In 1943, the few people who lived on the treeless plains and buttes of the Columbia River basin here were evicted, a closed community for government workers was created, and a project so secret that even construction crews did not know what they were building was begun.
Selected chiefly because it was so remote, Hanford earned worldwide fame, and infamy, as a result. On its 560 square miles, plutonium was generated for the world’s first atomic bomb and the generations of atomic weapons that followed. In the process, it became one of the most contaminated spots on Earth.
The question confronting this stretch of southeastern Washington near the town of Richland is what will become of the Hanford Site and whether it once again may play a role in fueling the nation’s nuclear weapons arsenal.
Though its nine reactors have been closed for years and its chief business remains an unparalleled radioactive cleanup, Hanford is being considered for a new weapons production mission.
The proposal has sparked impassioned debate in the Pacific Northwest.
The region’s boosters desperately want to find a use for the sprawling site that is to close once the cleanup is completed. Cuts in funding have led to 4,500 fewer jobs at Hanford, which accounts for 40 percent of all employment in the region.
Because of the nature of the facility, uses other than those related to the nuclear industry are impractical.
Opponents fear restarting the plant will expose people and the environment to dangerous chemicals and radioactive materials. Their fears were underscored by a chemical explosion at the plant in May. At least 11 workers were exposed to toxic chemicals and possibly plutonium, all of which could pose potential long-term health dangers.
The Energy Department’s investigation of the blast was withering. It found that the explosion could have been prevented and that the emergency response to it completely broke down.
“I know the explosion at Hanford has damaged our credibility and perhaps your trust,” Energy Secretary Federico Pena said last week during his first visit to the site, where he announced nationwide changes in chemical storage and emergency response as a result of the Hanford explosion.
Pena is considering whether to reopen one Hanford reactor to produce tritium, a hydrogen isotope that boosts the power of nuclear weapons. The Energy Department says it needs the tritium that is being lost from America’s weapons stockpile. Radioactive decay reduces tritium by half every 12.3 years.
The department also is studying whether the reactor can be given a new life producing medical isotopes that are being studied or used for diagnoses and treatments for a wide variety of diseases, most notably cancer.
“I think this place has great promise to do a lot of things,” said Ernest Hughes, director of the Fast Flux Test Facility, as the Hanford reactor is known. That reactor is now on what the Energy Department calls “hot standby.”
Richard Greenberg, president of the Tri-City Industrial Development Council, a local business group, said, “We’re always looking for the possibility of additional missions for the Hanford Site.” The council promotes the interests of Richland, Kennewick and Pasco.
Dismissing safety concerns as frivolous, he noted that the incidence of cancers caused by exposure to radioactivity is lower in the Hanford region than in Seattle. “The fact is, in this community, we do not live in fear,” he said.
Even so, the recent explosion frightened many others and exacerbated worries about long-standing problems at the site.
Of special concern are the leaking underground tanks that hold millions of gallons of highly radioactive waste, posing a possible threat to groundwater and the Columbia River, the source for irrigation of potatoes, grapes, cherries and apples here. The river also provides drinking water for cities downstream, such as Portland, Ore.
Critics contend the environmental damage from the leaking tanks has been greater than officials will admit.
“What more warning do we need?” asked Tom Carpenter of the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blowers’ group that monitors Hanford. “To contaminate the Columbia River with millions of curies of radiation would be an unparalleled disaster.”
Carpenter and others say Hanford officials are putting too much effort into trying to reopen facilities. They believe that the $31 million a year the government spends keeping one reactor on standby only reduces the cleanup fund, which has faced sharp cutbacks.
More Top Picks Best Lunch Box
“No one in the public has any reason to trust that the weapons reactor is safe,” said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, another Hanford watchdog group.
To bolster this point, the organization released a memo reported to be from an Energy Department deputy secretary last year, who concluded, “I am convinced that the (facility) presents too many risks to warrant further investment or inquiry.”
Meanwhile, the contractor in charge of the cleanup, Fluor Daniel Hanford, Inc., is on the hot seat, having been asked by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to review its performance, including safety procedures, costs and its ability to meet cleanup deadlines.
The intensity of the debate is another of the site’s legacies.
“Such is the nature of Hanford incidents of any kind,” an editorial in the Tri-City Herald observed last week. “What would be a cause for concern anywhere else is a five-alarm bell-ringer at Hanford.”