GREAT! LET'S HAVE IT HERE'
'Great! Let's have it here' The name "Hanford" may generate dismay in those who associate it with the birth of the Bomb, but after thirty-three years, it has a familiar, comfortable sound to most...
...NANCY FALLER (Nancy Fatter is a free-lance writer in Yakima, Washington...
...Union members do not hide their anxiety about the incidence of cancer they have noticed among older Hanford employes...
...Let's have it here' The name "Hanford" may generate dismay in those who associate it with the birth of the Bomb, but after thirty-three years, it has a familiar, comfortable sound to most of the folks who live in the neighborhood...
...I think the people of Richland would say 'Great...
...And many of us in this state are scared we're going to win...
...Forty-seven million gallons (75 per cent of the nation's total) of radioactive wastes are stored there now...
...New Mexico and Texas are also in the running to be America's nuclear garbage dump, but Hanford is putting Washington out front...
...Hanford's congressional representative, Mike McCor-mack, jokes that an explosion at Hanford is about as likely as being run over by a rhinoceros on Yakima Avenue...
...The growth continues at a hectic pace today...
...Neil Shulman has a 1939 Washington road map on his office wall which lists Richland's population as 208...
...Newell Campbell, a Yakima Valley College instructor, is one of the geologists hired to look for faults in which to bury the radioactive wastes...
...Economic gains are not limited to the Tri-Cities...
...In the nearby Yakima Valley, with its high seasonal unemployment and reliance on migrant labor, a job at Hanford carries prestige...
...Support from Washington's key politicians is diligent...
...His gripe, and that of other union officials and employes, about criticism of the nuclear industry is, "Why us...
...But just as there are fractures in the basalt, there are cracks in Han-ford's indomitable facade...
...In addition, there are the Fast Flux Test Facility (soon to be testing materials for breeder reactors), chemical extraction and reduction plants, laboratories, administrative offices, warehouses, three power plants under construction, and vast waste management facilities...
...Many take civic pride in the knowledge that their backyard is being considered as a permanent dumping ground for nuclear wastes from all over the United States and from foreign nations as well...
...Jim Watts, president of the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers' local in Richland, agrees: "The atomic segment has the best safety record in this union and this union's safety record is outstanding...
...It built Richland as Hanford's administrative and bedroom community, owned it until 1959, then sold it to the inhabitants...
...Rumors circulate here about "someone who knows someone" suffering from a lethal radiation dose being paid off to keep quiet, suggesting growing unease...
...Hanford may turn out to be ideal," Campbell said, "because of little or no evidence of earthquake activity and because there won't be any leakage in the basalt...
...Local newspaper editorials strenuously support nuclear development...
...They compare nuclear accidents with those of other hazardous industries and say the latter are more dangerous...
...Seen from afar, Hanford's clusters of rectangles, domes, and towering smokestacks — separated by miles of sagebrush from the next cluster — suggest a futuristic dust jacket on a sci-fi space novel...
...Let's have it here,' " says Neil Shulman, Richland's city manager, when asked about the prospect of additional waste storage so close to home...
...People here are used to living by it — we have the technology — we know how to handle it...
...Horror stories from other states only confirm their belief that Hanford is best able to cope with radioactive wastes...
...But they emphasize that their interest is in adequate worker protection — not in terminating the industry...
...Within the Hanford Reservation, the Government's Reactor produces the plutonium and supplies waste steam to the mammoth Hanford Generating Project — where a public power agency converts the steam to electricity for the Bonneville Power Adrhinistra-tion...
...The populations of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick ("the Tri-Cities") grew from a combined total of 5,250 in 1943 to 68,426 in 1976 — 91,500 if "greater metropolitan" areas are included...
...Geologist Newell Campbell admits that he worries about transportation hazards: "I don't like the idea of its coming from, say, Maine to Washington...
...Two refrains recur in the Hanford area: The people are used to "it" (with little clarification as to whether this confers immunity to radiation or just to fear), and Hanford technicians are the best qualified in the country to deal with radioactivity...
...The site also contains an observatory, a wildlife preserve, an arid lands ecology reserve, facilities for non-nuclear study of energy and environment, and the corpses of eight shut-down reactors...
...He obligingly gave me a history lesson illustrating the economic importance of the atom in this area...
...The farm hamlet of Hanford had a brief, bawdy fling as a construction town — teeming with workers housed in trailers and barracks, segregated as to sex and race — before it was dismantled in 1945...
...In 1943, the Federal Government condemned the villages of Richland, Hanford, and White Bluffs to secure the space it needed for production and processing of plutonium and other nuclear fuels...
...Some of the nation's mightiest corporations operate at Hanford — Rockwell International, Westing-house, Exxon Nuclear...
...Every weekday, special buses leave Yakima for the Government reservation, while other commuters from Yakima and smaller towns strung along the lower Yakima River use car pools...
Vol. 43 • April 1979 • No. 4
