on NRC. We had projects with NRC. Our main project was DoE. And here again, I was telling you--[COUGH] Excuse me. I was still involved in nuclear fuel development. We did a lot of work for NRC and also for DoE. This was on helping them understand and approve their review of new nuclear fuels in reactors—nuclear fuel design. So we were working on both sides of the street: with the regulatory side, and the DoE development side. And then in 1980—excuse me just one minute—I should have jotted these dates down. In late 1980s, I worked on a DoE program on nuclear fuels—on nuclear fuel cycles, where we were looking at different way of utilizing the nuclear fuels so that they would last longer and that they would be safer. Then after that, I was assigned to Battelle Columbus, because I had worked through this project. It turned out quite successful. And Battelle Columbus had a contract with DoE to perform research on finding a nuclear repository—nuclear burial site. I was the Battelle manager of that program for about four years. We looked at the—examined the potential nuclear sites in New Mexico, Louisiana, Georgia, and here at Hanford. This program went on for about four or five years, and then DoE selected the Nevada site at Los Alamos—not Los Alamos—at Las Vegas for the site to bury the spent nuclear fuels. That program lasted for quite a while, but I left it in 19—after four years, because I didn’t want to move down to Texas, which was one of the sites that was being considered. So I moved back here to the Hanford. I worked on miscellaneous programs after I came back to Hanford. A lot of them had to do with the nuclear fuel cycle and the nuclear waste disposal—nuclear waste treatment and disposal. And I did that type of work for about four years, and then I retired in 1987? 19—yes, in 1987. And I left Battelle, and went to work for an environmental engineering company in Washington, DC, who was working on the same sort of thing. They were technical support contracted to DoE headquarters. So I was there until—let’s see. I was there until about 1994. And then I had to just—I still continued to work even though I was retired from Battelle. I had actually moved back to Battelle and was hired by Battelle as a consultant so that I could retain my pension and the salary for the job. That went on until about 1992. And finally, I retired for good. [LAUGHTER] So, that’s a very brief and sketchy description of what I did here at Hanford. One thing that—a little sideline you might be interested in. You asked about what Hanford was like. When I first came to work here, there were very few facilities that could be used at Hanford. I was not—I didn’t need anything special to do my work; I didn’t need a specially designed building structure. But I did do work on design and that work was done—the group was assigned to the Hanford High School. [LAUGHTER] Let’s see, where else? As I said, I had worked at most of the reactors that were operating at that time. Oh, there’s one thing that—I want to back up a little bit until about 1975. I got in—my group got involved in plutonium recycle. This was a program that DoE sponsored, a fairly large program, in which we were trying to recycle the plutonium that was not being used in bombs. Plutonium—to show that it could be used in nuclear power reactors. And we actually had a plutonium recycle test reactor built here onsite to test the fuels, the mixed oxide. We called it mixed oxide fuel because it’s plutonium and uranium oxide. And the reactor, which was the PRTR, Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor, was designed specifically to try to test, get information on mixed oxide fuels. Let’s see. I moved around a lot. After about five years on that program, I moved on, I think, to working for Exxon Nuclear, to assist them in their program. Now, Exxon Nuclear was so sensitive about their work being exposed by DoE that they moved many of the facilities that they used at Battelle, they moved them to different sections. We had offices at the old—what was it—the woman who had all of this fabric stuff? It was in Richland, it’s right in downtown Richland. And we took the top floor of one of the buildings that had already been built. And of course, there, we only did calculations because they had no facilities for taking care of irradiated material. That was an interesting time, too, when we were off on our own, so to speak. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: They did that because they were afraid of the Department of Energy taking their knowledge? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, they were concerned there would be some link—crossover—inadvertently, perhaps. The DoE could claim that some of the work done by Exxon Nuclear was done by DoE. And they didn’t want that to happen, so they completely isolated themselves. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did that hurt your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Did that work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did it impact your work, being isolated like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: I’m sorry? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Being isolated, did that impact your work? Did it slow your work, or did it cause any problems? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: No, it didn’t cause any problems. We were able to move our whole group out into the new facility in downtown Richland. So were other groups—nuclear physics group, and the other groups that went into the fuel cycle. But that was an interesting time, because we were really developing commercial nuclear fuels. The design that we had come up with was the first nuclear fuels that Exxon Nuclear had marketed. They marketed to—I’ll think of that in a minute. But anyway, we got involved in—since I mentioned earlier that there were very few Exxon Nuclear employees involved in this program—that we actually got involved with the Exxon Nuclear people who went out to market their product. That was at the time when we ran into some very interesting commercial situations. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: What makes one nuclear fuel better than another nuclear fuel? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, they were made primarily from uranium, and they were oxides. They were made into compressed pellets. Now, some of these were different—some of these were specifically made for boiling-water reactors, and others were for pressurized-water reactors. There was a design difference in the two reactors. One of them—the power level was about the same, but the design of the fuel and the way it was structured was different. That made a difference in the fuel for the two types of reactors. After we got involved in working for Exxon Nuclear, when our contract with them expired, we became very much involved in working only for DoE and NRC. I think I mentioned that to you. We—oh, we had contracts—my group had contacts with practically all the commercial nuclear fuel design people, and we provided them design support, and we did testing for them. So we were pretty much involved in the nuclear industry by then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: How secretive or how classified was your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: After—when I moved to Hanford, the classification was almost—was very slim. It was very lax, because with the dropping of the atom bombs, then all of that came out, what the bomb was made of, and some ideas what the design of the bomb was. So by that time, it had pretty well leaked out, the security was relaxed on that, also. So that wasn’t—that was no longer a big problem. There were still some residual problem in security. In fact, the Russians, of course, wanted to get into the nuclear industry business. They wanted to know—well, this backed up into the weapons program—Cold War program. They wanted to know what powers we read our plants at—how many megawatts. And they actually took measurements of the Columbia River and calculated from that what powers we were obtaining. So that was when the Cold War was going on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: How did you hear about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Hear about what? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: The Russians testing the waters. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Oh. I think we had—our security people kept an eye on what was going on with the Russians. And this is one of the things they found out. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Let’s see. What was life in the Tri-Cities like back in the 1950s and ‘60s outside of work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, it was pretty plain in a way—several. Because there weren’t many things to do. There was only one theater, and there may have been one or two grocery stores, and I think there was one real estate agent. That was the case with most of the various businesses. There was maybe one, or two at the most. There was not much in the way of entertainment. I mentioned that we had one theater. People—the workers at the plant—developed their own entertainment—sources of entertainment. They formed all kinds of different clubs. One of the most popular club was the bridge club—competitive bridge. We played that in one of the commercial buildings that had an open space that we could use. Another was the Richland Little Theater. And then there was a Richland opera—Light Opera, also. And there were—of course, golf was a big activity, because there were already several different golf courses. So that was taking off. There were other activities like that where you had to build them yourself. You may have gotten a little support from DoE, but you couldn’t depend on it. So we had to make our own source of entertainment and relaxation. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did you play bridge? What was your entertainment? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Yeah, I got involved in playing bridge. This was duplicate bridge. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but that’s a form of bridge that is competitive. It’s still—it’s played in such a way that everybody—each couple gets to play against another couple, and they rotate during the evening, so that other couples play the same cards. The competitive part comes in as to who comes up with the best score at the end of the evening. [LAUGHTER] And that was quite controversial. Particularly when a man and woman were partners—they would—they had no shame, or no hesitant to getting into arguments at the bridge table. So that was a big deal. Even now there’s a lot of bridge clubs that are playing here—duplicate bridge is what it’s called. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Where did you live throughout your time at Hanford, or in this area? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: What’s that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Where did you live? Did you move houses? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Yes—well, yeah. At that time, they were building houses like mad. I lived in one of the government houses in Richland—old Richland. Then I moved into what they called a ranch house. Those were a government house that was one story, and it had three bedrooms. There was some furnishing that came with these houses. The rental on it was very nominal. And as I recall, we were provided—many of these houses, or most of them were heated by coal. DoE actually—at that time, it was actually GE who ran the town—provided free coal. They would come around periodically and dump a load of coal for you to use in your houses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Sounds dirty! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Huh? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Sounds dirty! Seems like it would get you messy. All the—dumping the coal, is there a coal dust that would come up? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: What’s that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: When you burned the coal, would it be dirty? Would it make a lot of smoke, I guess? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Not too bad. They must have used a hard coal that gave out less smoke. I don’t know that—it wasn’t like an industrial company where they had large facilities that generated a lot of steam, a lot of smoke. This was kind of dispersed. So we didn’t have an air problem at that time. We had—now the other thing that they did to make life easier—we had our own transportation—public transportation system. You could ride on the buses that they had for free. So that was to make life easier for the employees. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Must have been a lot of buses? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: What? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Must have been a whole lot of buses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, most of the buses were actually used to go out to the Area—to take the workers out to the Area, because there’s where you had a lot of people to be transported. The civilians, or the private people, had—many of them had their own cars. So didn’t use the bus. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Was it different when you were working on commercial energy compared to when you were working for the Department of Energy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Yes, there were quite a lot of differences. We were able to produce fuel designs and produce developmental fuels in a much shorter time than DoE, because there was a lot of paperwork involved in going through the DoE process. In fact, one of the DoE people at headquarters who was in charge of reactor development said he was very upset because he couldn’t—he was in charge of the fast reactor, the FFTF. And they were struggling to try to get the thing going. He was very upset because he couldn’t understand how we were able to get fuel for Exxon Nuclear, and they were still struggling. They’d been struggling for a long time. [LAUGHTER] So he wanted to know what we were doing. Well, what it was, we didn’t have to jump through all the loops that you did. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Was it finding the uranium, the procurement that was the problem? Or just write paperwork? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: No, the problem that DoE had was that they had a bureaucracy that kind of controlled things. And that always slows things down. It took them about twice as long to develop the fuel for the Fast Flux Reactor than it did us for the commercial reactors. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Hmm. Let’s see. Have the Tri-Cities changed much in the time you’ve been living here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Oh, yeah. It’s been amazing how it’s grown. The Tri-Cities now is like a normal city. The nuclear influence is much less, because we have so many other businesses now involved for our economic base. As I had mentioned earlier, there were usually one kind or maybe two types of business or entertainment or something like that. When the commercial people came in, they opened as many stores as they wanted, or that were needed. So that was one big thing. Another big thing was the housing development, the real estate. I remember up until 19—let’s see, about 1965, GE was in charge of everything, including building houses. [COUGH] Excuse me, I’ve got a cold. When they opened up the lands, part of the land, surrounding territory was owned by the Department of the Interior—it was government owned. And then they made those available to the public for building houses and other types of structures. The demand for these things was great enough, so the building was really at a peak. Now, even now, you take a look at the housing—the amount of housing that’s going on, and take a look at the commercial businesses, like drive down George Washington Way, you see all these new businesses or restaurants or that sort of thing. So it’s really changed. Richland was all on this side of the Columbia River. That was one of the boundaries for Richland. But then the Columbia River curved around, and there were—on the other side of the river, there was nothing but sagebrush. But some entrepreneurs had bought land there, and then when they started to build, they had lots of land to build on. That was no problem. There’s a whole new part of Richland that’s on the other side of the river that wasn’t there until probably about 1965 or so. That’s when it started. So there’s been a growth of industry. The highways have been developed. There’s new industry that’s come in. So we’ve developed quite a good industrial base now, and it’s still growing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Are there any—to ask an open-ended question, are there any moments or stories that come to mind that you think are worth telling about your time working at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, I told you about how we had, early on, we had offices at the Hanford High School. That was—we made a lot of fun of that, when anyone called you at the high school, we said this is the Goldsmith class of ’41-’42. There was a lot of—amazing amount of work that was done on animals to use those as some of the basic studies for the effect of radiation on animals. Now we don’t have any of those studies going on. But let’s see. I’m trying to think of something that is unusual. A lot of it was—practically all of it was unusual. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: How about something mundane, but it’s still kind of unusual? Or maybe a day in the life later on in your work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, I mentioned the general public had to develop their own recreational activities. We have—I don’t know—we have a lot of parks and fields. Like some of those baseball parks are very good. I didn’t appreciate how good they were until—I have some relatives who live in Maryland, and we visited them, and we went to see their children’s baseball game. But they had just an open field, nothing like we have. So that’s been—the recreational things have improved quite a bit. Of course the boating is still a big deal. I really—as I said, there was so much growth going on that it’s hard to pick out any one area. Excuse me. The recreational areas have increased. You know, we’ve grown more; we’ve built at least two new golf courses, and these were very good golf courses. Then the other thing is some of the building of private homes around the golf courses. That has been—we live in a community there that probably has—what would you say, Joyce, about 800 people? Something of that sort. And it’s very nice. There’s two such communities. One of them is called Canyon Lakes, where we live, and the other is called Meadow Springs. That’s been developed—highly developed. We both have very nice golf courses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Joyce: After you retired, didn’t you work with the people from Israel, the First Defenders? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Oh, yeah, that was an interesting little program. That was after I retired, and I was re-hired. Battelle got a program from the State Department to help—to develop ways for the First Defenders on a terrorist site could make a better determination of what happened. And they did this on a worldwide basis. Mainly, underdeveloped countries, but one country that they had and they were anxious to get involved because they had firsthand information—they were anxious to get Israelis involved. Because they had a lot of first defenders. The program consisted of sending a team of people over to Israel and tell them what the program was about. And then Israel was to send about 20 people over here for a month. And then we were using the training—the HAMMER facility to do the training. I got involved because when the Israelis came over, they asked me, since I’m Jewish, they asked me if I would help trying to make them feel comfortable and so forth, take care of their dietary laws. And again, they were very pleased. And it was fun, it was interesting to see how they had become sensitized to terrorism. For instance, they stayed at one of the hotels out there. It’s right outside of Columbia Center Mall. And early morning, a bus would pick them up and take them out to the HAMMER site. After about two or three days, the bus driver said—no, someone said are we going to take any different routes? And the bus driver thought they meant for sightseeing. But they didn’t want to establish a pattern for terrorists to see what their schedule was. So they finally got him to change the route out to Hanford itself. But that was interesting, because the view of the Israelis who had been submitted to so much terrorism and the view of the other countries that we trained but who had not been submitted were completely different. Like night and day. So that was interesting experience. They show you the difference between our view of being careful about terrorism. As I said, these people were housed—excuse me. These people were housed in one of the hotels close to the Columbia Center—close to the Columbia Center Mall. They would go into the mall, and they were appalled to see that people were allowed to go in and out of the mall carrying all kinds of backpacks and all kinds of packages where it’s not being inspected. Because in Israel, they inspected anyone who was carrying a package of any sort. And they would be examined. So that was an interesting insight on how the different countries treat terrorism. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: And the training was about how to respond to a nuclear accident, or a crisis? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Well, this program was called the First Defenders. And these people were doctors, they were scientists, they were firemen and so first. They were a mixture of who would come to the site where an attack had been made. That’s why they called them the First Defenders. They—let’s see, what was I going to say? They were very—the ones that were really involved in anti-terrorism were very conscientious and good about it. We had some interesting things that arose as part of this program. As I said, there were nations from all over the world that were involved to a certain extent. And we had the Indians, from India, coming over, spending a month. They were put up in the Hanford House—Red Lion Hanford House. They got a call one day from someone at the Hanford House wanting to know if we could talk to these people about how to keep the shower curtains inside of the showers, because they would keep them out and they would flood the whole area. So there were strange incidences like that. I’m sorry, Joyce? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Joyce: About when Bill Wiley was here and you worked at Hanford Battelle in Quality Assurance. Did you share any of that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: The quality--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Joyce: Uh-huh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: Bill Wiley was a very—I think he was very influential and left his mark on the site, because he wanted to develop this environmental molecular laboratory, the rows of buildings out there, the new rows. And that opened up a whole new set of doors for Battelle to grow. They went into more basic stuff. Up to that time, we mainly focused on working on problems with nuclear reactors and nuclear fuels. But this was completely different from that. This was basic science that these laboratories allowed us to get involved in. And it’s opened up a whole new area. I think Battelle, and Hanford in general, has benefited from it, because they get a lot of extra programs that they wouldn’t have before. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Were you involved with these basic science programs? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: No, I started in nuclear fuels and nuclear reactors most of the time I was here. But I didn’t get into any of the basic science programs. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did you want to say anything about this Oppenheimer letter, maybe introduce it for us? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: He was a very nice guy, and he was very considerate, and everybody liked him. He was very friendly—friendly in a reserved way. He didn’t go around smacking people on the back, but you knew he was warm and he remembered names. After the peace was declared, I think it was that later date in 1945? No, not 1945. At any rate, after the war was over, and things settled down, he sent out a letter to some of the people who worked on it that thanked them for their effort. And he sent me one of those letters. And I’m very impressed with it, because he knew what I was doing. Because he could mention that in his letter. I’ve been very proud of that letter. That’s what that is all about. It may not be much to many people, but to people who have been involved in the nuclear industry, I think it has some impact. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Did you ever meet any other Los Alamos or other Manhattan Project veterans who weren’t from the Hanford site when you worked at Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: When I went to Hanford did I ever--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: Meet any other people who had been at Los Alamos? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: No, there are not too many people here, just a few people here. I’m hoping—I’d like to know—I wanted to put something on Facebook about seeing how many people from Los Alamos who actually worked on the bomb still are around. Because I don’t think there are too many. I was—I got my degree when I was 21, so—and then I immediately went to work and have done that since then. But I’ve lost track of most of the people. I think they’re probably dead by now. [LAUGHTER] But if there’s something that comes up from that, I’d like to see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> O’Reagan: All right, well thank you so much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Joyce: Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584"> Goldsmith: You’re welcome. Thank you. </div> 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 Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 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 Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Wiley, Bill Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 247 kbps 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 Stanley Goldsmith Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3/21/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-28: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 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.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Ffc26abfcad1867ffbfbc9943486fecef.jpg 50e3b275424ab6190bdb6c842abe8137 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6e943532e002ba8d078e11a4e7f75958.mp4 ec42f85d52e2ce276b6305ce36a4e155 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 Carson, David Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Douglas O’Reagan: Okay. To start us off, will you please pronounce and spell your name for us? David Carson: Hi. My name is David Carson, D-A-V-I-D, C-A-R-S-O-N. O’Reagan: Okay, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview here on April 29th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus on Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be speaking with Mr. Carson about his experiences working on the Hanford Site and living in the Tri-Cities community. Well, thanks for being here. Could you tell us first just a little bit about your life leading up to either moving into the Tri-Cities or starting working at Hanford? Carson: I was born here in Richland at Kadlec in May of 1958. Grew up here, went through all the Richland schools—Spalding and Carmichael, and—I can still call it Col High because I went there then. Went off to college, met my wife. We were biology majors, and about the time that we graduated and were looking for jobs, Battelle, who at the time had a huge biology program, they lost most all their contracts. So that just evaporated. My wife managed to get on with Battelle a couple months after we were married. But it took me over six months before I finally got a break and got hired on at N Reactor as an operator. My-- O’Reagan: And that would have been ’81? Carson: That was in March of 1981. My parents had moved here in the spring of 1951 with my brother and sister. I was a 16-year mistake, so they’re a lot older. But they moved here in ’51. They lived in the trailer camp up north. My brother and sister went to Ball Elementary, for example. In ’53 they were able to buy a ranch house on Cedar Street, and that’s where I grew up. My dad was a fireman. Eventually became a lieutenant and then a captain. My mom was a secretary and then executive secretary. She was one of the very first certified professional secretaries onsite, and did a great deal to spread that program and bring skills and professionalism throughout all of her parts of the work. For years, she worked here—for over 35 years, a couple years longer than my dad, actually. So I’m about as Richland-born-and-bred and Hanford-centered as you could hope to ask for. When I got hired on at N Reactor, I started—as so many people in operations did—back in the fuels department. We called it back, because it was in the back part of the building. It was both the front and the back of the process. So back there, we made up the charges of reactor fuel for charging into the reactor. After that went in, the old fuel was discharged. We also took care of that out in the storage basin. So that was—I started in late March ’81, I was in fuels for six months. I always knew that I wanted to move up into the control room. So after six months, in September of ’81, I moved up front to reactor operations, not fuels operations. Started out as—everyone was referred to sort of shorthand as paygrade. A plain reactor operator was a Grade 18. So I was a Grade 18. That’s where you begin learning the basics of the job. You learn how to take building patrol and what all the readings mean and how to take them correctly. Because you have to go around the whole building twice a shift and check on running equipment, take readings, make sure things aren’t breaking or whatever. Then you start learning more of the jobs, from housekeeping—there were some specialized parts of that. Doing laundry—there was specialized parts to that, because it was—you were dealing with radioactive clothing, so contamination control, you learn that a lot. All the different functions during charge/discharge. This was the time, in the early part of the Reagan Administration when they changed over to once again producing weapons-grade plutonium. It was called the 6% program. Weapons-grade plutonium is judged on how much plutonium-240 has grown into it. If you have more than 6%--PU-240 is a big neutron absorber, so it does not create a nuclear explosive as well. It poisons reactions. So the less of that you have, the less you have to work to separate it out and get just the PU-239 that you want. So changing to the 6% program meant that they were doing charge/discharges a little more than twice as often. Plus, a lot of the maintenance had been let go. For many years they’d been in power only, since the end of the Nixon Administration. And that was something of a coup, to let in startup just to produce electricity through the Hanford Generating Project number 1 that was run by Washington Public Power Supply System. We sent our steam to them over across the fence. We didn’t have anything to do with that, except send steam, get back water. So there was a lot of upgrades going on throughout the whole reactor plant. The reactor plant—we called it the power side, where the steam that we made as we cooled off the primary loop was used to drive turbines that drove the primary pumps that circulated the water. A lot of that equipment was also repaired, upgraded. It took a while to really get up on plane and start operating smoothly again. A lot of operators came in right around within a year or so of the time I did, and four or five reactor-operator certification classes’ worth. They would take about 15 people at a time, and you would run through about a year-long program to learn everything from fundamentals, which was basic math, basic chemistry, basic nuclear science, up through the specifics of the systems in the reactor and how they interacted, how you operated them safely, what you didn’t want to do, what you did do, the reasons behind all that. It got pretty complex. You had to take three tests to become certified. First, after the first couple sessions of classroom training, they would pull us off our shifts. We worked a four-shift rotating shift at the time. Pulled us off our shifts, put us on day shift in the classroom for chunks of time. We’d go back when there were outages, because they needed bodies. When you finished your first couple of sessions of classroom training, there was the written exam, which is called the eight-hour. And it really is. It was almost 50 pages. I finished it in about six-and-a-half hours. I used up an entire pen. Just as I was finishing writing the essay on the last page, the pen died. And I looked at it—it was clear, and there was no ink left. So after you passed your eight-hour, you got a bump. You were then called a Grade 21, and a lot more of your training was real-time in the control room. You would sit on consoles with the other operators, and they would help guide you. You’d get some hands-on time. You’d learn more about that part of the job. After several months, and some more classroom training, you had an examination called the demo, where one of the instructors would come over and they would walk you around the control room and just start asking questions. Your job was to answer the questions, point at stuff, look things up in books—prove that you knew where it all was, what it all meant, what it all did. When you passed your demo, then you went into the final, more intensive part of classroom training to get ready for your oral board. Pass the eight-hour, pass the demo, train some more, then you sat an oral board, in which there were people from operations, engineering, nuclear safety, training, and sometimes somebody else would sit in. I don’t know why, but they did. So once you passed your oral board, you were considered certified—a Grade 23. But you still didn’t get turned loose yet. You still had to have guided time in the control room. You had to do a certain number of evolutions. You had to do so many startups, so many shutdowns, be in on so many scrams, do a little of this and a little of that, until your shift manager, after watching you and talking to the other operators, figured you were ready. So then, one day they say, okay, you’re free and clear. And your certificate went up on the wall with your name on it saying that you were a certified reactor operator, and you got thrown in. And then you really started to learn the job. Because all this stuff was suddenly no longer even partially theory. It was all real. O’Reagan: How many reactor operators were there at a time, roughly, who were licensed? Carson: It went up and down. Each shift was required to have at least four in the control room when you were operating. Typically, during this time in the ‘80s, every shift had seven or eight certified operators, and as many as a dozen Grade 18s—the ones who didn’t want to get into the certification program, who did other stuff around the plant. Because there was always stuff to do, if nothing else—housekeeping, stocking the laundry, and sweeping the floors. We had a schedule that came up every month and you rotated through different jobs in the control room. At the N control room, there was three major parts. There was a nuclear console, where you actually ran the reactor itself. We manually controlled the rod positions and manually monitored the power level and the flux where the neutron cloud was going up or down in the reactor. You wanted to keep that still and stable. You didn’t want it to cycle, because that can get—create stresses, if one part of the reactor’s really hot while this one back here is cold, it stresses—increases the fatigue and the chances for the failure of something. So you wanted to keep it nice and steady. We had instrumentation. We had—the only computer display we had was of temperatures. That was probably the main one, and the charts that showed how the neutron flux was changing. You wanted to keep all the lines straight. There was two of you, and you rotated on the nuke console every two hours—two hours on, two hours off. You’d get breaks and stuff while you were off. The double-A console controlled all of the primary loop and its interface with the secondary loop. That’s where you controlled the drive turbine speeds that drove the primary pumps to circulate the coolant. That’s where you controlled the primary loop pressure, the level of it, the emergency backup stuff—you were responsible for that. So you had this whole corner of the control room and panels that were your responsibility. The third part controlled the secondary loop—that’s the side—the primary loop went into the tubes of heat exchangers and it boiled the water on the shell of the heat exchanger—the steam generators. So that steam went up into the steam header. A lot of it went over to WPPSS. Some of it went down to drive our turbines. We also had a turbine generator of our own in the boiler building that was our onsite power source. You took care of the secondary loop there—its level, its pressure, the way it was. There was also a lot of other things that that operator did—rupture monitoring was at that panel, because N Reactor did not have a containment; it had a confinement. It was designed in 1958, went critical in ’63. They didn’t build—I guess they couldn’t at the time yet—build a full containment to keep everything in. It was designed that if there was a tube rupture and you had a big burst of superheated steam, that would vent. So we had to keep our primary loop really, really clean. And that’s what the rupture monitor was. If you saw signs that the fuel element in one of the 1,003 process tubes was beginning to release uranium into the water, you’d shut down and push that tube right away. There was also a system specifically for cooling the graphite. N Reactor, like the other old Hanford reactors, was called graphite-moderated. It used very pure graphite in a big block with complex passages through it. The neutrons, when they would leave the fissioned uranium atom, would go out and bounce around in that graphite before they found their way back into fuel, slowed way down, so that they could cause another fission. Modern power reactors use the water, the coolant, as a moderator. We used the solid graphite. We had a system to cool that specifically. So that operator took care of that. Also, the gas system, we circulated helium through the core when we’re operating, because at full power, 4,000 megawatts thermal, the temperature in the center of the core was 600, 700, 800 degrees in places, Fahrenheit. Pure graphite—you don’t want any air or water, anything that’s going to react with it at those temperatures. So we used the helium—you had to control that, too. And there’s other miscellaneous stuff, but you had to learn all of this, and you learned all of the classroom stuff, but just like anything, you really learned by doing, where it becomes second nature. The wonderful part about working it in was my shift—I was a little unusual in that I was assigned to one shift at the beginning, C shift, and I stayed on that shift my whole nine years there. Other people would move around, sometimes involuntarily. But I managed to stay on C shift all the time. It’s such a wonder and a joy when you can become that tight of a team to where you knew exactly how any individual’s going to react in a given situation. You don’t even need full words to communicate. We would have entire conversations in acronyms and shorthand. And we—stuff happened and we would ride it out and just—scary as heck, but—when it was over, you knew that the team had just really done its work like it’s supposed to. So that was always—that was a good feeling. O’Reagan: Could you give us an example of one of these acronym exchanges? Carson: Oh. Oh, it’s— What’s the HPIP delta P? 18. Okay, we need that up to 50. So—I’ve lost a lot of that. O’Reagan: Sure. Carson: But as in any installation, every piece has a name. It has typically an official name that meets a standard of naming from an engineering organization, it has the name that it’s normally referred to as, and it has an acronym. Sometimes it might have an even shorter shorthand name that your crew comes up with that you all know what it is, but you also know all the others as well. In a situation where something has begun to get out of line, out of normal--it’s not a crisis, but it’s something that you have to pay attention to and deal with right away—you need to transfer information as quickly and as clearly as possible. And that was how that was done, with shorthand acronyms that everyone knew exactly what you were saying; they could anticipate what you were about to say. So you could get other people to take particular actions absolutely as quickly as possible, and they could get you, by what they said back, to do your actions properly. O’Reagan: Could you walk us through a one specific scram or other sort of stressful event? Carson: I was there in the control room one night when—I believe it was thunderstorms hit a main distribution power line—a 230-kilovolt lines coming from the dams—that happened to be online as our offsite power. Lightning hit one of those transmission lines and caused a power surge that tripped open the breakers at the substation. Offsite power was called A bus. Onsite power was B bus. You needed them active and separated up from 13.8-kilovolt where it came into the reactor, all the way down to 12-volt DC instrument power. You couldn’t have any connection between those two, because that could conceivably cause a fault that would stop the reactor from scramming if it needed to. So they powered everything, but some things were powered more by one bus or one by another. This is one of the main things that we trained for, was a power loss. Of course, if you lose one of your electrical buses, that’s one of the automatic reactor scram trips—there was 23 of them. So the reactor scrammed, and everything’s going along about like you’d expect for a power loss from one bus. Everything’s already prepared and set up to take the proper actions automatically, so you have to monitor those and adjust as necessary. Then all of a sudden, there was some kind of electrical fault in our B bus, our onsite power, which was still online. It tripped off. It was B bus—I believe I’m saying this right—B bus powered the lights in the control room. So you knew if those lights went on, you’d lost B bus as well. Now, if you lost both buses at the same time, that was an automatic trip onto emergency cooling, which for N Reactor was very large, high-pressured diesel pumps would pump water. Valves would open at the inlet and outlet of the reactor and it would change to a once-through. We had a series of water tanks with demin[eralized] water, filtered water and sanitary water. And then through some mechanisms, it would trip all the way to river water. If it was known that if you ever tripped over onto emergency cooling, the thermal shock—because the water was kept hot, but it wasn’t as hot as the reactor—the thermal shock could basically destroy the reactor. And that would be over. Nothing you could do at that point as far as keeping the reactor as an operating reactor in the future. So luckily, A bus had actually come back online just seconds before B bus went off. Then B bus came back, so the lights came back on, and then we lost A bus again. Because the whole BPA network was still having ripples and things. And then it came back up and then we lost B bus again. So when each of these things is happening, there’s stuff you have to do, depending on what it was. We’re running back and forth, trying to do that, and it got really tense. But all that training, you stopped really thinking—just all the training in your brainstem took over and you started doing what you needed to do and communicating in just those short, almost little digital blips of information so that everyone knew what you were doing, and you knew what they were doing and you knew what everybody had to do and that they were doing it. So things got pretty terse in the control room right there. As the buses kept coming up and down, it would reset off hundreds of enunciators and we didn’t have time to try and figure out what the overall cause was; we were just still fighting to keep the reactor from tripping on to emergency cooling. So eventually, we got both buses back and stable and we could continue with our—then it became just a regular post-scram shutdown. The cool-down of the reactor, changing things to work slightly different ways here and there throughout the plant. Then you sit back and giggle and get the shakes a little bit. Everybody talked real loud and real fast for a while, you know? [LAUGHTER] So—just some stressful things like that. Any unexpected scram made you a little tense, a little puckery. Because you didn’t know what happened. We had big CRT monitors mounted up by the nuclear and the double-A console that were tied into an electronic alarm system that they would record all of the enunciators. There were—I think I heard the number once—it was 1,400 different enunciators in the control room. When one of those went off, it sent a signal to this alarm system that put the ID of them in a buffer memory. They would display up in the CRTs. Well, when you scram, you got 400 enunciators within two or three seconds. So all you could see on the screen was the first eight or so. So you didn’t know what was going on. You just had to deal with what you were supposed to do and trust that no further catastrophe was going to happen, and just be ready for it if it did. When the reactor was running smoothly, we called it at equilibrium, when we had not changed power by more than 5% in 72 hours. That was sometimes hard to keep your focus, because all the lines are running straight on the charts, and it’s graveyard, nobody wants to talk, and you’ve all told all your stories a dozen times, and nothing much to say. So you’re sitting, waiting, watching. So like the quote about war, hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Not as terror-filled as they might be, because we were trained and experienced in most stuff. Sometimes—there was always the possibility that sometimes something could happen that was really untoward, really out of the way, that could be really dangerous, really a disaster. O’Reagan: How much of working in the control room was sort of judgment or sort of work of art as opposed to a sort of objective do-the-next-thing? Carson: Actually quite a bit of it. One of the things that you developed as you gained experience as an operator—we called it getting stick time. When you started getting enough hours on a console and really starting to figure out how everything actually did work, you developed a feel, just from watching how all the different parts of the console you were on interacted. You got a feel if something was maybe not right, if something started looking a little jittery or a little bit out of its normal range that you wanted. Then you’d have to figure out, what little tweak can I make? Because everything was running in automatic, but you could always make small corrections. What little tweak could I make, given what I know about that that’s going on, that would make it better? And you developed what I always called a touch. Because you didn’t just go up and start twisting stuff. You really—with some instruments, some controllers—some control loops more than others—you didn’t want to put any very large change into it at all, because it was so sensitive. In the action that that controller would take, the input back to, say, the primary loop from changing the speed of one of the makeup injection pumps could just suddenly—if you did too much by accident, you could scram the reactor. Or you could cause it to lose pressure, which would scram the reactor another way. So getting to really develop that unconscious feel, similar to the way that when you’re driving and you pull into a parking lot or a real narrow street, you can actually feel with your body where the corners of your fenders are. It’s developing that kind of feel for a huge complex machine that was really what brought you into being a really good, competent operator. Some folks had it on some systems more than others. The older operators who’d been at it forever, it was just completely unconscious with them. That was just the way they did things was smooth and easy, and you don’t just jump in and start fiddling with stuff. You always think it through before you touch anything. And then when you touch it, you touch it very gently and make the changes as slow and small as you can to get the result that you want. O’Reagan: So you worked there through the closing of N Reactor, is that right? Carson: Yes. O’Reagan: How much did that change over the course, before you got to the closing? Was it—job change a lot over that time? Carson: While we were still operating—regular operation—it didn’t change that much. Some new things were put in, but overall they didn’t really affect us much. You had to deal with failures. For example, when the reactor was operating, the water circulated through five steam generator cells. We had six, so one was always out of service for maintenance or repairs or whatever, and you operated with five. Well, one of the cells was undergoing a total refit—a total reconditioning. And then another one of the cells, the primary pump developed some problems that were going to require a rebuild. So the decision was made to go ahead and operate at a reduced power level with only four cells online. That took a lot of adjustments. They had to come up with temporary limits that we had to learn and follow. Some of the procedures changed slightly for that temporary period to take into account the fact that you had a lower capacity and a lower rate of heat removal. So just dealing with a change like that, and then that begins to feel normal. And then they bring another cell back online. So you’re back to the way it was that used to be normal, but you have to kind of reset yourself to working that way. Limits were really the main thing we paid attention to as we were operating. All of the nuclear industry—and N Reactor, certainly, they really drilled this into us—it operates in defense of depth. You don’t ever have just a single barrier to something causing an accident. I called it a box-in-a-box-in-a-box-in-a-box-in-a-box. There’s the actual strength of the machine, at what pressures or temperatures will it break because the materials just physically can’t take it. So that’s your outermost limit that you never, ever, ever got close to. Inside of that was your technical specifications that protected this outer box. Inside the technical specifications were the process standards that protected the technical specification limits. Inside the process standards were your operating limits that protect—you never wanted to break a process standard, because you’d have to have an investigation and figure out why that happened and everything. And sometimes there were even special limits inside the operating limits that were even more restrictive. So those limits changed over time, but that was just part of the job. You had to get used to the new ways things were, and just live with it, because that’s the way it was. They taught us why the change was made, and what it meant, and that this was the new limits here and here and here. That’s the kind of stuff we went through during our continuous training. After you’re certified, the training cycle had all the operators, shift by shift, when they would roll around on dayshift, you would have training days. And every two years, you went through the entire certification curriculum again, from fundamentals through reactor operations, through system interactions—all of it, every two years. We had to take a recertification exam every quarter. So every three months you had a job jeopardy examination to keep on top of stuff. So that’s how all that was communicated to us and incorporated into the way we worked and the way things were operated and handled. As we got past the Chernobyl accident, some people knew right away, that was the death knell for N. A lot of us were still optimistic that the differences were so clear and plain and could be explained, and we could continue. They had plans for upgrading some of our equipment to allow the reactor to run for another 20 years, they said. [SIGH] Didn’t turn out that way. So much political fire came down on all of the DoE complex, but Hanford especially. I don’t know if you remember, at the time, we had a senator who was 100% anti-Hanford. I spoke at the time when South Carolina had three senators and we had one. Because he worked as hard as he could to send all the work, all the waste, all the everything to Savannah River, so that it wouldn’t be at Hanford. I’m just griping now, but—it ended up, it was January 7th, 1997 at 07:31 that the reactor was shut down for the last time. It was going to be for an upgrade. They were going to put in a control room habitability system that did actually get put in, and it worked. It was for a time if there was ever a large release from the reactor, we could have sealed up the control room and lived on recirculated air and supplies for up to two weeks. They put that in. There was another big upgrade. Because of the hydrogen bubble that developed inside the reactor at Three Mile Island from water being split by high temperatures and the presence of metal into hydrogen and oxygen. And the hydrogen formed a big bubble that could have—in very, very small circumstances—could have ignited or exploded. They were worried about hydrogen inside the reactor and power buildings at N. So they were putting in a hydrogen mitigation system that would have been able to take all of the hydrogen evolved from the entire quantity of water in the primary loop. If it all split and turned into hydrogen and oxygen, this system could have recombined the hydrogen and taken away the explosive potential. So we all hoped that, yeah, we were going to get these upgrades and we’d be able to start up again and keep going for a while longer. But we never did. So the people who could leave right away did. But the end of ’97, we’d lost a lot of the real sharp engineers and some of the top people in operations. And then as the years went on, and became more and more clear that there was no future for the reactor, more and more people drifted away. I eventually, in late ’89, I took a temporary upgrade to write layup procedures for the reactor. At the time, they were going to keep it in—well, it went through a whole series. It was going to be on cold standby, where the fuel would still be in the reactor; we would still recirculate the loop, but we wouldn’t operate. We would just maintain it ready to operate if we needed it. Then it was going to turn to dry standby, where the reactor would be defueled and we would circulate dry pure air through all of the piping throughout the plant to keep the corrosion away so that if we needed to restart, we could refuel and restart. So that was one of the big procedures that I took the upgrade to write, was the whole valve lineup to establish that flow path from the 24-inch primary and secondary loop main valves, all the way down to the ¼ inch instrument root valves. I had to find every single one and lay out how they were going to be opened, in what sequence. I also wrote a bunch of other procedures. That’s where I first started learning how to write procedures. But at the end of the six months, they did not want to keep me on there permanent, doing that. And I sure didn’t want to go back to operations, which was by that time two years after the reactor had been shut down, almost three. I could just feel the IQ dribble out my ears, because you can only sweep the same floor so many times. Once the reactor was defueled, there wasn’t a whole lot of anything to do. O’Reagan: How many people were still on doing that kind of work? Carson: Probably about half the number that we’d had at the peak days. Because you didn’t need as many operators to do what we were doing. So people were going to various places. A lot of people went from there over to the K Basins, to deal with the stored fuel. Some of them are still there, dealing, now, just with the sludge. It just—there was no sense in trying to stay there where I was comfortable. So that’s when I got a job with Tank Farms, writing procedures. So I did that for four years. O’Reagan: Was that something that you actively thought—you enjoyed the procedure writing, or was that just another--? Carson: Actually, yes. I’ve always loved writing. For a long time, I desperately wanted to be a writer, a fiction writer or a science writer. And I just never was able to do it. I got a small number of rejection letters from various magazines. Once I started writing for a living, doing procedures, it just knocked all hope of ever writing fiction right out of me. But I enjoyed the process; I’ve always enjoyed figuring stuff out. When I came to Tank Farms, the procedures were horrible. There are standards and—even at that time, it was just coming out of DoE order on how the qualities of procedure has to have—the requirements that it has to meet, in terms of how it’s written, how the data is presented, how things are phrased. So when I came into Tank Farm Procedures, once I got my feet on the ground, I kind of pushed, and we did a complete overhaul of the entire Tank Farms Procedures system. Getting all of the several hundred—I think 740 procedures—getting them all rewritten to current standards. I developed, for the first time at Tank Farms, a standard compliant alarm response procedure. There’s procedures for everything, including when—I talked about all the enunciators in the control room. We had big, thick books of enunciator response guides that told you what tripped it, when it would reset, what it meant, and what you had to do. When 500 go off at once, you’re just doing your trained-in post-scram actions that you know what to do. You don’t look at each individual one. At Tank Farms, they had alarm response procedures, but for a whole facility, the book might be this thick, because anything that happened, the only response was notify management. It was quite a culture shock to go down to Tank Farms, because at N, you needed a college degree of some kind just to get in the door. It was a really fast crowd. Really smart. Even the guys that stayed back in fuels, most of them were really sharp. So we operated at a really high level, had a really high level of in-depth training. Tank Farms, not so much. So I had to get over that culture shock, and then begin to teach the folks that I was writing these procedures for why they’re changing, and what it meant for them, and why it was better to do it this way. So eventually, we did. We were the first group to use electronic photography in procedures. We were the first group to have all of our procedures computerized. And we worked hard and it came out really well. I learned that I really enjoy that process of figuring things out and then of using my writing skills to convey that in the best way possible. I really enjoyed that. After four years at Tank Farms Procedures, a new facility was being built, the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Facility. So I transferred from Tank Farms to the ETF. In part, because they had stuck in a manager that no one got along with. The man was not very—ahem—socially apt. We’ll just leave it at that. I went over to ETF and started developing their procedures as the facility was still being built. That’s where I got laid off. 1995, there was a big layoff by Westinghouse. I got the boot there. So for the next two years—it took me six months to get any kind of job again. And then I was—Fluor Hanford had come in—Fluor Daniels. They had their own built-in temporary company to supply temporary work. So I bounced in and out with that temporary company several times on the canister storage building, a little bit at Tank Farms. And then finally the head of Fluor Northwest just said, we’re done with all these temporary people, because it’s too hard to deal with the temporary company. Just hire them all in. So ’97, I got hired in. And then I got made over into a nuclear safety hazard analyst. That has been my main bread and butter. Hazard analysis, which is a very specific discipline in the nuclear industry, working on safety basis documents, which is the—safety basis defines what you can do and how you can do it, and what you can and can’t do. So the nuclear safety people developed that, the customer—DoE RL—approves it, and that’s what you live by. So we—first we draw the coloring book, then we make sure that everyone colors inside the lines. That’s nuclear safety’s job. Hazard analysis is a part of that, because before you do anything new, or if you’re going to change anything that you’re doing that’s approved now, you have to have a very deliberate process of analyzing all the hazards, figuring out how bad the hazard is, what it could cause, how bad that effect could be—if it’s a real accident or if it’s a no, never mind, that’s already covered by other controls, do the new analysis you need to do, create new controls for it, and get those instituted so that everything is still inside the box. O’Reagan: When you were working on the Tank Farms, do you think those procedures were just left over from a time when people just didn’t care as much about— Carson: Yes. Very much so. I guess I skipped ahead. I talked about the culture shock moving to Tank Farms. At N, we had great training, we had really good procedures that were very well thought out and well developed and well proved. We had a deep understanding of all of our limits, why they were there, what it meant if you violated one in a certain way. All that was just ingrained to us. So you did things by the procedure, you lived inside the limits, you knew why, you knew how. There was no problem. Everybody just worked that way. Tank Farms had for years been kind of a dumping ground of the people who couldn’t make it elsewhere. The only lower step was the laundry. And I worked a little bit with some tank farm operators that, shortly after I got there, got transferred to the laundry because they couldn’t make it at Tank Farms. The whole organizational philosophy was the smart guys know what they’re doing, just shut up and do what they tell you, even if it isn’t written down. Don’t worry about that, that’s just for show. Their procedures were—in one case, it was a page-long paragraph that was one sentence. I don’t think it even had a verb. It was like telling a story, and didn’t have any specifics. Nobody understood them. They all hated them, because they were all like that. We changed that; we made it better. The culture shock was coming from a place like N, where, like I said, we were a fast crowd, we were really dialed in, we really knew what was what, to Tank Farms, where there were still people working there—great operators, they really knew their job, they knew what to do—but they couldn’t read. They had a special dispensation to have their requal exams every year orally. Because they couldn’t read. They couldn’t read valve tags. So people would go out with them and tell them what was what. They knew exactly what to do; they were good operators. But that kind of difference in level really caught me short for a while. It took me a while to change my mind to realize that—okay, they want to do a good job, too, no matter how cranky they seem. So don’t look down on them, don’t ride a high horse. Just—they’re people like you, let them to do the job. And it worked out, it did. I made some friends there and we did some good stuff. I helped a lot of them out where I could, explaining things. I think I’ve forgotten what the question was. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: I was just sort of exploring this different or maybe changing priorities about the environment or waste control over time and over different parts of Hanford. It seems like they’re— Carson: Oh, yeah, okay. O’Reagan: We’re really interested in safety and such at N Reactor and having these great procedures, but maybe the less sexy parts of it were not as fully developed yet. Carson: Yeah. This is an example I think that illustrates that. We were among the first to really start taking control of our low-level waste. Every place you come out of a zone, there’s what’s called a step-off pad, where you undress in sequence. You take the outermost stuff off, and you step on one pad, then you take the inner stuff off and step on the next one, so that you’re leaving all of the contamination behind. There were rad boxes sitting there, and so for things like your tape and your surgeon’s gloves, would all get thrown in the rad box. That’s what most of our low-level waste was. That kind of stuff. Nobody used to pay much attention to it; it was just something that you toted down to this room, and then you threw it on a truck and somebody took it somewhere and threw it away. They really started working at following the latest directions for how to properly deal with and account for all of the waste: low-level, higher level waste—anything. Getting the accountability, getting the proper labeling, understanding the proper limits for what could be certain types of waste. We really had that ground into us. And we really griped about it, because we were filling out data sheets and filling out labels and other labels and other labels and double and triple wrapping the boxes and labeling the wrappings as we put them on, and doing all this stuff. The one time I ever had to go down to the burial ground—it’s funny, some jobs some people would catch all the time. You might be there for years and there was things you never got to do because you were never assigned to do them. One of those was taking our low-level waste boxes to the burial ground and throwing them out of the truck into the trench. So we had spent all this time doing all this accounting, doing all this labeling, making sure the packaging was all okay and everything was very carefully set up and everything. And we get to the disposal trench in 200 West Area. So we’re carefully—you’re not supposed to damage the box—it’s a cardboard box inside of a couple plastic bags. You’re not supposed to damage it. We’re just taking them and dropping them over the side out of the back of a truck. And here comes a truck from somewhere in West Area, one of the construction things going on or something. A dump truck with wood and broken plaster and glass and a few rad boxes and stuff. They just wave him up there, and the dump truck backs up and just—pbbt—dumps, and drives away. No paperwork, no nothing. I don’t know what was behind it; maybe there were reasons it was like that. But that was just a contrast that really griped me. But they did a good job at N of explaining why the way we were doing things had to change. Why the new way was actually better, what it meant for stopping releases to the environment, reducing them. Things you should do to lower your impact, lower the amount of waste. That’s where I first really started getting it, and it slowly moved into other places so that things were much more accounted for and controlled. These days, it’s very controlled, it’s very different. It’s much more secure. Nobody uses those rad boxes anymore. The only place I ever see them is in rad update training every year. Everything’s in certified drums. It’s treated certain ways. It’s all measured and accounted for, and inspected before it goes to its final burial to make sure that there is nothing in there that isn’t supposed to be. There’s a whole entire facility in West Area that’s devoted to doing that. Waste Receipt And Processing, WRAP. They get in drums of waste from all over the site, and they do NDA on them to find out how radioactive they are and what kind of radioactive stuff is in them. They X-ray them. If necessary, they will open them up, take everything out, sort it out, so that the stuff that isn’t supposed to be there is out, and then repackage them properly. So everything is very concentrated on making sure that any waste products, whether radioactive or chemical or even domestic waste, is handled and treated properly. And that has really exhibited a standard growth curve. Because when I first started in the ‘80s, there was a lot of resistance, both kind of social and institutional, and among the groups. But the people who understood it just kept pushing, kept pushing, kept getting the message out. Gradually, you saw the same kind of acceptance go up like that, like a normal growth curve. That’s just the way things are done now. So that part’s a lot better. I never really experienced any untoward activities. We were never told to go dump stuff in a hidden place. We were never told to dispose of something in an unapproved way. But a lot of the stuff that we were around wasn’t as controlled or properly packaged or set up as it would be today. That’s all to the good. You used to be able to go just about everywhere and there would be contaminated patches. A lot of those have been cleaned up. People no longer are allowed to just stick something out here and just put a rope around it and call it an accumulation area. There’s very high degree of control and accountability. The job I’m in now with Central Plateau Surveillance and Maintenance, they have a responsibility for all the old retired facilities, the old canyon buildings. And there’s a lot of auxiliary buildings around those and a lot of waste sites and old cribs and trenches. Most of what they do is repeatedly inspecting all that stuff, making sure that anything that’s present is properly in place, that it’s allowed to be there, that they know what it is, that nothing’s going wrong. So that’s all really a lot better. In all of society and all of industry, things are much safer now. People understand chemical hazards especially. We used to be able to go get stuff out of the tool crib that isn’t even allowed to be sold anymore, because it’s carcinogenic. But there, it was an electric cleaner called Swish that was mostly carbon tetrachloride. And you could just get a spray can of it and go and clean things off with it, or kill spiders. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: So I’d love to come back to this, but just to make sure we get to it before we run too long on time, could we step back to your childhood in Richland-- Carson: Sure. O’Reagan: --and what it was like growing up in Richland? Could you tell us a bit about that? Carson: Well. Virtually everyone I know, their folks worked in the Area. They never talked about what went on what there or what they did. My dad talked about some fire department stuff sometimes. O’Reagan: Was that the fire department on the site or just— Carson: The Hanford Fire Department, yeah. Nobody ever really knew what was going on out there. The closed-mouth, closed-city—you know. I always thought it was amazing. Very early in the morning, my mom would drive me to a baby-sitter down in south Richland. And I always thought it was amazing, she could look out to the northwest and she would tell me which plant was running. I didn’t know they were reactors; I didn’t know what it meant. But she could look at the steam plumes, because even though they weren’t modern reactors with cooling towers, they still had retention ponds before the water went back in the river, and those would steam. She could just look at tell me which plant was running. And I always thought that was amazing. We had a fairly—at least in my experience anyway, as a middle class, my folks were both working, lived in a nice neighborhood up near Spalding School. We had a very safe, nice environment to grow up in, a good childhood. Just a lot of playing in the street, going over and playing in the playgrounds. You go to school, you have all your friends there, and you go do stuff. Not a lot different than most places, but—I loved then, and I still do, and unless you grow up in a place like here, you don’t get the chance to just walk in the desert, way away from anything where it’s really quiet, and you got all the sagebrush that just smells so good. And you just walk way out there somewhere, and no trees around, and just sky and desert and total silence. That’s something you really only get growing up here and somewhere very like this. Everybody knew about the Area, but never talked about it. I do remember, I was in first grade, I believe, when the Mobile Whole Body Counter came to Spalding. They gave us some tours of it, and they said that some people were going to get to go through it after school. Well, I thought it would be really neat. I think what they were probably doing was running some of the teachers through it, just as environmental sampling, really. This was in—this would have been ’64, around there. About ten years after the Green Run, when there weren’t huge releases like that, but there were still some releases going on, a lot of monitoring. I waited around after school for an hour, hoping to get to run through this. They would bring people in and 20 minutes later they’d come out. I got in trouble because I was so late walking back to my babysitter’s after school because of that. But where else is something like that going to happen? The Hanford Science Center was a pretty special place. To us, it was like just an everyday thing—doesn’t everyone have a neat science museum like this? But, no, they don’t. It was no longer—I was born in 1958. So the city was no longer run by GE. But there were still people—and they were still indulged by the city government—who, if a light bulb went out, they would call up the way that they used to call GE up to come and change it. For a while, that still kind of went on, somehow. I remember the air raid siren tests. On the last—in the last week of the month, I don’t remember what day it always was. But I always remember getting kind of scared about that. There’s nothing like that sound of—Richland had three, then two, then one—of air raid sirens going off. And at that age—eight, nine—I was starting to realize what that meant. That if that ever went off for real, it was all over. It was a big deal, a really big deal, to have to go to Kennewick or Pasco, because there was only the Blue Bridge, which wasn’t the Blue Bridge then. It was green and it was called the New Bridge. And then there was that horrible frightening old green bridge that was taken out. So if you had to go to Pasco, you had to go to and through Kennewick, and then go over one of those bridges. The highway between Richland and Kennewick was—I can still remember when it was just one lane each way. There was actually a stop light at George Washington Way, because the highway came in and curved and there was a stop light at G Way before it went up to the bypass part. Right there at that intersection is where the Rose Bowl was. Everybody knew the Rose Bowl, the sewage treatment plant. Great way to be introduced to a town when you’re first coming into it. As far as I know, it was a fairly normal childhood. My friends and I, we did all the normal things. When the hydroplane races started, there was a couple weeks in the summer where all anybody wanted to do was play hydroplanes. So everybody would have their own little scraps of wood they made into a hydroplane, and you’d drag it behind your bike in the street. Or turn on a hose and set it in the gutter and go make a dam to make a big puddle you could run it through like a boat. Day sleeper signs. Everybody—almost everybody worked a rotating shift—ABCD, where you rotate, at the time, from swing shift to days to graveyard<a>[EM1]</a> . My dad worked a rotating shift for 17 years. Once I started it, I understood how bad it had been for him when I was young, when I was little. But you’d walk around, and in the windows, in houses, “day sleeper.” You just understood that probably most of your friends were going to live in a house just like yours if you lived in one of the Alphabet House districts. A lot of my friends had the same or very slightly different models of ranch house all up in that area. So you knew exactly where the bathroom was, you knew where the kitchen was, you knew where the light switches were, because they were all the same. That’s probably somewhat different. There were virtually no African Americans in Richland. In elementary school, I think there was two—there was a boy my age, and his sister who was a little younger. Caused me some problems, because he slapped me around one day after school, and that affected my attitude for a long time. But because there were almost no black people in Richland, I had no idea what they were like or anything. My parents, a lot of their friends were conventionally racist at the time—it would be very racist now. But at the time it was just conventional. And because there were so few of them, they all knew each other because they had their own community that they would get together. I just thought that it was natural that every black person in the world knew every other one. Because they would always say, hi, how are you, and talk to each other like they knew each other. I thought that was normal. So I don’t know how common that is across all of the US, but it was certainly true here. Because Kennewick was a restricted city, Richland was mostly a city for somewhat upper level workers at Hanford, Pasco—East Pasco was where most of the African American people and the Hispanic immigrants went. It was always used as a term of horror—oh my god, we have to go by East Pasco. I’ve been there, now. It’s people with houses and neighborhoods and kids and dogs. At the time, it was just hell to be—this horrible thing. So I just—I grew up with that. Everybody knew the same things about everything, and believed the same way. That was really about it. O’Reagan: Was going to college when you first sort of left this bubble, if you will? Carson: Yeah. I went to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, which—I grew up in the Lutheran Church. Really white. Going to PLU wasn’t really all that far outside the bubble. There was a little bit, because there was a very large contingent of Taiwanese kids going to school there. I tried to be all friendly and stuff—it was my first experience with the fact that other people can dislike you, too. So that was a problem. But that was—it was a good experience. It was being away from here, seeing some different things, the way different people lived. Met my wife. So that was a really good thing. But at the time, even though growing up here, I still didn’t really know a lot about Hanford or the nuclear industry, I knew a little more than when I was a kid—but not really that much. So I had no real good arguments or rebuttals for the people who—there in the mid ‘70s were already rabidly, no nukes, no nukes. Get rid of Hanford. Clean it up and throw it away. So that was kind of frustrating. There was one thing I was glad when I got hired on out here, I finally had a chance to learn all this stuff. Other stuff growing up here really is just things based on being here in this area. The place to go if you were going to go ride motorcycles or shoot your bow and arrow or pellet guns or whatever, you went down behind the cemetery along the Yakima River in Richland. O’Reagan: Oh yeah. Carson: Later on that became a place to go when people would go have keggers or wanted to go smoke or make out or whatever, that was a popular place. I never got invited to do any of those things, so I was only ever down there with my motorcycle. I do remember, as I moved into high school, I started to understand the feeling of isolation that Richland had. Because we had been not really a closed, secret city like a lot of the ones in the Soviet Union were, but just like a cloak of invisibility over all we did here. Nobody ever really knew much about us. I was there when Richard Nixon flew in to authorize Fast Flux Test Facility. He had flown into Walla Walla on Air Force One, because at the time to the Pasco airport couldn’t service a plane that large. And then took the Air Force One helicopter and they landed in front of the PNL sandcastle and chopped down a couple trees. I’ll always remember that, because it came down and just—limbs were flying all over the place. He stood—something you wouldn’t see anymore. He was all by himself. He didn’t have a retinue behind him, around him. The Secret Service was sort of out there, but they weren’t really a visible presence. He just went and stood on the steps and addressed people and talked about stuff and announced FFTF and what was going to go on and everything. That night on the CBS News, Walter Cronkite talked about how Richard Nixon made a stop in Walla Walla and then flew to Alaska to meet with the Japanese emperor. It was his first trip to the United States since World War II. Mentioned nothing at all about what happened here, which was really far more important than a very minor diplomatic meeting that lasted two hours or something. I then did start thinking about, and I noticed a lot of that isolation. People around here just got used to never being paid attention to, to never having anyone know where they were or what went on here. So a lot of worlds kind of shrunk down to just here. You just—your church, your softball league, your friends, the hydroplane races, and that was the extent of life. So I am glad that things have really expanded out and the diversification that first started being talked about in the ‘70s has really taken hold, and so much more is done here now than just relying, almost 100%, on money from Hanford. I think if there was another bust—another one of the endless boom and bust cycles that Hanford has had over the years—if there was another big bust at Hanford, I think the Tri-Cities could probably pull through it—Tri-Cities and surrounding areas—could pull through it really very well. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Carson: So that’s a big difference from growing up here, is the fact that now we’re somebody. We’re a known quantity, we’re actually a desired destination for many different reasons. We’re known for many different things. Not just, oh, all that secret stuff that nobody knows about. O’Reagan: I understand you volunteered at the CREHST Museum for a while. What was important to you about the history of the area that got you to do that? Carson: The fact that I was—that was in the six months that I was first laid off. I was trying to get contract writer work. That necessitated my becoming a business and getting a business license. So I ended up starting my own little computer consulting business. Because I did that, I heard from a friend of a friend who worked at CREHST that they were having computer problems. So I went down and I volunteered. I said, hey, I’ll be glad to come through and try and clean stuff and help you. And then in talking with the director, Gwen Leth—she started asking questions and found out all the other stuff I could do. So she really wanted me, and so I started working there at CREHST. They were fairly newly open, and I rewrote some of the displays, because they were not well-written. They had errors and they weren’t interesting. So I did that. I wrote an article for a magazine about CREHST—by request—that never got published. I helped with the computers, helped with some of their equipment. I just did stuff for Gwen. I was the publisher of their paper newsletter for several years. They would send me this stuff to do, and I’d put it all together into desktop publishing and did that. So that was fun, they were great people. I learned a lot about community education and what it meant and what it could be. I got to see all the neat behind-the-scenes stuff that is always the coolest thing about anything. The people there were just so wonderful that when I went back to work, I still kept in touch doing things like the newsletter, and then when I got laid off again, I would just go down and start back down there. Volunteer sometimes 40 hours a week, sometimes just a couple days. Whatever was happening that I could do, depending on what was going on with my daughter and stuff like that. So I had desperately missed the Hanford Science Center. I talked about that earlier, that it was such a great place to go, especially as I learned more and then could see more of what was actually being told me at the science center. But then when it closed down, I desperately missed having that there. Because I wanted to take my daughter to it, I wanted to keep doing it. I had volunteered to do some stuff at the science center, just before it closed when it was still in the Federal Building. So being able to help resurrect a lot of that, keep it going there at CREHST, and even provide input on what they were going to show next and things. And seeing how all of that was coming together and the efforts that they made to really reach out to the community and continue the education and the keeping the history. And keeping the artifacts alive and just being able to go in there and wander through anytime I wanted was just really great. And the REACH center is a fabulous, wonderful place. But at the time I was working at CREHST, CREHST was still going to be the lead, and they had plans for a facility about the same size down on Columbia Point that the REACH part of it was going to be a small part of the CREHST Museum. Turned out the other way. But CREHST—even just the efforts that people made to make it come about, the people that got together behind the scenes and worked with DoE, worked with the community to get funding, worked just to make things happen like moving the building of the FFTF Visitors Center from out there down to where it is now. That’s what that building is. The below-stairs part was new, but the superstructure is the old FF Visitors Center. So getting that to happen was not simple, was not easy, wasn’t cheap. But they kept at it and they did it. So that kind of dedication inspired me to do more along that line, like this. O’Reagan: Okay. Well there are always questions I don’t know to ask. Interesting incidents, or themes you wanted to talk about or anything like that that comes to mind that you thought might be worth mentioning. Carson: In terms of work, or in terms of growing up here, or just anything? O’Reagan: Either or both. Carson: One of the things I did at N Reactor was I became one of the designated evacuation bus drivers. At the time, because facilities were manned around the clock, and it was 43-and-a-half miles from my driveway to the N Reactor parking lot—a long ways out there—you had to have some way to evacuate everyone that was there, in case there was an actual big accident. On regular dayshift, all of the buses that brought everybody from town were all there. But there were, parked off on the side, a couple of the old, old buses that were there strictly to be evacuation buses. They didn’t have enough drivers to have one on every shift to make sure that was covered, so they just enlisted operators. We got special training in how to drive the old buses and stuff. So on weekend dayshifts or sometimes on swing shift, and even on graveyard a few times, if everything, all the work was caught up, there was nothing going on, we would go out and practice driving. Just drive around all over. So I got to see a lot of the Area that’s really not terrifically accessible now. Because, man, those buses will go a lot of places. They love a gravel road. Drove all over, saw the Hanford Bank. Drove down, found the big boat ramp between F Area and H Area where the Hanford patrol would put their tactical boat in and out, and also where a lot of bald eagles like to hang out in the winter. Drove out to—way out by Vernita Bridge to the old warehouse, the stone warehouse that’s out there—drove out there, and drove around that. Got out and looked at it. At the time, they still had part of the old highway, the old two-road highway that led down the valley and over to Hanford and White Bluffs and serviced all the farms and everything around there. We drove on this dirt road around B Area, and then all of the sudden, here’s a beautiful paved road where the lines are bright and clear and the pavement is not cracked. So we just kept on driving. That was an exciting find. O’Reagan: Were these evacuation plans pretty well founded already when you got there? Carson: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you had—in case of an emergency, you had an assignment to come and grab an emergency response card. There were holders of these in the control room. Everybody was supposed to go run in there and grab one and do what it said. Just one thing, whether it was shutting down some equipment, or going and closing something up, or something. You go and do that job, come back, if you’re done then you go and get on the evacuation bus and it will leave when everybody’s accounted for. So the whole evacuation thing had been practiced and set in place for years and years. Luckily we never had to do it, except in a drill. Oh. One of the funny things—one of the first times, it was just us three or four operators going out for a practice drive without the instructor or anything. It was a really hot summer’s day on the weekend. Those buses didn’t have air conditioning. [LAUGHTER] They did have eyebrow vents—one above the driver and one above the door. And we’re driving along and all the windows are open and it’s just too hot. So one of the other guys on my shift, operator, he gets up and he says, I’m going to open these vents. And he reaches up—I was driving—and he reached up above me and opened that one. Air started coming in. And all of the sudden—he opens this one—and there was a big bird’s nest inside that vent. And the way he was, he pulled it and it went right in his face. [LAUGHTER] There was just this explosion of straw and feathers and dried bird poop and stuff. We all tried really hard not to laugh at him, but—[LAUGHTER] he even laughed at himself, so. That was another thing. I remember when Uptown sat kind of alone. There wasn’t really anything built up around it yet. The big Mormon church had been built across the street, but there was nothing else out around it. And over now where that Exxon station and the Fire & Water store and the restaurant and where Hastings is, none of that was there. There was a couple of old wooden shacks. No idea what they were. But one night, it was a fall night, and we went because my dad was there as part of the fire department. There was some kind of—I don’t know—maybe a fire prevention week celebration or something. They were going to burn the shacks down to show what it looks like when the fire department puts out a fire. So my dad was part of that. And there were hundreds and hundreds of people standing in the Uptown parking lot, watching as they set these two shacks on fire. They let them burn for quite a long time, then they came out and put them out, and there was a lot of ooh, ahh. That’s a fairly early thing. One thing that happened through the ‘60s that I took for granted and then didn’t realize when it stopped until several years later—there were all kinds of traveling exhibitions that did come through here from NASA or the Army or the Navy or the Air Force. They would come and bring an exhibit and set up like in the Uptown parking lot or somewhere. They would be there for a day or two and give their spiel and you could go into their trailers and see what they had. Then they would pack up and move on to somewhere else. There were a lot of those. One that I wish I would have done, but at the time I didn’t think it was important—the X-37 Dyna-Soar—it was a first lifting body design for a recovery vehicle, or an early design for a space shuttle in the ‘60s—to go right around the Gemini program. It was eventually going to become a part of the Army’s or Air Force’s manned space laboratory program that never got off the ground. And they brought the vehicle around on a big trailer with a little trailer museum to talk about it and stuff, and I wish I would have gone to see that. But I was too busy doing something else that I thought was more important. So all kinds of stuff like that would come through. There was always—Griggs brought in a lot of these little, cheap tawdry little traveling exhibits and things. Bonnie and Clyde’s death car showed up there on a trailer when I was a kid. Right after the movie had come out and I was just really fascinated by the whole gangster thing. So of course I made my mom and dad go all the way over to Pasco to Griggs to see that. One I felt bad about then and I still feel bad—they had a dolphin that was in like a ten-foot above ground swimming pool, just barely moving. You paid $0.50 to see that, and I just felt bad. And just the kind of stuff that doesn’t really happen anymore. There was a lot of that still. Because the Tri-Cities, I think, moved into the ‘60s a little more slowly than other places. O’Reagan: Well, this has all been fascinating. I know our battery starts running out around this point. Carson: Okay. O’Reagan: So I guess we’ll have to wrap up now. But it really has been great. Carson: Great. O’Reagan: So thanks a lot. Carson: You’re very, very welcome, and I would be happy to come back and talk more about other things. Anything you’d like to ask questions about. O’Reagan: Fantastic, thanks a lot. Carson: Great. Thank you. <div> <div> <div> <a>[EM1]</a> </div> </div> </div> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:35:12 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 N Reactor 200 Area 200 West Area F Area H Area B Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1958-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1981-1997 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 David Carson Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford Reach (Wash.) Hanford Nuclear Site (Wash.) Nuclear waste disposal Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-4-29 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-29: Metadata v1 created – [RG] Description An account of the resource An interview with David Carson 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. 200 Area 200 West Area B Area Chernobyl Nuclear Accident Effluent Treatment Facility F Area H Area K-Basins N Reactor Richland (Wash.) Secrecy Washington Public Power Supply System (WOOPS) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fecc318de874e02165a0adba276148544.jpg 1a405e5eb93d81a0c044840814841635 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F3bab96a36faefb5efcaa973b0a007927.mp4 9752103e397f6c9c4671a80e6c1c1324 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin, and I am conducting an interview with Linda Davis on May 26th 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I will be talking to Linda Davis about her experiences growing up in Richland, and her father’s experiences coming to work on the Hanford site. So, Linda, let’s start at the beginning. Why don’t you—you were mentioning earlier, with some of those items you brought which we’ll view later—you were showing us pictures of growing up and your father’s photo when he came here. So I guess why don’t we start with your father coming here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Linda Davis: My dad had been working in Kansas on I think it was a CCC project. And it came to an end. And they were told very little. Go to Washington. They’re like, right. [LAUGHTER] But my parents had always wanted to get the heck out of Kansas, so they found that this was their escape. And it was during the Depression, so jobs were tough. My dad came out. He was supposed to be coming out with a bunch of friends, and my brother got sick, so he ended up coming out later. He had to—he hopped box cars to get here! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He rode the rails and hitchhiked. And he got here a few weeks after his friends—a couple weeks after his friends did. They all got the management positions, and he got to be Joe Blow. [LAUGHTER] But he came out in February, March of ’43. He had been working cement. They sent him out with some other guys. They drove all over the whole reservation looking for the right rocks and gravel and sand to make the cement to start pouring B Reactor footings. After he did that, he was there when they poured the footings and that was always one of his—he was always very proud that he was there when they did the footings. Briefly, he was sent over to the extrusion and he was one of the first ones to actually run the machine to extrude the plutonium. Then after a short term there, he went back to B Reactor and became a nuclear operator until he retired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And he was first here in a tent. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They supplied these big tents with a stove in the corner. And he says those really weren’t that bad. Then they, quote, moved him to barracks. And he says, those were the pits. They had gaps in the wood. There was just one layer of wood and gaps. So you learned really early on—you woke up in the morning, you shook your head, you wiped your eyes off, because you’re either removing snow or sand. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And he says when he got here off the train, he says, there was as many people getting on the train to leave. And he says, the sands would come in and people were missing their families, and they were leaving in droves. My mom and the kids did not come until fall of ’43. There was no housing at that point in time. They went and lived in Yakima and my mom got a job and dad would commute on his long changes to Yakima to go visit the family. The rest of the time, he’d go stay in the barracks. And when he first got here with some of his friends, they had long lines for the showers. They were like, oh, we don’t want to wait in these stupid shower lines, we’re in a hurry. So him and his friends went—they’re from Kansas, streams there are shallow and warm. They went, there’s this great big river, so they ran down and jumped in the river. And jumped right back out! [LAUGHTER] He said it was so cold! They went and stood in line after that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: That’s a great story. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And my dad played poker and he was well known for his poker playing here. We thought he used to—was just bragging, until when he died and people were coming in and they were going, wow, was he one wicked poker player. They used to be able to play poker on the buses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, you know, an hour ride, they had these little tables they’d set up towards the back and they played poker. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He could earn almost as much money playing poker as he could working. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, that’s great. So how long was it before your mother and—so you weren’t born yet at the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: No! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So how long was it before your mother and the rest of your family were able to move to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They stayed in Yakima for about a year and a half. And then they moved—their first house was a A house on MacPherson, which was just finished and they ended up having to go to a hotel the first night, because it was freshly painted, and it made them all sick because it was still wet. [LAUGHTER] They were kind of unusual because they had their own furniture that they had brought from Kansas. Most people came and they had—everybody had the same bed, dresser, everything was supplied. But they had a lot of their own furniture that they brought from Kansas. So they would have been here—let’s see, he came out in ’43, ’44—early ’45 is when they got their first house-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: --in the Tri-Cities. During that time, Dad had commuted back and forth. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. And you said that your mom was working in Yakima. What kind of work was she doing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: She was a receptionist in a doctor’s office. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: She was telling me—oh, just a few years ago, she was telling me that she was working, and people had been displaced and all the, quote, riffraff was coming in, and people looked really down on the people like them who were coming in. She was working in a doctor’s office, so nobody really thought about it, so they were a lot of times just talking, and some ladies got real snippy about, well, you got all this riffraff coming in and these lowlifes and stuff. And she just looked up and said, oh, well I’m one of those. [LAUGHTER] But they were really looked down on, because people didn’t know why they had been displaced. And they didn’t know why all these people were coming from all over the country. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, because they hadn’t— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Nobody was allowed to know anything. So there was a lot of anger, and a lot of looking down their noses at people that had come into the Hanford Project. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Do you think maybe some class conflict? Or maybe people they had perceived as Dust Bowl type people--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Dust Bowl type people, because a lot of them came—Kansas, Oklahoma supplied a lot of the workers out here, because the word had gotten around, go to Washington, go to Washington. They didn’t know why, just go to Washington, you’ll find a job. You’ve got crummy farming, a lot of them just packed up and left. And they showed up. Then the, quote, natives of the area who had felt that they had been here for a significant amount of time really did look down on all these strangers coming in. It was—they would look like refugees to them. Because a lot of them came with homemade trailers and, literally their own tents if they couldn’t find a place to live. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And they hopped boxcars. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And they hopped boxcars to get here! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, that’s really interesting. So, earlier you mentioned that your family had lived in a lot of different houses early on or kind of gone all over. So can you talk about that? Those early years of being in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: You were assigned houses by what kind of job you had and how many children you had. You could apply to get a different house. And for all sorts of different reasons—my mother liked to move, I think, because a lot of it—she always liked to move. And Dad went along with it. They lived in ranch houses, F houses, A houses—they sneakily got into an H house, which they didn’t qualify for. You couldn’t—weren’t supposed to get into any housing unless it’s written out by the government that you could. They traded with somebody who wanted something—they wanted like the A house. They were in an H house and Mom and Dad said, oh, we’d like the H. So they traded without telling the government. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Ooh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: That lasted six months. [LAUGHTER] Then they had to move again. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So the H houses were bigger then? I’m not quite up on all of the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They have a basement; they have one floor. They were probably better made. They were nicer houses than like the A. But the one people were having more kids or something. I can’t remember why they wanted to change. But Mom and Dad sneakily did it, then they sneakily had to slink out [LAUGHTER] when they were told they had to leave. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. Yeah, one thing I’ve heard around here is that basements in those early years were pretty rare. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: What basements you had, like in the A houses, B houses, F houses, they were dirt. I’ve been in them when they hadn’t been changed yet. It’s basically a dirt floor, you walk down the stairs and then you’re there. Then there’s like this raised cement block area. Well, that’s where they’d dump the coal into. They would come with these trucks and dump the coal in. You just had enough room to go down there and shovel coal. They were pretty gross. [LAUGHTER] But I remember Mom and Dad, though, said everything was supplied. You had no utilities, they brought your coal—you had to call and ask for a lightbulb to be changed. You were not allowed to do it yourself. [LAUGHTER] Totally government. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, that’s a lot like here. You have to put in a facilities request to do that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, well, they had to—she goes, a lightbulb? Like, we can’t change your own? Oh, no. But she says they were really Johnny-on-the-spot. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah. They’d call and say, you know, lightbulb in the bathroom burned out. Oh! We’ll be right there! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, so it would have been a whole department of people. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: There was a whole department of people who were doing that. If you were not working at Hanford or what they called support, like supplying the oil and changing the lightbulbs, a grocery store, pharmacist or something, you were not allowed to live here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And if you were, like, married and your husband—one of their friends that happened—dropped dead of a heart attack, she was given 48 hours to leave with her kids. They were kind of severe at times. But it was super safe. Kids could run and play. If your kid got in trouble, you could lose your job. That was—I remember my dad always holding that over my brothers. [LAUGHTER] If you get in trouble, I can lose my job and we’ll have to leave. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So kids were good; they didn’t have a choice. If you had a kid who became a juvenile delinquent, then you could lose your job and given 24 hours to leave town. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Did you know of any incidences of that happening? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: My parents talked about it, but I didn’t have names or—you know. Just somebody that they knew, their kids had been a real pain—and he ended up I think keeping his job, but he had to move to Kennewick. He couldn’t stay in government. He managed to beg and plead and keep his job, but he had to leave town. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So they were not only kind of controlled the work site, but they also really controlled the fabric of the community as well. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: To the point where they had—after leaving Richland, and living elsewhere and now in Kennewick, you realize the layers are like military layers. And it’s taken a long time for that to kind of break down. You had your echelons, just like in the military. They even went so far as to tell people, you are in this job and you’re in this job, and you’re not supposed to communicate. They may have grown up together in some Podunk place in the Midwest, known each other since childhood, but, all of the sudden, oh, you’re not supposed to talk to each other? [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, so kind of like that difference between commissioned officers— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And a non-com. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Non-com. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah. Oh, you’re more of a commissioned, you’re too high up and you can’t talk to the lower echelon. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, scientists don’t talk to janitors and so forth. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: That’s really interesting. Did your mom work after— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yes, she worked at Dr. Ellner’s office, urologist here in town. She worked there for—I don’t know—from the time I was about nine, eight—I guess I was about eight when she started working there. So that would have been ’62. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. And so then you would be born in ’54. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: ’54. Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Part of that big baby boom. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. And how many siblings do you have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Three. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. And were any of them—did any of them move to Richland from—so your parents came, your father came out in ’43, and then your family came out in the fall. When were your siblings born? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They were born all in Kansas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And so they were born in ’37, ’40, and ’41. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So you’re the real baby of the bunch. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, yeah. I was the surprise. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Ah. I think we all are in some way. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, I was—my mom was 41, so yeah, I was a shock. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, yeah, that is quite a surprise. So tell me—then you would have been born then when Richland was still a government town. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So tell me about growing up, like maybe from your earliest memories on. What was it like to—do you have any early memories of before—while Richland was still a government town? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, I have a lot of memories from really early. My brother and I seem to both have the brains from early, early. The other two go, I don’t remember anything then. [LAUGHTER] They don’t really remember anything until after they’re five! One of the things that always struck me was, as a kid, driving through town and they had that asbestos siding that you had a green house or this dark reddish house. They all kind of looked the same. I know my sister one time accidentally ended up in the wrong house after school. And one of Mom’s best friends came in and found some guy sleeping in her bed. He was on leave from the Army and he had gotten in the wrong house. But they all looked the same. And people had the same furniture. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So my sister went in and says, like, the living room furniture, I think, was all the same. And she says, she came home, put her papers down and then went out and played. Then came back later and went, Mom keeps moving the furniture! [LAUGHTER] She says she has no idea which house she went into. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, they had basically—I remember the green and the red. There might have been—and then there was some blue. And then they had like a cream color with them. So like the A houses would have been light colored on the top and then the red on the bottom. Or cream and—there was like three choices. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. It’s like the Model T. You can get it in black or black. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Right. Yeah, this was—and you didn’t have a choice what color it was. And I guess when they first moved in, besides the paint being wet, they literally handed them a ten-pound bag of grass seed and said, plant your yard! Have fun! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. That’s great. So, how about any memories that stand out from your early childhood or early life in Richland? I remember, earlier you mentioned that before we started taping, that your family had bought one of the first commercially available houses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Spec home. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Spec home. What year was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: 1960. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay, so you would have been about six years old then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Right. That was just before I was six, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And what was that like, to be in one of these? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: You— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: New, new, new homes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Because of the class thing going on, I was not considered—and then shortly after they started building this North Richland area—I always felt like I didn’t fit in. I didn’t fit in with the kids in the, quote, government houses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: My house was basically a ranch house. We had hardwood floors instead of tiles. And we had a one-car garage, ooh, ahh. [LAUGHTER] But it really wasn’t—it was just a three-bedroom ranch. One bathroom and a one-car garage. And then all the scientists and the people making more money and the doctors started building into North Richland. And I didn’t fit in with them, either, because they went, oh, you’re in that little house. It was kind of like feeling like you didn’t fit in anywhere. Because I wasn’t in a government house, and a lot of the government houses were way bigger than the house we were in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Huh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But I remember saying—one of the first memories in that house was—they’d moved us in—oh, they’d never allow it nowadays. Moved us in, we had no water. So the firemen came and hooked up to a fire hydrant about a block and a half away. [LAUGHTER] And then it ran into a garden hose, and it was February, and like below zero. So you always had to have water running in the bathtub to keep the little garden house. And if froze up, all the neighbors would come out and jump up and down on it, breaking the ice up. But nowadays you wouldn’t be able to move into a house without full running water. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, right. Wow. That’s fabulous. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And then when we were first there—we were the very first ones sold. The others were having open houses. And we’d be sitting there having like a family get-together, and people start walking in our house. Oh, this one’s not open! No. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And then that of course touched off a boom, though, right, in house construction in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Right. North Richland, I remember we used to sit at our kitchen table and look out and watch all the houses going up, and here are all the—for years, you could see new houses and hear hammering every morning. North Richland just really took off because everybody started building their own. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: A lot of people went ahead and bought their original house from the government, but my parents—I don’t know, they fell—my dad fell in love with this house. My mother hated it. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: How long did they live at that house? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: We lived there 13 years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. So they really do like to move around a lot. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: That’s like mom’s record, yeah. Her last move was with us and she had to live with us ten years without moving before she died. [LAUGHTER] But generally, about—when my siblings were growing up, they got used to moving every six months to a year and a half. And they went to every single school in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. Well, I guess they know a pretty big cross-section of the community, then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They were always—when you talk to different people, they’re like, oh yeah, so-and-so, and I go, oh yeah, my parents were their neighbors. And somebody else would say, oh yeah, they were their neighbors, too. Like Garmo who owned one of the grocery stores. All these different people, they were their neighbors at some point in time. Probably Johnson, who was the photographer for the area. He was a good friend and I’m still in recent contact with his daughter. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But pretty much, if you lived in Richland for any length of time, my parents were your neighbor at some point. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: That’s great. So when did your father retire from Hanford? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: I was married, so—when did he retire? I got married in ’74, so I’m trying to remember exactly. ’75 or ’76, something like that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, wow, so he was on—did he have any gaps in employment, or did he work onsite since 1943? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He worked onsite that whole time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, and so what did— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Except for the six-week strike they had. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, well tell me about that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: I don’t even remember what it was about. I was in junior high. They had a strike which my dad was not in favor of, but he wouldn’t break union line. So he was on strike. During that time, he says, oh well, I’ll make the best of it, so he built a family room onto our house. [LAUGHTER] And got hooked on soap operas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He used to make fun of Mom wanting to watch her soap opera, and then when he went back to work, he’d come home from work and go, what happened with—[LAUGHTER] But they were only on strike for like six weeks. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And do you remember what the strike was about at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: I don’t remember what it was about. Like I say, it was in junior high. It was— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Do you think you can give me kind of a date range so we could try to find something about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: That would have been in the late ‘60s? Somewhere in—yeah. It wasn’t a very long strike, but it was the first one that I know of that they had. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Was that site wide, do you remember? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, it was site wide. I wish I remembered what it was, but in junior high you don’t pay attention to stuff like that. Yeah, Dad’s on strike, well, so is everybody else’s dad, so— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: All you know is that he’s camped out on the couch watching soap operas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: No, he was busy building the family room. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He literally put a whole addition on the back of the house. So that’s what he was doing during his six weeks. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Still worked. So you mentioned that he had been kind of a construction guy and then had worked at the separation plant, right, and then worked in the B Reactor. So what other jobs did he have? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He went from B Reactor, when they closed it down, then he went to K. And then he kept saying, oh, I sure hope they don’t ever send me to N. That’s where he ended up. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He was always—he liked his B Reactor. Just the way the others were set up and they were different, he liked his B Reactor. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: He got comfortable— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But he ended up at N Reactor anyway. That’s where he retired from. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, wow. And what did he do at— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: He was a reactor operator. He was—yeah, from after construction, he was a reactor operator. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So it seems like a really big career jump, from construction to— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, but they didn’t—nobody knew what they were doing exactly. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So it’s learn-as-you-go. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, I bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: My dad—I remember him—it was really neat to go on the B Reactor tour, because it was probably the 70s before he ever even talked about what it looked like or anything. I never knew what it looked like. But he started—in the 70s was able to start feeling comfortable—I mean, it wasn’t classified or anything then. But the guys had just been used to not talking about it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Well, yeah, I mean secrecy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But he started describing the panels and stuff. And there was this office behind him, and he says—during World War II—he says, the crazy Italian in the silk suits sat back there. And then he’d go get crapped up, is when they’d get contaminated and they’d have to take his silk suits away and burn them. I didn’t realize it until after Dad was gone, when he was talking about the crazy Italian in the silk suits, that was Fermi. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Sitting behind my dad! [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, that’s amazing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But he never said his name. He never said his name. Just the crazy Italian in the silk suits. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: But, of course he probably would have known his name. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, during World War II, they didn’t. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So that’s how—I think they just referred to him as the crazy Italians with the silk suits. Because they literally did not know their names. He was the guy who sat back there, and he’d go into places they weren’t allowed to go to. And he wasn’t really supposed to, but he’d go in and tinker. Then they’d check him for radiation and go, eh, those clothes—I remember, one of my early memories is being in grade school and my dad getting off the bus, because everybody rode the buses to work. They were just like clockwork and super on—I mean super on time. And I remember coming out of the house, and my dad’s getting off the bus in the afternoon and—I guess I was heading to school. He’s coming down—my dad was only five-foot-six. And he’s got a pair of pants that he’s holding up around his armpits, and a shirt that’s probably was past his knees rolled up to his—and clomping along in these shoes that don’t fit. He had gotten crapped up at work. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And he ended up—one of his friends who was like six-foot-six had some extra clothes. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, he’s like, you know, when you get your clothes crapped up, you lose your clothes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Even your underwear. [LAUGHTER] So he’s coming home with—[LAUGHTER] I still remember—luckily we only lived like a half block from where the bus dropped him off. But I thought, that had to be a little uncomfortable at work, walking around like that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, no kidding. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Trying to hold these. Yeah, Trawler, he was six-five, six-six. He was a tall guy, skinny. But Dad was only five-foot-six. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, that’s a great story. So there’s some—a couple of the big events that we always ask people about and one of them is Kennedy’s visit to the N Reactor in 1963. Did you—were you— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Both my parents were working. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: They were both working, so— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: [LAUGHTER] I didn’t have any way to get there. I wanted to go, but my parents, oh, it’s going to be a big crowd. They didn’t like crowds. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So, yeah, I didn’t get to go. They were both working. So I heard about it from my friends. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Your friends who went? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, I had friends who went. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Awesome. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And they still remember it, and I’m going, oh, I didn’t get to go. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Ah, you were busy. So any other major—any other big events that kind of stick out at you in Richland, growing up in Richland or maybe even a little later? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Ah, let’s see, what were the events? They always had their fire parade, their fire prevention parades. That was when you were a kid and you got to decorate your bike and ride down the road. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: G Way, and they had—when I was really little, there was like Frontier Days or some other parade that we had. And then one of the big thrills was in the spring, they would bring in, quote, well, we’d call them travel trailers now, but they were the early mobile homes that were like eight-foot-wide and 12 feet long. And they’d set them up in the Uptown Richland parking lot. You’d go look through them and go, oh, aren’t these cool. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: They brought them up for sale? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, you know how they do car shows now in parking lots? Well, they’d bring these little mobile—[LAUGHTER] little dinky mobile homes. Which nowadays, I says, my fifth wheel’s bigger [LAUGHTER] than these, quote, homes that you’re supposed to live in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: I could imagine for some of the people who had been here in the early days that those might have given them some flashbacks to the trailer camps or— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, my parents didn’t live in the trailer camps, but they had a lot of friends who did. And one of my best friends, her parents had built—they had no place to live, so they built their own trailer and lived down at the Y. It was a homemade, and it was really little with three kids. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. That’s amazing. So did you end up staying in Richland, then—did you ever move out of the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: We went to the Chicago area, and we were gone—I didn’t leave until I got married. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: My husband went to Pullman for a year and then we went to Chicago. We were gone about nine years and then came back and raised our kids here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, okay. And so what brought you back to the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Family. My parents were here, my dad’s health was failing, and I had just lost my father-in-law. So we kind of wanted the kids to get the chance to know their grandparents, because my husband’s parents were both gone. So, family. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And good memories of being growing up here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Sure, sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Versus Chicago. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So, what would you—is there anything you would like future generations to know about growing up—like kind of the experience growing up in Richland, or what it would have been like to be so close to Hanford? To help them understand what that would be like. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Growing up with my dad, the guys and women who worked out there, they were proud of what they did. Yes, bombs, they all agreed, the bomb is nasty. But in the long run it probably saved millions of lives on both sides. Because Japan was willing to fight ‘til the last man, which would have been millions of more lives lost. And if they would have gotten the bomb first, we’d be speaking Japanese. [LAUGHTER] I think there’s an overall pride—and my husband and I were just talking about this last year, that what was accomplished at Hanford would never be able to be done today. Back then, the old—they had all the signs, loose lips sink ships. My husband says, well, it’d been sunk long—they couldn’t have even gotten the first thing done before it would have been out in the open. Nowadays I don’t think they could pull it off. And people knew they weren’t supposed to talk about it. My dad—my mom said when they were living in Yakima, my dad, he had read about the reactor—splitting the atom in the Collier’s magazine before the war. They were going to go get the magazine and look it up. They never got around to it. Found out if you asked about that magazine, you were fired. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So they learned not to say anything. They handed some uranium around and my dad by the weight, he said, it wasn’t very big but he knew by the weight what it was. And he started to say something, and his boss says, don’t. And later he says if you would’ve said it, I would’ve had to have fired you on the spot. I mean, you just knew that if you said anything—so he whispered it to my mom one night, under—they were sure that there were microphones everywhere. So even though they were living in Yakima, he would put a pillow over them. And he says, I think we’re making the bomb. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And my mom kind of went, pfft. Sure you are. [LAUGHTER] And then my mom didn’t know—said they didn’t really know what it was until my brother came home from school and all the kids and everybody was going, we dropped the bomb, we dropped the bomb. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But I think there’s a pride in what they did. It was very secretive and when you realize that everybody was doing their little part, and they didn’t know what the other parts were. I mean, it’d be like trying to tell somebody to put a car together. Here, you have this screw, put it somewhere—and only that one. And you don’t really know what’s going on. It was really amazing what they pulled off. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And I think they—all the men and women who worked out there were really proud of what they did. And I think it went on to their families to feel proud of what they did. Yeah, the bomb’s not a nice thing, but where we would have been without it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. What about later in the Cold War, after, and all the other things that were produced—all the other bombs that were produced? Do you think that added or ever shifted and change, or—especially in the late 60s with the protests? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, in the ‘60s, my dad used to get to work with Dixy Lee Ray periodically and they’d sit and talk. And he always kept saying, you know, we’ve kept it so quiet and we keep it so hush-hush. He says, we’re past that point now, we need to educate people on nuclear power and get away from the—people, and I still talk to people, especially not from around here, when you’re in other states, they cannot separate power from bomb. To them, it’s all one thing. There is no power, it’s just a bomb. And it’s like, no, you can have nuclear power and not have a bomb. And he kept saying, we need to educate—and I remember learning stuff about it in school here. Cousins and stuff back east, they never learned anything about it. They knew nothing about nuclear power, nuclear fission—nothing. [LAUGHTER] I think the sad part is that they didn’t do more educating, they just—they lived too long in that shroud of secrecy, and didn’t spread the knowledge. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. So you think, maybe it was—even though everybody knew after ’45 what was—and that they were continuing to produced, there was maybe a missed opportunity there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And throughout the ‘50s it was still—you didn’t talk about it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, the fear, the specter of international communism. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Right, even though war was over with the bombs, everybody knows about it, it still was a hush-hush. Yeah, I think they missed an opportunity on education. And people just grew up fearing it and not understanding anything about—hey, this could be a decent power source. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Taking Chernobyl out as a factor. [LAGUHTER] That was a poorly designed— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: There’s also Three Mile and other—certainly when a lot of people on the East Coast found about nuclear power first— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, they learned about it when it wasn’t—sometimes it was a poor design to start with. Well, when we lived in Chicago, there’s the Indiana Dunes. They were trying to build one on the Dunes. They didn’t even have any bedrock to sink it into. And we’re going, you know, they’re dunes? They kind of like, don’t stay put? [LAUGHTER] When we left there, they were still trying to do it. And we’re like, that doesn’t even make sense. So then there was a lot of stupid mistakes, too, that—yeah, you got to think about all the safety part. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. But it seems kind of hard sometimes to separate the secrecy even from the—there’s so much [INAUDIBLE]. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Do you know, through even the mid ‘60s there was still tremendous secrecy. Mid and late ‘60s. You still, living here, felt like, you know, it was hush-hush. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: But I imagine with the government owning the town until the late ‘50s that certainly you would keep that element of—that kind of vibe alive. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, and pretty much the same people who were here when the government released the town—when I graduated from high school, what, were there 9,000 people in Richland? That was in ’72. So a good chunk of those people were ones who were still here from World War II. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, and you lived in Richland the whole time, from when you were growing up, when you were born. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Mm-hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So did you ever go to the other two cities much? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, yeah! Downtown Pasco was one of the best places to shop! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, it had the classy stores! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Really? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, yeah. It was a major trek, but you’d go to downtown Pasco to go shopping. Well, that was a big day shopping, because they had the fancier ladies’ stores, they had shoe stores, they had the pet shop! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And they had a big drug store, and furniture stores and you could spend a whole day in, quote, Downtown Pasco! [LAUGHTER] That was a classy place to go. And then the old downtown Kennewick was—that was more functional. It had Penney’s and Sears and stuff, you know. Not Sears—what was it? I can’t remember the name of the store. But when you needed fireplace stuff or a stove or something. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So like a Woolworth’s or something like that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, but there were several stores. And there was the hardware store that’s still there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Kennewick Hardware is still there. It was there when I was little. I think one of the big things you remember is like going there in three feet of snow because our stove had caught fire. We had to buy a new stove. Back then you could leave your kid in the car, and I was tired of going in and out of stores, and sitting there in the car. I was probably about four. Mom was just inside, you know, ordering a stove and we got a chinook. Within like the time that they took them to order their stove and come out, I watched the snow leave. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Totally fascinating. It was gurgling and stuff, but wow. That’s one thing about this area, you get chinooks. When you talk about it in Chicago, they go, huh? [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. Wow, that’s really interesting. Did you have any friends from the other cities, or did you mostly— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: My parents’ best friends moved to Kennewick, which was my sister’s best friend—it started out with my sister’s best friend who they lived kitty-corner from us when I was born, and then our parents met and became best friends, and then her younger sister and I are best friends, and we’re each other’s kids’ godparents. But they—when I was about three or four, they moved to Kennewick to a new house. [LAUGHTER] And then he commuted. He had to drive out to work because he couldn’t—the buses didn’t go to Kennewick; they were only in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So there was still a lot of inducement, then, to stay in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, you didn’t have to get that second car, because you’d just walk—most of the guys didn’t walk more than a block or two to get to the bus. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: I mean, these buses were everywhere. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, at the project offices, we have a map—I think it’s from the very early ‘80s but even then they were still running buses, and yeah, they’d go all— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They go everywhere and nobody walked more than two blocks from their house to a bus. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: That’s [INAUDIBLE]. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So you only had to have one car. Even when my mom was working, she got the car to go to work and Dad rode the bus. Wasn’t any problem. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. I bet that would help instill a certain sense of camaraderie, because you’d ride the bus with these guys, and it’s not like today when you get in a car and you’re kind of in this bubble—you have a radio, but you’re kind of in a bubble. Whereas in a bus, everyday, you-- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Well, we lived there, where—the change between the government town and the newer part of town. So you had people like Dad—you’ve got nuclear operators, you had janitors and you had the scientists, all on the same bus. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: I mean, everybody rode the bus. When the bus would come, there’d always be five or six guys standing out down there. And a bunch would get off and a bunch would get on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: So after the changeover, it was still the site that operated all the buses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Mm-hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Did they have to pay for that, or was that just a perk? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: That was just—yeah, they just paid for it. I mean, the government paid for it—nobody else could ride the buses, only the workers and they only went to and from work. They weren’t for like the families to go shopping or anything. It was just for the workers. And, yeah, they just got on the buses and they knew they were going to be there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: When did bus service start in the area for other people living in Richland? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: It had to have been after—as soon as they started building houses. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Because these guys had to get to work— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. Oh, no, sorry— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And most people back then, you had tire vouchers and stuff—you couldn’t like get tires overnight. You couldn’t even get bananas without a doctor’s prescription. [LAUGHTER] My siblings were skinny, so Mom always ended up with a prescription for bananas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, they had to write doctor’s prescriptions. So getting a second car wasn’t even really an option. So they started the bus service really early, just getting these guys out to work as they started building the home. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. So you brought in some documents and things. Would you like to— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Where’d we put them? [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: I think it’d be really interesting to get those on video and to have you talk about some of those. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: All right. They’re not super exciting. This is my dad’s birth certificate. The City of Miller which never was officially a city, in Lyon, Kansas. My father’s records were in the courthouse along with three generations of family records, and it burned down when he was about seven. So he had no birth certificate. And not too long after he started working here, they asked for his birth certificate—that he needed to get it. And he says, I don’t have one. So this is his newer birth certificate that they issued in May of ’42. He came in February so to May he had to get it. They sent an FBI agent out who interviewed his father, his uncle who raised him—his mother died when he was born so his uncle raised him—and his aunt. And they also used an insurance policy that was issued when he was 20 to verify that he was him. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So not everybody has all these affidavits and stuff at the bottom of their birth certificate, but this was from the FBI being able to verify. My great aunt was like, that was the weirdest thing. [LAUGHTER] Because back there, you just don’t have government people. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. So they would have been out to the small town in Kansas, then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Out in the middle of nowhere. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: To ask questions about her nephew. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: That was one thing growing up in Richland. You were so used to the FBI coming to your door at least once a month, because everybody had different cycles for their clearances. They would always come to your door and ask, are they part of your—do they drink, do they do that? We talked to them all the time. It was never any big deal, because always somebody in your neighborhood was renewing their certification—their clearance. When I lived in Chicago, they came about somebody who was going to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority. It was my neighbor. My neighbors all slammed the door in their face. I talked to the guy, I opened the door, and I go, oh, yeah! It was security clearance. He goes, you’re the first one who’d talk to me. [LAUGHTER] I says, did it all the time when I was growing up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But it scares a lot of people. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But I think they thought it was a little—because the war’s going on, they don’t know what’s going on and here’s these FBI people wanting to know about my dad. I think they’re going, what’s he doing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, is he a spy? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, did he get in trouble? And they’re not allowed to tell them anything. So they thought it was very, very strange when these suited men showed up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: That’s great, that’s a great story. And it’s great to have the documentation here to— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: You’ve already seen a million flood pictures. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Well, that’s still a pretty—very scarring event for a lot of people, I bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, this was the flood of ’48. It came within a few blocks of where my parents were living at the time. Don’t ask which street that was back then, because they moved so much. But this was just a family picture of the Flood of ’48 that was so devastating. And then they put the dyke in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Here is—well, this one’s tiny. This is just a picture of any summer day in Richland. Everybody had kids. Most the families were young, so there was lots of kids. It was just—even when I was growing up was the same way in the ‘60s. There was kids everywhere. Riding bikes and running between houses, and you came in when the street lights came on. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And I imagine not a lot of elderly people in Richland, right? And so that must have—because you would have had grandparents, but they would have been far away, or they wouldn’t be living in town. Whereas in Kennewick and Pasco people might have more extended families living near them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Right. My grandmother came here to live with Mom and Dad not too long before she died. But, yeah, grandparents—if you were retired you couldn’t live in Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: If you were not working for Hanford, you didn’t live there. So, yeah, there weren’t old people and most of the construction workers who came were young and all had young families. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So there were kids pouring out of every house. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So this is—how many kids are in just—this is Mom and Dad’s front yard. And the kids played ball together, they ran and played tag. There were no fences, so all the backs of the yards were like one big yard. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. And probably still not a lot of trees at that time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Not really. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And when—can we look at this photo on the back? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: This was 1948. So that’s only three years after the war. So, yeah, the trees are still—if you look around, you don’t see any trees. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And here’s another one. This one would be—let’s see. This’d be ’46. No trees. There’s a bush. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And this is one of your sisters? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: This is my sister. Yeah. First day of kindergarten. But what I brought it for was the A house. See, they had the dark color on top—this one, I’m guessing, is probably the red one. And then the cream. They were all like that, they were all bicolored. We had cream and then one of the other three choices. You had green, red, and blue. That was it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: The government supplied the paint. This is the house that I grew up in on Newcomer. It was the first spec house sold. We’re still getting our water lines. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And my dog, Tippy. This isn’t the garage anymore; somebody’s changed it out. But we had—it was really fresh and new. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And this was 1960? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: ’60. Yeah, February of ’60 is when we moved in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Mom says January of ‘60. I always think it was February but oh well. Halfway through kindergarten, I had to change schools. My siblings went, so? Because they had to change schools all the time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, not a lot of sympathy for you, I bet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And this is my dad getting an award for what they called the Christmas Tree, which was the front of the reactor that had lights—indicator lights on it. I don’t know if it says exactly what he—just came up, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: He’s D. D. Smith? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Most people called him D. D. or Smitty. His named was Derald. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Derald. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Derald. Like Gerald but with a D. Let’s see. Yeah, he was considered a pile operator. $185 was his award, which—like I said, that was a lot of money. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: A couple weeks’ wages, probably. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: At least two or three weeks’ worth of wages. So that was a really big thing. Yeah, something about modifying the lights or something so they were easier to read. Apparently they thought it was a good idea. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. Do you know when that was? Was that during the war? Was this— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Since my dad never looked any different over a 40- or 50-year period, I’m not sure what date is on this. What was funny is on the back, I found my friend’s dad’s name on it. [LAUGHTER] And I went, oh! I’m kind of guessing this might be the ‘50s? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Early ‘60s? I’m looking at the ties. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: No, that’s good. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: They had a paper that came out of the Areas. That was in that paper—the Area paper was a little fold-up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, we have a bound collection of a lot of the Hanford GE News and a lot of that. Let’s see this here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: 1944. This is my dad’s card for the International Union of Operating Engineers. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And that was December of ’44. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So this is still during the war. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And this is the other part of the same thing, the International Union of Operating Engineers. Came out of Spokane. Got stamped; I guess for going to meetings. No, his dues, his dues and going to meetings. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Makes sense. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Whoops. This isn’t for my dad; this is for my grandmother. I need to go show Kadlec this. [LAUGHTER] My grandmother got cancer and was in Kadlec Hospital for six weeks before she died. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Here’s the total of her bill. $386.15. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: The operating room cost $8. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Anesthesia was $10. It cost more. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Lab, dressings—yeah, and she was there for six weeks before she died. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Six weeks. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And that’s her bill. This bill was—yeah, written on the day she died. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. And what date was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: 1946. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Oh, okay. So she moved in, then, pretty soon after the war ended? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, and she moved to— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Hungate: And it’s billed through DuPont. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yup. Oh, even I—I didn’t even notice that. DuPont. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: DuPont. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: I don’t know of many people still have a bill from 1946. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: No. That’s a very interesting bill, though. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: What is this one? Oh, this is just really bad pictures that they took—every year they had to have their pictures renewed. [LAUGHTER] That was—that had to have been a windy day, because his hair’s sticking up all over. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, well, like you said earlier, they had thousands upon thousands of men to process. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, it’s like while you’re at work, and it’s just like get your picture taken, click, and you’re done. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And this, on the front it says GE so— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, that would have been from after GE took over. I’d say from that picture from the ‘60s. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: What’s this one? Just a few little odd things I found in Mom’s—oh, just—from February of 1942, The University of Kansas School of Engineering and Architecture, Engineering Defense Training Program from—his certificate. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, this is—I’m not sure exactly what they taught him, or—he never talked about this. I knew nothing about this until I found this just this last week. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow, interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So I have no story to go with this, other than the date and it’s my dad. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. So then he would have came out here very shortly after getting this, right? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Mm-hm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Like I say, when they told him to come out, they didn’t tell him why or anything. Just go to this place in Washington that you’ve never heard of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, we have a job for you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And you’re going to have trouble finding it on a map, even. [LAUGHTER] This is just a—it’s got—it says N Reactor Plant Dates—Data. Just about—I think it was a reference for them when they were working. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: It’s pocket size. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So I think it was just a—yeah, decontaminating, water treatment—I think it was just a little reference thing that they kept in their—on their person. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And then my dad was trying to get my uncle to move out here from Kansas. [LAUGHTER] And he wrote a letter describing wages, jobs. So, trying to get down to there. Let’s see. “They want patrolmen pretty badly. The pay isn’t as much as I make by about $18 a week.” But my uncle was single, never married, so it probably wasn’t any problem to him. And he says, “However it isn’t bad. You start at $58 a week.” [LAUGHTER] It says, a week. And after 30 days, after you’ve passed that, you move up to $60 a week. And then after six months you get $62.50 a week. Yeah, they were looking for patrolmen and firemen and a lot of the other stuff. And he asked—my uncle was in World War Two, and he asked if he had any training in anything specific that might be used out here. But my uncle stayed back in Kansas and eventually became a—because of being ex-military, he became a postman. Not a postman, a postmaster. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: A postmaster in a little town. But he never did come out. I just thought the pricing—just thought it was interesting, because 58 bucks a week. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: That would have been—that’s a good chunk of money back then. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: For my uncle, for what he was making in Kansas it would have been a whole lot of money. [INAUDIBLE] Oh, meals at the cafeteria average $0.75. It’s just littered with little stuff like that. He was trying to convince my uncle to move back out here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right, wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: What’s this? Oh. This was in a Kansas City Times in 1947. “Growing Town of Atom Plant Workers Is a Distinctive Sort of Community.” </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Mm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: So, that was kind of—you know. This is what, when people released—after the war’s over, people are starting to hear, now, what the heck was—[LAUGHTER] going on, and how different our towns were from towns that had been around for 100 years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. And that it’s completely government controlled and— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, and plants were far from town. You know, Dad would usually spend an hour on the bus going out to work, and we were in North Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Wow. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yeah, but I think this is what my uncle had cut out and sent to him. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Cool. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: From Kansas. And the highest birthrates in the nation. [LAUGHTER] Because everybody was young. I was part of that major boom. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah. Wow, that’s neat. That’s neat that he saved that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And my sister says—we were talking and she said, yeah, when you went to school, you stood up on the first day of school and said where you were from. Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas. When I went to school, we had all been born here. There weren’t any outsiders, I guess, because we were all born here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: But during the war, everybody stood up and said where they were from. Because everybody was from somewhere. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: She says, there was a few—once in a while you’d run into somebody who says, oh, I was born here. And they’re like, oh. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Yeah, oh, you’re an original! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, you’re really strange! You didn’t come from the Midwest? Because that seems to be the biggest proportion came from the Midwest. Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: And Texas, too, there was a huge—but that’s definitely where they were pulling lots of people from. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: And it was mostly by word of mouth as their job tended to—go to Washington. What are we going to do? Can’t tell you. Because I don’t know. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: Take this train to a place you’ve never heard of. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Yup. Any other questions? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Franklin: No, I think that was great. Thank you so much for sharing. I learned a lot of things that I didn’t know about, growing up here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX253515545"> Davis: Oh, I probably—going to think of a million things driving home, I’m sure. Oh, I should have said—[LAUGHTER] </div> Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Linda Davis Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:59:18 Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor N Reactor Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Lee Ray, Dixe Smith, Derald Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 232 kbps 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 Linda Davis Description An account of the resource An interview with Linda Davis 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 hose interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/26/2016 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-07-26: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. B Reactor Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Kennewick (Wash.) N Reactor Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F93ee156bf46d941b4d9b5e5aba9f1639.jpg c9e9467a12728ad2773706a589bd69cb https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F51d399f9b332ecd3ff88a077a2397164.mp4 b36dcb106c274666d29d9290ef95c177 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 William Cliff Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Douglas O’Reagan: Okay. To start off, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> William Cliff: Yes. I’m Dr. William C. Cliff. W-I-L-L-I-A-M, C is the middle initial, and Cliff, C-L-I-F-F— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: All right. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: --like a mountain cliff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Dr. Cliff on May 5th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University’s Tri-Cities. We’ll be speaking with Dr. Cliff about his experiences working around the Tri-Cities community over the 20th Century. To start us off, could you tell us a little bit about your life growing up before you came to this part of the world. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yeah. I was actually born in Idaho, and then we moved around to Oregon and then to Utah. And then got married in 1969 in Colorado. Took a job with NASA in Huntsville, Alabama, and that’s where we moved to and we lived there for about six or seven years. There were about seven of us that were from around the United States that were hired to work on a special project at NASA. That gave us quite a bit of fun. It was electro-optic systems and we worked on those. And of course we worked into other things while we were there at NASA as well. Huntsville—if you were raised in the West, Huntsville’s a little bit different. For the first years I was there, I never had an American boss. All my bosses were the old Peenemünde group. The Germans--Von Braun, Stuhlinger, Geissler, Horne, Dahm, Krause, and so on. Very nice people, very knowledgeable people. We went down and I got to work on a lot of electro-optics—laser systems for probing the atmosphere and for looking at fluid flow. After which, I got—was over our physics and chemistry experiments in space and was in charge of the first commercial product in space, which was monodispersed latex spheres. So got involved in an awfully lot of things, and finally got involved in the shuttle. Worked on the heat transfer for the solid rocket boosters and the external tank. So my working time seems like it almost started there just about the time of the shuttle and then sort of ended just about the time the shuttle ended. So I guess it was fate. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: What time frame was that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, about 1970—well, the shuttle started taking design back in ’69, ’70, ’71. That’s when I was running the code for—of course, we were doing a lot of other things, too. Like I say, seven of us were hired to work on a special electro-optics project for measuring the wind fields near the launch vehicles. Because the last decision made before launch is, do I have an atmospheric window? So that was sort of important, too. As a young scientist—engineer space scientist, you had all the toys you’d ever want. Because by this time, NASA had become very popular to the American people. And in 1969, with the Apollo-11 launch liftoff and landing on the moon and returning, NASA could do no wrong. As with many times in history, there’s a gloried agency within the United States. At that time, of course, NASA took over. Von Braun, the head of it, could do no wrong. So as a young scientist, I had every conceivable toy you could imagine: laser Doppler systems, probability density analyzers, I had a Mach-3 wind tunnel that I could use at my discretion. We really had a lot of fun for a young engineer. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: So what brought you to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, the Tri-Cities was very interesting. We had a child, Christina, in Huntsville, Alabama. And before she got school aged, we wanted to come back to the West. Both my wife and I were from the West. It’s just like salmon returning. You want to come back, same place. So we looked around, and I happened to call out here. It looked like I was first going to go to Boulder, Colorado and do some work for NOAA. But I called a friend out here at the Hanford site, and he knew that I did a lot of wind characteristics for NASA. And he said, what would you think about moving out here? I said, well, that sounded like it might be kind of good. So they flew me out, I gave a presentation on laser Doppler velocimetry, which we really were the heads of in the world at that time, at NASA. They had some very, very good people. So I gave a talk on that out here. Chuck Elderkin said, when can you be here, in two weeks? I said, no, no, I’ve got some payloads I have to still get ready for. So signed up to come up here and work for Chuck Elderkin and Chuck Simpson and Bill Sandusky and a lot of these really interesting people in the atmospheric world. And as I mentioned, I think this was the largest atmospheric complex in the United States, because you had to worry about a release going downwind. So you had a huge amount of sensors in this area. And in fact, in my work, in dealing with some of the correlation work that we did, we had seen the work that had been done out here as well. So I was very interested in this area and interested in the people that were in this area that had done so much scientific work. So anyway, we were hired to come, and my first job was actually representing Battelle at--I think it was called ERDA at that time—in Washington, DC. So my first six months on the job, roughly, were actually in DC. We moved all of our equipment and cars and stuff out here, and then went to Washington, DC to live for—actually it turned out to be—shoot. I want to say—many months, and then came out here to take the actual job out here. I told my wife, I said, now, I’m not sure what you’re going to think about it. Said, you’re not going to see many trees. And she got out here and she says, I never want to leave. So, one of those people that this was her ideal site. Been very happy ever since then, and she sort of built up—every time I’d go on a trip, she’d buy another horse. So ended up building a little house with a barn and horses, and each—I remember one in particular that was kind of interesting. I got on a plane—I did quite a bit of overseas work. Got on the plane and they gave me an envelope. And it says, To Daddy. I thought, it’s going to open up and it’s going to say, please come home, Daddy. Well, I open it up and it says, here’s the horse you’re going to see at the barn when you come back. So anyway that was the life of the person traveling. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Where did you buy this—where were you living? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well we were living in a place called Hills West at the time when we came in. This area’s really interesting because it has ups and downs in prices of houses. So we found that it was easier to build than to buy at that particular time. So we built a house in Hills West. Then we were living there, and I was doing quite a bit of overseas work. When we were here, we also then were trained by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for reactor operator licensing exams. In fact, the Unit Two out here—I was the lead examiner for the first group of people that ran the Unit Two reactor here at Hanford. So that was kind of fun, too. So for a few years, I spent about half my time going around to different BWRs around the—boiling water reactors—around the country. But I still think my favorite one is the one that’s right here. Got to do a lot of different projects over time. The Canadian government wanted us to blow up some pipelines near Calgary to see if they were accidentally or purposely ruptured where the flow would go. So we went up, and my job was to measure the fluid velocity coming out of these ruptured pipes, which were probably three or four feet down, and they’d rupture and it’d just come up out of the ground. So that was kind of an interesting one. We had one where a fellow named Jim Grier who—great manager—did one with Shell Oil Company to look at taking the mud—the drilling mud from the seas and then putting it back down on the bed. So when you’re drilling for oil you get all these muds and things, and now you got to get rid of them. So we had a big project here to look at how you made them into briquettes and then put them back on the seafloor. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: This was all working for Battelle? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yeah, yeah. You had the opportunity to do a lot of different kind of unusual things. And one I mentioned that we started to look into was one of the commercial companies wanted to know how you could take strawberries and make them stand up so you could cut the tops off. So we did a little short project on looking at how you’d use the calyx as a drag device. The calyx, you know, the leafy part which is good for Scrabble. To look and see how you could control the position of the strawberry using a converging fluid system. Anyway, that was kind of interesting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Do you remember what year you came to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: 1976, I believe. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Great. And you mentioned a couple of names—Chuck Eldritch, something, something like that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Elderkin. Chuck Elderkin. Chuck was really the person that hired me. I came out and interviewed with Chuck. He was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. In fact, I thought this is really strange. The people at Tri-Cities are very, very nice. But coming in and interviewing for a job, I didn’t expect this guy to take his family and me out for ice cream at night. So he was such a nice man. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: But he was a well-known climatologist? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yeah, yeah. Him and Chuck Simpson and there’s Bill Sandusky. I think Bill Sandusky just retired from the Atmospheric Sciences Department. And they ran the Atmospheric Science Department. There’s another fellow named Ron Drake that was there as well. But it was very prestigious organization there at Battelle. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: One of the things we’re interested in finding out is what was created, what was invented, what was discovered out there on the site? It sounds like climatology was cutting edge out there. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Oh, I think so. I mean, you really had to have your game plan in place, in case something happened. We’ve all heard of cases where the down-winders were saying something happened and we were affected. So you’ve always had a very good Atmospheric Sciences Department out there. I was trying to think of some of the other names that were extremely interesting to me. Coming out of NASA, I had heard of this group and these people, so I was very excited about coming. And then, like I say, we went to Washington, DC and we had one child and two golden retrievers, and to live in DC for a little while. And if you ever have a thought it was tough to find a place with a child, think about two golden retrievers and who wants to let you stay in an apartment with two golden retrievers and a child. Anyway, we had quite a bit of fun. And then we had to drive all the way across the United States. My wife would fly between stops, and I would pull our boat and the dogs and catch up with my wife, Nell, and Christina our daughter, as we came across. So it was kind of an exciting time for us. I don’t think I’d have the energy to do it again. [LAUGHTER] </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: You said your wife really liked it when she got here. What was your first impression? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, I was born in Idaho and lived in Utah, so this was very familiar kind of territory to me, and I loved it. In fact, one of the first things I did was get in my car, and I just drove out through the Area and up through by Othello and up by all those little lakes and the backwater, look for fishing areas, and go down and talk to the fishermen and stuff. So for me, this was an ideal location. And it turned out for my wife it was an ideal location. She could do all the things that she wanted to do with the animals. And I could do everything I wanted to do with the fish—and the steelhead and the salmon. Loved fly fishing for the steelhead up here. Probably one of the most significant events in that was that my father was out fishing—he loved to fly fish, too. And I told him, as you go down this river, I said, look over your shoulder, split those two big rocks right there, and when you do you’ll have a steelhead on. And he goes down there, and bang, this huge steelhead comes on. Just—he said he never had a fish fight like that in his life. He said, but one thing, Bill, I had to take him the extra step. So anyway, it’s been a wonderful area for us, and like I say, we’ve had a lot of people over. The work really became significant for us in 1989. US Customs Intelligence Service, Eleanor Lusher called Ed Fay at the Department of Energy and asked if someone would write a couple of articles, one on hafnium and one on zirconium. Ed asked if I would do it. So I wrote these two training bits for Customs, sent it to them. Next thing I know, I got a big beautiful plaque from the Customs Intelligence Unit head at New York. And then Bill Wiley liked that so well, he gave me one, too. So that got us sort of started. And then in ’94, US Customs and I began training. Congress approved a budget to do Weapons of Mass Destruction training for the non-weapon states of the former Soviet Union: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. So that sort of started us off. And the first thing we did, we did border assessments to find out what they could do at a border and what they couldn’t do. And we found one location that if they had—if the smuggler went across the border down a ways, they couldn’t chase him because they had no gas. So some of the places were pretty rough. But then we went back in the countries and we did the training based upon our assessment at the borders. Then things just sort of took off from there. We began training more and more and more countries, going overseas. One of the problems that we had was when we went overseas—I actually carried a suitcase that was filled with strategic metals, if you will, to show and do training on. But it was very, very heavy. And we couldn’t carry any radioactive material with us at all. And we couldn’t—they didn’t have any trucks or things to pull something through, and there were very few radiation detectors. So we decided that we had to find a place where we could have trucks, cars, set up exercises just like you would have at a real field position, and be able to use real radioactive material, and specifically weapons-grade uranium and weapons-grade plutonium. Because these are two items that, without them, you don’t build a nuclear weapon. At the same time, back then, most smugglers and customs officers around the world were afraid of them, thinking that they’re highly radioactive. When in fact, through your training you find out that the weapons-grade materials are the least radioactive materials that you’re going to be working around for most of the time. The industrial isotopes are the rough ones, so to speak. So we got the Pentagon, Harlan Strauss, we got the Department of Energy, of course, with us. We got the State Department, Pat O’Brien, Non-Proliferation Disarmament Fund. We selected the HAMMER site as the site where we could do all of these things. So there were actually four groups of people putting out customs—trying to think. Customs—there were actually a couple different people that we worked with. But we put these four agencies together, combined them together, and came out and set up the training. We looked around, where could we do the training? Well, it just turns out that the HAMMER site was just being developed, and it was the ideal place. We drove through the HAMMER site, Customs, State and the Pentagon and I, and we saw a little building out there that is actually a rest stop. But it looks exactly like a border crossing in a third world country. We said, this is it. This is the place we got to do. So we then teamed up with HAMMER, and from that time forward it was all a wonderful partnership. In fact, people coming in could not tell the difference between if you were a PNL person or a HAMMER person. I remember one time, Nikolai Kurchenko, a Russian, the head of the Russian delegation came in and he had this beautiful Russian hat. And I thought, oh boy, oh oy, I wonder if he’s going to give it to me. Well he didn’t. He gave it to HAMMER. And I thought, oh man. But anyway, that’s been a wonderful relationship to where PNL and HAMMER worked together and you wouldn’t—couldn’t tell one from another. So that—in September of 1997, HAMMER did the dedication of the HAMMER site. At that dedication, we had Hungarians and Slovak Customs all in full uniform, for the dedication. That was the first class we had. And the classes have sort of continued ever since. So it was sort of a remarkable marriage, I would say, of the two groups. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: What does HAMMER stand for? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Hazardous Material Management and Emergency Response Training Center. It’s actually the Volpentest HAMMER Federal Training Center. That’s the nice thing about HAMMER, is you can do things there that you really can’t do anywhere else in the world. And that is, we’re able to bring out the weapons-grade plutonium from PNNL, weapons-grade uranium, put it in trucks and cars and pass the through the portable monitors and have the people respond, pull them into what we call secondary and do the searches. But it’s with the real thing. And like I said, the first few years, some of the people were very much afraid of going up against those materials, thinking that they’re highly radioactive when in fact they’re not. But even the Russians—the [INAUDIBLE] wouldn’t let the Russians use their materials to train on. So we had—I think the Russians were here four times for the actual training at HAMMER. And then we actually ran a rail test, where we had a railroad train go by the 300 Area here. It carried the special nuclear materials. And when I say special nuclear materials, I mean the weapons-grade plutonium and uranium-enriched and the isotope 235, and uranium-233. So those things that are fissionable that you can make the weapon out of. Anyway, it was kind of interesting because the train test, the Russians wanted us to evaluate one of their portal monitors. These are large monitors for looking for radioactive material. I think it’s the only time that test has ever been run. In the end, we’ve had over 60 countries out there, at HAMMER. As you know, we took a little tour the other day and saw all the different facilities that have been built, and the State Department has built three really nice facilities for the training. The very first training that we did at HAMMER, we actually had phone lines to each participant coming out of the ceiling. Of course, now, in the new buildings and stuff, you got good simultaneous interpretation, the headgear, and you can do it in the field as well if you want to. Normally, in the field we do consecutive translation. But it’s a wonderful facility. As we’ve gone around the world, we’ve seen how people smuggle things and we’ve built traps that look like how the smuggler does it and then we train the people on how to find it. Kind of exciting. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: What had been your jobs, your involvement in each stage of this? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: My involvement? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Was I was the manager of the program. We called it Interdict RADACAD. Interdict for the interdiction of materials, commodities and components associated with the development or deployment of a Weapon of Mass Destruction. And then RADACAD for Radiation Academy. Well, you can imagine what happened on that—people immediately picked up RADACAD and that’s what it became known as. And one I forgot to mention, Terry Conway was the main customs officer we dealt with. He came out, and he was the one that thought up the term RADACAD. So that term actually belongs to him. But I’ve gotten calls from people in Washington National Security Council and people say, what does this RADACAD mean? What does it stand for? So we made it to very high parts of government and actually got to be a line item there for training. Andrew Church at State Department in the—I want to say in the training area there—Andrew’s specific area—he’s the one that actually sent most of the countries, or a lot of the countries to us. Department of Energy has sent a lot of countries to us. The Pentagon, with Harlan, sent quite a few to us. But they always came in as a joint effort, if you will. Andrew Church, Export Control Cooperation, ECC, and the State Department, is probably the first group that actually provided funding out and spread it—it would go through Customs to go to us. And he’s—Andrew’s still there. He’s still a good sponsor, living sponsor, if you will. Oh! Now that we’re talking about it, can I bring this out? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Yeah, please. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: This is kind of a cute little storyboard. Of course, you probably can’t see too much of it. But this actually shows one of the classes from Azerbaijan that came to visit us. My wife probably has had 40 separate nations at her home where she would spend three days preparing food so they have a banquet at the house. Some of the nations have been there to the house more than once. So this is the Azeris here giving my wife a souvenir. She got so many souvenirs that she had to build a case there at the house to put all the various souvenirs in. Ali here was a boxer for the Azeri Olympic team. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: And then he went into radiation safety? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Customs, yeah. [LAUGHTER] Went into customs. Yeah, it’s interesting, the people that come and take the training, when they go back home, and then we go back and visit them in maybe six months or so, they will have moved up in the organization. Getting a certificate from RADACAD was a very, very big thing for most of these countries. It actually meant almost an instant advancement. This is when the missile came in that you saw the other day, the SCUD missile which is on loan to us from the State Department. Some of the exercises that they’re doing. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Could you tell us a bit more about the SCUD missiles for the cameras? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Got a call one day from a friend there at the Non-proliferation Disarmament Fund, said, Bill, do you want to have a missile out there to look at? And I said, sure! And then all of the sudden, one day it shows up out there, and the driver said it was the strangest thing he’d ever picked up. He said he went over to—I guess by the State Department where they had it, and he said I wonder who’s going to be driving that. So he drove it out here and brought it out to HAMMER for training. And—oh shoot, one of the pictures I think I brought with me—I know I’ve got it over there some place—is Bill Gates. Bill Gates came through and toured the Hanford site, and the last stop was there with the missile. So I’ve got a picture there with Bill Gates and I, looking over that missile. Kind of a fun toy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Do you know how the State Department got the missile? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: It was provided by the Soviet Union. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: And the fear was that that would be—somebody would try to drive that out of the Soviet Union? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Oh, now that one is one that’s been cut up, as you could tell. It’s been set up as a demilitarized system, so it cannot ever be used. In the United States, however, there was one that did come into the United States legally, supposedly, and demilitarized. And my understanding was that another one came in that Customs took and they had the paperwork from the first one and it was drivable and everything else. So you’d think how could something like that every go through a country? But they can. So I’m not sure where that missile is right now, but Customs took it over and if they did all the paperwork right and demilitarized it, the person probably got it back. Let’s see. I thought maybe one of these we were holding—oh. Harlan Strauss. Oh, missile components. Anyway, this is sort of a fun one. And then Customs gave us this plaque here from the Northwest Laboratory for the Interdict Training Program, 2004. Now the nice thing about this is we continuously got letters from customs officers saying it’s the best training they’d ever had in their career. So when people walked out of the training, they actually felt comfortable. And you’d always ask them, well, what’s going to happen if someone comes across and your radiation alarm says you’ve got plutonium. They say, I’m going to stick right there and handle it. Years ago, they’d say, I’m going to take off running as fast as I can. So just that little bit of knowledge is very helpful. We have had people, of course, that just don’t like any radiation. Some people contend that a little bit of radiation has made the human species actually better, if you will. And that if you have a small amount of background radiation, it’s more healthy for you than none. It’s called hormesis, so it actually—your body upregulates itself to take care of itself a little bit better. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: How is HAMMER run? What is sort of the organizational structure of it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, HAMMER actually is a training facility that’s headed by Karen McGinnis, who does a wonderful job of making sure that the site needs are met. It’s actually set up for the Hanford cleanup to give all the specialized trainings so that the person in the field is safe. That’s pretty much it. It has, I think, about 50,000 man days of training a year. Every person on the Hanford site there that deals with radioactive materials is actually trained right there on the HAMMER site in the radiation building, the one that we took a tour of the other day. Volpentest certainly was a forward-thinker, in knowing that you needed to have something like this for the Hanford site, and knowing that it’s going to be a major cleanup facility. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Do you know much about Volpentest’s role in getting all of this organized? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Volpentest was the key person with the willpower and the tenacity to—my understanding is that he thought the project up, he fought in Washington, and he fought in Washington, and he fought in Washington. And I wish I could remember his words one time when—at HAMMER—not a dedication, but like ten-year anniversary. He said something about, they said what was so hard? He said, just again, and again, and again, you just had to be persistent to do it. And then finally, he got it and it’s, like I say, it’s the best training center in the world. You can do things out there at HAMMER that you can do nowhere else. We have brought in containers, we have fiber optic scopes to look behind walls, you can bring the special nuclear materials out there, and you can drive through the scenarios. And we mock-up. We mock-up our international seizures. In fact, one that we were accredited with in May of ’99 was a Bulgarian seizure where a fellow had gone out of Romania and up into Turkey and was coming back through Bulgaria, Josef Hanifi. He got to the border there and the Bulgarians had just been out training at RADACAD. They noticed that he seemed a little bit nervous. So they questioned a little bit and finally they sent him over to secondary. So they moved him to secondary. The car was perfectly clean. Nobody should be driving that car; it was way too clean. They found—a screwdriver was the only piece of equipment in the entire car. They were about ready to let him go, and apparently then he offered them a bribe. They said, no, no, we got to find it. So they started looking and they found a little piece of paper with a star on it, which was a Kurdish separatist group. So they said, okay, now we’re going to look a bit more. And the next thing they found then was what we call a passport. This is a piece of paper that gives the isotopic items that are in an element. It always goes with the material. When you get something that’s very sensitive, whether it’s radioactive or not, you’re going to have this spike assay, or what we call a passport, with it. And if you find it, the other stuff is there. So here it was and it said uranium-235, and said 99.99% uranium-235—which we train everybody, if you see that, you know that’s at least a partial. You do not enrich uranium to that amount. But now they knew what they were looking for. All their sensors—none of their sensors would work. I mean, the handheld radiation devices weren’t going off. Then finally the guy remembered the screwdriver, and he picked up a tire pump. The tire pump was like one he had but it was heavier. So he looked at matched them up and pulled it apart. And sure enough the compression cylinder inside the pump had been pulled apart and a lead pig—when I say lead pig—a lead isotope holder—radiation holder—they pulled it out and it had uranium-235 in it when they pulled it apart. It’s a great example to show that uranium-235 is easily concealed. Because you put it in there. One of the pagers that I brought with me that are used all around the world for detecting radiation was laid actually up against it and it still showed zero. Trying to reach around, see if I can open this up. This is the one we saw the other day. This particular one is my favorite. We’ve distributed thousands around the world. There’s actually several makers of these. This particular one is Sensor Technology. But you just turn it on, and then you wear it. As soon as it turns green it’s ready to pick up any radiation you’ve got. Very, very sensitive, and yet—this water bottle is just about the size—about like that was the lead pig that was in the container. So put it on the outside and if you press the button there—[DEVICE BEEPING] Reads zero. You’ve always got a little bit of gamma background radiation, but it read zero. And then of course as you pulled it open, pulled the top off and expose the little amount of radiation, then the thing goes wild. So that was one of the seizures that we were accredited with. And in fact, the customs officers that made that seizure were brought to the United States and brought out to HAMMER again to give a little talk to everybody on how they did it. So it was kind of interesting. We had a couple of other seizures, too, that were quite interesting. The Bulgarians, when they first were over here the first time they actually made another seizure. So they were extremely dedicated. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Had there been any particular—I don’t know—international politics or sort of big events that have shaped what people are looking for at HAMMER, or HAMMER’s mission? I’m thinking like—as the world’s sort of security concerns change, has that changed what HAMMER is looking for? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, HAMMER, of course was really set up to handle the cleanup of the Hanford site. But the society area, if you will, has been a blessing for the world of bringing people in for training. Just going back in history, in December 14th, 1994, Josef Wagner, who is well up into the nuclear world in the Czech Republic, was actually caught by a man named Kamil Klozerski, the second command of the criminal police in the Czech Republic. And he was carrying with him 2.72 kilograms of 87.7% enriched uranium, which is almost weapons grade. That sort of set the tone for the world, I think. Because that had been brought down from Moscow by train, by car, and gone through a lot of different country border crossings, and it sort of showed the world that there really wasn’t any way of catching or stopping it at that time. So after that, you began seeing the portable monitors, began seeing the radiation detectors and things of that nature start cropping up. In my mind, there was sort of a changing segue way, I guess, for the world. Now the United States, I guess, lacked behind a lot of the other countries in putting up portal monitors and stuff because we sort of consider ourselves isolated. But as recent events have shown us, of course, we’re not. So the United States then took up and protected all of its borders with these large portal monitors. And if you walk off on the plane and you look very carefully, your customs officers will be carrying something like this. Normally, it’s just called a personal radiation detector. This particular model is called a pager from Sensor Technology. So the United States is doing a real good job with its people and getting its people trained for detecting radioactive materials. There’s been several seizures around the world. I guess maybe I’ll leave it at that. There’s been less than what we call a significant quantity, bag quite a bit that has actually been seized. We know that a lot of nations and a lot of groups who’d like to have the material. So as we talked about the other day, if the IAEA says that if a country has eight kilograms of plutonium, you could not discard the fact that they may have a full-up weapon, or 25 kilograms of uranium-235, or eight kilograms of uranium-233. So that’s sort of the baseline, so for nuclear smuggling, we always compare that. There’s been 18 seizures since 1992 of weapons-usable material. And when we say weapons-usable, we mean greater than 20% enriched uranium-235 or plutonium. So there’s not been a lot. And there’s a lot of equipment out there to try to stop it. But as we saw with the Bulgarian seizure, certain things can be fairly well-masked. A lot of times, people will ask, well, hey, a small number of grams you found, like in the Bulgarian seizure, you’re not going to make a bomb out of that. And the answer is yeah, that’s correct. Normally what happens on a smuggling operation, they’ll give you a very small amount of material, and if it’s good material, they’ll give it to you to take and analyze. And then they’ll say, we’ve got three more kilograms or five more kilograms back there. So when you see the small ones, they become very important, because that’s what people are trying to push and say, this is a sample. We had a case out here where zirconium—which is non-radioactive, but is used in reactor systems—smuggler sent us a small piece that we analyzed, and it was really, really nice zirconium. A customs officer was embedded with him and he was saying he was from Iraq and he wanted to buy it for Iraq. So it went on, and they’d give us another piece, and it wasn’t quite as good, but it was still good nuclear-grade zirconium. So eventually, customs arrested him, and he had five tons of zirconium there waiting to go to Iraq. It was stored in the World Trade Centers. I went back and looked at it. It was kind of interesting. Oh, I had one other—I got another picture over there some place where I showed two—that Eleanor Lush, who we talked about that actually the program started with, her and another person using a piece of our equipment to look at roofing tar from Venezuela. It was suspected that something was hidden in the roofing tar. Why are you buying roofing tar from Venezuela, which probably the cost of shipping it is as much as the material’s worth? So here at PNNL, Dick Papas and Jim Skorpik had built some equipment—some acoustic equipment—to look and find chemicals that—actually it was originally developed for looking at chemical weapons. And in this particular case, it was for looking through this tar keg to see if somebody had accidentally hidden a rubber ball in the middle or something. But anyway, we worked on several cases. [DEVICE BEEPING] With customs. And it was always kind of fun. I was called in on one case where I was able to go and testify, was the first to testify for the US government against some smugglers. So it was kind of interesting, back in Brooklyn. Anyway we had sort of a fun life. The HAMMER site, like I say, sort of came as a godsend for doing this. They were built up to handle and move materials around in a method—and they’re on the Hanford site, so you can actually use the radioactive materials. And of course we used not only the weapons-grade which we talked about several times, but we also used the commercial items, because those are ones you’re going to find most often. That is the cesiums, cobalts, things of that nature. We have those in the training as well, and the people have to identify what they are. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: You mentioned testifying—was that because--just as an expert witness? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Or were you actually involved in--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: No, no, just as an expert witness. Yeah, no, no just as an expert witness on what we had analyzed. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: How has your sort of day-to-day work changed over the time that you’ve been working at HAMMER? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Oh, not—I’m just pretty much retired and I get to do the fun things I want to do, and I get to do kind of an outreach and talk to the people that we’ve with over the years, the various agencies: the State Department, the Customs and Border Protection, and the Department of the Defense and Homeland Security. I really don’t do much anymore. If a class comes in, I’ll maybe give a talk on nuclear smuggling and maybe a couple of other little talks. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: When did you retire, or start to retire? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Pardon? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: When did you start to retire? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: 2011. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Okay. What was your sort of day-to-day before that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, when we had the classes, of course it was—phew—early morning to late afternoon, but it was a labor of love, setting them up and getting all the people. When the training went on, I one time, somebody asked, well how many experts do you use? And I counted up, I think on one class, 27 that you would run into. 27 different experts you’d run into in that class. We had people from Oak Ridge, for instance, Steve Baker would come down and that’s where the uranium enrichment was, and so he would talk about uranium enrichment. We had the MSIC people come in—Missile Space Intelligence Command—come in and they’d talk about some of the missile systems that we had. So I guess I really wouldn’t call it work; it was kind of fun. And then HAMMER is even more fun. I go out there and it’s sort of like a large family that you blend into. My wife keeps saying now, when are you going to really retire? I think that day is coming pretty soon. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: You mentioned going around looking for fishing spots when you first got here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yes! </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Is that a big hobby of yours? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yes, I love to fish. To me, this was a very interesting and exciting area because I went up there in the desert area where these—all of the sudden, there’s water and there’s fish in these lakes. I watched the people catch them and how they did it. I’d go down and talk to them. So then we’d begin doing that, and got with friends, and we’d walk into a little lake called Virgin Lake, which is about a mile walk-in, so there’s not a lot of people. Haven’t been there lately, though. But, yeah, I love fishing, and my dad took my brother and I out. I think—I think he said we were either three or four when we first started going out and going fishing. I remember him buying these old bamboo fly rods, which would be very expensive now. And I remember walking and holding the tip down, snapping the tip off on the ground. My dad said, no, no, Bill, you have to hold it up. So that was in Idaho, when we lived in Idaho. I guess I’ve been sort of lucky: I’ve always found something that was fun to do. Even when I went down to NASA, I remember they came out looking, like I say, for seven of us from around the United States to work on a particular project. It was kind of a thrill to be able to go down and sort of play and have all the toys you ever wanted as a young engineer. It just seemed like my life said, well, here’s the next thing, here’s the next thing. So I guess the next thing probably is we’ll maybe settle down even more. Maybe one day do a full retirement. Although I still like talking about nuclear smuggling and talking with the people. When I was in the Czech Republic, and actually it was December of ’95, and we were talking with the criminal police there. So I spewed out all we’d heard, about Josef Wagner and any co-conspirators and stuff. And they said, oh, well, we thought we were going to tell you about that. No. But it was interesting because they were really into it. And when the breakup of the Soviet Union occurred, I said, what have you noticed? He said, well, people think they’re free. But he says, people think they’re free to do whatever they want, so we’ve seen an increase in murders and really hard crime. Which I never thought about, because under the dominant rule, nobody dared do anything. Then after they broke up and were free, they could do all these different things. So the criminal police actually had their hands more full, I guess. The Josef Wagner case was just a very special case. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: How have the Tri-Cities changed in the time you’ve lived here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Oh! More people in my fishing spots! Yeah, the Tri-Cities have gotten many more people. In fact, we live up on Keene Road, which is part of Richland, going toward Yakima there. The traffic has gotten almost unbearable at rush hour. I mean, it really is amazing. When we built our house, 1990, Keene Road was a little two-lane road that did this. As you drove along the road, and if you come up over this rise, you’d see our house. But the house would look like it was a stick figure, just looked like—because you would look through one octagonal window, straight through to another octagonal window. So it looked like there was no depth to the house. It was a very strange feeling. And then the next thing you know—whoom—then they came and bladed out the road, made it a four-laner, and the first thing happened was they cut it a little too steep at the end of our driveway, so our driveway went like that. And I had to call them up because it snowed and I said, I just slid into the road. So they came back and fixed it. City of Richland has been very good. But we’ve certainly enjoyed it, like I say, we’ve had a pretty good life here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Have you followed local politics at all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: A little bit, but not too much. I mean, the national politics have been something interesting to watch, kind of fun to watch. I always watch the news and hear the people say—it’s a very fun thing to be watching and going over. Anyway, I don’t get involved in politics very much. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Okay. Let’s see. I guess that’s most of our sort of preset questions here. Anything else that comes to mind that I haven’t thought to ask? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Hmm. I’m just trying to think of some of the fun little projects that we’ve done in the past and the people who we’ve worked with. Seems like we’ve always had some—well, it was kind of interesting, because I used to do quite a bit of research. When I was at NASA, we built these large laser systems for what they call a coaxial laser system—for actually looking at wind for probably 20 kilometers out or so. Very, very accurate. And when I came here, one of the first things I did was I went back and I got with our old NASA people and set up a program to scan San Gorgonio Pass with an airplane flying over and taking the wind velocity measurements, so you could see. And now there’s large wind turbines down there—wind turbine farm and stuff. And that’s what we wanted to assess, was how deep did that maritime layer go as it came down from the coast. So that was sort of fun, as it led to the stuff we did at NASA with the laser Doppler systems. But we did it out here at PNNL. And then I got to work with a fellow named Jim Davidson. He was over our national security back then, and probably one of my very favorite bosses, if you will. So with him, I got to be—my training—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission training—and with Jim, I actually became one of the US advisors for the International Atomic Energy List, which is now the Nuclear Suppliers Group. So all those things you wanted to keep away from Russia and China, there was a thing called CoCom, which was NATO plus Japan, minus Iceland. And we’d meet in a secret place in France and in England and go over all these lists. So one of the jobs that I had with Jim was to work on that International Atomic Energy List, to be sure that we’d try to keep special things away from Russia, so that they couldn’t reprocess materials, or they couldn’t do this, or they didn’t have that, per se. So that was actually kind of fun. And I think that I probably enjoyed Jim as much as anybody that I’ve ever done—he’s retired now. I think I mentioned, he’d be an interesting one to talk to because he gave perhaps the best tour I’ve ever had of going out through the Area and dealing with the old reactors. Anyway, he got us involved in a lot of very interesting, interesting things. Oh, one—do we have time to bring over a picture? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Yeah, sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Maybe we can take it. This is just a short picture of some of the things that go on at the HAMMER site in training. These are many of the people who are involved in the training. This particular picture, I think was interesting because we’re holding an eight-kilogram ball of Tungsten, which has the same density as plutonium. As a result, you can see how small that is. So if you’re smuggling, if I’m smuggling drugs, I’m going to have a large area. But for smuggling nuclear materials—the special nuclear materials, you don’t need a lot of space. Where with drugs, you’re going to smuggle it and you’re going to have it where you’re going to have take it open, put it back in, take it open, put it back in. With weapons of mass destruction, you may only make one carry. So it may be completely sealed up. Maybe welded. But the size of the materials that you’re going to be dealing with don’t have to be a lot. Not going too much detail, this is over in Holland, when we were in Holland. You see the big Dutch shoe, there. I don’t know if you can see that or not. Oh, this is nice. This is where we—one of the buildings that was turned over to HAMMER from the State Department. Karen Nicola. Oh, shoot. Jim Spracklen. Jim Spracklen was at DoE for a long time and he really was a blessing for HAMMER. He just has been so supportive of everything at HAMMER. Of course there’s the missile again. Paul Van Son was the State Department person. I believe that this one was where they handed over the State Department building that we took a tour in the other day. So, yeah, at the signing of the turnover here, this is Karen McGinnis, who’s the head of HAMMER, the director of HAMMER, who’s very, very supportive of all these activities. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Do you know how she became director of HAMMER? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: No, I don’t. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: We’ll have to see if we can get her in and ask her. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yeah. I’m not sure if I want to show that one too much. This is a picture down in Mexico where we’re putting on a little bit of training for the Mexican National Police. They loaned me their gun. So I look like I know what I’m doing. Anyway, that was some Weapons of Mass Destruction training that we did. This is the interesting picture, to me. This is Eleanor Lusher. This is the lady at Customs Intel in New York that actually started us getting involved in the training aspects of it. And that’s the roofing tar from Venezuela that we went up to inspect. This is an ultrasound system that was put together by Dick Papas and Jim Skorpik at PNNL to evaluate if there was things that were accidentally being left inside of the roofing tar. Roofing tar is an ideal thing, because you can’t go through with an x-ray or anything. So if there’s something inside of it, you can hide it very well and it can get through. Except if you’re using an ultrasound system. Ultrasound goes right on through it. So it’s really kind of interesting. But anyway that’s one of the few pictures we have of Eleanor. And Eleanor, I believe, retired this year—in fact, at the first of the year. But she was central in bringing us a lot of cases. Remember the case we talked about in New York and stuff? That’s where we got it from. Now, I should point out—that’s one of the interesting things that we’ve done over the years. We’ve worked for a lot of different sponsors. We began working with Eleanor here at Customs back then. Of the thousands of customs people that we’ve dealt with, they’ve all been the nicest people you could ever imagine. So, one after the other after the other, very, very nice people to work with. So I guess I take my hat off to Customs and training their people to deal with people on an everyday basis. This is a picture by the missile that’s out there. That’s Bill Gates. He came in. He’s actually kind of excited about seeing the missile. He was actually excited about old Von Braun stories that I told. Anyway, kind of cute. Did you get that picture? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Camera woman: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Good. During the training, we use a lot of different types of material—training material. This particular one here is actually put out by the Department of Energy, Dr. Noel Medding. If you want to know everything about radiation in a single sheet while you’re eating, this was an ideal training aide. We always tell people at your Thanksgiving you can put this down in front of you and say, well, when Aunt Martha takes her mammogram, she’s going to be receiving so much radiation. And if the conversation dies down, you’ve got something to talk from. This particular one is a radiation playing deck. We always say it’s a field training manual for radiation. It has four chapters, thirteen pages in each chapter, for a total of 52. So each one of them actually gives you a different item on radiation. You didn’t get one the other day. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Camera woman: What’s that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: That’s for you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Camera woman: Oh. Thank you. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: We also built some other cards which don’t have very many left on, but rather than having hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades as your suits, you had missile, chemical, biological and nuclear. So you had your four Weapons of Mass Destruction as your primary suits. In fact—see if I can open this one up. So each one of these, you’ll deal with the different technologies associated with them: missiles, or chemicals or biologicals. Like this one here says Nuclear Terrorism. If terrorists have it, they will use it. Oops. Well. One of the things we do train on—this is going to be hard to see—the Man Portable Air Defense Systems. Man PADs. We heard about those an awful lot. Two things when we say weapons of mass destruction, we also normally cover Man PADs and we cover radiological dispersal devices—in other words, just casting radioactive material around. Can cause quite a bit of economic damage. Well, maybe I left it in the bag. Oh, for crying out loud. I could have searched that all day long. Okay, here you go. Here’s my two favorite cards. Of course, we have the card with the picture of the SCUD missile coming in. And then we have a card—this is Pat O’Brien, State Department, the one that’s helped with all the buildings. And he and I are over there in Poland, and this is one of the SCUD missile engines that they left in Poland. Most of the SCUDs were destroyed in these countries. State Department let them keep a couple of engines and a couple of missiles, you know, for the museums. That’s kind of embarrassing, huh? This one—special nuclear material signatures. It says gamma and neutron—tells you what plutonium has, and what uranium has. Plutonium has gamma and neutron you’re going to detect, and uranium is going to have the gamma you’re going to detect. But if you play it left-handed, like a left-hand person would, then what you’re going to see is going to be the little nuclear weapon. If you play it like a right-hand person would be, you’d see spades. Okay, these are very special, so be sure and don’t lose them. The cards turned out to be probably one of the best training aids that we had. Because people—you give them this big book, or you give them this disc, people end up not looking at them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Then the Field Exercise building, which you were in the other day. This actually came as kind of a surprise to me. We’d worked on getting the State Department to support that for a long time. And the State Department always wanted to support it—the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Fund. But we finally got them to build the building. Then they were going to dedicate the building, and they said Bill, you got to come, you got to come, Bill. And the reason they wanted me to come was because they put my name in there saying—dedicating the building to me. So now I have to make a big deal out of it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: That’s great. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Anyway. You get it all? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Camera Woman: Yup, got it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: This is a nice one, because here’s Sam Volpentest. Sam, who as we mentioned, was the thinker behind the HAMMER site. And so there he is, and there I am, showing some of the different sensing units that we have. Remember we talked about the Bulgarian seizure and the people that made that seizure noted around the world? Anyway, there they are. There’s two of the three guys. The other guy had retired. But they came out and gave us a talk. Here’s Jim Spracklen and I. Like I say, Jim is one of them that’s been behind this program forever and now runs the RADACAD program. Really, really a good guy. This is the Dutch. This is Pat O’Brien, and he’s the one that built the Port of Entry Building that we saw the other day, NDF. And he’s the one that sent—oh, just say he’s one that’s provided a lot of the support tools. If we look at it, Customs provided people for training. The Pentagon provided some funding and selected the nations. The State Department provided all kinds of training materials, so all of those—most of those Conex boxes, the big Conex boxes you saw out there, and a lot of the equipment out there were originally purchased by the State Department for our group program. Then this one here is just one of the storyboards. Let’s see what else we got here. Paul Van Son. Of course the famous picture of the missile coming in. The missile was kind of a cute story. I came in, and somewhere or other the local news found out about it. So they had the missile and we were trying to put it into a little building out there. I never even thought about this, but—it was Tri-City Herald, and they had the people there. Next thing I know is they’re cornering me and turning me around to talk to me. Next thing I knew, I turned around and one of the ladies jumped up on the missile and was riding the missile. So it was kind of cute. But they didn’t know if they would be let to do that or not. So this is kind of nice, because you’ve got a nice picture of Sam Volpentest in there. Earlier, we had one of Karen McGinnis, the director of HAMMER. Patty Murray. The HAMMER site’s had all the political people out there, it seems like, for a long time. They stop in. Very supportive. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Well we can hopefully maybe get a scan of these at some point. If you could maybe bring back in another time, we could get our intern team to scan copies of these. Then we could have a version of them. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Yes. You certainly can. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Great. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Well, let me just say, this is one of my favorite ones. This is an Army program for the 120 millimeter Abrams M1 Tank Cannon. And this was a special—very special projectile that we built at PNNL and fired, actually, down at Socorro, New Mexico. But this is what we call a streak camera picture. Normally, when you take a picture you open the shutter and you open it and you get a shot. In this particular case, you got a shutter that’s open and you strip the film across. So depending on how fast you strip the film across, you get a different picture coming out. But the projectile there is going at like a mile a second. So you got to do something pretty fast. So anyway that’s one of my favorite pictures. And this is the only time that this—you can sort of see that the projectile is still exhausting out of here, sort of like a rocket exhaust. And this is the first time that this had ever been accomplished. In 1989. So VAGAS stood for Very high burn rate per pellet And Gas Assisted System. So it was sort of an acronym. You can tell it’s not spelled like the normal Vegas. But I love this picture and in fact I had to run around looking—I had to take this out of my house to bring it in. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: Great. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: I told my wife, she said it was okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> O’Reagan: All right, well, thanks so much for being here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX118553515"> Cliff: Hey, thanks for inviting me. You guys didn’t think you’d get bored to death like this, probably. </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:10:41 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 Boiling Water Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1976-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1976-2011 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Elderkin, Chuck Simpson, Chuck Sandusky, Bill Grier, Jim Drake, Ron Lusher, Eleanor Fay, Ed Wiley, Bill Strauss, Harlan Brien, Pat O' Conway, Terry Church, Andrew Gates, Bill McGinnis, Karen Volpentest, Sam Papas, Dick Skorpik, Jim Baker, Steve Nicola, Karen Spracklen, Jim Van Son, Pau Medding, Noel O’Brien, Pat Murray, Patty Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with William Cliff 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. 2016-07-25: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 5/5/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 300 Area Boiling Water Reactor Department of Energy Fishing HAMMER Site Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) NASA Nuclear Regulatory Commission Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland (Wash.) Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F28a2a31d0a10e6436fafce8d65fec651.jpg b9619b036e3525d491cc95915e251e35 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fb699b96eac222f7a141bc116875ae9d2.mp4 2afe44cc1de41ef0a133dfaf1f298ffc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O' Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Maynard Plahuta Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Douglas O’Reagan: Okay. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Maynard Plahuta on Thursday, I guess it’s—sorry, what is the date today? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: 28th. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Is it the 28th? Okay. April 28th, 2016. This interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be speaking with Mr. Plahuta about his experiences working on the Hanford site and living in the Tri-Cities. To start us off, could you please pronounce and spell your name for us? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yes. It’s Maynard Plahuta. Maynard is M-A-Y-N-A-R-D, and Plahuta is P-L-A-H-U-T-A. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Thank you. Just to start off, could you tell us a little bit about your life before you came to the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Okay. Well, I was born in a little old farming community in Wisconsin—a little dairy farming community. Big population of 200 people. Then I grew up there on the farm most of the time and went on to college. Went to the University of Wisconsin, first got my undergrad work, and then later I went back and got my master’s in business administration. In between those two times, I worked for General Motors, the AC spark plug plant in Oak Ridge—not Oak Ridge, I’m sorry—Oak Park, Wisconsin, which was the Titan missile program for the Air Force, the guidance system—the gyro system. So then I went back to grad school and then joined up with the Atomic Energy Commission and was assigned out here at Richland. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What attracted you to the AEC? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, I think part of it was the interest in kind of science and industry and all of that sort of thing. The people from Argonne Lab at the Chicago Operations office came to interview at the campus there. I and another fellow were invited to then go back to Argonne for a further interview, and I was one of the two that was selected to join. At the time, I didn’t know where I would be located. They asked, well, if you had a preference. We aren’t going to pick particular places, but if you had a preference, list the three sites that the Atomic Energy Commission was at that I would enjoy. So I said, well, of course, the first one was at the Argonne Lab, close by home there. And I don’t remember which I put second or third, but it was either Richland, Washington or Schenectady, New York. I ended up being in Schenectady for a while basically. But I was assigned out here at Richland, and it was interesting because he says, well, you know, this is not the western—this isn’t the Evergreen State. And I said, well, I learned that by looking up a little more information on Hanford out in the desert. So I came out here with the idea that probably these assignments would be for one year. Because we were on what they called the technical and administrative intern program. So, I was selected on that intern program, and said probably be there a year, and probably no longer, because we’ll probably assign you somewhere else. Well, I came, and I was here until ’71 and then I went back to Schenectady for four years, and came back and was here ever since. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What sort of jobs were you working on then? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, initially—my graduate work was in labor relations and in personnel management and that sort of thing. At that time, they didn’t call it human resources, they called it personnel management. So I was, first year out here, probably in the personnel department for about a year. And then that’s when the whole diversification program started here in 1963 or ’64. And I was assigned to look at the unique use permit and work for a fellow by the name of Paul Holstead who had the responsibility for all the lab operations as far as the Atomic Energy Commission was concerned. That was very interesting. So that was all start of this whole arrangement with Battelle being selected to operate the Pacific Northwest Lab. Now, at that time it wasn’t called a national lab yet; it was just Pacific Northwest Lab. And they had that particular use permit, which is no longer in existence, but it was a real ideal situation. And then that led into what they called the Consolidated Lab where they could do private work as well as the government work and all of that. So I administered that contract, then, for a few years, or until I went back to Schenectady. Then I was back in personnel management in Schenectady, though—labor relations area, under Rickover’s program, and that was very interesting. Then I came back here again in ’65 and was in personnel for a while but then back at the laboratory for a while. And I worked on that for—oh, gosh, quite a few years, because I had a total of 35 years in. But most of the time was with the laboratory, but then later on, I was asked to take over the responsibilities for the DOE—at that time was already DOE—and the site infrastructure. You know, the roads, the utilities, the sewer plants, the warehouse buildings, the railroads, the—all the utilities, just like running a whole city. It was not the operations of those infrastructure; it was more the capital improvements and the projects that needed to be done. Either new roads or new utilities or whatever it might be. That was for—I don’t know—four, five, six years. That also included some of the relationship with the tribes in the cultural resource programs and that sort of activity. But then the other manager asked us, jeepers, you know, I would really like to set up something we never had here at Richland before. That was sort of a governmental relations program. So he asked if I would be willing to do that. So the last—oh, probably about the last six years of my career, I was in what they call governmental-congressional relations, dealing—almost daily basis with congressional staff. Primarily congressional staff, some within the state government as well, and the local government, particularly in those sorts of things. So I retired doing that job in ’98. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Great. Let’s back up. Could you tell us about this diversification program? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, yeah. That was really interesting, because what the idea was—that is when General Electric decided not to continue with their contract. Up until that time, General Electric had one contract for whole site operations. So the idea was two-fold. GE was not particularly interested in continuing doing that particular work, and the community was going through—yes, they still are—the diversification and further economic development for the community. So, there was a big effort there to break up the whole big contract into—I think it was five or six different segments. It was all up for bid, and various people were bidding for it. The laboratory, though, was separated as one of those segments. That was the first one to be authorized, and Battelle came in then operations in July of ’65. But up until—during that whole year, I was kind of working on part of the bid package going out and working on that. But not extensively. But then after the bid was accepted from Battelle, and they put an operation in, it got into this matter of doing this. The diversification program itself was dependent much on what these bidders would propose to supplement the economy here in the Tri-Cities. In fact, that’s how this WSU campus—you may be aware—was part of one of the contractors’ business, that they’d build this facility. Up until that time, GE had a little building down where the bank is—the National Bank down there by the Federal Building—and that wasn’t built either yet—to service the program that they established, their educational program, which is very unique because there wasn’t really any nuclear engineering classes in universities—or very few. So they really brought tech people in and really gave them a good background and education in nuclear operations and so on. Now, I said the Federal Building wasn’t built then. It was built then. It was in the process of being built when I came out here in ’63. So that diversification was the spinoff of a lot of new types of business here in the Tri-Cities. I mean, Exxon Nuclear, which now later is now part of AREVA out here at the site, the fuel fabrication. That started out a spinoff from some of the activity there. There was just a great amount of enthusiasm at that time, because, I think, there was worries that the government will fold up and the city will kind of dry up and blow away so to speak. So that was a very interesting period. There was some very interesting discussions, very interesting foresights of what might happen. A number of those didn’t survive. There were some things—isotope development was one at that time that was a little bit ahead of its time, I think. But there was—the airport was improved by that. What’s now the Red Lion in town, but the Hanford House, it was called then, I think it was—no, Desert Inn. The Desert Inn at that time was a brand new building they put up at that time. So it was a different time, and rather unique type of activity that was going on in this community at that time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Were these discussions going on in the newspapers, or just sort of hand-shake meetings? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, they were pretty well open discussions about what they wanted. And there was quite a bit of publicity about the fact of what some of these contractors—potential contractors were offering. That was exciting for the people, because some of these were new developments. Like the whole campus here, an original building that was part of one of the contractors’ bids. And the hotels and the stockyards over in Wallula over there, that was another one. And, gee, I can’t remember all of them, but there were a number. I know the isotope development thing—the isotope separations, I could really say, was one that didn’t quite make it. But anyway, it was a period of time when people were looking forward into the future and what might come, and looking at different types of work, and not so dependent just on the government here. Now, of course, we’re still quite dependent on the government here, and that’s been—what, 30 years—oh, more than that. That was 1965, so that’s been a long, long time ago. But a lot has progressed, obviously, from that time. I remember coming here—I wasn’t married at the time. I met my wife here. But, gee, if people wanted to go shopping, they’d either go to Walla Walla or Yakima or something. You know, there was nothing here. The mall out there wasn’t developed. It was—very little here to—and about the restaurants, you’d go over to Prosser to the Red Barn or something if you wanted a good meal. You could always find a hamburger shop here or something like that, but it was quite different then. Of course, my wife grew up here. She was only five years old when her parents came from Schenectady, New York with GE. She can remember—gosh, when hardly anything was going on, and families would just get together because they were from—god, all over the country. So many of them didn’t have any family here, so they created their own families, so to speak. But, yeah, that diversification effort was a great effort. There was much success, much success. I think a lot of what was learned there has been helpful and useful for the community. And I do have to give a credit, though, to Battelle and some of the forward-thinking that they did on what their operations were, very successful. And this Consolidated Lab which most people even in this community don’t understand or recognize, but it was very unique. There was a fellow that was with GE, went over with Battelle, of course, when they took over, by the name of Wally Sale. He was their finance director. Tremendous guy. He and Sam Tomlinson and the DOE—or AEC—I call it DOE, but it was the AEC then—were both very, very instrumental in getting this unique idea established and working there, where it was a fair amount of discipline and very good audit-type processing and very excellent means of determining that everything was legitimate, so to speak. That the accounting was very precise. It was a unique situation. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: So you were still working with the AEC while you were working on that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Okay. So they were—even though they weren’t sort of a bidder, or in direct— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: No, no. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: They were still involved— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, they were the organization or the entity that was accepting these bids and proposals going out and diversify the area. That was—I should also mention, that was a lot to do with some of the local community leaders here, though, too, was pushing this idea with the government that, no, we got to depend on more than just the US government to keep this economy going. So there were guys like Sam Volpentest and others—Bob Philips and other people—who were working closely with our two senators. They were actively involved. Magnusson and Jackson—Scoop Jackson and Maggie. Very, very obvious. And they both held very high level positions in the government at that time. I mean, they were—there was some thought for a while about Scoop Jackson even running for President. So they both were elevated in the structure of the politicians in the DC area. So, there was a great support there from our local state senators, particularly. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Right. So, while we’re still in this early period—you said you’d done some research before you got here. Did it match your expectations? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, yeah. I didn’t really have a whole lot of expectations, really. I mean, I knew that eastern Washington was quite dry, but I didn’t know quite a lot about it. I can remember, I was interested in geography when I was in elementary school, even, and knowing the Plains and the desert area, generally, and the wheat-growing area here, and that sort. But not too much—very extensive. Yeah, I think I surprised the AEC people out of Argonne when I says, well, yeah, I realized it was dry and a desert. They said, well, jeepers, most people think of Washington as just being green, you know, the Evergreen State, and don’t even think about it possibly being a desert out there. And when I would talk to some of my friends back in Wisconsin as I was going out, the common words were, oh, you’re gonna be out there in the mountains and you’re gonna be out there in the greenery and all the evergreens. I say, no, no, I’m gonna be out there where the wheat grows in eastern Washington. Really? So I think that’s a misconception a lot of people in the eastern US have of Washington—eastern Washington, you know. They’re correct on the western side, but not on the eastern side. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What sort of housing did you live in when you got here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, I roomed with a fellow by the name of Holland St. John. He was a teacher at Chief Joe Junior High here, and the tennis coach there. So I did that until I met my wife and got married, and we then lived in a B house—you know, the government B house, the famous [UNKNOWN], with the landlord on the other side—very friendly people, people originally from Tennessee, I believe they were. Just great, great folks to be with. We rented that until—because we got married in ’67—until I went back to Schenectady. And then when we came back, I bought a home here in North Richland. Now, currently live in a house that my wife basically grew up with. It was an H house. We remodeled the whole thing so it doesn’t look anything—all that was remained the same was the four outside walls and one wall inside. And we added on. Anyway, it was one of the government homes that I was originally renting an H house with this roommate. And then when we got married, I rented a B house. And the original H house was—Holland St. John was one of the fellows, and the other guy was Sherman. We had the three of us, three single guys who were using that part where they—again, the landlord was on the other side. Wonderful people. That was kind of unique, because when I first came and went looking, I thought, this A house, B house, that are for rent. I was like, oh, what’s an A, B or an H house, C house? But it didn’t take long to figure out, okay, that’s just the nomenclature that was being used for these various types of homes. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Right. How did you meet your wife? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: It was actually through church. There was group in our church—it was the Christ the King Catholic church, and it was a singles group. That’s how I met her. So we got married and we’ve had four children. They’re all grown adults now, of course. And we have seven grandkids. Six of them are girls, and finally the one that came along is a boy—the last one. But my two daughters—two of my daughters live here in town with their family. And I got a son in Seattle and another one just south of Portland in Tualatin—suburb of Portland. They all—I’m very proud of—they all went on through college. One has got a PhD, the other two of them got a master’s degree. One—and probably the one that’s doing the best, financially, has got just a master’s degree. But the three girls and a boy, and my son has got his master’s out of Purdue in engineering. My one daughter, the youngest one, has got her degree out of Gonzaga in engineering. The other one’s got her PhD in gerontology and the other’s got her master’s in early childhood development. So they’re all doing well. So I’m quite proud of them—of course, as most parents are. You know how they are, parents. They always think their kids are the greatest in the world. So anyway, that’s kind of where I came from—Wisconsin, and all the way out to the west coast and had not been really in the northwest prior to coming out here. I had been in California and some of those areas, but not in the northwest. You know, it’s an enjoyable place to live. But as a lot of people, as you know, here, some of them came for just a short time and they remain here forever. I married here. So that’s probably the same for me. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Part of what we’re trying to document is sort of the social life around the area, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Oh, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Were church activities sort of a large part of your social life at that point? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, quite a bit. And I was also involved, though—that was before I even met my wife, Yvonne. The little town I grew up in was quite a little interesting town as far as baseball. The area back there in these little towns would have their teams, and they’d play each other. So I was most familiar with baseball, and I had played baseball as a kid. So I helped one of the fellows who, just by coincidence, was also from Wisconsin, from the Milwaukie area. And he was coaching his kids in Little League baseball. So I helped out on that. Then later on, when my kids got going in the youth soccer program and that was when youth soccer first started, I was quite active in getting it into the high schools and so on, because that was not very popular, not really—like the case of much soccer in the area. So I’m on the Hanford High School support team—what do you call it? The—hmm, I can’t think of the title now. But anyway the supporters have their support efforts to keep them going. So the social life was pretty much tied in with the church, but not exclusively. Then we—there’d be these events we’d have. We’d go over to the coast or do things together, as a group—hiking. Not as much hiking, probably, as visiting various locations and sightseeing and that sort of thing. So that was kind of pretty much—but the housing was interesting, too, because you hear these stories of people going, and when they get home from work, the earlier days, before my time, going into the wrong house because they got the wrong place. But I can understand that. I mean, it was quite unique. My wife has some interesting stories about how she grew up and talking about what was family life. Their family was way back in New York. They went back once when she was about five or—no, I think seven, she said. And she had, at that time, four sisters—I mean four siblings, and another one with her mother on the way in her pregnancy. And took all the—tied into the car and drove all the way back. Spent more time going and coming than they did back there. But it was a case where she—in the case that they got to know your neighbors well, it was friendly, it was safe, everybody—kids all played out. Where we’re living now, we’ve got just that little funny park in front of our place over by the river there. Her father was an accomplished skater, so he decided when he had an opportunity to get the house along the river here, that’s the one he wanted to take it. Not realizing that not too many winters where there’s ice on the snow. But he was the state champion in New York City on ice racing. So he’s got quite a bit of medals and stuff. So she talks about the farm—I mean, the families that would get together on holidays and whatever. It was just a different type of lifestyle. I didn’t experience that myself, but it’s interesting just hearing her talk about those things. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Yeah, we’ll have to bring her in at some point. We’re trying to get as many people who sort of grew up here for that as well. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, she was only five years old and she came in ’47. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Okay. Yeah, we’d definitely like to interview her at some point. Okay, so let’s see. You were working on the diversification stuff and then you went back to Schenectackey—Ss- </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Schenectady. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Schenectady, yes. And then you came back in—I have it written down here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: ’71. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: ’75. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: ’75, I mean. I left in ’71. April of ’71, back in ’75. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: And at that point you were working on the—let’s see here—the DOE site infrastructure stuff, or was that later? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, that was much later. I was on the laboratory stuff. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: It was shortly after. About the first year or so was more in the personnel and that area. But then when this whole diversification effort came forward. I think my master’s degree in business and all this kind of led into—and I did have quite a bit of educational experience in contract management and contract administration, too. I have that—I don’t know if that played a role or not, but it helped me, I know, in terms of—and it was a whole new type of contract relationship that this Consolidated Lab and the use permit and all that had. So it was unique and interesting just from that standpoint alone. So yeah, at that time up until ’71, it was there, and then came back, worked in the personnel area, in the Rickover program. That’s an interesting story, too, because Rickover was a unique individual, very unique. But his staff was made up of military men, contractor people, and DOE or AEC at that time. And there was no distinction. I mean, you would have a contractor person right along with you and so on. He considered it all just one. It was very unique, in terms of the contractor and working relationships. But yet, what was so familiar—you could have these working—I shouldn’t say one by one, it would be even offices or something. But yet, he was very instrumental in saying, I don’t want any social activities between you. So as much as going to the cafeteria at noon, there was a section where the AEC people sat, and another whole section where the contractor people sat. And the military guys could be with either one, but they would—the military people were associated with AEC office—the civilian people. So in that office, there was no distinction whether you were military or a civilian. But in the contactor side, of course they were all civilians. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Is that an anti-corruption effort, or--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, yeah, and I guess avoiding any kind of potential conflict of interest and friendships, so that you got pretty soon with somebody, well, I’ll do you a favor, and vice versa. Very, very, very strong on that sort of thing. But yet, he himself seemed just one team. It was just like a football team—you’re the receiver and you’re the lineman. You’ve got different jobs. It was unique, and there’s some interesting stories about Rickover, too, but I won’t get into those. But those are very interesting times. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Did you ever get to know any of the contractor people? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Oh, yeah. You would know them on the business side. Definitely. Oh, yeah. You’d work with them every day. Some more, because if it was in your area of responsibility, certainly, you’d be working with them. But, boy, not socially. There was no—I mean, that was a voodoo if you had any social-type activities with the contractors. That was not to his liking. That makes sense, I mean, it would just avoid any possible conflict of interest and that sort of thing. It was an interesting time. But it’s kind of like a lot of people say. I went into military, I’m glad, but I’m glad I’m out. It’s kind of that sort of same analogy. But it was a great experience. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What was Rickover’s title? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Rickover? Admiral. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Admiral, okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Admiral Rickover, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: So what was his exact sort of authority within the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: He headed up the whole nuclear navy. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Oh, I see. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: He was really up there. And in fact, when—I think—which President was it? Maybe it was Kennedy—no, it wasn’t Kennedy, it was after. Anyway, when he was giving some kind of address somewhere, he recognized—I know, I’m Rickover’s boss, but really we’re all—Rickover’s my boss. And that happened with Schlesinger, too, when he was appointed the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, when he was there. He says, oh, yeah. And he made the same kind of remark. I don’t know if it was those exact words. But Rickover was a very powerful individual in terms of his authority. He was kind of all by himself, because, again, the nuclear navy was unique, and so he was a brilliant man. There was no question about it. He would pick just the top-notch-quality technical people that he could to run his program. The safety was so important to him. The wellbeing of all the military people, and the people who were in the submarines and that sort of thing. So he was really great. But he had a unique way of operations, there was no question about that. He was a strong, strong individual. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: So this period you were working in personnel is also, I understand, the period where you started having more women and minorities being hired on at the Hanford area. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: That is true. There was a big emphasis—the period—and following my part of the end there, but in that timeframe of particularly on the college campuses and recruiting minorities and women, which is good. But there was extreme interest in finding qualified minorities and women. There was certainly emphasized that it was—and that’s great. I mean, I go back and think in my thesis for my master’s degree in business administration, and I made some statement then, makes me sound almost like an anti-feminist now. But I was saying we really got to get more women into the technical side, but I wasn’t thinking far enough. We really think a lot—we don’t have many women technicians and stuff. So I was—at that time—thinking, oh, gosh, that they could be technicians. And not even thinking about being engineers, you know, getting their PhD in engineering. But at least, let’s—so I started out just—it wasn’t a matter of discrimination, where I said they should be technicians, because there were no—but I said, jeepers, let’s work on that. I had much of my emphasis—because my emphasis in my PhD was the shortage of technical people in the country. That was after Sputniks and some of those things going. We really needed development, work hard and see what we can do to get the people interested in getting into the math and sciences and that area. Some people kind of looked at me, you want women to be technicians or something? Yeah, but—you know. Now, I think, boy, I’d be discriminated—I mean, not discriminated, but considered, yeah, you’re very limited in your scope. You should be much broader than that. Yeah, that was a time when the Sputniks went off and these others, and we were quite behind and Kennedy wanted to get to the moon. And that, though, when I was in, was quite a bit later than that. Not quite a bit, but somewhat later, and the emphasis on trying to get minorities and women as much as we possibly could. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. So it didn’t—how—did it shape your work on personnel at that point, I guess--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, I don’t know if it shaped it so much, but back to my word of emphasis, to see if we really seek out qualified people. And not that they needed, necessarily, to have had extensive training, but look at their overall education experience and how well they were doing in school. In other words, that they were capable of picking up some of the technical. And whether they had that already knowledge was not quite as important as looking at what’s their basic—I don’t know, I guess I could say basic intellect—but their ability to really take on some of these things. It was not hard to find that. I mean, that doesn’t—I don’t want to imply that the women or minorities didn’t have that. They certainly did. But I think a lot of them, maybe themselves, didn’t realize that they really could do that, that there was no reason why they couldn’t. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: I was speaking with a reactor operator in a previous interview who had a degree, I think, in forestry or something non-sort-of-nuclear, but was still able to become a reactor operator. Was that sort of common that you saw, too, people moving into new fields to get on the Hanford site? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: That was not unusual, no. And that was particularly true—and I noticed you talk I was being on—with Rickover’s submarine program—we would hire then people who—and that happened out here awful lot—who had gone through the nuclear navy and were nuclear operators. We had a number of those people that didn’t want to stay in the Navy, but we hired on his staff—on Rickover’s staff—in our local office there at Schenectady. Now, that was a small office. The office was not very big. It was relatively small. But we hired a number of those people, and they were good, because they—and many of them had not gone to college yet. They got out of the Navy, they went to college, and then came back. I mean, I remember recruiting two or three or four of those types. And we recruited basically around northeast area, because we were in Schenectady, in some of the schools around there. Plattsburg, up in northern—which is a civil engineering school up in norther New York, and a number of areas there where we would find students who—not a lot of them, but who had gone back after they got out of service and didn’t want to make it a career, and got their degrees. Some would be in the technical fields; some would not be, necessarily. But most that we hired had degrees in some form of engineering or science or whatever. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Okay. So you were working with the nuclear navy program after you got back from Schenectady—pronouncing it again. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: No, it was at Schenectady I did the nuclear program. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Oh, I see, I see. Okay. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: It’s at Schenectady. So I was here, then went to Schenectady for four years—not quite four years—three-and-three-quarters. And then back here again. And that’s when the diversification effort came about, when I came—no, no, no, I’ll take that back. That was back when I got back into some of the other Battelle work again, after I came back. The diversification was prior to going to Schenectady. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Okay. So then were you working for Battelle or were you still working for AEC? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: No, I always worked for the government, always. It was AEC, and then a short period of time, it was—what did we call it, even? There was a two-year period between AEC and Department of Energy. Research and Development Administration, I think. Yeah, that was what it was called—Research and Development Administration. And then it became—Congress passed it and developed the Department of Energy. And when they developed the Department of Energy, it expanded a little bit and took in, like Bonneville Power out here was part of that, and a number of activities like that. More than just atomic energy, and that’s when it got a little more involved in the laboratories and other forms of—quite a bit. Whether it be climate—today it’s climate change, or climate sciences, as it’s called, and other types of activity. More than just the nuclear itself. But there’s a misconception, when I say nuclear itself, this, as you’ve probably learned and know, that there’s all kinds of work that dealt with biology and the uptake of radioisotopes and all of that sort of thing. And we had the animal farm out here with the smoking dogs and the miniature pigs—miniature swine, and all of that activity. And then when I was administering the Battelle program and the Pacific Lab, I was also involved in a lot of interagency work. So I was—in fact, one of my responsibilities there was working with all the other agencies in the interagency agreements. And that meant that works like NASA and National Science—although they didn’t have a lot—the NRC, and EPA and others would have work done at the lab. And that would be not DOE work or AEC work, but it was their particular responsibility. But they had the capability and knowledge out here to do that. So there was a lot of that. In fact, I was involved in the whole setup of the LIGO facility out here, working with the National Science Foundation. And they had no knowledge of this—had to kind of guide them by hand as to what kind of arrangements they would have between the two agencies for them to use the Department of Energy land out here and their facility and all of that sort of thing. So from very early on, I spent somewhat—a fair amount of my time working with the National Science Foundation to getting the establishment of the LIGO facility out here. That was rather a long interesting experience, too, and all the unique things that went on doing that. So I just have this—even though I’m not a scientist or engineer by training, I have this kind of innate interest in science and engineering. That was what was so exciting about administering the lab contract, to see the whole variety of activity that goes on out there at the lab. And even, I think, the majority of the citizens of Richland and Tri-Cities do not understand, fully, the broad spectrum of knowledge and exposure to all elements of the nature of science and technology that’s available out here to the lab, and what all these experts they have in those all wide spectrum of activity. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: In your experience, how kid of secretive was any of this work? Was it all kind of out there? Was it kind of compartmentalized? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, there was a lot of secret-type stuff, but there wasn’t as much of that, I don’t think—now, I didn’t get involved too much in the production—in the plutonium production. Because the laboratory wasn’t so directly involved in that. That was the big load from the local office, was producing the plutonium, getting that back, and doing all of that sort of thing. The lab was supporting that, and doing that in the nuclear aspects of nuclear science, but there was a lot—an awful lot of work that was not secret. Now, they also were, though, heavily involved in many of the secret-type stuff. That relates primarily to their strong capability in detection—detecting things. I mean, you’re probably aware that the first moon rocks that came from the moon were here at the site, at the lab, to analyze those, to look at them, what was all made up of? The very first, first exposure to the moon rocks was right down here that Federal Building, anywhere in the United States that they were shown. That was quite a deal, too. So they have this tremendous capability. The labs were one of the first—this lab—the first to detect that Saddam Hussein had used chemical warfare for the Kurds back there, and that was way back time. Tremendous, and some interesting stories of how they collected some of this stuff and how they got these samples. I don’t know if we want to get into it. It was really, really interesting activities in that sort of stuff. Some of the things—it’s not classified anymore, but the people out at the lab or some of these guys would go over to Hong Kong, and they’d just brush against somebody to get a hair off of somebody that [UNKNOWN] just get a sample. Or a little dust and dirt came off their shoe, they might pick it up or something. Just the most minute quantities of things, and being able to analyze and determine. This laboratory out here was the first to decide how big the bombs are that China was dropping, to get the size of those through the air samples and all of that. There’s just this broad knowledge, or capability, I should say, in detection activities out here. It’s just amazing. And they’ve kept that up in the same way with their radioisotope program—the medical isotopes program. So much of that that many people don’t realize of all the spinoffs and benefits that have come from the knowledge that they gained. The first CD was developed out here at the lab. Much of that. I’m really interested in reading, now, Steve Ashby’s reports bimonthly in the Tri-City Herald about some of the activities going on at the lab. And I miss that. I used to get real knowledge about what they’re working on. Of course, it’s been 18 or 20 years since I’ve done that, but that was always fascinating, some of this advanced science and some of this stuff that was really—and a lot of it was development and a lot of it wasn’t. But they’d run into some dead-ends. They’d later on pick it up again, somebody would discover something else, and they’d finally go forth with it. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: When did it become a national lab? Do you remember? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: God, I don’t remember the year that was. God, I should know that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: I’m sure we can look it up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, we can look it up. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Was that while you were working? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Oh, yeah, yeah. It was—god, why should—because that was a big event. And we were pushing quite well at the time to try to get that done. Yeah. Golly, that just escapes me. I’ve got to—now that you mention it, I’ve got to go back and check that out and see when it was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What was involved in that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, it was basically—I don’t want to call it a political decision, but it was basically, I think, recognizing the scope of activity that the labs were involved with. There wasn’t a great urge by the Washington, DC people or any to readily accept that title. I mean, it means a lot. So it was really a lot of background in what their involvement, and what type of work were they involved with, and what depth were they involved with and what types—and really focusing a lot on the basic science and that sort. And that’s where I think this lab was a little later than others, because this lab, up until the later times, was more of a support lab on production activities and not quite so much in basic. Now there was some basic on the real basic physics and something to deal with reactor operations. But they evolved and grew into this more basic science in a broad spectrum. I think that was one of the criteria. Now, I wasn’t involved in that decision at all. But my understanding is one of the criteria of establishing is that they got a well-established basic science capability. It’s not just specialized in one area or something. That’s where I think this lab was one of the later ones to be recognized as a national lab, because they built that up. And one of the things, too, that there wasn’t much knowledge of, because the production was such a secret thing, that that didn’t get much publicity or get papers written about it, and so on. So unfortunately the people that were working on that didn’t get the opportunity to have their findings and whatever presented to the whole world at national conferences and things like that. And that was also true, by the way, in Rickover’s program. Rickover was very cognizant—he was so afraid that the communists had this and that. So that was one of the real issue—there was basically almost the technical people at the capital laboratory, the Knolls Atomic Power Lab in Schenectady, almost unionized because they really felt that they were being shortchanged. They couldn’t give papers at technical conferences and stuff because Rickover was always afraid that you might reveal something that was highly secret about how to run a reactor and all that kind of stuff. So I think some of that same sort of information or background was kind of holding this lab back, because they just didn’t get the publicity in the scientific world, that their discoveries and their knowledge and their experiments and so on were well-known. And I think that helped, because the people in DC who were more knowledgeable of that found that to be a quality that was great for being recognized as a national lab. But a national lab, again, was the idea with broad spectrum of research. So that’s my take of it. You may talk to somebody else and they probably have a whole different presentation in terms of why or how and what was all involved. But just being on sort of the sidelines when that happened, that seemed to me to be what was the key point in helping determine. But there was some political push, no question. I mean, Maggie again, and Scoop—I think that was when they were on, and some of those. Why are you shortchanging us out there in the northwest? And we don’t have—that was the other thing, there was no national lab in the northwest. There was Livermore down in California, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Brookhaven. But why are you guys leaving us out in the north? And that was more form—not the science or technology, but, well, don’t treat us as second class citizens. Our lab up there is as good as yours. So there was some of that out there, too. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Did it impact your work, when it changed? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: No, I don’t think so. Well, I shouldn’t say that. One of the things that did happen in that regard—and I mentioned earlier about these interagency agreements and the capabilities of the lab—that stimulated more of that. Because I think being—once you’re recognized as a national lab, it just goes along with the credibility that might be associated with the work they’re doing. So I think that resulted in more of this interagency work with the various other government agencies. What it also did—and that was probably the most key element—is bringing in the tie with universities and so on. That was really—and locally, here, that was one of the interests of the people with the lab. They would really have liked to get more—and by the fact being recognized national lab, allowed the universities, and particularly some of the ones heavily involved in the science and engineering, would tend to favor going to a national laboratory. And the research that they were doing in cooperation with the lab itself was more significant, more meaningful to them. So I think that was probably one of the biggest benefits of becoming a national lab. Yet Battelle as an organization back in Columbus and others, they had a good reputation already of working closely with universities and so on. I mean, they were a research organization. And I think that also helped, too, because Battelle was operating this, and so the people who made these decisions realized that you have a topnotch research company—foundation there, that that’s their whole world. So I think that also helped in getting it. And certainly the lab pushed for that. There was no question about it. They wanted to be recognized as a national lab. So there was a combination of these things, I think they all kind of helped and worked together and made it happen. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: So when was it that your work with PNNL shifted over to the next role? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Oh, yeah. Well, let’s see. That was probably in more the early ‘90s. Where—yeah—because—yeah—early ‘90s is when I start going in there. So most of my career was with PNL and some of the labor relations. But early ‘90s, when I got into the infrastructure deal and doing all of that, and then later the last five years in the congressional and governmental relations activity, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Could you tell us about the infrastructure work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, that was quite interesting. That was frustrating. And by frustrating I mean, there was always—well, let’s not fix it until it’s broke. Oh, gosh, we used to have some—because it was still working. And particularly that was more emphasis as the role of the site here of not producing plutonium anymore—well, then do we need to keep it? Let’s see if it can limp along. Well, what it ended up, in my opinion, a lot of times, we paid a lot more by trying to fix things afterward. We didn’t really have a good preventative maintenance program. Finally got sort of a preventative maintenance, but—it was tough. Because there was always this thing—there was always a great need of doing this thing, and jeepers, we can’t use the dollars there; it’ll still work for a while. I didn’t have the responsibility for the day-to-day operations of it. That wasn’t mine. Mine was the upgrades and the capital equipment and all that. Whether we need a new fire station or whatever it may be. And jeepers, the thing was just limping along on a thread, and something would break. But then we ended up spending a whole lot more. That was somewhat frustrating. And the guys that I worked with on the contractor side had the same experience. But some managers were a little more cognizant of the need to do that than others. And safety—the way we could get things done—[PHONE CHIMES]—was safety more. Because if we could show that there was safety-related issues that went along with it, it was easier to get it appropriated or funded, rather than say, well, it’ll still go along. And that’s the way we often would get something funded, was, could show that we really don’t want to jeopardize the safety of the employees or the workers and that sort of thing. But it was not simple. It was pretty difficult. It was always kind of bucking the tide for funding. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Right. That reminds me—so, you were still working at PNNL when the— </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, I wasn’t at PNNL; it was DOE. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Right, yeah, okay. But back during the time when sort of the reactors were shutting down and the transition to sort of amelioration and cleanup got started. Is that correct? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, but that most of the time was with PNNL, still. But it was in ’89, is when the real decision was made. So it was shortly after that that I got into the infrastructure and that’s where it became hard then. Because we weren’t operating with the mission anymore. Yet you knew darn well that cleanup is going to be here for a long, long time, and why not get these things going so you don’t spend twice as much starting all over new, with something when you could just really do some work at that time to keep this thing alive? This thing, being—whether it be a sewer plant or whether it be a steam plant or fire station or electro distribution system or a railroad or whatever it might be. Because, at least I could see, it was cheaper because cleanup’s gonna last for a while and you need this infrastructure whether your mission is producing the plutonium or whether it’s cleanup. Soon we got some of the people saying, yeah, you’re right. But the guys who were doing the cleanup then, too, saying, oh, god, we’ve got so much work to do, we can’t afford to do this. It’ll last another year or two. Let’s fix it next year or upgrade it next year. The evaporator out there is a good example. They finally did it. But there was things earlier they probably could have done to increase its capability and do a better job. And finally they say, yeah, I guess that’s right, we should do it now because we’ll need that thing for god knows how long yet. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What was it like living in this area around ’89 when the shift happened? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, it was a surprise, I think, to a lot of people. Kind of like, oh, gosh, here we go again. That’s when this whole activity—and I wasn’t involved in, but with the B Reactor Museum Association really got its birth when they were saying, we’re shutting down the reactors and going there. But the attitude was, or the feelings was that, jeepers, it was just doomsday basically. And not fully understanding the scope of work that needed to be done in the cleanup area. It was very little attention being paid to the depth of that need at the time. I don’t think there was much knowledge—excuse me—or basically understanding of how important and significant that’s going to be. So it was a change in times, it certainly was. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Do you think a lot of—or were people sort of in your area worried about their jobs? Or was that, you felt, sort of separate from the plutonium production? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, I–yeah, I wasn’t too involved in that sort of aspect. But, yes, the community had a concern. And that kind of coincides with the big problem out there that’s now Energy Northwest, but the shutdown of those new power reactors. So that kind of came together at the same time, and that was really a shock for the community. It was—you know, a lot of people would leave and say, jeepers, I got to go find something else before I don’t have a job at all. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Right. So in the last couple of years before retirement, you were working on the congressional relations? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, yeah, about five years. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Can you tell us about that work? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, about five years prior to retirement. Five, six—something like that. I don’t remember exactly when. That was very interesting, too, and you got another scope of how things got done. I got to a point where I was having daily discussions with particularly Patty Murray’s staff and prior to that, Doc Hasting’s staff—staff members. Not that much with the senators or the congressmen themselves, but primarily their staff, and working with them. And somewhat with the state offices, but not extensively. And then more with the local communities—the mayors—the Hanford communities group there. That was quite regularly—and the emphasis that we placed then, I’m not sure still exists, but really wanted to tie in closely to having the local government—the mayors and commissioners and so on—knowledgeable of what’s going on out here at the site. So there wouldn’t be these sudden surprises. That was the role that John Wagner at the time was interested in, and that’s when he asked me if I would be willing to—it was a new position he was establishing. He just wanted to maintain a close relationship with what’s going on at the site, and I don’t know if that’s—I shouldn’t say—I don’t know if it’s the case now, but I don’t think it’s quite the same as what John had in mind and what I did for those five, six years. So when I left, then, they kind of—when I retired, it kind of was sitting in just ebbs there—ups and downs—and it’s probably back more to that way. I really don’t know. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Sure. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: But shortly after that, too, then, I got on the Hanford Advisory Board. So I had kind of a knowledge about what was going on at the site. So I was very active in the Hanford Advisory Board for quite a few years—for like 15 years or so. But I got so much involved in the B Reactor thing that I said, gee—I didn’t feel like to just go to the meetings and not really contribute a whole lot. So I thought I’d just give up and retire at that point in time, and I found someone who I know real well who’s capable to take my place. I was representing the county most of the time—sort of an alternate representative for the City of Richland first, but then later for the county most all the time. I wanted to be sure that—and I did find someone who was very, very, well-involved and informative to take my spot there for the county commission now. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: So Okay. So before we move on, can you tell me—what was the Hanford Advisory Board? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Oh, that was established—gosh, I can’t remember exactly when, but it’s made up of about 30 different entities—representatives of those entities. It’s statewide and it includes some of the Oregon people, the tribes are on it, most of the government—city governments and county governments are represented. There’s total—like I say, about 31. They’re a formal advisory group to the Atomic Energy—Atomic Energy? I’m really going back now—to the DOE to uncover and discuss various elements of ongoing work. And you probably see quite a bit in the paper that the Hanford Advisory Board meets on a monthly basis—no, I shouldn’t say that—about every other month. But then they’ve got committees underneath of it like the Tanks Waste Committee and the River Plateau Committee—there’s five different committees. I chaired a couple of those committees a couple times, and vice chair and so on. And they provide some advice—written advice to the—and it’s—oh, I shouldn’t say it’s just DOE. There’s three parties to this. It’s the State Ecology Department, the EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, and DOE. So the three agencies are involved in this. They provide—can be anything regarding to the Vit Plant out here now, the tank vapor things—so many different activities. They write formal advice and discussion. It represents all sides, basically. Those that are pro/con, what are the proper words, or whatever you want to say. But it’s a wide representation of the general—not local community necessarily, but the state concerns. And there’s people from Seattle on that, from down in Salem, Oregon, and around the area. That’s been in existence—gosh, I don’t remember when—it was probably around ’90 or something like that, ’91. It’s been—maybe not that long—but it’s been quite active for quite some time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: That reminds me—I meant to ask, when you were working on the site infrastructure, you mentioned some work with the tribes and cultural resources. Can you tell us about that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah. I personally didn’t get too directly involved. I had a person working for me by the name of Charles Pasternak—he has since died. He was very, very knowledgeable. He was an archaeology-type thing, too, but he was a forensic expert-type thing, and was very, very closely working with the tribes. Well-respected by the tribes. He was invited into some of those longhouse ceremonies and that sort of thing. So he worked on that. He was the one that was the primary person for me. I got into a lot of the discussions and so on, but for the day-to-day activities, he was really tops. And would work with the SHPO office—the State Historical office in Olympia on stuff—on these writings and stuff. So it was interesting. But I didn’t get daily involvement there. I had enough in my other hands to take care of. But he was just ace number one on doing that. So I got familiar with the process and the operations and what the issues were and that sort of thing. But that was informative for me. He was sort of a mentor to me, to be honest, though, in that respect. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Do you know sort of how—one of the things I’m also curious about is the development of cultural resources and local efforts to preserve culture, preserve memory. On the DOE side, I know, today that’s done through a contract with the Mission Support Alliance. Do you happen to know when that sort of contracting began, or was DOE sort of also contracting while also working on it? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: No, DOE was working primarily at the laboratory out here at Battelle. That’s where—and that’s partly how I got into it, I think, although I wasn’t administering to Battelle Lab at that time. But that all function was under the laboratory. It was after I left that Mission Support Alliance came into existence here. And then they took over a lot of that support type activity. But, no, the laboratory, and Jim Shatters was involved, Mona Wright was involved out there for the lab. Paul Harvey was—not Paul Harvey—Dave Harvey was involved in some of that out there, along with the history. And Michele Gerber on the historic—the Hanford history type stuff. So that was all with Battelle. And then that moved it, I think, when Mission Support Alliance—and that was after, basically, after I left. So that was there. But, no, there was quite an interest—not as much as there is today—again, that’s a fault, I can say, of us who were in the department at that time. We really weren’t on board extensively on the history protection stuff. Although the contractor, Battelle out there, and others were doing that. But I don’t think DOE was following. And then that’s when I discovered that, gosh, we really have a responsibility here. And that’s when I hired this Charles Pasternak who came over from GSA and had been doing that sort of thing down in Phoenix, Arizona. So I said, we really need—so I hired him. And as I say, he was—that was his livelihood so to speak. And that’s when I think we began then to pick up on that sort of thing. I had an extreme interest in doing it and I got to know Mona Wright real well at Battelle. Tom Marceau was involved in that out there. And Tom can give you the whole history there with the laboratory at that time. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What sort of day-to-day work—was it Charles Pasternak? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Pasternak, yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What sort of work was he doing? Do you know? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, it was this whole cultural resources area. He was, as I say, an archaeology type and that was his training. So he did all of the work a lot with SHPO up there when we got into some of these areas where they needed—we needed to know the 106 process, and all of that sort of thing. So Charles was our main person to follow that. But I had the interest, also, of John Wagner, the manager, even though I wasn’t playing that congressional role at that time. Because he, too, I think, recognized that we needed to do a little bit more there. And in fact—I don’t know if you’re familiar—but he’s one of Cindy Kelly, who’s with the Atomic Heritage Foundation---he’s one of the board members there. He had really an extreme interest in preserving the history. As much as he tried, he couldn’t get headquarters people—they always told him, John, you go back and tell them we’re not in the museum business. And that’s what the people here would be hearing all the time. But John himself was really interested in doing all that. I sat in meetings with him at headquarters where he’d really push hard. And they’d push back, that’s not our—it was their responsibility, but they’d just, yeah, okay, but we don’t want to spend a lot of time on that. So that was—but locally, I think we did well. I think we did very well at pushing that along and I got to give contract—credit to people like Tom and Mona and others out here on the contractor site who even pushed us a little bit sometimes. Which was good. That’s necessary. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Could you sort of sketch out for us your idea of sort of the history of efforts to commemorate the site or the work that was done on Hanford? In terms of, up through the B Reactor Museum Association--? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah. Well, my interest was, again, as I learned more about it, was let’s preserve this history of this site, because it’s very unique. It’s really unique. And I had to avoid sort of a conflict of interest of joining BRMA while I was an employee of the department. So I was interested, though, in knowing what they were doing and I was in agreement with them and was very supportive when I could be in some of their activities. But shortly after I retired, then—not immediately, but not too long after, I did join as a member of the B Reactor Museum. That was in—well, quite a while later, because it in 2005, so it was quite a while later that I actually joined them. That was—the more I learned and found out about the uniqueness of the B Reactor and its history and its knowledge and its importance, I really, really got heavily involved. And that’s eventually, here, like a year and a half ago—I finally got off the Hanford Advisory Board because I was spending so much time—more time on that—and not feeling I was really contributing a whole lot. I mean, I’d make my comments and so on at the general meetings, but with regard to drafting formal advice and all that, which I was quite active in earlier, then jeepers, get somebody else who has the time and so on, and I’d devote more time to the B Reactor Museum Association. But, again, I’m, as well as my interest in science and technology, although not being trained in that area, I’m sort of a history buff. As a kid on, I could list the order of the Presidents of the United States, I remember. Zing, zing, zing. I can’t do it any longer. I’d have to stop and think about it, get it mixed up a little bit. But history was another area that I was kind of interested in. I like to read a lot of history books and that sort of thing. I think that was stimulated by my second year in college in a class I took from a history professor who was just interesting. And what I found so interesting about him is he said you can read the book, but let me give you some stuff, some of the trivia-type stuff that he knew about some of the personalities and some of the things that he had learned through his research and understanding about the true natures of some of these people and what unique features or attributes they had. That, I think, stimulated my interests even more. But it was in existence prior to that as well, but it just enhanced it a bit. Yeah. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What sort of stuff has BRMA worked on in the time you’ve been with them? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Oh, gosh. We have done extensive amount of work on some of the modeling to bring up some of the models that we have out there that can describe and portray better the actual activities in the instruments and the equipment in the area there itself. We did that. And of course our big effort was to make it a national park. That’s where most of our time, and that’s where I really got involved with and again working with the other two sites, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos with Cindy Kelly back in American—I mean the Atomic Heritage Foundation. We’d have monthly phone calls on proposing various kind of language that we’d like to see in the act and working with the Congress. My experience working with congressional staffers helped a little bit there, I think, but so did Cindy, who—and I first knew Cindy, basically when she was in DOE—worked for DOE in the headquarters in the cultural resource area and all of that area. So that’s how I got to know Cindy. And then later on, we kind of met again, then, when we were working on the B Reactor. So the biggest contribution, I think, was the effort from the very beginning. B Reactor was—not B Reactor, but the BRMA association—B Reactor Museum Association—was established formally in ’91, but was actually in ’90 or so when it began to formally—and how that all happened was that there was in existence here at the time—we called it the Tri-Cities or maybe they were Richland—I don’t know—Technical Society. And that was made up of all the various tech—whether it be electrical engineers, or civil engineers, the chemical engineers, nuclear engineers, the health physicists and so on. They had this net group where there was things in common and commonality. When the announcement was made that they were going to get out of the production business and was going to start cocooning the reactors, the guy says, god, we got to preserve B. The history that goes with it. And I wasn’t part of that, then. But they organized a committee then to discuss further. And that’s when they decided to establish this organization, the B Reactor Museum Association, with the sole purpose to preserve for future generations the history and preserve the facility itself for public access and—for preservation and public access. Well, our mission is basically accomplished by getting it into the National Park. That was really keen. And we still have interests; we want to go along and develop the park and do all of those additional types of things and perhaps even taking on efforts to preserve a bit of the history of T Plant as well. Because that is identified in the park, and of course the pre-Manhattan Project history there with the farms and that sort of thing. But that’s been the key emphasis all along, was to preserve and make it public access to B Reactor. So there was a lot of work and working with the Department of Energy and others to clean it up and get it in shape where you could have these tours. I think it was 2009 or something when they started the tours—the more public tours. But I was involved earlier in that. There was still tours, but the tours were maybe for special groups or activities or maybe a college chemistry class or physics class or something would be coming to see it. Or some of the elected officials or could be any special tours, I think. And then it got gradually working into recognizing that there would be—in fact, when I left in ’98, there was just a memorandum of agreement type between the BRMA organization and Westinghouse the contractor and DOE, what the roles and responsibilities would be. At that time, BRMA would be willing to provide docents—volunteer docents at the time, and do that sort of thing for these various tours. So I was sort of a tour coordinator then, to find out what audiences—there would be a difference between someone who was real knowledgeable about the reactor, and others who knew nothing about it—want to know what the audience would be so we’d pick the right type of tour guide and a person who was more familiar with it, who were comfortable with those kind of tours. So there got to be a fair number of those. But then it formally established, then, when the DOE started saying we will offer these public tours. In 2009 is when it really blossomed into much more greater things, when they announced the public tours and so on. These others were more tours where people would request and ask for them, we’d try to fit them in. And there were fair number—it got to be a fair number of those, and I think that’s what convinced DOE that we need to do something, maybe more publicly. And more recognition of its responsibility in Historic Preservation Act—you know, the Department’s responsibility there. So that’s what we did. But our efforts were then to, as I say, get the thing cleaned up, get it presented well, and have some of these displays and some of the models and someone that works close with Cindy Kelly at the Atomic Heritage Foundation who had this interest and this whole establishment she has, that foundation to preserve many of the history aspects of the Atomic Energy Commission and Department of Energy and its role in the Manhattan Project. So that was kind of where our focus was, was the preservation and public access and the models that help educate. And also, and we’re pushing more on that now, is educating students and so on. And we’re holding more and more tours for students, all the way down to the fourth grade, but particularly interested in high school and college students that want to learn more about that. That’s where we’re focusing more now, on interpretation and education and emphasis more on the T Plant. BRMA does the B Reactor Museum, doesn’t necessarily relate to the T Plant, but still, that all was part of the Manhattan Project. So our focus is more on the Manhattan Project itself and all of its elements. Which, T Plant is included—the first separations plant. Again, amazing plant and amazing work that’s been done there to get it initiated and started and working properly right off the bat, working. So that’s kind of the background there on my involvement. It’s been—the last three, four, five years has been heavily involved in primarily the effort on the Manhattan historic—the Manhattan Project Historical Park, to get it established, along with the other two sites. Some of the others in DOE, as well, the Dayton Project had decided not to really join pushing on that, but they—and we had meetings yesterday again with some of the Parks people to have things—a commonality—basic common understanding of the whole project and kind of presented the same way at all three sites. But then each site taking on its own specific role, ours being the specific—the development of the plutonium and B Reactor. Los Alamos, more like the weapons development and that sort of thing. Oak Ridge is supplying the enriched uranium and those aspects. They all have a more defined role in the broader picture of the Manhattan Project. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Right. Did you ever get any sort of security—when you were making these models, I know there was a lot of sensitivity about export control and classification and all that, especially with models. Did you ever get any sort of push back on that? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Not on the models. But what we did do, and that was a surprise, even to the local DOE, I guess they knew about it, but they should have—the reactor graphite that was left over, we claimed that. And thanks for thinking of Gene Woodruff, one of our members who’s a graphite expert, and I mean Gene can go and say, oh, that was made at Union Carbide. Scratch this one—that was made somewhere else. That guy. And I remember working with DOE in the laboratory—Gene was one of the top experts in the world. Again, we’ve got experts here—people don’t recognize—of the world. When there would be these international meetings or [UNKNOWN] Gene Woodruff was a guy to go all over the world talking about the qualities and the purities of graphite and how it’s made and all of that sort of stuff. He’s just top-notch. So anyway, Gene and a guy out at the lab—gosh, I forget his name right now, right off the bat—worked with our people in DOE headquarters’ national security to get us the—or to give us the excess graphite was there with the restrictions that it should be used for souvenirs and that we’re not to resell it. Of course, now there’s not quite the problem, but we didn’t want the Iranians or others to see how this graphite was made and all the purity and all that kind of stuff. Although I don’t understand, because you could still probably decide that if you had a souvenir made out of a piece of that graphite, anyway. But anyway that was—they just didn’t want a big block of this stuff given—sold or anything to someone. So we said, ah, well, we won’t—chop it up or use it in pieces or whatever. So we made that graphite model and that was done going through the whole national security system that said it was okay for us to have that, rather than dump it out here at ERDF—out in the disposal facility. So we got all of the remaining what we call old reactor—that’s the B, D and F—that’s the same type of graphite that was in those original three reactors. We got that as well as some processing tubes and we’re in the process of determining how we make souvenirs for the tours that come through in the park. And reminder, we already have what we call—we have these boron balls, too, that are used in the process to help scram a reactor if you need to. We’ve got those, and we’ve got the process tubes. So we also sell a little vial of these boron balls, and we collected the dust that we did when we made our graphite model and putting that into little vials. So it’s rather unique to this site. We’re looking at other ways to use some of these and what kind of doodads or gadgets can we make for souvenirs. Because we find that working with the Parks people is—oh, yeah, people, there’s something unique about the site, they’d like to take a souvenir back. So that may be some of our support, maybe, to keep continuing and give us our source of income there that—we’re not a great achiever of gathering a whole lot of money, but it does—and we work more on these models and stuff, working with Cindy Kelly and others on grants and that sort of thing to get our money to build these—make these various videos that we’ve made and these vignettes that goes along with when you’re visiting out there and that sort of thing. So that’s gonna be kind of emphasizing with the Parks people how we can best do this and how we can get that accomplished. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Can you tell me about coordinating with the other sites? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah. That’s—we’ve had several meetings with the other sites. There’s, again, another entity. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the ECA, the Energy Communities Alliance? That was established by the former city manager here, Joe King, who established that. And that—I’ll just talk a minute what that is. That’s made up of the sites where DOE has locations: Savannah River, Oak Ridge, Brookhaven—you know, all nine sites or so, that would go forth in more of a lobbying effort to DOE headquarters on funding and what the needs and the issues and problems are there, as far as the local communities. And many of these were in common. I mean, there were particular areas might be unique to one site or the other, but the others would all support that. But then also there’s things in common that they really wanted to get DOE to recognize that they got to pay attention to. So that was established quite some time ago. The other communities, then, kind of had a basis on which to start on this national park. And particularly Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. So we would get—the three of us would often have—and Cindy Kelly with Atomic Heritage Foundation would kind of coordinate these—it was almost on a monthly basis—telephone conferences. We’d be talking where we are and how we’re going and what we need to do. And so that was very helpful and it was a cooperative effort. It wasn’t a, well, we want that and you can’t have that. It was a system that we all want to work together. And we met last July again down in Los Alamos for a meeting on those three sites plus one or two of the other Energy Community Alliance sat in on some of that. We’re meeting again in August in Denver. This time at Denver because that’s kind of a convenient among the three sites, and it’s also where the interim superintendent of the National Park’s located, so that she can be here. That’s Tracey Adkins and she was here in fact yesterday. One of our local what we call our parks committee that’s not—made up basically the elected officials of the community here, the four mayors, the county commissioners of Benton, Grant and Franklin County, and then there’s, besides elected officials, there’s the Visit Tri-Cities, TRIDEC and BRMA is on that. We’re more of an advisory group than we are to the mayors. But the committee is an administrative committee and that’s where I and John Fox and BRMA and Visit Tri-Cities and others sit on for short-term. I guess I call that the working group who gets the work done and so on. And then we get with the mayors and so on. It’s kind of either up or down, you know, that sort of thing. But anyway, the working with the other communities has been a very cooperative effort, and we meet now on phone calls once in a while—not quite so frequently, though, not once the legislation has passed. But we meet like once a year or so, just—and now with the Parks, too. It was formerly just with DOE, but with the Parks people actually present and with the interim superintendent of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. So it’s a good relationship and I think it helps in the overall park and the Parks people are interested in working with the communities, too. They’re very—I find working with the Parks service very, very interesting and informative and they’re people who are very willing to listen and learn and likewise we try to exchange information and we learn what they’re process is and I think it’s been a very, very good relationship. And I want to give credit to Colleen French here at the local office has been extremely supportive of BRMA and all of the activities and go out of her way to have—like when we had the November 12th event out here raising the National Parks flag at the site and working with them. She’s been just tremendously helpful in getting that accomplished. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: What’s my question here? Could you give me an idea, if you know, of the sort of size of BRMA over time? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: It’s small. That’s our real problem. It’s like most organizations, I find, you don’t find a lot of younger people joining. And that’s a—I think that’s kind of typical of our whole society now. Today, most of the mothers and fathers are both working, they’ve got the kids in school, they’re in soccer, they’re in baseball, they’re in football. Their time is very limited. And I find that in a number of organizations I’m in. So our group is very small. It’s—we only have about a total of about 70-some members. But our active members are probably 20 or something like that. And we have a fair number of people who are not in this community. They’re people who lived here or worked here before. One of the assistant general managers for DOE is still a member, living down the—not Los Alamos—but Los Alamos area and also a couple of them down in the WIPP site down in New Mexico. We find ourselves, I think—and we’re looking right now—what should the mission of BRMA be? And we’ve kind of—a couple of us got together the other day on—had a bottle of beer and sat in Hank Kosmata’s backyard on his patio and just kind of brainstormed a bit. I think we’ll say, for the next three, four, five years, however long, until the park is fully established, we’ll be working extensively with them on assisting in the interpretation activities. We want to emphasize more the education and working with particularly the high school, college kids but also the younger ages. We want to do more emphasis on the T Plant, which is a very key element in this whole process of plutonium and getting the plutonium that was needed for the weapons program. So those—kind of those three are the main activities we want to focus in and decide whether we morph into some other organization. Because the Parks are really interested in developing at each of these sites what they call Friends of the Park, and that’s a common thing among all national parks. It’s sort of a group that supports that local park and assists the Parks Department. And the Parks Department is not a wealthy department. They are very limited funding to all parks. They’ve got extreme backlog on the maintenance of all their activities. So they rely heavily on volunteer work, they rely heavily on these funding process of Friends of the Park, and they have a formal structure in developing it and authorizing and so on, because they, again, want to be sure that there’s precise accountability and all of that sort of thing on that if they’re gonna be associated with them. So we’re working this local community on this parks committee and so on of hoping we can establish that soon. Now, there’s a lot of competition so to speak there, because we’ve got a lot of other things in the community we really want to support. We want to support the REACH organization—they’re looking for funding. We’ve got the aquatic center, you’ve got the performing arts center, you’ve got all of these things. But nevertheless, there’s some people that don’t have to be members of this community that are interested in the Project history of the Manhattan Project and all of that, that you can get various grants and forms and that sort of thing from others. That’s something that we will probably eventually just go out of existence, because we don’t have a lot—I mean, I’m kind of the young kid on the block, actually in our organization, and I’m nearly 78 years old. We got a guy that’s the youngest kid—he’s 65! We call him the little kid brother. We’re losing people. The last two years, we’ve lost the remaining people who were there at startup of the reactor. So the history is kind of disappearing with them in some respects. That’s why I was interested, particularly these interviews that you’re doing here with some of these old-timers and some of the guys that were here, so we get that recorded, and we know what’s there and it’s so important. Of course, as you know, working with you on some of our early recordings that we had with some of our original people that are very, very informative and useful in terms of researchers or anybody that wants to use that information. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: So there’s also ways been a lot of interest among the public in the sort of more negative side of Hanford’s history. Has the down-winders and those sorts of groups influenced the telling of the history in your opinion? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Well, you know, we want to be accurate with our history. And we want to tell all sides of the history. That’s been sometimes a little bit of a problem internally, because, well, gosh, those guys, they just dump. But I say, that’s history. We’ve got to learn what the issues were and what the problems were. And the same—we get some people when the Parks people decided to have a few of the Japanese people sit in on the scholars’ group. I’m not at all opposed to that. I think we got to tell history. History’s got to be told accurately. And it’s important—we may not agree with some of that stuff, and we may not agree with their opinions or thoughts, but it’s only precisely true that we need to reflect what that history and what those events were. So I personally am not opposed. But there’s the real strong advocates in nuclear and there’s the anti-nuclear. We’ve got to show that as existing. We’ve got to recognize that. But I don’t think it’s given us any problem—the answer to your question—I don’t think it’s been an issue that creates difficulties or that we found is interfering with whatever we want to do. We’ve got to recognize it, we address it, and we think we try to address it in a very educational basis, in a very precise basis, and not in an argumentative or conscientious-objector-type—well, that’s not the right word either. But we just don’t want to be contrary to them necessarily. Just understanding that they’ve got a different point of view. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Have you sort of followed that controversy in your time living in the Tri-Cities? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, to some extent. I can see both sides. I think we need—particularly, I can see the need to reflect on what effect it had upon the Japanese. I really think that’s essential. Some of our people don’t agree with me. They say, well—they’ll say, yeah, that’s true, but, boy, if we hadn’t done what we needed to do maybe a lot more would be dead. That’s true, too, there probably would have. We’ll never know for certain, but—we hear of people and know of people that had probably saved their lives by the fact that they didn’t have to go and invade Japan. We’ve got some of our own members who kind of fit in that category. But I’ll never forget Terry Andre tells the story when she was at the CREHST museum when it still existed and an elderly Japanese person came in one day and asked her: Are you an American? She said, yes, I’m an American. Oh, thank goodness. He put a big hug around her. She kind of says, well, what’s that? She says, I would not be alive today if you had invaded Japan, he said. Because I was trained in our—I think it was equivalent to the boy scouts—which we were to be suicide-type defenders. And we were supposed to be carrying these bombs, burying us in the sand, along when the Japanese invaded, and blow ourselves up and try to get as many American soldiers as we could—or Allied soldiers as we could. So that’s one side of the story. The others you hear, but people have really suffered when they dropped the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So those stories need to be told, and that understanding has to be there so that there’s the pros and cons. And another interesting thing is, when we had the docent training by the Parks people, they were saying, try to not reflect your own opinions. Give them the facts—that yes. And they did some role playing talk about when someone says, well, should we have dropped the bomb? And they were playing with all the different ways you might address that particular question. And try to say, if they took one position kind of say, well, that’s true, but did you think about this or something. Let them decide themselves, but bring it more forth. And I thought that was excellent type comments that the Parks’ interpretation people and their docents, particularly did the training, bring forth those sorts of thoughts. I’m in agreement with that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: You mentioned this sort of pro- and anti-nuclear folks. Has that sort of politics gotten involved in the interpretation of Hanford’s history, do you think? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: I don’t think it’s got involved in the interpretation. Now, there’s people who will be critical of the fact that either one side or the other hasn’t been displayed enough. And that’s an emphasis that I really respect the Parks to—I think they mentioned, they got issues in the North and South War—the Civil War. The things down in Andersonville, Gettysburg—these—and the Arizona, and they really understand how best to portray that. They’re the nation’s storytellers, and they really want to hone in on the fact that we aren’t going to try to change anybody’s mind; we don’t want to argue with them; we just want to presents the fact more and let them decide. But maybe if they’ve got one position, just kind of let them know what some of the other people are thinking, too, and vice versa. So I don’t really see it as an issue or a problem. It’s something we’ve got to address and it’s something that got to be recognized, but we’ve got to do it thoughtfully and doing it with some knowledge of where we’re coming from and how we present that. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. And you said that’s equally true for sort of the local health impact as well as the Nagasaki and Hiroshima? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: I think so. But again, that’s my opinion. I think there’s a lot of advantages and there’s a lot of disadvantages. I mean, I keep coming back to some counterpoints and that is the whole medical isotopes, and the medical radiation program and so on. I mean, there’s over 20 million radioactive diagnostic procedures in the United States every year. And there’s a likewise amount throughout the rest of the world. There’s not as many therapeutic, but almost. That’s the positive side. Now, there’s the negative side—that, gee, if you get exposed to it, that’s not good either. So, like most issues, nothing is clearly right or wrong. There’s pros and cons and I think we got to stop and think about those, and each person make up their own mind to where they may fit in that spectrum. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: How have the Tri-Cities changed in your time living here? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: [LAUGHTER] It’s been significant. I see the major growth in housing. Gosh, when I came here south of the Yakima River, there was nothing—none of that whole area. West Richland was small and didn’t go out. The shopping, as I said earlier—there was hardly anything here to do in that sense. The amenities of living in the community, the education of WSU here and various arts performing type groups—just—it’s almost like day and night in that sense. I just—just amazing me, and I’ve been here a little over 50 years. It was kind of like a sleepy town almost when you first come—when I first came, I should say. Pasco was the biggest, I think, town at that time. Of course, it’s got its history with the railroad and all of that sort of thing. The growth of the housing and you wonder, how could more people keep coming in? Where are they coming from, and where’s all this activity—what’s this base? It’s amazing. But I think the biggest thing I noticed is the shopping and the industry broadened quite a bit. I think most people don’t realize how many small businesses we really have in this community—various outgrowths, spinoffs of some of the lab work and some of the other activities. I think we had one golf course here at the time when I came over in Pasco. We’ve got a lot of that. The water sports. I mean, it’s—and the surrounding areas, the wineries and all the vineyards. Yet the one other thing I remember when I first came and we first married, we used to go out and pick cherries or whatever where all houses are now. We still go out to some of the places to pick some peaches and stuff, but a lot of that stuff—and pears—you hardly see around. I can think back in those early days that we did all that. We go now in French’s out there where they have you-pick for peaches I think is one of the most popular places in town in the summertime when it’s peach time that they’re just so busy out there. But it’s changed. It’s just—but you know, a lot of the cities and so on—we’re getting people moving from the rural areas into more the urban areas, and we’re no different, I think, than some of the other major cities much bigger than we. But we’re staying—following kind of that same pattern. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Okay. So as we sort of wrap up here, there are probably—I don’t know—particular stories that leap to your mind from your time working at Hanford or living in the area, or any other sort of stuff I haven’t asked about that’s worth sharing? </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, I don’t know. I think one of the things that comes to mind is my involvement early with the kids in the community in the sports area and then of course, when my own son got into some of that with working with them. The other thing that kind of comes to mind, I said, I remember Christ the King Church, but like everything a growing—I’m involved in the building committee and making that church bigger, tearing down the old government-built building, all on volunteer-type work tearing down, basically. And things of that that you tend to think of not necessarily unique to me, but for a lot of the members of this community, where you saw so much volunteer-type effort, community effort, where family didn’t have their own personal family right nearby. And I saw that. My wife can speak a lot more to that, but I saw that early in ’63 still existed, where you saw this sort of social-type gathering of—and I don’t think we see that quite the same anymore here in this community. If it is, it’s more like kind of an organized structure, or organized stuff. It’s not just like somebody drops by or you get a bunch of families together and oh, let’s have a Christmas party, or let’s have this, that or the other thing. That’s kind of what I witnessed early, and not to the extent—as I say again—as my wife did in her family. But I saw that, and I see that kind of disappearing here. Some of the interesting things at work is like—I mentioned briefly earlier about the moonrocks coming back, the smoking swine—I was heavily involved in when they decided not to have the—I should say the smoking beagles and the swine. The swine is one of the closest animals that’s similar to a human. Their skin and all that. So there’s so much testing on radiation effects. A lot of these swine that was just evolutionary and helped the whole medical field. Well, we excessed those, I remember, in the process of excessing, where should we give it to? And it ended up—I was quite heavily involved in that—we gave it to the University of Minnesota, because they had quite an extensive program on heart development and heart surgery and stuff like that. They could utilize these swine and they had made a good proposal how they would care for them and continue in breeding them. Leo Bustad was the guy that developed those, like a full-grown was 150 pounds, was close to a human being, and all those sorts of things. And I think back about those sorts of things, about uniqueness, again, of science, of technology, developing these animals so that they—and there, again, you’ve got the other side of those people that are—oh, gosh, you shouldn’t be sacrificing animals. There’s validity to that. And then you look on the other hand—but look at all the benefits you get on that, and you can do it in a humane way, and all of that. So those things. Some of the stuff, I can’t describe now. I was not heavily involved in classified stuff, but there was some of the work out at Battelle that once it’s unclassified, it’s just unbelievable some of this stuff that you learn through that sort of thing. Those things often come to my mind, but I still—taken the oath that I’ll keep those to myself. That’s about all I can say about—but I wasn’t heavily involved in that. I didn’t have a super—I had a Q clearance. That’s another interesting story. When I was hired by DOE, they said, well—at that time you had to have a Q clearance before you could ever come on work and it took about three months to get this Q clearance processed. So I was home back in Wisconsin for about a month, just waiting for the clearance, because I wasn’t going to drive all the way out here and for some reason to find out that, well, we can’t take you. I mean, I had no reason to believe that, but I just had to wait out the process. So that was, again—and that was difficult in hiring early on when we were recruiting college kids and stuff. That was when we still needed that—that everybody needed—well, not everybody, but 95% probably of the DOE and AEC—it was AEC then. People needed a Q clearance before they could get on board. Well, people are anxious, they don’t want to wait around three months. They’re looking for a job. So that was one of the difficulties that comes to mind when I talk about out those sorts of things. But there’s a lot of fond memories and associations with people that you’ll always have. And some unique activities that occurred. And, again, I keep thinking about working with Wally Sale at the Consolidated Laboratory and how unique and different that was and how innovative his approach—and he’s the one that really is the creator of that concept. So anyway, it’s been—it was an enjoyable career. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> O’Reagan: All right, well thanks so much for being here. </div> <div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX227234824"> Plahuta: Yeah, you bet. Thank you. And I appreciate-- </div> Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri-Cities Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:41:53 Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1982-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1982-? Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Hastings, Doc Wagner, John Holstead, Paul Tomlinson, Sam Sale, Wally Volpentest, Sam Philips, Bob Jackson, Scoop St. John, Holland Ashby, Steve Murray, Patty Pasternak, Charles Wright, Mona Harvey, Dave Gerber, Michelle Marceau, Tom Kelly, Cindy Woodruff, Gene Adkins, Tracey Fox, John Kosmata, Hank 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 Maynard Plahuta Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Richland (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 4/28/2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2016-08-16: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Atomic Energy Commission Atomic Heritage Foundation B Reactor B Reactor Museum Association (BRMA) Battelle (Wash.) Energy Communities Alliance (ECA) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) General Electric Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Mission Support Alliance Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1352a8f7f26ecbe0c8bf9497266200c7.jpg e03639954e2d625b7670383e01aa50a6 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fe089d768cfbc1580a325ba62d26a581a.mp4 1a5d0b226d8d91e261ba39aaba60fd79 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Franklin, Robert Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Boice, George Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Tom Hungate: Okay. Robert Franklin: You ready, Tom? Hungate: Mm-hm. Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with George Boice on July 15th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mr. Boice about his experiences living in Richland. So why don’t we start at the beginning, that’s the best place. When and where were you born? George Boice: I was born in Ellensburg. A third generation native of the state of Washington. My father and my grandmother were born in Cle Elum. Franklin: Oh, Wow. Boice: We came through this—the tribe came through this territory and crossed the White Bluffs ferry in 1885. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Boice: And went up to the Kittitas County area. And then we came back later. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: What year were you born? Boice: ’37. Franklin: ’37. Did your family work at all at the coal mine in Roslyn? Boice: Yes. [LAUGHTER] Short answers. My grandmother’s brother, Uncle Tony, was a mine rescue worker up there at Roslyn. Franklin: Okay. Boice: You go up to Roslyn, that is interesting. Ever been there? Franklin: Yes, I have. Boice: 27 cemeteries. Just neater than all get out. [LAUGHTER] The different ethnic groups up there. They talk about one Fourth of July, the Italians were going to raise the Italian flag in the main street there. Some of the local citizens took a dim view of it. And some wagons were turned on their side and the Winchesters came out, and the sweet little old lady got out there and got everybody calmed down before the shooting started. [LAUGHTER] But the flag didn’t go up. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. So what brought your family down to the Hanford area? Boice: My—[LAUGHTER] When they started Hanford—Dad was a firefighter in Ellensburg, had been for a few years. And when they set up Hanford, the first thing they did for a fire department was pick up the retired fire chief out of Yakima. Well, he goes around to the local fire departments and starts hydrating citizens. [LAUGHTER] So, Dad came down here in ’43 as the ninth man hired at the Hanford Fire Department. Always claimed that half of them had been canned before he got there. [LAUGHTER] So he went to work in ’43—June of ’43 at Hanford. We were still there at Ellensburg, and we didn’t come down here ‘til summer of ’44. Franklin: Oh, wow. Boice: And they were still moving prefabs in, and unloading them with rapid shape. Franklin: Did your father commute at this time, or did he live on— Boice: Uh-unh. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Where did he—do you know much about his living quarters or where he lived? Boice: Yeah, there were barracks. Franklin: So he lived in the barracks? Boice: Oh, yes. Franklin: Okay. Did he come back to visit at all? Boice: Oh, yeah. Franklin: Okay. Boice: Wasn’t but—hell, by the time you get up to the Hanford area, it’s just over the ridge. [LAUGHTER] So he’d come in every couple of weeks. Franklin: Okay. How many siblings do you have? Boice: One of each—one brother, one sister. Franklin: Older, younger? Boice: Oh, yeah. My brother was born in Kadlec in September of ’45. My sister was—well, they bracket the war. She was born about a month before it started—or right after it started. She was born in December of ’41. Franklin: Okay. Boice: And he was born September of ’45. Franklin: So can you talk a little more about your father’s job at Hanford? What did he—did he talk much about what he did, or— Boice: [LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah! You know. The place is building up, it’s trying to erupt. You’ve got construction going all directions. Trailer house fires. He talked about them [EMOTIONAL]—how quick people died in them damn trailer houses. They’d go up in a matter of seconds. And there were acres of them. But yeah, it was—And the amount of nothing to do. I mean, you had time to work and then there was really no recreational facilities. He worked at a grocery store for a while in his off hours stocking milk. He said it was not unusual to work a whole shift with a forklift or a handcart walking out of the stack and filling the same slot behind the counter there. We came over twice to visit him at Hanford. Franklin: Before you moved— Boice: Yeah. Franklin: --in ’44. Okay. Boice: You drive across the Vantage Bridge, and somebody had gone through with a grader and graded out a dirt-slash-gravel road. And we drove around and down, and across the Hanford ferry into Hanford. Because you could get into Hanford; it wasn’t restricted—the town. Everything else was. So getting in and out of Hanford was no trick. Getting out of the surrounding area was. So my mom and I and my grandfather went down there. Franklin: Wow. And where did you stay? Did you just go for the day? Boice: Well, we didn’t—when I was there, we didn’t stay. We just went for the day and went home. Franklin: Okay. Boice: But Mom talks about going down and staying overnight. [LAUGHTER] She says she was not warned. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Warned about what? Boice: To keep everything you wanted nailed down. Franklin: Oh. Boice: She got up in the morning and somebody stole her girdle. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. So when your family moved in summer of ’44, where did you move to? Boice: 17-1. Franklin: 17-1? Boice: That was the lot number and the house number. It is now 1033 Sanford. Franklin: Ah. Boice: It’s on the southwest corner of Sanford and Putnam. Franklin: Yup. I live right by there. Boice: We went in there and it was—they had—you can’t describe to people how they had come in there and just dozed the farmland over, staked out streets and planted houses. And hauled them in on trucks and set them down. We were fortunate—I didn’t realize how fortunate it was—in the fact that we had only come about 100 miles or so—we came in a truck. We had our stuff. Mom had her piano. And I can’t tell you how many times women would come up and bang on the door, can I play your piano? Franklin: Really? Boice: Strangers off the street. Just because it was there, and it was—so we had all kind of musical stuff. Everybody could play better than Mom could. But we had the piano. Franklin: Wow. Boice: And she had her houseplants. It was different. But there was no trees in Richland. There wasn’t three blades of grass! [LAUGHTER] You’d come in, you got a garden hose and a plastic nozzle. You hosed down your lot and it immediately became a slick, slimy mud pile. Great for kids to play in! Man, we could slide in that mud across there—it was really cool! And then when it dried up, why, it reticulated like a picture puzzle. So we’re picking chunks up and stacking them up and building houses. And Mom gets up and she’s just madder than a wet hen, so we had to put the lawn back together. [LAUGHTER] But the hose nozzles were so interesting, because when you had a plastic nozzle, but you couldn’t get anything else. There was a hardware store here, eventually, but they didn’t handle stuff like that. This was a war going on. And the ingenuity that went into lawn sprinklers would just boggle your mind! The cutest one I remember was some guy took a chunk of surgical tubing—he got a bent pipe for an uppensticker. And he stretched his hunk of surgical tubing over the end of it, turned the water on, and it was not efficiently watering his area, but he could flail water all over a half an acre! [LAUGHTER] That was one of the cuter ones. There was also no shade and no air conditioning. Franklin: Right. Boice: Coming down in a moving truck, Dad brought his carpenter tools, he brought his bench, and he set to work building an air conditioner. Now, this was the dog-gonedest thing you ever saw. He got some burlap sacks and set out there with scrap lumber in the backyard on his workbench just creating shavings out of boards. Fill these burlap sacks with wood shavings for the pads for his air conditioner. He got a motor out of I-don’t-know-what. It was an appliance motor out of something. And he whittled out this propeller out of a two-by-four. And he cranked this thing up and it sounded like a B-29. [LAUGHTER] But it would blow sort of cool air, which raised the wrath of the neighbors. Number one was the racket he was making. Number two was we had air conditioning. So immediately, guys come out of the woodwork in all directions. Guy next door was a sheet metal worker. He came home with parts to make a much better, more efficient fan that was quieter. [LAUGHTER] So they set to work building him one. [LAUGHTER] We made air conditioners—you come up with a motor, and they would come up with an air conditioner. And we would deliver them on the back of my little red wagon. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Where would you put that? Like, would that just go in the window? Boice: We put it in a window. Franklin: Oh, okay. And how would you attach it to the house? Boice: Ingeniously! Most often, they would just build a rack underneath, a shelf on top, and set it up on top there. A houses, you wanted to put your air conditioner—at least about everybody did—set it at the top of the stairs where it would blow out the upstairs and cool your downstairs. They were reasonably efficient. The one thing about all the homemade air conditioners—very few of them, if any, had a recirculating system. So you had to use fresh water. This had two sides to it. You didn’t crud up your water system with alkali by reusing your water. But you did have to go out there and keep moving your hose where it drained out to water your lawn. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Wow. What kind of house did your family move into? Boice: Well, originally we had a three-bedroom prefab. Prefabs come in three sizes and five colors. And a bunch of very ingenious kids on Halloween 1944 went out and stole the damn street signs. The buses coming back off of swing shift had no earthly idea where they were going. They wandered around town, because all the houses looked alike! [LAUGHTER] Then after a while—oh, let’s see, we moved in in August, and about the following spring—because we started out school at Sacajawea and then at Christmas vacation they changed us to Marcus Whitman. But up there on Longfitt, thereabouts, I was coming home from school and here sits the roof of a prefab right out in the middle of the street. Apparently, this guy was sleeping and a windstorm come along and picked up his whole roof and set it out in the middle of the street. Thereafter they had a crew of carpenters going around fastening the rooves of the prefabs down a little tighter. Franklin: Because at that time, right, they had flat rooves. Boice: Flat rooves. Franklin: Correct? That kind of overhung a bit, something that the wind could really easily— Boice: Oh, yeah. Franklin: --grab ahold and pop off. Do you remember when they got the gabled rooves that they all have now? Boice: No, I don’t, because I was—I think after we left, but I wouldn’t bet heavy money on it. We moved off the prefab in ’45. Franklin: Okay. Boice: And into an A house on Swift. I don’t recall when they put the gabled rooves on. Franklin: Okay. So what did your mom do? Did she work at Hanford at all? Boice: No. Franklin: No? Boice: She was a stay-at-home mom. Franklin: Stay-at-home mom? Boice: It was such an interesting place. The buses ran every 30 minutes. No charge, just go out and get on the bus. One of my main jobs was—because there was no mail delivery, everybody in Richland got their mail general delivery. So I’d take the bus, go downtown, get off at the post office, check the mail, go down to the grocery store—and there was only one—that was a brief period, but then there was only one grocery store at that time. And that’s where that ski rental shop is—kayak rental shop on the corner of Lee and GW? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Boice: That was the grocery store. The one and only. Shortly thereafter, Safeway opened up on the corner of—southwest corner of Lee and Jadwin. So things picked up. And then there was—they come up with the community center grocery store—whatever you want to call them. There was one at Thayer and Williams, which was the Groceteria. Garmo’s was out there on Stevens and Jadwin—no, Symons and something-or-other. The south end of town was—oh, nuts. He was the one that survived—Campbell’s. Campbell’s grocery store. He specialized in fresh fruit and stuff, and of the whole pile of them, he was the one that really come out of it in good shape. But the fourth one is now the school office, up there by Marcus Whitman. That was a grocery store. Franklin: Okay. Boice: But you go down, you do your post office work, and then you go and get your groceries, and if you’re lucky you get ten cents. Next bus home. You know where the Knights of Columbus Hall is out on the bypass? Franklin: Mm-hmm. Boice: That used to be—originally that was the Richland post office. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Boice: It’s up there at Knight and GW, I think. There wasn’t a whole bunch of shopping centers. The Richland Theater was in existence. The drug store next door to it was there. After a while, the big brown building, which was everything, at that time, when it opened up it was CC Anderson’s. Then there was the dime store, and, oh, we were hot and heavy then. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Can you tell me a little more about your dad’s job? What would a typical day or a typical week look like for someone who worked on the fire department? Boice: On the fire department, there is no such thing as typical. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah. Boice: It was wild. In the beginning, they opened up—they were on shifts. Like everything was on day shifts, swing shift, graveyard. In our neighborhood, after my brother was born, we moved down to Swift and McPherson. Dad had come into town by that time. If you go behind the Richland Theater, you look real close, there’s two B houses back there. One of them’s a real B house and the other one ain’t. You look at the B houses over here, and the other one that ain’t is over here. And you look real close at the driveways. That was the original fire station that the City of Richland had going. That was the fire station when Hanford came in. Then they built a fire station on Jadwin in conjunction with the housing building and a couple other things, right across from the 700 Area, which is what they wanted, was coverage on that 700 Area. So that was the downtown fire station. And when they opened that up, why, then Dad came up out of Hanford. Franklin: Okay. Boice: He wasn’t too long there, and they opened one up Williams off of Thayer, in behind the Groceteria and a little service station up there with a small satellite fire station. Two trucks and one crew. Dad was there for years and years and years. Franklin: How long did your dad work for Hanford or the government here? Boice: Like I say, he came in in ’43 and retired in the early ‘70s. Franklin: Oh, okay. Boice: Rode her right on through. Franklin: So what did he do when the community transitioned in ’58? Boice: They bought him! Franklin: The City of Richland did? Boice: Yup, the City of Richland bought the outstanding time and he rolled right over. Franklin: Oh, okay. Boice: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So can you talk a little bit more about growing up here? You said you went to Marcus Whitman and then to—and then what other schools did you go to? Boice: Well, like I say, there was no shade. Franklin: Right. Boice: And very few radio stations. With a good shot you could get in Yakima, Spokane, and Walla Walla, and that was about it. So we sat around in the shade, and my mother read us stories. [LAUGHTER] One of them was a book we picked up in Walla Walla about Sacajawea. She read us the entire story of Sacajawea and the Shoshones and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, et cetera, et cetera. And in ’44, they opened up Sacajawea School. Now, as everybody does, they did their darnedest to convert us kids to saying Sah-CAH-jah-wee-ah. It didn’t take. [LAUGHTER] Because there was already Sacajawea State Park and everybody was using the term Sacajawea. But Sah-CAH-jah-wee-ah—they tried. They gave it their level best. It didn’t take. But the time that they were doing this, Miss Jesson was a teacher there was giving us the thumbnail sketch about Sacajawea. She did a pretty good job—well, you know, she told you what she knew. And she made mention of the fact that she was married to a trapper, but they didn’t know what his name or anything about him. I says, his name was Toussaint Charbonneau. He got her off a wolf man of the minute carriage for a white buffalo robe. My status went up. [LAUGHTER] And the teachers wanted to know where in the cat hair I learned that. Well, Mom read us the book. But I’ve always liked Sacajawea School. Just kind of a kinship. We went—in ’45, they opened up Marcus Whitman. We went there ’45 was all, because when they broke for the summer, we were over by—we moved. By the next fall we were over in the area where I could go to Sacajawea again. But we were going to Marcus Whitman when Roosevelt was shot—died. So that was the event of the time. You watched the transition of one President to another. The flag ceremony—the whole thing—it was interesting for a kid. Franklin: I bet. What do you remember about during the war years that kind of focus on secrecy and security? How did that affect your life and your family’s life? Boice: You didn’t talk to nobody about nothing! [LAUGHTER] I mean, that was just the words. You didn’t talk about—if somebody asks you what your dad does, you talk about something else. It was so interesting here in the last year, I think—time goes quicker now. A whole bunch of us from that neighborhood on Swift went to a funeral—this boy’s mother—well, yeah—Bill’s mother’s 100th birthday, after the funeral they had a sit-down dinner. I happened to sit down at the table with the whole kids of the old neighborhood. And we’re talking about all this stuff, and the secrecy, and the ones you watch out for—this girl over here. Yeah. She didn’t share the secrets with the neighbors when they were talking about who’s got butter on sale. They didn’t tell her anymore. She fried her food in butter. So no one would tell her where the butter sales were when it was available. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Was there any mention of the work going on at Hanford at school that you can remember? Boice: The one thing of what was going on, and it wasn’t the work at Hanford, because nobody talked about that. But when the Japs were sending over the firebombs— Franklin: Yeah, the balloon bombs. Boice: Yes. We were told to write no letters, tell nobody, because they didn’t want it to get out how blinking effective they were. Franklin: Right. The fear of these bombs from the sky— Boice: They were hitting, and they were working. Franklin: Yeah. Boice: You guys are in the right position to find out. But there was a rumor going around that a balloon-loaded Jap had landed out there in the area and they caught him and bundled him up and carted him off before they did any business. Okay, la-di-da-di-da. There’s rumors about one thing and another. And four or five years ago, CNN or one of these, they were talking about the weather balloons. They showed the colored pictures taken out here at Hanford of the balloons landing in the BPA lines and burning up. [LAUGHTER] End of speech, end of story. [LAUGHTER] But I was surprised to find out that something had happened. There was no soldiers attached or anything else, but there was an incident. Franklin: Yeah, we’ve—there are a couple confirmed reports of—we actually did an oral history with a gentleman whose father had been a patrolman and had seen one of the balloons land and had to chase it down and didn’t realize right away that it was—had explosives attached to it. The others—there’s a couple reports of them touching down onsite. And there was a family that was killed in Idaho where they were picnicking and a balloon came down. Boice: Idaho or Oregon? Franklin: I think it was—oh, that’s right, maybe it was Oregon. Boice: K Falls. Franklin: Yes. Boice: You go to the museum in Klamath Falls had the—or when I went through it—I was working down there twenty years ago or so—they had a big display of the family that was picnicking and the kids went to prod on it, and it went off and killed a girl. Franklin: Yeah. Were there—when you were—so we’re still in the World War II era and we’ll definitely get to the Cold War in a bit—but were there any kind of—what do you remember about like emergency procedures in school? Was there anything special, kind of drills or something during World War II? Boice: You mean the duck-and-cover? Franklin: Yeah, that kind of stuff. Was there any duck-and-cover during World War II? Boice: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Of course—my kindergarten days—now, man. Lived across the street from the college there at Ellensburg, and firebombs were to be worried about. But I was covered. I had a bucket full of sand and a shovel, and it was there on the front porch. When the firebomb came through there, I was going to put my sand on it. So we were prepared. God help us if it landed any place else. [LAUGHTER] But the beginning of the war when I was a kid in Ellensburg was so funny, because we were living right across the street from the college and everything was just the standard college. And the war started, and immediately, there’s all these people running around here that can’t count. Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four. I wasn’t even in kindergarten, and I knew about my ones! [LAUGHTER] And there was—you go across the street and around the corner, and there was this one half basement room where I could stand there and watch the guys play shirts-and-skins basketball. And the next time I looked, here’s a skeleton of a single engine aircraft, and a guy instructing people on how to make dead stick landing. Now, of all the damned things for a four-year-old kid to remember, dead stick landings was what he was talking about. And they had this thing skeletonized where they could show the internal workings of all the aeronautics. Franklin: Wow. Boice: But in Richland—oh, yes. Duck-and-cover fire drills. But they never talked about nuclear, because it was yet to be discovered. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, right. So Ellensburg then quickly became inundated with—the state college there became a training area? Boice: Oh, yeah. Just that fast. Franklin: Wow. In your notes here, I also see you mentioned about the heavy military presence and the olive drab everywhere and the cops in Army uniforms. Boice: [LAUGHTER] It absolutely was. Richland was strictly OD. I think they only had one bucket of paint. But all the vehicles were olive drab. The buses were, on today’s standards, I’ll call them a three-quarter size school bus painted olive drab. The vehicles were anything they could scrounge up, because I remember two GIs in a ’37 Chev coupe, and I know today some farmer had taken the trunk out and made a pickup box out of it. But they scrounged this thing up someplace, painted it OD, and here’s the MPs running around in a ’37 Chev pickup. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: [LAUGHTER] A homemade pickup? Boice: Yeah. It was years later that I found out—Dad didn’t say anything about it, and he certainly knew—that it was simple, because the war was going on. Everything was prioritized. But they had unlimited supply of uniforms. So they put the cops in soldiers’ uniforms; the firemen were in Navy uniforms. The firemen stood out and were very easily recognizable, but you couldn’t tell the soldiers and the cops apart, because they all had the same stuff on. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. A couple oral histories we’ve done with people that were children in Richland, a couple of them mentioned their fathers had taken them onsite somewhat clandestinely. Did your father ever take you onsite into a secured area? Boice: No. Franklin: Did you ever get access to any of that some way? Boice: No, I did not go to any secured area. Franklin: Okay. Boice: I was raised running in and out of fire stations. To this day, when I go through the door of a fire station, my hands go into my pockets. You’re allowed to touch nothing. Because you leave fingerprints. [LAUGHTER] It’s just a genuine reflex. Franklin: Yeah! So you said that you went to Sacajawea, then to Marcus Whitman then back to Sacajawea. Then where did you go to high school? Boice: We went through all of the—I’ll call it the school construction. They couldn’t build schools fast enough in Richland. Franklin: I bet. Boice: We had double shifts. Now they have these temporary quarters—whatever you call them. But we had hutments. Sacajawea had six hutments out there. They built the hutments, and then they went to double shifts. So you went to school at 8:00, and at noon they marched out, teacher and all, and our class marched in, and we went home at 4:30 or 5:00, something like that. So we went through all of that, and then in ’49, they opened Carmichael. A brand new junior high school, man, this is cool! And I was in the seventh grade in Carmichael and I are still the proud possessor of ASB cord 001, 1949, Carmichael Junior High School. The first one they ever gave out. [LAUGHTER] And that was neat, to have a real hard-built school. It was—oh, we had class. After three months, we moved to Kennewick. The Kennewick school system— Franklin: Your family did, or--? Boice: Yeah! Franklin: Oh, okay. Boice: Dad stayed in Richland, but they were selling off. And if you didn’t have priority, the houses went to the guy that was there first. And in that A house, we were in second, so we were not in line to buy the house. Franklin: Right. Boice: So, Dad got a piece of property in Kennewick and we moved to Kennewick. And what a school system mess. Franklin: Why? Boice: They were behind. They couldn’t get money quick enough. They couldn’t build stuff fast enough. They had the red brick building—forget what it was called. It had been a high school at one time, and they pressed it back into service. It was so overcrowded you couldn’t believe it. But they finally built the high school that’s there now. It opened in ’52, I believe. ’51—yeah, class of ’52 was the first one to graduate—’52 or ’53. Graduated from Erwin S. Black Senior High School. And it was Erwin S. Black Senior High School one year. Because he was the school superintendent, and they built the school—they named the school in his honor because he had gone to bat and made trips back and forth to Washington, DC to cash some money to use for the school system. Then they got in a shooting match with the Tri-City Herald. [LAUGHTER] And Erwin S. Black and the schoolboard got run out of town, and they chiseled his name off the front of the school. But for one year it was E.S. Black. Franklin: And then it just became Kennewick High School. Boice: It became Kennewick High School. Franklin: Can you talk a little bit more about this disagreement between Erwin S. Black and the schoolboard and the Tri-City Herald? Boice: It was several things. One of them, there was a book—and I can’t recall—Magruder? McGregor? Somebody. It was a history book, and it mentioned communism. And that was brought up and made a big deal. This was back in the McCarthy era. Franklin: Right. Boice: That was brought out. And there was a lot of talk—Black was a certified building inspector, and he inspected the construction of the high school. It was said by a lot of people that it wasn’t up to standards; that the concrete wasn’t what it should have been. And I don’t know what the specs were. I wasn’t into concrete work at that time. I have been later. But I know when we were hanging the benches in the ag shop, where you would put a concrete anchor in the wall ordinarily and it would hold, they didn’t there. And they had to through-bolt through the wall to get to things to hang. So there was—and transfer of equipment and stuff—this was swapped for that, and that was swapped for this—and I don’t remember that, and the only guy I know that did know has died. [LAUGHTER] But one of the kids that graduated from Erwin S. Black, one of the few that was in that class, worked with him off and on and was aware of what went on. Franklin: When you said that there was a book that mentioned communism, did it mention it in a favorable light, or did it just make a mention to communism? Boice: More or less, it just made a mention. Franklin: Okay. Boice: I was on the—oh, we had the open house at the school, and I was one of the tour guides. Yeah, I showed them the book and what it had to say. And I don’t recall anything drastic. Franklin: So then did you graduate from Kennewick High School? Boice: No. [LAUGHTER] The military had a hell of a sale. Anybody that enlisted by the first of February got the Korean GI Bill of Rights. And those that enlisted afterwards didn’t. So I drug up in January and joined the Air Force. Franklin: Oh. Without graduating. Boice: Without graduating. Franklin: Okay. Interesting. Boice: So I served my illustrious military career in a photo lab in Mountain Home, Idaho. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And how long were you in the Air Force? Boice: Two years. Franklin: Two years, and then you were discharged? Boice: Yes, yup, yup. Franklin: When you were in school, you mentioned being in school during this McCarthy era, one of the real hot points of the Cold War. Can you talk a little bit about the civil defense procedures and kind of the general feeling of that time as it related to—because I imagine with Hanford so close, and now knowing what was being produced there, that would have been a likely target. It’s a major part of the nuclear weapons stockpile. So can you talk a little bit about that time and just the general feeling? Boice: Well, you knew what was going to happen—or what they said was gonna happen. It was the duck-and-cover thing. And we had drills. A lot of what they said what was gonna happen—now they talk about getting into water to modulate it. Then, it was one of the things that they didn’t want you to do. Because we had the irrigation ditch that was running right alongside of the schools. But then they didn’t want you to get into it. So, it’s changed. They had the civil defense procedures—Radiant Cleaners, they’re in Kennewick. They had panel delivery cleaner trucks. They were rigged for emergency ambulances. They had fold-down bunks in them; they could handle four people. [LAUGHTER] It was taken serious. Franklin: Did you feel any particular sense of worry, or did it not seem to really affect you, your daily life or your psychological— Boice: It never bothered me ‘til years afterwards. When they talked about the Green Run, where they turned a bunch of that stuff loose, just to see what it would do to the citizens and count the drift on it. The people that had—the down-winders, and the people that had the thyroid problems. My sister was one of the first rounds that went to court over that. Franklin: Really? Boice: Because she was—we moved into Richland. She had her third birthday in the prefab, when they were still practicing how to build this stuff. And then we moved in on a farm where the alfalfa grew, the cow ate it, gave them milk, and everything was recycled and nothing went over the fence. And so it bothered me, then, that they used us as guinea pigs. But the other hand, they really didn’t know what in the cat hair that they were doing in a lot of cases. The nuclear waste? You’ve heard about the radioactive rabbit turds. Franklin: I have. Boice: You have? Franklin: Yes, I have, but why don’t you mention that? Boice: I was working with Vitro out here—’72, I think it was. The radioactivity, of course, is settled on the sagebrush. And the rabbits went around eating the leaves, just leaving fat, dumb and happy, and concentrating everything into the rabbit turds. And they were contemplating taking the top six inches of about two or three sections and burying it. Only they couldn’t decide where they had to build the hole. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: When you—you mentioned just a minute ago that you were on a farm, and you had the cows that would have eaten the tainted alfalfa—was your milk ever tested? Or did anyone ever come and-- Boice: Nah. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: test your—Were you ever tested for—or your family, anybody in your family, ever tested for radiation? Because I know that they, at one point, had those Whole Body Counters that they would test—some children in Pasco were tested through those machines? Boice: You ever been through a Whole Body Counter? Franklin: I have not been through a Whole Body Counter. Boice: Depending on where you’re at, there may or may not be a—they’re kind of a joke. Now, when I was working here at Vitro, we went through the Whole Body thing, and they were serious. I mean, before we got cleared out, we went through the chamber, and we were counted. I went to work in South Carolina. They—as far as I was concerned—were very sloppy with their radiation handling and their checking and their radiation monitoring. We had a hand-and-foot monitoring station where we was going in and out of. You stick your hands in and they check it, and your feet were there at the same time. Well, this one time, I come up pretty hot, so I found an RM. I says, that machine gave me a bad reading. Oh, he says, that machine’s no good anyway. Come around to this other one over here and we’ll check you out. Well, if the blinking thing’s no good, why in the cat hair are we using it?! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So, just a second ago, you mentioned you were working for Vitro? Boice: Uh-huh. Franklin: What is or was Vitro? Boice: What was Vitro? Okay. Vitro Engineering—and I don’t know how many times the name changed hands. But these guys were the ones that laid out the City of Richland—laid out the Hanford Projects. These were the strictly insiders. There was pictures on a wall of my grade school buddy’s dad, who I remember being a surveyor in Richland there. And these guys—this has gone on forever, and they were a pretty dug-in organization. To the point that they were not really aware that there was a world outside the fence. They’d heard about it, but they weren’t too sure it existed. [LAUGHTER] But I ended up at Vitro, and we did the Tank Farms that they’re having problems with, the hot tanks? We were in on the modification of that farm. We surveyed in there quite a bit. Whenever they show the pictures on TV, they always show you the evaporation facility. They show you that same picture. Warren Wolfe and I—I say Warren and I—it’s a little—our crew brought that up out of the ground, and we modified the tank farm, and we laid out the construction on that building from the ground right through the top. Franklin: Okay. Boice: And I was very fortunate, because all my surveying experience to that point was with the railroads and pipelines and longline work. Construction surveying was new to me. And I got throwed in with an old boy that was good at it. [LAUGHTER] And I learned a bunch working with him. And rolled right over, later on, into Hanford, too. We got in on the end of that—[LAUGHTER] Franklin: Hanford II? Boice: Yeah. Franklin: Oh, as--T-O-O. And which building was this that you and Warren Wolfe and your crew built? Boice: All I remember is the evaporation facility. Franklin: What was your specific job at Vitro? Were you a surveyor? Boice: I was a surveyor. I was an instrument man. You get in the hot zones—we got inside the Canyon Building on several different occasions. And you got suited up, and I was instructed very specifically and emphatically to touch nothing, because anything that got crapped up, they kept. And we couldn’t get the instruments crapped up. But that stuff was so hot that the paper—the Rite-in-the-Rain books have got a specific paper there that has pitch in it or something—it attracts radioactivity like a sponge. And when they kept the notes, then one of us would stay inside and the other guy would get out in the clean zone, and we’d have to transcribe all the notes, because that book was so hot that they wouldn’t let it out of the area. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Boice: There was some weird stuff going on. Franklin: Any other— Boice: Yeah, but there’s some I ain’t gonna talk about. [LAUGHTER] Okay. We came so close to having a nuclear disaster, it wasn’t even funny. We were good. We were awful good. And we were fast. And we were set up out there on an offset, and Rosie the labor foreman come over. Somebody said you needed a shot here for a hole for a penetration into the tank. Man, we whipped that out and figured the pull and what it was gonna take. Swung over there, put a distance and an angle, drove the stake in the ground. I figured that Warren checked it, and away we went. We come back in a week or so, or a few days later, we were back in that same farm. And Rosie comes over there and he says, would you guys check that again? Because these guys was digging a hole there and they’re supposed to hit a tank. And we checked it. And I lied, and Warren swore to it. [LAUGHTER] We forgot we was on a ten-foot offset. So they’re digging clear to one side of this tank, and just good solid dirt. Had we been just half as screwed-up as we were, they would have gone right down the edge of that tank with a core drill. And we’d have had ooey-gooeys all over the place. They talked to us. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Kind of a happy accident, right? Boice: Yeah, we were—I’ll never forget Warren’s work. He’d come back with the boss and he says, name me one guy in this world ever got through this life being perfect. He says, always pissed me off, he’s a damned carpenter. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So you went to—you joined the Air Force, you went to Idaho for two years. When you came back—or what did you do after that? Did you come back to Richland after? Boice: We were living in Kennewick. Franklin: Living in Kennewick. Boice: And I was working at the Washington Hardware Store. And this kid—we were working on cars in my buddy’s garage. And this guy comes through and he’s surveying for the Corps. And he talked that they were setting up a photogrammetry section. Well, heck, that’s what I was doing in the service. So, I beat feet over to Walla Walla to sign up to lay out photo mosaics. And they say, we haven’t got enough work for fulltime at that job. Are you a draftsman? No, I are not a draftsman. He says, would you take a job surveying? You bet. I became a surveyor. [LAUGHTER] And we worked from the mouth of the Deschutes River to Lewiston, Idaho. The first thing was the mouth of the Deschutes to McNary Dam—we mapped from the water level to the top of the bluffs by hand. Franklin: Wow. Boice: And then we went through, starting in ’58, and we inventoried the railroad. Now, when you inventory a railroad, we inventoried a railroad. Everything they possessed was put down. First, you go through and you measure and put stations—mark station markings on the rails. 80 miles of them. Then you go back and you reference everything the railroad’s got. Ties, spikes, tie plates, rails, joints, joint bars—if the fence moves, how far did it move, from what to what? If the rail changes, if there’s an isolation joint in there, you put that in. When you come to a switch, you measure everything that’s in the switch facility. You go—everything that that railroad has got. You become very, very familiar with railroads. [LAUGHTER] And then we went ahead, and we built railroads clear up to Lewistown. We handled a railroad layout real heavy. When they—are you familiar with the Marmes men? Franklin: Yes. Boice: Luck of the draw, I was on that. Because we were the—call it the resident survey crew in that area. Franklin: Oh. Boice: And we were babysitting construction. Make sure they got sticks out ahead of them, make sure that things are checked out behind them. They’re putting in a detour, why, check that out. They’re building a bridge, make sure it’s set up right, and check it out when they get done. So, first they call up and they say, there’s a guy down here at the mouth of the Palouse River thinks he hit something, and he wants an elevation on this cave, see where the water’s gonna come when they raise the water behind Lower Monumental, I believe. Franklin: Yeah, I think that sounds right. Boice: Is that the dam? So we went down there and run him in an elevation, painted it on the cave face. Happily on our way. Well, they hit pay dirt. [LAUGHTER] They dug up bones. So we were called back. They wanted—because the drillers were in there then doing sub-cell drilling of what’s down there. So we got to come in there and locate their holes so they know where what is. That was interesting. The whole thing. Now that the world has got into this Ice Age floods and stuff, I wish so heavily that I knew then what I know now. Because the layers that they went through were very definitely visible. This thing had been covered in various floods. But it was so interesting, the stuff that they found. Because it became an international incident. One of the coolest cats in the whole joint was Pono the Greek. And Pono run the sluice box. He had been all over the world. When the girls dug everything out, then they took the dirt to Pono, and he washed it down. Pono found thread of somebody’s sewing. Then they found the needle. And that to me was so cool. They had this needle that looked for all the world like a darning needle. How in the blazes they cut that eye in there! This was a really heads-up organization. [LAUGHTER] Interesting. Very interesting. Franklin: Yeah, that was a very significant archaeological find. Boice: I’ve got to go back some day and talk to that doctor. At an anniversary of something, we’re down here at Columbia Park, and he was talking and I showed up there with the historical society doing something-or-other. And I talked to him for about five minutes. He mentioned the fact that he wanted to see the guy that painted that elevation. I said, well, you’re looking at him. [LAUGHTER] It was—I got to go talk to him. Because one of the things in their report—they talked that the ditch was dug with a Cat. Now, I ain’t saying they’re wrong, because I didn’t see any digging when I was there. But just—as you’re going up and looking at a hole, and in those days we had looked at a bunch of holes—we were inspectors. They were going behind the soils guys. And it just to me had all the appearance of somebody that dug a ditch with a dragline. And I always figured it was a dragline in there, and somebody said it was a Cat. I don’t totally agree with him. But the bones were so interesting. They said that the one thing about the site was there had been somebody living on it forever. Just, the further down you went, the more primitive they became, ‘til you got past the layer of the Mazama ash, when Crater Lake blew its top. And they went past Mazama ash and suddenly things looked pretty sophisticated. That’s where the needle came from and a few other things. It was neat. I’d have liked to spend more time with them. Franklin: Yeah. I’m sure you heard about the dam failing and the site flooding after they—because they created the protective dam around the shelter, and that failed and let water in. Boice: It didn’t fail! The SOB was never built to hold! When they brought us down there to check these drill holes out, the drillers—we had other stuff to do that morning, and we didn’t get down there until 10:00. The driller had a half-a-dozen holes in. I’m talking to this old driller, and he says, they ain’t never gonna keep water out of that thing, because there’s a layer of palm wood down there and it’s gonna leak like a sieve. But they did it anyway. And we’re down there checking on settlement pins and a whole bunch of other stuff when the water’s coming up. But we’re all on the radio, and it’s like a big one-party line—you can hear what’s going on no matter where. And they’re putting in pumps, and the more pumps they put in, the more water they sprayed out, but noting changed. [LAUGHTER] So it’s a lovely fishing pond. But interesting: it was shortly thereafter that I quit the corps and went to Alaska. Within a year-and-a-half, two years, I’m up there doing the same thing, only instead of spotting holes in the ground, we’re spotting oil wells. And sitting in a warm-up shack, talking to a driller, and he made mention of the fact that they had spudded oil wells. Now, when they spud an oil well, they get in there with an oversized auger, like you’re setting telephone poles. And they go down there through the mud and the blood and the crud ‘til they get to solid rock. And then they bring in the drills. And he says, we have yet to spud a well here that we didn’t get palm wood. And that has always sat with me. Now, when they’re talking about global warming—if there has been palm trees growing at the mouth of the Palouse River, and palm trees growing at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, it’s been a lot warmer than people are willing to talk about. [LAUGHTER] Just boggles my mind that there is palm wood in Alaska as well as Marmes Rockshelter. Franklin: Wow, that’s really interesting. So you were—Marmes, then Alaska. When did you come to work for Vitro at Hanford? Boice: That was a pretty short season. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: At Hanford, or in Alaska? Boice: At Vitro. Oh, at Alaska I worked for various contractors. But Vitro—we didn’t philosophically match. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Ah. Boice: Their minds were all inside the fence. And I’m too antagonistic. [LAUGHTER] If we had a problem—thou shalt not speak bad of Vitro. And we’re laying out penetrations on top of a tank. And they’re all done. Radius and angle—which radius is—and they had them at different stages there, and other people had been doing them. And this tank had been there for quite a—not quite a while, but every once in a while someone would come in and set some more holes, set some more holes. Well, they didn’t continue their circle around—nobody closed the circle. So by the time we get there ‘til the end, we have to figure out by adding up each and every hole all the way around the circle at every different radius to get the dimensions to where we’re at. Where if the guy had closed out his circle, you could have backed him out and been out of there in about a tenth the time. So I happened to make the statement, I said, Vitro drafting strikes again. And I was a marked man. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: How long in total, then, did you work out on the Hanford site? Boice: Well, in ’56-’57, or ’57-’58, they were doing a lot of military work out there. And we did the roads up Rattlesnake—was in on that. The road up Saddle Mountain. A lot of RADAR sites. You’re aware of the Nike sites on— Franklin: Yup. Boice: --the north side of the river over there? Franklin: Yup. Boice: Been there, done that. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So—that wasn’t for Vitro, was that when you were with— Boice: That was the Corps. Franklin: Okay. Boice: And we also did a lot of work up at Moses Lake. Franklin: Okay. Boice: All the runway extensions up there, we were in on. They throwed us in the clink. They did not like our very presence. Franklin: Why? Boice: Apparently Moses Lake had two different structures. There was the Strategic Air Command structure up there, and there was the Military Air Transport Service. I didn’t know the difference. Les was—we were doing some mapping work. And the three of us were just gonna run some levels out to the next site we were gonna work at. And we took off the BM—benchmark—at the control tower. And we get about two turns out across the flight line there. And a bunch of guys come out, like a changing of the guard or something. Two or three of them stopped to talk to Kirby and George. The other five come out along, and they walked, just formed a circle around me, and they wanted to know if I wanted to go with them. They had submachine guns and a whole bunch of other stuff, and I said, heck, there’s nothing I’d rather do! [LAUGHTER] So they called up Walla Walla and they verified our existence. Then we had to go through security and get badges to—and we’d been working on that thing off-and-on for months. But we just hadn’t stepped in the right zone. Franklin: Oh, wow. Boice: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: They were just kind of waiting for you, then, to— Boice: Just different—different bunch of stuff. Franklin: Right. When you were in school in Kennewick, so after the—or even just after the word was out about the Hanford site, after August 6th, 1945, when you were in school, did they teach anything about Hanford history? Was it— Boice: Go back to August 6th. Franklin: Okay. Boice: What a day. [EMOTIONAL] What a wonderful day! I’d been down at the Village Theater—now the Richland Theater. I don’t even remember what was playing. But we came out, [EMOTIONAL] and the bells were ringing. The church down there, they were ringing their bells. And everybody was whooping it up—the war was over! And I’ll never forget, some gal in there alongside the street, she had half a dozen kids with garbage can lids and a parade going, and they’re banging and clanging. And the festivities that the war was over. And then we went back and they came out with the thing and Truman said, It’s the Atomic Bomb, and that’s what we’ve been building. And Mom went over and talked to the lady next door. She mentioned the U-235. And the gal says, they didn’t talk about that, did they? And she’d been keeping files, and her husband had been working on it. And neither of them would ever admit that they knew what the other one was doing. It was that tight. And the security in Richland. The FBI knew everybody in town, because it was not uncommon—it was a regular thing that they would come around and they would talk to you, and ask about him. And then they’d go talk to him and ask about you. It was just—it was what was going on. We didn’t know why. Well, after that—yeah, after it came out what was going on out there, then we knew what was there. But until Truman come out and said, here’s what was going on, we didn’t know. Franklin: What about V-J Day? Was that a separate kind of a big celebration? Boice: Yeah. Franklin: Was that as big as the news of the bomb drop? Or was the bomb drop more of a pivotal moment here in the— Boice: Well, the V-J Day, the end of the war, was the big day. That’s the celebration that I’ll never forget. Franklin: Can you talk about it? Boice: June—you heard about Harry Truman, didn’t you? When he come out to Hanford? Franklin: No. Boice: [LAUGHTER] The head of security was a guy by the name of McHale. And Dad worked pretty close with him with the fire department because everything was safety and security and if you had a problem, see McHale. Now, the guy had taken—he was pretty much high up in intelligence—but he had assumed the position of a first sergeant. And Sarge McHale was the guy. No matter what happened, Sarge McHale. Harry Truman did a fantastic job, and made his reputation just going from plant to plant—the Truman Investigating Committee, cutting down waste. And I guess he did a heck of a job. But he come out to Hanford and demanded to be let in. Franklin: Sorry, was this when he was Vice President or President? Boice: He was a senator! Franklin: Senator—Senator Harry Truman. Okay. Boice: And he comes there and demands to be let in. And of course, the guard says, McHale! And McHale comes over there and meets him head-on. He says, I’m Senator Truman, and I demand to be let in. McHale says, I don’t give a damn if you’re President of the United States; you ain’t coming in here. And he didn’t. Well, years later, and I believe it was when they were dedicating the Elks Club in Pasco, Truman was back up in this area. And he was President. And he come out to Hanford and he looked up McHale. And he said, uh-huh, you son of a bitch, you didn’t think I’d make ‘er, did ya? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. That’s a great story. [LAUGHTER] But thank you. So after the war was over, was what went on at Hanford taught in school? Was there mention of the work at Hanford that built the bomb? Was that part of the curriculum here in town? Boice: The local lore. Franklin: The local lore, but nothing in the school at all? Boice: Not that I recall. Franklin: Okay. Boice: Everything was—there was a terrific amount of pride. The Atomic City, the atomic this, the atomic that. The first barber shop quartet come to town, when GE left—no, DuPont left, GE come in, four guys come in from Schenectady, New York with a barber shop quartet. First ones I ever saw. And they were the Atomic City Four. And the next one were the Nuclear Notes. [LAUGHTER] But there was an atomic pride, all over the area. Then there was the people that thought we should be ashamed of it. That we had built this device that killed a whole bunch of people. Franklin: Now, were these people in the community? Or people outside? Boice: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Franklin: And this was right at the time— Boice: Oh, no, no, no. This is-- Franklin: Later? Boice: Last week? [LAUGHTER] Last few years ago, yeah. Franklin: Okay. Boice: I got my—I’m still behind Hanford. Franklin: Okay. Boice: Screwed up and all. Back to Vitro for a little bit. Like I say, they were—the organization that literally purchased and built the city of Richland—now, at that time I was flying, and I was flying out of the Richland airport. And there was an old geezer out there called Norm. Norm flew the bench. He was always on the bench out in front of the airport, there. And if somebody just going up to burn up some hours or play, why, Norm was willing to go along. I saw Norm and I hauled him around and then I went back to work for Vitro. And Pritchard brought this guy through—it was Norm! Norm had been the head of real estate when the entire city of Richland and the whole Hanford Project was bought. He was in charge of it. And he retired and trained his successor, who died. And he trained the next guy, who died. So they had Norm on a retainer. Just to ride dirt on real estate. Quite an interesting character! Franklin: Yeah, I bet. I think I’d kind of like to return about something we were just talking about a minute ago, where you were talking about people that—especially in the later years that have been critical of Hanford. I’d like to get more of your feelings on that. On how you feel about that, or kind of what part of their argument or their viewpoint that you don’t agree with. Boice: They were talking about—well, first there was the Richland High School and their bomb insignia. It was felt that they were making a big deal or prideful about this terrible event. And I always go back to a group from Japan that came over and were very critical of Richland for the same thing. And the gentleman who was interviewing them or was talking to them, when they got done, informed them in no uncertain terms, that we were invited very unceremoniously into that war, and we’re sorry if you didn’t like the way we ended it. [LAUGHTER] You get to researching, I’d like to bring up, why didn’t they drop the bomb on Tokyo? Because there was nothing left on Tokyo to injure. If you read about Curt LeMay and the Strategic Air Command and the bombing of Japan, he had eliminated that thing down to—the B-29 was supposed to be a high altitude bomber. And it wasn’t as great at it as it was advertised to be. But they had eliminated the defenses. And they made the B-29 into a low-level trucking company, and they were just hauling stuff over and unloading it. And the firebombing of Tokyo—the movies they showed us in the Air Force was something to behold. I mean, they—it was so much worse than what happened at Nagasaki or Hiroshima, either one. He was told to save two or three targets—clean targets. And when they come over there with the bombs, then they used these clean targets and saw what they could do. Of the four devices—the four nuclear devices, we used—was it four or three in World War II? Franklin: Are you referring to— Boice: All but one of them came from Hanford. Franklin: Yeah. Boice: The first one at Los Alamos was plutonium. And then Hiroshima was Oak Ridge. Franklin: Yup. Boice: And then Nagasaki was plutonium. Franklin: Yeah. Boice: But there’s those that—and there were at the time, there was a big discussion on, should we demonstrate to them what this thing could do? And the big argument was, what if it doesn’t do? What if you drop it and it don’t do nothing? [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Interesting. Can you speak to—or do you remember anything about the Civil Rights era in the Tri-Cities? Boice: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: There were reports of—you know, it’s known that Kennewick was kind of a sun-down town, and that many minorities were forced to live in East Pasco. And that during the war— [NEW CLIP] Franklin: There had been a sizable African American population at Hanford, but that after the war many of them left. So I was wondering if you could speak to the Civil Rights action you might have seen or you might have observed or anything in the Tri-Cities? Boice: Well, I was up in Lewiston when their civil rights march come through. But it was well-advertised. People knew what was gonna happen. And I was at the hardware store, and there’s a black cement finisher I’d worked with building houses in Pasco. I says, Leroy! You gonna come march on Kennewick? He said, [AFFECTED DIALECT] shee-it. I wantsta live in Kennewick just about as bad as you wantsta live in East Pasco. [LAUGHTER] They had a march on Kennewick—a bunch of people that—I am told, because I was living in Lewiston, and I was in Lewiston at the time. But there’s a group out of Seattle and a group out of Portland come up to Pasco, and they marched across the bridge. They marched down Avenue C, up Washington Street, down Kennewick Avenue. And Kennewick yawned. Nobody particularly cared. They got to the Methodist church, and the groups come out and says, you look hot. Come on in and have some lemonade. They sat down at the church, had lemonade and went home. And that was the civil rights march in Kennewick. But there is—when I was there growing up, there were no blacks in Kennewick. There were blacks in Pasco, and there were no blacks in Richland. With the exception—the guy that run the shoeshine parlor at Ganzel’s barbershop lived in the basement, and they tell me that there was two black porters at the Hanford House. And that was the total black population of Richland. Franklin: Wow. Boice: But they were not welcome in Kennewick. It wasn’t that big a deal when I was walking down Kennewick Avenue when a couple of black guys—they were bums, hobos—come walking down Main Street, you might as well say. And a cop pulled up and says, the railroad tracks are two blocks down that way. They go east and west. Either one will get you out of town. And they went to the railroad track. I always figured that the blacks wanted to move to Kennewick because they couldn’t stand to live next to the blacks in Pasco. [LAUGHTER] And if you want to get right down to it, well, all that hooping and hollering they do right now, you go down to Fayette, Mississippi, which is 98.645% black, and all the blacks in Mississippi can live in Fayette and nobody cares. Go down to Van Horn, Texas, which is all Mexicans, and they can all live in Van Horn, Texas, and nobody cares. But you let half a dozen white guys go up in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and they just have yourself a storm. Why, these are a bunch of white separatists! If everybody else can live together, why can’t the whites? Franklin: Interesting. Some might say they were kind of starting a separatist movement up there, I think—claiming their own territory, and— Boice: So what? Franklin: Well, living together communally is often different from claiming that you don’t—aren’t subject to the law, the jurisdiction of the United States. Boice: Nobody said that they weren’t subject to the law. Franklin: Well-- Boice: They kept trying to integrate Prudhoe, but he kept getting cold and going home. Franklin: Oh, in Alaska? Boice: Yeah! Franklin: Yeah. Boice: They had a heck of a time keeping Prudhoe integrated. Because them black people do not like cold weather! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I don’t think a lot of people like cold weather. Boice: It was a big joke when we went down south there, to work at Savannah River. Because—hell, we’d come out of here and it was Thanksgiving. It was cold. We got down there, of course, if you’re traveling you’re gonna get nightshift. We left having the cold weather here at night down there. And I says, that’s okay, you’ll get yours come summertime when it heats up. But surprisingly—and I was really surprised that they didn’t take the hot weather any better than we did. I mean, it was miserably hot, but they were just as big a problem as a rest of us. Franklin: I imagine it’s quite a bit more humid down there, though, with the—when it gets hot, you know. Because the heat with the humidity is— Boice: Yeah, it is. Franklin: --much worse than the dry heat. Boice: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention? Or any question I haven’t asked you that you think I should— Boice: I don’t know what it would be. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Yeah, we’ve really gone—really jumped all over the place. It’s been great. Anyone else have any questions? Hungate: No, the only question—you said you’d done some work with the railroad. What railroad? Boice: Name one. [LAUGHTER] Hungate: All railroads? Union Pacific, all the different--? Boice: Yes. Right now they’re talking about the oil trains, and their problems with them tipping over? I wonder how long it’s gonna take them to get to the problem. In the beginning, railroads were 39-foot rails bolted together. Measured mile after mile after mile of it. Then in about, oh, the middle ‘60s—’67, thereabouts, ’66—when they were putting in the SP&S, that’s now the BN—the Burlington Northern on the Washington side. They went with quarter-mile steel. And the first question that we had as surveyors—because you’re constantly working with the expansion and contraction of steel—was how are they going to control that in long rails? Because if you’re working on railroads very long, first thing you realize is do not sit on the joints in a hot day. You get your butt pinched! [LAUGHTER] When those tracks expand. So we brought this up and the first thing they told us was, well, they’ve got special steel and it’s only going to expand sideways. Well, that story lasted about as long as it took when they started putting it together. Because when they started—they’d set up a factory down here, if you’ll call it that. Brought in 39-foot un-punched rail, and just rolled her off, welded her together and ground down the joints and put her in quarter-mile sections. They were very particular when they put it in at the temperature that they laid that down on, where before—you know what a creeper is? Okay, it’s a kind of a hairpin device that you put over the rail so that it will slide less. But in the old days, the 39-foot rail very seldom saw any creepers. When they put that quarter-mile steel together, you saw a lot of creepers. Now they have gone to ribbon rail. They welded the quarter-mile steel together. You drive down to Portland, and you look at that rail, and you’re gonna go a long ways before you see a joint. There at Quinton and Washman’s dip—which don’t mean a thing to you guys—[LAUGHTER] about a mile post from 120-whatever, they have got a creeper on each—alongside of each and every tie. I mean, they were using creepers like they were going out of style. To me, the expansion’s the thing that they got to worry about, but then they should have figured this out because they’re running it. But it’s a factor. You got to factor it in when you’re doing a pipeline, when you’re doing a railroad. When we were doing the pipeline, Maurice Smith of British Petroleum, who was the head pipeline engineer, I had lunch with him. [LAUGHTER] It ain’t like we sit down at a specified lunch—he dropped in at the chow hall I was eating and sat down at our table. So we got to talking about it. And that was the question I brought up, was how are you going to handle the expansion in the steel? And he says—he admitted it was a heck of a problem. And that you got to run as many Ss as you can so that it’ll take up and accordion itself. And when you’ve got a long straight stretch, it’s gonna give you problems. [LAUGHTER] Because it’s gonna go someplace. And that’s the thing that—after they started the quarter-mile steel, a couple of years later, we had a hot summer. The article in the Tri-City Herald called it the long, hot summer, where we had over 90 days of over 90-degree weather. But they were cutting chunks out of that railroad to keep her on the road bed. And at that time, when the SP&S was having these problems, the UP was laughing at them. They said, we tried this stuff in Wyoming. It didn’t work. And they’re using 39-foot stuff, and it was just whistling down the road. But now I see that they’re using the ribbon rail like everybody else. I can’t see how it’s gonna work, but the they’re doing it. [LAUGHTER] It ain’t my role! [LAUGHTER] The other one was the Camas Prairie. And that starts out, oh, about ten miles above Ice Harbor Dam, thereabouts, breaks loose, and goes clear up past Lewiston, up into Grangeville, Idaho. That’s a crazy little river. Franklin: That’s the one that they filmed that Charles Bronson movie. Boice: Breakheart Pass? Franklin: Breakheart Pass, yeah. Boice: Yeah, that was done up there. You get into railroad history—this area is knee-deep in it. Vollard was the great character in that. He started out with a little portage railroad around Idaho Falls and that area. And then he got the Walla Walla line—I call it the WWWWW&WWW line—Walla Walla, Waitsburg, Washtucna and Washington Wail Woad—which was a money maker. But he ended up getting a lineup from Portland out here. And then when they started building the Northern Pacific, they were building from both ends, and he was hauling Northern Pacific rail over his tracks and taking it out in railroad stock. By the time they got connected over in Montana, he owned a sizable chunk of the railroad. [LAUGHTER] And it was—you get into that railroad history, and it’s just takeover checkers. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Great. Well, thank you so much, George. Boice: Okay! [LAUGHTER] Franklin: It was a pleasure talking to you. And, yeah, thanks for coming in today. Boice: All righty. Write if you find work! [LAUGHTER] Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1943-2016 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. ca1956-1958 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Wolfe, Warren Truman, Harry 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 George Boice Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Subject The topic of the resource Hanford (Wash.) Hanford Site (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) Richland (Wash.). Public Schools Description An account of the resource An interview with George Boice conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by Mission Support Alliance on behalf of the United States Department of Energy. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-6-15 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. 2016-8-12: Metadata v1 created – [RG] FBI Housing Richland (Wash.) Secrecy https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fb04e035b1c8928176dadb5a42646cc81.JPG d741c436a87a4df782ed4afe3b9f60b6 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F25b95c192b96464279627aadd09cf21d.mp4 9f530d60f6f74bc722817bb2999877a3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Daniel Barnett Location The location of the interview Washington State University - Tri Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin and I’m conducting an oral history interview with Daniel Barnett on July 13th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Daniel Barnett about his experiences growing up in Richland and working at the Hanford site. So the best place to start, I think, is the beginning. So why don’t you tell me where you were born and what year. Daniel Barnett: I was born in Aberdeen, Washington in 1938—August 13th. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: And when the war started, my dad was working for the Harbor Patrol in Seattle as a patrolman. He heard that they were hiring over here, so he came over here and they hired him almost instantly because he already had the security clearance and everything. Franklin: Ah. Barnett: So he called my mom and told her that he had a job over here and to get herself packed, because he was gonna get her. But when she moved here, she couldn’t move to Richland. It wasn’t even on the map at that time. They took it off the map and everything. She had to move to Prosser. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: And later on when they finally got a prefab built, we moved into a prefab at 1011 Sanford. Franklin: Where was your father from? Was he from Washington? Barnett: He was from Oregon. All my family is from Oregon except for me. My dad said he couldn’t get across the border fast enough. Franklin: So being from—what drew him to Hanford? Was it the pay? Barnett: I think so. Well, he was originally—he worked at a plywood plant, then he went to work for Harbor Patrol. He had asthma, which the wet climate apparently irritated. So he had a chance to get over here, so he moved over here. Franklin: Okay. So the climate played a— Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: --big factor and wanted the dry and the sunshine. Barnett: Well, probably the pay, too, because the pay was good for those times. Franklin: Right. And how long did your family live in Prosser before you moved? Barnett: We were there about a year, I think. I don’t remember truthfully—I was only about five when we moved there. And I was there probably about a year. I just vaguely remember moving to Prosser. Franklin: Right. Okay. And you moved—so you came over in 1944— Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: --right? And so you would have moved to Richland in 1944? About there? Barnett: Oh—I think we actually—Dad came over, I think in ’43. A year later, in ’44 we moved over. Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: Because I remember ’45 when they announced the war—dropping the bomb on Japan, and Mom told Dad when he come home, I know what you’ve been guarding! [LAUGHTER] Because he didn’t even know what he was guarding at the time. Franklin: Right. Wow. Did your dad talk about his work much? Or maybe [INAUDIBLE] Barnett: He worked as a patrolman until they sold the town and then he became a painter. Franklin: A painter? Barnett: Yeah, he was an artist so then he became a painter and painted the houses and the buildings in Richland. Because when the government owned Richland, if you had a paint job needed done on the house, you called them and they come in and painted it. You didn’t hire somebody from a company to paint it. The government did it. Franklin: And was he a patrolman onsite the entire time until they sold the town? Barnett: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Okay. Was he assigned to a specific area, or--? Barnett: No, just general patrol. He talked about patrolling the fences, taking their Jeeps and going down the length of the fences and checking them out, and all that sort of stuff. But just a general patrolman, not any special area. Franklin: Okay. And you said that your—what did your mother do when she first got here? Barnett: Oh, she was just a housewife. She eventually went to work as a waitress. And then finally she got on to work at Hanford. She worked with Battelle for about 29 years as a lab tech. Franklin: Oh, wow. Do you know which lab she worked in? Barnett: Well, she did—where they did testing on the animals. Though at that time they were testing marijuana on chimpanzees and different types of animals. She did the test work on the meat from the animals. Franklin: Oh, wow. Barnett: So I don’t know exactly—it was—again, probably wasn’t supposed to be told, so she didn’t say much about it. Franklin: Did she have any schooling beyond— Barnett: Just high school. Franklin: Just high school. And what about your father, did he--? Barnett: He was just high school. Franklin: Just high school as well. Where did your mother waitress at? Barnett: Well, the first place she had was O’Malley’s Drug Store which now is a—what do you call it? A Tojo Gym? Where they teach different martial arts? Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: It’s down on Williams, right off of Williams. That’s what it is now. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: O’Malley’s Drug Store eventually closed, moved up to Kadlec. And a lady bought it from him, and now she’s down there on George Washington Way. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: And right by O’Malley’s Drug Store used to be a Mayfair market. So I sold newspapers out at the lunch halls at Hanford. Sold—well, I don’t remember—but I think it was the Columbia Basin News to start out, because that was the first newspaper of the Tri-Cities, was the Columbia Basin News. Then they bought them out and became the Tri-City Herald. But I remember selling—give you an idea, you can figure out how much time, because I remember one of the headlines was—one of the union leaders had been arrested by the government. And I don’t even remember who it was, it’s been so long ago. But I remember that was one of the headlines of one of the newspapers. Franklin: What about—do you remember the Richland Villager at all? That was a local paper. Barnett: Yeah, but it wasn’t very much. It was very small. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: I delivered the Seattle P-I. Franklin: Seattle P-I? Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. And you said your mother started waitressing at Malley? At O’Malley’s or Malley’s? Barnett: At O’Malley’s. Franklin: O’Malley’s. And then did she waitress anywhere else in Richland? Barnett: Not that I know of. From there she went out to Hanford. Franklin: And that was when pharmacies or drug stores as we know them now, they used to have lunch counters. Barnett: Yeah, yeah. Franklin: Right. And so they would go there and they were more of like a café-slash-pharmacy. Barnett: Yeah. The one up on Thayer, I think it was Densow’s at that time. That had a heyday lunch counter in it, coffee shop. It closed up and now I think it’s just pharmacy. Franklin: Mm-hmm. Barnett: But where the south end—what do you call it? You know when you get down here, you sit and try to remember things and you get kind of jumbled up—Salvation Army building is now on Thayer was originally the Mayfair Market. Franklin: Okay. And what did they sell there? Barnett: Well, that was the grocery store. Franklin: Grocery store, okay. Do you remember—so you said you moved into—what was the address on Sanford? Barnett: 1011 Sanford. Franklin: And do you remember what kind of prefabricated house it was? Barnett: It was three-bedroom. Franklin: Three-bedroom prefab, okay. Barnett: No, I think it was two-bedroom, because my sister was just a little baby then. Franklin: Okay. And did you share a room with your sister? Barnett: Probably with my brother. Franklin: Oh, so how many siblings— Barnett: Had three kids. I had an older brother. We were about five years apart. Franklin: Oh, okay. So an older brother, you, and then a younger sister. Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: And then how long did you live at 1011 Sanford? Barnett: I don’t really remember, but it must have been three or four years, because as soon as they got the A houses built, we had a chance to move into one. And we moved immediately to one. Because we had three kids, and a prefab’s kind of tight for three kids. Franklin: Yeah, yeah. I live in a two-bedroom prefab. And it’s—with just my wife, and it’s pretty— Barnett: Well you know why they’re called prefabs. Franklin: Tell me. Barnett: They were built by a company, brought in in two sections and then put together. They were prefabricated. Franklin: Yeah, the prefabricated engineering company out of Portland. Barnett: And nobody could figure out why they put that little square door in the back other than to throw the garbage out it. I don’t know—have you ever heard of Dupus Boomer? Franklin: Yes. Barnett: He made some cartoons about that backdoor. Franklin: Right, and that the rooves had a tendency to fly away. Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: And they had to put— Barnett: Well, in 1955, they did. They had two of them blow off. Franklin: Yeah, those are great cartoons. Barnett: Like “Pa wants a bathtub.” [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So tell me a little more about growing up in Richland. Which schools did you go to? Barnett: Well, the first school I went was Carmichael. And that was probably a mile-and-a-half away. We walked to school. Nobody thought anything about it. There wasn’t any buses. There was a bus system in Richland, but it was run by the government. It was a little old bus that you could pick up in two places in Richland to go downtown and go to a movie and come back. But no buses hauled you to school. There was high school buses that hauled people. They picked them up in the Horse Heaven Hills on farms and brought them to Hanford—I mean to Col High—it’s Hanford now. But, no, I walked to school real regular, didn’t think about it, nobody had any panic about walking to school. Everybody did it because it’s normal. Franklin: And do you remember—so you would have been going to—was it Carmichael—growing up right in the early Cold War. What do you remember about civil defense? Duck-and-cover, air raids. Barnett: I don’t remember doing that. Franklin: Really? Barnett: I don’t know whether we did or not, but I don’t remember doing that. Franklin: Do you remember knowing what was being made at Hanford? Did you ever have any fear—how real did the Cold War seem to you? Barnett: Well, the Cold War affected me quite a bit because I was in eight years during the Cold War—in the Air Force. Franklin: Right. Barnett: The security was a lot tighter. I mean, there was—you couldn’t go out to Hanford without having your security badge checked. Now you can drive clear to the Area and before you go in the Area have your badge checked. Franklin: Right. Barnett: But then, there was a badge check when you got on the buses, the badge check, when you got out to your area, and then again they checked your badges when you left the area. Franklin: Right. Barnett: So it was—the security was real tight. Franklin: Mm-hmm. But what about when you were growing up, when you were a kid in school? Did you ever have any special fear or pride in what was being made at Hanford? Barnett: Nope. It was—like I said, nobody knew what they were doing out there until they dropped the bomb. Then they found out they’d been protecting part of the atomic bomb. Franklin: Right. Barnett: But I had no fears about it. I went down the irrigation ditch—there used to be an irrigation ditch that ran through town that started—it had two, three ponds on Wellsian Way that were the settling ponds for Richland’s water system. And we used to go there and swim in them. One of the ponds they eventually made a juvenile fishing pond. And the irrigation ditch runs from there, clear down to where the hospital is, down in front of the hospital, several ponds down through the hospital and then under—well, through the Uptown district, one of them went through the Uptown district, and one went to the Columbia River. And wasn’t until ’48 that they finally put a pump in there, because in ’48 when they built the dam—they built the dike, rather—the irrigation ditches plugged up. So they had to put up a pump station in so they could pump the water irrigation ditch up into the river. We used to fish in that. We used to go down there and slide down—slide over where the pump was, because it was all slick and slimy. We’d put on an old pair of jeans and go down there and slide into the water. I mean, that’s things kids then. Nowadays they wouldn’t even think about it. My mother told me when I could swim 25 feet, I could go in the river by myself. Mainly because you didn’t go to the river too often in the winter; you went in the summer. And there’s not a place in the Yakima, if you can swim 25 feet, you can’t get back to the shore. So I spent all my—most weekends and spare time at the Yakima River playing around. Franklin: Wow. What about—maybe you could talk a little bit about the growth of Richland and kind of the building of some of the major hallmarks, like the Uptown and the— Barnett: Well, the Uptown was built—the rest of it closed up, but originally the Uptown—as you come into Uptown off to the left—that was a big theater. And we used to have a big matinee. The Spudnut’s shop has always been there. I can remember going to the movie on a Saturday and the lineup for the movie—I think it was 20 cents for a movie then. But it was clear past the Spudnut shop. We used to watch the owner there making the Spudnuts while we were waiting to get into the movies. Franklin: Has that been in its same location-- Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: --in the mall? Barnett: Spudnut’s has been there ever since it started. They originally were out there in Kennewick. If you go in there and pick up their menu, they have a little story about where they started. They started out there in the Wye. Franklin: That’s great. And what else about it? Because Richland kind of developed out towards-- Barnett: Well, Newberry’s was on the other end of the Uptown district. That was kind of a department store type. I think the only one I saw was about 15 years ago, and that was in the Dalles, Oregon. I don’t even know if they exist anymore. The downtown district, every year we had different contests for the kids. They had marble shooting contests and bubblegum blowing contests—all kind of contests to keep the kids’ interest. Franklin: Right. Barnett: At that time, the—what is it? The Allied Arts, or was that in the Atomic Frontier Days? Franklin: Can you talk maybe a little bit about the Atomic Frontier—do you remember going to the parades? Barnett: Yeah. They had a lot of the old western movie stars come to the Atomic Frontier Days. Franklin: Like—do you remember any names in particular? Barnett: No, I don’t. Like I say, a kid doesn’t retain names like that. He hears them and doesn’t retain them. But my dad, apparently, knew a couple of them, so he visited with them. It started out as just a celebration of Hanford and stuff. And then it worked into the Allied Arts show. Franklin: Okay. And do you remember any particulars of those celebrations, like the parade—the floats, or— Barnett: Well, there wasn’t any parade. There wasn’t any parade, and where Howard Amon Park is, there used to be a swimming pool. You know where it makes a turnaround? Well, there off to the right there used to be a swimming pool. And right now, they still got the old children’s swimming pool there, but then there was a regular swimming pool in the water. And in 1948 when the big flood came, it filled up full of water and they ended up breaking it up and burying it and building the Howard Prout pool. But we used to go down there and swim just about every day. And we’d go to the other end of the park and pick peaches, because it used to be a peach orchard. Because there were orchards all over town. Where Jason Lee was—the old Jason Lee—that was a cherry orchard. Where Densow is, that was a cherry orchard. Carmichael had an orchard. There was orchards all over town. Because this was an agriculture district at the time the government bought it and moved in. Franklin: Were you in any clubs or— Barnett: I was a boy scouts. Franklin: --organizations? Boy Scouts? Barnett: Yeah. We had—one that sticks in my mind the most was we had one of our young scouts drowned at the Uptown. That’s the one I mentioned. He went on an inner tube, fell in the water and drowned. That was in ’48. And actually, the water where the hospital was, the irrigation ditch you got there, that was 15-foot deep at that time. Franklin: Wow. Barnett: That backed up so much, they—that’s when they built what they called the America Mile, the dike. They called all the earthmovers from Hanford out to Richland to build that dike. Because when they started, the water was lapping over the edge to go into the houses. And they poured that thing in about 24 hours. Franklin: Wow, that’s amazing. Barnett: Now, the George Washington Way was closed to all civilian traffic, and these great big earthmovers were just going down the road, 30, 40 miles an hour. Franklin: Wow. What other kinds of activities did you do in Boy Scouts? Barnett: Oh, built models. Car models. You whittle them out, put the wheels on them, all that, have races with them. Went on trips. Just normal Boy Scout stuff. Got a little more sophisticated, but just the normal Boy Scout stuff then. Franklin: Right. And so after you went to Carmichael, did you then go to Richland High? Barnett: Col High. Franklin: Col High? Barnett: [LAUGHTER] It was Col High then. Franklin: Oh. Barnett: They changed the name because there was a Col High downstream on the Columbia that had had the name before Richland High was called Col High. So they changed it to Richland High instead of Col High. Franklin: Oh. But was the mascot always still the— Barnett: All the bomber. Franklin: --bombers? Okay. So the Col High Bombers? Barnett: Yup. Franklin: Okay. And when did you graduate high school? Barnett: 1957. Franklin: And then what did you do? Barnett: I went in the Air Force. I think about two months after I got out and I went in the Air Force. I already spent 27 months in the National Guards. I got in the National Guards when I was 16, and when I went to sign up for the Air Force, the squadron commander of the National Guards was—he got shook up because he enlisted me when I was 16. [LAUGHTER] So they changed the date on my discharge papers from the National Guards. So according to my discharge papers from the National Guards, I’m 78 right now. Franklin: Oh. Barnett: Those days, they did things like that, nobody thought anything about it. Franklin: Wow, yeah. Barnett: Because if you were warm they took you into the military then. Franklin: Right. [LAUGHTER] And what did you—describe your time in the Air Force. Barnett: Well, of course there was basic training. The first place I went was Westover, Massachusetts—that’s Springfield, Massachusetts. And that was a total culture shock for me, because I grew up in a comparatively small city. And Springfield then had over 100,000 people in it. Franklin: Right, and I guess, too, at this point you would have completely grown up when Richland was a government— Barnett: Yup. Franklin: --still was all government space. Barnett: Yup, they sold it while I was in the Air Force. Franklin: Can—actually I guess maybe we can back up a little bit. What strikes you, maybe looking back on that, or— Barnett: I watched them build the Alphabet Houses. And there wasn’t one or two people on the houses; there was five or six building these houses. And they seemed to go up overnight. One of the things that I don’t know is fact or not, but knowing the government it probably was—is they were supposed to build half basements for a coal fire furnace, a coal bin, and two tubs, and place for a washing machine. The contractors screwed up on some of them and built a full basement. And the government found out about it and made them go back in and seal half the basement with dirt. [LAUGHTER] Typical government. Franklin: Were your—granted you were a kid at this point, but was your sense—were people happy— Barnett: Oh yeah! Franklin: living in a government-controlled and -owned town? Barnett: Nobody thought anything about it. There was very little crime. Because at that time, there was only about two, three ways to get out of Richland. So there was nobody causing any big deal. And if you got in a whole bunch of trouble—you didn’t live in Richland unless you worked at Hanford. And if your kids got into too much trouble, they told the parents, you calm them down or go find another job. So it was stopped. Franklin: Right. Did you—was Richland mostly a white community at that time? Right? Were there any other— Barnett: Yeah, there was—one, I think there was only one black community in Richland—Norris Brown. And I think they lived in Putnam. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: I remember we had a basketball game in Sunnyside. And Sunnyside wasn’t gonna let them play on their court. And we told them, fine, we’ll just get up and leave. So we all started to get up and leave and they finally broke it and gave in and let them play on the basketball court. Franklin: How did you know this family? Did you go to school together? Barnett: Yeah, I went to school with them. Franklin: Oh okay, and did you play basketball? Barnett: No! I’m not a sports—I had my first surgery on my knee when I was about 13, so— Franklin: Oh, wow. Barnett: I’ve never played any sports. My sporting then was hunting and fishing. Franklin: But you kind of heard about this story? Barnett: Oh, yeah. We all know them. Went to basketball games. Then there was sock hops and at noon they taught dancing in the lunchrooms for kids that wanted to learn how to dance. Franklin: So do you know what the patriarch of that family would have done at Hanford to be able to earn a place at Hanford? Because mostly from what I’ve heard, mostly African Americans had to live in Pasco. Barnett: Yeah, because they wouldn’t let them live in Richland—I mean Kennewick. Franklin: Yeah, in Kennewick. So how did—do you know any particulars as to how that family was able to live in Richland? Barnett: I think it’s just that the government—that they had to be equal on them, and they just hired them and they went to work out there. I don’t know any particulars on it, but that’s basic what it was. Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: They were in a government town, and there was no way that anybody could refuse—and there was nobody that complained about it. Franklin: Right. Barnett: Again, the government controlled it. They said, if you don’t like it, goodbye. Franklin: Right. And they would—they called the government for pretty much anything you needed on the house, right? For coal? Barnett: Right. Lightbulbs, chains, coal. But coal was delivered once a—I don’t know whether it was once a month or once a week. But coal was automatically delivered. And like I say, if there was anything major done, you called the housing department. They came in and fixed it. Franklin: I think sometimes for outsiders looking in, it’s kind of striking to hear about the government completely owning this town and controlling the lives of the people and having that much control on people’s freedoms and responsibility. But from the people I’ve talked to who grow up in Richland, they have very fond memories of it. Barnett: Yeah, there was no restrictions on the normal freedoms. There was restriction on if your kids got into trouble, because, like I said, the patrol would go up to the person that had the kids that were causing the problem and said you either straighten your kids out or you go and find another job. Which, to me, made common sense. And so it was actually pretty decent. Franklin: Did you ever get any sense from your parents that they felt, maybe, restricted, not being able to own their own home or do any of their own repairs, or did they just— Barnett: No, not then. I think—that was just after the Depression—I think they were just happy to be able to get a home. Franklin: Right. Interesting. Because, you know, for some people looking outside, you could look at that level of government control—because we have these big debates about the role of the government in society today, and it’s kind of interesting to hear about it. Barnett: Well, there was no control where the government come in and said, you do this and you do that and you do this. As long as you didn’t get into trouble and you did your job, and were a normal person, there was nobody ever complained about it. I remember I was back behind where the Racquet Club is. I was hunting ground squirrels with a .22 one day. And at that time, nobody had any problems with it. And one of the Richland patrol people came and picked me up and brought me back to the patrol station. And he called my dad. My dad come in and he says, what’s wrong? He says, we caught your boy shooting .22s at such-and-such area. He said, well, is he aiming at the road? Said, no. Said, did he shoot it at anybody? Said, no. Then what the hell are you bothering me about? I mean, that’s just how it was in those times. It wasn’t any of this, oh my god, he’s got a gun. It just was normal. Because I had my first rifle when I was about—I must have been about eight years old. And we used to go out and go rabbit hunting. Franklin: Did you ever spend much time in Kennewick or Pasco—in either of those--? Barnett: Not really. My wife was born in Pasco. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: I never spent much time in it because I had no reason to. I mean, it wasn’t the case of I was afraid to or wary about it—just I had no reason to. All, everything I needed was in Richland or around the Richland area. Franklin: Why did you first have to get surgery on your knee at 13? Barnett: Well, my knee locked. I didn’t find out until about 25 years later that the doctor had actually not fixed it. Because what they found out was there was a meniscus cartilage—you know in your knee? And mine was oblong and it had broke in half. And it had slipped between the joint and it had locked my knee so I couldn’t straighten it out. So I’d have to pick it up, lay it across the other leg, and pull it and pop it back out. But that was the first—I was accident prone. I had a radical mastoid when I was about 15. By the time I got out of high school, I probably had 100 stitches in me. I mean, if it happened, I did it and got it happened to me. I was playing baseball, jumped over a fence, and landed on a guard rake with the thongs up—four thongs in one of my foot. Franklin: Ouch. Barnett: Weird things like that are always happening to me. One time, when I was in school, I reached up to open a door and a kid slammed it and put my hand through the window, sliced across this way. And I looked at it, bleeding, and I closed it up and went to the nurse’s office. The nurse got all panicky. She called my mom, and I could hear my mom say over the phone real loud, again?! And the nurse must’ve thought she was the hard-heartest old lady there ever was, but my mother was just used to it. Franklin: Yeah, right. Barnett: And I didn’t do things out of the way to have it happen, just—if it’s gonna be an odd thing, it happened. Franklin: Right. Barnett: So I kind of, like I say, with all this mess I got with my knee now, I call it Young Stupid Male Syndrome, a lot of it. I don’t—I get frustrated with it, because I love to garden and I can’t garden anymore. But I don’t get worried or depressed about it, because it’s there and nothing I can do about it, so just live with it. Franklin: Right. So jump back ahead now. So you said you moved to Springfield in the Air Force for basic training, and that was— Barnett: No, I was—San Antonio for basic training, and then to Springfield. Franklin: And that was a big culture shock. Barnett: Oh, yeah. I mean, I drove a vehicle and drove into town to haul officers into town. And here is a town with 100,000 people and I’d never been in anything bigger than Richland, Washington. So you can imagine the shock it was, being in that kind of traffic. Franklin: Right. And then where did you go after that? Barnett: Well, I was there for about a year-and-a-half, two years. Then I went to Thule, Greenland. Franklin: Interesting. Barnett: Top of the world. Franklin: Yeah. And what were you—was that for the—weren’t there bombers stationed— Barnett: No, they had the fueling planes there. Yes, they had SAC planes all over the world at that time. But at Thule they had the KC-135s and the KC-97s that were fueling planes. Franklin: Right. Barnett: So we were there to support them. Franklin: And those were there to refuel the— Barnett: The B-52s. Franklin: --the B-52s that were carrying weapons in case of-- Barnett: Yup, because there was one from every base in the world in the air 24 hours a day. Franklin: Right. And can you talk—what was that like, to be in—and was the base separated from any other communities in Greenland, or did you-- Barnett: It was a base of its own. There were no other communities besides Thule, that’s it. Franklin: And how long were you there? Barnett: Year. Franklin: And what was that like? Barnett: Well, it’s an interesting place to visit, but you don’t want to live there permanently. [LAUGHTER] Let’s put it that way. They have permafrost which is—oh, I guess about two foot down. So in the spring there are all these little beautiful tundra flowers—yellows and whites and all that. And then when they’re gone it’s just green grass and that’s it. And when they went to put a pole in the ground, they put a can—a barrel of oil in the ground, and light the oil, and then dig around that barrel. Because that’s the only way to get down past the permafrost. Because permafrost is almost like concrete. Franklin: Yes, yeah. I’m from Alaska originally, and so I’m very familiar with permafrost. So after Greenland, where did you go? Barnett: Went to Mountain Home Air Force Base. Franklin: And where is that? Barnett: Idaho, Washington. Franklin: Oh, okay. So kind of close to-- Barnett: Yeah, out in Mountain Home. They had B-47s then at Mountain Home. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: I figured out that they actually phased out B-47s because they were built before the B-52s and they figured the B-47s weren't worth keeping around. Franklin: And what did you do in the Air Force? Barnett: I drove. I drove every kind of vehicle you can think of. Franklin: Oh, really? Barnett: Yeah. When I moved to Fairchild from Mountain Home, I was trained to tow B-52s in the back, in the hangars. Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: With a five-ton Yuke. Four-wheel drive, five ton, and you had wing walkers on the outside that would guide you, and you would back this thing up, this big B-52 into a hangar. Franklin: Wow. Barnett: They would pull it down to a fueling station or whatever. Franklin: Cool. And then when did you come back to Richland? Barnett: 1965. I got out to Richland and we moved to--I can't remember the address, but it was on Marshall. We moved to a house on Marshall. Franklin: Was it an Alphabet House, or was it a-- Barnett: Yeah, it was an Alphabet House. I remember it most because the neighbors had a monkey. And the monkey kept stealing my daughter's candy from her. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: So you said--wait, so by this point you had a family? Barnett: Yeah, I had--I adopted my oldest boy and I had two children. Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: They were all born at Fairchild. Franklin: Okay. And a wife, I presume? Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: And what did your wife do in Richland? Barnett: She was just a mother. But we divorced in about '70. And then I remarried. Franklin: Okay. And what did you do when you came back to Richland? Barnett: Anything I could. I worked at O'Malley's Drug Store for a while. I worked at his house--O'Malley's house, leveled his backyard. I worked at Walter's Grape Juice, I worked at Bell Furniture, I worked at—at that time, it was originally called the Mart, at that big building right next to the Federal Building. At one time, that was a big--what would you call it? They had a cafeteria and a grocery store and all the other—kind of like Walmart. Franklin: Right. Barnett: It was called the Mart at that time. And I worked there in the clippers that they washed the dishes with. And then I went to work for the bowling alley, Atomic Lanes, which was right there where the Jacks and Sons Tavern is. That was a community center and a bowling alley there. And I worked there for about a month, and then they went automatic. So, about that time, I was just about ready to get out—finish high school. And I don't think I had any other job after that, and I went in the Air Force. Franklin: Oh, so--I'm sorry. When you came back to Richland, what did you do? So in 1965. Barnett: Oh, I did everything then. You name it, I took a job. Before—I'm sorry, I got it backwards. Before I went in the Air Force, there wasn't many jobs for people in the—who were kids in Richland. And I worked the bowling alley and I worked down at a dry cleaning outfit. But when I come back to Richland, that's when I had all these other jobs. I worked all these other jobs to keep supplied for the family. Franklin: How had Richland changed in the eight years since you had been gone? Barnett: Well, the Uptown district had--the Newberry's had left. And there was a Safeway store right next to the theater. Right now I think it's a—I don't know, some kind of a multi shop deal. And both of the stores that were there originally are gone. They're now all antique stores. Franklin: Right. Barnett: So it was—when it was built, it was the first big complex for going shopping in Tri-Cities. Franklin: Right. Barnett: And after they built that, they built Highlands. And that was another big complex for shopping. So I worked everything I could, and 19--oh, what was it? [SIGH] About '67 or '68, I went to work at Hanford. I finally got on with them. Because I'd been applying at Hanford for three years. And I finally got to work with them. I won't mention how I got to work for them, because to me, it's kind of a ridiculous deal, and I don't know whether it was prejudice or not. Well, I'll go ahead. Franklin: I was gonna say, now you've got my interest. Barnett: I was--how I'd shop for a job, I'd go out and fill out an employment application, and I'd just distribute--go out all over town and fill out employment applications. And every week, I'd go back and check them. Well, one time, I was filling out an appointment application, and one of the guys I knew, I met him, and he said, hey, there's a new employment office over there at the new Whitaker School. And you might check it out. So I went over there and checked it out and signed up. And three days later, Hanford called me for a job. And I found out that that originally was a minority employment office. Franklin: Oh. Barnett: So I've always had the feeling that somebody didn't look at the records right. They didn't see the C. [LAUGHTER] Because I didn't get hired until I went to there and did an application. Because the government was required to hire a certain number of minority-- Franklin: Right. Well, but you did get hired. Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: So what did you do at Hanford? Barnett: Well, I can say as little as possible, like everybody else. [LAUGHTER] That's a common joke. Of course, it took me about--I couldn't understand it. It took me about three months to get a security clearance. When I was in SAC, I had a Secret clearance. Both my folks worked at Hanford, they had Secret clearance. But it still took me about three months to get a security clearance. And all the time, since I've been on the Air Force, I've lived in Richland, I never could understand the government—why they wasted so much money on a security clearance for me. But when I got out there, I started as a process operator. And started at B Plant. And there was no training at that time. I mean, when you went into a radiation zone, one of the guys that was experienced took you with him. And you dressed like he did, hoping he knew what he was doing, because that's how you dressed. And that's how you learned to dress right. So I started out going into the canyon--I don't know if you knew what the canyons were—okay? We went into the canyons and I helped mixed chemicals in the chemical gallery. And that's where I think I really screwed up my knees, because I can remember—remember, I call it Young Stupid Male Syndrome--I remember throwing a hundred-pound sack of chemicals on my shoulder and going up three flights of stairs with them, rather than wait for the elevator. Young and dumb, indestructible. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Actually, maybe for those who might be watching this who might not be as familiar with some of this stuff as I am, can you describe the canyon? Barnett: Well, the canyon was—well, like I say, the building was about 150-foot wide and about 800-foot long. And it was four stories deep and there was just one--the reason they call it canyon was because it was a gigantic canyon. It went the full length of the building, and they had huge cranes that moved different stuff so they could process the atomic waste. Because in B Plant, they process the nuclear waste. They ship it down to B Plant and we go through chemical stuff to separate the strontium and cesium from it. And that would be sent to the encapsulation plant. That was built about—oh, six years after I went to work at B Plant. They closed up after I'd been there for ten years, and I went to work for Encapsulation Building. But the canyon is an immensely big, empty storage building, really what it is. And I don't know how—or what they're gonna do with them now, because there is some radiation there that you wouldn't believe how hot it was. We took samples of radiation behind lead shields, and then they were so hot that they ended up having the crane pick up the samples and dispose of them, because we couldn't move them. Franklin: Wow. Did you—and so when you came back, your father was no longer working at Hanford, right? Barnett: Yeah, he was still working at Hanford. Franklin: Oh, was he still working—so you guys worked at Hanford at the same time. Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: Oh, wow, that's really interesting. So can you tell me a little bit more about what a—describe in a little more detail the job of a process operator? Barnett: Well, real basically, we were what you might call nuclear janitors. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: We clean up the messes that pipe fitters or millwrights or electricians made. We process all the chemical--mixed all the chemicals and processed—did all the processing of separating the strontium and cesium from the nuclear waste and ship them to tank farms. And that was basically what our main job was. We had a few major accidents. Now it'd be all over the world, about how bad it was and all that. But we just went about our business cleaning it up and went on our job. None of us got an overdose of radiation. We relied on our radiation monitors and they were good radiation monitors. If we were getting too much, they yanked us out of there real quick. So we didn't even think about it. It wasn't the case of being scared of it or anything else. It's like your hazardous wastes that they got, like coming from the hospital, where they work in an x-ray lab, they throw all the gloves and stuff and that. That's called mixed hazardous waste. Well, you could take a bath in that and not get any radiation on you. But according to what the public knew, those things are really highly radioactive boxes. And I think the biggest problem the government had is they didn't tell the people enough about what was really going on after the war was over. Franklin: Oh. Really? Barnett: Yeah, because there would have been less worry about things that were going on then, if they would have known. Because if you don't know anything about radiation, and you hear somebody mentions something is irradiated, you get all panicky about it. The expression for radiation out there was, you get a crap up. You get a crap up, you scrub it off and go about your business. Now, they panic and take you to town and do all that sort of stuff. There, we just scrubbed it off and went about our business. Franklin: Right. Barnett: And I never worried about it. Franklin: Okay. So you said you were a process separator at B Plant. And then you went to the Canyon, and what did you do-- Barnett: Well, I didn't go to the Canyon, I went to 225-B, the Encapsulation Building. Franklin; 225-B, the Encapsulation Building. Barnett: That's where they encapsulated the strontium and cesium. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: We all did a multitude of jobs. We worked on the cells, processing the strontium and cesium. And we worked behind the cells in mixing chemicals and we worked from when they loaded the chemicals for shipment for a long period of time when they were shipping cesium to the radiation plant for irradiating medical waste. And that ended when the guy was what they called recycling the cesium capsules too much. They get real hot. I mean, temperature-wise. And he was setting it in the water for a period of time and taking it out of water and cooling them off and stashing them back in the water. Well, one of them leaked. Franklin: Ooh. Barnett: And so they ended up, the whole place had to have all those capsules moved back. So that was a big fiasco. And again, it wasn't our fault. It was the guy doing the work was stupid enough to not check and see what he was doing. Franklin: Right. Barnett: And that's usually what happens with most—any of the radiation. And if you work with radiation, it's not the guy doing the work, it's somebody that's stupid and doesn't check what he's doing, doesn't follow regulations that causes the problem. Franklin: So did you have any other jobs at Hanford? Or what-- Barnett: I don't know, you ever heard of McCluskey? Franklin: Yeah. Barnett: Well, I was over there when we cleaned—for five weeks cleaning up that building. Franklin: Really? Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: Were you there at the time of the accident-- Barnett: No, no. Franklin: --or part of the cleanup for that? Barnett: Afterwards. They were trying to clean up the rooms so they could go in there and get things squared away. And we spent five weeks there. And to tell you how screwball the government can be, the last week-and-a-half we were there, we finally told our supervisor, look, all of worked on this radiation for 15, 20 years. We know how to clean it up. Quit telling us what to do. Let us go in there and clean it up and we'll get it cleaned up for you in no time at all. So they took a chance. And what they did is we ragged all along the bottom of the building, and we took water fire extinguishers. Because it's americium, and americium is a powder substance, it floats real easy. But it's water soluble--it'll run down with water. So we went in there and sprayed the walls with it real heavy. Then wiped everything down, moved everything that was movable, bagged it up in plastic bags and moved it out. And inside of a week, we had it down to mask only. Before then, we were wearing three pairs of plastic and cooling air and fresh air. Franklin: Wow. Barnett: And we cleaned it up in a week-and-a-half because they didn't want the people that knew what they were doing doing it. And that's the biggest problem with the government: they've always got the bureaucracy up here that knows what's going on, but they never ask the poor guy that’s doing all the work what's going on. I think you've seen that numerous times. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: I think so. [LAUGHTER] Wow, that's really fascinating. So how long total did you work at Hanford? Barnett: 30 years. Franklin: 30 years. Barnett: I had to take a medical retirement in '98. Franklin: '98. So then you were there, then, kind of from the shift from production to cleanup. Right? The production and shutdown. Barnett: No, when I left they were just getting ready to start cleaning things up. Franklin: Okay, so can you maybe talk about the shift from production to shutdown? How did that affect your job? Barnett: Well, I really didn't get in on any of the cleanup, because I left before they did. But I talked to a number of the guys out there that I worked with that were in the cleanup. The biggest problem they had is they put such a limit on chemicals they could use to do cleanup that they had to use things that they claim were not environmentally safe. They had to void all that--like Tide. They wouldn't even let us use Tide to wash the walls down. Now, you use Tide in washing machines. [LAUGHTER] Come on, give me a break. That's a hazardous chemical? And I guess it took them quite a while to get the thing cleaned up. Because, like I say, they didn't start cleaning it up until after I left. Franklin: Right. So what did you do in the shutdown era? Like after '87, from '87 to '98? What was your job primarily? Barnett: They didn't shut down--they shut B Plant down, but they didn't shut 2-and-a-quarter down. 2-and-a-quarter was still processing strontium and cesium. Franklin: Oh, okay, so then you kept in the waste encapsulation. Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: Can you describe a little bit more the process of waste encapsulation? Barnett: Well, strontium is not soluble--not water soluble. And strontium is. And what they had--they had a special process--I don't know exactly the process. I just know what we did. You would take a mixed chemicals with the cesium and you would dissolve it and then you would heat it up to--I think--800 degrees into a liquid. And then you had a machine we called a tilt-pour which would pour seven capsules at a time full of cesium. And then you'd take these capsules and you'd put a sensoring disc in them to make them airtight. And then you'd weld a cap onto that. That'd be welded by a machine. And most then it was computerized. Then that was decontaminated until it was clean. And then it was put into another capsule, and that capsule was also—put a lid on it, but it was soldered on—welded on. And that was moved into the pool cells. Pool cells are 13-foot deep. What you had is a special hole built into the wall with water that you would shove that capsule through. And then the guy on the other side in the pool cell would grab the capsule and pull it out. And he would go to the pool cell that he's designated to go to, and he would shove it through a hole in the wall. And somebody on the other side would grab it and pull it and then you'd put it into its spot. So it was quite a process. And the fear was--you couldn't get that capsule within five feet of the top. Because if you did, you'd get a high radiation alarm. They’d read millions of rads on those capsules. They were hot, no two ways about it. And one thing I've always wondered is why does cesium glow blue when you turn the lights out? Franklin: Wow. Barnett: You turn the lights out in the pool cell, and all these cesium capsules will glow blue. And I've never--I've had somebody say it's something about the speed of light and all that. But I'd like to know the real reason it does that. Franklin: That sounds kind of strangely beautiful. Barnett: It was. It's a blue glow all along the bottom. The strontium doesn't. Strontium is not water soluble and it doesn't glow at all. In fact, I got some strontium in me one time when I had a tape when one of the manipulators--I don't know if I didn't mention--all the work was done from the outside with the manipulators. You know what manipulators are. Franklin: Right, yeah. Barnett: Okay, and all the capsulation, all of the work was done with manipulators from the outside. And it was amazing what some of those guys could do. They could take a little bottle about so big with a little bitty top and they could pick up that bottle, hold it here, and took up the other--the cap with the lid and put it on it. Franklin: Wow. Barnett: I was never that good with it, but there some guys out there who got real expertise with that. It just takes a lot of work to learn to use those things. Franklin: I bet. Barnett: That's one reason my hand's tore up--my hand just didn't take it so much. Franklin: And you said you got strontium on your hand? Barnett: Yeah, I got--I couldn't handle manipulators good because my hand was falling apart on me. So I took all the decontamination of the manipulator. Because that's--a manipulator has to be pulled after so many--I think it's so many weeks, the Mylar coating on it starts deteriorating. So it has to be pulled, decontaminated, and new Mylar sheath put on it. And I was in there decontaminating one of the manipulators, and one of the—well, they were trying new bands that controlled the grips. And one of them broke and sliced my hand. And I got some strontium in my finger. It was about 700 counts. I wasn't too worried about it. But they took me to town and went on all government roads, documented and everything and brought me back. I couldn't work with radiation for about three months until that thing finally deteriorated--worked out of the body. Franklin: Wow. Barnett: But I didn't worry about it. It wasn't enough to do any harm. Franklin: Wow, that's really-- Barnett: See, that's the difference between working with the stuff and knowing what it does, and not working with the stuff. Franklin: Right. Right, I've heard a lot of similar things about-- Barnett: It's like chemicals. I'd rather work at a radiation plant than at a chemical plant. Because if you have good radiation monitors, you're not gonna get an overdose of radiation. But with a chemical plant, look what they have out there now. A guy gets a whiff of chemicals, they all go panic about it. Franklin: Yeah, I see where you're--I see your point. So you said--earlier when you said you would put the cesium in the pools—cesium cans, you couldn't get them too close to something, because they'd get too hot. Sorry--can you-- Barnett: No, it wasn't too close--they're in--oh, it probably was a--well, what would you call it? It was like a cabinet with holes in it. You would drop these in there. And they're spaced out. You couldn't pull them too high. Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: If you pulled them sometimes when you're getting ready to transfer them to the pool cell, they would hydroplane and come up. And if you pulled them too fast, they would come up and you'd get a high radiation alarm. You’d just drop it back down and it'd go off. Franklin: Oh, okay. Barnett: That's what it was. Franklin: I got--okay. I gotcha. So-- Barnett: It only takes one time, you remember not to do that anymore. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: [LAUGHTER] I bet. So even though your area—your work didn't change much when most of the plans ordered to shut down. You still probably worked with a lot of people whose jobs might have changed-- Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: --during shutdown. Can you talk about that transition between process--? Barnett: Well, I talked with some of the guys and they were talking about how much work it took to get things cleaned up. Like the area behind the pool cells, that had to be completely decontaminated. And we finally got it down to where it was just one pair and no masks. That took a lot of work. Decontaminating just takes a lot of hand-scrubbing. I mean, it's not a case of, you can put something there and pick it up and get rid of it. You got a scrub a lot of places until it's gone. It takes a lot of work. And I talked to one fella, and he said that they had all the cells that were down to clean—and what they consider clean is no radiation in them. And it is hard for me to believe, because some of those cells were really hot. But I never got a chance on the cleanup. Franklin: How was--so when Hanford was shifting over, how was this change explained by management, or some of the--how was it conveyed, or how did the community take it? Barnett: Management never explained anything to anybody. [LAUGHTER] I don't remember hearing the community complaining about anything, because most of the guys worked out there, and they knew what was going on. So there was no big panic about it. It wasn't the case where some guys didn't work here, they were told this was going on and got all excited because they didn’t know what was going on. Most people knew what was going on. So there was no big panic that I remember. Franklin: Okay. Barnett: We didn't panic with radiation, because we had good radiation monitors. Franklin: Right. Barnett: And that makes a big difference when you're working around radiation. Franklin: So being in waste encapsulation, how did other events--other nuclear accidents around the country or around the world, like Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, kind of affect how your job or how-- Barnett: It made us see how ridiculous--because Three Mile Island actually worked. It was [UNKNOWN] what it was built for. And the moderation they got--radiation they got was not as much as you get flying from here to Denver City. Because you get more radiation from the sun than you do from—what the people at Three Mile Island got. But they blew it up so big, because so many years the government kept radiation such a secret. And that's the reason there's so much panic whenever they say radiation. Of course, there's been some real bad accidents. That one in Japan—that was a horrible thing. But as far as Hanford goes, most of the people that worked at Hanford don't—I guess they're not working around radiation anymore; it's all chemicals. Because they're getting—they get the chemicals and to me, that's the management's problem. Because they're doing something wrong in taking care of the people. The people are doing what they're told to do. If management is telling them, hey, you got to wear this, and they're not wearing it, then that's their problem—that’s the worker's problem. But when the management doesn't do anything about it, that's their problem—that’s management's problem. And I think from what I've heard and read, most of this is a managerial problem. It's not a case that the worker is going out of his way to ignore any safety concerns. Franklin: Right. What about the accident in Chernobyl? How did that--did that affect your job, or-- Barnett: Yeah, it affected it because they shut down N Reactor. And N Reactor, up until then, was as safe as any reactor in the country. It had so many safety pieces on it that you could darn near slam a door and make it shut down. But they shut it down because it was something like Chernobyl. And that's where the big effect was. Franklin: How did--oh, how did security policies change over time? Did they change with the different contractors or in response to different events? Barnett: No, the security’s main thing was basically the same. You had the security guards at like 200 East—well, they left the security guards that you couldn’t get out to Hanford without a security clearance. But that quit because they had the buses, and that stopped. And they had the security guards checking the buses and stuff as you went through. And then typical government, they started screaming about, oh, we're burning too much gas. We can't afford gas! So we'll shut the buses down. [LAUGHTER] So everybody had to drive out. But the guards at the gate checked your badges, checked your cars. If there was anything in it--you couldn’t take cameras or anything like that out there. If the guard knew you, he checked you out whether he knew you or not, because he had to make sure your wife didn't leave a camera sitting in your backseat you didn't know about. Franklin: Right. Barnett: Which happened on occasion. Franklin: Right, I bet. How did your job change with the different contractors coming in? Did it change much, or did you-- Barnett: Well, every contractor that came in, the engineers thought they were gonna remake the world. They would come up with some plan that they saw on a schematic and say, this is the way we want to do it. And we'd tell them point blank, it won't work. We've tried it that way. And they say, oh yes, it will! So we'd spend $50,000 in parts and stuff to put this together, and then it didn't work. And then they went around, well, why didn't it work? Well. The only one I ever saw that was a decent engineer is when he'd draw up a plan to do something, he would go to the millwrights, he would go to the operators, he'd go to the instrument techs and ask them to look at it and see if there's anything that needs done on it. And he had never had any problems. But these that come straight out of school and thought they could reinvent the world were a pain in the butt to us because they cost money and time. Franklin: Do you remember who that good engineer was? Barnett: He left. I don't remember who he was. But he left and went to work for a big company some place. Franklin: Oh, okay. Do you remember President Nixon's visit in--I think it was 1970 or 1971? Barnett: I might have. I didn't see him. I don't worry about politics. Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Barnett: He didn't do our place any good or any bad. Just a big political statement. Franklin: How did the Tri-Cities change from when you came back in 1968 until today? What kind of strikes you as major changes? Barnett: Well, there seem to be more, you might say, petty crimes. There wasn't as much as there was before--there was more than there was before, I should say. But the city maintained its equilibrium about the same, because the people have been here for 20 years, and then they sold the city to the town. There was no big change in the government. The police stayed the same. The biggest change was you had to call a painter if you wanted your house painted. And they sold the houses to the people, and that was the biggest change. Franklin: How about, though, since—from when you came back in 1968 until today? Has there been any--has the community changed at all? Barnett: Well, a lot of the businesses have left Richland. They moved out Columbia Center area, or up there in that area. We don't have--you got to go to Columbia Center to find a business. There's a few still there. There's Home Depot and stuff like that down there, Big Lots. But there's not as many as there used to be. And mostly antique shops or stereo shops. Franklin: Right. Barnett: But there's always the Spudnut. It's always been there. Franklin: There is always the Spudnuts, yeah. They're good too. Is there anything else that I haven't asked you about that you'd like to talk about? Barnett: Well, us kids had different ways of playing that nowadays they would just panic about it. We used to have BB gun fights. We’d put on leather jackets and extra pair of Levi's and a hat and go into these orchards like where Densow's was and we'd have BB gun fights. And you haven't really lived until you've had your butt shot by a BB. [LAUGHTER] But nowadays there'd be some big panic about it that you're gonna shoot an eye out. Well, nobody ever shot an eye out because we made sure that we didn't shoot towards the head. [LAUGHTER] When they were building the houses, that's what was amazing, how fast they put these houses up. It wasn't a week or so to get a house started--it was almost a week and they had the thing almost done. And we used to go to different houses and have clod fights. Things like that that you don't dare do nowadays. Franklin: When you had what kind of fights? Barnett: Clod fights. Clodded earth. We'd get behind stuff and throw clods at each other. And the snow then was two, three foot deep. Because I remember building snow forts in my yard three foot high and never have to go to the yard to get snow. So there has been a big change in the weather. And the shelterbelt, that made a big difference, because I remember when we had sandstorms--not dust storms, sandstorms. And my dad would pull his car up in front of the house to keep the sand from blasting the side of the car off--the paint. So there's been big changes. The shelterbelt was one thing the government put in that actually worked. It’s kind of surprising. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That's great. Is there anything else? Anything else you'd like to talk about? Barnett: Well, not really. Just that the area behind--you know, in West Richland at that time used to be Heminger City and Enterprise. They were two cities then. Franklin: Okay, tell me, were those cities that predated the Hanford Project? Barnett: Yeah. Franklin: Okay, and how big were there? Barnett: Oh, they were just little communities. It was just one run into the other. There was one called Enterprise, one was called--what did I just say? Franklin: Something city. Barnett: Heminger City. Franklin: Heminger City. Barnett: One of the elections went out for voting, they had one of the places that you went to was called Enterprise. Franklin: And how long did those communities last after Hanford came? Barnett: Not very long. I can remember Dad going out to the first town—first little town was Heminger City. And that was right where Cline's computer shop is, it was automobile shop there. And those were all owned by one group--one person. I think it was--Herricks was the name. And she had a little taco stand in one of the places. And OK Tire Shop had part of the one building that they sold tires and did car repair out of. So it was a slow change in West Richland. We had a feed store for a while. But Hanford went on strike and our feed store went down the tubes. They used to have what they called parking lot critter sells. People would bring all their animals, little animals that they wanted to sell in cages. And we would sell them for them and get 10% of the interest. It was a pretty good deal, because a lot of people had pet rabbits and stuff like that and they wanted to get rid of them. Usually had them at the un-boat races. You heard of the un-boat races? Franklin: Why don't you tell me? Barnett: The un-boat races? You ever heard of them? Franklin: Why don't you tell me? Barnett: Well, the un-boat race was you went up to the Horn Rapids Dam, and you put something in. It could not be a boat. It could be a bath tub, it could be inner tubes--it could be anything that you could see above that would float and it could not be called--it was called un-boat race. And there was a prize that they got down towards the bridge that crosses the Yakima there on George Washington Way. Got down about that far, there was a prize who got there first. But they ended up cutting that out because people left too much stuff—garbage alongside the road. They wouldn’t pick it up and take it with them when they were done with it. But that was a lot of fun. We used to stand up on the ridge. Always started about May. And we'd stand there and watch people come down the river on these un-boats. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: That sounds really fun. Anyone else have anything? Okay, well, Dan, thank you so much for talking to us today. I learned a lot of great stuff about Richland and waste encapsulation. I really appreciate it. Barnett: Okay. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:09:22 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 East Area B Plant N Reactor 225-B Encapsulation Building Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1968-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1968-1998 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Newberry O'Malley Walter Jacks 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 Daniel Barnett Description An account of the resource An interview with Daniel Barnett 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 07-14-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-08-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 1955 200 East B Plant Battelle Cold War Dam Hanford Houses K-Basin Kennewick Market N Reactor Park River School Sun swimming War https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4550fdc413dc83be66111b1f46565f48.JPG cdadd3e83c0c3187276f5e7e8afc64cf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1583c61c6744d42545aae8cd7b5f497a.mov 045fb4b829211772af34664992cc239c 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 Bob Bush Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Bush_Bob Robert Bauman: I’m going to have you start just by saying your name, first. Robert Bush: Okay, my name is Bob Bush. Bauman: My name is Robert Bauman, and we're conducting this interview with Robert, or Bob, Bush on July 17 of 2013. And we're having this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And we'll be talking with Bob about his experiences working at the Hanford site. And so I'd like to start just by having you talk about how and when you arrived at Hanford. What brought you here? Bush: Okay. During World War II, I was overseas. My parents were in the area, both of them working. My brother was also here in Pasco High School. When I came home from the service to Southern Idaho, Korean War broke out. Wages were frozen, and so I was looking to better myself. And I applied by mail. I was interviewed by telephone. And I came up here in 1951 to the accounting department, General Electric Company. They were the sole contractor. And for 15 years, in construction and engineering accounting, which was separate from plant operations at that time. And from there, my accounting career followed its path through several successive contractors. From GE to ITT, Atlantic Richfield, to Rockwell, and finally with Westinghouse. When I retired, I was with Westinghouse for one month. Bauman: You said your parents were here during the war. When did they come out? Bush: It was '43. 1943 and '44, my mother worked for the original postmaster of Richland, Ed Peddicord. And my dad was a carpenter. Built some of the first government houses called the Letter Homes. They were here about two years, I think. And then they went back to Idaho, I believe. Bauman: Okay. And what part of Idaho? Bush: Twin Falls, Idaho. Where I graduated from high school. Bauman: Okay. What were your first impressions upon arriving in the Tri-Cities? Bush: That's kind of interesting, Bob. Because I came up ahead of my wife and two--year-and-a-half old, and three-and-a-half-year-old sons. About two weeks ahead of them. And so I found a Liberty trailers to rent—the housing was nonexistent. And I found a Liberty trailer, which means it had no running water, no bathroom. It was like a camping trailer, basically. I sent for them. A brother-in-law who had graduated from high school went directly into the Korean War. He drove them up as far as Huntington. I went on a bus to Huntington and met them, came back. And as we came onto the Umatilla side, and I said, that's Washington. Well, there was no green and everybody was disappointed. But that's the first impression. I mean, there wasn't a bridge over the river in Umatilla. It was a ferry. So you drove around the horn at Wallula. Things were just really different. Bauman: So you said you had a trailer. Where was-- Bush: In Pasco on a front yard of an old pioneer home, where Lewis Street crosses 10th. That was the end on Lewis Street at 10th. And from there west was called Indiana. And there was about three homes on there. And it just quit. And roughly across from the present day Pasco School Administration Building, which was a Sears building. Across the street there was where this home was. I mean, things have just—in the whole area—have changed so much. Bauman: And how long did you live there then? Bush: Until I was called for housing in Richland, which was six months. That was in June, no air conditioning. And finally got into an apartment building, a one-bedroom before with two little boys that slept in the same crib. It was still, basically, wartime conditions. Weren't any appliances for sale and you had to stand in line to get a refrigerator. It was a different world. But we were young, so we could take it. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] And was this in Richland then, the apartment? Bush: No, that was in Pasco. After that trailer, that was only about two weeks. And then we want into this apartment, the one-bedroom. Then we moved next door to a two-bedroom in a five-plex. And then in December, six months later, I got the first--I got a housing call from the housing office in Richland, which sat where the present day police station sits. And the lady offered me—she said, you could have it Saturday. It was a prefab. It had already been worn and pulled out. And I kind of hesitated. I said, I've already got something in Pasco. Well, she said, I could let you have a brand new apartment. That apartment was brand new. It was so clean. My wife, who was very fastidious, she didn't even have to clean cupboards. And the apartments have now been torn down by Kadlec for that newest building. And in fact, this morning I just went by and took a picture of Goethals Street, which is vacated. And it was quite a pleasant move to come out of a trailer into—a non-air-conditioned cinder block building apartment into a nice, brand new apartment with air conditioning, full basement, and close to work. And at that time, my office was downtown in the so-called 700 Area, which is basically where the Federal Building is--where the Bank of America is was the police station. And that's Knight Street, I believe. From there north to Swift, and from Jadwin west to Stevens where the Tastee Freeze was, that was the 700 Area confines. Probably about 22 buildings in there. The original thing prior to computers, everything was manual bookkeeping or accounting with ledgers. And they came out with a McBee Keysort cards, and it was called electronic data processing. It was spaghetti wire with holes in the boards, that type of thing. That building had to be a special airlock building. And that's the Spencer Kenney Building beside the Gesa Building. That building is built especially to house equipment. And they just went from there. And I moved around my office. And after 15 years, I went into what they call operations. I was onsite services, which—did that for 17 years. And that was probably the better part of--second better job that I had, I guess. The transportation and everything, onsite support services. The whole point there. That job took me all over the plant. I established inventories. I took some of the first inventories of construction workers' supplies and tools and shop equipment, rolling stock. My name was Mud. They thought so much of me they gave me a desk in the corner of a big lunchroom. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So you did work at various places then? Bush: Yes. Well, yes. My very first location was in North Richland, then called North Richland Camp, where the bus lot was--the maintenance shops. I'm trying to establish a point up there—what's over there today? There's a big sand dune on your left going by the automotive shops, past the bus lot, where the bus lot was. Opposite that sand dune on the other side of Stevens was a bunch of one-story temporary buildings. That was North Richland Camp. And that's where my first accounting job was there for two or three years. I had been there—I came there in June. And in January of '52, had 22 people along in my department that I worked in. I was a junior clerk at that time. Took me four years to get onto the management roles, but I did. But anyhow, in that room they came in there six months later. After I'd only been here six months, AEC, predecessor to the OA. The AEC has taken over more management, more responsibility. So we're going to be laying off a lot of people. I had only been here six months. And so others grabbed straws and went different places. I always said either I was too ignorant or lucky, I don't know what. But I just sat still and it panned out for the better. I didn't get laid off. I moved from there. But I went downtown to the 703 Building, which stood where the Federal Building is now. There's a building to the rear that the city owns called 703. That was the fourth wing. 703 was the frame construction, the three floors. And the later years, they added a fourth wing out of block building. Made it more permanent. That's why it's still standing today. Now, that was my second location. And then I got on the management role in '55, which meant I went exempt and no more pay for overtime. And went out to White Bluffs site—town site, and that's where the minor construction was located. Minor construction, it's the construction people that are specially trained in SWP, radiological construction work, as opposed to run-of-the-mill construction. And they're the ones that had never had any accounting at all for any equipment, supplies, materials or otherwise. And that's where I had the lunchroom office experience. It so happened that they established--I brought an inventory procedure and established that first inventory during a strike. We had to cut government-owned tool boxes. But still, the workers thought they were private. And we had to cut locks in order to take inventory. And then we feared for our lives when they came back. Pretty rough day sometimes. Bauman: What timeframe would that have been you were out? Bush: That was 1955 to '56. A couple of years there, and then another person took over from there and I went into budgeting at that point, from accounting to budgeting. And I did that for--until 1963. And then I moved out to the so-called bus lot, which it was. 105 buses and all that. And I was out there for 17 pleasant years, budgeting, billing rate—Because we were the supplier of all plant services. So we had billing rates to the reactors, and the separations, and the fuel prep, and--whoever. The AEC, everything. We billed them, just as if we were like plumbing jobs. And that I enjoyed. That was probably my most productive period. And from similar work to that, I moved over—Let’s see, I was around when the Federal Building was built, but I didn't get into it. That was built in '69. I didn't get down there until 1980. Went down there a couple of years. And then they moved us out to Hanford Square where Battelle Boulevard intersection is. And I was there--I retired from that location in 1977. My wife and I retired the same week. I've been retired 26 years now at the end of this month. Bauman: Was your wife working at the Hanford Site as well? Bush: She worked after the kids were grown, like most stay-at-home moms do. She stayed until the daughter was of age, and then she went to work for a credit union, which was the government credit union, which was merged later on with Gesa. But that was an interesting job. They worked two hours a day, three days a week. Because it was all hand done, no mechanization. And then she got a job offer from the department in the central stores and purchasing department. She worked there eight years. In 1986, the income tax law changed a lot of things for all of us, effective in 1987. It meant that partial vesting was--IRS has to rule on all things like that. And that meant that if you had 10 years to vest pensions, once you pass the 50% point, whatever the vesting period is, then you were partially vested. And so she had 8 years out of 10. So she got 80%. But she had only worked eight years, so it wasn't a very large accumulation. Because I got my full. Of course, I'd been here 37 years I think it was, however that works out. 36. Bauman: I want to go back and ask you—when you were talking earlier about that period in '55, '56 when you were working out at White Bluffs town site. You mentioned radiological construction? Bush: Oh, that—those construction workers worked under what they called SWP, Special Work Permit, which meant radiological. They had to wear--the clothing was called SWP clothing then. Today, they call it something else. But they worked under those conditions, so therefore they were subject to different rules. Whereas, construction workers on brand new construction weren’t then—they didn't have any of that to contend with. But once a plant went operational, it became radiologically SWP. This is not an anti-union thing. It's just a demonstration of how things were in those days. They had some old buses that--the original buses in town were called Green Hornets. And they were small. They had chrome bars that went right across the middle of your back. And for 35 miles, that was not very comfortable. When they got the newer buses that you see today, like Greyhound has for instance, they relegated those to the construction workers at White Bluffs. Well, since GE guys worked up at White Bluffs, we had to ride those, too. So all the office workers in the warehouse--GE employees rode one bus. The electricians rode another bus. Pipe fitters rode another bus, even though there were only two or three of them. It was really a segmented-type thing. As close to anything radiological that I came to when I conducting one of those physical inventories—we would be out--all of the construction materials were stored outdoors on the ground. I mean, like stainless steel. 308 stainless steel was pretty high-priced stuff. But the sheets were stored outside on pallets. Well, one sheet is worth thousands and thousands of dollars. So we had to lay down on the ground and count the sheets to do the inventory. This one day—the only time I came close to any contamination, we went back and boarded the buses that evening from White Bluffs. And we saw the guys on the dock there chipping with a chisel and hammer. That meant they were chipping out flakes of contamination. So we asked what was going on. They said, well, we're next door to F and H Areas. And F Area had coughed out something they said. And so I said, well, my crew was outside today on the ground. And if they coughed out because all the--some construction workers could drive their cars. That's the only people. Plant operations people all had to ride buses. No parking lots. So anyhow, those cars were all impounded. Had tape around them. They couldn't go home. And some of the guys, they had to take off their shoes, leave them, and be issued safety shoes in lieu of it. And I said, well, we were on the ground, too. So they proceeded to take us all off the bus and surveyed us with a wand. And they only found a few flakes on our back. And so we were allowed to go home. But that's as close as I ever came to getting contaminated. It's still scary. Bauman: Yeah. Obviously, Hanford, a site where security was prominent-- Bush: Very tight security, yeah. I was telling the young lady here that across the roadway on Stevens, as you near the 300 Area, there was a real wide barricade, probably eight lanes that you had to go through. And everybody had to stop, including buses. And the guard would get on the bus, walk down the aisle, and check every badge. And at that time, AEC had their own security airplanes. That was the purpose of the Richland Airport was for AEC security in the beginning. They had a couple Piper Cub-type airplanes. And one day we're on a bus going out to work in the morning. And all of a sudden, a plane just zoomed on by. Somebody had run the barricade. The plane goes out, lands in front of them, stops them, and that's how they got apprehended. Another incident of security, yeah, that's the subject? Many years later now, after 1963, and I'm in the transportation assignment. Airspace was off limits to all airplanes over Hanford because they had army artillery guarding it in the Cold War and all that. And a private plane had violated the space. And the AEC planes had forced it down. And once they're down, they can't ever take off. So after a week or so, they sent a lowboy trailer out there, loaded the small airplane on it, proceeded to come down what's the highway and now Stevens. And down where Stevens today, 240 and all that intersection is, there was only two lanes on the road then, not six. But at that juncture there, there was a blinking light. And they had to turn right to go to the Richland Airport. And this guy, the truck driver pulling this low-boy, he had never pulled an airplane before. And he didn't allow for that pull. Well, that blinking light clipped off a wing. And then he got time off. It was not really his fault, that pilot in the beginning. But there's a lot of—I guess full of interesting stories like that on security. Bauman: Great. Did you have special security clearance to work at Hanford at the time? Bush: Which? Bauman: Any special security clearance? Bush: Oh, yeah. I had Q clearance, which there's one higher than that, that's top secret. But Q clearance meant you could go into any and all areas. And because the nature of my job, I had that my whole time I was out there. Once you have it, they would tend not to take it away from you because it's quite expensive investigation to get it in the first place. I might mention something interesting in that regard. When I first came to work in 1951, why, the PSQ is Personnel Security Questionnaire. And it's about 25 pages long. And you had to memorize it, because every five years, you had to update it. Well anyhow, I filled that out, and you give references. And I have, in the Twin Falls area, a farmer that had been a neighbor farmer in Nebraska, where I was born, to my parents. I gave him as a reference because he had known me all my life. And that would be higher points. About a year or two later--I guess probably a year later I had gone back down to Twin Falls to visit the in-laws and I went and saw this farmer, family friend. The first thing he said to me, Bobby, what in the world did you do? [LAUGHTER] The FBI had come out to his farm and piled on the questions. And I hadn't told him ahead of time I'd given a reference. So they really did very, very tight security. It's probably tighter than it was when I was in the Air Corps. Bauman: You mentioned riding a bus out to work. Bush: Yeah, everybody rode it, except those few construction workers in that minor construction area. They were permitted their cars. I don't know why, but no one else drove cars on the plant. Everybody rode on the bus. The bus fare was--of course, it was subsidized. It was a plant operation, like anything else is. To make the liability insurance legal, they charged a nickel each way on the bus, which later on got changed to a dollar or something. But many of the years, we'd ride the bus 30, 35, or 40 miles to work for a nickel. The nickel was just to make it legal. From those old green buses, they came up with some--I forget what they're called. More like Greyhound buses. And then in 1963, the year I went out to the transportation, they bought a fleet of Flxibles. And that's F-L-X. There's no E in it. That's the same kind of flat-nosed bus that the bus lines used today. And they were coaches, not buses. They had storage underneath. And so we had quite a suggestion system on the plant. And you would get monetary award or mention. And somebody said, well, instead of running mail carrier cars delivering mail to all the stops on the whole plant, load the mail onto the now available storage bins on these buses. And that was a pretty good suggestion award, monetarily, to somebody. And they did that. Took it out to a central mail station out there, and then dispatched it. Bauman: You mentioned different contractors you worked for over the years-- Bush: Uh-huh. The story behind that for the record is that General Elec--well, DuPont built the plant. That's who my dad worked for. And GE came in '46, I believe. And they were here until the group I was in--they phased out in groups. I was the last group to go out. [COUGH] Excuse me, in 196--'66. When the GE phased out, they had a dollar a year contract. Like Henry Kaiser and rest of them did during the war, for the good of the country. But they trained an awful lot of people in the infancy field of nuclear engineering. General Electric trained all those people here and then they opened up the turnkey operations in San Jose and Japan. But anyhow, AEC was still AEC at that point. And then, their wise decision--instead of one contractor, they would have nine. And so there were--the reactors was one. Separation plant was another. Fuel preparation at 300 Area was another. The laboratories, which is today basically Battelle. Site services. The company doctors formed a foundation called Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, which is the MDs that gave the annual exams. And the computer end, it was now getting into the infancy of that, computer sciences corps, we had the first contracts on that. So all together, there were nine contractors. And the portion that I was with went to ITT. They bid, came in and bid. I helped conduct tours of the facility for the bidders. Because I knew all about it and knew the ins and outs on some of the monetary parts that their accounting people would have questions on. We'd walk through shops and all that. Well, anyhow, ITT got the site support--site services. And we had that for five years. And austerity set in in the '70s. Well, '70. They said, we got to get site services' budget down to less than $10 million. And it probably was 13 or 14, I don't remember now. So my boss and another analyst, like myself, sequestered--talk about sequester. We sequestered ourselves in the then new Federal Building for about a week. Almost 20 hours a day, whittling and whittling and working on a budget. And there was only one conclusion. We had to cut everything in half. Went through all that sweat. Went up with our president, Tom Leddy, went upstairs to an AEC finance office, presented our whole case. And the man turns around and says, well, it doesn't make any difference, Tom. Your contract's not renewed anyhow. And so now, Atlantic Richfield, an existing contractor for 200 Areas, somehow the separations plant contractor that is an oil company owned, can all of a sudden manage a site service. And so they did absorb us. But politics were still around in those days. And there were three of us analysts. One had got transferred by ITT up to the new line--newly established Distant Early Warning Line from Russia up to Alaska. So that left two of us. And we waited around. We waited around and never got an offer. And they said, no, we can do it all without you. We don't need you. How come it took so many people anyhow? On a Friday afternoon, the man that I did budgets for saw me in a restroom. He said, you got an offer yet? I said, no, no. I'm working under the table with somebody else. Well, he says, if they don't hire you, I'm going to hire you. And so he went downtown, and about 4 o'clock, I got a call from the man that told me they didn't need us. Said they'd been kind of thinking. So I went over Atlantic Richfield under those. [AUDIO CUTS OUT] And so I'm not mad, not knocking—knocking them, that's just the way things were. And then Rockwell came to town. When they laid off everybody on B-2, I'm trying to think of other--in the community, something might be of interest for the history project. Back into the '50s. Those same green buses, they had, oh, four or five of them that ran in town like a modified transit system. I don't think they had that many riders, but it did. And also, the plant buses ran what they called shuttle routes. And those buses went into Richland on probably six routes and drove around the neighborhoods and picked up workers on the three shifts. And that's why up in the ranch house district, there was the bypass you'll see between homes. The pathways that go clear through lots. Blocks were so long that they had to provide a quicker route to the bus stops. Now, those rides were free because they were shuttle buses. When you got out to the bus lot, you paid your nickel, or a pass, whatever it was. Bauman: I wanted to ask you about accounting in terms of equipment practices. Were there a lot of changes during the time you worked at the Hanford site? Computer technology come in and change things? Bush: Oh, yeah. For sure. In the beginning, as I mentioned earlier, all accounting was open ledgers and hand posted. Adding machine tapes at the end of the day trying to balance them all out. And we had that until--let's see. 1970s—I think it was 1977, we got our very first taste of it. Every other desk in a group of about 20 people in cost accounting that I was in. There was cost accounting, general accounting, and so on, property management. But anyhow, we had about 20 people. Every other desk had a monitor. Well, they referred to them as a computer. But they were just the monitor. And down at the end of our building was one printer. And everything was on floppy disk. Every program was on a floppy disk. Nothing was built-in because it was just the infancy. The big computers were down in the Federal Building. And a sub-basement below the basement was specially built for that. But back to our office. Across the hall from us, we had two small computers that are--to me, they're about the size of portable sewing machines. And I can't even remember the names of them because they don't exist today but they were the computer locally. So we wanted to run our work order system, we would phone down to the guy down at the other end of the building, insert the floppy disk from work system and wait. Well, I've got somebody's inventory. You have to wait. Because there's only one place to load up down there. So finally, you would put the floppy disk in. And then, you'd run it, which meant it'd run through it and print. But then you'd have to say, now print it. And they got one printer for the whole building. And so it's pretty interesting. Whereas today, I've got a laptop that I can virtually do everything with. But we graduated from hand posted ledgers right into computers. We didn't have anything in between. All of the reports that came out, came out on--referred to as IBM runs because everything was IBM. It was on paper that's about 18 inches wide with all these little perf marks on it to feed it. And you'd get one report and it would be about that thick. It was not that much information, but it's just so much printing. It's even hard to remember after 26 years how antiquated that is compared to today. But prior to that, it wasn't even the PCs. They called everything a PC. Or, was PC compatible. Because prior to that, the only electronic data processing nickname was spaghetti wire. I'm not very conversant in it, but it was some kind of a board that had a bunch of holes in it. They put wires in it and that went to certain things. But all it did was sort things. It didn't actually calculate them. Bauman: I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the community of Richland. What was that like in the 1950s? I know it was a government-- Bush: In the town? I guess I didn't cover that area. Everything—all houses were owned by government. We rented them. My wife and I and family, we came after the days of free everything. When the coal was free--all the furnaces were coal fed. Some people would convert them later on to oil. But anyhow, they were coal burning. However you got the coal, whether it was government days or you bought the coal from the courtyard, which is down at the end of what's now Wellsian Way. There was a coal yard where that lumber yard is. And that's why those railroad tracks that are abandoned and rundown, that's where the coal cars came in. And I can add something a little bit later about coal cars and the plant. But anyhow, we rented from the government. For example, that brand new apartment that I mentioned moving onto first was a two-bedroom, full basement. Steam heated because--I'll digress a little bit. All the downtown 700 Area, including the Catholic church, central church, the hospital, all 700 Area, including those new apartments, and all downtown shopping area were steam heated by a steam plant, which was located where the back door of the post office is today in that small parking lot. And that one plant furnished steam for everything. Well, back to this new apartment. The steam pipes ran through this full basement. And our kids played—there wasn't any yards. There was just apartments. And they would play in the basement because they were quite small. But they can remember today the pop, pop, pop in those steam pipes. And the rent for that two-bedroom apartment was higher than any other house in town. It was $77 a month. And the reason it was $77 instead of $70 was because it included $7 for electricity. Nobody had electricity meters yet. Even in that new place. So when they did put in electricity meters in all homes later, which had to be—during that time, the year we were there, which is December '51 to December of '52, sometime in that period of time they put the meters in. They took off $7 off the rent because now we're going to pay—and their theory is it was $5 for a one-bedroom place, whatever it was. $7 for a two-bedroom and $10 for a three-bedroom for electricity in those days. And nobody had electric heat, of course. And then, later on they put in water meters. And again, they had to come into your home, invade your home, and put in something. So it was strictly government prior to—well, another—and when I lived in the rental, if something went wrong with the plumbing, they would send out a plumber, but you paid for it, though. But later on when I went to the tall two-story, three-bedroom duplex houses, or called A houses, that was our first house after that apartment. And as I remember, I think the rent was--they had rent districts with low, medium, and high in the more desirable parts of town. And we were on Hop Street across from uptown district where Hunt Street is and Jefferson Park. And I think our rent for that was like $47 because it was not a brand new apartment. And later on, we—I was on the housing list. And you applied and months or years later, you'd rotate up to move into a nicer place or a different location. But in the meantime, up came an F house, which is a two-story single family, kind of a Cape Cod-looking type of house. And that came up on the housing list. However, the caveat was that you had to cash out the present owner who had made some improvements. He had converted the coal to oil, they put in a clothesline, which nobody had clotheslines, and something else. So cashed him out for—I believe it was $750. And if I do that, I could have it, so I did. We lived in that place for 19 years. Our daughter grew up there and got married out of that home. And that's the only home she ever knew. [LAUGHTER] And we were there until 1977 when the real estate market in Richland was—this is community wide. The housing prices were moving 18% a year, about 1.5% a month. And I thought well, I don't need to be setting still. I mean, if I cash out here, and went on. So we sold that home. I listed it. Calder, my father, was very ill. We were going to Spokane. I listed it. A man came by, looked it out. What were you asking? I said, oh, about 17. He shook his head. And I said, too high? He says, no, 27,000. [LAUGHTER] Just to show you how bad things were. And so it sold right away. What are you going to do now? And I said, well. Would you want to try a mobile home? I know a jewel. And in those days, real estate men did not sell mobile homes. But this couple had bought their first house from him, or something. And it was somebody retiring out of postal, wanted to go back to Montana. Never smoked in it, never had any pets in it, no kids. It was the Cadillac of mobile homes. We were there two years, but that was long enough. Then we moved into the house that I'm still in. I'm widowed now for five years. The house we're in now, we've lived in that longer than in any other place. [LAUGHTER] But the community just has changed so drastically. South Richland. People say today they live in South Richland. We lived in South Richland, which was south of the downtown shopping district to the Yakima Bridge. That was South Richland. What is now South Richland out there was Kennewick Highlands. So it depends on who you're talking to today. Bauman: Yeah. Do you remember any special community events, parades, any of those sorts of things during the '50s and '60s? Bush: Community events? Bauman: Yeah. Bush: Yep. Back in GE days, they had Atomic Frontier Days. And they were a big thing. Had beauty queens in it, rode in the float, and all that. Down at the—[COUGH] excuse me. For Atomic Frontier Days down at the lower end of Lee Boulevard, which is still the same shape today. They set up booths all on there. And it was a really big event. Before we had the hydro races even. People look back fondly on that. Talking about community, again, my mother, I said, worked for the post office, which—it stood on the corner of Knight Street, where it touches George Washington Way. There's some kind of a lawyer office building there today. And the old post office is the Knights of Columbus building on the bypass highway. But she would have to take the mail and go over to where the Red Lion Motel is today, at the Desert Inn, a frame building, winged out basically the same. And that was referred to as the transient quarters. And that was for upper management that were going through and it wasn't really a public motel, per se. But she would have mail for these big wigs over there. So she would have to go over there and have a badge to even go in the front door of that Desert Inn. Talking about badges, something humorous on that. We didn't wear things around our neck in the beginning because it was like a little pocket-sized bill fold. It was a little black bill that had your pass, your badge in it. And at every building you went into, you just pulled it out, flashed it to the guard. It usually was a lady security employee. There were guards in the building, but the person on the desk was a security clerk. But you'd just automatically—you’d open it like that and flag and put it back in your pocket. Every building you went into. Downtown, 700 Area, that first building I've referred to. One day I went into a restaurant and I just did that automatically [LAUGHTER] because it's just so automatic. Then they graduated to having the thing around your neck. And then also, if you worked in the outer areas, you had to wear a radiation badge in addition to your security badge. There was two types and one of them was a flat. And I don't know the difference. One's for beta and one's for alpha. I don't know. And one of them was a pencil shaped. And that's what they called it. And the other one was a flat badge, which was carried in something around your neck. And in all the areas I worked, and the places I described laying on the ground that happened and all that, my RAMs, they call it, never accumulated in my working life to be a danger. I had some, of course. Everybody does in the background. But I never accumulated to a danger point. There were people, some smart aleck people that would take their badge and hold it over a source at work so they could get some time off. Because if you got--what was the phrase? Anyhow, if they got contaminated, they put them on a beefsteak diet. And they stayed home. And they come every day and took a urine sample and all that stuff. But they had a life of riley. So that was nice. But the guys got canned that did that. But they would purposely expose their pencil so they could stay home. Bauman: So did all employees have those, either the pencil or-- Bush: Only those that worked in reactor and separations areas, yeah. I mentioned these departments. Actually, the first department is Fuel Preparations Department, FPD. The present—the 300 Area--most of the buildings have now been torn down that you don't even see them there. But the north half roughly was fuels preparation department headed for the reactors. They took uranium and encapsulated it in cans, like can of peas in just so many words. And the south half of that 300 Area was a laboratory area, the predecessor of Battelle. So the fuel was prepared there. And it was machined and canned and sent as nickname slugs to the reactors. Then, the reactors loaded into all those little tubes. And then from the reactors, they come out the backside into those cooling pods and all that. And transported in casks to the 200 Areas, which are the separated area, separations. And the reactor area on the face side was not that dangerous. The 200 Areas only work on what they called the canyons, PUREX and REDOX, and those kind of buildings. But those cells were very, very hot. But you had to be measured no matter where you were. One of our site services was a decontamination laundry, called the laundry. And all clothing--I mentioned to you before SWP. Well, SWP, radiologic exposure employees wore whites. Carpenters and truck drivers and all that that didn't work around reactors wore blues. And so they were sorted. And we had different billing rates for that laundry because the blues only had to be laundered and dried. Whereas the others had to be laundered, dried, and decontaminated, checked in separate washing machines. And then workers wore—in the beginning, wore World War II-style gas masks for our air supply before they invented a moon-type suit. [LAUGHTER] But they wore gas masks. And the mask would come back to this mask station, which was part of the laundry. And they took the masks, and they'd take away the cartridge. They'd put the mask in dishwasher machines, in racks. That's how they would wash them. And then they would get them a new filter and package them up. Sanitize them and package them up like medical supplies would be in. I can't think of any other unusual operation out there like that. Bauman: I want to change gears just a little bit. President Kennedy visited the site in 1963. Bush: Yep, 1963. Bauman: I was wondering-- Bush: When they did that, they let all the schools out. And for the first time, non-workers were allowed to go in cars out there. It was a grand traffic jam, but it was quite a deal. And he landed his Air Force plane up at Moses Lake—at Larson airbase at Ephrata, whichever you want to call it. And then helicoptered. And of course, like it is today, there were three or four helicopters. And you don't know which one he's on and all that bit. And here, everyone is gathered out the N Reactor area, which is a dual-purpose reactor. They captured the heat from the reactor, put it through a pipe through a fence to the predecessor to Energy Northwest, which was called Whoops. This was a big deal, a dual-purpose reactor. And N stood for new reactor, really. Anyhow, he comes in and they got a low-boy trailer. They fixed up down in the shops where I worked—my office was. And then built a podium just precisely for the President with him emblem and the whole bit. So I was privy to get to see some things like that. But anyhow, that was the stage. And it was a long low-boy, so it accommodated all the senators and all the local—Sam Volpentest, the guy credited with HAMMER, those type of people. Glen Lee from the Tri-City Herald, you name it. So the helicopter comes in, blows dust over everybody. But anyhow, my wife and kids and all schools were brought out there. And I don't know how many thousand people were out there in the desert. And you could see President Kennedy. He got up on the stage. You get close enough, you could get pictures. Then, that same year in November, he got assassinated. So that was a busy year. Bauman: Do you remember any other special events with dignitaries like that? Or other-- Bush: Well, I could go way back to World War II. I wasn't here, but I have a family connection on it. All over United States, they had war bond drives for various reasons to help. Build a ship, build an airplane. The one that happened here is not the only one. But they took so much money out of all the paycheck of Hanford workers, which included my dad as a carpenter. And the money they collected bought the B-17 Bomber, which was named Day's Pay. And that bomber—they had a bomber out here, a B-17, so that people could see it, but it wasn't the same one. On the Richland High School wall there's a mural. And that's a rendition by a famous artist of Day's Pay in formation. And so I can say that my parents contributed to that. And that's the story behind that one bomber. Every worker out there, construction or operations, they donated a day's pay. Bauman: I wonder, what was the most challenging part of your job working at the Hanford site? Bush: As an accounting person, my most challenging part was learning government-ese. [LAUGHTER] How to deal. And in that vein, that took a long time. But once you learn it, there is a way in the US government, period. As I'm sure there is in certain corporations. Later on, when I mentioned that I went down to the federal building for my--finally got located in that building, there was another fellow and I were old timers in accounting. And that year, they had five college grads, accounting grads come in. They hired five at one time. And they ran them by Marv and I for exposure. This is how things are done. This is how the contacts are. And our basic job was to squire these young fellows around and introduce them to certain counterparts and now DOE. Now, this is how you make appointments with them. This is what you do. This is what you never do. And likewise, with senior management. And it paid off because of those five, all four of them became managers or supervisors, and one of them became my manager within two years. Today, that same man is the comptroller at Savannah River Plant. [LAUGHTER] And so I like to feel that I contributed to them being—partially to them being successful. And so that's a reward. But probably the most difficult thing coming from a private—I worked for Colorado Mill and Elevator, which means I worked at a flour mill district office as a bookkeeper. And that's a small town deal in Twin Falls. To come to work for the government where some of your family despises you because you work for the government, but you had to fight that as well as learn how the government operates. Bauman: You mentioned earlier, you were talking about coal being used for heat in Richland. You also said you wanted to talk about coal fires going up at the site. Bush: Oh, what? Bauman: Coal fires? Bush: Oh, yeah. Interestingly, the midway power station, substation at midway, is one of the reasons they built Hanford where they did because the Grand Coulee Dam had just been completed and an electricity producer—a major producer. And they put the midway substation down there. That basically was built to furnish huge amounts of power to Hanford, for the reactors, everything. Which in total—because I processed vouchers, I know it was 32 megs. Which today doesn't sound like much, but the whole plant bill was 32 megs when everything was operating. But if the power were interrupted, they had to have a backup. So every area had a huge diesel-powered--like water pumps, where they could pump the water from the river instead of by electrically. They had to be able to pump it because it was critical. Because all the water for the whole plant was taken in at intake water plants near the reactors along the river. The 200 Area water is piped to them in a huge line as raw water until it gets to their place. The backup is these coal-fired steam plants, is what I was trying to say. It got about 30-some cars of coal a day rolled through Richland past the cemetery. In the beginning, the railroad came down from the north, from Vantage area down along the Columbia River. There's a railroad bridge across the river, Beverly I think it is. And it came down to below the 100-B Reactor area. That's where the line ended. And then a plant had its own railway incidentally. It had a 285 mile-long rail line, high line and low line. Then, they built--in 1950, the year before I came, they built the line that we see today that comes from Columbia Center into Richland, by the cemetery. And it ends at the old bus lot area, where that railroad car Columbia Center into Richland, by the cemetery. And it ends at the old bus lot area, where that railroad car rebuilding outfit is now, there is a roundhouse that it's rectangular in shape. But some 30 cars of coal a day came in here to supply because those plants were—they actually operated the steam plants. They didn't start them up from cold. They just ran constantly. Bauman: I wonder if you could provide sort of an overall assessment of how Hanford was as a place to work. What was it like as a place to work? Bush: It was a great place for me. I came out of an area that was the agriculturally-oriented. And the Korean War started. Wages were frozen, you weren't going to go anywhere. I came up here and I got a new start, like pioneers did. I visualized that's what farming pioneers did the same thing. And it opened up a whole field for me, a big corporate field. And it's just been a great place to work. And it was not dangerous to me. I'm not afraid to drink the water here. I'm asked by a nephew in Hermiston constantly, how do you drink the water? And I said, well, it comes out of the river. How can it come out of the river and that plume’s out there? There's so many false stories around here. But working at Hanford, I think, by and large, almost all employees would tell you the same thing. It was a great place to work. The pay was decent. Maybe you didn't get rich, but it was decent. It's in a nice area to live in. When we came back in the '50s, or in the '40s, and before that even of course, shopping was pretty much nonexistent. They went to Yakima, or Spokane, or Walla Walla. That I didn’t—we didn't experience that too much by 1951 because by that time, the Uptown shopping district was built. And there was a men's store. And there was four women's stores. Because GE was the prime contractor, there was an appliance dealer that handled GE-Hotpoint appliances. We got employee discounts when we worked for GE. We also got 10% gasoline discount when we worked for Atlantic Richfield Hanford. But we just grew with the times. And it's just such an entirely different area now than it was. Just the world is different, too. Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about? Is there anything you would like to talk about that we haven't talked about yet? Bush: Now really, work-wise at Hanford, I think I’ve pretty well-covered it. I'll repeat myself. My first 15 years was construction engineering accounting, which is an entirely different field than operations accounting. Operations accounting concerns itself with the reactors and separations and the site services that support them. But I learned a lot by working at Hanford. My family, three adult children live here, are retired here. My oldest son went on Medicare this year. [LAUGHTER] And that kind of puts you in your place quickly. But it's been a good enough place that they stayed in the area. And of the six granddaughters, grandchildren, four of them are in the area. And that's kind of characteristic with a lot of the Tri-City families. They stay or come back. Bauman: Well, Bob, I'd like to thank you very much for coming and talking to us today. I really appreciate it. Bush: It's been my pleasure. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:02:19 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 256kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 Area 300 Area B Reactor 700 Area N Reactor Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951-1977 Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1977 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Ed Peddicord Tom Leddy Glen Lee Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mov 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 Bob Bush Description An account of the resource Bob Bush moved to the Tri-Cities in 1951 to work on the Hanford Site. An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. 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 07-17-2013 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mov Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-13-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Subject The topic of the resource Hanford Site (Wash.) Pasco (Wash.) Richland (Wash.) 1955 200 Area 300 Area 700 Area 703 Building B Reactor Battelle Cat Cold War Dam Desert DuPont Energy Northwest F Area FBI General Electric H Area HAMMER Hanford Henry Kaiser Hunting Kennedy Kennewick N Reactor Park PUREX River Savannah River School Street supplies War Westinghouse https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2e8c0afcc728d3fa1969f50a0d817c07.jpg 241b3581b4824ce1fee07a65245d921a https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F00a4b4d870d07017259caa950d80b7df.mp4 4dbea9a206df1a8666e32125a22ff250 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 Jack Collins Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Jack Collins: Now did you hear of people like—names like Alex Parks and some of those that helped sue the government? He was very—he was state legislature, I believe at one time. Robert Bauman: Yeah— Collins: From Grandview. Bauman: I knew about the Wiehls— Collins: Or Prosser? Bauman: Dick Wiehl’s. Collins: That had the ferry? Bauman: Yeah. I talked to Dick Wiehl. Collins: Yeah. Bauman: That was one. Collins: Ida Mae was in my class at school— Bauman: Oh really? Oh, there you go. Collins: We used to walk her down the river where her dad would pick her up and roll her across the river to where the original town of White Bluffs was. Bauman: Oh, sure, yeah. Collins: And he had—my grandparents lived in Old Town. They had a house in Old Town there before it moved up to the newer area. And spent a lot of time in Old Town. Bauman: I think we’re just about ready. Collins: Okay. Bauman: So we’ll get started here in just a minute. And then— Collins: Yeah. And another thing, are you aware of the Mormons coming out there, when the Mormon Church bought it? Bauman: Yeah. Collins: Okay. Did they tell you the story about the guy that brought his John Deere tractor and a four wheel trailer out from Utah? All the way out from Utah and brought all of his stuff— Bauman: No. Collins: And set it down on the black sandbar? Bauman: No, no, I haven’t heard— Collins: That was quite a story. Can you imagine the time it took him to drive out with a John Deere tractor? Bauman: That would—no, I can’t imagine. [LAUGHTER] Collins: [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Are we good to go? Man: Yeah, yeah. Bauman. All right, we’re good to get started. So, the first thing I’ll have you do is just say your name and spell your last name for us. Collins: I’m Jack Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S. Bauman: Okay, great. And my name is Robert Bauman and today is August 4th of 2015. And we are recording this interview on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So first of all, welcome, and thanks for coming all this way out here-- [LAUGHTER] Collins: I’m glad to— Bauman: --for this interview. Collins: I’m glad to be here. Bauman: Great. I wonder if we could just start by maybe talking about your family and what brought them to White Bluffs, when they came, and that sort of— Collins: We came to White Bluffs in the middle of the Depression. [LAUGHTER] And we didn’t have much. And my grandfather had moved there ahead of us, lived in Old Town. And he wrote my folks and told them that there was work there. Farm work and stuff. My dad was a good mechanic. And he went to White Bluffs, so we had work. We bought a little farm, ten acre farm, in White Bluffs. And he worked for farmers for years around there. And then when Sam Allard needed a person to help out up at the county pumping plant, he had met my father—I don’t know how they met, but maybe through Joe Grewell that run the Priest Rapids power plant. But they asked my dad to come up and they liked him very well, because his dad had had a blacksmith’s shop. And my dad knew how to do things, how to make stuff, how to forge, weld, how to do all this type stuff. And they had a lot of machine work that they had to do in the plant in those days. And it was all handwork. They had to hone thrust bearings. We used to go down as kids and help him hone thrust bearings, because it was fun! Sit out on the porch at the county pumping plant. We used to run the chain hoist lifting those big pumps out. There was two 500s and a 750 horse power pump. They were all raw sewer pumps that the water district had bought from Chicago or somewhere back there. They didn’t use them, and they were for sale and that’s how they got the— This is--I wasn’t there when this happened, this is the story that I always got. They did that, and then they had their own power plant—the Priest Rapids power plant. So my father got out there and worked and Sam taught him all the stuff about the plant. And finally my dad ended up as head operator there, running it. He worked there for a number of years. We lived in the house up above the plant. We owned a farm down below the plant, downriver from the plant. We had a 35 acre farm the government took away from us. And then they kept my dad on after the government took over to pump water for all the construction in the water districts. So we had—us and the Potter family, Jack Potter, and his son Jackie, and the three boys of us, Ted and myself and Ray, were the only kids living in the restricted area. We lived at Coyote. And Mom—they hired Mom to haul us down to school every day during school. That was after White Bluffs School had burned and we started going to Hanford. It was 16 miles. So we did that for a number of years. Then the government finally, when the government finished and they were ready to start operating the plants, they had us move out. We moved to Zillah, Washington. And then we saw a lot of stuff in there, what the government did to those people was—was not good. They took their property, and a few people like Alex Parks and some other influential farmers in there took them to court because the government took the property without buying the water rights or any of that stuff. And the people there owned the Priest Rapids power plant, the power lines going to the county pumping plant. And they owned all the canals, the pipelines, head boxes, risers, you can name everything for the water district. A lot of stuff. That was about, probably 20 miles of canals, concrete canal. The government just assumed that. And it took over three years in court to get the government to pay for that. And they just forced the people out with—my folks had very little money when they left there. We lost our farm, we had two farms, we had one down in White Bluffs, we had one up at Coyote, up by Allard’s pumping plant was. And then me and my two brothers, we were the ones that were going all over the area out there, selling food to the guys coming out there in the area. All they’d get is peanut butter sandwiches coming out of the mess halls downtown there in Hanford. And those guys, trying to eat peanut butter sandwiches and water in hundred and some degree weather—we’d end up out there with egg sandwiches, candy bars, pop, coffee-- [LAUGHTER] and sell it to these guys. So we got to be their friends, so they hauled us all over the area with their construction equipment. We rode construction trains, the engineers all knew us. They were all buying this stuff from us. So we made a lot of money. We put it all in war bonds. I cashed my war bonds to marry my wife. That was my money that I had when I married her. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: That’s great. Collins: And it was a fun life out there. And we—in the summer, we just stripped down to just nothing but a bathing suit and our bare feet, and we was all over the country out there, just in the bare feet in the desert out there. We were pretty tough kids in those days. [LAUGHTER] Swim in the river, and swim in the canal. And there was a lot of parties went on down at Black Sand bar. Community parties, we had a lot of fun at those. Everybody would meet down there for big swimming parties and picnics and stuff. And then Table Mountain, now where the stuff is all stored—I don’t know whether you’ve heard about Table Mountain where they dug and they put the— Bauman: Yup, yup. Collins: Okay. We used to have our church picnics on top of Table Mountain. And used to go out, and we used to follow the sheep herds and stuff that went through there, and get all the bum lambs and stuff. We had quite a herd of sheep that we got from—we had no place to take them. We had to sell them when the government took over. We had cattle and sheep and everything. And they forced us to sell all of that stuff. We got not much out of it. But that’s the way the government operates. I got like twelve other stories, a lot of stories that I heard from some of the old timers, how they used to fish for sturgeon. They used to throw like a head of lettuce on a big hook out in the Columbia River. Bauman: Really? Yeah. Collins: Or a part of a chicken. And they’re bottom feeders, and they had quarter inch rope hooked to those. And they’d take the horses and pull them out, they were so big. Bauman: Wow. Collins: And that’s the—the old timers used to do that. Then we used to go to the—one of our trips at school was to go out to the Indian smokehouses, where they were smoking fish and stuff. The Priest Rapids Indians. That was quite a trip! And we were very familiar with them. And then my dad, when he worked up at the Priest Rapids power plant, when the put the new channel in to channel water into it, my dad worked on that, on running a jackhammer. That was before he went to work at Coyote. And we would go up there when they were going to have their blasts, and watch them blow that rock up. It was big time! They were drilling that basalt up there, and boy that was really a blast when they set all that rock off. Bauman: Wow. Collins: And we’d see the Priest Rapids Indian kids, they would be in their steam house getting all hot and everything, and they’d come out of the steam house and go jump in the river, naked! [LAUGHTER] Tough little kids! But I don’t know where they—they didn’t go to school with us. I think they were self-taught up there. But they were very healthy. Bauman: So, I’m going to go ask you a couple questions, kinda go back a little bit. You mentioned that your grandfather lived at White Bluffs before you moved there? Collins: He lived in Old White Bluffs. Bauman: Lived in Old White Bluffs. Collins: Yeah. Bauman: And what was his name? Collins: Lyons. Bauman: Oh, his last name was Lyons? Collins: Lyons, yeah. [LAUGHTER] What was Grandpa’s name? Woman: Alva. Collins: Alva Edward Lyons. Bauman: Okay, okay. Collins: Him and my grandmother, and they’re the ones that taught us. And they had two children that lived with them, they were my mother’s parents. Bauman: Okay. And how old were you then when your family moved to White Bluffs? Collins: I was in the first grade of school. So that was about, what? ’37, ’38, somewhere along there. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: And we were the last family moved out of Hanford when they opened—when they started the plant. Bauman: Right. And do you know how long you were there? Collins: I went to school—finished the seventh grade of school at Hanford. Bauman: Okay. And then you moved to— Collins: We moved to Zillah. Bauman: To Zillah. Okay. So what was the community of White Bluffs like? Collins: It was a very friendly community. Everybody got along. I could say we went down to—we had all kinds of community things there. There was nothing else to do. We had a movie theater. The guy that run the ice plant there in town, he put on a show about twice a year, and that was a big thing, going to the movie, down to his little old movie house. Oh, they had church doings and stuff there. And a lot of potlucks. They had a grange there, too, I believe, and a lot of potlucks at the grange. That’s about all there was to do there. But everybody was friendly. It was different. They all looked out for one another. And— Bauman: Now, you mentioned that you had a farm in White Bluffs and then one by the— Collins: Our first farm was a ten-acre one. It was close to the town of White Bluffs. Bauman: And what sort of crops did you have there? Collins: Oh, we—it was old ground, leaded-out ground. Bauman: Okay. Collins: It wasn’t great ground. But as kids we used to, there, we would cut asparagus and stuff. Take it uptown in our wagon, and pull it uptown. We only lived about a half a mile from town. Sell asparagus to the people in town, little bundles of asparagus. Then go to the drug store and buy candy with our money. That was our candy money. I’ve always worked, even as a kid, I’ve always worked. We picked fruit and all kinds of stuff. Bauman: And so you mentioned you went to school in White Bluffs, and then at some point the school burned? Collins: Yes, I went to school at White Bluffs ‘til the school burned. Bauman: Mm-hm, and then Hanford— Collins: Can I bring up a thing about the principal there? Bauman: Oh, sure, absolutely. Collins: She had—that’s the house that we got and they had—her husband run that horse ferry that pulled—I mean the cable ferry that pulled the—across the Columbia River. And she had a way of making the kids mind, she had a rubber hose and she’d take you down to the furnace room, and introduce them to a rubber hose. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Collins: My brother Ray got that one time. [LAUGHTER] And I was always good in school after I heard what happened there! [LAUGHTER] But we need more of that today. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So your family got to stay much longer than most other families after the Federal government came. Collins: We got to stay, we were the last family moved. Bauman: When we were talking before, you’d mentioned that you got notice around the time you had some apricots that were— Collins: Apricot trees, yeah. We were going to plant 15 or 16 acres of apricots on our place. We lost all of our deposit and everything. The government could’ve cared less. They just—we had to turn them back. They arrived the day that our place was condemned. Bauman: Wow. And so do you remember how long you got to stay there, like—a lot of people had to move out in ’43, early 1943— Collins: It was about— Bauman: How long, much longer did you-- Collins: A year and a half or two years. Bauman: Oh, okay. So that’s quite a while longer you had to stay. Collins: Yeah, all during construction, Dad pumped the water for the construction of the railroads and the roads and stuff. All the water trucks that came there. And he had pumps, pump it out of the canal, he was pumping in any water going on down. And they were using it for all the construction, the water he was pumping. Bauman: Okay. So he was very valuable to the— Collins: Yeah, they had—they wanted to move him to Richland and keep him on. My dad only went to fifth grade of school, but he was pretty knowledgeable. In those days, although they didn’t go very far. But they wanted to move on down, they’d give him a bunch of training and stuff. But he said, no, he says, I’m not going to take my boys to Richland. Because Richland was a pretty tough town in those days. And so we moved, he left the government job. He was making $150 a month for the water district. We got a house, our lights and water furnished. He worked seven 12s for them. And ‘round, all year long. In the wintertime, when they shut the plant down, they were working in the plant overhauling stuff. And then when the government took over, I think he went up to $1,200 a month. And he worked a 40 hour week. Bauman: Wow. Collins: I can bring up another thing about—They used to hone all the thrust bearings. There were big thrust bearings that these big pumps sat on. They were three stories high, and they were very heavy. They weighed tons. So they brought an engineer out there that was going to tell my dad how to do that. So he said they could do a better job machining them than he could do it by hand. He told them, no, they couldn’t. So this engineer, he was going to prove it. So he took one of them and did it. And they took, I think it was a 750 horse pump out of it, and they set it down on it, and he threw the switch. And you have to rock those switches in to bring those motors up to speed there. So big and so heavy that you can’t bring them up just once. This guy threw the switch on it, blew the windings out of this pump and stuff, and it cost the government a load of money to tear that pump apart and get it rewound. I don’t know that he lost his job or not, but they always believed my dad after that, because he knew how to start them. He never blew one up in years that he ran the plant. They’d never had that happen before. And so a lot of things happened there. They brought guys out that my dad had to teach how to run the plant. They had young college guys. And it was interesting. We used to go down once in a while. We’d sit in for Dad. They brought the power in that was 66,000 volts from up there, and they had to transform down to 2,200 for the pumps. And you had to check those transformers every day for temperature. And then you had to check all the bearings on the pumps and all that. You had to work. And then call the readings in on the gauges there to tell them how much power you were drawing and everything, so they’d know how much power to send from Priest Rapids down to the plant. Because that’s the only thing that they furnished power for. So you was always busy there. You had to know what you were doing. Bauman: Oh, yeah. Collins: So Dad taught us kids all how to do it. We didn’t have nothing else to do. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: You mentioned when people had to leave in 1943 that a lot of people went to court eventually. Do you have any idea how much money your parents got for your property? Collins: It was very little. We had enough to buy an old leaded-out ten-acre place out in Zillah. Bauman: And that was enough? Collins: But it wasn’t good. And it took them years, a lot of those people that they went out of there with, the older people, the widows and widwoers and stuff. They ended up in institutions. They had no family, they had no one. And the government just forced them out. They told them they’d come in with trucks and haul their stuff out if they didn’t leave. They’d haul them out of the area. Bauman: Wow. Collins: That’s the way they operated with us. We were a very fortunate family, the way we got out. And my father had a truck and he bought a lot of the stuff from those people and we took it out to the auction sales and stuff and sold it. And we’d load up watermelons. And take them to the end of the barracks, we’d buy overripe watermelons. Because they were good, they were good watermelons. And take them in and sell them to the barracks there. And they were very—those people down there were very happy to get nice, ripe watermelons. Because everyone else was selling them green ones, and we were selling them ripe ones. Bauman: Yeah, you were very enterprising. [LAUGHTER] Collins: Hey, we did anything to make money. We had to. Bauman: Sure. Collins: We didn’t have any. We picked lots of fruit, worked in warehouses, did all of that stuff. Oh yeah, and there was another thing, too, that came up. There was an old recluse lived down under the railroad station, under their deck out front. And he had been, and I think you have something about him—he had been a pharmacist, was the story. And he had given the wrong prescription and killed a lady. And he left pharmacy and just ended up a recluse there—I don’t—I’d seen him, I’d seen him in the stores and stuff, seen him wandering around town. But that’s all I know about him. Bauman: So when we were talking earlier, you also mentioned that at some point you ended up working at Hanford. Is that right? Collins: I worked for the telephone company. Bauman: For the telephone company. Collins: And Hanford was the area that I had. Bauman: Right. Collins: And I had a high security clearance to go out in the Hanford area and build a number of the offices out there. I built West Richland—or I didn’t build it, I was in charge of it—when that young fellow got killed, that was one of my projects. When he swung the crane into the powerline and killed him. That was one of my projects. Downtown Richland, I did a lot of work on that one. And Kennewick, I did a lot of work there on all the Kennewick offices. Bauman: So what time period was this, then, that you were working for the phone company? Collins: I was working, doing that—that was, oh, I was about 40-something years old, so it would have had to have been ’70, in there. Bauman: Okay. Collins: When they were building the offices out in the Hanford area. We didn’t have—our company did not have the Hanford area for the telephone offices—went out of, oh, down on the Columbia River had that. And we did their engineering and construction for them. They farmed it out to General Telephone at that time. That’s why it was out there building them. I drilled a lot of grounding wells out there, which—north of where Colonel Rockwell took over to watch what was happening underground. And they locked them up, but we never got to touch them again after we drilled them. They took the wells over. We could use them for grounding for offices, but we had to drill pretty deep because there’s no mineral in this ground here. It’s very poor grounding in this area. So. Bauman: Was it—did it feel strange at all, when you were doing that to be back out in that area working? Where you had lived for a while? Collins: I’d been out there, yes. I’m a pioneer resident. So we got to go on the trips when they took them out there. You used to come out to the White Bluffs-Hanford picnic here all the time. Bauman: Okay, right. Collins: And we went out to our old farm one time. We weren’t supposed to be there, but we did. [LAUGHTER] And they had burned everything down. Mysteriously, while we—before we left, we had a big barn full of stuff, stored full of stuff—that mysteriously burned. And no one else—no one out there but the people, the government people. Bauman: Yeah. Collins: And it was other stuff happened out there. The house that we lived in out there got burned. When we were there, we saw the foundation of it and a bunch of ashes. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So, talking about White Bluffs community, who were some of the families that you knew well growing up, or some of your friends when you were— Collins: We knew Alex Parks. Oh, jiminy. I just can’t remember all the names now. It’s— Bauman: That’s okay. Collins: But he was a very close friend of my folks’, very influential when they had the lawsuit. Russ Webert. Bauman: Okay. Collins: Heck, can’t remember anymore. Bauman: That’s all right. Collins: Somewhere, I’ve got all the school pictures and stuff, too. I’m trying to get them back, of all the years I was in school down there. If you’d want those for your museum, I’m trying to get them back now. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: I may have to go to court to get them, I don’t know at this point. Bauman: Wow. The other thing, when we were talking earlier that you had a picture of the school bus— Collins: Yes. Bauman: That you, that you rode. Collins: That was the school bus that we rode from there to the Hanford School. Bauman: Right, after the White Bluffs School burned down. Collins: And my uncle drove it, and we had a lot of—[LAUGHTER] Bauman: Looked like a pretty small school bus. How many kids rode in that, do you remember? Collins: [SIGH] There was probably five or six of us on it. It would hold a few more than that, but there just wasn’t any more kids up there. Bauman: Yeah. Collins: Yeah. Bauman: And so how long did you go to school in Hanford, then? Collins: I went to school in Hanford for two years. Bauman: Two years, okay. Collins: We were on the double shifting when we went to Hanford. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: You know what—we were on the morning shift, we went in the morning, and then they had a night shift. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: We were on the morning shift. We didn’t get to learn too much at Hanford. It was tough when went to another school all day. I had a lot of catching up to do! Bauman: And how long did that take to ride out there? Collins: Well, it was about 16 miles. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: To our place, and then the bus went on farther, so--probably another eight miles. Bauman: Pretty good ride. Collins: Oh, yeah. Then after the government took over, then my mother would haul us. The government hired her to haul us. Because it was just us three kids and Jackie Potter. Four of us. And she would haul us in that old ’36 Ford. Haul us to school every day, and two round trips a day, every day. Bauman: Wow. Collins: So it was cheaper than them owning a bus and stuff. So they didn’t get a lot out of it, but it was better for us. Bauman: So by the time you and your family left, pretty much everyone else was gone, all the other residents of White Bluffs. Had the government already torn down a lot of the buildings at the other farms and places by the time you left? Collins: Oh, yeah, they just went in and wiped the place out. They didn’t give a darn about anything that was in there. And then after we moved out and I got older, my brother and I went in and bought a lot of that stuff. We bought all the poles and the powerline between the Coyote pumping plant and Priest Rapids. We bought all those there around Sunnyside. And then the racetrack, we got most of those poles for the lighting and everything there—the poles around the racetrack. And then we bought a lot of those Quonset huts in there. Tore down a lot of those Quonsets. I saw pictures of them on some of your stuff, you know, the fish hatchery and stuff? Bauman: Mm-hm. Collins: We tore that old fish hatchery down, my brother and I did. Bauman: Really? Collins: And hauled that all out of there and sold them to farmers in the valley for shelters for their pigs and cattle and stuff. And we bought a lot of stuff in Hanford there, him and I did. I worked for him, and we hauled a lot of stuff out of Hanford when they were tearing it down. Bauman: Mm-hm. Collins: And that was kinda interesting. One time we were in tearing the fish hatchery down, and he picked up a bucket and said it was radioactive. And we mentioned it to the guard there, and I didn’t see him all day. They took him and he was gone. And boy, he said they run him through any test you can imagine. Because we didn’t work for the government, we were bidding on stuff and buying stuff in there. But that was quite an interesting experience, too. We got to see all those fish hatcheries, those big fish in those tanks that they were testing radioactivity on. And then I had a lot of friends that worked out there, like Jack Potter. I don’t know whether you ever—his dad was the mayor of Hanford at one time. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: And he’s told me stories about running dozers in those pits out there. And how dangerous it was, him and some other people were telling me about it. How they saw people get sickened out there. They’re all gone now. They were a lot older than I was. But friends of my family. Bauman: I was going to ask you, the pumping station that your dad operated, how big of an area did that serve? Collins: That served everything from Coyote down to Hanford and all the Hanford area. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: White Bluffs, Hanford, about—I don’t know—16 or 20 miles of canal that it served. It was a big area. Bauman: Yeah, it is. Collins: All those farms that it pumped. And a few farms pumped out of the river. They had pumps on the river. Now my grandfather run a farm for an outfit there. And they had a pump. It was just right below the black sandbar—or above the black sandbar, I mean, on the river. And my grandfather run that for a few years. And they pumped out of the river for that. A few people did. But most of them were from the Coyote pumping plant for water. Bauman: Yeah, that’s a lot of farms that it served. Collins: Hundreds of acres. Bauman: Yeah. Collins: Beautiful farms. Everything there was two weeks ahead of everywhere else in the country. So the fruit all got on the fresh fruit market. And it was—they got really a high premium price out of it. And they had their own packing houses there. There’s a railroad that come in, they trucked stuff out of there. And a lot of stuff went on there. Bauman: Yeah, yeah. Collins: But we used to go down—I used to lid and make boxes and stuff in those warehouses for Alex Parks. We worked for him all summer long. Just when we were little kids! But all the kids there worked. Every kid that lived there worked. They aren’t like today. [LAUGHTER] We were busy! [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Right, yeah. So you were, what, about fifth grade when people started leaving? Collins: I started first grade at White Bluffs— Bauman: When you first came, yeah, but-- Collins: And I went to the fifth grade there, no, sixth and seventh at Hanford. Bauman: But when people started having to leave because the Federal government was coming in, do you remember your, or your family’s reaction to that? As people were leaving, and what you thought about that? Collins: It was complete shock to everybody when that happened. A car drove up to your house with guys in it, and they told you your property was condemned, you’d have to leave within two weeks, I think it was. You know, how shocked would you be if they’d do something like that to you? Bauman: Yeah. Collins: Or, if you didn’t leave, they’d bring in military people with trucks, and they’d haul you out of the area. And I was just a young kid then, but I can remember that, you know. Bauman: Sure. Collins: And it wasn’t good. Bauman: Right. Yeah, do you remember seeing the trucks come into the area? Collins: Never saw that, no. Bauman: No? Collins: Most of them got out. It’s all they could do. Bauman: So what would you like people to know about White Bluffs—because it’s not there anymore and hasn’t been for a long time—what should people-- Collins: It was a beautiful area. It was a great place for kids to grow up. Because we learned how to work. Practically everyone that came out of there was successful. My brother Ted was a car dealer, now he’s a farmer. Ray is—I gave you the information on him—is very successful. He was an officer in the military and flew training planes for the, where they shot at him with those big howitzers and stuff. Yeah, it was his job flying those planes off from the ground. He’s got bad hearing now from those howitzers going off behind him. Wrecked his hearing. Anyway, he went and got a lot of training from the military in radio. And then he got into it, and now he’s—from the letter I gave you there—he’s very influential in the electronics industry. He’s getting a very large award, he’ll be in the history books with Edison and all those people for his contribution to the electrical—you know, the radio industry. He’s invented a lot of radio stuff. I was in construction. I was construction superintendent, worked my way up to an engineer in construction. We’re all non-college-graduated. We all learned it on our own. And in the service, I had a lot of electronics school in the service, too. I went through all that in the Airforce. And got out and started studying. And I did go to college some after I was older and working. But I built a lot of projects. I built projects here, which I was telling you about. I was in charge of all of them. My area at that time was eastern Washington, Idaho, and Montana for the telephone company, over all their construction projects and building construction. So we all— Bauman: Are there any other memories about White Bluffs, or stories that you remember well that we haven’t talked about yet or you haven’t shared yet? Collins: [LAUGHTER] There’s so many— Bauman: That you can— Collins: --things that I can just go on. It was just a very great community, as far as we were concerned. They moved a bunch of—the Mormons came in, they shipped a lot of them up here. They were on—the Mormon Church was supporting them in Utah, was my understanding. So they bought these farms for them. Boy, they were ornery kids. [LAUGHTER] We used to fight with them all the time. Bauman: Oh, you know, you mentioned—I was going to ask you—you mentioned, your grandfather, the place he bought was one that had been for World War I initially, is that right? Collins: That was the one my father bought. Bauman: Oh, the one your father—okay. Collins: Yeah, the ten acres. There’s a lot of those war veterans—I don’t know what happened to it. There’s a lot of that property available. And you have the listing of what they were talking about, on how you could buy cheap property? And my folks got in there and they was able to buy a little ten acre farm. Bauman: Okay. Collins: I don’t know how much Dad paid for it, but it wasn’t a lot at the time. And they house hadn’t been lived in for a long time. And we fixed that up to live in. He had a barn on the place. And we lived there and worked and folks worked on the house. It was a small house. But we were close to the school, we walked to school, there was no school buses then. Bauman: Right. Collins: So we all walked to school. And then he got the chance to go up to Coyote pumping plant. And that’s the first time we was able to have—my folks went to town and they bought an electric stove and a refrigerator. And that was a big deal! We’d never had that before. We were not a wealthy family. We were lucky to have an icebox. And a wood stove, and all of this stuff. And we didn’t even have running water in the house when we bought it. We had a pump on a well out the back door. And that was even big time to us, them days. It was better than what we had before. And then when we got up to Coyote, up there, then we had all the conveniences. We had electricity, and we had— Bauman: Running water? Collins: --hot water in the house— Bauman: Did you have a telephone? Collins: Huh? Bauman: Was there a telephone? Collins: Telephone. Bauman: Wow. Collins: Crank telephone. And everybody listened in. He’d crank it and everybody else’s phone would ring, and you knew what was going on in the whole neighborhood. Because everybody was on the phone, the whole neighborhood. Because they could hear you. And if you wanted to go long distance, the drug store downtown, they had some equipment down there where they could—if you wanted to make a long distance call, you had to ring the operator down there and have her connect you with where you were going at that time. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: If you wanted to call out of the area. And it was one of these old ones where they had it on fence posts or whatever they could anchor the wire to, you know. [LAUGHTER] It was pretty crude, boxes with the telephone equipment in it. Wooden boxes. [LAUGHTER] It wasn’t—but people did it. They survived. And we had an icehouse there in town—I can’t remember the name of the people. They made ice for the railroad. And you’d get ice there for your iceboxes. They were friends of my folks, but I can’t remember their name. And they had a son that lived down here. I knew him quite well, but I can’t remember him now. Bauman: Yeah, the other thing I meant to ask you was, where did you move from? Where did your family come from before they came to White Bluffs? Collins: Well, I was born in Zillah. Bauman: Oh, okay. Collins: And then we—it was during the Depression—I was born in 1930, and those were tough times. I don’t remember much about it, but I remember my folks telling me about it. We moved around in the valley doing different work where my dad could find work. He would get maybe a dollar and a half a day. That was wages then. If you was lucky! And then when he found out we could get work in Hanford—or in White Bluffs, we moved there. Because you could work for farmers and stuff, and you could get all of your stuff, you know, all your fruit. We canned all of our own fruit. We canned everything. Asparagus. We had—Mom canned everything. We lived on that. [LAUGHTER] And we probably lived better than a lot of other people. Because we were resourceful. We had a big garden. We raised a lot of stuff. We even raised peanuts here one year! Bauman: Really? Collins: Yeah! Bauman: Huh. Collins: The ground was that good. It was sandy and hot. And raised hay and started getting cattle—cows. Had milk cows, and we had all of that stuff. We had all of our meat. During rationing times, we butchered all of our own meat. We didn’t have to worry about rationing, because we had it. [LAUGHTER] So we lived pretty good. We didn’t have any money. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Yeah. But you had the farm and resources. Collins: We had the farm, and we had food. And that was a big thing during Depression, if you had that— Bauman: Right. Yeah. Well, I want to thank you very much for coming today, all the way out here. [LAUGHTER] Collins: Well, I hope I’ve done you some good, I don’t know— Bauman: Oh, this is really interesting stuff. I haven’t been able to interview very many people who lived out at White Bluffs, so— Collins: Oh, well, I’m 84 years old, and I was just a little kid! [LAUGHTER] Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Collins: But I do remember a lot of that stuff. And I talked to both of my brothers. And Ray wanted me to show you that, to show how some of the people came out of there successfully, you know? Bauman: Sure, right, right. Collins: And I’m sure there’s a lot of others. I’m sure we weren’t alone. Bauman: Now where were you age-wise among the brothers? Collins: I’m the middle one. Bauman: You’re the middle one. Okay. Collins: I’m the middle one, yeah. Bauman: Okay. Collins: Ted is older and Ray is younger. Bauman: Okay. All right. And so after you moved to Zillah, what did you do from there? Collins: From Zillah? Bauman: Yeah, after you left White Bluffs and you— Collins: Went back to Zillah? Bauman: You went back to Zillah and— Collins: We went to school there, finished school there. And then I worked some for the telephone company. I worked around different jobs, farm jobs and stuff like that. And then I married my wife. And we couldn’t—I worked for Western Electric then, putting in the new telephones off of Yakima. And they laid all of us off, they laid I think 1,200 or 1,500 people off in one shot. So I had an electronics background and everything, but they only kept very, very selected few. I wasn’t one of them. And I didn’t have a job and I—doing some other stuff around there. And I wasn’t making any money, so I moved to the coast. I went to work at Boeing. [LAUGHTER] And I didn’t like Boeing. It was known as the Lazy B, and that’s what it was at that time. The people just—they didn’t know how to work. They drove me crazy. I didn’t have enough work to do, I couldn’t find enough work to do. We had one guy in our area that was supposed to be the biggest producer. He’d come in and we had to stamp our work. I was in quality control there and we had to stamp our work when we inspected things. I inspected on Airforce One, on the wings of that. And this guy, he would come in and check in, and the mail girl was his girlfriend. And they’d check in, he’d give his stamp to one of the mechanics, and the two of them would leave for the day. Come and check out at night. They were high producers because their stuff was just getting shoved through. And he was a buddy of our supervisor, so me and the supervisor didn’t get along. And then when he asked me to come and mow his lawn on the weekend, and I—I explained to him I didn’t do things like that. I had a family, I had four children at the time. And I wasn’t about to mow somebody’s lawn on the weekend and take care of them rather than take care of my family. I don’t care if he was my supervisor. I didn’t like him. So that was my, about the end of my job at Boeing. Then I went into construction work. Bauman: Right. Collins: Where I did well. Bauman: Well, again, I want to thank you very much for coming today and sharing stories about White Bluffs and your father’s work at the pumping plant and all that. It’s really interesting. Collins: We were supposed to someday—I was supposed to get that land back. But I don’t think that will ever happen. Bauman: Mm, mm-hm. Collins: I would love to have our property on the Columbia River. God, it was a beautiful piece of property. Bauman: Oh, yeah, I bet. Collins: All that, Coyote Rapids there. And we were going to buy Delia Allard’s place, down the river—Sam Allard’s first wife. He was married twice. I don’t know what the reasoning was. She lived down there with her son-in-law, I think it was her son-in-law. And I don’t know the whole deal there. And we were buying their farm, too, which they had a beautiful home that they built down there. Rock home, and we wanted that. But Dad was negotiating for that when the government took our land away from us, so that was gone. So—[LAUGHTER] Anyway. Bauman: Well, thank you very much, I really appreciate it. Collins: Yeah. Bauman: This has been really interesting and very helpful. Thank you. Collins: Well, I hope I don’t get myself in any trouble with some of this stuff I talked about. Bauman: Oh, not too much. [LAUGHTER] Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mp4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:45:51 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1937-1943 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Dick Wiehl Ida Mae Alex Parks Ray Collins Alex Parks Jack Potter Delia Allard Sam Allard 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 Collins Description An account of the resource An interview with Jack Collins conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 08-04-2015 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-13-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Boeing General Telephone Hanford Kennewick Mountain Park Parks Quonset hut Quonset huts River Running School Sun swimming War Western Electric https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F943bf3b64bc6d74e596b733e8caba09e.JPG c476b8467e153b14d6cea7bbcc040f07 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F74b26e06751e61230844cf404b522e0c.mp4 450178788ef7cb79d4b24fa735ed2a84 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tony Brooks Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Tony Brooks on February 8th, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Tony about his experiences working at the Hanford Site and his lifetime in the health physics profession. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Tony Brooks: Antone Leavitt Brooks. A-N-T-O-N-E L-E-A-V-I-T-T B-R-O-O-K-S. Franklin: Great. And so let’s start at the beginning. Where and when—where were you born and when? Brooks: I was born in Saint George, Utah, which is the fallout capital of the world. Franklin: Is that—that’s southern? Brooks: Southern. Right as you’re going towards Las Vegas, it’s the last city in Utah before you leave, head out across the Nevada Desert. Franklin: And why is it the fallout capital of the world? Brooks: Because we shot off 103 atomic weapons aboveground at the Nevada Test Site. Normally, the weapons would be shot so that the fallout would go north across the Nevada, then turn and come east across Utah. There were a couple of shots that didn’t do that, that came right straight east to Saint George. And so we had some of the highest fallout levels recorded. When we were little kids, we’d be out playing basketball, and they’d say, hey, fallout cloud’s coming over, go in the house. Come on, you know? We’re playing ball here. [LAUGHTER] Or I’m up to bat next, I’m not going in the house. Franklin: So you had an early connection, then with— Brooks: Radiation. Franklin: With radiation and atomic testing and atomic production. Brooks: Right, right, right, right. Franklin: So how did you get involved in radiation testing and health physics? Brooks: Well, see, what I did then, when I went to University of Utah, got a bachelor’s degree there and then I got a master’s degree. And a guy named Robert Pendleton had just gotten a grant from the old Atomic Energy Commission to study the movement of fallout through the environment and into people. I did my master’s degree then following fallout. We set up a series of dairy farm stations. Each week we’d go and we’d sample the milk, we’d sample the grass, we’d sample the people, and count and watch the fallout move through the ecosystem into people. And so that was my master’s degree. Franklin: And what year was that? Brooks: In ’62. Franklin: ’62, okay. And then that— Brooks: They shot the last of the aboveground tests then. The atomic bomb ban—testing ban came in about then. But one of the last shots they shot was called Sedan. And Sedan was designed to see how big of a hole you could make with a nuclear weapon. So they buried it out in the desert, dug a serious hole with it. And the fallout came right over up across Salt Lake City. Franklin: Wow. Brooks: And so I was there, working on my master’s degree at that time. So we got a good dose of fallout from that also. Franklin: Wow. And does that kind of—I know that there were also those pathway-into-human experiments here at Hanford, as well. Does that kind of—does that mirror—is that around the same time? Brooks: Yes, yes, yeah. Franklin: Okay. Brooks: They used to have the old Hanford Symposiums up here, and we’d always come up and participate in those. Franklin: Oh really? Brooks: And so we knew the people here; they knew us. We were doing the same kind of work. In fact, the guy who was one of the big ones here, a guy named Leo Bustad and Roger McClellan, okay? Franklin: Yeah, we’ve interviewed Roger before. Brooks: Well, Roger was my boss. Franklin: Okay. Brooks: So when I got my master’s degree, I went on to Cornell University. It was everywhere, okay? Fallout was everywhere. It was in everything, it was on everything. My concern, then, was, are there health effects? Are there health effects? Are we causing damage? Are we all going to die of cancer? Okay? Franklin: Yeah. Brooks: That was a big concern. And at that time, we didn’t have a whole lot of data on internally deposited radioactive material. So I went to Cornell University and got my PhD there, studying chromosome damage. The chromosome is the most sensitive indicator of radiation-induced damage that we had at that time. You could look down the microscope and see the breaks and the rearrangements caused by the radiation. So that’s what I did my PhD. Then Roger McClellan hired me to go to the Lovelace Foundation, where he was the new director. I was one of the first two people he hired at Lovelace. So that’s how Roger and I got together. Franklin: Right, right. And what did you do at Lovelace? Brooks: Well, Lovelace—see, I wanted to continue my studies on internally deposited radioactive material, and that’s what they did. They had animals inhale, inject, ingest all kinds of radioactive material. So what I did was study the chromosome genetic damage as well as cancer induced in those animals. Franklin: Does that also kind of mirror—that mirrors some of the testing done at Hanford Labs and PNNL on— Brooks: Oh, sure, oh, sure, oh, sure. Franklin: --animal. First with the pigs and beagles— Brooks: See, they had a big dog program here, we had a big dog program at Lovelace. They had one at Utah, they had one at Argonne, they had one at—so they had all these programs that were well-coordinated, studying effects of radiation on animals. Franklin: So, were you all studying different areas of that— Brooks: Yeah. Franklin: --or kind of all studying the same, trying to work towards the cracking of the— Brooks: Each one—each laboratory had kind of an assignment. University of Utah, they inject—they started first. They injected the animals with radioactive material. Well, we don’t get injected much, so, University of California at Davis fed the animals radioactive material. Lovelace and Pacific Northwest Lab had the animals inhale it. Franklin: Okay. Brooks: And so the route of administration was different. But once it got inside, and once it went where it was going to go, then the effects were very similar. So there was a lot of coordination. Every year we’d have a meeting sometime—most—a lot of the times up here. They’d have the big Hanford Symposiums. I came up to those faithfully every year. And so the people up here were well-acquainted with the people down at Lovelace ITRI. Franklin: And what did you find as a result of— Brooks: Well, what I found primarily is that radiation is a very good cell killer. Okay? Radiation kills cells. That’s why we use it in therapy, right? Franklin: Right. Brooks: If you’ve got a cancer, what do you do? You radiate the sucker, right? Why do you do that? To kill the cells. The other thing I found was that radiation is very poor mutagen. I spent a lot of time trying to look at mutations induced by radiation. It kills too many cells. It’s not very good at mutating. See, about that time, another thing came along that hit here as well as there, and that was Jimmy Carter says, okay, national laboratories, we know a lot about radiation. But we don’t know anything about chemicals. So we’re going to assign each of the national laborites a chemical process for producing energy and let’s look at what that does. We were given diesel exhaust and fluidized coal combustion at Lovelace. Pacific Northwest Lab was given another—I don’t remember exactly what theirs was. I think it was something to do with coal. Okay? And so we went through and took all these techniques and technology we’d developed for radiation and applied them to chemicals. Man, there’s a lot of good mutagens in chemicals. Franklin: Yeah? Brooks: You better believe it. So you get all of these chemicals from burning, chemicals from—you know, I’d take petri dishes and I’d put a bunch of cells on them. I’d irradiate them. Could have put 100,000 cells, radiate them, there’d be 4,000 or 5,000 left to be mutated for radiation. Chemicals doesn’t kill them. It just mutates them. So you get benzopyrene and methylcanthrene, all these really hot environmental chemicals. And so I said, oh, jeez, radiation’s a poor mutagen. It is not a good mutagen. A lot of other things are really hot mutagens; it’s not. Franklin: And these chemicals were mostly from like carbon and fossil based—fossil fuels-- Brooks: Well— Franklin: --based applications? Brooks: Yeah, they were, but Lawrence Livermore Lab was given food, okay? Franklin: Okay. Brooks: Cooking hamburgers, folks. Overdoing—burning things. Franklin: Like, the carbon. Brooks: The carbon, right, and all the products there. There’s a lot of good stuff in there. And about that time, a guy named Bruce Ames developed what we called the Ames Test. The Ames Test was designed to test mutagens. And we all jumped into the Ames Test. Chemicals are really good at producing mutations in the Ames Test. Radiation didn’t produce any. Franklin: Interesting. That’s interesting because that kind of contradicts the cultural pop idea of radiation as causing massive genetic disorder or kind of positive disorders like superheroes, you know? Brooks: Right, right. Franklin: And stuff like that. But also negative like 50-foot ant, or you know. Brooks: We all know where the Incredible Hulk came from. We all know Ninja Turtles, we know where we got those. That’s all radiation, folks. That’s all radiation. But in reality, radiation is not a mutagen. Franklin: It just would have killed them. Brooks: Sure, sure. [LAUGHTER] It might have mutated them—see, there was a big, big project down at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They called it the Megamouse Project. Now, Megamouse Project was designed to look at mutations induced by radiation. So they took a whole bunch of male mice, radiated them almost enough to kill them. Let them recover, irradiated them again almost enough to kill them, and then bred them. They had hundreds of thousands of offspring of mice from those. How many mutations? 17 extra. Franklin: Wow. Brooks: And so when we started setting standards, the International Council on Radiation Protection and the National Council on Radiation Protection. But when I was young, mutation and cancer were about deemed equal. But as the data came in, mutations kind of went away. Okay, so mutations kind of went away. Cancer was still a big concern. So that’s what I try to do, is take my mutagenesis assays, short-term assays, and link them to cancer induction. So I treat an animal, check through his chromosomes, check for the mutations, then look for cancer in them. And so we were trying to make those links so I could do a short-term test and do a prediction, say. But, again, the more I worked, and the harder I worked, the more I understood, radiation is not a very good carcinogen, either. Otherwise, when we radiate people to cure cancer, we’d make more cancer than we cure. We don’t. The people who are radiated are cured. Some additional cancers come up, but not many. Franklin: Right. Brooks: See, you look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki—it’s the thing I always like to talk about—is here we are—boom, you know? We drop two weapons, kill 200,000 people. Radiation’s a good killer. We had 86,000 people survive. We followed that 86,000 people for their lifetime. We know what each and every one of them died of. How many extra cancers did we see in that 86,000 people? 40,000 controls and 40,000 exposed. How many extra cancers? Had a great time, once, I was talking in a ninth grade class, telling them about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They were all about asleep, you know? They weren’t too enthused about it. So I said, okay, here we got two populations. 40,000 exposed, 40,000 controls. How many extra cancers were there in the exposed? I whipped a dollar out of my wallet and said I’ll give the kid a dollar that comes the closest. You think every hand come up? Franklin: Yeah. Brooks: [LAUGHTER] Every hand came up, you know. So I start writing them on the board. Oh, everybody—everybody died of cancer. No, no, you get run over by a truck, you get—everybody doesn’t die of cancer. I started trying to talk them down, trying to talk them down. Well, half of them. Three-quarters, half, a quarter. Trying to talk them down. Couldn’t. Finally some wiseacre rises his hand in the back of the room and says, nobody got cancer. I handed him the dollar because he was way closer than anybody else. So in those two populations, 40,000 people—you got to remember that 25% of us die of cancer. Radiation, no radiation, nothing. That’s a given. About a fourth of us die of cancer. So in the 40,000 without radiation, about 10,000 cancers. That’s about what we expected, about 10,000 cancers. The radiated people, how many extra? That’s always the big question. About 500. So we had 10,000 in one population, 10,500 in the other. No question, radiation increased the cancer frequency. Franklin: But by a pretty small percentage. By—not—I think— Brooks: It’s not huge. Franklin: Yeah, not a huge— Brooks: It’s not huge. And most of the people who got the cancer were the ones in the close-in zones that just about got killed from the blast and the heat and the fires. Franklin: What about UV radiation and skin cancer? Brooks: Well, that’s a complete different story that I don’t have much expertise in. Franklin: Oh, sure. That’s like the only kind— Brooks: But—yeah—ultraviolet light causes DNA adducts that causes skin cancer. No question. You go out and sit in the sun—see, now, the other part of this story—the rest of the story—is that since I’m from southern Utah, I’m a Downwinder, just like a lot of the Downwinders here, okay? So if I get cancer, I get $50,000. No questions asked. I was actually invited to be the distinguished scientist one year at the Health Physics Society meeting. And I’d just gone in to have a bunch of skin cancers removed. I’m not blond. Saint George is a hot place, man. Skin—peel and burn, man, peel and burn. Over and over. So anyway I get a lot of little skin cancers, and I’d just gone in to the doctor to have those removed when I was given this award. And so I was there in front of the group. This guy, Dr. Toohey, Dick Toohey, who’s in charge of reimbursement, came up after my talk and says, hey, what you got there? Well, went to the doctor, had a bunch of skin cancers removed. Well, what kind were they? Well, I told them the kinds. Well, how many did you have? I told him, had three. He says, you know, if you get five, you get your $50k. Okay? [LAUGHTER] Two more skin cancers, I get my $50k. But what are the facts? Is there an epidemic of cancer in southern Utah where the fallout was where we’re getting paid? Utah has the lowest cancer instance in the nation. Southern Utah, where I live, the county where the biggest fallout was, has the second lowest cancer rate in the state. But we still get paid. So I go down there and give a talk and I say, oh, jeez, you know, if they didn’t cause it, why are they paying us? Why are they paying us? That’s a hard question to ask and answer. Because that’s what they ask. Why are they paying us? So what do you tell them? I tell them, well, you had a good senator. Senator Orrin Hatch got legislation through the Senate that said southern Utah had been abused. We had fallout, no question. We had exposures, no question. So, we decided to reimburse you. Well, how many get reimbursed? Can you reimburse everybody exposed to fallout? No. Russia set off a whole bunch of nuclear weapons. We set off a bunch of nuclear weapons. We contaminated the Northern Hemisphere. Brits, they were smart. They went down to Australia to set theirs off. They contaminated the Southern Hemisphere. So, we’ve all had it, okay? So we can’t reimburse everybody, can we? So how many are we going to reimburse? Well, you know, these four counties, this county in Nevada, this county in Arizona, 25% of us get cancer, that’s about right. The same way here at the Hanford Site, you know? Downwinders. People that worked at the Site. Military people. See, so they’ve set up all these programs to pay people off that were damaged. Franklin: Interesting. Brooks: [LAUGHTER] So I come at it from a little different position than— Franklin: Sure. Brooks: What I ended up doing—I’ve taken you through more than you probably ever wanted to know. Franklin: No, not at all. Brooks: But what happened, see, is after I left Lovelace, Roger McClellan left Lovelace, I left Lovelace. I came here and Bill Bair hired me to work out at Pacific Northwest Lab. Franklin: Right, and what year would this have been? Brooks: It was ’98. Franklin: Okay. Brooks: So—no, it wasn’t ’98. ’88. Excuse me. Franklin: That’s okay. Brooks: Anyway, I came here to work at the Pacific Northwest Lab. So I worked here for about ten years at PNNL. And I don’t know how much of that story you want to hear. Probably not too much, but— Franklin: Well, I’d love to hear about that. Brooks: But I worked at the cellular molecular biology group at Pacific Northwest National Lab. Franklin: Okay. And what did you do there? Similar to— Brooks: Well, similar. Spent a lot of time on radon. Franklin: Ah, the home radiation. Brooks: The home radiator. We had a big radon program at PNNL, and I was the head of that. Franklin: Doesn’t Spokane have really high levels of radon in the nation? Brooks: They do. They’re one of the high ones. The Reading Prong in the east, Spokane, several places have quite high radon. And so we did a lot of experimental work on radon. Again, trying to link cancer induction to [UNKNOWN] changes. So we’d have animals inhale radon, we’d look for the chromosome damage and all that. Then we’d try to look for the cancers in them. And a guy named Fred Cross—you probably have interviewed Fred Cross. You surely should have if you haven’t. Franklin: I think we—I think we might have. I’ll have to go back. Brooks: Anyway, because Fred Cross ran a great big radon program for exposure to animals of radon. So when I came here, I got talking to Fred and I says, hey, Fred. Rats get a lot of lung cancer when they inhale radon. But not one case of trachea or nasal cancer. You inhale it, it goes down your trachea, into your lungs. How come you don’t get tracheal cancer? You inhale—have hamsters inhale radon, you don’t get anything! Now are we humans more like rats or hamsters? [LAUGHTER] That was one of the questions, you know? Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Brooks: Are we rats or are we hamsters? So I went ahead and started studying that at the cell and molecular level. When I asked a guy named Tony James, said, hey, Tony, how come rats don’t get tracheal tumors? And he says, well, maybe the dose to the trachea—the amount of radiation to the trachea is very different than the deep lungs. You inhale it, maybe it goes and stays better, and maybe that’s what it is. And I says, well, can you help me with the dose? Well, you tell me the diameter of the trachea, you tell me the velocity of the airway, you tell me the particle size, you tell me the branching angles, you tell me this—I can tell you what the dose is. I says, crap, I can’t tell you all that. I’m a simple biologist. So I went ahead and looked at the cells and see what they tell me. So we have the animals radiate, inhale the radon, go in, look at their lungs, look at the trachea, look at the nose, see how much chromosome damage there is. Same all three places. Same amount of dose, no cancer nose or trachea, lots of lung cancer. Same amount of dose. Same amount of damage. Same number of mutations. Huh! So I look at the hamsters—Chinese hamsters, Syrian hamsters. Same thing. Same amount of dose, no cancer in hamsters. Lot of cancer. So I decided that maybe mutations aren’t that important. There are other processes going on besides that. And this was something that really—a lot of people did not like. Franklin: Why? Brooks: Because they always thought that mutations make cancer. You got a mutation that releases itself from its control, it goes ahead and it does this, this and this. Before long you have cancer. But, hey. Same number of mutations, no cancer. Franklin: So why, then, was the cancer—same level of dose, all three areas, same level of mutations, why was the cancer only happening in the lung? Brooks: Yeah, that’s a good question. And so, what happened then—and this is the last part of my career—is I left Pacific Northwest Lab and came to Washington State University. My office was down the hall about four places on the left down there. And when I left PNL, they were going into the molecular science center, and they closed down the radon program. So I had a couple million dollars’ worth of funding in radon, and they closed it down. Oh, Brooks, you don’t have any funding. No, I don’t, do I? So what are you going to do? Well, I’m going to try to write some grants to get some more funding. No, no, we don’t have time for that. So anyway, I changed positions over there from biology into risk assessment. And I knew that I wasn’t a risk assessor. So I spent my nights and weekends writing grants. I got a grant from NIH, National Institute of Health; I got a grant from the Department of Energy; I got a grant from NASA to study radiation in space, and to study cell and molecular changes. So I hit on three grants, so I came over here and says, hey, you know, I got some money. Is it all right if I come over here? What do you think they said? Oh, yeah, we’d love to have you. Franklin: Open arms? Brooks: Yeah, come on. As long as you realize that we’re not giving you any money. But you got your own money, come on. And that was wonderful, it was. It was really good. I came over here and as a result of getting the grant from DOE, then, they started what they called a Low Dose Radiation Research Project. And the Low Dose Radiation Research Project, Senator Pete Domenici out of New Mexico said, hey, we’re spending billions of dollars cleaning up waste, we’re spending billions of dollars on concern over medicine use. We’re concerned about nuclear weapons, we’re concerned about terrorists, but we don’t know much about low doses. We know what happens up here at this high dose region, where we really kicked the devil out of you, you get cancer. What about the low dose? Of course, at that time, we’d sequenced the genome, we had all of these new tools and techniques where we could go down and look. So DOE started what they called the Low Dose Program. They had what they called the Chief Scientist for the Low Dose Program, and I got that. So I sat here at Washington State University and ran the Low Dose Program out of Washington, DC with a lady named Noelle Metting. So, my job was the best in the world. My boss was in Washington, DC. I was here, sitting down the hall. And we helped them run this program where we had about $25 million a year. We distributed it to the very best scientists we could find anywhere in the world. We didn’t just limit it to US scientists. If you had an idea or a technique that was unique, we’d give you money. We gave money to Grey Lab in England where they had a microbeam where they could shoot individual cells. We gave money to the Australians where they were able to look at mutations in animals at very, very low levels. We gave money over in the Ukraine where they went over and studied a lot of the rodents after the Chernobyl fallout. And so we had all the very best—I thought—the very best cell and molecular biologists in the world studying the health effects of low doses. And my job, along with the lady named Leslie Couch, who worked here with me, was to run the program and to take the abstracts and take the information and put it in a kind of language that the lay people could maybe understand. We scientists, we don’t care. If I can talk to my two best friends, that’s all I care, you know. [LAUGHTER] I don’t care if the Rotary Club understands what I’m doing. But that’s one of the problems we’ve had. See, the public’s perception is way over here. The real world is way over there. And we as scientists have not done the job. We have not done the job. So that was my job here for about ten years, at Washington State. Franklin: So what did you find? Brooks: We found that the response of cells and molecules at low doses is very different than high doses. At high doses, you’ve got injury, you’ve got repair. At low doses, a whole different set of genes gets turned on, whole different processes are upregulated. But the wisdom of our political system killed the system, shut the program down. I retired and went to White Pass and ran a girls’ camp for a couple of years. And Bill Morgan came to Pacific Northwest Lab and took over at the Low Dose Program. Now, I don’t know if you’ve—Bill passed away last year. Huge loss. So Bill came and took over my job that I had as the chief scientist. And then I got running the website for them, see? And so they gave the website to Pacific Northwest Lab. So while I was running [LAUGHTER] a girls’ camp, plowing snow, which I did yesterday—went up and helped them. [LAUGHTER] Trying to keep the roads clean. Then Bill was running the website here for two years. It’s really interesting because the website really got quite popular. Because we were putting all the new information into it, and publications—lots and lots of publications on what happens at low doses and how different it is than high doses. Franklin: What constitutes a low dose? Brooks: Well, what you have to realize is that we live in a sea of radiation, okay? There’s a background amount of radiation that we all have. The higher in elevation you get, the more you get. If you live in Denver, you get way more than you do here. So what usually people do is say, well, here’s the background, and some value above that must be a low dose. [LAUGHTER] How fast you give it is the other thing, is how fast you get it. The body’s able to recover and repair. So if you give 100 rads or one gray all in one second, that does a lot more damage than if you give that over a year. Your body repairs and eliminates the bad cells. And that’s the other thing we found: a lot of protective processes that we didn’t realize existed. Franklin: You mean the body’s own protective processes. Brooks: Sure. The body has a built-in system, man. We’re being insulted by all kinds of things all the time, and, golly, we’re still alive. We should have been dead, see, if it wasn’t repairing. So anyway, I ran this Low Dose Program and then I went up to Camp Zarahemla. When I got there, I still had money left in my grant from the Department of Energy. Then I talked to Dr. Metting and I says, look, Noelle, I can send this money back to DOE if you’d like. Or you can let me keep it and I’ll write a book on the history of the program. And so the two years while I was at Camp Zarahemla, I spent every morning writing the history and so I compiled all of publications, put together the history, and got that all published just as I—all put together—just as I came out of there. And they made a website, put it on the website, so it’s been on the website for a while. But I couldn’t get her to publish it. And so, the bottom line on that is that DOE has finally given Pacific Northwest Lab some money to help me get that published. And Washington State University is publishing it. Franklin: Great. Brooks: And it’s supposed to be out in April. Franklin: Oh, wow, cool. Congratulations. Brooks: So anyway. [LAUGHTER] But anyway, that’s the history of the DOE Low Dose Program. That’s what I did at the very last of my career. Now, when I got back from Camp Zarahemla where we were running the girls’ camp, Bill Morgan says, you know, this is a lot more work than I thought it was going to be. Why don’t you come and help me? So Bill wrote a contract for me as a private—I set up a company and we—DOE says, well you can run it through PNL, or you can run it through Washington State, or you can set up a private company and run it there. They had a set amount of money that they were willing to give me. I thought, oh, PNL has an overhead rate of a little over 100%. Washington State has an overhead rate of about 40%. My company has no overhead rate. I think I’ll do it that way. [LAUGHTER] So anyway, Bill was very nice, and he helped me set up and get funded through PNL. So I worked, then, for PNL on the website for a number of years after I got back from camp. Then of course Bill passed away and the program there has gone down to where there’s not much left. So that’s where I am today. I still—PNL gave me some money to get the book published, so that’s very nice. And I work for EPRI, the Electric Power Research Institute, where they’ve been paying me some money to write some papers. I got a very nice paper published with two real good people, Julian Preston, who’s a geneticist and David Holm who’s an epidemiologist, where we looked at dose rate. See, now, how important is dose rate? Now, this is a big argument now, whether, if you give dose over a long period of time, it’s less effective than giving it all at once. All the data says that’s true. The Germans, on the other hand, have eliminated nuclear power, and they have decided that there is no benefit of protracting the radiation. Franklin: Of what? Brooks: Of protracting it, extending it out in time. In other words, if I give you one unit of radiation in one second, or if I give you one unit of radiation in ten years, the effect is the same. Does that make sense to you? Franklin: It doesn’t if the data doesn’t support it. Brooks: Well, the data doesn’t support it. Because every cell in your body is whacked when you give it all at once. You give it over time, the cells are turning over; any individual cell doesn’t see much. All he sees is a very low dose. He responds differently to that than he does this whack. Franklin: The whack turns on different— Brooks: Turns on a different set of genes, turns on a different set of processes. I’m trying to survive up here, okay? We found, for example, if you take—we developed a microbeam here at PNL—Les Braby did—where we could take and shoot individual cells with alpha particles. So we get under a microscope, get a bunch of kids that were good with video games, shoot that cell, and move, shoot this one, and shoot that one. We knew exactly which cells we’d shot. We knew exactly how many alpha particles we’d shot them with. Then we look at the response. That was what I was doing, looking at the response. It was really kind of neat, because you’d hit one cell, cell over here would responded. Of course! We’re talking to each other. We’re not a single cell. We don’t have eyes in our liver, you know. Come on. When we develop—and so, that was what we call the bystander effect. This is one of the things we found at the Low Dose Program. You hit one cell, the whole tissue responds. Franklin: Trying to prevent the damage, right? Brooks: Yeah, what does it do? It’s trying to prevent the damage. So if you hit one cell, it sends out messages: I’ve been hit! Help! What do the other cells do? Pew! Kill it. You’re out of here. It’s called apoptosis, or spontaneous programmed cell death. Franklin: You hit the whole tissue at once, then they all can’t respond. Brooks: Right, everybody’s damaged, folks. But if one cell gets hit, the whole tissue responds to try to save the tissue, not the cell. They’ll kill that cell. It’s called selective apoptosis, where you just eliminate that guy. And so there’s a lot of that—really fun. I just had a great time at it. Franklin: That’s great. Did you ever find out why the rat lungs were prone to cancers, whereas the esophagus and the trachea were not? Brooks: Well, you know, the thing that we found in the Low Dose Program was the cell communication. The cells in the trachea and esophagus are nicely arranged in nice little columns. And the communication is very nice between them. In the lung, you get this thing spread out. You kill a cell over here, you stimulate another over there, you do this, this, that. Very different project. And so I think that what’s happening is that the cells that are able to maintain communication, maintain structure—if you have an inflammatory disease, okay, esophageal reflex. What do you get? You get esophageal cancer. No radiation, no mutations. Inflammatory disease. So any time you get tissue disorganization, inflammation. We did that with the lungs. We’d have these animals inhale radioactive material. If you gave them enough, you’d kill them. They’d die, pneumonitis, fibrosis, the lungs would fill up with water and they’d die. If you give them a little less than that so they didn’t die of that, almost every one of them got cancer—lung cancer. If you go down a little lower, but still an awful lot, but protracted over a long period of time, almost nothing. Franklin: And why did the Syrian or Chinese hamsters not get the lung cancer when they were exposed to the same amount? Brooks: Well, that’s what we call genetic variability, okay? You and I are different. You and I are different. Every one of us has our own genetic difference. As you looked into these animals, they had different pathways. They have different ways to repair. They’re different. Franklin: Sure, sure. Brooks: If you look at the human population, we’ve got sensitive people, we’ve got resistant people. I think the sensitive people are more like rats and the resistant ones more like the hamsters. That’s one of the things that we’re starting to unravel. What are the pathways and what are the ones that are important? That’s when the program was killed. And so that’s one of the things I’m pushing really hard and working with a lot of people now to see if we can get money back into that program. It’s really a critical thing. Franklin: Sure. I believe you. I mean, it sounds like understanding—because we all live with low dose and varying amounts of low dose. Brooks: That’s right. Franklin: And especially as we don’t have that kind of constant testing of radiation anymore, we might get exposed to different variabilities, right? Brooks: Right, right. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk about the consequences of that. Because I’ve heard a little bit about it, of the loss of the generations that kind of ingested the radiation from atomic weapons testing. Do you know what I’m talking about? Brooks: Not for sure. Franklin: That there was ways to kind of track where people were, based on the amount of material in their cells that they had ingested from the atomic weapons testing, and that now there’s a generation that has grown up since the ban and doesn’t have those kind of genetic markers anymore. Brooks: No. Yeah, I don’t know. I think, of course, once you take the radiation—and we’re very, very good at detecting radiation. That’s one of the things that we’re really good at. And that really impressed me when I went from working with radiation to working with hot chemicals. Radiation—if I spill something—I knew right where it was. Chemical, I spill something, I don’t know where it was. So we’re so good at testing and detecting. My generation, I can go in and get counted today, and they’d tell me how much strontium I’ve still got in my bones. I had thyroid. We counted people all over the state of Utah that had fairly significant amounts of radiation in them. Chernobyl, Fukushima. Lots and lots and lots and lots of people have ingested lots and lots and lots of radiation. And so it’s not a mystery box anymore. The mystery box is the fact that it hasn’t been very effective. And I’ve just been really grateful for that. Because when I was growing up, I thought, oh, crap, you know? We’re going to have a cancer epidemic in southern Utah the likes of which you’ve never seen before. It didn’t develop. Chernobyl, we went over there and set up a study. Guy named Admiral Zumwalt was a Navy admiral. He knew the Navy admirals over in Russia. So we got all of us together and set up a big study to study Chernobyl. We had each of the Russian countries matched with the United States group. We had Ukraine and Belarus and Russia, all matched with Fred Hutch, one group, Texas, another group, Boston, another group. So we got all our best people, matched them with theirs, to go over and look at that. Chernobyl had just happened. We wanted to find out, again, are we going to have terrible cancer epidemic in Russia? And now it’s been 20-plus years, 30 years, after Chernobyl, huh? 20-something years. Franklin: 30. A little more than 30, because it was 1986, right? Brooks: Right. Franklin: April of ’86. Brooks: So, ’86, I was still a youngster. Anyway, I was sitting on this committee. Been sitting on it for years. When we started, our prediction was that we were really going to have some serious problems with cancer, especially leukemia—especially childhood leukemia. And thyroid. See, the Russians didn’t need people telling people in Pripyat that they had a problem for several days. So they were there sucking in the iodine-131—thyroid getting really kicked. So all of our models, all of that, said, boy, we have a serious problem here. The longer we did it, the more measurements we made, the longer we followed it up—where are the cancers? Where are the cancers? Zero excess solid cancers, with exception of cancer of the thyroid of children. Huge increase in cancer of the thyroid in children. Franklin: And is that a result of the radioactive iodine? Brooks: It is the radioactive iodine, very high doses. Franklin: And we’re talking about people in the surrounding area, not talking about the responders. Brooks: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The responders, they got zinged. They got zinged. We killed a bunch of them. You know, the Russians, they had a very different philosophy than what we have. It’s like me having a great big bonfire here and saying, why don’t you go stand in the middle of that bonfire? You know, I’d rather not. They knew how hot that was. They knew going in there was going to be lethal. But they sent them in. See, we wouldn’t have done that. Okay? But, yeah, first responders— Franklin: So why the children and not adult—if they were all in the same environment, why the children and not the adult? Brooks: That’s really a good question. Why the children and not the adults? Children thyroids are developing. There’s lots of cell division in there. There’s lots of opportunities for things to go wrong. Adult thyroids are just sitting there, doing their thing. Almost no cell proliferation, almost no cell division, no differentiation. They’re just sitting there. Now, you take the liver, which just sits there—I did a lot of work on liver. Liver cells, you can radiate the devil out of them as long as you don’t make them divide, they seem to be fine. But you stimulate them to divide—I could go in and flop out part of the liver, make the liver divide, up come the cancer. So there’s a lot of processes, but the children’s thyroids were sensitive. Franklin: And it’s the—so then is the cancer then carried in the division? Is that how it multiplies? [INAUDIBLE] establishing a link-- Brooks: Either that—carried or expressed. Franklin: Carried or expressed, okay. So does the action of division make it—the cells more likely to turn cancerous? Or do we still— Brooks: Well, cell tissues that have more rapid cell division have more cancer in them. Franklin: Sure. Brooks: Bone marrow, GI tract, lung. Franklin: Skin? Brooks: Skin, yeah, skin. But you look at the liver, almost never divides. Radiation doesn’t produce much in the way of brain cancer—cells don’t divide. Muscles, nothing. Bone marrow, gut, skin—all of those dividing—rapidly dividing cells. If the exposure is given acutely. Franklin: Okay. Brooks: But if it’s protracted in time, it’s very different. Franklin: Interesting. Brooks: Because the cells are dividing, and one cell gets hit, its great-grandson maybe get hit. But if you get them all at once, and they have to all divide, and they have to all survive, and they have to all repopulate, that’s where it comes. Franklin: Gotcha. Well, thank you, Tony. Brooks: Well, that’s probably more than you ever wanted to hear. Franklin: No, I think it’s really instructive. And it definitely complicates—complicates our idea of how radiation affects the body, but clarifies and I think kind of dispels some of the misinformation and myths that surround— Brooks: Yeah, fear is a really important part of this whole thing. We had a meeting up at Leavenworth where we brought in scientists from around the world and spent a week up there, trying to decide and discuss what we could do about the fear of radiation. We had a guy from Argentina, we had a guy from Germany, we had a guy from Australia, we had three of us from the United States, and we spent a week up there. It’s really difficult to decide what makes people so afraid of anything. I’m afraid of snakes. Okay. You can tell me that snake’s not going to bite me, but don’t put it on me. Franklin: Sure. Brooks: [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Well it’s tough, right, because fear is a natural human response to keep us alive. It’s a safety feature. Yeah, fear of the unknown. Tony, is there anything that I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to mention in the interview? Brooks: Well, I don’t know, other than it has been really an exciting career for me. Franklin: Great. Brooks: We’ve had a wonderful time, got to do a lot of interesting things, meet a lot of interesting people. I can say the main thing that I’d like to be able to help with is to help people know that if you go in and the doctor says you need a CT scan, take it. The radiation dose from a CT scan is so low that you don’t worry about it. If you need an x-ray, take it. If the dentist wants to look at your teeth, take it. Because the risks are so very small. Franklin: And that radiation doesn’t automatically cause cancer. Brooks: Right. Franklin: It depends on the time of the dose and the amount of— Brooks: Right. And, see, that’s the public perception, that if I get radiated, I will get cancer. If I get cancer, the radiation caused it. And that’s a hard perception to break, because it’s absolutely not true. Franklin: Sure, okay. Well, great, thank you so much, Tony. I really appreciated the interview. Brooks: It’s been fun, I can say. Franklin: Well, I’m glad we could get this for—and that Parker didn’t have one with you—Parker Foundation. So I’m kind of glad that we could kind of get you in with all those other voices about radiation and health safety. Because you have a lot of—a lot of what you said was really instructive. And you said it so easily that—you know, I’m a historian, an archivist. I’m not a radiation expert. I know I’ve been working on this project about some of the basics, but it was very easy to understand. And so you spent your life dedicated to that; you’re a trustworthy source. Brooks: Well, that’s right. I’ve invested my life, basically, trying to do that. And I started off scared to death of it. Okay? Franklin: Yeah. Brooks: And the more I worked and the more I’ve studied and the more I’ve seen, all the way from the animals to the humans to the tissue to the cells to the molecules, everything tells the same story. Franklin: Yeah. Great, well, thanks so much. Brooks: Hey, thank you, man. Franklin: Yeah, thank you. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mp4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:52:33 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1988-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1988-1998 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Leo Bustad Roger McClellan Fred Cross Pete Domenici Noelle Metting Leslie Couch Bill Morgan Les Braby 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 Tony Brooks Description An account of the resource An interview with Tony Brooks 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 02-08-2017 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-13-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Adult Atomic Energy Commission Cancer Children Cook Department of Energy Desert Hanford Livermore NASA Park https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F84bf54bc2ac6706e0f00adbe21db27da.JPG ed544594c67c3e8aa6499b200de2a1a6 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fccf2d62dd3fe95e6c0f1cc18ad35a634.mp4 4c158ffd560c969ebaefe18a3df9df28 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 Ludwig Bruggemann Location The location of the interview Yakima, Washington Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Northwest Public Television | Bruggemann_Ludwig Camera man: There we go. That's pretty good? Robert Bauman: Pretty good. Cameraman: Okay. Seems like we ought to record that. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Yep. Camera man: Yep. We’re rolling. Bauman: Okay. All right, guess we're ready to get started. Ludwig Bruggemann: Good. Bauman: So, if we could start first by just having you say your name and spell it for us. Bruggemann: My name is Ludwig Bruggemann. Ludwig, L-U-D-W-I-G, Bruggemann, B-R-U-G-G-E-M-A-N-N. Bauman: All right, thank you very much. And my name's Bob Bauman. Today's date is September 8, 2014. And we're conducting this interview in Yakima, Washington. So, Mr. Bruggemann, I wonder if we could start by having you tell us a little bit about your family, your parents, and if you know why they moved to the area and when they did that? Bruggemann: Okay. In my father's generation there were three brothers. And my father wanted to become a farmer. And my family had connections to people in Seattle that had access to farms, real estate evidently, real estate people. And my father migrated to America in about 1925, '26. And worked his way up the West Coast, from California on up. And in the between time, his family, or these real estate people had found a farm in the state of Washington that was installed. It was built, everything was there. The person owning it wanted to sell, and my father was able to purchase this 400-acre farm on the Columbia River. Being very important, having water, this is almost a desert area, and he had a big pump station on the Columbia River, water pump station. Bauman: So that was in place already, when he bought it? Bruggemann: That was in place, and he took it over and got it going, got it working right. Bauman: Any idea how much your father paid for it? Bruggemann: No, no idea at all, no. Bauman: And so what sort of crops were grown on the farm? Bruggemann: My father had--what, Paula? Paula Bruggemann Holm: I don't know if it was soft fruit. Bruggemann: No, it was soft fruit as I remember. Holm: Apricots, peaches? Bruggemann: Cherries, wasn't it? Wasn't it cherries? Peaches? Apricots? Pears, maybe. Holm: Apples? Bruggemann: No apples, no. And he later wanted to go into grapes. Bauman: Oh, okay so that was the plan for down the road. Bruggemann: Yeah. Bauman: And your mother--was your father married at the time that he purchased the property? Bruggemann: My father was married I think at the time he purchased the property. But he got a divorce and then he met my mother whose relatives were running the ferry. Bauman: Okay. Bruggemann: At Priest Rapids. And that's how my mother met him, and found him evidently a very attractive man. Bauman: And what was your mother’s name? Bruggemann: Mary. Bauman: And so what memories do you have, I know you were very young when your family left, what memories do you have of the place at all? Bruggemann: Almost none. It was a big, big place, we had animals and about my fifth birthday I got kicked over by a goat. I was trying to pet one of her children and she didn't like that. [LAUGHTER] And I did experience-I sort of have it in my memory--the two jeeps driving in. With the orders, the government orders, you have two months to pack your things and get out of here. Which is a real blow for a farmer. Bauman: Right. Bruggemann: Because, you see, my father had his first crop on the trees. Because later in the dealings, the court dealings he had, they ask him, show us your profits. And he said look, I built up that farm and I had my first crop on the trees and your two jeeps drove in. Military jeeps. Bauman: Right. So your father then took the government to court at some point? Is that what you're saying? Bruggemann: Pardon? Bauman: Your father, did he go to court then? Bruggemann: Well later, I don't know when, where, we moved then to Yakima afterwards. My father thought that he had put his youth energy into that farm and he still wanted to remain a farmer, but he wanted something smaller, and which he could get here on the outskirts of Yakima. And he went to court, I think that was a normal procedure. You had to go to court I think, to find out what the proceeds would be--what the government would they pay for the property--and you're saying it's worth a lot of money and you have to prove that it's worth a lot of money. Bauman: Right. Bruggemann: The land, the crops and so on. And well, the government asks show us your profits. And he didn't have any profits to show, so he got much less than he had hoped he would. Mm-hm. Bauman: Did your father and mother, do remember them talking about this much at the time or later even, when you were older? Talking about having to move in 1943? Bruggemann: No, not really. You see, my father was a real dedicated farmer and he took over 12 acres in here, in Yakima, but with cherries, Bing cherries, that were sold in New York. Really good fruit, peaches and apricots and that subject was sort of shoved to the back. I don't really remember any discussions; I do know that they were disappointed on the outcome, the financial outcome. Bauman: I wonder if you have any other memories of other people--on farms, neighboring farms or other people that you knew in the area or? Bruggemann: Well, Gary and Margaret Wills, yeah, they had the contact and they were out there also weren't they? Holm: Yeah, that's where they met them. Bruggemann: Yeah, okay. Mr. and Mrs. Wills, they were also farmers and also came then the Yakima. See there were two big cities that you would go to, either Sunnyside or Yakima. Mm-hm, at that time. Bauman: Right. So even when you were living on your farm if you needed to go to the city to buy things or whatever, you would go to? Bruggemann: Yeah. Either we'd go to Sunnyside or to Yakima. And the Yakima tour was about an hour’s drive at the time. Bauman: So you were about five years old? Is that right? Bruggemann: I was just, my birthday's in the summer and those jeeps drove in the summer, so I was almost at my fifth birthday, right? When that happened. Bauman: So you had not yet started school? Bruggemann: No, no, no, no, no. I had no kindergarten--they didn't have kindergarten then. I started in Castleville, I think Castleville School, didn't I? I started there, yeah in the first grade and which I just loved--a very good school, Castleville. Bauman: Now we were talking earlier that you and your sister had the chance to go back on site a couple years ago, Gary Peterson, right? Bruggemann: Yeah, right. Bauman: Had you been back before then at all? Bruggemann: No, we would--you know where the Vantage Bridge is, Okay. I would take trips--on my trips here to the States I would take trips with my parents to the Vantage Bridge. And there's a little stop there, a little rest area there. And we would look over the fence to the old house, we thought it was the old house until--well the house was there for a while anyway, until they tore it down--but that's all, that’s the only-- Bauman: So that time with Gary was the first time you had actually been out-- Bruggemann: In the area, yes. Yes. Yes. Bauman: What, I'm kind of curious, did it bring back any memories for you? Or what sorts of things. Bruggemann: Not really. Not really. I don't remember the house at all, for example. I don't remember. I know my memory set in when I came to Yakima. Bauman: Mm-hm. Bruggemann: But it was, well wait, wait, wait, one thing, one thing. My mother was always very much loaded with work and cooking and even washing for help, washing clothes and so on for help. It was a real burden for her. I don't think when she married my father, she didn't realize what type of work is involved in a big ranch because if you have 400 acres, you need a lot of help. Cooking and so on, housing these people to a certain degree. Bauman: Do you remember any of the other buildings that were there? Your sister mentioned the cook house, I think. Bruggemann: The cook house is still there. Bauman: The building is still there, right? Bruggemann: Yeah. No not, not really there. There must've been some big barns and so on there but I just don't remember that at all. I remember having a dog. Bauman: Yeah. And you mentioned the size of the property, obviously, your father must have hired a number of workers. Bruggemann: Oh, yes, yes. Bauman: Do you remember workers being around? Bruggemann: No, no, no, not really. The only thing I remember was loading--my father would take the fruit to the rails, to the, what was it? What was the rail track station? Anyway there's a there's a railroad station there. And one day— Holm: [INAUDIBLE] Bruggemann: No, no. Priest Rapids or something. Anyway one day a big train came in and the engineer, the driver of the train, saw me standing down there with my father and he asked me, do you want a Coke? I must've said yes and he threw me down a Coke. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Bruggemann: Which really impressed me at that time. Bauman: That is something that you would remember. Bruggemann: But that was also something that was very important, getting the fruit out of there, getting it onto the train. Make sure things are running, make sure the fruit gets to the right storage and so on, the cool house. Bauman: What was the weather like? Do you remember winters or summers at all? Bruggemann: No, I don't remember winters at all, but summers were warm. Warm, very warm. Bauman: And you mentioned having a dog. Bruggemann: Yeah Bauman: Young people today are used to a lot of things to keep themselves entertained, and so they would probably want to know, as a young child, what did you do on the farm? You were probably too little to have any chores or anything like that, right? Bruggemann: No, no. My mother would probably ask me to set the table or something maybe, but no, I was really, really too young. And I think also, that my sister and I were quite a burden for my mother. Because she had so much work to do and she had entertain us also. And by the way, your comment is interesting to me because young people today tend to say to the mother: I'm bored, fix that please. I never said that once my life. I took life as it came and that's one of the reasons I liked school so much because school was for me then, exciting. Bauman: So then in 1943 when you had to move, when your family had to move, you said you moved essentially to Yakima then? Bruggemann: We moved here into Yakima into a rented house while my father looked for a farm out here on Englewood Avenue then. Holm: The Canfield--he bought the Canfield house. Bruggemann: The Canfield house, okay. Holm: He was a representative for the state or something. He never liked that house. Bauman: So I interviewed a number of people as I explained to you earlier, both people who lived in the area before 1943 and then people came to work at Hanford during the war. Why do you think it'd be important for people to learn about--know about, learn about--these communities, these farmers, and families that were there before World War II. Bruggemann: Well, one reason, the hardships that people were willing to go through. If at that time I would have been say, 20, 25 and I got a letter or something, saying you can earn a lot of money if you go to Hanford, well sure, I could have probably earned a lot of money but it would have been a lot of hardship also. And I think that's much different than today. People are not willing to go through hardship like that--building up a community in that short of time and working hard, maybe more than eight hours a day, to get that project working. An atomic bomb was a very important thing, you know? It was one of the factors of winning the war. Bauman: Right. Are there any other memories, either of the farm itself, the ranch, the area that you still remember or think about, sort of standout? Bruggemann: No, no, I just remember also a hardship. Now, now look. If my wife wants some butter, like this morning she told me I need butter. So what do I do, I get in my car, I drive a mile down to Freddy Meyer, have a butter within five minutes and I'm back again. If something happened on the ranch, my dad or my mother made an hour trip driving on roads that weren't nearly as nice as they are today. Bauman: Right. Bruggemann: So this hardship--I noticed that. That was always a big thing. I'm sure my father had many flat tires coming to Yakima. Bauman: Right. So things we take for granted today, a lot more work. Bruggemann: Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, life is so easy now. You're like, let's take Freddy Meyer for an example. I was in that store this morning, it's huge and has everything that I can think of. Bauman: Mm-hm. Bruggemann: If my mother at the ranch wanted some little thing she had to go to Yakima to get it. There was no other way of purchasing that. Meaning a trip, a dirty trip to Yakima one hour both ways. Holm: [INAUDIBLE] White Bluffs. Some of these little towns had a few--a grocery store or something. Bruggemann: Yes, but-- Holm: I remember, I think he went to Sunnyside. Bruggemann: Yeah. Bauman: So I just want one more question unless you have something else you want to talk about but what would you like people to know or understand or remember about your family and the ranch? You know, we were talking earlier, the cook house that's there is one of the few buildings from pre '43 that's still standing that people can see as a concrete reminder that there were families there. Bruggemann: Yes. Bauman: So is there anything that you, that either of you would like people to understand if that they get a chance to see that building. Bruggemann: Well I don't know, the German word, pioniergeist, the willingness to pioneer something. That is the important thing. And then my mother going into this pioniergeist type of thing and finding it a terrible burden. I mean things don't always work out perfectly, you know? And then something like this war situation coming up, and just completely changing your life--now for me it was probably a good change. I think I had an advantage, getting in right away at the age of six, going to a nice school here in Yakima which was probably much better than I would have had out at the ranch. Bauman: Right. Makes sense. Bruggemann: Yup. I also at that time, as opposed to today, I had very good teachers. 50-year-old women that knew what they were doing. Bauman: I was just thinking, your parents in some ways came from very different places, right? Bruggemann: Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Bauman: So was your father bilingual? Did he speak English and German? Bruggemann: Yes, German and English both, yes. Sure. Bauman: Oh, okay. And did he speak both at home there? Bruggemann: No, we didn't, at home we spoke English--my mother's language. Bauman: Right, sure. Did you learn any German from your father growing up? Bruggemann: No, no I didn't. I learned German the hard way. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Well, the last question I wanted to ask, is there anything that you want to add? Or some memory that we haven't talked about yet? Holm: Do you remember the hermit? Bruggemann: The hermit? No. Holm: On the way to Sunnyside? We'd always stop and talk to him and he just was thrilled to death, talking to my mom, our mom. Bruggemann: No, no. I don't know that. Bauman: That's right, you had mentioned him. Bruggemann: I only remember--Do you remember the halfway house? Holm: Well the name, yeah. Bruggemann: The halfway house was an abandoned house that was sort of halfway to Yakima. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: Oh, so that’s why it’s the halfway house? Bruggemann: Yeah, halfway house. Yeah they never tore it down, they just let it and yeah it doesn't exist anymore. But that's also an indication that it was quite a trip to Yakima, you know? Holm: I guess it was quite a trip when I had to go to the bathroom all the time, I'm not doing them well. I just want to kick them and go through the boards. [LAUGHTER] Bauman: So I guess, you mentioned the Wills family? Bruggemann: The Wills, yes. Bauman: Any other family names you remember? Bruggemann: No, no. I don't know. Holm: Gilhuly. Bauman: Gilhuly. Holm: And Frye. Frye just died here, not too long ago. Bauman: Okay, so I think you had mentioned that Gilhuly name when I was here. Holm: F-R-Y-E, I think it is. Bauman: One other question I was going to ask, did you have a radio or did you get a newspaper at all? I'm curious how you learned about, your family, if you know. Bruggemann: Yes we surely had a radio but the radio became important here in Yakima, I thought because my dad would sit in the evenings--not at the TV but he would sit at the radio- and he would get the two children and say come on, listen in. And there were also some plays or something on the radio that were entertaining. Pardon? Holm: The Cinnamon Bear every evening. Bauman: Okay. Holm: We didn't have TV until like '51. Bruggemann: No, no. See TV was much later. Bauman: Yeah. I just wondered if radio or newspaper, if you— Bruggemann: No, no. Well, we had the Yakima Herald newspaper everyday, but we listened a lot in the evenings to radio. Just like people sit in front of the TV nowadays. Bauman: Okay, well thank you very much. I appreciate it. Bruggemann: Well I wish I knew more, but in one way it's amazing to me, too, that I have such a fragile memory of the whole thing, you know? But things changed then when we came to Yakima. Bauman: Sure. I don't know that I remember much before I turned five, so. Bruggemann: Yeah, yeah. Bauman: But yeah, I appreciate you taking the time out of your trip here to the states. Bruggemann: Sure. Well, I am very, very willing to do this. It's important to show a good picture of history, the way it was. And especially this project. I think this project—whew, any place in the world, it is surely a huge project that worked and worked under pressure too. A lot of pressure. Bauman: Right. And we were talking earlier, we want to preserve as many of the memories- both of the people who came to work on the project and also people who were here before that, make sure people understand there were farmers and towns there. Bruggemann: Yeah, yeah. Bauman: That's important. Again, thank you very much, I really appreciate it. Bruggemann: Okay. Bauman: All right. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data mp4 Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:28:13 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 189 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site ~1925-1943 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Mary Bruggemann Gary and Margaret Wills Gary Peterson Gilhuly Frye 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 Ludwig Bruggemann Description An account of the resource An interview with Ludwig Bruggemann 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 09-08-2014 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-27-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Cook Hanford River School Sun War https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fa8b49961531582554e9868f93f7a942a.jpg f8a9132ccd53e3c39c0cee5fdd9e9ca4 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F4361045435f51aa42f69dde5f08a4ad9.mp4 e3071fd5aef547b0c5009fc5e2bd304e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Roderick Coler Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Tom Hungate: You’re rolling. Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history with Dr. Roderick Coler, retired MD, on June 1st, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Dr. Roderick Coler about his experiences as a doctor in the Tri-Cities area during the Hanford time. Roderick Coler: Right. And you can—everybody calls me Rod. Franklin: Rod? Okay, great. Everybody calls me Robert. Coler: Yeah. Robert. Franklin: So, Rod, as an early medical specialist in Kennewick, how did you come to Kennewick as a place to practice? Coler: I heard about Kennewick remotely from patients when I was in the Veterans Administration Hospital Residency Program in Portland. Franklin: In Portland, Oregon? Coler: In Portland, Oregon. Franklin: Okay. Coler: And I was dating a ward secretary by the name of Thelma who later became my wife. She said that we should go where you’re needed. Franklin: Okay. Coler: So when I got a call from Dr. Ralph deBit who was one of the early general practitioners here—he suggested that I drive down and have lunch at the old Kennewick General Hospital. So Thelma and I drove down, but the car stalled when we got to Umatilla. I went out and started hitchhiking so we wouldn’t be late for the lunch. Nobody picked me up. So Thelma said, get behind that bush! [LAUGHTER] And I went and hid behind a piece sagebrush. She went out and stuck up her thumb, and the first car that went by picked us up and took us to the Kennewick General Hospital for lunch and I was on time. My first experience in Kennewick. Looked pretty rustic. But the five general practitioners here needed an internal medical specialist, and I was finishing that specialty. So I was welcomed. They provided me with an office, and the first three months’ free rent. It went smoothly from there on out. I came to practice where I practiced for 58 years. Franklin: 58 years. And that was in 1947? Coler: And that was 1948. Mm-hm. Franklin: Okay. Great. So when you said Kennewick was very rustic, can you kind of elaborate a little more on that? Coler: [LAUGHTER] There was just a main street, Kennewick Avenue, and 1st Avenue. And after that, the avenues weren’t very well traveled. But there were a number of houses around, and it looked like a comfortable place to practice. And the old Kennewick General Hospital certainly needed some medical supervision and a medical specialist. So I was happy to look at this as a place to come. It kept me in the West. I was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Franklin: Okay. Coler: That is my place of growing up. And I wanted to stay in the West. Franklin: Why is that? Coler: I don’t know. There was a certain sense of adventure when you’re in your 30s and you’ve had three years of service in the Air Force, and you’ve come back, and you want to settle down, and you’re through with your training, but you don’t want the big city, even though Portland is a lovely town. But it would be a slow place for an internist to get started. Franklin: Why is that? Coler: Because so many doctors just stayed. After their training program in Portland, they just stayed on in Portland. Because it felt like home and felt comfortable. But Thelma said, go where you’re needed. So we came down at the invitation of these five general practitioners. And Dr. Ralph deBit is a piece of history in himself. Franklin: Can you—oh, sorry, go ahead. Coler: So we decided then after seeing two or three more places that—Kennewick and the Tri-Cities was the place we wanted to practice. Franklin: Great. What other places did you visit? Coler: Well, I went over on the coast where I ran into three days of straight rain, over on the Portland coast. [LAUGHTER] The Washington coast was desolate. And I found the dry side was much to my liking. Franklin: Interesting. Coler: Mm-hm. Franklin: You mentioned that you’d been three years in the Air Force. So were you a doctor in the Air Force? Coler: No. No, I went into the Air Force as part of weather training. The Air Force was gearing up for a much longer war—this is World War II—gearing up for a much longer war. They wanted to keep a cadre of young men available to train. So they put me in a year of mathematics at University of Washington in St. Louis to study pre-meteorology, which was all mathematics, up through higher numbers. A lot of things that I never would need or use. But then I went out and took six months of weather forecasting, weather observing, and became a weather observer, which was a non-commissioned officer position. So they kept telling me that you would get your rank in the military after you got to your base of work. But I kept being assigned around to training stations and finally I ended up in Coral Gables and had a wonderful time exploring the Everglades, because I only worked eight hours a week out there. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Wow. Coler: As a weather observer. So I was very happy to have that experience, even though I never was commissioned as an officer, which they had promised me would be at the end of my training. Franklin: Interesting. Great. Coler: I still have specimens that I’ve collected from the Everglades, down there. Snakeskins, different plants. And I attended a course in botany of the Florida peninsula while I was there. And it got me interested in the out-of-doors. Franklin: Interesting. So, returning to your work at Kennewick, what exactly—forgive my ignorance and maybe some of the ignorance of the people watching this later—what is an internalist exactly? Coler: So an internal medical specialist is someone who specializes in the skin and its contents. Franklin: The skin and its contents, okay. Coler: From the standpoint of the diagnosis of diseases and their treatment which are not orthopedic and not surgical. But that includes everything from infectious diseases to degenerative diseases. And it generally doesn’t include childhood diseases, although I saw some very interesting cases. Franklin: Such as? Coler: Such as malaria—in Kennewick. Not from the mosquito biting up here, but the mosquito bite carrying the malaria virus down in Central America, and then the patients coming home and coming down with fever here. Fever, chills and anemia. Franklin: Wow. Coler: And finding the parasite in their blood. Franklin: Wow. Coler: We had a good lab at Kennewick General Hospital. Franklin: So you mentioned early on that you came and you worked with—sorry, can you mention the doctor that brought you up again? Coler: Dr. deBit, Dr. Ralph deBit. Franklin: Ralph deBit. And can you elaborate, maybe, on the state of medicine in Kennewick when you came here in ’58? Coler: In ’58, the five general practitioners were very busy and they wanted an internal medical specialist to refer the difficult or diagnostic problems to. There weren’t too many doctors in those days who were willing to move to the smaller communities. They all seemed to want—the specialists wanted to stay in Portland and Seattle, Spokane. But I was very happy to come to Kennewick, and they were very happy to send me their difficult cases. [LAUGHTER] Because in those days, generalists, or general practitioners as they were called—we don’t have any more today. It’s called family practice today, and it requires a much more rigorous training period than it did in the days of the old GP. But the GPs would take care of something like—would see something like 20 patients a day. And maybe four new patients every day. So they didn’t spend much time with them. If it wasn’t evident what the patient suffered from and what the treatment was going to be, then they were happy to refer the patient to somebody who would deliberate a little more. Franklin: Okay. So how did—did you see patients from Hanford? Coler: Yes. Franklin: Okay. Can you talk a little bit about working with patients who worked at Hanford? Coler: So HEHF, or Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, had a cadre of doctors which saw patients who worked at Hanford. When I came to town, Hanford workers had to go to that doctor first, and then if the problem was elaborate or detailed or difficult, such as active tuberculosis or a desert fungus infection like coccidioidomycosis, then they would send the patient to me. Franklin: You kind of laughed a little when you said that last one. Coler: Well, because that disorder is a fungus infection of the lungs that’s only seen in the Sonoma Valley of California or other desert areas in the United States. Franklin: Wasn’t there an outbreak of that recently up here? They closed a bunch of county parks in Washington? Coler: I’m not aware of that, but may be true. Yeah. Franklin: Okay, interesting. I guess fungus and desert isn’t something that I would assume would go together. Coler: Well, that’s right, because you’re thinking of something that grows in moist areas. Franklin: Right. Coler: Like a toadstool, yeah. Franklin: Right. Coler: But this was a fungus that is blowing in the wind. Franklin: Okay. Coler: And if you pass through and drive through those areas when the wind is blowing that particular fungus in the air, you run a high risk of catching one of those desert fungus disorders. Franklin: I imagine then that they like loose sandy soils. Coler: Yes. Loose sandy soil that blows, yeah. We didn’t have any up here, but they would come in from California. Franklin: Okay. Interesting. Coler: Yeah. Franklin: So the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation—can you talk a little bit more about that? Do you know much about its origins, or if it’s still around today? Coler: Well, when the Hanford operation got going, they immediately put in a medical service. They had a superintendent, and they had a cadre of three or four doctors who saw the patients who worked at Hanford. So generally, these were well patients. Generally, they had rashes or they had emotions, or they had injuries from falling, scrapes and wounds, and occasional pneumonia. And sometimes patients would come to work there, because the workforce, remember, during World War II, even at the end of the war, was chosen from people who couldn’t find a job elsewhere, frequently. The country was well-employed, and to find labor and to find the lower jobs, below supervisory jobs at Hanford was difficult. We got patients from the deep South, patients that had migrated in and who sometimes had not been found eligible for work in the war effort elsewhere. Franklin: Okay. Just going to refer to some of your notes here that you brought me. Coler: Mm-hmm, sure. Franklin: So, here we go. I had a question here. So as a part of your 53 years practicing medicine, did you treat families who reported to work at Hanford, and what were your experiences with them and overall feeling towards the work at that site? Coler: Generally, these were healthy patients. Hanford Environmental Health took care of the workers out there, but their families frequently had to seek medical care in the general practitioners and specialists who were out in the community. So we had good surgical help, and we had good diagnostic help. So I was not a pioneer in any sense of the word, but it was interesting, because I knew I was seeing unusual cases that never would be seen by me if I had stayed in the big city. Franklin: Can you—without compromising any personal or medical information, can you talk a little more about some of those unusual cases? Coler: One time I was called up to Kahlotus—I was called up north of Richland to see a woman who was in a stupor. The doctor could not hear a heartbeat. I went up on my afternoon off, on the call, to see her in consultation. Went in to find a woman lying down, weakened, hardly able to talk, and whose heartbeat I couldn’t hear with the stethoscope. I presumed that she had a pericardial effusion. That is, fluid was impacting—fluid in the heart sac was impacting the heartbeat and preventing the heartbeat from being heard, and from being effective in creating circulation by the heart. So I asked for a trocar, which is a big needle, and as I was about to insert it under the ribs, I felt something hard poking me on the other side. I looked down and it was a gun. And her husband was there in the emergency room, and he said, if she dies, you die. She was already very weakened and very—looked like she was on her way into shock and dying. And I plunged the needle through there with a little Novocain, and drained the fluid from the heart sac. And the heart began to beat again and the blood pressure came up and the pulse rate came down, and she woke up. The husband put his gun away. But those were the wild West days. Franklin: Wow. Coler: This was in the Prosser Hospital Emergency Room. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] So that’s one. But I have many. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Please. Coler: Another one was—a patient ran in the front door of the old Kennewick General Hospital—didn’t wait to go through registration. Ran up the stairs and jumped into a bed and said, call Dr. Coler, call Dr. Coler. So the nurse called me and said they had this hyper excitable patient with a pulse rate of 160 and tremulous and pale and sweating, and we don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he jumped into bed and said to call you. So my office was across the street from the old Kennewick General Hospital. So I ran over there, ran upstairs to find the patient exactly as the nurse described. I figured that the only thing that would do that was that he was on some kind of a stimulant, metamphetamine, but in those days we didn’t have that problem. Or, he had a rare, very rare tumor of the adrenal glands, which was secreting too much adrenaline. Now, the nurse laughed at me, because she knew from her medical studies in nursing that nobody ever sees a case like that. I mean, there’s one per state per every ten years in the United States. [LAUGHTER] I mean, it’s rare. But I drew blood from the—I had the laboratory draw blood for the tests. And then I gave him an antidote for epinephrine. And his pulse rate came down, and he quieted down. We went to x-ray, saw the outline of a tumor near the adrenal gland. And where the adrenal gland would be near the kidney. And I got Bobby Luxon—Robert Luxon, who was a very dashing surgeon in town, to see him. And they operated on him here and removed the biggest adrenaline-secreting tumor that had ever been seen in the state of Washington, according to University of Washington records. Franklin: Wow. Coler: So that was an interesting case. Franklin: How big was the— Coler: It was fist-sized. Franklin: Wow. Coler: A fist-sized tumor. Franklin: That’s amazing. Coler: Now, somebody would say, well, how did it get that big without having symptoms in the months leading up to it? Well, in the months leading up to it, he didn’t squeeze it to put the adrenaline into the blood stream all at one time. He was being treated for hypertension, and spurts of hypertension, but nobody suspected when he came to me—or when the nurse called me to see him—that he could have an adrenaline tumor. Rare. Franklin: Yeah, sounds like it. That’s really—that’s really amazing. Any other interesting stories? Coler: Interesting cases? Franklin: Yeah. Coler: Let’s see. Something unusual was happening every three or four months in the practice. But now that’s kind of faded away. Except for the bizarre anemias—pernicious anemia—saw two cases the first month that I came to town. And I was amazed, because I thought, this is a center for pernicious anemia. Or maybe it has something to do with Hanford radiation. But it was simply that Dr. deBit had saved up two cases to wait ‘til I came to town, and then he sent them to me to make me think that this was a haven of unlikely and unreasonable diagnoses. [LAUGHTER] [W. E. JOHNSON<a>[EM1]</a> ] Franklin: Part of—one of these points in your notes here mentions W. E. Johnson, who worked for GE and then was the Atomic Energy Commissioner. We actually have a collection of his files on the project. Coler: Mm-hm. Franklin: So I think it’d be great if you could talk about this bit here about W. E. Johnson. Coler: He was a much-respected administrator. But I saw him in his decline. Franklin: Okay. Yeah, it says here he suffered from progressive dementia? Coler: Yeah, he had a progressive dementia problem, yeah. He one time got on his horse and rode out across the country, not knowing where he was or how far he had gone. Maybe after he had gone about seven or eight miles, he was lost. Didn’t know where he was. So he simply had the good sense to put the reins down on the horse’s neck and let the horse go back to the barn for feeding and rest, and take W. E. Johnson with him back to the ranch. But they had a ranch up north of Richland. Franklin: Mm-hm. Yeah, I’ve seen pictures of that ranch. I’d heard of his love for horses, but I had not heard of that particular story. Coler: Mm-hm. Franklin: Did you ever see him as a patient or— Coler: Yes, yeah. I saw W. E. Johnson as a patient on a regular basis at the end of his career. Franklin: Okay. And that would have been when he was beginning to suffer from progressive dementia. Coler: Yes, dementia. And we tried some medicines that were popular at that time, but nothing helped. Yeah. Franklin<a>[EM2]</a> : So you raised your family. Did you have children when you came to Kennewick? Coler: No. Franklin: Okay. Coler: No, I was engaged to Thelma Cook from Portland. We were married soon after I came to Kennewick. Went back to Portland, had a nice wedding—colorful wedding, nice family. Then she and I settled in to Kennewick and she, being a secretary, managed the secretarial services of my office. And without that, I probably would have gone broke. [LAUGHTER] Working 18 hours a day, gone broke. But she was a—she had a good business head and made the practice pay. We raised four children here. I have three daughters in Portland, and I have Clark Coler, who is chief of staff at the big hospital in Portland. Franklin: Oh, okay. Coler: Yeah. Yeah. Franklin: So what was it like—I guess sometimes people talk or you hear about kind of the shadow of Hanford over the Tri-Cities. What was it like to raise a family in—being kind of somewhat connected, seeing Hanford workers, but raising a family in these communities in the Cold War? Were there any events, or anything that was unique to the Tri-Cities that kind of stands out to you? Coler: No, it was a good rural area to raise children. They were well-behaved, and joined the clubs at the high school. And came up through the system here. They’re all quite successful. I’m very proud of three daughters, employed and married in Portland, and Clark, at the Swedish Hospital in Seattle. Franklin: Oh, great. That’s wonderful. How much—seeing Hanford patients, you must have had some idea of the work at Hanford. Did you have a pretty good idea of what was happening at Hanford? Or what was your knowledge and your thoughts and opinions about the work at Hanford? Coler: When we tried to recruit doctors to come to the Tri-Cities, they knew that the radiation was surveyed, and patients would be—and people would be safe here. But the wives had this abject fear of radiation. They didn’t want to raise their children within 50 miles [LAUGHTER] of a reactor, because they had heard that you could have babies with small heads or you could have deformities, and that it would be a terrible place to raise a family. I remember having two or three medical doctors and their families and their wives come over, and I would take them on a tour of the Kennewick General Hospital to recruit doctors to come here. And the doctors were very enthusiastic. Over luncheon, they were talking about how interested they would be in coming—a growing community, and practicing medicine here. And we were able to supply them with offices and get them started, even though there weren’t any clinics—everybody was in private practice. This was before the Richland Clinic accumulated their staff from the existing doctors in Richland. But the wives were afraid of radiation. One time, when I had three doctors and their wives come over from Seattle to see about moving here to practice when they got through with their training, a windstorm came up and we had a dust storm off the Horse Heaven Hills. And in those days we had dust storms spring and fall. But it was such a beautiful clear day when we began, and by the time we were finished with the meal, you couldn’t see 40 feet outside the window! [LAUGHTER] Because of the blowing dust. I got thank-you letters from those doctors—those three doctors, but I knew that their wives had canceled any possibility of their coming. Franklin: Kind of an echo of the termination winds— Coler: Yes, the termination winds, right. Franklin: Wow. That’s interesting to hear about that so much later. Coler: Yes. Franklin: I like to ask about events—big events that happened in the Tri-Cities. And one that always seems to—usually left an imprint on people’s minds was President Kennedy’s visit in 1963. Did you—were you able to go see President Kennedy, or did you hear about the visit? Coler: Yeah, I heard about the visit, but I was on duty in the emergency room that day. And we had so many visitors who came and needed help with their heat exhaustion that I was busy in the emergency room and didn’t get out to Hanford to see him. Franklin: Oh, okay. Coler: But I was well aware of his presence. Franklin: Right. Coler: And it was in the newspaper. Of course, a big picture of Kennedy. Franklin: And his presence probably caused you some extra work then. Coler: Yes. People that weren’t used to the heat just filled the emergency rooms when we had a special day, such as the boat races. When we had the boat races, people would come from out of town and they weren’t prepared for our heat. Franklin: Oh. And so that would be kind of a yearly— Coler: Yes. Franklin: A yearly influx. Coler: So we’d have two doctors on-call for the emergency room. Franklin: Okay, makes sense. I see here that you have left your mark at the Kennewick General Hospital in terms of a medical center in your name? Coler: Yes. Franklin: Can you tell me a little about that? Coler: They named the first medical center where doctors could practice the deBit Building. That was a place where doctors could come right out of training and, without sinking a lot of money into building or renting an office, they could be put to work and see how they liked it. The organization, the hospital, would then benefit from them admitting their patients who needed to be hospitalized into that institution, as well as having staff meetings and having all of the positions filled for the hospital board. The hospital board at Kennewick General was made up of non-hospital people. But I served on it for a number of years and could advise them on medical matters. Franklin: Okay. And I see that you also—there’s also a Rod Coler Center for Senior Health— Coler: Yes. Franklin: At Trios as well? Coler: Yeah, yeah. So they named that building after me simply because I was here a long time, and I’m still around. Franklin: Right! [LAUGHTER] Well, I imagine it would have something to do with the quality of work that you performed as well. Coler: Uh-huh. Franklin: In some of my preliminary notes here, it talks about the poor—you’ve talked a bit about the excellence of deBit and a couple other doctors that you worked with, but I’ve also heard that there was, in general, kind of a poor standard of medical care in the area when you arrived. Coler: Yes. Franklin: Was that to do— Coler: This had to do with surgery. We had a surgical problem at Kennewick General. It was quite evident soon after I came to town and began to read charts and look at records and do consultations that the surgical services were poor and sometimes not very well diagnosed and treated. So I predicted that the Kennewick General Hospital would close by the state reviewing our records at Kennewick General if we didn’t do something about that. So Dr. deBit, again, made me chairman of a committee to go through the charts of all the doctors for the previous couple of years. It was quite evident who was causing the mayhem at Kennewick General Hospital. [LAUGHTER] He was soon moved on. Franklin: Ah. Coler: In those days, you couldn’t take away his license to practice, because you would be sued for preventing somebody from working—from interfering with work. We didn’t want a lawsuit against us. So we were able to move him along. But each hospital that looked into the records of that particular surgeon refused to take him, too. So he actually had to retire. Franklin: I see. Coler: Yeah. Franklin: Kind of a forced retirement. Coler: Yeah, a forced retirement. Franklin: Interesting. Coler: But we had—in Robert Luxon, who came to town about a year or two after I did, he was an excellent diagnostician for surgical conditions and also an excellent surgeon. So our reputation was saved, and Kennewick General went on to become quite a good surgical center and referral center for surgery. As was Richland, and Pasco. Dr. Ray Rose in Pasco was an excellent surgeon and diagnostic man. He’s passed now. He’s gone. But he was a close friend of mine and we did many mountain hikes together. Franklin: That’s great. I guess the last thing I’d like to ask you about is I see that you live in a historic Kennewick home. Can you maybe talk a little bit about your home and its importance in the history of Kennewick? Coler: The home on Canal Drive was built out of town of Kennewick in 1914. And was the home of a gentleman who was a salesman and trader. He built his home. And when my wife spotted that house, we were living—when we were married and were living downtown Kennewick, we drove by it one day and she says, turn in here. And I said, why? She said, just do it. Turn in here. So I turned in the road that led across the field that came to the old house on Canal Drive. It was just west of Yelm Street—Yelm, Y-E-L-M. It sat by itself; there were no other houses when it was built out west of that. But she spotted that old home and we pulled in and I went to the door and knocked on the door, thinking this is crazy. You just don’t knock on a door and ask somebody who comes to the door, do they want to sell their house. That’s not the way it’s done! [LAUGHTER] She said, I want to live in that house! Knocked on the door, an old man came to the door, and when I asked him he said, yes. He said, in two months I need to move to Chicago to be near my children, and I would be very happy to sell you this house. At that time, he thought that maybe the house might be worth $20,000. This would be with—this was three acres of land on Canal Drive and an old house that had three bedrooms, and a second floor, and a large kitchen which most farm houses did not have in those days. When that house was built in the 19-teens, 1915, 1914, kitchens were small. But that house had a generous kitchen. My wife fell in love with that house. So when we came back to talk to that man, he had turned it over to a realtor. And now the price was $40,000. Franklin: Ooh. Coler: [LAUGHTER] And he was selling—but it took me a long time to pay that off. Yeah. We had to borrow the money and pay the bank to buy the house. But raised four children in that house now. Franklin: And you said— Coler: And we were the third owner. Franklin: Okay. And you still live in the house today? Coler: We still live in that house today. Franklin: I bet it’s worth a bit more than $40,000. Coler: Yes. Well, the land is. Franklin: Yes. Coler: Now, several people said—oh, it’s a beautiful place overlooking the Columbia River and on a knoll above Canal—above the river, and above the park. We would need to—many people say that they would take down the house and build an apartment building there on it. Because it’s right next to the apartment buildings at Yelm Street. But we like that old location—I do, and I don’t know what my children will do with it when I’m gone. So I’m 91. My father lived to 101. So I have a chance to go on for a few more years. Franklin: Yes, you do. Coler: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Well, Rod, thank you so much. This has been a great interview and I’ve really enjoyed talking with you. Coler: You’re welcome, Robert. I really enjoyed this myself. Thank you. Franklin: Great. Thank you. <div> <div> <div> <a>[EM1]</a>Begin sensitive patient information about W. E. Johnson. </div> </div> <div> <div> <a>[EM2]</a>End W. E. Johnson </div> </div> </div> Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:44:00 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1948-2006 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Thelma Dr. Ralph deBit Robert Luxon Clark Coler Kennedy 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 Roderick Coler Description An account of the resource An interview with Roderick Coler conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06-01-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-29-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Atomic Energy Commission Clinic Cold War Cook Hanford injuries Kennedy Kennewick River Street War https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F28cd2043c9ba0ab8d30fec025de8c735.JPG 8354e6925db0dfcc31cd6233a0bf0a77 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F85523bfe18aac656aff6c2ba9818cebc.mp4 b786779793fd5e6237875cbaa5f52764 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 Philip Craig Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Man one: So it’s pointing at you. Philip Craig: So it’s pointing at me? Man one: Yeah, yeah. Man two: Exactly. Craig: Oh, there we go. Man two: Perfect, perfect. Craig: There we go! Man one: Okay, excellent. Craig: Okay? Robert Bauman: Okay. Let me know when you’re ready, all right? Then we’ll—all right? Man one: We are rolling, so on your cue. Bauman: So, let’s start, first of all, by just having you say your name and spell it for us, so we make sure we have that correct. Craig: My name is Philip Craig. P-H-I-L-I-P. C-R-A-I-G. Bauman: Great. Thank you. And my name is Robert Bauman, and we are conducting this oral history interview on June 24th of 2015 on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. So, Mr. Craig, why don’t we have you start, maybe, by just telling us a little bit about your background. Where you came from, how you came to Hanford, and that sort of thing. Craig: Well my how I came to Hanford started back in high school. I had a high school chemistry class. I liked what I saw. And I knew that the Hanford Project was down the road—I was living in Selah, Washington, and the Hanford Project was very interesting to me. And I even wrote a term paper on Hanford, because I really wanted to work here. So, I went on to Whitman College, graduated from high school in ’56—or ’52, I’m sorry. Graduated from college in ’56, and then went on to Washington State College, then, now Washington State University in Pullman, and did a year of graduate work in chemistry. And at the end of that, I came to Hanford for my very first job. And lo and behold, that was exactly 58 years ago today: June 24, 1957. And it was quite an experience, let me tell you. The first thing that struck me, of course I had to have credentials to get in the building. And in those days, we didn’t have badges like you have today that are on a cord around your neck. We had a little plastic folder with our ID in it, and you’d pull that out of your pocket and flash it open to the guard sitting at the entrance desk. And then you could go on into the building and find your office and take it from there. The most interesting thing, I think, about it all was it was a very formal setting. For years we wore suits, ties, long sleeved white shirts only—couldn’t have colored shirts—and the ladies wore dresses. Far more formal than today’s environment. Security, of course, was very paramount. I mean, we were in the years where the Soviets and the United States was competing. And so the Hanford site, being one of the two principal sites manufacturing plutonium in the United States, the other one being Savannah River, most of the stuff in terms of total production and that sort of thing was top secret. A lot of it was not—it was secret, but security was paramount. I remember in my little office cubby hole—it was a room, it wasn’t just a cubby hole, in a big room—we had a three-drawer file cabinet with a combination lock. And I could take a piece of paper out of that file, put it on my desk and work on it. But if I had to go to the bathroom, it went back in the combination file, locked it, go down the hall and come back and you had to unlock the combination and start all over again. And the very first thing they had me do is they handed me about a three-inch black three-ring binder with a red coversheet, marked secret. This was the PUREX operating manual. Now, PUREX stands for Plutonium Uranium Extraction, and it was the chemical process that is used to take irradiated uranium from the reactors, dissolve it in acid, treat it chemically, and come up with a plutonium nitrate solution. And I had to read this manual in about a week. [LAUGHTER] It was pretty daunting. Bauman: Now where was your first office? Where on site? Craig: It was on in the 703 Building, which is about where the Federal Building is today. The last part of the 703 structure—it was a herringbone structure. We had offices coming off a main corridor, and there was about six tiers of those. And the very last one is still standing, and the city offices are in there. But later on, the Federal Building took over. Bauman: And what was your first job title? Craig: Physical—let’s see. Physical Science Administrator, I think it was. The other thing about the environment is that you handwrote all your reports, and then gave them to a secretary who typed them. There was no computers. So, it was kind of a laborious process to do that. I needed to check out a government car, which I did in the motor pool, and drive out to the Area to PUREX, and see what was going on most every day, drive back, write the daily report, mark it all secret, send it up a line to my boss. But that government car, let me tell you—it was not air conditioned. So those days were pretty warm. But we got it done. About two months later, after getting into the PUREX part of it, the fellow who was a companion office mate had been handling the plutonium shipments. And he went off to Washington, D.C. for another job. So I got the job of accepting plutonium products on behalf of the Atomic Energy Commission and the US government. So it was a very formal process. The products were in two forms. After the plutonium nitrate left PUREX, it was sent over to what is known as the Z Plant. And in that plant, by a series of chemical operations, it was converted to a metal button about this big and it fit in a tuna fish can. It weighed something close to two kilograms. So that was the first product. The second product were manufactured, machined weapon components. And I won’t talk about the exact details of their size and shape at this point. But nonetheless, Hanford was in the business of making weapon components. So my job was to accept this product and make the shipment, every couple of weeks or so, to Rocky Flats. Rocky Flats was about 15 miles northwest of Denver, and it was the receiving site for the plutonium as buttons. They would take that metal and cast it into weapon component shapes and machine those and so on. And of course the other part was the shapes themselves, they’d go up in pieces themselves, and they would go into an inspection process and eventually assemble parts of the warhead. Bauman: So when you say—you’re accepting them from the contractor, or--? Craig: I was accepting these materials from the contractor. I mean, General Electric Company was the contractor, and their job on a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract basis was to run all these processes. And there’s hundreds of people involved in this. But at the end of the line, I had to make that transition from Hanford to the next step. So it was a couple of months into my first job, my buddy left for Washington, and here I am, learning how to actually accept these components. Now, you need to understand that plutonium was very radioactive. It emitted some gamma radiation, but not huge amounts. I mean, you could actually handle it. But it also emitted alpha radiation. And so it had to be contained in some kind of container, like a can. And then you could hold it in your hand. Interesting. It was warm. It was—the radioactive decay—was producing heat. So this can felt like hanging onto a 60 Watt lightbulb. Now, the other part of the business of plutonium is that if you got too much of it together in one spot, you had a criticality event. And of course, the bomb itself was designed to make a lot of it go critical at the same time, and that created an atomic explosion. But the point is that if you’re handling plutonium, it had to maintain a certain degree of separation at all times. In the chemical processing plants, they used different sized columns of chemical solutions and whatnot, depending on what was going on. And that was to maintain this critical geometry, so that you didn’t have any kind of criticality event. And after the plutonium was made into these buttons we called them, and canned in the tuna fish cans, they were stored in a vault. And the vault had pillars of metal rods, and little rings on that rod that you could put a can in. But it maintained the separation. So on shipping day, what we would do is we operators of the plant would go into the vault and take these cans and very carefully put—I don’t remember exactly how many—something about five or six cans in a little red wagon. Just a little kid’s wagon. But there was spacers in there so that these things didn’t get too close. And they’d bring it down the hallway to the room that exited to the building where it then could be handled further. And this assembly area, in this room were birdcages. Now a birdcage is a metal frame that’s about this big, this big, and this big. And in the middle was a metal pot with a lid. And the idea was that you took—one at a time—one of those cans from the red wagon, and you put it in the pot. And then I think the birdcage held like three buttons. Then there was a lid, and a bunch of bolts in places where you could put a wire with a lead seal on the end. And my job was to squeeze the seal closed with an imprint and record, of course, what the identity of those cans were, and the weight, and that sort of thing on paperwork. And at the end of that, I would sign this receipt for this material, and give it to the contractor. The weapon components varied a little bit differently, depending on the size and shape of the weapon component. Eventually, those were a much bigger birdcage, and it contained a couple of pieces of weapon material. Bauman: So— Craig: Hold up. Bauman: Oh, sure. Craig: I got to collect my thoughts here. Okay. You can go back on. The business of shipping, then—I owned that plutonium for maybe 15 minutes [LAUGHTER] before the government. Then I would transfer it to armed couriers, AEC couriers. They were not only armed with side arms; they were armed with machine guns. This was serious stuff. And they would load these birdcages into a truck, and eventually ship that off to Rocky Flats. Bauman: How often did these shipments--? Craig: Well, every couple of weeks or so. Bauman: And so, they were shipped by truck then, to Rocky Flats? Craig: That was a method used in later years. They didn’t really like shipping by truck that well. We actually had another system that involved—all I’m going to say is it involved rail. Because the exact details was highly classified. Bauman: And did the amount that was shipped vary significantly, or--? Craig: It varied, yes. Depends on how the production was going and what the requirements were on the other end. Bauman: Oh, okay. Sure. And so how long did you do this, then? How long were you--? Craig: From 1957 to 1972. Bauman: Wow. Craig: So I shipped a lot of plutonium. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. Craig: The other thing that was kind of interesting—I was explaining to you about the criticality. I hadn’t been on the job more than, I don’t know, a couple of months, shipping. I knew what to do, I knew the whole process, and I knew the sensitivity of it. One day one of these chemical operators who worked for the contractor had gone to the vault, and he came down the hall carrying about five tuna fish cans in his hand, and holding it with his arm like this. Well, that was absolutely high risk criticality event waiting to happen. And he walked in the room, and I said, ooooh. Just stop right where you are. And I instructed one of the other operators, take one of the cans from him and put it in the birdcage very carefully. And we got that shipment loaded and we were on our way. And then I went to the manager’s office—the plant manager’s office. Now, this fellow was like 60 years old. Kind of a salty southerner with—I mean, he was definitely in charge. And I’m 23 years old. Fresh out of college, wet behind the ears. And I gave him a real lecture about safety. And he didn’t like that. He called my boss. And my boss said Mr. Craig was right: you really almost had an accident today. That’s the end of that story. There was more to the whole weapons system. Since I was in the whole process, one of the small cogs—there was uranium coming from Oak Ridge. There was plutonium—some plutonium—and tritium coming from Savannah River. There was high explosives coming from Pantex. And then Hanford plutonium. This all had to be scheduled into what was known as the US master nuclear delivery schedule. It was the weapons document for all the weapons made in the country. It was a top secret document, and representatives from each of these sites got together, usually in Albuquerque, New Mexico, or at the Rocky Flats Plant. And we handwrote this schedule. There was no computers. There was a spreadsheet format, yes. But we didn’t have computers to do all that. Everything had to be balanced. This whole process had to bring all these materials together for processing at Rocky Flats. And so, about once a year we got together to do the master nukes schedule. I found I was pretty fortunate to be a part of that. I was pretty young. But it was a challenge. I had a lot of help, of course. But I was very impressed. One of the things that kind of scared me though was—and let me check on the date. October 22 to 24, 1962. That was the Cuban Missile Crisis. We were in Denver and Rocky Flats to work on these schedules. Now, that was ground zero for the Russians. If they were going to attack the United States, that probably would have been one of their targets. And it was kind of scary working there for those two days. I was very thankful that President Kennedy convinced Khrushchev to back off and no ill things happened. Bauman: Were you here when President Kennedy came to Hanford in ’63? Craig: Yes, yes. Bauman: Do you remember that? Craig: Oh, I remember that. We got to drive out and see him out at the reactor site. It was quite an experience. I think that was one of the only Presidents I’ve ever seen in person. And it wasn’t long after that, you know, a couple months or less, that he was assassinated in Texas. Bauman: Do you remember much about that day? Craig: It was hot! [LAUGHTER] It was still warm when he was here visiting. But it was a big event. There was thousands of people out there in the desert. But it was very thrilling experience to see the President come. Bauman: Sure. So, you said you were working on the shipment from ’57 to ’72. So did that process change much over those years, other than shifting from— Craig: Well, yes. In about ’66, we quit making weapon components at Hanford. And the process moved to Rocky Flats entirely. Bauman: So that part changed. Craig: Yeah. That part changed. But the plutonium buttons didn’t. Bauman: And so then in ’72 then, how did your job change? What did you start doing at that point? Craig: Well, take a break for a sec. [VIDEO CUTS] Bauman: Sure, that’d be great. Do you want to go ahead and do that now? Craig: Hmm? Bauman: Do you want to go ahead and start that now then? Start talking about that? Craig: Yes. Bauman: Okay. That’d be great. Man one: All right, just a moment. Okay, we’re rolling again. Just start whenever you— Craig: Okay. Well, let’s see, I need the face page of this. Okay, I’m ready. Bauman: Go ahead. Man two: We’re rolling. Craig: The other significant activity that I was involved with was in 1968. The site was in a state where we had 149 single-shell waste tanks and 28 double-shell waste tanks. Actually, that’s not quite right. There were four short of that on the double-shell. And these were boiling waste tanks. The others were not boiling waste. But it was all liquid, and we were concerned about the integrity of the tanks and the lifetime of the tanks. And so at that time, the Atlantic-Richfield-Hanford Company, ARCO, was the contractor. And two of their engineers, Sam Beard and Bob McCullough and I co-authored a document that was called “The Hanford Waste Management Briefing.” And the purpose of this was to explain the Hanford situation to our headquarters—our AEC headquarters staff, and Congressional staffers who were then going to be funding what is now known as the Tank Farm projects. And this document was a briefing document, and the key—one of the key charts that we were particularly proud of is to try to show people how complex the business of the Hanford waste system was. And this chart shows what happens to a ton of uranium that’s been irradiated and then processed at PUREX, and the wastes that come out of that whole process. And some of it’s boiling waste, because of high levels of radioactivity that are in that particular section of waste, and some was non-boiling. For example, you’re dealing with—for that ton of waste—680 gallons of non-boiling waste and 220 gallons of boiling waste. And in the non-boiling tank, you have 900 pounds of salts, chemical nitrate—nitrates and so on, and about 350 curies of radioactivity. But in the boiling side, there’s 230 pounds of salt, but 300,000 curies of activity. That’s why they’re boiling. And then there was a low-level stream that had like 55,000 gallons of waste that went to a crib—a crib is like a septic tank—tile field—and the swamp, which is just an open pond. There was another 560,000 gallons went there, but their radioactivity was less than a tenth of a curie. I mean, it was just negligible. On the solid side, there was about ten cubic feet of solid waste. There was about 10 million cubic feet—I’m sorry—of gases that came out. And here’s the number that it was radio—a surprise to everyone that it was published. It was secret then, but it’s been declassified since. Out of that ton of fuel came 530 grams of plutonium and four grams of neptunium. So the chemical process that started with a ton of material and ended up with just a very small amount. So it’s kind of like finding a needle in a haystack. Bauman: Right. Craig: Because these wastes were boiling, we’d started building—had started building double-shell tanks. A double-shell tank is a steel tank within a steel tank within a concrete barrier. And this diagram in that briefing document showed what a double-shell tank was all about. These were million-gallon tanks. And in those days, it was about a dollar, maybe a dollar and a half a gallon to build those tanks. A million-million half dollars for one of these big tanks. Far, far, less than what they would cost today. Bauman: Yeah. Craig: At any rate, we made this presentation to the staffers and the ultimate activity was to remove as much as water as we could from the single-shell tanks so that we ended up with a salt cake that was not going anywhere. We isolated cesium-137 and strontium-90 by another chemical process, carried out in B Plant, to bring those short-lived emitters of radiation to a point where we could encapsulate those in steel cylinders. That was done and they’re stored. I think they’re still stored that way, but I’m not entirely sure. I kind of lost track of what’s happened since. We also built—were recommending that they build four more double-shelled tanks and that’s why the number finally grew to 28 double-shell tanks. And then, of course, it ultimately led to the pretreatment plant that’s in the process out here now, and the Waste Vitrification Plant. Bauman: You mentioned one of the reasons for doing the report was there were concerns about the integrity of the single-shell tanks. Were some of them leaking at that point, or just concerns that they might leak? Craig: I think at that point there were some that had displayed a little bit of leakage, yes. There’s other documents that showed some leakage, but, again it wasn’t into the concrete overpack, if you will. There was some, of course, got into the soil column, but it was not a series breach, and it wasn’t any radioactivity that got down into the groundwater. But we were afraid that it would. I mean, 1968, these tanks have been—the initial ones—had been built in 1944! ’45, ’46. So there was some that were approaching the end of life, and those tanks are still there today. And that’s why they’re so concerned about trying to remove some of the waste from these tanks and process it. Bauman: So, who initiated—was this ARCO or AEC that sort of initiated the study that you helped write? Craig: Oh, I think it was—collectively, the Hanford folks at engineering—folks on both sides of the contractor and the government were saying, we got to do something about this. Anyway, I think that’s about all I want to say about the creation of that document. I thought it would be interesting for you to look into if that ever showed up in the REACH literature as the kickoff document to get this thing going. Bauman: Right, right. Yeah. And did you continue to be involved after this report in some of the tank—waste management end of things? Craig: Yes. Actually, I had some side activities that I got into first. From 1968 to 1972, I was the plutonium leasing officer for the government. There was one in Oak Ridge for uranium, and I was the plutonium one for the US. And basically, what I was—what we did is we created a lease document, so the 125 commercial organizations, 40 government agencies, and about 450 colleges and universities could have plutonium material. And we would, in effect, rent it to them for a use charge. Wasn’t very expensive, but it was a charge. More importantly, if they lost any of it, they had to pay for it. The largest users of that lease program were the two reactor fuel contractors. One of them was Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation in Apollo, Pennsylvania. And the other one was Kerr-McGee in Oklahoma. They made reactor fuels for the breeder program at Oak Ridge, and the Fast Flux Test Facility here. Bauman: Oh, okay. Interesting. Craig: So that was a way for them to have this material. For the next nine years, I continued to be involved with the PUREX and Z Plant, and the management of both site materials—all of the different types of materials that we had: uranium, and plutonium, and so on. And those materials were about $500,000 to $750,000 in value. I’m sorry, $500 to $750 million in value. But it was a management process. Then later on, from 1981 to 1985, I was able to be involved in the last big development program that I had while I was working for the government. It was called the Spent Fuel Management Program. Now, during this time, the AEC had been in charge—prior to this time, the AEC had been in charge of both the Defense orientation of radioactive materials, and also the development of commercial power reactors. And there was a political hue and cry from about 19—let’s see—1974, I think it was—that the commercial reactor stuff should go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a new agency. And then, of course, a few years after that, about 1978 I think it was, the—oh, by the way, when the NRC was created, they changed the name of AEC. It became ERDA: Energy Research and Development Administration. And then about four years later, they changed it again to the Department of Energy. Well, now we had the government on our side—DoE had an obligation to kind of help the nuclear power industry deal with the long-term disposal of their spent fuel. I mean, as the fuel is burned up in their reactor and is no longer useful, eventually it was going to be encapsulated and sent off to Yucca Mountain. Well, until Yucca Mountain got authorized and built, then they needed an interim storage, and so we developed a concept called the at-reactor spent fuel storage. Several of us—myself and somebody from NRC, and somebody from Battelle, the contract who was working with me, and somebody from the Electric Power Research Institute, representing the power industry—I think that’s about it—we all went off to observe some dry storage in casks in Germany. We brought that technology back to the United States. We worked with the NRC to get it licensed. And now the power reactors of this country are using at-reactor storage in basically steel containers that contain the spent fuel and are just sitting on concrete pads, and the radioactive decay heat is dissipated into the surrounding environment. But all the radioactivity is very well contained in these casks. Hopefully, eventually Yucca Mountain will open. It was part of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that I was involved with in those days. The whole purpose of this act was to create a long-term disposal. And NRC was involved in licensing that long-term disposal, and the nuclear power industry was to pay a fee for all this fuel that they were generating to help pay for this. Well, then all this got stopped because of the politics of Nevada and the—it’s going to be restarted, because there was a lawsuit that was settled recently that said that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act should be followed. Bauman: Right. So, you were involved with that in— Craig: I was involved in— Bauman: About ’85? Craig: --all that kind of stuff. Bauman: Right. Craig: Yes. And then I left the—at that point, this will be—okay, you can go back on. At that point in 1985, I left the government, went private, went to work for a packaging—an engineering and design company that designed high-level waste shipping containers for use on transportation. They started off—their first big project was the Three Mile Island cask, to move that waste. And then from that, I marketed to the government a high-level waste—any kind of high-level waste that could be put into a cask and removed. And then the TRUPACT-II cask for use in transferring transuranic waste, or primarily plutonium waste, from the government sites to the waste isolation pilot plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico. And from there, I got involved on a couple of other organizations. Eventually, in 1991, I went to work for Lockheed. In 1996, Lockheed, along with—well, Fluor Daniel was the primary contractor, but we were on the Fluor Daniel team, and Lockheed was to manage the Tank Farms. So we came full circle, and I helped Lockheed win that contract. Bauman: Right, you did come full circle. Craig: So then, Lockheed moved me from—I was then living in Federal Way, and Lockheed rewarded me by moving me back to Hanford and letting me work on the Hanford site in ’96. And I did that until December of 2000. And there I was involved in the new contracting method. Instead of cost-plus-fixed-fee contracting, it was cost-plus-incentive-fee. And what we would do was we would create a document for a scope of work, a performance agreement. And the contractor would say, here, DoE, this is what we’re going to do for you, and here’s how long it’s going to take. And DoE said, okay, if you do that, we’ll pay you this fee, and if you don’t get it done on time, we’re going to cut your fee. And if you don’t do it well, we’re going to cut your fee. And my job was to, at the end of the work performance, was to write up the actual work done in a document to present to DoE that says, okay, pay us the fee. We were very successful in getting our award fee. And then I gave it all up in December of 2000, after 43 years. Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Craig: Cut. Bauman: That’s a long, fascinating career. Can I ask you questions, kind of go back? Craig: Yeah, there’s a couple of transition spots I’m kind of worried about, that I kind of sound like an idiot. Bauman: No. Craig: I want to—is there any editing we can do? Bauman: Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. If there’s any issue we can go back to it later. It’s not a problem. I wonder if I can go back—and this is really interesting stuff, fascinating career. I wanted to ask you just about the community, when you arrived here in 1957, what was Richland like at the time? Could you talk about that a little bit? And did you live in Richland, or--? Craig: Oh, yes. Yes. We were allowed to rent from the government a B house—half of a B house on Haupt. This was June 1957. And by then—a couple of months—the government started selling off the town to private citizens. And we were in the first block to be sold. The senior owners in the other end of the B house bought the B house. And at that time, we moved to the other side of town, into a ranch house, because that had been sold to its owner. This is kind of an interesting—are you recording? Bauman: Yeah. Craig: Oh, okay. This was kind of interesting, because the ranch house that the owner—I mean the resident who was able to buy it bought for like $7,700. And then when we bought the ranch house, I think we paid like $9,500. And of course, those ranch houses today sell for over 100. The town was very—initially of course, it was very caste-oriented. I mean, if you were a contractor, management, you got to live on the river. If you were a lowly government GS-7, you got to live in a B house. And there was a certain level of, you know, if you weren’t in this class, you weren’t part of it, you know. And I think that’s changed dramatically over the years. It doesn’t make any difference who you work for and how much money you make and all that stuff. People have changed for the better. Bauman: Anything else about the community that stood out to you at the time? Craig: Well, the first thing that Richland did was they had to celebrate their founding as Richland. They set off a mock atomic bomb, and it was a bunch of fanfare out in the park, and made a poof of smoke that was to represent a mushroom cloud. Bauman: So, was this at Howard Amon Park? Craig: Yeah. It was. Bauman: Anything else that—memories that stand out, either about in community of Richland, or your work—any stories or memories that really stand out to you that you’d like to share? Craig: I think I’m kind of— Bauman: Good? [LAUGHTER] Craig: Completed. Bauman: All right, well I want to thank you very much. This was really interesting. I appreciate you coming in and sharing stories about your work, and all that you did out there. I really appreciate it. Craig: Well, you’re more than welcome. I feel confident that this waste document that shows particularly how much plutonium was made, that was a very revolutionary thing. I mean, the idea how much of material you got out of a ton of uranium was— Bauman: Right. Craig: Very classified. And to see that declassified and whatnot. It’s— Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Craig: Kind of mind-blowing. But there’s the document. And it’s legitimate to talk about. Bauman: Right. Craig: Not sure I want it on the local news tonight, but—[LAUGHTER] [VIDEO CUTS] Craig: Details, but I know that he was— Bauman: Yeah. So, just let me know when you’re ready, all right? We can— Craig: So this was August, ’76. I don’t know the exact date. Bauman: That’s all right. I mean, the exact date we have, so— Man one: Okay, we are ready. Bauman: Just whatever memories or knowledge you have about it. Man one: We’re rolling. Whenever you’re ready. Bauman: Okay. So I don’t know if you want to talk to us about the McCluskey incident and your involvement in that? Craig: Well, at the time, I was responsible for the Z Plant operations. And so, one morning, early, about 4:30 in the morning, I get a call from the plant that there had been an accident out of the plant, and I needed to get out there. And so I threw some clothes on and got a government car and went out to the site. What had happened was the plant had been operating on the recovery of americium-241 as part of the reclamation activities. And it was a chemical process. Inside this chemical process were criticalities tanks, small tanks like this, long, inside of a glovebox. Earlier in that summer, there had been a labor dispute, and the plant was on strike. And so the process had been shut down. Well, what was going on was americium was loaded onto the ion exchange medium inside this long column. When the dispute was settled and we had several days of reviews, conducting interviews with the contractor people, are you ready to restart? Have you checked this? Have you checked this? Have you checked this? And finally they were authorized to start. Well, what happened is that when they poured strong nitric acid on that ion exchange column to take, you lose off the americium. The americium had decayed the resin beads of the ion exchange medium ‘til it was kind of an organic gunk. And that acid reacted with it, and that violent chemical reaction blew open that column. It breached the glovebox, and it sprayed chemicals and americium all over Mr. McCluskey. And he was taken to an initial decontamination spot onsite, and then downtown. But my job, when I got there, was to fend off the media. What had happened—as soon as this became knowledge, and the media got hold of it, here they come in helicopters, landing inside the secure area of 200 West. The guards were going nuts. I mean, here’s these people that are not supposed to be there! Eventually, they didn’t do anything but try to manage it and bring them over towards the building, the end of the building, where behind the building walls was this processing cell where everything had taken place. And they were standing there, I was standing there outside talking to the media, trying to explain what happened. And I had an alpha copy machine. I was standing there, showing them that there was no contamination on my feet, there was no contamination around. They were panning everywhere with their cameras, and they found a sodium hydroxide feed tank that had just a little bit of salt cake around the valve on the outside. Non-radioactive, nothing—I mean it was a nothing tank. And they filmed that like it was the biggest thing since sliced bread. And I remember I went through all this and—to find out that it made the national news. But I didn’t get to see it, because I was out there. [LAUGHTER] But it became a non-event. It was not a disaster, there was containment, there was—all the safety things worked as well as they should. The public was never in any harm. But that was a— Bauman: [LAUGHTER] So, what happened, then, with the room, or whatever, where the incident took place? Craig: Oh, they sealed that room off right away. And then it remained sealed up until very recently, when they went in and took it apart. And processed it for disposal. Bauman: Did you know Mr. McCluskey at all? Craig: No. Bauman: Okay. Craig: No. He was a chemical operator. I didn’t know who he was, hadn’t met him. But it was one of those things that— Bauman: Right. Craig: --Happened. Bauman: Well, thanks, again for sharing that story. Glad we remembered to do that. Craig: What was funny about it—I was trying to stand up. I used to be able to do this. I could stand there and hold my foot up and balance. And then I realized I couldn’t do that. Bauman: Oh, watch the microphone there on your— Craig: Oh, yeah. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:54:56 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 189 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview B Plant Waste Vitrification Plant Z Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1957-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1957-2015 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Kennedy Sam Beard Bob McCullough Kerr-McGee Fluor Daniel Mr. McCluskey 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 Philip Craig Description An account of the resource An interview with Philip Craig conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 06-24-2015 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 The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-29-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 703 Building Atomic Energy Commission B Plant Battelle Department of Energy Event Fast Flux Test Facility General Electric Hanford Kennedy Mountain Nuclear Regulatory Commission Park Plutonium PUREX River Savannah River Tank Farm Tank Farms Vitrification Plant Waste Vitrification Plant Z Plant https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F64422e015afd6bb006b595400e645c1c.JPG bf75b261e2b75becbf2be621e89efa72 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1dd18530d8068508b6d8fed49e87ab2e.mp4 6bba4faf1df15a9c196d5923a31d04a7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Charles Davis Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Charles Davis on December 19th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Charles about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Charles Davis: It’s Charles Davis. C-H-A-R-L-E-S D-A-V-I-S. Franklin: Great, thank you very much. So tell me how and why you came to the area to work for the Hanford Site. Davis: Back in 1977, I got out of the Army and I was working at Fort Lewis as a civilian. And it was a just-barely-over-minimum-wage job with no benefits, and I was looking for employment. And one of the employment people suggested I try out for Hanford. And it was Rockwell at the time. I came over and interviewed for Hanford Patrol and was hired. Franklin: Okay. And when did you start at Hanford Patrol? Davis: Well, I started working for Rockwell in August of 1978. And I went through the training for Hanford Patrol starting in January of 1979. Franklin: Okay. And what did you do for Hanford Patrol? Davis: Well, I was a patrolman. I worked most of the time out of the 300 Area until the 400 Area got its own headquarters. And then I was one of the people that moved to the 400 Area. Later on in 1980, I believe, I became one of the first four AMS—Alarm Monitoring System—lieutenants. Franklin: Okay. AMS stands for Alarm Monitoring System. Davis: Monitoring System. Franklin: And so that was the electronic system, then, that, like, was monitored at a central location? Davis: Well, there were several of them. One of them was around 234-5Z in 200 Area. That was the first one. And then around the 324 complex in 300 Area. And around the protected area at the 400 Area, Fast Flux Test Facility. Franklin: Okay. So we—a couple weeks ago I did an interview with Bob Parr. Davis: Mm-hm. Franklin: Do you know him? Davis: Yes, I do. Franklin: He also worked as—and he mentioned the development of this system and how it changed—or kind of changed some of the tasks of the patrolmen. Or how—I think he mentioned that before, Hanford Patrol was kind of antiquated in its security systems, and I was wondering if you could talk about that switch from the older system to this alarm monitoring system and how it changed your job. Davis: Well, before the Alarm Monitoring System went in, everything was visual. You had to be onsite and looking to see something happening. After the AMS system came in, there were several different systems around each of the Areas. There were microwaves, motion detectors, there was the Israeli fence, which was a taut wire fence. If you stretched it this way or to crawl through it, it set off an alarm. If you cut it, it also set off an alarm. Franklin: And it was called an Israeli fence? Davis: Israeli fence, because the Israelis were the ones that developed that technology. Franklin: Oh, okay. Interesting. Would that get triggered often by wild animals or tumbleweeds or anything, or was it pretty— Davis: The microwaves did, yes. Franklin: Yeah? Davis: And there were also cameras surrounding the protected areas. And if you got an alarm, the camera would come on automatically. For that particular location. They also—the cameras rolled through the security screens, so you’d see everything in a—I can’t remember the timeframe—two or three minutes. But if an alarm went off, the cameras automatically focused in on that particular location. Franklin: Interesting. Davis: They also had cameras on the inside of Dash-5. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And in fact, the first time we were out there training on the system, they had a problem. They had a plutonium container break, and it crapped up quite a bit of the backside and main hallway in Dash-5. Franklin: Oh, wow. Was there—were you near that area, or were you just in the building? Davis: Well, the place where the alarm monitoring system was located, the control room was in a separate building. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: But it was within the protected area. Franklin: Right. But you’re saying though, that—it’s interesting that when you were training on that system, in that building there was like a pretty serious accident— Davis: Yes. Franklin: --that occurred. Okay. And I guess you probably would have been pretty new on the job still, then, or--? Davis: Well, I’d had two years on Hanford Patrol-- Franklin: Okay. Davis: --but only a month or two as an AMS lieutenant. Franklin: So kind of describe for me the—you know, your average workday, both as a patrolman and then later as an AMS lieutenant. Davis: Well, the patrolmen were security for the Site. So most of the time, we were at a fixed location, at a gate or at a barricade like the Y barricade or the Yakima barricade, and we checked badges of people coming in. Franklin: Okay. And then what about as an AMS lieutenant? Davis: That was mostly sitting in the control room, monitoring the system. Although the systems weren’t fully operational for a while after the four of us were promoted to lieutenant. So we assisted the shift lieutenant and did whatever they needed. Franklin: Hm. How come the systems were only installed in those select areas? Davis: Because those were the protected areas. Franklin: Protected areas, okay. Davis: Right. Franklin: So what designated a protected area from a non-protected area? Davis: Mostly it was where plutonium was stored, and that had other classified information. Franklin: Okay. And how long did you work on the AMS system? Davis: Up until I got out of patrol in August of ’82. Franklin: Oh, okay, so just for a couple years then? Davis: Yeah. Franklin: And then what did you do after leaving AMS? Davis: I became a nuclear process operator. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And I worked at Dash-5. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Oh, okay. And what is a nuclear process operator? Davis: Well, I was hired to do terminal clean-out. And there were two production lines at Dash-5: the A line, which was the original one, and then the C line. We were going to be doing terminal clean-out, or getting it ready to be destroyed, for the A line. And they figured there was somewhere around 3,000 grams of plutonium in the system, and we would get about half of it out. And that was based on a non-destructive assay. And it turned out we got over 5,000 grams out, and there was still about 1,500 left in it. Franklin: Oh, okay, so there was kind of more than double the original estimate. Davis: Right. Franklin: Wow. And was that plutonium usable, or was it in a form that was not usable? Davis: It was scrap—powder and mixed in with other chemicals. It was all collected, put in little plastic jars about this tall, and stored. It could have been sent through the Plutonium Reclamation Facility and reused. I can’t remember if any of it was or not. Franklin: Okay. To give, I think maybe our future viewers and myself an idea—how much is 5,000 grams of plutonium? Like what size, what amount would that be? Can you compare it to something? Davis: Well, a plutonium button usually runs around 2 kilograms or 2,000 grams, and it’s about the size of a hockey puck. Franklin: Right, right. Which is why they’re sometimes called pucks. Davis: Right. The scrap we were getting out was mixed with other stuff, so it was—the volume was a lot larger. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay. So there were 5,000 grams of plutonium mixed in with a lot of other— Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay, I see. And how long did it take to do the terminal clean-out of the A line? Davis: Well, we were also cleaning equipment out. And the whole thing lasted well over a year. Franklin: Okay. And then what did you do after that? Davis: Well, then we went on to removing a vacuum system. There was a vacuum system throughout the facility that people used for various processes. And one of the things they used for, at the beginning, was if you had some extra solution, they kind of sucked it up and so it disappeared. Well, it didn’t really disappear. It went into the piping and kind of sat there. And these were about six inch in diameter pipes. And in some locations, they were half-filled with various stuff. Chemicals mixed in with plutonium. Kind of like a salt cake. Franklin: Okay. So kind of similar to the waste tank scenario, then. Davis: Exactly. Franklin: There’s stuff in there from the process and no one really knew the exact elements and concentrations of chemicals and things. Davis: Correct. Franklin: Wow. Davis: And we took the piping out, pipefitters cut it, the operators bagged it and lowered it down, and then it went into storage boxes. Franklin: And then I assume those were disposed of in like a solid waste landfill, or--? Davis: I’m not sure where they ended up. Franklin: Sure. This—what you’re describing sounds a lot—similar to what’s going on there today, in terms of the tear-down and demolitions of the buildings. Davis: Right. Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk about kind of the protective measures that you and your coworkers worked in and the kinds of safety equipment that you used then. You don’t have to compare it to now if you don’t know the current—but I’m just kind of curious as to how—what the kind of precautions and kind of culture of safety was then. Davis: Okay. Well, of course, whenever we were on the backside of the operations side of Dash-5, we were in SWPs. Which are canvas overalls. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And whenever we were working in a glovebox, we taped up with surgeon gloves. All the gloveboxes had lead-lined gloves in them. And if we were doing anything that might be—might cause a puncture in the gloves, we wore either canvas or leather gloves over them. Franklin: Okay. Davis: When we were taking the vacuum system out, we would build plastic greenhouses around the area that we were working in to control contamination, in case something happened. We went in usually with two pairs of coveralls, and respirators. Sometimes we only used air purifying respirators, and sometimes we used power air purifying respirators. Franklin: What’s the difference? Davis: The powered ones had battery packs and it was forced air. So you always had a positive airflow through your mask, so if anything happened, the air went out, rather than when you were breathing in, it could get around the edges of your mask and be pulled in if you didn’t have a good enough seal. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay, I see. And I assume you wore dosimetry equipment—the personal-- Davis: Yes, all the time. Franklin: What kind do you remember? The badge kind, or--? Davis: Every once in a while we used the pencils, but not very often during terminal clean-up. Later on, I worked on the RMC line when they were producing plutonium buttons, and then we wore the pencils also. We also had dosimetry on our ring finger. Franklin: Oh, the finger dosimeters. Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And those were changed out monthly, both the badge TLDs and the ring ones. Franklin: Interesting. And—great, thank you. And so where—when you finished with the A line, and then you moved to the piping. Davis: Right. Franklin: How long did the piping take to— Davis: Again, over a year. Franklin: Oh, over a year, okay. And then— Davis: And some of the piping was over the office side of Dash-5. Franklin: Oh. So how did you handle that situation? Davis: Again, we built big plastic greenhouses. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And fortunately we didn’t have a problem. We never lost containment or anything. Franklin: So that building was still producing—or what was the purpose of the 245—sorry—it was the-- Davis: 234-5Z. Franklin: 234, what was the purpose of that building? Davis: It turned plutonium nitrate solution into plutonium buttons. Franklin: Oh, okay. So it was like a plutonium processing— Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay. And was that still in active use when you were removing the piping and the A line? Davis: No. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: However, after we stopped, they—because of the buildup during the Reagan years, they revamped the RMC line and started using it again. Franklin: Okay, so you’d already taken out the A line, you’d taken out some of— Davis: Well, the A line actually—when we finished with it, it sat there for another 25 or 30 years, and it just was removed within the last two or three years. Franklin: So what did you do with it, if you didn’t—you were just cleaning it, instead of removing— Davis: Right. Franklin: Oh, okay, okay. Was it used again after you cleaned it? Davis: No, because they took out all of the equipment. Franklin: Right. But the C line was still in use. Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay, interesting. So you removed the piping over the offices, and then what happened? What did you move on to? Davis: Then we moved on to revamping the RMC line. Franklin: Okay. And what is the—do you remember what RMC stands for? Davis: Remote Controlled and then C is just like A, B, C, D. Franklin: Oh, okay. And what was the purpose of the RMC line? Davis: To change plutonium nitrate into plutonium buttons. Franklin: Okay. So you said you revamped it. So what— Davis: Well, it was sort of mothballed. Franklin: Okay. Davis: So some of the equipment had to be replaced. Some of the leaded glass windows had to be replaced. Franklin: And that’s that really thick glass. Davis: Right. They were inch-and-a-half to two inches thick. And the reason they had to be replaced was you couldn’t see through them. Because of the radiation, they got fogged over. So it was the operators’ job to prepare the area for the boilermakers to go in and actually do the window change. Franklin: Okay. Davis: You know, union rules. Because it was a pressure vessel, the boilermakers had to do the work on that. That was a pretty dangerous job, because some of these hoods were powder hoods. And if you think of talcum powder, that’s what the plutonium powder was like, so it had a tendency to fly all over. Fortunately, we never had any skin contaminations on any of the window changes. A good pre-job planning, and everybody knew what they were doing. Franklin: So, when you went in to those hoods, there would have just been powder from the processing in there. Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay. Wow, that’s—so then you were able to change the—or to prepare it—how would you—did you remove the powder, or--? Davis: As much as we could. But you could never get all of it. And even though the hoods are negative pressure, when you’re disturbing them, there’s a chance for the powder to come out of the hoods. Franklin: Sure. And how did you handle that exactly? Davis: Well, we built greenhouses—plastic greenhouses—around them. The people that went in were on supplied air respirators, so it was even more than the powered air purifying. The supplied air, there were large tanks of air inside and hoses that went in, connecting to the mask. And they—people had escape packs, little five-minute emergency bottles, so in case something happened they could still get out. And when we were doing changing the powder hoods, we wore the two pair of coveralls plus a plastic suit. And these plastic suits were made by the plastic shop up on the third floor of the building. So it was a pair of trousers that went up about mid-waist—mid-chest. And then like a parka that went over the top. And then they got taped to the coveralls, and then gloves over them, so there was—you were completely encased in this plastic. Which made it awfully warm, too. Franklin: I would imagine—yeah, that was going to be my next question. How was it to work in that? I imagine your dexterity is somewhat compromised, and your vision is somewhat compromised. What is it like to work in that kind of suit? Like, I’m imagining you just—your body feels different. Davis: Mostly hot. Franklin: Mostly hot? Davis: When you get out of there, you usually could wring sweat out of your underclothes. Franklin: Really? Davis: Yup. Franklin: Wow. Were there any instances of people ever overheating in that? Like, having exertion and not— Davis: Not that I recall. Franklin: Oh, okay, but just very hot and humid. Davis: Yeah. Franklin: And then what about trying to manipulate tools with so many layers of gloves on, on the fingers? Davis: Well, we wore surgeon gloves as the inner protecting. With the surgeon gloves, there’s not a problem. Franklin: Sure. Davis: At least not for me. I wore as tight of surgeon gloves as I could, rather than having really loose ones like some people did. With the canvas gloves, it was a little awkward. Franklin: Interesting. Davis: The people taking—like taking the bolts off of the powder hood and stuff, it wasn’t that much of a problem, because they were usually wearing gloves anyway. You know, boilermakers. So they’re used to it. Franklin: Would the boilermakers also need—I imagine they would also need the same level of protective equipment. Davis: Oh, yeah, everybody that went in it wore that. Franklin: Oh, okay. So that was a basic level of training no matter—union job—because they had to have different groups of people, like pipefitters to deal with pipes, right, boilermakers to deal with—okay. Davis: Right. And like on the A line when we were removing equipment, the operators didn’t remove the equipment. Didn’t disassemble the equipment. Millwrights disassembled the equipment. The operators would seal them out of the gloveboxes. Franklin: Okay. And then would you move the equipment, or would teamsters be needed to move the equipment? Davis: No, we could move the equipment. Because it was contaminated. I mean, it was obviously inside the hood, so it was contaminated. Franklin: Right, right, right. Okay. So after the RMC line, where did you move to next? Davis: I also—while we were working on that, I was also working up in the Plutonium—PFP—PRF, Reclamation Facility. Which is the six-story building that’s attached to 234-5. Franklin: Okay, and that’s the one that’s coming down—no. Davis: It’s, I think in the process right now. Franklin: In the process of coming down right now, okay. And what did you do in the PRF? Davis: That was also refurbishing it to be used. Franklin: So this was during the Reagan— Davis: Right. Franklin: The Reagan buildup. Davis: Right. Franklin: And describe refurbishing. Davis: Changing out piping that was old. It looked like when they shut it down people just walked off so there were tools left inside. The system used nitric acid, tributyl phosphate, in the process. And we would find things like pliers that had been left in nitric acid for a year or two and were sometimes almost as sharp as knives, because the acid would eat away. Franklin: Wow. Davis: And we’d seal that stuff out. We were replacing pumps and— Franklin: So, like, literally, it looked like they had just walked off-- Davis: Yup. Franklin: --the job one day in the middle of work. Davis: Right, just— Franklin: Did you ever figure out why that was? Is that actually what happened, or--? Davis: I think it was, well, we were never going to use this again, so we’ll just leave it. Rather than taking time to clean it up and— Franklin: Do you know how long it was from when they had stopped work to when you went into start refurbishing it? Davis: No. Franklin: Oh, okay. Do you have any guesses, based on— Davis: Probably about ten years. Franklin: Oh, okay. So it had been a fairly— Davis: Yup. Franklin: So there probably was dust everywhere, and— Davis: Yeah. The PRF had six floors. The top two were just small areas where the top of the columns were. The other four floors had gloveboxes in them where the operations was conducted. And from the control room, which was up on the fourth floor, depending on what exactly they were doing at that particular moment, they’d get out their procedure and run through it. You needed an open valve, whatever number it was on the first floor, and closed valve on the second floor and so on and so forth. Franklin: Okay. And so how long did you work refurbishing—how long did the refurbishing work take on PRF? Davis: I can’t remember. Probably six to eight months. Franklin: Oh, okay. To get it back ready for operation. And how many men would be working on a project like that? Davis: [LAUGHTER] That’s a good question. There were quite a few. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: Not just men. Men and women. Franklin: Sorry. People. Davis: We had women nuclear process operators. Franklin: Oh, okay. And when—were there women nuclear process operators when you started? Davis: Yes. Franklin: Okay. And so what happened after the PRF was refurbished? Davis: I moved out to shipping and receiving at Dash-5. Franklin: Seems like a pretty different job change. You know, a shift. Davis: It was shipping and receiving radioactive material. Franklin: Oh, okay. So still handling—but this time handling kind of the finished product instead of cleaning it up. Davis: Right. Once they started making buttons in the RMC line, they had to go someplace. Franklin: Right, okay. Davis: And that’s what we were doing. Franklin: And can you describe shipping and receiving? What was an average day like in shipping and receiving? Davis: I don’t know if there was really an average day. When we had a shipment going out, the shipments were sent on SSTs, Safe Secure Transports, which are semi-trucks that are specially designed to transport nuclear material. Franklin: And what does the special design consist of? Davis: The tractors were armored. The trailers had anti-tampering devices, so to speak. If you look at a regular semi-truck trailer, walls are about this thick. Walls on these were this thick. And I don’t know all of the devices they had in those, but they—if somebody tried to hijack them, it would have been virtually impossible. Somebody said that they had a foam device that if the trailer was tipped over or if it was opened without keys, the foam would come in and solidify around the containers inside. And the trucks were driven by special couriers who were armed. They usually had one to two SUVs traveling with the truck, full of armed men. And I don’t remember ever seeing any women in that group. Franklin: Okay. And how often would a delivery take place? Davis: I can’t remember any frequencies. Franklin: Now, what about receiving? Is that when you would intake the solution to make buttons? Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay. And describe that process. Davis: The PUREX plant in East Area was operating at that time, and they separated the plutonium out of the fuel rods and turned it into plutonium nitrate solution. These were shipped over to Dash-5. Most of the time in 55-gallon drums that had inner containers that were about six inches in diameter and two-and-a-half to three feet tall. That’s because that’s a criticality safe configuration. And you certainly didn’t want a criticality to happen. Franklin: Right, so that way you could put two drums next to each other—or near each other, and there would be enough space in between the— Davis: Right, that and the shape of the container’s cylindrical, no more than six inches in diameter. So you wouldn’t want to just put it in the bottom of a 55-gallon drum, because that would not be a critically safe configuration, and you could get a criticality. Franklin: Interesting. I wonder how they figured that out. Davis: Hopefully not through trial and error. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Some things are better figured out not through trial and error. So how long did you work in shipping and receiving? Davis: About two years and then I moved to the burial grounds and Central Waste Complex. Franklin: Before we get to that, what was your job in shipping and receiving? Were you just like a clerk, or--? Davis: No, I was an operator and we loaded the containers. Franklin: Oh, okay. So you unloaded probably at the receiving end and then— Davis: Right. Franklin: I heard from somebody else—I interviewed somebody that worked there and they said the guards on the transport trucks were not a friendly bunch. Did you ever have any interactions with them? Davis: No. Franklin: Or was it just strictly business? Davis: Strictly business. Franklin: Okay. Davis: The—never mind. Franklin: No, no, no, no, no, go ahead. Davis: It flew out of my mind. Oh, I know what I was going to say. Some of the SSTs were driven around completely empty. And some of them were full. Franklin: Right, probably to— Davis: So that just because there was an SST on the road, people wouldn’t know whether it was loaded or not. And even if it was loaded to the maximum that they could carry, compared to a regular semi-truck, they were light. Franklin: Oh, right. Light in load. Davis: Lightweight. Franklin: Lightweight. Interesting. I could see how that is kind of a good counter-espionage tactic. Davis: Mm-hm. And the other thing that we did in shipping and receiving was monitor the vaults where they had both plutonium buttons and plutonium powder in the vaults. And every once in a while, they would come in and take containers out to assay it, just to make sure nobody’s sneaking it out in their lunchbox, I guess. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And that’s where the can monitoring units were, right? In the vault? Is that where those were employed? Davis: Yeah. Franklin: Okay, we have a couple of those in our collection. And I’ve seen the—you go into the vault and they’re all kind of strategically-arranged around so you don’t have a criticality incident. So you monitored those as well? Davis: Right. Franklin: Did you ever perform any of the assays, or was it--? Davis: Well, there were people that actually performed the assays. But operators including myself were the people that went into the vault, take the containers, and put them in the assay machines. Then they’d do the—and then we’d put them back. Franklin: Was there—anyone ever sneak, that you know of—sneaked—seems like a very risky thing to do for a very small amount of material. Davis: There were monitors on the exits, and you couldn’t have gotten through. In fact, the monitors would go off if somebody had, like, radiation, iodine, x-ray. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: You know, downtown. And they’d come out to work and the monitor—alarm would go off. Franklin: Interesting. And so there’s a pretty tight level of security, then, at the Plutonium Finishing— Davis: Yeah. There had to be at least two people whenever you went into the vault. Franklin: Oh, okay. And then there was checks on entry and exit as well. Davis: Right. And remember the AMS system? Franklin: Yeah. Davis: There were cameras in there so they could see what you were doing. Franklin: Was that the same at the other places you worked at? At the 234-5Z and other places? Was the security system similar, was it pretty high— Davis: Well, the shipping and receiving building was inside the 234-5Z compound. So it was part of that. Franklin: Oh, okay. And then what about when you were working in kind of the refurbishing or cleanup? Was there also pretty tight security presence there as well? Davis: Not as much. Franklin: Okay. Probably because there’s no finished product there. Davis: Right. Franklin: So then you said you went out to the burial grounds. Davis: Right, and Central Waste Complex. Franklin: Central Waste Complex—and just describe that. What went into the burial grounds? Davis: Anything they wanted to get rid of. Franklin: Okay. Davis: Low-level waste. Franklin: Low-level. Solid? Davis: Yes. Franklin: Okay. Davis: When they started back in the ‘40s, it was back your truck up to the edge of the burial ground and throw whatever was on it into the ditch. So you had drums and boxes every which way, you know, laying on top of each other. By the time I got there, they were stacking them neatly and doing recoverable storage—if anybody ever needed to get whatever they buried out again. Franklin: Okay. So much more like—I don’t even know how to describe it. But not just like a dump anymore, but in case they accidentally sent something to the disposal that they needed back— Davis: Right, or wanted to get back to reprocess it later. Franklin: Oh. So what kind of system kept track of that? Like, how would you—how would somebody come and get something back? Davis: There was paperwork on everything that we put in there. And the paperwork was saved, so if somebody was looking for something, we buried such-and-such item in 1987. They could look through and find out where it went and the position in the trench, how far from the front or the back. Franklin: Oh okay, so it was still being buried in the ground. Davis: Right. Franklin: And so would you fill those when they got full? Davis: Yeah. Franklin: Okay. Davis: They, in fact, every so often, they would—as we went from one end of the trench to the other, and when there was a certain number of feet of items that were being buried, they brought bulldozers in and covered the boxes and drums. Franklin: Okay. Now, what would the process be if somebody needed to get something that was buried by bulldozer out? Would they have to excavate and then— Davis: Yeah. It never happened while I was there. So I’m not sure how they would do it, exactly, but they’d say, well, it’s x number of feet from the beginning of the trench, and that would be right here, and I guess we’re going to have to dig a big hole and try to get it out. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: And so how long did you work at the burial ground for? Davis: Up until ’91. Franklin: Okay. Davis: So another couple of years. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And Central Waste Complex is a series of buildings that they stored radioactive waste in, rather than burying it. Franklin: Oh, okay. So that’s different from the burial grounds, then? Davis: Well, the people doing the operations were in the same group. Franklin: Okay. But the burial—so the Waste Complex, was that—that’s not tank waste, or is that? Davis: No. Franklin: Okay, that’s just other types of waste. Davis: Right. There were 13 buildings that were 4,000 square feet and they had just built those when I got into burial grounds. And there were four more buildings built after that. The biggest one was 56,000 square feet if I remember correctly. Franklin: Wow. Davis: 12 of the original 13 buildings, we received waste from 100-H Area. Franklin: Okay. Davis: And that was from one of the trenches out there that they sent water from the reactors out and let it settle. And they were—it was mixed waste. Radioactive and chemical waste. Franklin: Oh. So how would that—so then that got into the soil, I— Davis: Right, so then they were digging up the soil, putting it in 55-gallon drums and then sending it to Central Waste Complex with the idea that it would eventually be reprocessed to separate the radioactive material from the chemical material. Franklin: Wow. Did that ever happen? Davis: No, not to my knowledge. Franklin: Oh, okay. So they just—oh, sorry, go ahead. Davis: The original containers were 55-gallon drums. And they started getting pinhole leaks from the chemicals that were in there. So they repacked them in 110-gallon drums. And some of those started getting leaks. So they repacked them in plastic drums, bigger—even bigger. Franklin: Any leaks on those? Davis: Not by the time I left. Franklin: Okay. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: But those were stored aboveground then, in these buildings. Davis: Right. Franklin: Probably, I guess, for easy— Davis: Retrieval. Franklin: Retrieval and— Davis: And for monitoring also. Franklin: Yeah, I was going to say, that’s—I mean, that’s obviously how they knew there were leaks in them, which is good. Someone was monitoring them. And so then the other buildings mostly just stored waste that needed to be monitored and retrieved at a— Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay. So what did you—where did you go after the burial grounds or the Central Waste Complex? Davis: I actually stayed in burial grounds but I went exempt. I went into administration. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: And I was there until 1996 when I was asked to move to T Plant. And then I was the building administrator out at T Plant. Franklin: And— Davis: Building administrator is the guy that orders supplies, makes—coordinates moves of people into or out of the plant and things like that. Franklin: And what was the T Plant doing at that time? Davis: They were decontaminating equipment. Franklin: Okay. And the T Plant was one of the canyons, right? Davis: Right. Franklin: And it was one of the canyons where things were remote controlled because of the radioactivity? Davis: Right. Franklin: Okay. Davis: In fact, it was the original processing facility. Franklin: Right. So that was undergoing cleanup at the time—or a form of cleanup. Davis: Well, they were decontaminating equipment from other places, plus whatever was in there. Franklin: Okay. And so what—so kind of describe—well, so—sorry. So, they’re bringing in equipment from other places in there to also decon— Davis: Right. Franklin: So that was kind of a decontaminating location? Davis: Right. Franklin: So how long did that work take? Davis: As far as I know, they’re still doing it. Franklin: And where did that take place? I imagine that the canyon itself— Davis: In the canyon. Franklin: Oh okay. Davis: The cells where the processing took place was below deck. Franklin: Mm-hm. Davis: And each cell had a concrete cap on it that could be removed by a crane. And these were probably six feet thick. Franklin: Wow. Davis: And they were stair-step so you could make a good seal. And the processing—the decontamination stuff took place on the deck. Franklin: On the top. Davis: Right. Franklin: Of the—okay. And so I imagine the people that were in there were in full— Davis: Right. Supplied air respirators. Franklin: I guess that makes sense, right, because if you’re decontaminating something and it gets crapped up, I mean, you’re already in a pretty hot place. Davis: Right. Franklin: As far as radioactivity goes, so you’re not going to wreck a place that has no or very little radioactivity. Davis: If— Franklin: what kinds of equipment would you be cleaning up? Davis: All sorts. Franklin: From what—from other canyons, or--? Davis: Yeah, I’m not sure where it all came from. Franklin: Oh, okay. But from other buildings onsite. Davis: Right. Franklin: Because at that point it was decontaminate—there was no processing anymore, right? Davis: Correct. Franklin: It was just decontamination. Davis: There is a pool on the north end where, when I got there they had fuel elements in that came from offsite. I’m not—back east some place. Franklin: Okay. Davis: Sea-something? Seabrook? Someplace way back east, like on the coast. And while I was there, they built a new facility in East Area that they stored the reactor—irradiated reactor fuel from N area. They also took the stuff out of the T Plant pool and moved it over there, too. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: If you want to talk to somebody that had a really interesting job, talk to one of the crane operators that worked at T Plant. Franklin: Yeah? Okay. Do you know anybody? Davis: I’d have to think on their names. It’s been—[LAUGHTER] Franklin: 20 years? Davis: Not quite. About 15 since I got laid off. Franklin: And so—how long did you work at—how long were you the building administrator at the T Plant? Davis: Up until I got laid off in 2003. Franklin: Okay, so you worked for about 25 years— Davis: At Hanford, right. Franklin: At Hanford, okay. And what did you—were they just drawing down operations then— Davis: Yeah. Franklin: Or were you just kind of a senior person and they were like, well— Davis: There were 300 people laid off the same day I was. Franklin: Oh, okay. Davis: So it wasn’t like, just you. Franklin: It wasn’t personal? Davis: No. Franklin: But were operations kind of dwindling, then, at that point? Davis: Yes. Franklin: So a lot of the work scope had been accomplished. And then what did you do after you were laid off? Davis: I worked for the Washington State Patrol. Franklin: Oh, okay. So kind of back to patrol. Davis: Right, as a—I was a commercial vehicle enforcement officer. Franklin: Interesting. And that’s at the waystations? Davis: That’s one of them, yeah. I worked down at the Plymouth waystation. And then I got promoted to CVE-02 and went into compliance review, which is investigating trucking companies. And then I went to be the lead worker at the interior detachment for our district, which is from Yakima to the Idaho border. Franklin: Okay. How long did you do that for? Davis: 11 years. Franklin: Oh, okay, so you just retired from that as well? Davis: Yup. Franklin: And then how did you get involved with the B Reactor Museum Association? Davis: Well, that was something that I was kicking around for a long time to get involved with. And last April I finally said, let’s do it. So my wife and I joined. Franklin: And why? What was the interest there? Davis: Preserving B Reactor. These buildings and processes out there just fascinate me. Franklin: How so? Davis: Just because of the at-the-time-cutting-edge technology that was being developed. I mean, obviously, you look at what we have today compared to what it was in 1944, but back then it was just amazing. And the facilities—just—I just find them amazing. Franklin: What other buildings or processes do you wish could be saved or would have been saved on the Hanford Site? Davis: I think they should save T Plant, because it was the first production facility. Franklin: Right, because I mean, it’s also kind of groundbreaking in that way. And you can’t really tell the story of B Reactor without that other half. Davis: Right. Franklin: And what else—are there any others? Davis: Let’s back up just a second on T Plant. Franklin: Sure. Davis: Back in the 1960s, after they shut down the processing there, they cleaned up the canyon enough so that they invited the families of workers to come out, and they had some sort of function in the canyon. Franklin: Wow. That is really interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before. How did you hear about that? Davis: Some of the operators, when I first went into operations, were at T Plant when that happened. Franklin: Wow. Davis: And if it could be cleaned up that much so people could actually get into the canyon, I think that would be fantastic. Franklin: I think I agree—I agree with you. That would really—goes a long way into telling that story. Because otherwise, it—you know, what happens to the fuel after we irradiate it? Davis: Right. And I think the 400 Area, the Fast Flux Test Facility would be a good addition, too. Franklin: Why is that? Davis: Because it was a sodium reactor. Sodium-cooled reactor. Franklin: Yeah, it’s a fascinating piece of technology. A couple weeks ago we interviewed the guy who patented it, Eugene Astley. And it’s a very—a shame that that reactor didn’t get to kind of live up to its fullest potential, being shut down so quickly after it was created. Can you describe living in—your thoughts on living in Richland—I guess I should ask, did you live in Richland when you worked at Hanford? Davis: Yes, most of the time. Franklin: Most of the time. What was it like living in Richland during the Cold War and then the shift to not the Cold War and the rise of environmental consciousness? Davis: I don’t think it was very different than anywhere else. Franklin: Okay. Davis: I wasn’t there when it was a company town where you had to be working at Hanford, before you could live in Richland. Franklin: Sure. Davis: Those type of questions, I’m sure you asked my wife. Franklin: Yes. We usually do ask, you know, anybody who was there at the time. Did you ever feel an immediacy to the Cold War, kind of living and working in a site that was producing material for the US nuclear weapons arsenal? The fact that Hanford might have been a prime target— Davis: Yeah. Franklin: --for Russian bombing. Or knowing what the work was contributing to, do you have any feelings about that, good or bad? Davis: Well, we realized that Hanford might be a target. But we—at least I thought it would probably be other places before Hanford, because anything we produced there, it would take so long to get into the system. Franklin: Oh. Davis: I was more worried about somebody trying to steal plutonium or technology than somebody dropping a bomb. Franklin: Is there anything else that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to talk about? Davis: Not that I can think of. Franklin: Okay, well, Charles, thank you so much for coming in and interviewing with us today—participating in the interview. You’re not interviewing anything. But thank you. You gave a lot of great detail about some of the cleanup and refurbishment. And I really appreciate that; I think that was really interesting work, kind of working at this pivotal time between kind of the shutdown of the Carter administration and then the uptick in the Reagan administration is really interesting and not really—a story that hasn’t been told really well yet at Hanford. So I really appreciate you shining a lot of light on that. Davis: Okay, thank you. Franklin: Great. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:51:51 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1977-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1978-2003 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 Charles Davis Description An account of the resource An interview with Charles Davis conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12-19-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-29-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 2-East Area 200 Area 300 Area 400 Area B Reactor B Reactor Museum Association Cold War Fast Flux Test Facility H Area Hanford Plutonium PUREX supplies T Plant War https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd24bb8f61d5a3ab812b92b65fdb12fb3.JPG 4603d9664f2a0077ae96546b4e6df8ea Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Franklin Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Bob Ferguson Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Robert Ferguson on December 21st, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Bob about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us? Bob Ferguson: Yes. Robert, R-O-B-E-R-T. Louis, L-O-U-I-S. Ferguson, F-E-R-G-U-S-O-N. Franklin: Great, thanks. So tell me how and why you came to the area to work at the Hanford Site. Ferguson: Well, I was in the Army. I had spent three years in the Army and I was at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. And a friend of mine stopped by that was sort of at the end of my obligation, and his father had worked here. His name was Fred Boleros. And he told me about GE here at Hanford. So, it was my first job when I applied when I left the Army, was with GE at Hanford. They accepted my application, and that’s how I happened to come to Hanford. Franklin: Okay. And what was the job that you applied for? Ferguson: Well, I came under a program called the—[LAUGHTER]—bear with me. Franklin: That’s okay. Ferguson: Can you cut, can we cut, or you’ll cut? Franklin: We can edit. Ferguson: We’ll edit? Franklin: After the fact, yes. Ferguson: Okay. Emma Rice: Tech grad something? Ferguson: Yeah. The tech grad program. It was the tech grad program. It was a program to—for GE to find out what your interest was as well as their interest in you. So, anyway, I signed up for that, and I had three assignments with that. One in operation, one in reactor physics, and one in radiation testing. My permanent job—my first permanent job with GE was as a reactor physicist at C Reactor. But we did physics work—at each of the reactors, there was an onsite physicist and an onsite engineer. We rotated to all of the different eight reactors in the course of our assignments during relief work. But I was permanently assigned to C Reactor—C Reactor Physicist. Franklin: C Reactor? Ferguson: C Reactor. Franklin: Okay, and where is that located in relation to B, D and F? Ferguson: Well, as you probably know, the first reactors were B, D and F. And then HDR and then H, and then C Reactor in K-East and K-West. So C Reactor was one of the newer reactors, before the K-East and K-West design. And it was collocated with B Reactor in what was called the BC Area. They were right next door to each other. Franklin: Okay. And was that based off of the same design as the B Reactor? Ferguson: It was a different design. Higher power level and a little different fuel design. And because it had a higher power level, it had also a higher flow rate. Franklin: Of water? Ferguson: Of water, right. Franklin: Great. And how long did you work as a reactor operator? Ferguson: Physicist. Franklin: Reactor physicist, sorry. Ferguson: Right. Well, actually I was asked—I guess because of my interest in operation—I was asked by GE management to go into their management program, which was an accelerated management program. And so that took me into operations. And so to accelerate the learning process, they had a school in the evening that they sent us to. But also, we had supplemental crews. For each of the shifts, there was a supplemental crew that went from each of the reactors, in the case of outages or in the case of startups, where they needed extra people. So you learned in the supplemental crews, all of the operation of all of the reactors in a very short period of time. So from there, then, I was assigned as a shift supervisor at B Reactor. So I was an operating supervisor at B Reactor. In fact, I was the youngest of shift supervisor that GE had at the time. Franklin: Oh, wow. Where were the classes held for the management program? Ferguson: Well, there were two kinds of classes. There were—WSU had—actually there were—WSU and some of the other western universities had a program here. But they were technical programs, and then GE in the same facilities, in what—the old barracks area, near where the DOE headquarters is now, the RL headquarters, in that area. But they no longer exist. They were in huts. Franklin: Oh, okay, Quonset huts. Ferguson: Quonset huts, yeah, yeah. Franklin: World War II— Ferguson: Right. Franklin: Had you gone through any other—before you took the tech grad program with GE, had you had any training in nuclear physics or anything? Ferguson: Well, I had a degree in physics, and I’d also spent a year at Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville, Alabama in guided missiles. So, there was a lot of related work in the guided missile field to the nuclear field as well. Franklin: And were you in the Army because of the Korean War? Ferguson: No, I went into the Army from—I was graduated. Went to Gonzaga University and graduated in ROTC, and had a commission. And because I signed up for the guided missile program, I had a three-year commitment then, rather than just two years of active duty. Franklin: Okay. Ferguson: But it was—we were on alert in my junior year of the Korean War. And then the Korean War, fortunately, was over in my last year. So, I was able to miss that. Franklin: Yeah. Can you describe the B Reactor as a place to work? Ferguson: Well, it was—actually, a fascinating facility. I don’t know, perhaps, if you’ve been there. Franklin: I’ve been able to take the public tours. Ferguson: But the operation of the reactors were fascinating. You can picture that there’s eight reactors operating 24/7, seven days a week. At that time, there was pressure for more plutonium for the Cold War. It was during that period of time when there was a lot of tension with Russia. It preceded, actually, the Cuban Missile Crisis by a few years. But anyway, there was intense pressure for production, so we were—GE was very sensitive about the time operating efficiency of the reactors and the power level of the reactors. B Reactor, when it was first designed was designed for 250 megawatts. And when I was last in the control room, we were operating over 2,000 megawatts. We used to—in order to get more power, we used to—Bonneville would lower water from under the dams so our inlet temperature was lower. The operation of the reactors—they went once through the reactors, and so they had to keep the outlet temperature below boiling. And so you wanted the maximum delta t across the reactor, you could get so the lower the inlet temperature, the higher the power level you could get, maintaining a safe margin in the outlet temperature. But also at that time, we were experimenting—I participated both in the physics side as well as the operations side—in the use of flattening of the pile. And by flattening, I mean flattening the flux so you could get more power level, or better distribution and more production, in any one cycle. And so we used—we experimented with splines, which were boron designed things that would go under the process tubes, and you could jack them in actually from the front face of the reactor in order to flatten the flux of the reactors. We also did poisoning at that time of the reactor. A temporary poisoning, so we could start the reactors up at a higher power level. Because the operation of the reactors was very complicated, because you had different temperature coefficients that affected the reactivity of the reactor. So you had a positive graphite temperature, but that was—the graphite would heat up over time. And so that would increase the reactivity, and you had a negative temperature coefficient—fast reactor coefficient. And then the coefficients would change as the amount of plutonium occurred in the reactor. And so the operation of the reactors were really dictated by the design coefficients, but, more importantly, by the discovery of xenon and iodine, which shut the reactors down when Fermi was here. That was—they didn’t even know about the xenon absorption of neutrons at that time. And so when the reactor was first started, it shut down. And they had originally—perhaps you’ve heard this story, that originally the reactor was designed for about 1,500 process tubes. But then DuPont doubled it to 2,004 in order to—for safety margins—and they needed all of that safety margins to override the xenon. But anyway, when you’re at steady state operation, and then you shut the reactor down, then the buildup of iodine that then decays into xenon, and xenon is a poison. So if you were operating at full power and the reactor scrammed, you had a very short period of time in order to bring the reactor up to power level. Otherwise, you were down for 30-hour outage. So that meant that you lost production during that period. So we basically devised what we called quickie plans. This was especially true—we were experiencing a lot of ruptures at that time because we were pushing the envelope of the design of the fuel. It would rupture, and then we’d have to get rid of that, because they’d been once through on the water, the radioactive material would go directly into the river. So anyway, when we had a rupture, we would need to get it out of the reactor. But you only had a few minutes. At that time because of the power levels we were operating at, we only had about 15 minutes to recover. And that meant planning a crew in the rear and the front, and alerting the people in the powerhouse, because you had to bring the water pressure down. But you had to keep plenty of water on the tubes, because otherwise the temperature—outlet temperature would be very high. So you had a very difficult time to valve on the front. So I would go—I would basically stay in the control room and have a supervisor in the front and rear. And then when we shut the reactor down, we would do all of this valving, kick the rupture out, and then restart. And you’d have to restart the reactors to about two-thirds of the power that you were at, otherwise you’d go sub-critical, and you’d be down. So it was a very delicate challenge to start it up to a power level that you could—without running out of rods, then, because also the higher power level, the more reactivity you had. So, it was a—it’s something that I learned in physics, because that’s what the physicist did. He calculated all these transients. So when I went into operations, it was sort of natural for me to be able to manage this kind of thing. Franklin: Interesting. And so—that’s also, like, kind of real-world application of all of that physics that you had learned, right? Ferguson: Right. Franklin: How did—I think it’s hard for people who—especially younger people—to imagine doing all of that without digital technology. It’s always been something that’s really fascinated me. And I’m wondering if you could speak to that or if you’ve ever thought about that at all, that the kinds of—maybe you could talk a little bit about the kinds of equipment you had to work with, and the limitations of using the analog readouts in the control room. Ferguson: Well, that’s a very good question. The reactors had to be operated when you started them up—what we called a blind startup, because we didn’t have instruments that told us how subcritical we were. So, you had to—the physicist would calculate the reactivity coefficients for the operation, and depending upon the precursor operation, would determine exactly what the startup conditions were. But because we couldn’t measure the subcritical condition of the reactor, we had—we pulled to about—well, it’s called 100n hours subcritical, then pulled into that. But we had people at a PC manually, if you can imagine, manually counting the count rate as we approached criticality. Because if you pull too many rods out, you can get into a fast period, which will shut you down. So we had to do all this manually. And you probably, having seen the control room—you had 2,004 process tubes. Each one of those tubes was monitored for pressure on the inlet and temperature on the outlet. But those gauges had to be manually moved and adjusted by a crew in the front of that panel—the panellette, that whole 2,004 panel in the control room, right to the right of the control panel. Anyway, you had a whole group of people on startup in ladder-like things that would roll those gauges, instrument man on the rear, but he had to keep the gauges within a range, or you’d trip. So as the water pressure came up, you had to roll all of those. But this was all done manually. And then we had ways of—we had devices that calculated the power level, but it was very deceptive. So those of us that had been trained in physics could basically do a lot of those calculations in our head on the power level. Because what I’ve experienced—I’m sure others did, too—that if an instrument failed, say a flow instrument failed on one side of the reactor, it would indicate you’re only at half of the power level that you’re actually at. So you needed to look at other instruments, and you learned to look—like there was an instrument called a Beckman instrument, which monitored the radioactivity on the rear face. So by walking the control room and looking at all these different instruments, you could check one against the other. But it was all very, very, very, manual. And we did our physics calculations on Marchant calculators, you know, the calculators you punch. Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah. [LAUGHTER] Ferguson: We did all our physics calculations on those at that time. And they were just introducing the IBM 650. GE had a computing facility where we would punch the cards and get some central computing for some of the physics work that we did. And that’s also where they kept track of the production in the reactors. If you could imagine keeping track of eight reactors with 2,004 tubes—there were more than that in the K reactors—but the six older reactors. And keeping the production in each one of those tubes was a function of the flow through that tube and the reactivity and the temperature of each one of those tubes. So you had to keep track of how much plutonium was being produced, because if you leave the fuel in too long, the buildup of plutonium-240 builds up. And so weapons-grade plutonium is about 6% to 10%. So we were operating at getting really pure weapons-grade plutonium. Something below the—at least 10% of 240, because it was—in the early design of the bombs, they found that if plutonium-240 spontaneously fissions, it creates a background. And if it’s too high, it’ll get a premature detonation of the bomb beforehand. So that’s why we had to manage the production. And that’s why there were frequent shutdowns. Unlike commercial reactors, where you operate a long time. And that’s why people confuse—plutonium that’s produced in commercial reactors has a high 240 content which is not good for weapons. Franklin: Oh, interesting, okay. So you’re saying—I just want to paraphrase so that I can make sure I understand. So you’re saying that it was the nature of the weapons process that the fuel would only be in there for a short period of time in order to get—and it’s plutonium-240—which one is the-- Ferguson: Is low. 239 is the weapons grade. Franklin: 239 is the weapons-grade. Ferguson: And 240 is the low grade. Franklin: Right, so that you wouldn’t build up too much 240. So— Ferguson: And that required a frequent charge and discharge of the reactors. Franklin: Right, so in some way, then, the energy reactors by nature are just not really meant for weapons. Ferguson: They’re the opposite of that. You want them to run. The Energy Northwest reactor which I was responsible for building—it was called BNP2 at the time. But they recently set a record of running for over two years without a shutdown. Franklin: Because you also want—when you’re producing energy, you want a reliable output of energy— Ferguson: Right, fixed, right. Franklin: You don’t want to be starting and stopping and have that kind of fluctuation in the grid. Ferguson: Right. Franklin: That’s really—I think that’s a good basic point to have established for anyone who’s doing research on that. Ferguson: But an interesting subset of your question about instrumentation. Rickover, in the nuclear navy, who relied on analog instrumentation and ways of measuring things. Because he wanted people to really run the reactor all the time. He didn’t want any risk of that. So it was a transitional period in the nuclear business. And some of the instrumentation that was designed to detect neutrons was very new at the time. Even the badges that we wore, at that time, did not detect neutrons, both fast and slow. And so we had to do experiments on the front face of the reactors to be able to predict what dosage you’d get from neutrons, rather than alpha, beta, and gamma. Because it was not known then exactly the biological effect of neutrons on the human body. Franklin: Given that the reactors ran, most of the time they had 24-hour shifts, I’m wondering if you can describe to me kind of an average day as a nuclear physicist operating the B Reactor. Ferguson: Well, it depends—well, let me answer that by, when you—at that time, you couldn’t drive your car out to the Site. So you came to the 700 Area, and there was a—lights up there that indicated which reactors were running. And that told you, if you were a supplemental crew, which reactor to go to. But anyway, to answer your question, if the reactor is operating normally at full power, it’s very—typically, you’d go in and you had about a 15- to 20-minute transfer process from one crew to the other. We kept a detailed log of the activities during our shift. You’d do a—we would typically do a count of the uranium slugs that were stored in the front face so that we’d keep materials accountability. So we would make sure that from shift to shift, there was a transfer of accountability for the slugs that were there. There was a transfer of any ongoing activity that would be taking place. But during normal operation, we had two operators in the control room and then a chief operator. And then the other operators would be picking fuel up out of the basins. That was all done by hand. If you’ve seen the reactor, the fuel would come out, go down in chutes. But all of those fuel elements had to be picked up by hand through the water—through 20 feet of water, put in the buckets, and then those buckets would be transferred under water over to a station where the railcar would come in from the 200 Area, all underwater. And then that bucket that contained the radioactive slugs would be, then, taken by railcar over to the 200 Area where it would be reprocessed. So, that—typically, then, you’d do maintenance work that could be done when the reactor was running. And then you had a daily routine of walking through the whole reactor. It’s very interesting; you could—Robert, you could tell, after you’d been there for a while, by the sounds if things were okay. If there was a shrill sound where the water pressure coming through, the water flowing through the reactors, and all of the different fans had different sounds. So you walked the reactor—always walked, went to the rear—in the rear of the building is a little place with a lead glass shield that you could look through to see the rear face. So you’d check the rear face for any anomalies, for leakage, or anything like that. And then you’d have your—we always had a health physicist on each shift. He had his rounds to check on the radiation levels in different areas. And different areas were controlled depending on whether there was radioactive material or contamination in the area. We had step-off pads, where you’d go from one area to another. Dual step-off pads, if you had a highly contaminated area. And the people—some of the crew would sort laundry as well. Because we went through a lot of laundry, because you had to change into what we called SWPs, special material when you came on shift. So anyway that would be rather routine. Now, during an outage, or during a startup, then you have a beehive of activity. The place that we—the shift supervisor had total control and authority over the running of the reactor. So even the manager and other people that were there for startup, they would have to leave, because of the intensity of the operation during startup. So, if it were an outage, you went into—you were doing charge/discharge. So you have a front face crew and a rear face crew, and you’re doing a lot of physical work. The charging machines would—you’d have to load them up by hand—load the slugs by hand. So it was—it’s hard to explain the level of activity that was going on during an outage. Because we would have maintenance. We would have some maintenance on the process tubes that had to be removed because they were leaking. So we’d have to—the maintenance people would come in and remove those. So it was very, very, very—it’s like a huge manufacturing operation. Franklin: Right. Ferguson: But a lot by hand. So the dichotomy between—you’ve got a very sophisticated—you get no sound from the reactor itself but a lot of sound from everything that runs the reactor. Franklin: The water and the electronics and everything. Ferguson: Right. And the reactors were cooled by—inerted by gas by helium and carbon dioxide. And so one of the auxiliary rooms was a place where you controlled mixture of the helium and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the reactor. Because you could change the reactivity by changing the temperature of the graphite. You could heat it up with CO2 and cool it off with helium. Franklin: Interesting. So how long did you work as a reactor physicist—nuclear physicist and shift operator? Ferguson: Well, nominally about two years as a physicist and about two years as an operating supervisor. So it was about 50/50 while I was here. I’ll tell you, interesting story. Probably we don’t want to put it on television, but—on September 27th, 1960, I was—it was a Tuesday, and I was starting the reactor up. And I got a call that my wife’s water had broken and she was on the way to the Kadlec Hospital to deliver our second girl. So it was the first time in history a reactor went critical the same time a woman went critical. [LAUGHTER] I could tell you exactly where I was standing in that reactor out there when that happened. I’ll always remember that. And Kadlec Hospital at that time was just Quonset huts, as well. Franklin: Right, yeah, wow. Thanks for sharing. [LAUGHTER] Where did you—I’m assuming you guys lived in Richland while you worked out at Site, right? Ferguson: Right, yeah. Franklin: And so you lived in Richland during—so you would have lived in Richland, then, while it was a government town and then also during the transition. Ferguson: When we first came here, the government owned the town, and we lived in a B—I was going to say B Reactor. [LAUGHTER] Okay. We lived on Kimball—1524 Kimball in a duplex. Franklin: Okay. Ferguson: And then the second home here was a ranch house. But then, while we were there they sold. And when we were first here, GE provided coal. We had coal for our heat and lightbulbs. Those were all provided. I think we paid $47 a month rent at that time. And then the town was sold off. And our neighbors had the right to buy the B house. Franklin: Because they had been there longer than you? Ferguson: They were one of the original occupants. And so then we rented from them. So we were here during that transition. Franklin: Can you describe that transition? What you remember, or your thoughts on it? Ferguson: Well, it was very interesting. When we first came here, there was—and one of the reasons that the road system is the way it is is because of the security in the town. There was only one road in at the time and one road out. And that’s the way—you had to be cleared in order to live and work in Richland during that time. And so we—you know, we had a bus system that picked us up. We had a—during that time as well, those of us that worked in radiation levels, every month we’d have our urine sampled. And so the people that worked there set their bottle out by the front door to be picked up and monitored. So then as the town—after the town was sold off, then, there was more interest in changing the—upgrading the buildings, painting, and more things like that. So you could see the evolution from a government-owned town to private ownership. More and more attention to yards and things like that. So we—my wife and I—my family experienced that transition. And we left—came here in 1957. I left here in ‘61 to go to Argonne. And then we came back in 1972, and the town had totally changed, then. When we came back, we looked at a couple of houses in Meadow Springs and the realtor told us it would be pretty iffy to buy there, because that may not go. And there was a dirt road at that time between that and Columbia Center. Columbia Center didn’t exist when we were first here. We came back, and here’s Columbia Center. So having left here and come back, we’ve seen this transformation of the Tri-Cities. Rather remarkable. Franklin: Right. And how come you left Richland in ’61? Ferguson: Well, actually I was in the control room of B Reactor when we heard about an accident in Idaho called the SL-1 accident. Franklin: I’ve heard about that. Ferguson: It was a military accident that killed three military people. Anyway, it’s kind of a long story, but I’ll make it pretty short. Part of the accident investigation indicated that there was no one AEC organization responsible. The reactor was designed at Argonne in Chicago at Argonne National Lab, but built and operated by the Army at Idaho. And they Idaho office wasn’t responsible; Chicago wasn’t responsible for making sure. So anyway, I was recruited by AEC to go to work up with the AEC to set up the safety program for what was then called the Second Round reactors. These were commercial reactors that were built to encourage the development—commercial development of nuclear power. But Argonne had a lot of reactors at the time, both at Idaho, as well as at Argonne. Both thermal reactors, research reactors and fast reactors. And so anyway, I was recruited because they were looking for people with actual physics and operations experience to work in safety. And so, shortly after I was there, I was sent to Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology for an accelerated program in state-of-the-art safety. But then we—anyway, then we did a review of all the reactors under Chicago. And those were reactors at Idaho, reactors at Santa Susana in California, Atomics International reactors. And then we had commercial reactors at Piqua, Ohio and Hallam, Nebraska. And—oh, there were two other ones, anyway, that were funded by the AEC, but privately owned. But the safety responsibility was the AEC. So anyway I went back there because of the emergence of the need for people with actual operating experience. There were only two places: that was Savannah River and here at Hanford. Franklin: Right. And up until that time, you had not worked with commercial reactors; you’d only worked on production. Ferguson: Yeah, there were no—no, that’s correct. Franklin: So can you describe that transition? How was that for you? Even though you would have had operating experience, like we talked about earlier, the operation of the commercial reactor is almost opposite. The purposes are very different. And so I’m wondering if you can describe that transition. Ferguson: Well, it’s also a cultural transition. And one of the difficulties in the development of commercial nuclear power was because of this cultural issue. Some of the utilities were oversold on the ease with which nuclear power could be used to produce electricity. And so they didn’t understand the need for the training and the quality assurance and the rigorous of operation. And that led to some accidents in the early days, because the utilities really were not sensitive to that. Admiral Rickover was even worried that the private sector, the commercial sector, was not able to manage nuclear. And he was afraid that they would have accidents. And that’s why he built and operated Shippingport, which was one of the first commercial reactors, but it was built by the Navy. But anyway, it was a cultural change. And after the SL-1 accident, it was really a wakeup call even within the AEC for the need for rigorous oversight, rigorous design review, design construction, and operation. The need for safety at all of those areas from the time you procure a piece of equipment, to its built, to its put in operation, and then maintained. All of that was new to the industry. So I actually lived through that transition, I guess, if you would call it that. Because GE was—and DuPont were very rigorous in their safety. Very rigorous. Because people didn’t really know much about nuclear power at that time, or nuclear energy. Franklin: So you’re saying some of that safety-consciousness kind of came over from the folks involved in production, who then went on to commercial. Ferguson: Right. Franklin: I’ve—when talking to people similar to yourself who’ve been in the industry, very familiar with nuclear production and power, I’ve often heard that the nuclear industry is one of the most tightly regulated and safe industries, or focused with safety. And I’m wondering how you feel about that statement, how you would respond to that. Ferguson: Well, it is, because of the potential or the risk. Even though the commercial, there has been no deaths in the commercial nuclear industry in the United States, the potential is there as well. I can just give you a little feel for that. Three Mile Island was a very bad accident, but nobody was hurt. I was there. I was—fifth day of the accident, I was in the control room of Three Mile Island. It was really a bad accident, but nobody got hurt. On the other hand, I was at Chernobyl after that accident. That was a very, very bad accident. A lot of people were killed in that accident. People don’t really understand that—going back to your question about the rigorous safety requirements—Russia did not have a requirement for containment for their reactors. So, Chernobyl had no containment. You couldn’t build and operate that kind of a reactor in the United States. So, one of the issues that emerges from the rigorous safety criteria is the difficulty in transition to new instrumentation, for instance. Because you had very prescriptive regulatory requirements, it was more difficult, basically, to introduce new design, new equipment. And it’s one of the difficulties of the nuclear industry, unlike cars where you’re changing them often, it’s very expensive to build one. And then it’s hard, as innovation and changes take place, it’s hard to introduce those in the course of the licensing. So our licensing system has changed somewhat. You used to have to have two permits for commercial reactor. A permit to build it, and then another permit to operate it. Now those are combined into one, because you wouldn’t want to spend all the money to build a reactor and then not be able to run it. And for the antinuclear community, they used that as a way to stop the operation—or the startup of a lot of reactors. That caused a lot of expense, too. So anyway, it’s been a dynamic change, but not as rapid as your iPhone and changes like that, which can be made very quickly. Franklin: Wow, thank you. Really illuminating. I really like that you mention that there was a cultural transition into the commercial reactor, and I assume, there, you’re talking about dealing with utility companies, but I’m also wondering, was there—did you also work with—because you mentioned fast reactors. Did you also work with scientists and people from the university side of operations when you moved into commercial power? Ferguson: Oh, yes. Franklin: And was that also part of the cultural shift? Ferguson: Well, for instance, going into Argonne—Argonne was where the nuclear technology started. I mean, Argonne came from Fermi’s work in Chicago, basically. All of those scientists went to work at Argonne. And they didn’t like to be—scientists don’t like to be regulated or overseen. And so that’s the reason that the reactor—many of the reactors that Argonne worked with were put in Idaho, in a remote area, where you could do a lot of experimentation away from a big city. So that’s where the series of reactors called the BORAX Reactors, where you could actually explode them—pull into a fast period and cause a prompt critical. But you could do that in Idaho because it was so remote. But anyway, it was always a certain amount of tension between research. And one of the current issues right now, there is so much regulation in commercial reactors, it’s hard to introduce any new technology. For instance, Bill Gates is investing in a reactor being designed in China. And he would do that here, but he went to the NRC and it’d take him 24 years to get a permit just to build it here. So, the rigorous licensing process also inhibits development of new technologies. And we don’t really today have a good answer for that. We need to have an intermediate step where you can work on new reactor designs that are not ready for commercial operation yet but need to be run. Because unless you can do experimental work, you can’t develop anything new. Franklin: But that experimental work is held up by the regulations— Ferguson: Of the regulations, right. Franklin: Do you think the public has an inadequate understanding of nuclear technology in general, and nuclear power specifically? Ferguson: Well, there’s a lot of work has been done with respect to why people fear nuclear which is really very safe, statistically. The probability of being hurt by a nuclear accident is essentially zero. Yet, people will get in their car and they’ll drive their car. So there’s a lot of psychological fear. And a lot of that fear, we think, comes from the use of nuclear technology for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In other words, the notion of equating weapons with nuclear power. And that has continued to this day, because many people don’t understand here at Hanford the difference between commercial waste and waste from both the Second World War and the Cold War. It’s a very different issue, but people think of it all as one. And one of the problems is that with the evolution of the organization that manages that. I mean, I worked, when I was head of the FFTF project, I worked for the AEC, I worked for ERDA, and I worked for the Atomic Energy Commission in the same job. And so you can understand then. And that—the weapons program is still in the Department of Energy. I’m a big advocate of removing it, because—and removing the waste from the commercial—to create a separation. As long as they’re managed together, how do you expect the average person to believe that they’re not one in the same thing? Or that the issues are not one in the same thing. So that fear of nuclear is real. And there’s been a lot of work done about why people fear it when it is not really unsafe. And generally you find that the people that work with nuclear are very comfortable with it. And the farther away you get, the more fear there is. For instance, here at Hanford, people are very used to working with it. We have clean water. You go over to Seattle, they want to tell us how to—why to be afraid here at Hanford. Well, we live here. We drink the water, we eat the fish. We’re not fearful of it, because we’ve lived with it. We know it. So a lot of that is proximity. Franklin: Yeah, thank you, I appreciate you expanding on that. It does give it a troubled reputation, doesn’t it? Since the birth of nuclear energy is related to death and bombings and then was a very visible part of our very large stockpile of nuclear weapons. Ferguson: And it still is a threat with the proliferation. And it’s a huge threat. Franklin: And to have a peaceful arm of that, though, I think to some people maybe they confuse both heads of that same— Ferguson: That’s not unnatural that they would do that. The other thing that’s happened, you know, we had—Three Mile Island happened right after Jane Fonda’s movie, The China Syndrome. And then we had Chernobyl. And then we had the accident in Japan. So these big accidents get a lot of publicity. And there’s a lot of fear that comes from the reporting of that, which isn’t always accurate. Because the nature of reporting is to make things dramatic. And so it gets dramatized in the public. So it probably will take generations to—people to address that. Franklin: Right. Because certainly our current—where we get our current energy from is also a problematic source of energy, in terms of its political and human and environmental costs. Ferguson: Right. The irony is that 20%, nominally, 20% of our electricity comes from nuclear. 70% of the carbon-free generation—70% comes from nuclear. And so there is no way the country can ever meet its goal of carbon emissions without a greater use of nuclear power. Because solar and wind are both intermittent. You can’t store them. For instance, if you had to rely on them during the cold weather we just had—we had no sun, it was cold. Where would you get your energy? Where would you get your energy? And the other thing that people really don’t understand is that both wind and solar are nuclear energy. Their source is nuclear energy from the sun. The sun—and the earth gets all of its energy from radiation from the sun. Yet people don’t think of that radiation as bad radiation. They think of that as good radiation. And other radiation, from nuclear power, is bad radiation. Franklin: Interesting, I don’t think I ever thought of it quite like that before. But it’s very true. Ferguson: All of the weather comes from absorption of energy from the sun in the oceans, creates the wind, picks up the moisture, delivers it. That’s where we get our hydro power. Solar power—all of that is nuclear energy from the sun. The sun is our source of nuclear energy. Franklin: Well, even in a way then oil is also from the sun, because it’s decomposed carbon matter— Ferguson: Originally— Franklin: Originally. Ferguson: No, really, it preceded the sun in the sense that it was a part of matter when it was created at the Big Bang. Franklin: True. So I’d like to go back—tell me about coming back to Richland to work on the FFTF. What brought you back from Argonne to Hanford? Ferguson: Well, the people—the assistant manager at Argonne for the AEC I had worked with there—and he became the manager of the Richland Operations Office. And then another fellow I had worked with there, Alex Fremling, became his deputy. And so they asked me to come back. They were having a lot of difficulty with the management of the contracts here. And I’d had a lot of experience in project management at Argonne in both high energy physics and reactor projects, and a lot of experience in contracting. So anyway, I came back and I was originally head of contracts. And then shortly after that I was made technical director for the Site. That was at a period when—or at a time, in 1972, when 106-T leak occurred. That was the 105,000-gallon leak that really was the first major leak of radioactive material from the tanks. And it’s the first time the public then became aware of the real problem here at Hanford. And so I was on the investigating committee for that event. And we went back to—Dixy Lee Ray was Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and then subsequently our governor. But we asked for a supplemental appropriation--$20 million supplemental appropriation to start building double-shell tanks. So that’s when we started building the double-shell tanks, thinking that there would be a solution fairly soon. And I can take you all the way back to when I was with GE, I did some—one of my jobs there, I measured some—the radiation level in some of the tanks, because as early as that time, GE was concerned about leaking tanks. Because the radioactive material in the tanks stratifies. The radiation level is different and it creates a temperature stress in the tanks. So we were—as early as then, we were worried about tanks leaking. Now—that was 1958, ’59. Here we are in 2016 and we’ve got leaky tanks and no solution. [LAUGHTER] Not much progress. Franklin: Sadly no. Ferguson: Anyway then FFTF was in trouble from a cost and schedule standpoint. So I was asked to set up the FFTF Project Office. And the manager of Richland went back to Washington, and he became head of nuclear energy in Washington. His deputy became manager here—Alex Fremling became manager here and so they—we’d all worked together. And so they asked me to set up the FFTF Project Office. Franklin: Okay. Ferguson: And that’s when—in 1973—I stayed here until 1978 and then Jim Schlesinger, the chairman of—Secretary of Energy for DOE asked me to go back and take over the nuclear program in Washington. Franklin: And what do you feel like you got accomplished from ’73 to ’78 on the FFTF Project Office? Ferguson: We built the most remarkable fast reactor test facilities that’s ever been built. At the time that I was asked to take it over, there was a member of the—Bill Anders—who was the astronaut that went around the moon the first time. Anyway, he was a member of the AEC. But he helped me get the project office set up based on the way NASA set up their offices: decentralized. But he told me that the FFTF was far more difficult technical job than putting a man on the moon. So the development of the technology that we developed and demonstrated with FFTF was really incredible. And a lot of that technology’s now being given to Japan—to China—for their new development program. A lot of the sodium technology, the fast reactor technology. So we accomplished a lot. But it didn’t—and then it got killed. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Right, right, it did. I wonder if you could talk about that. What happened to the FFTF? Ferguson: Well, at the time FFTF was built, the policy of the United States and the Atomic Energy Commission was to reprocess and have breeder reactors. And so that you would take the fuel from commercial reactors, reprocess it, take the plutonium out of it, use that plutonium for fuel for fast reactors. So essentially, by using fast reactors, you have basically an unlimited supply of energy. So that was the policy when FFTF was built. Clinch River was to be a commercial demonstration plant at Clinch River in Tennessee. Clinch River was killed when Carter came in. Carter killed the breeder program because he thought that—first of all, he didn’t think nuclear was going to be here to stay, and he didn’t want to—thought reprocessing would facilitate the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Because when you do reprocess, you can use that same technology to extract plutonium for weapons. So it was killed for that reason. And Carter was pushing coal at the time, saying we had, essentially, an abundant supply of coal. And so he thought that nuclear really wasn’t going to—it was a last resort, as he put it. Because of our lack of reprocessing, we have influenced the design of Yucca Mountain for the deep geologic storage. Because at the time that the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1982 was set up, there was a conflict between those that wanted to reprocess and those that didn’t want to reprocess. So Yucca Mountain is designed for retrievability. It’s designed for permanent storage of defense waste, but retrievability of commercial waste. So at some date in the future, it could be reprocessed. Because about 90% of the energy value is still in fuel once it’s discharged from a commercial reactor. So anyway, that decision has affected a lot of subsequent issues that the country has faced. Franklin: How come the program didn’t come back under Reagan? Ferguson: Well, in January of 1982, I was asked to participate in a—that’s when Reagan was president, and George Bush, Sr. was his vice president. And he called a meeting that I was invited to, to discuss what was going on in nuclear at that time. And at the time, I was head of WPPSS. And the cost estimate—this was post-Three-Mile Island. The cost estimate for plants was going up, they were having delays. And so Reagan called this meeting from executives to find out what could be done with nuclear. Well, as a result of that meeting, then, we were instrumental in getting the Nuclear Waste Policy Act started which he then proposed as a way of dealing with commercial nuclear fuel. Because up until that time, there was no solution to commercial nuclear fuel. So—and there still isn’t. Franklin: Oh, okay. Ferguson: There still isn’t. Because Obama killed—or tried to kill the Yucca Mountain project. But we stopped him from doing that. I was one of the principals—law suit that the courts ruled that he didn’t have the authority to do that. But he stopped it. So now there is no solution, yet, to what to do with commercial fuel. So commercial fuel is now stored all over the United States at all of the reactors. Franklin: Right, right. How did you become involved with the WPPSS project? Ferguson: Well, I was recruited out of Washington. Franklin: So you’re just back and forth from here to Washington and then back. Ferguson: Well, people that had known about my success in building FFTF and turning that around—and it turns out Senator Jackson was one of those. And so when I was recruited, I’d been in the government 20 years, and I was still pretty young. I didn’t want to leave the government, because I had no retirement. I wasn’t old enough to retire. Anyway, Senator Jackson told me that if I would come out and solve the WPPSS problem, he would make sure I got back in the government. Well, a long story short, I came out and I did solve, I think, the WPPSS problem. But I also had open heart surgery and ruined my health and then Senator Jackson died. So I never went back into the government. He died and I never had a pension. So—[LAUGHTER] so that’s what WPPSS did to me! But anyway, I was recruited—going back to your question—there was a national recruitment because of the difficulties WPPSS was having building the plants. Franklin: And how long did you work at WPPSS for? Ferguson: Three years, ’80 to ’83. Franklin: Okay. And what did you do after that? Ferguson: I started up a company, R.L. Ferguson and Associates, a consulting company. And we sold that to SAIC. And then I started up another company, Nouveau Tech. And we acquired a nuclear waste facility that’s out here, now it’s called PermaFix Northwest. We acquired that out of bankruptcy from ATG. And then in 2007, I sold that to PermaFix. And since then, I’ve been writing books and consulting. Franklin: So you’re still not retired. Ferguson: No. I’m still consulting. Franklin: Still consulting. But still on— Ferguson: And I’ve written two books on the nuclear waste issue, so— Franklin: Okay, great. Well, which two books are those? Ferguson: Nuclear Waste in Your Backyard: Who’s to Blame and What to Do About It. And the first one was called—I can’t remember the name of it. Something about Obama and Reid wasting money. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Ah. Tell me about your involvement with the Tri-Cities Nuclear Industrial Council, TRICNIC, which later became TRIDEC. Ferguson: Well, after I left WPPSS, I was asked to be the chair of TRICNIC. Because I was kind of in a period when I was trying to recover for my health. And so Sam Volpentest was the executive vice president, and Glen Lee was publisher of the paper then, and Bob Philips was the president. And they would ask me to be the president of TRICNIC. And then because of the need to diversify the economy in the Tri-Cities, we merged TRICNIC with the Tri-City Chamber, and that became then TRIDEC. And so I was the first president and chair of TRIDEC, when it was formed. And Sam stayed on until his death. He worked up until he died. And then Gary Petersen took over his place to head up the Hanford part of TRICNIC. Franklin: I wonder if you could talk about working with Sam Volpentest. Ferguson: There’s been a whole book written about that. [LAUGHTER] Did you read it? The godfather? Franklin: I have, yeah, The Community Godfather by C. Mark Smith. Ferguson: Much of my life is in there. Franklin: Okay. Ferguson: [LAUGHTER] But anyway, no, yeah, he was one of those remarkable people that you know in your lifetime. He worked right up until he died. I told a story at his funeral—a eulogy—I said, you know, the clock was set right after 5:00 because he wanted to put in a final shift before he died. [LAUGHTER] So he died right after 5:00. [LAUGHTER] But Sam was very devoted to the Tri-Cities and the economic development of the Tri-Cities and spent his whole life on behalf. But he was probably largely responsible for my—or one of the reasons for taking over WPPSS, because he was close to Senator Jackson. I had worked with him in the community on FFTF as well. When I took over FFTF, we not only—the prior head of the nuclear in Washington had testified it would be completed for $187 million. But we didn’t—not only couldn’t you complete it, we ran out of money that year. And Sam was instrumental in TRIDEC—or TRICNIC was instrumental in getting a supplemental appropriation to keep FFTF. That’s one of its early, early almost-deaths. So I started working with Sam in the community at that time. So then when I left WPPSS, I was asked to get more involved. Franklin: Great. I’m wondering if you can remember or can tell me about any kind of notable events or incidents that happened at Hanford while you were working out there. I think you would have been gone for the JFK visit, which was in ’63, but if there were any other— Ferguson: Right, I was at Argonne then. Franklin: But if there were any other notable events or incidents that happened at Hanford while you worked there. Ferguson: Oh. Other than the leak? 106-T leak? Franklin: Pretty notable. Or maybe in general in Tri-Cities history, or any—did you ever go to any of the Atomic Frontier Days parades or anything like that? Ferguson: No, I didn’t, no. I’m trying to think of—well, 10,000 people marched in support of keeping WNP-1 alive. Have you ever seen that picture? Franklin: Yes. Ferguson: 10,000 people, can you imagine that? Franklin: Yes, yeah, that’s— Ferguson: Supporting nuclear power? Where else in the country could you do that? Franklin: Not too many places. Ferguson: Well, I’m trying to think, what--? Franklin: It’s okay if you don’t. Ferguson: I really—I can’t. Franklin: It’s one of my stock questions. Ferguson: Oh, okay. Franklin: You know, in case something pops up. Ferguson: Right. Franklin: So, I guess—let me look over this. Ferguson: Probably told you more than you want to know! Franklin: Yeah, we’ve covered quite a bit. And I just have kind of one last question that’s kind of a wrap-up question. But I’m wondering what you would like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland in the Cold War. Ferguson: Well, I think it would be very important, and I think it’s even important for this generation to understand the circumstances under which people operated the reactors. There’s been a lot of public criticism about the fact that we discharged waste into the ground. And people just, I think, don’t understand the pressures and the circumstances. The major thing people should understand is that Hanford was very carefully chosen because of the potential risk of an accident or even discharge of radioactive material. The selection of Hanford is unique in the location. The 200 Area, it’s unique in the sense that under the site is a layer of caliche, it’s like cement. Overlaying on that is sand. And they looked up on this as basically a way to hold up the radioactive material and they put it in the ground. And so it wasn’t just people being careless or anything like that. There were the pressures and unknowns. People didn’t know a lot about nuclear, but there was an incredible safety record in spite of all of that. So anyway, I think the big disappointment I have is that the waste hasn’t been take care of, and it’s mostly a political issue than a technical issue. It could have been taken care of a long time ago, but it’s terrible. It’s an issue that has become politicized. Franklin: Right. Because sites with smaller amounts of waste have been able to encapsulate—begin or even in some cases finish encapsulation programs like West Valley, Savannah River—have been able to deal. Ferguson: And most of our waste out here doesn’t really have to be vitrified, either. It’s high activity, because of where it came from, by law. It came from reprocessing. But it’s high-level waste, but it’s low-activity waste. And so if you remove the cesium from it, you could basically secure the waste in a cementaceous form and send it to Texas. About 80% of the waste could be done and we wouldn’t even have to build a vit plant. So it’s been—the design of the Vit Plant was wrong from the beginning. The Hanford waste is unique from a lot of different wastes, in that it’s such a mixture of so many different kinds—it’s not homogeneous. So the design of the Vit Plant, rather than have multiple facilities to treat separate kinds of waste, they basically have a pre-treatment plant where they want to treat all of the waste to make it in a consistent form to feed into the melter. Well, the pre-treatment plant is what’s stopping everything. So there’s been a lot of—you know, I’ve lived through about three or four different starts of the Vit Plant. So, I’ve seen it, and it’s very frustrating to see how political it has become, and a lack of science-based decisions that are made. Franklin: Yeah, I’ve seen some of the bumper stickers, I forget exactly what they say, but I’ll paraphrase here: Vitrification in 2007, or Hanford Vit Plant. You know, 2007 or 2004. And then we’re—it’s 2016 and we’re still waiting. Ferguson: Still waiting. Still no— Franklin: Perhaps—as you said, perhaps for a plant that is not the best approach— Ferguson: Right. Franklin: --to the problem. Well— Ferguson: Sam Volpentest predicted before he died that the Vit Plant would never be built because of the cost. And now you’re seeing it being questioned because of the cost. People are saying, why do we have to spend this kind of money? Because it’s—about $3 billion comes here every year for Hanford, including Battelle. But it’s a huge amount of money. It’s like the WPPSS plants. People used to say, well, we have to build them no matter what. Well, they got too expensive and the need for power went away, and so they didn’t get built. So there comes a price when things are not affordable. And there’s not really a risk to the river. The waste needs to be treated and cleaned up, but there’s no risk, really. There’s no health risk. The flow of the river is so great, any material gets in there is so diluted you can’t even detect it. But that’s not a solution. Right after 106-T, Battelle did some studies for us, just what-if studies. And we said, what if all the waste went in the Columbia River? Well, downstream, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s so dilute. Not that that’s—I’m not advocating that at all. But it just shows you that the risk to the health and safety of the public is not—does not demand what we’re doing with the waste out there. It doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken care of. I’m just—because at one time Sam and I faced some members of Congress who wanted to put a fence around Hanford and not do anything with it. Just leave it there. [LAUGHTER] So, anyway. I’ve been there, done it. Franklin: So at least we’re away from that solution. Ferguson: Well, I hope we’re not going back there. But when the price gets so high, people away from here and the demand for money in the budget gets so tremendous, it’s—strange things can happen. Franklin: They sure can. [LAUGHTER] Franklin: Well, Bob, thank you so much for coming in and interviewing with us today. Ferguson: Okay, Robert. Franklin: I really appreciated it. Ferguson: I hope I didn’t cover too much for you. Franklin: You did a great job; we touched on a lot of really great things. So thank you. Ferguson: Okay. Franklin: All right. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:14:41 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 200 Area 700 Area C Area B Reactor Vitrification Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1957-1961 1972-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1973-1978 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Fred Boleros Admiral Rickover Alex Fremling Bill Anders Clinch River Sam Volpentest 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 Bob Ferguson Description An account of the resource An interview with Bob Ferguson conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 12-21-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. 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This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 200 Area 700 Area Atomic Energy Commission B Reactor Backyard Battelle C Area C Reactor Cold War Department of Energy DuPont Energy Northwest Hanford Mountain NASA Quonset hut Quonset huts River Savannah River School VIT Plant War https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fbab9aaad909435686a751bcbe39d438b.JPG 66ab21e45337864e82e518e34179747c https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1397d9eb82d20248c32d7079d03d7288.mp4 f4cbd8641a1b1edcb6e4447010862c8d Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O’Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Maxwell Freshley Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Douglas O’Reagan: First off, would you please say and spell your name for us? 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. O’Reagan: Okay, thanks. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral interview history here on January 11th, 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? 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. O’Reagan: Had you heard about Hanford before you came here? Freshley: Not really. I really hadn’t heard about it. It was all secret, you know? O’Reagan: Right. Were you aware of the sort of connection with the atomic bomb before you got here? 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? O’Reagan: ’45, I believe? Freshley: ’45? O’Reagan: I think so. Freshley: That—oh, okay. O’Reagan: It was the very end of the Second World War. Freshley: Yeah. Well, I might’ve heard of that. Yeah. O’Reagan: What was your first impression of Richland and this area? 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. 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? 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. O’Reagan: What kind of work did you do at Hanford, and where on the site did you work? 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. 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. Freshley: Uh-huh. 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. Freshley: Mm-hm. O’Reagan: But what is annealing? 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. 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! 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. O’Reagan: Interesting. Freshley: So I had an early experience with a graphite-moderated production reactor. O’Reagan: What was it—you said you moved on from graphite to something else? 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-- O’Reagan: Plutonium Finishing Plant? Freshley: Pardon me? O’Reagan: Is it the plutonium finishing? 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? O’Reagan: I know the individual terms. 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. 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? 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— 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? 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. O’Reagan: How much were you instructed specifically what to do versus sort of innovating yourself or figuring stuff out as you go? 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. 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? Freshley: Overall? O’Reagan: Yeah. 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. O’Reagan: Why did you choose Battelle? 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] 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. Freshley: I haven’t gotten to the end of GE yet. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Okay, great. I’d love to hear more. 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. O’Reagan: Is this still the late ‘50s or have we gotten into the early ‘60s yet? 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. O’Reagan: It sounds dangerous! 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] O’Reagan: This probably couldn’t happen today [INAUDIBLE] 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. O’Reagan: So did you get the data that you wanted from this rupture test? 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. 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? 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. O’Reagan: So this wasn’t classified, or was it more of a sharing agreement with [INAUDIBLE] Not classified then? 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. O’Reagan: More like trade secrets, then, rather than— Freshley: Pardon? O’Reagan: So, more like trade secrets, then, rather than confidentiality. 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. O’Reagan: Yeah. Freshley: Yeah. But the program was very successful. I think I have some documents that describe it, if you’re interested. O’Reagan: Yeah, absolutely. 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. O’Reagan: I imagine that’s something the government wouldn’t want other places to be doing then. 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. O’Reagan: Was the tritium work also unclassified then, or was that back to the classified world? 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. 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? 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. 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? 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? O’Reagan: Yeah. Freshley: You don’t do that. O’Reagan: Right. Let’s see. 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. 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. 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. O’Reagan: Interesting. 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. O’Reagan: What was it like living in Richland, let’s say the ‘40s and ‘50s first and ask for the later parts afterwards. Freshley: Well, I can tell you my experience. O’Reagan: Yeah. 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. 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? 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. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. What was life like in the community around there? Do you remember any sort of community events? 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. O’Reagan: I’m new to the area. 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. O’Reagan: Great. Freshley: Pretty normal, I would say. Wouldn’t you? O’Reagan: Sure. Freshley: [LAUGHTER] 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? Freshley: I can’t relate to that. I was not politically inclined like some people you know. [LAUGHTER] 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? Freshley: Over what time period? Oh. O’Reagan: In the time you lived here. Freshley: Well, like I said, I’m not politically oriented, so if there were these things happening, I was pretty isolated from them. O’Reagan: Okay. Could you describe any ways in which security and/or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work? 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. O’Reagan: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in Richland during the Cold War? 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. O’Reagan: Okay. So what haven’t I asked about that I should ask about? What else is there I should be asking about? Freshley: Well, how do I answer that? I don’t know. I think we’ve covered my experience pretty thoroughly. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Well, we don’t have to dwell on it if nothing comes to mind. Freshley: No. O’Reagan: It is an open-ended question. Freshley: Well, what happened, after we bought our ranch house, the government didn’t come around and change our light bulbs anymore. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Oh, really? Did you have to—how much of a transition was that once you sort of became a homeowner? Was it--? 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. O’Reagan: All right. Well, thanks so much. This is very, very interesting, very useful. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 01:06:39 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 300 Area 324 Area 3706 Building N Reactor Plutonium Finishing Plant Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1951-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1951-1993 Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. John Fox Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Interview with Max Freshley Description An account of the resource An interview with Max Freshley conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. Creator 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 02-10-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 300 Area 324 Building 3706 Building Battelle Cold War Engineering Test Reactor General Electric Hanford Livermore Los Alamo Los Alamos Mountain Mountains N Reactor Nuclear Regulatory Commission Plutonium Plutonium Finishing Plant River Savannah River School Street Theater War Westinghouse https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F781469886630729124ac5781a546de58.JPG 854d8de5ddc7267beebe47d28e3198b4 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F97fd5a680e8f00e8b3814534fa754ff5.mp4 c2d0e6cf1d069b855fd2afebd9767149 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O’Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Teena Giulio Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Douglas O’Reagan: Would you please spell and pronounce your name for us? Teena Giulio: My name is Teena Giulio. First name is T-E-E-N-A. Last name is G-I-U-L-I-O. O’Reagan: Great, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview on May 4th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be speaking with Miss Giulio about her experiences working at the Hanford site and living in the Tri-Cities throughout the 20th Century. Okay. Thanks for being here. Giulio: Thanks for having me. O’Reagan: So I understand you were actually born in the Tri-Cities. Giulio: Yes, I was. I was born in the Tri-Cities in 1961. Moved away when I was, oh, four or five, and then moved back when I was 13. I’ve been here pretty much ever since, for the most part. O’Reagan: Where did you move away to? Giulio: Denver. O’Reagan: Hm. Was that—were you too young to sort of notice differences? Did you notice differences when you came back? Giulio: Oh, I noticed differences. I didn’t like it. We lived for probably three or four years up in the Seattle area. I identify that with home because of all the trees and the green and the smells and all of that. Denver just didn’t have that. Nostalgically, I like the spring here, because when it rains you get the smell of the sage and the dirt and the Russian olive trees—not that I like it, but it’s just that nostalgic smell. O’Reagan: Where within the Tri-Cities did you live when you moved back? Giulio: In Richland. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Giulio: In Richland. When I was very little, we lived in Richland, moved to Kennewick, moved to Finley. [LAUGHTER] And then moved away. O’Reagan: So you came back in, I guess, middle school? Is that right? Giulio: Just began seventh grade, yes. O’Reagan: What was it like in Richland’s middle schools? Giulio: [SIGH] Well, everybody else had pretty much had grown up together, so I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt very out of place. [LAUGHTER] I really don’t know what to tell you, other—it was very clique-ish back then. I don’t know if it is still now, but yeah, it was very clique-ish. I just didn’t feel like I was part of any of that. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Did that change by high school? Giulio: Yes. Yes, of course I had made friends and continued those friendships on even until today, which is nice. It’s kind of a shared thing, so yeah. O’Reagan: Right. Let’s see. So I understand your family were long-time Hanford workers. Giulio: Yes. Both grandfathers worked out at Hanford. My father and his brother worked out at Hanford. My uncle’s sons and daughter worked out there, and then I worked out there also. O’Reagan: What did your grandparents do? Giulio: I’m not sure what my paternal grandfather did. But my maternal grandfather—I think he worked out at the 200 Areas. I guess it was like there was a coal bin or coal cars or something like that. He worked in that. O’Reagan: Do you know what time period that would be? Giulio: In the ‘50s and ‘60s. O’Reagan: Okay. And How about your parents? What did your parents do? Giulio: Let me see. Well, let me go back to my grandparents. O’Reagan: Sure, yeah. Giulio: They came out in the late ‘40s, I believe—late ‘40s, early ‘50s—to take part in all of the building and expansion and all of that. My parents—my father worked in several different areas, and—can I get my paperwork? [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Yeah, sure. Giulio: Let me see. Where did he work? Let me see. He started working out there as a delivery person, delivering top secret documents and other materials as needed to the 100 Area. Let me see. Transferred to operating engineer, and his first job was unloading the coal cars for approximately three years, which—that’s what my grandfather did, too, was the coal cars. He also built bunkers in the coal rooms, worked in the boiler house, water filtering, pump houses. [LAUGHTER] Let me see. Yeah, and that—I think, I believe, that’s where—shift work—so yeah. He kind of got around to all the different areas, but it was mainly in the 200 East and West Areas. O’Reagan: Okay. So sort of a technician-laborer-type role? Giulio: Mm-hmm. And he went back—it’s like he left and got hired back or got laid off and got hired back. Because there were several times in my paperwork here that I’ve noticed he worked for different contractors at different times. I think that was fairly common back then, too. O’Reagan: Did you have a good impression of what your father was doing growing up? Giulio: No. No. He was always very—I don’t want to say secretive—he just didn’t talk about it a whole lot. I did wonder why he didn’t shower at home. [LAUGHTER] As I got older, I realized that he showered at work after work, before he came home. When he got transferred to Rocky Flats, that was the same thing. They got cleaned before they came home so you didn’t bring coal dust or any type of radioactivity type of contamination home. O’Reagan: Do you remember or how you started to get an idea of what was going on at Hanford in general? Giulio: No, not really, other than stories from my grandmother. I spent a lot of time with my grandmother after my grandfather passed. I spent the weekends with her, and we would talk a lot about a lot of different things. She would tell me the stories that she remembered. When they moved out here, and he first started working out there, she told me that she would pack his lunch for the day and he would walk off to the corner where everybody would meet. They—at that time, they had bus systems, and all over the city of Richland, the buses would pick up the workers. She said that all the windows were blacked out except for a small area for the driver. So nobody knew where they were going; they just got on the bus, took a long ride out, got off, and did what they were supposed to do. They all had very specific jobs. And then they cleaned up, got back on the buses with the blacked out windows, took a long ride home, and got off on the corner again. So that was my indoctrination of how secretive it was, way, way back. And she said that nobody knew what they were doing. They all had very specific jobs. They didn’t know what they were doing, they didn’t know what it was part of. Oh, she also said that they moved—they occasionally did different jobs. Like they would stay at one position for a while and then they would take them to a different area to do another job. So they—nobody could really put together, mentally, what was going on, until after—you know, everything kind of broke loose and came out as to what was going on. Probably—I’m not sure if they were here when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I want to say that they were. I’m trying to recall the stories that she’s told me. I want to say that they were here, because after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, she said that all the news stories came out that it was the plutonium from Hanford that was in the bombs that were dropped. Then everybody realized how important what they were doing was. So they must have been here in the ‘40s and worked throughout the ‘50s. O’Reagan: Was your mother a homemaker? Giulio: My mother worked—my mother worked as—it would be considered a paralegal now. She worked in one of the law offices here in town. So, no, she didn’t work out at Hanford. O’Reagan: Okay, great. Let’s see. So after high school, what was your next step? Giulio: [LAUGHTER] I really wanted to get a job out there. So I took several low-paying, not-very-prestigious jobs, until I could get my foot in the door out there. My father wasn’t working there at the time, and nepotism was pretty rampant. [LAUGHTER] I finally got a call that somebody wanted to interview me, and I started out there in 1981. It was actually exactly one year after Mt. St. Helens blew. So maybe that was ’82. I don’t remember. Anyway, it was exactly one year after Mt. St. Helens blew, I started working out there. I worked out at 100-N as the mail carrier. I got delivered twice a day, the mail from 200 East Area, which was like their main process station, I guess you’d call it. And I would sort the mail and deliver it to the various people out there at 100-N. So you could say I got around. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Why was it you wanted to work out there? Giulio: The money. The money, the security, the benefits. And it was kind of like that’s where you were supposed to want to work at that time. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Hm. What were some of the sort of low-paying jobs you worked first? Giulio: I worked in a furniture rental store. [LAUGHTER] And I worked in a funeral home—actually right out of high school, I worked in a funeral home, at Enon’s for a while. And then there was one in Kennewick that I worked at, but they were—it was kind of interconnected; they did work for each other. But I worked the front offices and typed contracts and did—it wasn’t really glamorous. O’Reagan: Sure. Giulio: But I liked it. Good people. O’Reagan: How long were you working with the mail out at Hanford? Giulio: I want to say close to a year. And then, at that time, after six months, you were eligible to transfer and apply for other jobs onsite. So I saw an opening in the—what do they call it—the site paper, or whatever it was. Saw a job opening for a metal operator and I read the description, and I thought, oh man, this sounds like a lot of fun. And what it turned out to be—I did get the job—what it turned out to be was various positions on an assembly line production of fuels for N Reactor. And, yes, it was; it was very interesting. And I really liked what I did. O’Reagan: Could you describe sort of what you were doing in as much detail as you’re comfortable with? Giulio: Sure. You know, I’m not sure if it’s classified or not. I would imagine at this time it may be not—may be unclassified. The fuel rods for N Reactor were—I want to say about this long. The outer tube was about that big around. And then there was a smaller tube about that big around that slipped inside there. So how those were produced were the uranium core billets—that’s what they were called—and they were extremely heavy, very, very heavy. They came in billets that I believe were about that tall and about that big around. They were put through an extrusion press. They had to have cranes and little carts and stuff to wheel them around with. I didn’t take part in that particular job. It was a very dirty job. [LAUGHTER] Very hot. I don’t remember the foot-pounds of pressure that it was pushed through, but it was pushed through the extrusion press and came out in a very long tube. Like probably as long as this room, if not longer. I believe—well, of course they had different sizes. They had the larger size and the smaller size that they produced. And then they were cut into the lengths that we needed. I didn’t take part in that. [LAUGHTER] Let me see. I’m trying to remember the exact order. And then they were run through a salt bath. Two different type—no, not two different types. There was just one type of salt, but two different temperatures. They were hung from a rack that kind of—it would look like a carousel, and these huge, huge salt baths. It was molten salt, is what it was. I did do this for a while. You loaded the rods onto the rack and this carousel would lift it way up and take it over and slowly dunk it into the first molten salt bath, which—I don’t remember the temperature, but it was extremely high. That was a fairly dangerous job, because you had to make sure that no water got in there. So you had to make—you had to blow the rods off, make sure there was no water, because it was reported to explode if you got water in the molten salt. So it went through that first salt bath, it raised up, and went to another salt bath which was cooler. Then I want to say water after that, different temperatures of water, and the thing came off. At that point, it went to I want to say an acid etch. Because the billets, when they were pushed through the extrusion press were coated with graphite, and this helped it go through the press, obviously. So you had to wash off the graphite. Yeah, you washed off the graphite and etched it and they came out in this very shiny—it looked like aluminum, but it was really pretty. And then we would—yeah, they would take a—[LAUGHTER] I’m trying to remember this! I don’t remember exactly how it was done, but the ends, they had to etch out the ends, because they were to the end with the uranium. So they’d etch it out, probably about that much. Then it would go through what we called brazing. In the braze room, you put the fuel rods upright, heated it up, and put beryllium rings in the end. No—put the beryllium rings in before it gets hot. Man Off-camera: [INAUDIBLE] Giulio: [LAUGHTER] Sorry my story’s so boring. [LAUGHTER] That’s funny. [LAUGHTER] I like it! [LAUGHTER] So, anyway. You put the beryllium ring at the end, heat it up, and the beryllium ring would melt and meld with the outer core. And I don’t remember what the outer core—not the outer core, but the outer cladding was. I’m sure it wasn’t aluminum, but it would melt. And then another part would be—something—how did they do that? Don’t remember. [LAUGHTER] Yeah. I did—wow. I just really don’t remember the whole process. But it’s–yeah, there’s a huge, long process. At one point, we would weld the ends shut. And I want to say that was after they brazed it, because the brazing would melt the cap, and then it would get cut somehow. I don’t think I did this. O’Reagan: It sounds like a lot of different sort of technical skills. Giulio: A lot, yeah, a lot of manual skills. But a lot of it was done by machinery, too. And the photograph that I have is for the—it was called the TIG welder. This is one of the larger fuel rods, and you’d put like a rubber thing in there and twist it tight so that the argon would not get out. This was what we called the Chuck, and it swiveled on this little thing, and you would insert this end into the Chuck and it would go around and around and around. On the other end, there were tungsten, little—I don’t know what they’re called—that would heat up inside the chuck here and weld this part shut. Apparently, I was one of the best ones they had. [LAUGHTER] At least, that’s what they told me; I don’t know if it was true or not. O’Reagan: Was the picture taken by a coworker? Giulio: No, there was a photographer that came through at a certain time. I don’t even remember why. But this particular picture was in the Federal Building for the longest time. When it finally came down, they gave it to me. And this right here where it says, “I love you, Teena, 1981,” that—I sent that to my father. And then when he passed, of course I got it back. But he kept it for a long time. But yes, this particular picture was in the Federal Building on a wall, on an easel, I’m not sure, but I want to say it was probably close to 15 years. [LAUGHTER] So, yes, the welding part was part of the process, and then there was another process where it was etched out so that there was a little ch-ch-ch-ch on each side. Then it would get stamped with the specific number. I did do the stamping. It was all done with a little hammer. You’d just kind of put in the numbers and go whack! Stamp the numbers in. O’Reagan: Was this all learning by doing, or was there a formalized training process? Giulio: No, it was all on-the-job training. And yes, I did, I liked all of it. Oh! I remember now. Yeah, because right next to the station, on the other side, was where it was—the part was etched out. Yeah, I did that, too. It was done with lubricated water. Then there was also a quality control type of thing where it was all done underwater with—was it radar? Some kind of a sensor, the fuel rod would turn around and around and around, and this little sensor would go along the fuel rod to see if there was any gaps between the cladding and the uranium. Because when you got heated in the reactor, if there was any gaps, it would explode. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Giulio: So there was lots of quality control measures that were done also. We had an autoclave where they would test the fuel rods, where they would heat the fuel rods up in this autoclave to the temperatures that would be heated in the reactor. That would be the better place for it to blow. [LAUGHTER] But they always had—they always checked the welds, they checked the cladding, they checked the uranium, all of that along the whole process. And I did almost all of that. O’Reagan: What was the timeframe for this? Giulio: Early ‘80s. O’Reagan: Okay. Giulio: Early ‘80s. And this says 1981, so I believe I started out there May 18th, 1981, and I worked out there for four or five years. I don’t remember. I took a leave of absence and then came back as a security escort. [LAUGHTER] Which—I liked that, too. O’Reagan: By the early ‘80s, was it unusual being a female technician out there? Giulio: Yes. O’Reagan: What was that like? Giulio: Yes. It was—it really wasn’t too much different for me, because I had always had male friends—close friends. I got along with most of the guys, except for some of the older guys. They didn’t take too well to women being out there doing their job. There was a little bit of harassment. But it was very subtle. Let me see. I want to say there was--one, two, three, four, five--six women in the whole building, doing this very large job, and I was one of them. So it was definitely one of those first steps for women into this man-dominated career. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. How many people would be working at a time roughly? Giulio: Almost all of us. O’Reagan: Right, but what sort of scale of workforce at the time, would you estimate? Giulio: In my particular area? O’Reagan: Sure. Giulio: Probably 50 to 60. O’Reagan: Okay, interesting. Let’s see. Can you describe some of your coworkers for us? Giulio: [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: In just sort of broad terms. Giulio: Well, we had the older guys who had been out there since the beginning of time. Most of them were pretty nice. There were a couple characters. One I had kind of a soft spot for, only because he was kind of a codger. His name was Ralph. He worked in the sandblast area. He was kind of hunched-over, not a real happy guy. But he was really, really nice. During break time he would put his safety goggles up on top of his hard hat and he’d take off for his break. Then he’d come back, has anybody seen my goggles? Where are my safety glasses at? [LAUGHTER] And the whole time they’re on top of his head. And somebody would say, Ralph, check your helmet. [LAUGHTER] I don’t know why he appealed to me. Probably because he was so unique and I’m attracted to very unique people. [LAUGHTER] Then of course, we had the age 30 to 40 men. That was kind of like they had started out there, maybe five to ten years before I had. Then of course, the younger generation, which I would have been. O’Reagan: Let’s see. Did a lot of people come in and out of those roles, or was it a pretty steady set of people? Giulio: It was pretty steady set of people. Occasionally we would get new people, but mostly it was pretty steady. When somebody met retirement age, of course, we just kind of moved into different roles, or they would hire somebody new. O’Reagan: So you were gone before the end of N Reactor? Giulio: Yes. Yes. I remember just after I—well, actually thinking, as I was doing the security escort job, thinking I should probably find something offsite, because I don’t think this is going to last much longer. [LAUGHTER] So that’s where that ended. O’Reagan: Do you have the impression that was sort of a common feeling at the time? Giulio: I didn’t at the time have that feeling, but I do now. I do now think that it’s just—okay, it’s one thing after another. You’ve got one site that closes, well, another one’s still open, you’re going to go do something there. Or it’s a new job in another area that’s taken up. Especially with the cleanup effort that’s going on out there now. It’s not the—is it privatization? Is that what they’re calling it? I don’t remember. But, yeah, it’s becoming non-government work anymore. Yeah, and I remember thinking that it was probably a good idea for me to get off site. O’Reagan: How much emphasis was there on transparency in the safety risks of what you were working on? Giulio: Can you repeat that? O’Reagan: So, how much were you sort of made aware of any health risks—or how much emphasis was there on safety while you were working out there? Giulio: I want to say there was not as much emphasis on safety as there is these days. I know today it’s almost fanatical. I mean, it’s like everything from paper cuts are analyzed. But there was a very strong safety culture, only because we were working with heavy machinery, heavy material, sharp objects, hot objects, the potential for cuts and smashes and all kinds of things were very prevalent. They wanted you to be aware of what was possible. But, as I said, I don’t believe it was as prevalent as it is now. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm, sure. So do you have any kind of specialized nuclear training for working with those materials, or just sort of general warnings? Giulio: Actually, I was going to say no, I didn’t have any training, but I did. There were several training classes that we were required to go through on a yearly basis. What they call Rad Worker, which was radiation worker training, general safety training, and—I’m trying to remember what else. So, yes. Yes, I was trained. O’Reagan: Sure. Can you tell us about the security escort job? Giulio: [LAUGHTER] The security escort job. I actually liked that. It did get very boring at times, because we weren’t allowed to—there was no cell phones, for one thing. We weren’t allowed to read or play cards or do anything like that. I came back at that time because I had had a Q clearance, which was one of the highest clearances you could have at the time, which I got during the mail carrier job because I was handling classified information at that time. I escorted—it was mostly construction-type workers, trade workers, into buildings and areas where they needed to go to do their job. I stayed with them until they did their job. Sometimes it was really boring. [LAUGHTER] But I met a lot of great people. That was probably what I liked most about all of my jobs, is that I met a lot of great people. I liked everything that I did from mail carrier, metal operator, and the security escort. Security escort was lots of fun, because I got to go lots of different places onsite. It was 200 East, 200 West with the well drillers, with the construction people, in the 105 Building, out at 100-N, which is where I met my husband. [LAUGHTER] I was in—no, I wasn’t in the 300 Area. It was mostly at the 100 Areas and 200 Areas, and sometimes out in the deserts with the well drillers and geologists. O’Reagan: How was it you met your husband? Giulio: [LAUGHTER] Through a mutual friend, actually. The friend had been trying to get me to go out with him. But I told him it was—I like you only as a friend. So it was the 109 Building, actually. I went in there with the construction workers and this friend, Kurt, yelled down from the top of the stairs, Hey, Stoner! What are you doing? [LAUGHTER] Stoner’s my maiden name. So I went upstairs to speak with him for a couple minutes, and my husband was sitting at a desk. So Kurt and I talked back and forth a little bit and I looked over at my—well he wasn’t my husband then—at Monty, and there was just something that kind of clicked. I was like, man, I’d like to know who that is. I thought his name tag—they were patrolmen—I thought his name tag said Guido. [LAUGHTER] Come to find out, it wasn’t Guido. That’s just what they called him. So I went back downstairs with my construction workers and did my job and went home. As I walked in the door that night, the phone was ringing and it was Monty. He had looked up my name and was calling me to see if I would go out with him, and I did. O’Reagan: Was, even in general, sort of social scene built around the Hanford workers, or was it just sort of a Tri-Cities scene and that happened to be—I guess I’m trying to get a sense of what was the social scene like for relatively young people in that era. Giulio: [LAUGHTER] A lot of going out on Friday nights. [LAUGHTER] That kind of seemed to be the thing to do, is on Friday nights, everybody would meet at some place, usually in Richland, for a couple drinks and if anything took place afterwards, go to somebody’s house, and have some more drinks and maybe watch TV. Yeah. O’Reagan: Did you have any hobbies? Giulio: I liked to ride my bike. At the time I didn’t do much hiking, but I like to do that. I think I pretty much worked a lot. Worked a lot, went home, and took care of my home. O’Reagan: Sure. Let’s see. I went through those. Giulio: Hobbies—what else did I do? Boy, that’s a long time. I like cars. So I would go to car shows. I had a couple friends who were in bands, so I would go watch the bands at different venues. O’Reagan: Such as where? Giulio: In the park. At different--[LAUGHTER]—different bars around the Tri-Cities. So I’d go have a couple drinks and listen to them, and during their breaks, they’d come and talk to me and we’d have some fun. Yeah. At that time, a lot of it seemed to revolve around drinking. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. Let’s see. How much was sort of secrecy or security a part of your Hanford working experience? Giulio: As mail carrier, it was—I didn’t read the classified material. It wasn’t addressed to me, so I didn’t open it. But I definitely had to keep it very secure and make sure it got to the correct person, and that they—they had to sign for it, also. So there was this custody—chain of custody type of thing. The paperwork—okay, I received it, yes, I filed it, I got it to the person it was supposed to go to, he filed it, I kept that piece of paper, and then what paperwork needed to go back to whoever sent it—had to make sure it got back to that person also. Not a lot of secrecy at that time, other than the classified material. The metal operator job—not a lot of—no. O’Reagan: Okay. Let’s see. Were there other pictures there, or was that it? Giulio: Oh. This was a picture that I found when I was going through my father’s paperwork. I’m not sure where or when it was, or even what it’s all about. This is my father right here. He was never one to really smile much in photographs. I think I recognize this person, but I can’t recall his name. I believe it was one of my father’s friends at the time. Like I said, I don’t remember what it was or where it or when it was, and there’s nothing on the back! So. Yeah. O’Reagan: Let’s see. I had a question that blanked out of my mind. I hate when that happens. While I’m thinking, anything we haven’t discussed that you had thought maybe would be worth sharing? Giulio: Hmm. [LAUGHTER] A story that my grandmother told me. [LAUGHTER] Ha. When they moved out here, they had just started all the Alphabet Houses. They had started building them, and they were able to get into one. She told me, at that time, nobody locked their doors. Because it was all government, everything was—all the repairs were taken care of by the government. The houses were painted, the landscaping was placed, all of that. She said that one night, her and my grandfather and my mom and her brothers went out to—I don’t know if it was dinner or a movie—but they had gone out. They came home and pulled into the driveway, everybody got out, and she—I think she said my grandfather walked in first. He opened the door and walked in, and then she walked in, and she’s standing there holding the door, and she goes, Sam, this is not our house. [LAUGHTER] But it was all dark. It was dark enough in the night that all the lights were off, and most people went to bed fairly early back then. Yeah, she said that they very quietly went out the door and shut the door. I guess they had gone one house farther than what they needed to. But she said it was pretty spooky. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: So you grew up here in the ‘60s, ‘70s and onward. Was the Cold War or the anti-nuclear stuff, or the other sort of national stuff something that impacted your life at all, or was that just sort of out? Giulio: It did impact my life to a certain degree, yes. Because coming from this area, most of us had been around it for the majority of our lives—or all of our lives. When I moved to Yakima in the mid-‘80s, I met some anti-nuke people. Or a lot of the people that I became friends with were decidedly anti-nuke. I met one gal who had actually come to—I don’t know if they called it a protest then, or what—but they would breach the fences, and then they’d get arrested because they were on government land. So, yes, I became friends with someone like that. I tried to explain to them the measures that were taken so that the average Joe didn’t get contaminated—as far as I knew, the measures that were taken. And of course, they’re all thinking everybody glows green out here or blue. You touch something, you get your skin scrubbed off with a wire brush. That was in the age of Silkwood—is that what the name of the film was? O’Reagan: I don’t remember. Giulio: Me either! [LAUGHTER] It had Meryl Streep and Cher and somebody else in it, I don’t remember. Yeah, I think it was Silkwood, Karen Silkwood. Okay, so we’ll stop that. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Oh. But that wasn’t really a point of contention? They were able to sort of live with disagreement with you on that, I guess? Giulio: Yeah, we agreed to disagree. I don’t think they were particularly pleased that I had worked out here or was working out here, but— O’Reagan: How have the Tri-Cities changed over the course of your living here? Giulio: Oh, my gosh. It’s not so Hanford-centered, which I find very nice. We’ve got different companies in here with different missions. I’ve seen part of the reservation opened up, and different businesses in there, and not even nuclear-related businesses. Which I find refreshing, so that it’s not like this entity that is just sitting there taking over. Yeah, it’s much—the Hanford site is much smaller now. There’s no special nuclear material out there anymore. Obviously, there’s waste out there, or else we wouldn’t have the cleanup effort that we have going on—which, by the way, I like that also. Not exactly sure how it’s going or where it’s going or what’s happening to it, since I don’t work out there any longer. O’Reagan: Okay. Giulio: Yes. Nice to hear about that. O’Reagan: Okay. I think those are the main questions I had written down here. Anything else that comes to your mind? Giulio: Not that I can think of. O’Reagan: Great. All right, well thanks so much for being here. Giulio: Thank you! O’Reagan: All right. Giulio: And if you’re interested in speaking to my cousins, I can give them contact information. If you’re interested in speaking to my husband, I can talk to him, see if he would be—because like I said, he started out there in 1986 and he’s held every position on patrol except for training. O’Reagan: Yeah, that’d be great. Emma helps coordinate all that, so she’s already been in contact with her— Giulio: Yes. O’Reagan: I can tell her to ask. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:40:31 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Hanford Sites Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview 100 Area 200 Area 300 Area 2-East Area K-West Area Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1961-1965/66 1973/74-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1981-1986 1986-? Names Mentioned Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community. Ralph 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 Teena Giulio Description An account of the resource An interview with Teena Giulio conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy. 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 05-04-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. 100 Area 105 Building 109 Building 2-East Area 200 Area 200 East 200 East Area 300 Area Cold War drinking Hanford Houses K-West Area Kennewick N Reactor War https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fd350b56731c1ee88b8c19079e9a16757.JPG b6e2050edfa97bbc612db21101040b22 https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2Fc9d1a57f8d88a0e009add28a9e2ba8f1.mp4 3286c8becf054ce14ec7b2b3b78954f5 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Post-1943 Oral Histories Subject The topic of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Description An account of the resource Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items. Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Douglas O’Reagan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Maureen Hamilton Location The location of the interview Washington State University Tri-Cities Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound Douglas O’Reagan: My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an interview with Maureen Hamilton on January 20th, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Ms. Hamilton about her experiences working on the Hanford site and her experiences in this community. Thanks for being here. Maureen Hamilton: You’re welcome. O’Reagan: If we could start, maybe—it’d be great if you could just tell us a bit about your birthplace, where you grew up, just a little bit of biography before you got to Hanford, if you would. Hamilton: Sure. I was raised on a farm in south central Illinois, not too far from St. Louis. So I was a farm girl. I went to college at Monmouth College in northern Illinois, which is where I got my chemistry degree—I got a bachelor’s degree there. I worked briefly for Dow Chemical in Michigan, and then I was working at the University of Missouri in their agricultural chemistry lab while my husband was in graduate school. So there I was doing analysis of various environmental and animal products, looking for heavy metal contamination. Then we were in Germany for a couple of years while my husband was in service, and we ended up out here starting in 1972, where we both worked onsite. O’Reagan: Sorry to interrupt. Okay, so you came directly from Germany to here? Hamilton: No, there were a few months finding the job, once we got back. Well, at the time there weren’t a lot of chemist jobs around, I don’t think. So my husband sent out applications to several hundred companies, and Hanford was one of the places that responded. I think possibly because he was a special weapons technician in the Army, they knew—and his master’s degree dealt with some radioactive materials, so that may have been part of why he was hired here. O’Reagan: Were you familiar at all with the community before you moved here? Hamilton: No. No, it was something totally—totally foreign to us, but interesting. O’Reagan: Do you remember your first impressions? Hamilton: [LAUGHTER] Well, coming out of Idaho and the green into the barrenness of eastern Washington was a bit of a shock, yes. Because I hadn’t seen it, he didn’t really see that much of it when he came for the interview. But we very quickly learned to love the place. I wouldn’t live any place else right now. O’Reagan: What was the area like in the ‘70s? Hamilton: It was still a small farming community, pretty much. There was obviously—Hanford was the main employer, as far as Richland and much of the Tri-Cities was concerned. O’Reagan: Where did you live? Hamilton: Well, for a couple—we had an apartment off of Van Giesen for a short period of time. Then we moved into a condo apartment out on the Meadow Springs golf course. Then in ’75 we built our own house on Peachtree Lane in Orchard Hills. O’Reagan: So when you were working on the site, you were industrial hygiene chemist, is that right? Hamilton: That was my position, yes. O’Reagan: Would you explain exactly what that is? What’s involved in that? Hamilton: Sure. The employer initially was the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, which was the medical contractor onsite. In addition to providing the doctors and nurses, they had the industrial hygiene for the whole site. Industrial hygiene is monitoring of worker health and checking the workplace to make sure that it is safe, that people aren’t being overexposed to things. We had a chemistry lab, and that’s where I was involved. So we would analyze air samples that were collected onsite for things like asbestos or lead or heavy metals or whatever types of materials—non-radioactive. The lab was located here in town at 805 Goethals, so we weren’t onsite. We also did drinking water analysis onsite, and we were doing a little bit of hazardous waste characterization. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. So what would a typical working day look like? Hamilton: Oh, it varied, depending on what was going on. Initially, when I started, we were pretty much—I mean, the industrial hygienists were the people who went out in the field and collected the samples and evaluated the data. The lab—we were very small—I started actually as a technician for a year before I actually became the chemist. We had one chemist, one technician. And then we eventually grew to have a total staff in the lab department of about 20. We would run gas chromatographs, atomic absorption, different types of equipment, analyzing those air and water samples that were being brought into the laboratory. I also eventually—well, initially at least—was functioning as partly a quality person as well. In 1974, the lab became one of the first in the country to be accredited by the American Industrial Hygiene Association. So, while I wasn’t listed as the technical manager or the director at that point, I was kind of the technical expertise for that portion of the company. Eventually, expanded that I did manage the lab component as well as function as their QA coordinator. O’Reagan: Is that similar to the work you were doing before you came here? Hamilton: No, my experience before was strictly laboratory. Had no management responsibilities. And while I was using spectroscopy equipment at the University of Missouri, it was more on things like goose livers and grain and things like that. It had nothing, really, to do with human health. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. So you said you went out to collect samples at some point, especially in the early career? Hamilton: Just for a few months, I actually—Hanford had some offsite monitoring systems across the river for nitrogen oxides and I think sulfur oxides. It was things that would have come out of the production facilities. It wasn’t radioactive, again, it was chemicals. So once a week, we’d drive out there and change—they were liquid impinger type samples. So we’d change them out and bring them back and analyze them. O’Reagan: I’ve read some accounts of local farmers who grew up remembering people coming from Hanford—scientists, to come gather samples from their farm to test for various things. Is that the type of--? Hamilton: That might have been part of it, because at least one of them, I know, was set up near a barn on the top of the bluffs there, across the river. We weren’t doing any—there were a lot of other people doing radiological monitoring, that was nothing to do with what we were doing. But it’s possible that some of the people where the sites were located would remember. Because they were on private property. O’Reagan: Did you ever find any safety hazards? Hamilton: None of what we were—no, we never found anything that was exceeding any kind of limits in those. O’Reagan: Could you describe the ways in which the security or secrecy of the Area impacted your work? Hamilton: I mean, since I wasn’t doing radiological, it wasn’t as much so as like what my husband was doing. But if we wanted to give a paper or anything at a technical conference, it had to go through DoE for approval for release. So we worked with very little classified material where I was. O’Reagan: Can you tell us about what your husband did? Hamilton: He worked at the Plutonium Finishing Plant, PFP. He was a non-destructive assay chemist, where he was monitoring the plutonium that was being either produced or stored there at PFP. O’Reagan: That was—did his role change over the course of time he was working there? Hamilton: He had a few months, initially, where they rotated him through different sites to pick a spot where they wanted to end up. But, no, he spent most of his career there. O’Reagan: Let’s see. So the first few decades you lived here were during the Cold War. Did you feel that impacted your time here, or was that just something in the background? Hamilton: I was not nearly as aware of it as some people seem to have been. No, that just really didn’t—was some place off, had nothing to do, really. I didn’t feel like we were in danger because we were close to Hanford or anything like that, no. O’Reagan: Do you have any impression of whether the community around you also felt that way? Do you know if there were—I don’t know quite what I’m asking here. Was there more of an impression of that, or did people just sort of go about their lives? Hamilton: I think people here were just used to Hanford as a secret place. You don’t talk about what you’re doing out there, that’s just the way it is. We did our thing and didn’t worry about the rest of the world much. O’Reagan: Tying back into—tell us a little bit about life in the ‘70s here. Do you feel—I don’t know—the social scene or the feel, the life in the area has changed much over the ‘70s to ‘80s to ‘90s? Hamilton: Yeah, I would say that’s for sure. For instance, when we built our house out there in what’s now called South Richland, which is across the river, near<a>[EM1]</a> Meadow Springs—the road from there to Columbia Center was still gravel. Gage didn’t exist as a paved road. We were like the second house in the subdivision where we were built. It was mostly still orchards around us, so it was a lot more rural there. There was probably one, maybe, movie theater, the Uptown. And I guess Columbia Center maybe always had one. But there’s a lot more for people to do now, and there’s certainly way more people to do it. O’Reagan: What was it you liked about living here? Hamilton: Well, being a country girl from the start, I guess we liked the feel of a small, close-knit community. The job was good. It was very comfortable living. We had good friends. So it was pleasant. We didn’t have a lot of traffic to deal with. O’Reagan: What sort of things would you do in your spare time, or with the friends in the area? Hamilton: Oh, one of the things that became a big interest for us was the growing wine industry. We came just about the time it was getting started, and we stumbled into making friends with the Rauners at Yakima River shortly after we got here. So we got to actually help them at times with crushing things, to get to know all about the wine-making process. And we quickly joined the Tri-Cities Enological Society, it was called then. Now it’s just the Wine Society. So we were very much involved with that. We also enjoyed the variety of types of scenery here. Whether you wanted to do something, you were close to the mountains, you were close to the ocean, you had this nice dry, arid climate here, where you could go hiking or do things. So it was an easy, comfortable place to be. Have lots of things—options to do. O’Reagan: You ever get to use your chemistry knowledge in the wine--? Hamilton: [LAUGHTER] Learned enough about the wine making process to know I didn’t want to do it. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: You’re—since 1999—a consultant, a public safety consultant. Is that right? Hamilton: Yeah. When I retired from Hanford, officially, then, basically, I continued for five years going back, doing the same thing for them onsite that I had done as an employee on a part-time basis. But it was in ’95 that I started doing these laboratory assessments for the American Industrial Hygiene Association, which is one of the organizations that had accredited our lab here. So I still do that through—this year’s probably about the last year I’ll do that, but I’ve been doing that for 20 years. O’Reagan: What’s involved in that? Hamilton: It’s going to these various lab sites and making sure that they have all the documentation, the properly trained people, that they’re following the procedures and doing it in accordance with the now international quality requirement. O’Reagan: So you’ve been involved in some of the historical organizations around here. When did you first start getting involved in those? Hamilton: Pretty much after I retired from Hanford. I knew I wanted to do something locally, too. And I had visited the CREHST Museum from way back when it was still in the Federal Building. So that was the first thing I did. I started out reviewing some of their oral histories and then gradually, as I had more time during the day, I would serve as kind of a fill-in docent for them, and did various projects for them. Then when they were transitioned out and replaced by the REACH, I moved over there. O’Reagan: Mm-hmm. What is it about that work that you find rewarding? What is it that draws you to work with them? Hamilton: Well, I think it’s extremely important to maintain the history of what was going on here at Hanford. This is certainly a unique and important part of our country’s history. I’m very pleased that the National Park has been designated. That will be an important part of preserving all of this. I like—people need to know their history. So I think the Hanford history is—as well as the exotic geology we have here, the effect of the Ice Age floods and everything. This is unique area, both geologically, and historically, I think. O’Reagan: Mm-hm. I guess it’s more common today, but do you ever feel you are treated differently as a woman scientist over your career? Hamilton: [LAUGHTER] Unfortunately, yes. I had to do a little fighting to get some equal pay when I first came out here. But it was easy enough to do. And in the field of industrial hygiene, women have been moving in quite a bit, actually, there. Probably almost equal number of women as men in this field now. O’Reagan: Interesting. Anything else about your time working on or around Hanford that leaps to mind that you’d like to talk about? Anything that was particularly unusual, or just sort of curious, or otherwise noteworthy? Hamilton: No, I can’t really think of too much that at least I wouldn’t want to talk about. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Sure. What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford or living in this area over the course of time you’ve been here? Hamilton: Well, I feel it has been a very rewarding experience, a very good place to live. I think it’s environmentally very pleasant. The work at Hanford is certainly important. The fact that the first commercial scale nuclear reactor in the world was developed here. The speed at which things were done back then. The government regulation has become extremely burdensome since then and it’s much harder, but when Hanford was a production facility, it was something you felt like you were contributing to the society and to the world. O’Reagan: What haven’t I thought to ask, or should I be asking? Hamilton: [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: Anything? Anything come to mind? I try to go for the open-ended questions. Hamilton: Yeah. I think the culture at Hanford really changed when they shut down. And now that it’s just a cleanup site, the loyalty, the sense of responsibility to the site, I think, has gone away. There’s a lot more disputes, unhappy employees, some of which may or may not be based on fact. There’s just not the continuity there was when people could work there for 30 years and know that’s where they were going to be for their lifetime. There was a lot more dedication to it. You felt like you were accomplishing something. O’Reagan: Of course, the cleanup may be still going in 30 years! Hamilton: Well, I don’t—do not print this part—but as far as I’m concerned, it’ll never get done. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: So were those documents you brought— Hamilton: Well, I brought some articles out of some of the Hanford newspapers and things. I didn’t know if you have access to some of those types—I assume you do. But I just thought I’d show you some of those, if you were interested. O’Reagan: Yeah, we’d love to go through them. Any of them in particular that would be worth talking about now? Hamilton: Oh, I don’t know. I mean, it’s mostly things like the history of what was happening there with the environmental health. You can take a look at—one of the things that I think was important when I was there yet, and the industrial hygiene function—the health and safety function was focused in one company, it was better controlled, there were records that were kept, and everybody knew where they were, and they were being maintained. The first thing they did was they took the hygienist away from—well, first they took the respirators away from HEHF. Then they took the hygienists, separated them, and moved them, spread them out all over the contractors onsite. Then they moved our industrial hygiene lab out with the environmental lab, and we became a very small thing, compared to a bigger thing. Now, if you go out—we repeatedly would do things that had already been done, because the contractors changed, they lost the records, they have no history. That just added to the jumble. I feel sorry for the workers who have to try and recreate their health histories. Because I don’t think the records since the early to mid ‘80s are anything like they used to be. O’Reagan: Do you feel safety was a priority on the Hanford site during your time there? Hamilton: I think it was. They did what they could to the best of their ability with what they knew at the time. So I think it really was a very safe place to work. Yes, there are things that have happened. Yes, there were exposures. But then that was happening in any industry, no matter where you go. People learn because they see what’s happening. They don’t test animals on everything before they put it into practice. No, I think it was a very—you would hear of very few accidents, per se. There were asbestos exposures, there’s beryllium, there’s radiation, but it’s just part of industry. So I don’t think it was any different. O’Reagan: Okay. Anything else we should look through that you have? Hamilton: Well, you can keep that. That’s my resume. I’d like that other—if you want a copy of that other, I can send it to you. This one had some information just about the industrial hygiene lab being recognized. I don’t know if you want any— O’Reagan: Is that a picture of you? Hamilton: That’s me, way back when these were—and these are all Hanford-taken pictures. So they’re ones you could get, but I could make copies of those for you, too, if you wanted them. These are just—there’s Dr. Meader, these are some of the people at HEHF. That’s about all that’s in there. O’Reagan: Great. Yeah, we have—we’re just setting up our scanning stations, so we might see if we could get copies of some of the pictures. Hamilton: Okay. I know these I have on the computer. I can send you. There are three of these early ones of me in the lab. I could send you those. O’Reagan: Yeah, I know there have been a number of oral history interviews and interest in some of the women who were assigned to this, around the site, or to work on the site. Hamilton: Mm-hmm. O’Reagan: So I think it’d be very interesting for that as well as the safety aspects are very interesting. And then also just everyone’s experiences in the area-- Hamilton: Yeah. O’Reagan: --are worth knowing. Hamilton: One of the unique things I got to do were I got to go on one of the first People to People occupational health trip to China back in the early ‘80s. O’Reagan: What was that like? Hamilton: Fascinating! [LAUGHTER] There were 23 of us, I think. We stayed in places like the Royal Palace in Beijing. We definitely had Chinese people who told us where we could and couldn’t go. [LAUGHTER] We were not allowed on the street by ourselves. When we were there with the group, people were just awed by us, because we looked so different. They were all still in their blue suits and not much else. One of our people had a Polaroid camera and having an instant picture was just amazing to them. We got to go to hospitals and factories and things that normal tourists wouldn’t see. O’Reagan: That was all sponsored through Hanford, or part of your job? Hamilton: No. HEHF paid my way, but I’m not sure—I mean, I belonged to the American Industrial Hygiene Association, the professional organization, and somehow, they put my name on a list, and HEHF said, yes, they’d pay for it. So I went. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: That’s very interesting. Hamilton: Yeah. O’Reagan: Did you get to do other travel over the course of your time? Hamilton: Well, I went to conferences and things, but nothing as exotic. Yeah. O’Reagan: Okay. I think that’s most of the sort of set questions that I had down, but anything else you think is worth the time to chat about? Hamilton: I can’t think of too much else. I think you’ve got the overall picture. [LAUGHTER] O’Reagan: All right, well, thank you for speaking with us. It’s been very interesting. Hamilton: Sure. Okay. Duration Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.) 00:27:17 Bit Rate/Frequency Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio) 317 kbps Years in Tri-Cities Area Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site 1972-today Years on Hanford Site Years on the Hanford Site, if any. 1972-2005 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 Maureen Hamilton Description An account of the resource An interview with Maureen Hamilton 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 01-20-2016 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 Date Modified Date on which the resource was changed. 2017-04-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.] Provenance A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource. The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection. Relation A related resource <a href="http://hanfordhistory.com/collections/show/21">Maureen Hamilton Oral History Interview</a> Cold War drinking Event Hanford Park Plutonium Plutonium Finishing Plant River War