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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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
Dan Ostergaard
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Dan Ostergaard on December 7<sup>th</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus on Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Dan about his experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?</p>
<p>Dan Ostergaard: Okay, my full name is Daniel Vernon Ostergaard. The last name is spelled O-S-T-E-R-G-A-A-R-D.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, and your first name?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Dan. I go by Dan. Daniel, D-A-N-I-E-L.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Great. When I was doing that boilerplate, I almost said December 7<sup>th</sup>, 1941.</p>
<p>Ostergaard. Me, too. Well, that’s in my—I still live World War II. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh. So, tell me how and why you came to the Hanford Site.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay. I got interested in photography in junior high school in Kennewick. And back—that would have been, well, I graduated from high school in ’65.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you’re from the Tri-Cities, then.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right, I grew up in Kennewick.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, and when were you born?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: December 27<sup>th</sup>, 1946.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: So, I got interested in photography kind of through the chemistry class. I was a lab assistant, and the guy who was doing the yearbook needed somebody that’d shoot pictures. And I had done a little bit of stuff with my mom’s help at home, so that just sort of got the ball rolling. Did the usual school stuff, graduated Kennewick High School. And in high school, shot pictures for the yearbook. We had kind of a unique situation where the yearbook actually provided us the facilities, but they actually bought the pictures from us. So we were in essence a little business.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: We had our accounts down at the local drug store that had a photo counter. And it was a real good training thing. We were given assignments—the yearbook advisor was named Mr. Shields, and he said, I need a one-column-wide picture about four inches high and I want four faces in it. I don’t care what they’re doing. I just want four faces. They won’t buy the book unless their face is in it. So that was kind of the direction we were given, and it was up to us to figure it out. And after I finished high school, went to CBC. In high school, I also worked at a portrait lab named Dave Studio in Kennewick, in the back processing film and prints and doing all the things you do. And continued that at CBC. I had my own stuff shooting on the side. And then I went to WSU in Pullman for two years. Through that time, I had worked two summers for the Hanford photo group. One summer in the Federal Building, and one summer in 300 Area in 3705 Building. It was Vietnam era. I enlisted, went in for two-and-a-half years. Got an early out when they were winding down. I called up my boss, Lance Michael, and I said, hey, I’m getting out of the service; you got any work? And he kind of said, when can you be here? I said, in a month? Okay, you’re hired. That was the interview. Of course, I’d interviewed for two summers prior, in essence. [LAUGHTER] So I started doing lab tech work, just kind of whatever was needed to be done. The reason that was so attractive, because the Hanford photo group was like Disneyland. There was everything there somebody with my background could aspire to want. We had the ability to do all the photo processes. We had very competent photographers. They were hired mostly out of Brooks Institute down in Santa Barbara. We called them Brookies. The lab people sort of saved the Brookies a lot, we thought. [LAUGHTER] After I got out of the service, we had just opened up the photo lab in 3706—they’d moved it from the old wood lab building at 3705. Went over there, and then just kind of evolved into doing higher, higher level things. The photo group had three different photo labs at the time. One in the Federal Building, one in the basement of the ROB, the Battelle building, and then one in 300 Area. They had all evolved for a specific purpose. The Federal Building lab was to keep the AEC/DOE people connected. The ROB lab was just directly for supporting Battelle at the time. They had just gotten the contract in, I think, ’64.</p>
<p>Franklin: What does ROB stand for?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Research Operations Building.</p>
<p>Franklin: Research Operations Building, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, and then 300 Area, we did all kinds of things. And this was all pre-computer era. So we had—different labs did specific things. The color was done initially in the Federal Building. The ROB was pretty much black-and-white and copy work. And we did big enlarging and things like that. So some things, the jobs had to move back and forth to each lab’s specialty. So we actually had a courier who started at the Federal Building, picked up stuff and dropped off on the way out.</p>
<p>Camera man: I need to interrupt this. I don’t think this is moving. I don’t see any numbers changing or anything.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Really?</p>
<p>Jillian Gardner-Andrews: Oh no.</p>
<p>Camera man: It’s bothering me.</p>
<p>[VIDEO CUTS]</p>
<p>Franklin: …records digital, so I don’t—</p>
<p>Camera man: Well, keep going. Let’s—I guess--</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: He’ll get better a second time. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So you’re saying that each lab had its own specialty—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: And that there was a courier.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right, right. And because each lab was separate, and there wasn’t a computer, the cloud, or anything like that, everybody had their own numbering system.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Which has led to complications to this day.</p>
<p>Franklin: Tell me about it.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: I process a lot of photos from onsite and it’s always very confusing as to why some are stamped 300 Area, why some are stamped Battelle, why some are stamped 700 Area, and this is—I want you to go into this in detail for me.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay, so, well, we’ll do that numbering thing then. If you see anything like with a 2-digit and then like an A or a B or a C and then three digits afterwards, those are from the ROB lab.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sorry, two-digit, ABC, and then three numbers?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, the idea—first of the year, they would start out at A, and then run with the numbers, you know, the first two digits? So you could look at that. The first two was the year, always. And the second one was just an arbitrary A, and then if it ran through 999, they went to B and upward. The Federal Building numbers started out pretty much as four-digit numbers. And that was a carryover from the GE photo lab days. Some of those things I still never have figured out what they did. And then 300 Area just started out with the year, 7, 8, whatever. And then generally they’d run four digits. It got to be later on they would run five because they were running out of space. And then in 1992, we had our own computer system written, so it kind of linked up. Those dates always started with the first of the year and then the month, you know, 01. And then there was three digits after that. So by looking at those numbers, if you see an 89 blah, blah, blah, you’d know that was shot in 1989.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: So that was some of the numbering systems. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And then there were other—we supported some of the metallurgical labs and things who had their own thing going on also. So we supported a lot of specialty labs in the 300 Area, doing things then. So we would process film for them, make prints, and give them back everything. We were doing fuel studies where they would take fuel pins from bundles that had been through the reactor process, and in the 327 Building, section them remotely—because they’re screaming hot—and usually those things were about the diameter of a pencil. So they’d slice that across. And then through periscopes, using 70 millimeter film and Hasselblad cameras is actually shoot like an aerial mosaic of that thing at 75x or 125x magnification. We would process that film, print it on a machine printer 2x, and then literally mosaic them together. So you’d end up with like a large pizza. And that would show the cladding and then what had happened to the fuel inside. These things were fairly important. They spent a lot of money making them, so—</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. That sounds like very technical work.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well it was, yeah. We had at all levels. From the PR thing to the technical part. And you supported a lot of engineers for reports. We did a lot of what would be promotional stuff now for people to go back to DC and whatever, for pushing their project to get funds. In addition to—and then of course just reprinting. Negatives were in the file. And that was the other part of the problem with the negatives, is they were retired, not in any systematic order, they were just—when the lab ran out of space, we’d box up five cabinets’ worth of negatives, send them off to storage—you know, with the transmittal. But still—and then it got complicated—well, you know, I say, all this sounds silly, but it was all at the time very rational. You can’t judge—[LAUGHTER] They were doing good, actually, for what they were doing. But the specific photographers tended to work out of specific labs. Because we usually had seven or eight full-time photographers going at that time. And some of these guys were more specialized in technical things, and some of them were more people-oriented. And so, you had to kind of assign the right type of personality to the job. You didn’t want to assign a technical person to go out and shoot a PR thing somewhere. That would get you in trouble. [LAUGHTER] They just weren’t groomed for that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER] We had—along those lines—you know, the thing we had a difficulty with in hiring is we would—we were looking for pretty high-end lab tech people, too. So a lot of these folks would be coming out of Brooks with all this money they’ve spent training, and they couldn’t get a photo job. So we would hire them, but we’d caution them all the time—this is not going to lead to a photo job. We’re hiring you to do this technical thing. A few of them evolved over, and it was very frustrating for some folks who—I’m not doing what I want to do. But we already have—you know. So there’s always that line [LAUGHTER] of doing that. And again, back then, we were self-contained. The security was much tighter—I don’t know if you’ve went out to Energy Northwest lately or anything, or if you’ve ever been there, where they’re looking under your car with mirrors and all kinds of things. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, our security was pretty tight.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: The photographers, on the badge, they had the areas listed in a grid, the areas they had access to. So it was pretty tight, and we were playing TSA going in the gates at that point. We got so you just put your lunch in a plastic bag and just walk by and hold it up. It wasn’t metal detectors, but it was security. So that led to interesting things. The 300 Area lab was the largest, and we probably had the most people of any of them. We did pretty much our own maintenance. These were all chemical processes that needed to be maintained. So there was a great deal of quality control work going on, of running test strips and reading them and adjusting the chemistries. And just the simple things of inventory. We had a phenomenal—we had pretty much one person, that’s all they did was inventory. You know, ordering stuff, seeing that it was in, and then basically rotating the stock, so that we were using the oldest first. There was a lot of stuff going on. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So you worked mostly at the 300?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, and then how many people worked at that operation?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Probably, 20, 25.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah. And the ROB was smaller—I’d say it was about four.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And the Federal Building, they did the color and they could also—everybody could do black-and-white; that was just by default. And that was probably more like a dozen. And then there was a video—motion picture group down there also. At probably the height of everything, we were probably running 62 people. And during FFTF construction, we were doing a shift-and-a-half, basically.</p>
<p>Franklin: And that would just be documenting the construction?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah. And then all the other stuff. Because everything that had to do with FFTF was a huge project. It wasn’t just building the facility you see, the white dome out there. There was a high bay in 300 Area, all kinds of research on—oh my god, it was huge. And so there was people busy all the time doing that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Did you have much contact with the video people?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Not a whole lot.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: That was kind of a different world.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: There was also kind of the contention—not necessarily nasty—between the labs.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: There was always a bit of tension there, that—ah, them dummies they screwed up again, so we got to run down there. There was a lot of that stuff going on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Like kind of like a friendly competition?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Pretty much. Mostly friendly. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Mostly friendly? Did you know anybody that worked at the other labs or in the video group that’s still around that might want to talk to us?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Let me think that through.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. We just--our collection—sorry, go ahead.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: No, I was going to say—yeah, I’m just thinking. Because I think Bud Mace is gone. Don Brauer’s gone. Yeah, it’s really thinned out. Thinned out everywhere. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: As happens. We have several hundred videos in our collection.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: So it would be interesting to talk to somebody about that. Why they filmed certain—because some of them are very interesting films of processes and—so it’s kind of—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah. They were highly technical. We had a technical person who was just in charge of doing extremely technical things. He was out of RIT. And he did some fabulous stuff. I always enjoyed hanging around Roland.</p>
<p>Franklin: RIT?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Rochester Institute, yeah. And, again, it was—we had to support ourselves. There was no FedEx in the day. And not getting something done because something broke was not an excuse. That was not acceptable. So you always had at least two or three ways of getting something done. That was—and we always did come through; we had a reputation for that.</p>
<p>Franklin: How long did you work at the 300 Area lab?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Pretty much—well, the last year—it was probably 25, 30 years straight.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you started in ’72, right?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you would have gone into the early—late ‘90s, early 2000s.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Something like that. Well, there was a migration. Everything wound down. As things closed down, the ROB lab was closed first.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: We moved that activity out to 300 Area.</p>
<p>Franklin: And do you know roughly when that was?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, I hate telling it wrong. ’78, something like that. And as things tightened up a little bit more, we actually closed down the Federal Building lab, which was on the third floor. Much to the happiness of the computer people, because there were leaks on the third floor out of all these processors. We had catch pans and stuff under everything.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, the chemical—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah, these are all wet processes. Nothing digital there.</p>
<p>Franklin: And do you know when the Fed—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: God, again, that’s just kind of murky. It’s—</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: You know, the big change happened for us when the contract changed in about ’87 or ’88.</p>
<p>Franklin: And that was from Westinghouse—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, we were actually Battelle.</p>
<p>Franklin: You were Battelle, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right. And the contract changed—consolidation, they liked to call it. We ended up getting transferred over to Boeing. Most of the service groups went as a package to Boeing. And then when Boeing came out and Lockheed came in, then we all were moved to Lockheed. So, as it wound down, we had a couple of pretty big layoffs where you just feel like a survivor the day it’s done, when they lay off twelve people in your group and there’s four of you left. Stuff like that. [LAUGHTER] So we kept plugging away out there, and then they finally found enough money to make us go digital.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s good—I was going to ask about that. What year was that?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Let’s see, I’m trying to think of what machines we were using. We were in the Apple side of the world at that point. And, you know, 7200 Mac or something was pretty jazzy at the time. [LAUGHTER] You know? So again, those dates are just—I could probably do some thinking on that, but I’d just hate to say something specific. But as we wound down, then they decided that we were too big of an expense to be in 3706. So we ended up moving down to the Snyder Building. This was under Lockheed. And set up shop down there. And of course, I was always—by that time, I had migrated my work into more doing archival stuff. I kind of just created that, in a way. I got tired of people asking for stuff that I knew we had, that nobody could find.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And so I just started—in the time when I didn’t have anything better to do, I just literally started going through the drawers. And that kind of got me the bug. [LAUGHTER] So my intention was to make a three-ring binder with Hanford’s 100 greatest pictures. That was my first goal. Well, that pretty quickly evolved into about 35 or 40 binders—</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I was going to say, that’d be kind of—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, well you didn’t realize what you were up against, you know. So you get to the point where you say, okay, I’ve got enough stuff here to make a collection of each of the reactor areas. So there’d be the 100-B book, there’d be the—you know. And do that. And then as a spin-off I would do aerials. Wherever I’d had enough stuff to organize, I would make another binder. And then, oh, about around 2000, when Hazel Leary was head of the Department of Energy, she was due in for this great opening up of all the information. And they started a project at DDRS—</p>
<p>Franklin: DDRS?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yes. And that worked out of the library there at 300 Area. They had, I think, five or six derivative de-classifiers. And they had a couple of students out there. Their goal was to scan 100 negatives a day. And they would arbitrarily take a storage box—have you ever seen a storage box? A real Hanford box?</p>
<p>Franklin: No, I don’t know if I’ve seen a Hanford box.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay, well, most of these things early on—most everything was four-by-five negatives. So it was a half-cubic-foot box about yea high with a top that comes off. And then inside, there’d be rows, and there’d be a manila envelope with glassines, mostly, where there’d be a date and stuff written on them. And that was kind of—you got the date range to and from. And they started out and they did about 55 boxes. I don’t know how they were necessarily selected. But they did that. And the first box they did, they came down to us and wanted to see how they were doing. We had a higher-end scanner than they did. They were running off $150 scanners at the time, which was basically trash.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, really low DPI.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, you see some of those things now, those really crappy looking things. That was out at that project.</p>
<p>Franklin: Like 400k-size image files, if you’re lucky.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: We get requests about images that people find online and they’re like, do you have a higher version of that? And I was like, that was scanned in 2002. Like, you know, sorry.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, that’s the disconnect now. And they keep talking about getting me out there to help put some of that to bed and maybe leave a better trail than we did. It’s—yeah. [LAUGHTER] It’s an art to find some of that stuff.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And you can’t do it—I don’t know what the mechanism is—I’ve been out of there now two-and-a-half years. So I don’t know if there’s anything in place. But I had pretty much, at the time, looking for things, I had the ability to request boxes endlessly. And so what I would do was I would get out my notebooks and stuff with all the transmittals and all my little notes I had made on the side. I had hand-written sheets for every time I’d order a box. And this went on for years. I would note the box and the date, and then I would look for what I wanted. But then anything else that was interesting in there, I would go ahead and make a note of it so I could backtrack a little bit. And that’s what I hope—that stuff hasn’t been disrupted too badly that it can’t get in there and say, this is golden. It looks awful, but this will really save you. [LAUGHTER] So, that takes a lot of dead-ends, but it also leads you to discoveries. And there was always the push to put more stuff into iDMS. My project for four years, one of the clerks, name of Bonnie Campo and I, pretty much, we did 20,000 a year into ARMIS, the database at the time. The selection process—that was my call. We’d literally start going through the files, and anything to do with helping the site be cleaned up, remediated, construction—all that was golden stuff. So that was the selection process for that. And then if I found—and I kind of took it upon myself—there were some culturally significant things, I’d put those in, too. So I would scan them, I’d transfer them to Bonnie, she would upload them with appropriate information. So we did 20,000 a year, so we did 80,000.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. What do you—can you expand on culturally significant things?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, things like back in the ‘50s, where they would have pensioners’ dinners. They celebrated the employees. They weren’t disposable. They were treated with much more respect—this is all my personal stuff. [LAUGHTER] But it was celebrated more. And then also, up until ’58, ’59, the City of Richland was a company town.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Basically owned by GE. And they documented all kinds of cool stuff. So, a lot of that would go in. And just things like the first house being sold. And things like that. And then just the culture—the pictures of the safety prizes. If everybody—the thermoses and things. And then probably not socially appropriate things anymore of get some gal up on a ladder for Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> holding a broken mirror. And just stuff like that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Any idea where those—where do those pictures live now, or those negatives? Do they—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh! It’s all at 3212, the newest records—</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, that’s pretty much where everything is, that I know about. And I’ve tried the damnedest to find everything. It gets to be a challenge. [LAUGHTER] But those first ones they did, that was where what we dubbed the DuPont Collection came out of and the GE Collection. Those first five boxes were the D numbers, the P numbers. Those were, of course, the most interesting ones, and that caught my eye right now. And then ultimately when they were asking, what could we do—national archives, they want stuff from us; we’ve never given them anything. And by that time I’d kind of rescanned a lot of the what I call the D numbers, the DuPont ones, just because they were very, very useful.</p>
<p>Franklin: Is that what the D stands for, then, on that?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay, okay, let me go through that. There’s a set of numbers—or prefixes. D stood for Determinant, of all things. I found down, when the CREHST Museum was still operating, I had enough leeway, I would go down and kind of mine their resources. And I found the memo one day that directed from somebody in Delaware that they wanted this thing photographically copied, and it set the parameters for each eight-by-tens of each shot and to show construction progress. So there was the P number which was progress. D was determinant. There’s a few Es, which were emergencies. That wasn’t used too much. There was S for safety. And there was M for meteorological. I think I got them all. And the D ones—well, of course the P is progress, and what they generally did for—I mean, down to outhouses almost. They would shoot every couple of weeks or whenever something significant happened, shoot that. So you can combine those into collections of a particular building being built down to small little workshops and things. I found that memo down there, and then I found the part that is really the key to that thing, is there were—since everything was automatically classified at some level, just by nature of it existing, it was classified. And they had to move these around to get things made or whatever. So since it was classified, there had to be a transmittal for every time it moved. So here were these onionskin sheets that listed a set of numbers. And it said, okay, this was D such-and-such, taken on such-and-such a day, and this is what it was. That was just part of the security routine. So there was the marker that described that image by default.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, yeah, the metadata kind of—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right, exactly.</p>
<p>Franklin: Produced in an ancillary process to—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right, so I kind of went, oh, how about this! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that’s something.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: So I handwrote some notebooks just so I could find that stuff easier. And—oh, also, what happened—there was a lady before I ever—I never even met her, name of Flo. She was the archival records genius lady. She could find anything. Flo Unterhagen, I believe her name was. And there was somebody in the ‘70s had taken all of those DuPont negatives. They looked kind of like—from the surface—like they’d kind of lived a rough life. Like they had probably just been thrown in boxes and stuff. And somebody organized those into the storage boxes, each with an individual manila envelope and the number on the outside, and that was about it. But somebody had organized that. Somewhere in the ‘70s, near as I can tell. And then the other—the GE ones were dubbed the Flo Five. Those were very significant. Because that was building up to the Cold War stuff. So that was the second project that I suggested to them. The first one was actually what we dubbed the Settler Collection. When I was doing my work for getting those 80,000 in there, I kept coming up with pictures of people prior to Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, the residents in the towns of White Bluffs and Hanford.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right, so I kind of got the bug at that point. And some of the folks I knew—Annette Heriford, I knew her from—she worked in the photo group.</p>
<p>Franklin: Really?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah!</p>
<p>Franklin: I didn’t—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, Annette, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: We just recently got the collection of Harry Anderson.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: A lot of his photos and things.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Good old Harry! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: But we’ve been going through those, and I know that he worked with Annette and with the White Bluffs and Hanford Reunion--</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Organization.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: So I went to the last five or six of those things, and almost was accepted. But I did work for the government, so that automatically made me suspicious. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, right.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Harry was a piece of work. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: I’ve heard!</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, one time, on one of the tours, we all went out on a bus. And I come out, and what I did—I had the van, the photo van, and I had some composite, big map things I’d made. We had the ability to mount and laminate and everything. So I would show up with the van, would hang these things around the side of the van just as talking points for these people, and that would get the conversations going. They’d start to look at that and go, oh, well there’s my place, and then off you go. Cool stuff. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s really neat.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And so Harry was out there one day, had the van, and he was trying to—he said, you know, you’ve got a van here, how about we go over here and look at something? And I was going, ehh, I’ve got to get back to town. It’s like, I don’t want to get loose with Harry! [LAUGHTER] Get in all kinds of trouble. But, yeah, he was something else.</p>
<p>Franklin: And he also worked for—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: He was a security type.</p>
<p>Franklin: The Project.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, oh, god, yeah. Well the rumors I’d hear was he’d hang around in bars, basically, and if people were talking too much, get them called in for—he was something else. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, he was one of the—it’s just so interesting that he’s this transitional figure between White Bluffs and then—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah. Well he was in the right position, and probably rogue enough to—</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: And then you said Annette worked for the photo group, okay. Did you she work for your photo group?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: She was down in the Federal Building. And so we always got along real well. She was a stickler. I’d show her stuff, and boy, if she thought that date was wrong, she was on your case like—[LAUGHTER] But so when they said, what can we give to the National Archives? I said, well, I’ve been collecting up these images, and I know a lot about them. And there are about 200 of them. So, we did the whole process as a trial thing, and pulled retired negatives out of our files to them and kind of learned the whole process. And it got a lot of nice press, and that’s what they wanted. They were making progress. And that went so well, they said, well, what next? And I said, well, we’ve got all this stuff DuPont shot. We’ve pretty well got it all scanned into our files. We’ve kind of got all the information out of it we’re going to need. So, we went ahead then and retired those over there. Which, again, was great for everybody concerned. It’s nice to kind of get them over there. I think it was five boxes, six boxes. And then the third series we did was GE—kind of the same thing, again. So we got a little more sophisticated each time. And then also the ability of iDMS to take file sizes got better each time. We were kind of held down to, oh, ten-meg JPEG compressed at first. And they would only take JPEGs. And then by the time we got to GE, it was like, well, pretty much just send us anything you want. Which was just the evolution of the whole thing. So I was making pretty good-sized scans.</p>
<p>Franklin: And is that how—so, I’m a little confused. Did you send the originals to NARA, or did you send the scans to NARA?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: No, they didn’t want anything to do with digital; they wanted the physical stuff.</p>
<p>Franklin: But you scanned the originals and put them into iDMS.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, so is that still in iDMS, to your knowledge?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah! If you get ahold of somebody who can get you to the collections, it’s under the GE collection or the DuPont collection.</p>
<p>Franklin: Because we have access to iDMS.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay, now it’s not—things are hardly ever taken out of iDMS, so you do a D number or something, you might come up with the old, nasty scan, you might come up with the one we put in.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, I’ll make sure to look at the file type and size.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, because that’s—it’s a quirky thing to use. ARMIS, its predecessor for photos, was much better. And what we did a lot of—the folks—and this is what I learned—when they were doing their initial work on the DuPont stuff, they were making their best guesses to what it was they were looking at. Because they didn’t—they just had a negative and an envelope. And so a lot of those were way off. So Bonnie and I—if you had spare time, you’d just go, show me everything from 1952 or something. And they migrated all the stuff over from the Battelle system into ARMIS system. Of course, the things never fit the right boxes. And so we kind of just reworked the information—we had the ability to do that. Put structure in the structure box, and maybe leave the title. Because a lot of times they would write the title with the structure in it. So, it was—again, it was kind of an art form. [LAUGHTER] To define stuff. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, I’m totally aware.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: You’re finding that out.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, I’ve been in archives for a little while, so I’ve seen—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah. Well I had the big battle with the GE thing. They wanted to change the filename around to suit their system which then totally destroyed the providence of the damn negative. It just—ugh. [LAUGHTER] So, every time you do a move, you lose something, pretty much.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And what we did for GE by then—security—we’d kind of gotten really in tune with security folks and their concerns. They wanted to know what we’d sent off. A lot of times, they were more concerned about the envelope than the negative.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, because the envelope has the information and description.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Right. By the time we got down to the GE stuff, I was overscanning the negative. I was scanning—put it on the flatbed and scan outside the boundaries of the actual negative itself. So they could see whatever had been written in the boundaries. I wasn’t cropping or doing anything like that. I was all about giving you the whole package.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, because you can also crop that out later.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Later, right. See, that’s what—you can’t put it back. I’ve always looked at is as me being the intermediary in this process, for somebody like me 30 years from now. I don’t want to box them in—I learned that real quick. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s so refreshing to talk with somebody who understands--</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: The basics and things like provenance and—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah. Because things tie together later.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, they do. And you need that if you’re coming at it without that institutional knowledge.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, my. Well, then, the other thing, I’m sure you’ve discovered it by now, is like the DuPont final report. The four-volume—</p>
<p>Franklin: [inaudible]</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, boy. Okay, DuPont published, probably in February or March of ’45, what they called their final report. It’s four volumes, 1,500 pages where they do an incredibly good job of describing what they did without saying a damn word about what they did.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Or what it was for.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, that sounds—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: That thing is—that, and Groves’ diaries if you can stand—not Groves, Matthias’ diaries—those things. But I’ll get you the Hanford numbers for those DuPont things. Because that is a treasure trove. Once you get in there and start reading, you realize they did everything for a purpose and a reason.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: It was—and a lot of it—and then there’s some very miscellaneous other reports that link pictures to things that are—but that DuPont report gives you an incredible insight.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Into what they did. Yeah, that’s—when I finally discovered that, I was going, oh, my god. It was so fun over the years, you kept having these—oh my god, I know what this is for. [LAUGHTER] It just evolved, you know, more and more into me doing archival things and less and less the other. Of course, I carried a big footprint around because I had all these negatives attached to me. And so we moved to Snyder, we actually had to have the floor reinforced where these—these are great big fireproof safes. So to get them down there—and I had them all fitted in, and then we were there for several years and then they wanted to move us to the Garlick Building over here. And so they’d give me a room to put stuff in, and then as we got it over there, the movers got all the cabinets moved in there, and then the powers that be decided, no, we don’t want to file the negatives here. We want to use this room for storing our junk or something. So, that was rather traumatic that day. [LAUGHTER] So I ended up putting my stuff in moving boxes around the hall in various places, and I was still working out of them. What I did when I was unloading the drawers, I color-coded each file cabinet. I had a number for each cabinet, and then a little chip of paper that corresponded to that. And then I would start a drawer one, box one, drawer one, box two, right on down the row. Finally, after a year or two of that, they ended up moving me down to the 712 Building, which is now where they’re building the new—across from the Richland Library where they’re building the new City Hall. That was the original records place, built in ’51 or ’52. It was just a big concrete bunker, basically. [LAUGHER] Which is a really cool place. So I ended up getting moved into there in some space. The print people—the union print shop was still there at the time, so it was me and them. And I loved that place; it was just Hanford from the ‘50s. It hadn’t changed a bit. We stayed in there, and of course that was a very expensive building to maintain because it was all full of asbestos and that kind of stuff. So that’s when we ended up getting moved to 3212 and they were building 3220 to store the collection. So that’s where I got out there with all my stuff again. So I had, like I say, this huge footprint carrying these negatives around. [LAUGHTER] And that was a great place to work for an archivist. It was in the back of the building, back with all the pipes and everything. Nobody bothered you; you were just back there doing your thing. It was great.</p>
<p>Franklin: And so how long did you—you don’t still work out there?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: No, and when did you finally retire?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, they asked me to leave two-and-a-half years ago. One of those. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: One of those early retirement, or kind of--?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, it was like—hi? You’d walk in there, the human resources lady is there. Like, okay, I know what this is. It’s like, okay, don’t blow it. [LAUGHTER] Just make nice. Nothing good will come out of anything other than being nice. So that was two-and-a-half years ago. So what you’re seeing me now doing is volunteer work. I got connected up with Colleen and stuff. And I still thrive on doing this stuff. That’s why I’m doing it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: I love access. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. And so you still have your clearance and everything to get in there?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Nope. Well, see, that’s all B Reactor, see, it’s open to the public.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: I’ll do it again coming up this year. The Russians come over for their reactor inspection tour, PPRA, yearly. That’s a treaty that we signed with them in late ‘90s, I think it was. We inspect each other’s reactors to see what’s happening and make sure that, one, we’re not making plutonium, and two, they are because they’re dual-purpose reactors, what they’re doing with it, apparently. So I was doing that for five or six years before. And I found it quite fascinating. It’s something you have to be respectful and careful. We duplicate the picture we shot the year prior for their report they make. If the building still exists. And now it’s getting down to a little bit of 100-K West and B Reactor. So I’ve really—the PNNL folks like it because I’ve done it enough, they—Battelle knows me; the Russians know me. And everybody likes that uniformity. So that’s a fun thing to do, for me. And that one, again, you get a temporary badge where we’re going. I truck along. And do different pictures real quick for them, and then we have a final banquet where they sign the report and everything. That’s always quite interesting.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, yeah, I bet.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: It’s really cool. They love to toast everything. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes, they do.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: It takes a while.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I’ve been to Eastern Europe. Toasts are a way of life.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, god. So anyway, I’m still doing that and I’m looking forward to doing more of that.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s really great. How did you get involved with BRMA, the B Reactor Museum Association?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, it was kind of after I quit working out there regular. These guys, I was aware of them, you know. And so one of them called me up and said, you know, we’re looking for something. And everybody’s always calling me, looking for something. He said, you know, you ought to join. And I said, well, I probably should just to keep my hand in things. So that’s kind of how I became connected with it. And it’s really neat to sit in a room where there’s twenty guys who really knew their stuff. It’s something else, to have that ability. So I’ve been doing that. And then of course, I hear of things coming down the road and kind of watched the national park thing develop, and getting involved with Colleen. Every once in a while I have to remind her: you got something coming up, do you need pictures? Oh, yeah. [LAUGHTER] But that was the way out there. We always, especially when we were working for Lockheed. Lockheed was working on getting the MSA contract. So they were in the full PR, look how good a company we are, you should have us do the contract thing. So we were doing all kinds of stuff, back, again, ten years ago, things weren’t as tight as they are now. So our display group was actually making all kinds of display stuff for Lockheed Corporate under Linda Goodman. She grew her outfit quite large, but we went along for that ride. So we had people to go just do nothing but do displays and take them out. That was not a Hanford-related thing, but it was—we kind of had the ability to do all kinds of stuff. Which has always be exciting to be involved with something like that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, to make some things from site-specific to like more PR.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And of course everything couldn’t be done fast enough. And you learn there that when they want it, they want it, but they don’t think they want it. So you have to sort of manage your managers in a way. You have to be ready to—well, they haven’t asked yet, but you know they’re going to want. You just learn after you get—</p>
<p>Franklin: How was the transition to digital photography for you as a photographer and someone that works—and an archivist—I’m kind of curious as to how you’ve managed that transition.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, for some reason it was much harder than it should have been to get the digital equipment. Somehow it got involved with the printing people and how much elaborate stuff they go through to buy equipment. And we had people high up go, how in the hell is this taking so long? You just go buy some computers. But it’d somehow gotten into somewhere where you had to write things of why this would be good, and—ugh. It just drug on interminably. So we did—on the computer part, we had—the film scanner was always kind of a difficult thing, because they just weren’t that good at the time. And we’d always kind of prided ourselves in doing good things, exceptional things. Well, that’s when the thing I should mention of the evolution of film sizes. Four-by-five was kind of the standard from the ‘40s. When I came out there, I had to have the fortune, through our little business arrangements at the high school—I was making money, actually—and I needed a camera to shoot. Because they weren’t giving me anything. So I ended up buying a Hasselblad of all things in 1965.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s an expensive—for a high schooler--</p>
<p>Ostergaard: The list price was 600 bucks.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that’s like a car.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And the local photo camera down there, the guy, he knew I was looking for one and I was a regular. He said, well, he said, you know, if you can keep your mouth shut, I’ve had this Hasselblad way too long here in my inventory. He said, it cost me 435 bucks. I’ll sell it to you for my cost to move it. So I got it at a discount. I still have it. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. Well, those are cameras that you—I mean, you pass those down.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, god, yeah. So I’ve still got all the stuff. So I was kind of primed up and then I started working summers out there. And then you see all the real—the stuff you see at magazines here, it is in front of you. So as it evolved, when I went out there, they weren’t shooting Speed Graphics, they were shooting Linhof Technikas. Big, huge, gorgeous cameras. Heavy as—and then there were view cameras, too, because of just the technical stuff that they did. And then it kind of evolved into two-and-a-quarter roll film, which was principally a Hasselblad with a set of lenses. Everybody had one. Everybody pretty much had a Technika setup, they had view cameras, and they had the Hasselblads. And 35 millimeter was considered miniature, and it was only for shooting slides, pretty much. And that kept on, and some of the illustrator types in Battelle wanted to have that editorial look so they would go shoot black-and-white. So they’d get the grain look and all that stuff. But the thing of choice was two-and-a-quarter roll film. And then of course it evolved from black-and-white and then the color started slipping in there. They were shooting some color sheet film, and it seemed like the preferred way at that point was transparencies first. And there are still some of those floating around in the files. And then it would move over into 50/50 black-and-white. Sometimes they’d go out and shoot black-and-white and color at the same assignment if they had the time. Sometimes you were moving around, you couldn’t do that. But they still wanted black-and-white prints versus color, because color was considered premium cost. So to make it look like you were not wasting money, you had it done in black-and-white. I’ve had people tell me that I don’t care what it costs, but I don’t want it to look like I spent any money. [LAUGHTER] You know, you’re out there, you just roll with whatever—and that’s part of the key to my being there so long, was I was quite flexible in going with whatever. You could do—so anyway, it evolved into roll film. And then we finally, on the digital thing, when we finally got this block of equipment, I think they bought two Nikon D1s. Which, probably your cell phone now would—[LAUGHTER] But we had all the Nikon stuff, so it was a natural to go with that, because the lenses still were compatible. And that was the beauty of that. We always were Nikon out there, just because we had massive amounts of lenses and everything.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s why I always buy Canons, because I just inherited Canons.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: That’s what you do. There’s no sense in reinventing the wheel there. So that’s kind of how that evolved. And you can see that. And also you can see the quantities of negatives shot increase with the smaller film. Sheet film, you’re pretty—there’s a lot of work involved loading holders and processing and everything. And then when you get to roll film, well, hell, there’s twelve on a roll. So you shoot them all.</p>
<p>Franklin: And then now in the digital age, you’re just limited by—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: I’ll go out to B Reactor, you figure that’s 300 shots, easy, without even thinking about it. And you give somebody 25.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s a different—which is also I think a challenge for archivists moving forward is—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, I know.</p>
<p>Franklin: The amount of stuff we produce in the digital world is greater.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And how much of that stuff I’ve been giving you—well, I’ll give you the raw and what I gave the customer, but then here’s the other 250 which I can’t bring myself to throw away, unfortunately. [LAUGHTER] You just never know.</p>
<p>Franklin: So, did your parents work for Hanford at all?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Nope! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, so you were the first one.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, what happened—all my uncles and ultimately my dad, they were all in the service in World War II. This is all from Nebraska. They had had a rough time in the Depression. They’d lost the farms. They were traveling around before the war, picking fruit, doing whatever. They’d been out here before the war. My grandma’s sister was out here with—and they had her—the family farm they had was a typical chicken and eggs and fruit and alfalfa—everything, a truck farm. And so after the war, they all decided that it was time to get out of Nebraska. So in all their travels they had decided this was the good spot to go. I was born in ’46—essentially ’47, and I think they came out in ’48 and settled right when the Cold War was starting to ramp up. So there was plenty of employment. The family had always been carpenters and the like, and Dad, he had carpentry experience and working in lumberyards and stuff. It’s kind of my joke out of <em>Caddyshack</em> is he ended up right in the lumberyard. Of all the places you could work in here, he never made an attempt to get on at Hanford. He was working various lumberyards around and wholesale hardware and stuff like that. My other uncle did get involved in it, so. But, yeah, so that’s how it come to be. And Mom, she finally—she was secretary for First Lutheran Church. And again there, you’ve probably picked up, there was—then especially—sort of an animosity against Richland from Pasco and Kennewick.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you talk about that a little bit? Because that’s—I think that’s very interesting.</p>
<p>Ostergaard; Well, you know, the perception was—especially because Richland was a company town at first. They were renting these places, in essence. So GE was the landlord. Everybody worked—Pasco, Kennewick, they were their own. So it’s like, well, they need a lightbulb changed, they just call somebody up and the company come change the lightbulb. Just all that kind of stuff. Locally, I totally, growing up in Kennewick, benefited from Hanford bigtime. Because a lot of Hanford—specially the doctor level and stuff, they didn’t live in Richland. They lived in Kennewick and Pasco, and they wanted their kids as well educated as the kids in Richland. So there the push was, boy, you have good schools in the Tri-Cities. That was just the accepted thing. So a lot of my contemporaries then, their fathers worked out here. So there was just a different set of expectations that went along with all that.</p>
<p>Franklin: So that kind of—the middle-class and upper-middle-class affluence sort of Richland--</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah, it spilled over. Big time. But I benefited totally from that environment and just those expectations: you were going to go to college, you were going to do this, you were going to— [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: But so you’re saying there was maybe some resentment that GE and the government took care of people in Richland—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah way past—</p>
<p>Franklin: And there was this idea that they were freeloading or something—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, and that was just probably a jealousy or something. Dad, he worked in the lumberyard in Pasco. And in summer, he’d have to come up and help fill-in—there was a lumberyard up here on Van Giesen. Where Boehm’s Chocolate is—or was. There was a lumberyard in there at one point. So he hated to come up here. He said, they expect so damn much and they don’t want to pay for anything. He called them smashers—for atom smashers.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Damn smashers! God, I hate them! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s really—I’ve not heard that before.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, that was his term.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, I like that.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And of course at that time, Richland had a really, really good basketball team. Art Dawald was the coach in that era. So there was a—boy, that was kind of the high school sports thing. And then Pasco and Kennewick had a giant rivalry in football. And that game was the only day game they played, and that was always on Veteran’s Day. That was a big deal, big time.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you describe growing up in the Tri-Cities in the Cold War and how—being so close to Hanford, but living in Kennewick or Pasco, was there any kind of fear that Hanford would have been a prime target if the war were ever fought?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah, we were totally afraid of the Russians. [LAUGHTER] There was not necessarily anything nasty out there, it was more the Russians. We had, probably not as intense as Richland with the duck-and-cover stuff. I don’t think we were ever scrambling under desks or anything. We didn’t have any air raid sirens; I know Richland did. They brought those things in from World War II and set them up around town here. So we had our instructions. And I know one time—I wish I had one of these things. They were flying around in airplanes one time throwing out little pamphlets to—What Should You Do—</p>
<p>Franklin: Like civil defense pamphlets?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, right, yeah! It was just—</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s an odd way to distribute that.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: God, I know it. But I wish to hell I had one! Because I found one stuck in a tree. But, no, and unfortunately, it was hyped up enough at home—lived in a wood frame house. And in the night the wind would get to blowing and banging against the house and stuff. And there were several times I convinced myself that it was a bomb going off. It was serious stuff. You were totally into it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was there ever any worry that you knew in the communities—Kennewick, Pasco—of the environmental aspect of Hanford—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: Or any kind of—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: No. That just wasn’t happening yet.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Even though—I mean, because the Green Run was in 1940—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: I mean, nobody knew of that until—not even heard of it until probably 20 years after it happened when the Down Winders got going. Yeah, I’ve sat there thinking about 1954, November. Where the hell was I that day? The wind was coming out of—so you start thinking about it then. But, yeah, like I say, for me, I was kind of proud of the place. I still am. Of what had happened and everything. So I’ve benefitted—[inaudible] but have benefitted greatly from the whole business. We had one couple of Christmases ago, the family got together. And my brother, he’s working sheet metal contract out there—foreman for that. And his two sons, they were working down at Hermiston in getting rid of the mustard nerve gas and stuff.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, right.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And I going, damn, World War II’s still been good to this family. We’re still working because of it. [LAUGHTER] Which is, you know, true!</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, yeah, there’s legacy aspects of weapons production.</p>
<p>Ostergaard; Totally. And of course back then the science thing was big. I remember in 1957, the International Geophysical Year and all this stuff we got handed at school. It was something to be—technology was just to be treasured. In this environment especially.</p>
<p>Franklin: What are some of your memories of any—some of the major events in the Tri-Cities? Like did you go to any Atomic Frontier Days parades? Or did you—what about Kennedy’s visit or Nixon’s visit?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay, well, let’s see, Atomic Frontier Days—that was still when Richland was—we didn’t go to Richland. That was, no, we don’t go to Richland. [LAUGHTER] We were much more Kennewick and Pasco oriented on that. I missed the Nixon visit because I was in the service. And the Kennedy visit was ’62, ’63?</p>
<p>Franklin: ’63.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: That one, Jesus. I was probably—well, I was 16. I just wasn’t conscious of it at that point. It just wasn’t something you did. I do remember they had Eisenhower come out in ’54 to dedicate McNary Dam. And they ran school buses—loads of kids—down to see it. My folks wouldn’t let me go because they didn’t like him. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Were your folks Democrats?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: [LAUGHTER] Oh, hardcore. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: But like FDR era, Progressive New Deal-era Democrats or--?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, kind of. They were just like—[HISS] Republican. So there was that type of thing going on. I became aware of—fortunately, in high school, I had some very good instructors who made us politically aware. And so I knew all about Magnusson and Jackson and how all that works. The more I find out, the more interesting that gets. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. Could you describe the ways in which security or secrecy at Hanford has impacted your work?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah. Well, that’s just what you did. It was just an expectation. You go out there and here’s all these guards and all this stuff. You just played the game. I’d never considered it, necessarily, a burden. It was tedious and ponderous at times, but you just—you do what they say. They make the rules, they can change the rules, they can enforce the rules or not enforce the rules. You’re powerless, so you just go along. It’s real simple. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War and then afterward? Or just your kind of experience at Hanford?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Well, first thing I’ve kind of learned is you can’t judge anything from the past in light of how you judge things today. That is the most—people kind of, especially Pearl Harbor and the activities around then—we were sort of caught flatfooted. And then some of the things that went on—internment camps and things like that. It’s just like, you got to go—okay, we didn’t know what the heck was going on. We didn’t know if they were going to land in Portland the next day or something. And so you react. And some of those reactions weren’t the best in the world. But you can’t end up—of that. And then the same thing with the environmental stuff out there. You can’t call any of those folks dumb or not caring, because all the stuff I’ve seen and all the images and stuff, everybody was doing the best of their ability with what they had. And so there wasn’t any just slipshod, they-don’t-care—except maybe the Green Run or something, but—[LAUGHTER] But you kind of look at some of that as an overzealous—because, again, it’s all driven by fear, or unknowns. Just for that not to be forgotten. And also that those people were as smart or probably smarter than we are, I think, as far as thinking things through and making do. Because that’s always been my contention with the construction camp and everything. You have those ’43, ‘44, ’45—they didn’t—if you were draft age, you weren’t there unless you had some real specialty. They recruited out of the southeast. And they didn’t want to recruit workers from the industrial—shipbuilding and all that, take those away. So they were down in the south where there was workers available. And all these people had just survived the Depression. And they knew how to make do. And they came up here and continued to make do. So that’s kind of my thing, is just that whole—and it’s unfortunate that such a great amount of energy and everything was expended on something that had such a nasty result. But—[LAUGHTER]—it’s just—</p>
<p>Franklin: What about later in the Cold War though? The ‘50s through the late ‘80s, and kind of that mass of—because a lot of conversations about Hanford, there’s the World War II Hanford, but then there’s the larger, much larger mission but with not such a dramatic conclusion to it, right? The Cold War kind of made 20,000 nuclear weapons around and then just kind of fizzled out.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, the Cold War ramp-up thing was like—I just caught probably the tail end of that. But kind of—I got wandering here a little bit—but I always think it’s just so cool to be part of this process where all these things were happening. And being somewhat of an insider of it, I have a whole different perspective of things. If you say radiation, I go, well, okay, what kind and how much. Not, radiation?! Now, I’d be that way with nerve gas from Umatilla—which way do I run? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Nerve gas is nerve gas no matter which way you look at it.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: That’s right! So I have just always been kind of a—had a little better understanding of what was going on and realized there are phenomenal risks still out there. And when you’re working with guys who, in the day we were doing in-tank waste tank inspections by putting a Hasselblad on a rig, shooting argon on the lens to keep it clean, button this thing up in plastic, and dropping it down a riser and rotating the camera, shooting pictures with a strobe inside to see the tank walls.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Now they do it digital.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: So that was some of our specialists who just—that’s what they did. And I got involved in—always in the after thing of all that stuff. I would be handling the film and processing things.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that done for all of the tanks?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, god, yeah. I did--</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s such a laborious—</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, totally.</p>
<p>Franklin: I mean, that’s necessary work, but that’s such a laborious technical process to go through that.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, yeah. I went through—for an outside contractor, went through and basically did all the single shell tanks that we could find. Everything I could find on each one of them. Of course that stuff was in essence obsolete now because of age and whatever. Yeah, it was fascinating stuff because it was just so scary—or so potentially bad. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. Yeah.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, that was just a really—just in technical—I want to throw in a little pitch. The environmental stuff for the photo lab, we—back when I first came there, pretty much everything went down the drain. And again, it’s photo chemicals. And then in—when was it? When the Hunt Brothers kind of tried to corner the silver market there for a while, our boss, Les Michael—we had massive amounts of fixer we were generating. So he, on his own initiative, started reclaiming silver. We had a whole setup out there. We used an electrolytic process. So we were kind of ahead of that curve by our own doing. We were actually scraping—you know, we were doing the whole thing. And then as it got tighter and tighter, we started doing whatever is deemed proper at the time. So we had that running pretty tight. There was one time we—the state—we were actually functioning like a photo lab like you’d see in Seattle or Portland or anywhere else. Pretty much doing the same rules, because it’s just all the same stuff. They had some state inspector come in, and they were—since we were Hanford, we were kind of targeted, I think. We ultimately, one time, ran parallel processes on all the waste streams coming out of our processes, running typical batches of film. The state people brought in their sets of jugs and stuff to collect. And since the Hanford people didn’t quite trust and vice versa, they were doing a double set. And then they sent this stuff off, spent horrific amounts of money that proved we were doing everything right. [LAUGHTER] We weren’t really getting pats on the head. Everybody was just glad it was over. Whoops. So, we were doing a good job.</p>
<p>Franklin: Cool.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And the cool thing about that, too, is our negatives are still hanging in there really well as far as process. I’ve had that question before: well, aren’t your negatives getting old? And blah, blah, blah, blah. Some lady from somewhere back east, one time, and I was very nice about it. But I said, well, no, our negatives are wonderful. They’re not fading. They’re not, because one, we had the budget and everything to do everything correctly. So everything was thoroughly washed, thoroughly fixed, everything. And also they’ve all been stored in human conditions. They haven’t been in a CONEX box or anything. They’re out where people are. And we’re in a desert; there’s no humidity. Everything--</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that’s really good for long-term.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, so everything’s fine. We do have—I think they got them out now—I went through and did a study on nitrate-based negatives. And I found you do all your work and mostly early ‘50s and mostly it was Ansco and it may be a few DuPonts and stuff. I found about 1,100. And you could just—in a storage box—you could just open the box up and sniff and tell. Oh, there’s something in here. So I went ahead and kind of made the guys—I think they pulled them out eventually. But that nitrate thing, especially at the Hanford environment, what do you do with them? Fortunately they’re scattered all over the place so there’s not a critical mass of them. And what the archive folks were doing with them is they were pulling them out and freezing them. But here, if you have a whole freezer full of nitrate negatives, you’ve created a waste. So it’s a double-edged sword. [LAUGHTER] But we had our share of 90-day storage pads and saving film to recycle and the yearly contract and we had our ion exchange column. We were doing everything. It was good.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s good. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you about that you’d like to talk about or mention?</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Oh, I’m sure there will be 20 things the minute I walk out the door.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, thank you so much, Dan, I really appreciate it. It’s really illuminating to hear you—to get some of that information on the photos and your perspective on Hanford, having not only worked there but also having seen so much of the history from the photo side.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Yeah, great. Well, like I say, I didn’t want it to end. I was just having way too much fun.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I bet.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: And it was, the more—like you—the more time you invest and the more time goes on, the more you start to make connections of things. It’s just like, wow, this is just—I’m just getting good! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. Well, thank you so much.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Okay, all righty.</p>
<p>Franklin: All right.</p>
<p>Ostergaard: Great.<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/fTjZHnejr9Q">View interview on Youtube.</a></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:13:04
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
327 Building
700 Area
B Reactor
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1946-today
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
~1970-2014
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Mr. Shields
Lance Michael
Bud Mace
Don Brauer’s
Bonnie Campo
Groves
Matthias
Colleen
Linda Goodman
Art Dawald
Kennedy
Nixon
Eisenhower
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 Dan Ostergaard
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Dan Ostergaard 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
12-7-2016
Rights
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2018-26-2: 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.
1954
300 Area
327 building
700 Area
B Reactor
B Reactor Museum Association
Battelle
Boeing
BRMA
Cold War
Dam
Department of Energy
DuPont
Energy Northwest
Hanford
Kennedy
Kennewick
Organization
School
War
Westinghouse
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F2cc5a9df175464365af258afc976817e.jpg
19a8294780b3335126190a2f93e00cdd
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
George and Marjorie Kraemer
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Victor Vargas: Okay.</p>
<p>Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with George and Marjorie Kraemer on December 9<sup>th</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with George and Marjorie about their experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full names for us, starting with George?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: George R. Kraemer and Kraemer’s K-R-A-E-M-E-R.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Marjorie Kraemer, K-R-A-E-M-E-R.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And George is G-E-O-R-G-E?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: And Marjorie?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: M-A-R-J-O-R-I-E.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Thank you. So tell me how and why you—did you both come to the Hanford Site together?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Mm-hm.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, so tell me how and why you both came to the Hanford Site.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I was at the University of Wisconsin--</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: --in 1955. And I had a friend that was out here. And he told me about all of the deer hunting and the fishing, and all the good things. And he enticed me to come out.</p>
<p>Franklin: There wasn’t much of that in Wisconsin?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, yeah. But going out West—</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, right, okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: --that was new. And so I drove out in April of 1955. I already had a job out here.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And I stayed at the dorms—M-5, as I remember.</p>
<p>Franklin: And what was your job?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I was a lab assistant first.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: From April of ’55 to May of ’56. And then I transferred to drafting department.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: This was at General Electric. And I was in there for—oh, from ’56 to December of ’65.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And then I was asked to take another position. With—it was actually with Isochem. And it was—oh, engineering analyst, shop engineer, I went through all of those where I worked in a shop where they built vessels for Hanford—for PUREX, for REDOX, B Plant, T Plant—must be one more in there. And I did inspection of them. Fantastic job. Did that for—oh, quite a few years. Then in April of ’75, for another two years, I was a shop planner. I planned the activities of the shop—fabrication shop. And then in July of 1977, I was asked to be manager of this facility—of the shops. They had six separate shops, you know, like machine, tool and die, boilermaker, sheet metal, rotating equipment, welding lab, and all that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: A fun job, too.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I kind of liked that; that was down my alley. Then in April of ’81, I was asked to manage activities of the design drafting group in 200 Areas. And I had—supervising the unit managers, engineering designers, drafters and engineers. Then in April of ’84, I was manager of specialty fabrication design and fabrication engineering support group. Again, this had drafting, designers, checkers, a few engineers. Then Westinghouse came. And I was asked to be the manager of design services which had all the drafting for Westinghouse.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Did that for a number of years. And then--[LAUGHTER]—then my manager was a director, and I told him one day, you need an assistant. I said, I’m going to retire in due time, and I said, you need an assistant. And he looked at me kind of odd. But anyway, six months later he called me up, and he says, would you be my assistant? Had a good job. Nobody reporting to me. I did engineering quality counsel, the PRICE program, and Great Ideas, employee concerns, Native American outreach, the Signature Awards for Westinghouse. I wrote a few speeches, some for the president of Westinghouse.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It was kind of a good job! Then I wrote a little note here, I retired after 36 years on July 31<sup>st</sup>, 1991. 36 years, 3 months and 19 days, or nearly 9,500 work days, over 106,000 hours at 8 hours a day and over 6 million minutes at Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, you really broke that down to the very last second.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But what I’m most proud about, except for that first transfer, all of my jobs, I was asked to take.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I thought that was—said something for me, anyway.</p>
<p>Franklin: And Marjorie, how did you come to Hanford?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, he came out, so—[LAUGHTER] And so we were engaged, and I came out in May. And we got married out here.</p>
<p>Franklin: May of—would that be—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: 1955.</p>
<p>Franklin: ’55, okay. And you guys were married here in Richland, or--?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, in Coeur d’Alene.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Coeur d’Alene, beautiful up there.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I didn’t work that first summer. I came in May. And then I got a job at General Electric in September, in the finance department.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And I worked in the 700 Area downtown. And then they reorganized—or disorganized, I used to call it—[LAUGHTER]—and split up. And then I had to go out to the 200 Areas for a few years. And then I quit at the end of 1958 and had our children.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: After they—our son was in kindergarten, I went to work for a doctor in town, a pathologist, for ten years. And then I went to work for Exxon Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Fuels. Which was eventually bought out by Siemens, whom I retired with in 1991 also.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow. And when did you start with Exxon Nuclear?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: 1975.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay, so you spent a significant amount of time—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: And did you also do finance and accounting there?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yes, yes, in the accounting department.</p>
<p>Franklin: How—did you face any particular issues as being a woman in the workplace from the ‘50s—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, let’s see.</p>
<p>Franklin: Especially in that early era, you know, where women were first kind of—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: You couldn’t work overtime.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I remember when I worked out in the areas, in the 200 Areas, women couldn’t work overtime. For some reason. I don’t know if it was a union thing or a company policy or the federal government.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: You couldn’t work alone, anyway.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right. You couldn’t work overtime. They didn’t want you to work out there then.</p>
<p>Franklin: And you couldn’t work alone, either?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, in overtime, I remember when I was manager over there, if some of the ladies had to work, we had to have somebody around.</p>
<p>Franklin: Like a male supervisor or just a supervisor?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, somebody. Another worker even.</p>
<p>Franklin: All right. Interesting.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And it was different, living in Richland, because it was a government town.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And you had to—you probably interviewed people where you get on a housing list to get a house. And your name comes up, you go down and you look in this little glass deal where they had the list—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: They posted of the new—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Posted them, and when you--</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, really? I hadn’t heard that. Could you describe it in a little more detail?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, we put in for housing as soon as we got here. That was, well, in May. They had a posted board. Every week, they’d put a posting out there on the board and say who was eligible for a house. Finally, being the lowest peons out there, [LAUGHTER] we were eligible for a two-bedroom prefab.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. I live in one of those now.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] Do you? Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: So we got to look at two or three of them. Had to do it real promptly. And we choose one. 706 Abbott.</p>
<p>Franklin: 706 Abbott, okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: In Richland.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: We lived there in town, yeah. It was different, because, well, the house came with appliances. Refrigerator, stove and—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: What was it, $26?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: $27 a month or something.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: $27 a month or something for rent.</p>
<p>Franklin: And how was that comparative to—like, is that a pretty average rent, or was that a pretty good deal?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was cheaper because it was government.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It was cheap. Of course, I didn’t make too much money back then, either. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Of course if something went wrong, you just called up housing and they came and fixed it. Or they gave you a new one. [LAUGHTER] You know, a new stove or whatever.</p>
<p>Franklin: Were they pretty prompt?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Like, was the service—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, they were.</p>
<p>Franklin: --pretty good?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: They had a special group, that’s all they did was maintain the homes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And describe that atmosphere of living in a company town where everyone worked at the same place and, you know, it was landlords of the government. I wonder if you could kind of talk about that atmosphere.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, every Friday afternoon, <em>The GE News</em> would come out. You’ve probably heard of the GE News.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, we have copies of <em>The GE News</em> in our collection.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It was the local one, and that was reading, and they had the want ads in there, which you always went because people were buying and selling a lot of things in that era. The—like she said, I remember the water. The water was—we had both irrigation water and house water. Two separate spigots there. And that was kind of interesting. That all come with our $26 or $27.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: After about, oh, I don’t know how many years it was, we got a—no, we bought that house. That’s right.</p>
<p>Franklin: In ’58, when they—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, ’58.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, we bought that house. I think we paid $2,200 for it, as I remember.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: They were appraised maybe $3,000 and then they gave you a discount.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And not too long after that, we moved into a two-bedroom—three-bedroom—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Three-bedroom, precut.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Three-bedroom precut.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That we bought on our own through the realtor.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that one of the newer constructions?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was better construction.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: It was better construction?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: The prefabs are made out of two-by-twos instead of two-by-fours for structure.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And plywood—quarter-inch plywood on the inside and outside, and some—insulation wasn’t too good in it, but it had a little bit.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, the insulation leaves a little bit to be desired.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It’s some sort of paper product, two inches thick.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. Well, yeah, because those were made, originally, for the Tennessee Valley Authority.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And they were supposed to not last very long.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Short-term thing.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, yeah. And they’re still—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And they’re still in use, yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Still around, yeah. Yeah, mine has been pretty extensively remodeled, but it’s still—still standing.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I do remember when we first came here that Richland had the highest birthrate and the lowest death rate of anyone in the nation.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: We were part of that.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: And it was likely due to the medical care, right?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: The medical care, a lot of young people—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And everybody worked at Hanford and so they—you know, they were younger. There wasn’t any grandma and grandpas around. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, other people I’ve interviewed have mentioned that, that when they—especially—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: There wasn’t older people, you didn’t see them in Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, there was no one who was retired or—</p>
<p>Marjorie: Right, right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No! You’re right on.</p>
<p>Franklin: So it was mostly probably people your age.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Franklin: And then children of varying ages.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: You talk about the other things went on. We had limited places where we could go out and eat.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Like we had the Mart building. That was a popular place.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, they had a grease—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It had a drug store.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: It had a little diner in it or whatever.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: A little dining area, things like that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Little greasy spoon type of thing?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: And where was that?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was on the corner of where the post office used to be, on that corner there, across the street. And of course it was kind of like a Quonset hut.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, it was like a big Quonset thing.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And of course it’s been torn down.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Remodeled, anyway.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, yeah. Quonset huts haven’t lasted somehow.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: When I lived in the dorms, M-5, for a month? Two months? Before we got married. And I was out here with a friend and she wasn’t out here yet. And then trying to get our food every night, we had to go eat in restaurants every night. It was kind of interesting. Very limited.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Compared to what you have nowadays.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, or even perhaps where you had come from in—was that University of Wisconsin, is that Madison?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. I imagine a college town would have probably had a little bit more to—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: --for, you know. And so what about the night life? Did you ever partake in night life in Richland, or was there much of night life?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No. We just—we played, you know, cards and things with friends.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, a lot of cards. We had a couple friends out here already. And then we made new friends pretty rapidly. As I said, we had a lot of cards.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Played cards.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Camping. Did a lot of camping. I had a ’49 Ford—</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: --at that instance and timeframe. And the first summer we were here we were about camping every weekend.</p>
<p>Franklin: And where would you go, often?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, the Blue Mountains, north above Spokane—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Mount Rainier.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Mount Rainier, a lot. That’s one of my favorite places.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: White Pass.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, it’s really pretty up there.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: So that took a lot of our time in the summer.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Winter times were—well, we didn’t go camping. But, again, that’s mostly—we had a lot of cards and games that we played with our young friends.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And you hunted a lot.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, I did a lot of deer hunting and a lot of fishing.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, yeah. Well, you said that’s what brought you out here.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: I’m wondering if each of you, starting with Marjorie first this time, could describe a typical work day when you worked out on Site.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Oh. Well, let’s see. When I worked out in the Area it was a little different than in town, because I had to ride the bus. And of course, I think I got off about 6:00, and of course it was dark. And walked a couple blocks to the bus, and you paid a nickel for each way to go out to the Area, which was about 27 miles. And when you got there in the wintertime, it was dark. And you went in, and I worked in the B Plant, it was. And it was all cement, no windows. So you went in and it was dark. When you came out to go home, it was dark. So you never saw the sunshine until the weekend.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] In the summer, it was awful because not all the buses were air conditioned.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: None of them were. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Oh. Well, we had a few, I think, that were.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Not then.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, gosh. You were just soaked, you know, because it was so hot. 100 degrees, riding in this bus.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And they allowed smoking on the buses. That was not good for us that didn’t smoke.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh you guys—both of you didn’t smoke?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, no.</p>
<p>Franklin: Seems to, probably in the ‘50s, have been more of a rarity than a—or at least, seems like a lot more people smoked then.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: True.</p>
<p>Franklin: Especially, I can imagine, in the wintertime with closed windows, that would be pretty oppressive. So George, what about you? Describe a typical—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, I worked at 2-East for the first nine months or so. And that was like her. Our 222-S lab, no windows in there. Get up early, ride the bus, go to the—where Stores is now, at the big bus lot there. So all of the buses would go into there, and you would get off your bus and take the appropriate 200 Area bus or whatever, 100 Area bus. And likewise, when you came home, you’d come back to that bus lot, get off the buses, and get to your route.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that time on the bus included in your work day?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That was my time.</p>
<p>Franklin: It was included in your time. It was not included in your time?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No, it was not included in--</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, it was not included.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No, no.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: So that was just considered part of—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that a pretty fast transition though, from catching the bus by your home to go to the lot to then get on the other bus—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It was fast.</p>
<p>Franklin: It was pretty efficient?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And the buses were pretty much on time.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: For some reason, I mostly had express buses where we didn’t stop at the bus lot.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, later on, yes.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. Interesting. And so then you said you’d get on the appropriate bus to the Area, and then—take me forward from there.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Okay. We get on the bus there and I went into the lab, and that was an all-enclosed building again, no windows. And I did, oh, nuclear—not nuclear but radioactive waste disposal and things like that. We’d get a bus from 300 Area about once a week or twice a week and they would—not a bus, a tanker truck. Sorry about that. A tanker truck would come in and I unloaded that into some of our special waste tanks out there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Were these the tanks in the Tank Farms, or are these different tanks?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No, that wasn’t the Tank Farm; that was the special area just for the 300 Area waste.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And what would you do with the waste?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, the tanker truck would back up to a big nozzle, and I’d hook up the nozzles and drain the tanks. Let it drain for an hour or whatever it was, and then go back out and unhook the thing and wave the driver on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And what would be done with the waste at that facility?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: It was just stored.</p>
<p>Franklin: Just stored. Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes. I don’t think we—outside of doing some sampling, which I didn’t do, that was it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Would that eventually go into the ground then?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And that’s when it would eventually go into the single-shell or double-shell tanks.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Sooner or later.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sooner or later, find its way there. Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah. And then I transferred into drafting and that was downtown in the 760 Building.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Of course that way I could ride to work or walk to work.</p>
<p>Franklin: And that’s like pen-and-table drafting, right? Like on a drafting board.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Drafting board, yes. That was kind of nice, because I could ride bicycle, walk or take the car, whatever. And I’d get home at least when it was daylight.</p>
<p>Franklin: That seems like kind of an interesting job shift from handling waste to more of a technical thing like drafting.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, yeah, well, what started that, my boss wanted some sketches of flow diagrams and stuff like that. I said, I can do them. I did them, and he was impressed with them, and he says, you ought to be in drafting. And he led the way for me.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, interesting. What did you go to school for?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Engineering.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay, just engineering in general?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Mm-hm.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, and Marjorie, did you attend college?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, no.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. How did you gain the training for accounting and bookkeeping? Was it just all on the job?</p>
<p>Marjorie: Yeah, on-the-job training. And you could advance back then. Nowadays if you didn’t have a college degree, well, I don’t think you would go as far.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure, yeah. Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Another thing—I also took a lot of classes. GE at this time, they had engineering folks which would give us classes in various subjects.</p>
<p>Franklin: Is that over here in the East Building? Or was it different?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I can’t remember exactly where it was. Sometimes—I think it was the Federal Building, I think it was.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Just various things that would help me in my work and help me in my promotions, too.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Interesting. That’s kind of a—seems like so much was provided to workers in terms of training and housing, and I think it seems foreign to a lot of workers today to think of a company being that kind of paternal—caring, paternalistic almost. It’s kind of the vibe I get off that era of Hanford’s history.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah. While I was downtown in drafting there, we worked on—I was in the piping squad. We worked on facilities in the 100 Areas, 200 Areas, not 300 Areas then. So I got to know pretty much all the areas. And I went out to visit them on lots of times where you have to go out and see what is really there. You go look at old drawings and it may not be the same.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. Because you’re not looking at the as-builts.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: You’re looking at the older—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Right, and so consequently, we made a fair number of trips out to the various sites regardless of where they were.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, so you got, then, to see the whole site pretty well.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I think I did, yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Marjorie, what was—well I’m going to ask this question of both of you, but we’ll start with Marjorie. What was the most challenging and/or rewarding aspects of your work at Hanford?</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, [LAUGHTER] I’m not sure how to answer that. It was a good place to work. And it, you know, paid well. And I guess that’s, you know, the main thing. I wasn’t out for some big career or anything like that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure. And, George, what about you? What were some of the more challenging or rewarding aspects of—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, you know, we went through a lot of companies: GE, Westinghouse, Atlantic Richfield, Isochem—maybe another one in there. But the fact is, I never lost a day of work throughout 36, almost 37 years. I was never laid off. But I think the most rewarding was being recognized for my work. Being asked to take all these promotions. I think that was rewarding, to me. Must be doing something right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, yeah. Great. Did the nature of the work at Hanford ever unsettle either of you? The, you know, just the--</p>
<p>Marjorie Kramer: Oh, you mean—</p>
<p>Franklin: The amount of chemical or nuclear waste or the possibility of—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Radiation.</p>
<p>Franklin: --Soviet attack or anything like that. Did that ever—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, you know, when we first moved here, the Army was still here.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Camp Hanford.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: At Camp Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And they had Nike missile sites up on—not Badger, but—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: White Bluffs, out that way, didn’t they, across the river?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, White Bluffs, and—</p>
<p>Franklin: Rattlesnake?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, Rattlesnake! And you wondered about that. Planes would fly over every now and then. But other than that, as far as being attacked, no. And radiation-wise, I’ve learned to respect it.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I never got involved in any serious things even though I went into some bad places, probably. But I never had—in the various canyons and stuff of the buildings. But never had any problems.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And same for you, Marjorie?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, and of course I wasn’t out there all that long. But I remember when we used to travel quite a bit. When we would travel and people would, oh, where do you work? And I would never say Exxon Nuclear; I would say Exxon. [LAUGHTER] Because they thought we glow in the dark, probably. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, that seems to be—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That was very common, regardless of where you went. Like, say, we travel a lot and you stand up and introduce yourself. You didn’t want to say a great deal, because they figured you—they didn’t want to be around you. You glow.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] Some people.</p>
<p>Franklin: Why do you think that endures? Because today, even today, that’s—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Ignorance. Ignorance of radiation, like in the paper here and now, they said, we’re the other Chernobyl. No! There’s not that possibility.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. Because our problem is mostly chemical.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s not so much nuclear. I mean, there’s radioactivity—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, there’s a lot of radioactivity; there’s no question.</p>
<p>Franklin: --but it’s—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But it’s not going to explode. It’s not that type.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, we won’t have a meltdown. At least we can say that much.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: What are some of your memories of any major events in Tri-Cities history? I’m thinking of like plants shutting down or starting up—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: President Kennedy—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: --came out here. I can’t remember the year now.</p>
<p>Franklin: September 14<sup>th</sup>, 1963.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: 1963, yeah, ’63.</p>
<p>Franklin: Or 17<sup>th</sup>.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Anyway, I was there. We all bussed out to—was that 100-N?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: He was out in 100-N, wasn’t he?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: 100-N, or--?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Wasn’t it?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: 100-N, I think, wasn’t it?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, I think so.</p>
<p>Franklin: He came to dedicate part of the steam generating—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: You know, incidentally, I did the first working drawings, the scope drawings, of the piping of the major process piping of 100-N.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That was a fantastic job. I know one time I did my drawings, got them and they decided, hey, that’s classified, after the fact. I had to go through, collect all of my drawings and everything and then I had to secure my drafting boards and stuff like that.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But we did it.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And I can remember in the 703 Building when I worked downtown in 19—I think it was ‘55 or ’56—Ronald Reagan came. Because we had the General Electric Theater.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s right!</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And he came through our building and was talking to everybody.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you get to meet him?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yes, uh-huh.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And did you also? Did he go to the Site?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I don’t—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I think you were out in the Area.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I was out in the Area then. I don’t think I—I knew he was here, obviously. He was on—he toured some buildings, but I didn’t get to see him.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s pretty—that’s interesting. I’d heard he’d come, but I hadn’t met anybody who actually really—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, he came through our 703 Building—</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. So I imagine that was—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Where finance was.</p>
<p>Franklin: --quite an interesting thing to have a Hollywood celebrity coming to Hanford. And so did you both go to see President Kennedy when he came to dedicate the N Reactor?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I didn’t get to. Did you?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: You were not working at Hanford then, I don’t think.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right, no.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But anyway, the whole company [LAUGHTER] all the people were there that could be excused. They just bussed everybody out there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. And were you one of those people?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes, I was one of them people.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you kind of describe that scene?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, he was on the podium which was quite a ways away from me there. And he gave quite a talk, you know. Of course the excitement of hearing your President—or seeing your President was kind of interesting. And I really don’t know what he said anymore.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But I thought that was a major highlight. Another one, probably, is when General Electric decided they were going to leave.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. And that was in mid-‘60s, right?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: ’65, probably.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that sounds right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: ’66, maybe.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, I think so.</p>
<p>Franklin: So describe that. How was the mood around Hanford and around Richland? Because General Electric had been so prominent.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it affected George quite a bit.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, it affected my pension.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Quite a bit. You know, I worked for over 36 years, and for those ten years that I worked under GE, that’s not included in my final pay—pension.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: So I get—I don’t know. Very little a month for those ten years. It’s in a separate pension fund.</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah. Why is that? That seems a little—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Because you were under—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: The government works in strange and mysterious ways. And there were lawsuits and stuff like that, trying to get them to include our years in the master plan.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: It was—one of the main reasons was you weren’t 35 yet.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That’s another thing, yeah, I wasn’t 35 yet. That was a condition to get vested.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: That was the cutoff to get that--</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: --included in your seniority.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you could start to invest, right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right, vested. Anyway.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And of course the big thing when Westinghouse came over to retake all of the—together—you know, GE split up and then we had various split-up companies, and then all of the sudden we’re back together again.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, it seems like—one other person I interviewed a little bit ago remarked at how the contracting agency, the government doesn’t always seem to know—like, it tries one big contractor, and then it tries to split it up a bunch, and then they go back to one big contractor, and then they want to split it up a bunch. So I’m wondering if you—either you or both of you—can talk about that shifting of contractors and how that impacted your work and your life.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, in my case, same job. [LAUGHTER] Same boss, same everything. There wasn’t much new. Different name on the paycheck, obviously.</p>
<p>Franklin: But your unit stayed pretty intact throughout the change?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes. There were no major reorganizations at first because of the takeovers of the different companies.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And, Marjorie, what about you—so you worked initially those first few years, and then later on you worked for Exxon Nuclear, which—was Exxon Nuclear, were they a contractor or a subcontractor, or were they just aligned with—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: They were a private company.</p>
<p>Franklin: A private company, okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, they just made nuclear pellets.</p>
<p>Franklin: So they were like a service company for Hanford?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, no, they made nuclear fuels for reactors all over the world.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. So they weren’t a Hanford company.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, they were private.</p>
<p>Franklin: So they were just in the same industry—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: But—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, and so—and it was Exxon.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: It was Jersey—called Jersey Nuclear when I first started out.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And then it was Exxon. And then they changed to Advanced Nuclear Fuels under Exxon.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And then Siemens bought them in 1989, I believe.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And I worked for them for a couple years. Nothing really changed. And then I retired with Siemens Corporation.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, interesting.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Which was a really pretty good deal, because they have really good benefits. German companies do.</p>
<p>Franklin: They are very well-known for that, yeah.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that sounds like a pretty decent deal.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I think they worked half-time, because when we wanted to call them up in Germany and talk to them about something, it seems like they were either on vacation or they had a holiday. [LAUGHTER] They were never there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Any memories of the, like, social scene or local politics, or just any—you know, either before the great selling, you know, the privatization or afterwards in Tri-Cities? Or actually, let me be more specific. I’m wondering if either of you can tell me about some of the protest activity that took place, or if you remember that, in the beginning in the late ‘60s and end of the ‘70s. Both kind of the protests that were pro-Hanford and anti-Hanford.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, we never did get involved in any of them. I didn’t.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I didn’t, either. There were no major protests that I really remember. I know one time, there was a few of them along the road when we went out before you get to 300 Area. They couldn’t get out very far then.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But I didn’t really take too much interest in them. I figured they weren’t hurting anything.</p>
<p>Franklin: So the Tri-Cities up until the late ‘60s was pretty segregated in terms of where African Americans could live. Even though they could work at Hanford, they couldn’t always live in Richland for a while. And I’m wondering if you guys could—did you observe that kind of—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: --that Civil Rights action and kind of some of that segregation before the Civil Rights?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, I remember that there were a few blacks—I don’t know what you—blacks going to the high school and stuff when my daughter was going. Well, the Mitchells were here, you know.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, CJ Mitchell.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: CJ Mitchell.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And Cameron Mitchell was in my daughter’s—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Daughter went to school with him.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And she was good friends with him, you know.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, and he was one of the first—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, right, and—</p>
<p>Franklin: --people to get someone to sell him a house in Richland. He had a lot of struggle getting that.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And I don’t know what they did with the housing—government housing—if they gave it to—I guess maybe they didn’t give it to black people.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: They had no choice then.</p>
<p>Franklin: I believe they had to live in east Pasco until the ‘60s.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yes. I don’t think they could live in Kennewick, either.</p>
<p>Franklin: No, Kennewick--</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Kennewick was very bad.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, they had the sundown. The sundown laws.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yes, right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes. When we first moved here, I’d become good friends with an African. And we used to play cards with him, and go places with him. I thought we were well-accepted.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: But he lived in Pasco, didn’t he?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes. He did not live in Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But—I said it was very plain to us, that—I say, Kennewick was very bad. And they didn’t even want to go to Kennewick, the colored folks.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And they were supposed to get out of town before, like you say, sundown.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Which is not very nice.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But, you know, it’s not nice to say, but they knew their place.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, well, yeah, they knew where they could go and couldn’t—where they were welcome and where they were not. Yeah, that squares pretty well with the historical record. Thank you for that.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: When our daughter—after she graduated from high school, she went to WSU. And then she graduated from there. She got a nursing degree, and she went to Seattle and worked. And one of her comments once when she called me up, and she says, Mom, we really led a sheltered life in Richland, you know? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s interesting. I wonder if you could unpack that a little bit more. What would have been so sheltered about Richland for her?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, I think, you know, she went to Seattle and got a job. And her first job was in the King County jail. She was a nurse in the clinic. And she saw all these prisoners and—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Not the best clientele.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right. And that was one of her comments after she called me up—called me up and said, you know, we really led a sheltered life, after seeing all these homeless people and skid row, and—you know. It’s just different.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, because I imagine Richland would have been a pretty solid middle class, mostly white—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Still is majority, but mostly white, middle class. Pretty safe. If you didn’t work at Hanford, you didn’t live in Richland until 1958. And I imagine after that, it was pretty slow to change where most people who lived here worked at Hanford for—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I think the police had a good—made their presence known, in a good way.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And I think that was the difference between Seattle living and outskirts of Seattle or wherever she lived.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, I imagine it would be in general an easier community to police where you knew everyone worked in the same place.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Everyone knew—or a lot of people knew everyone else, and you know it was—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: But crime was very low.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sure, sure.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: First of all, you know the folks have clearances, things like that, that’s going to get a better grade of people. Because they went through all the rigmarole you have to go through.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: I saved one of those questionnaires, those Q clearance deals. I still have it. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, yeah?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And I left—when I filled mine out, I left two weeks of my life off of this—[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, no.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Of course it came back and they wanted to know where I was. [LAUGHTER] I was in transit to out here or something.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And so they wanted to know—</p>
<p>Franklin: Those forms went back, what, like ten years or something like that?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Oh, it was—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Renewed or unless there was a need to upgrade.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: When I first filled it out, of course I was only like 20 years old. So I didn’t have that much to have to put on it. But they went back, and people told us, you know, we were from a small town and of course they told us, these people—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: They were asking about you and all this—</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, calling around.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: They were wanting to know what was going on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. Yeah, I know, that’s—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Wanting to know where you went to school and where you worked back there. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I first got an L clearance when I came here.</p>
<p>Franklin: Is that a lower or higher—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That’s a lower grade. And then as soon as I transferred into drafting, I had to get a new clearance, a Q clearance, again. Which I had the rest of my time here.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, interesting. Were they still any—I’m always a little fuzzy on my dates with this—were there any Atomic Frontier Days parades when you were here?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Or were those over by the time that—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, they were here, and in fact, Sharon Tate—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, Sharon Tate was in that.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: One of the first few years we were here, she was the Miss Tri-Cities.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, really?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah. Her dad was at Hanford, you know, Camp Hanford. He was an Army--</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, that’s right, because I’ve always heard she was an Army—kind of an Army brat. Oh, really? That’s really interesting. I’ve oftentimes asked—I used to ask people about that question and it would miss a lot, so I kind of stopped asking about Sharon Tate. But that’s interesting that you remember seeing her?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Oh, sure.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, I remember they had parades down the main—one of the streets. I don’t remember which ones now.</p>
<p>Franklin: And you guys went to the Atomic Frontier Days and all of that?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Why, certainly! Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, those were very colorful and kind of interesting events. Kind of wish I could have seen one of those in the flesh. Great. And so—gosh, you guys have already run down so many of my questions without even me needing to ask them.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: But I still have a couple. Could you describe the ways in which security and secrecy impacted your jobs, respectively? I’ll start with Marjorie.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, you just knew that you weren’t supposed to—you know, I was in finance. And so I saw all these numbers and all this stuff. And you just knew you weren’t supposed to talk about things like that. But other than that, you know, it didn’t really affect me all that much.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, I know, going on vacation or something like that, or going back to Wisconsin. We’d go quite a bit. And, what do you do out there? And you know, in general terms you tell them. But I was trying to remember some specifics. I’m sure there were some to do with security.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: It must have been very hard to work here in the ‘40s. [LAGUHTER] You didn’t know what you were doing, you know, you were building all this stuff.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, we knew what we were doing, you know. What we were making and all this thing.</p>
<p>Franklin: You could talk about it to your coworker.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: And not be afraid of being evicted from your home and losing your job.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I remember looking at an old paper. It said, big headlines: it’s bombs.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes. Yes, that’s the <em>Richland Villager</em> from right after the Nagasaki bombing, yeah. Interesting. Do you remember, were there like searches or did they search people on the buses?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well--</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Going home. [LAUGHTER] A lot of times you just had to open your lunch pail up, and make sure there was nothing in it.</p>
<p>Franklin: You didn’t have any atoms in your pocket or anything?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: They didn’t always look.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: They didn’t always look, but every now and then they’d have a search day.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Kind of keep you on your toes.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And of course all of the cars at 300 Area where the major barricade was. You had to stop, open your trunks if you drove a car. And then if you went into the various—200 Areas, 100 Areas, you had to stop again or you parked your car in the parking lot outside and walked in. And if you went into the various buildings, like PUREX or like in the lab where I was there, you had a number and a radiation badge, and your name and a number you were assigned. When I went to 222-S, it was number ten. I must have got some big wheels for a number or something like that. I was ten. They would look you up to make sure in their file—they’d look at, make sure the picture matched you.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, and that would be every time you’d come in?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Every time you went in the building there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. That’s very tight security.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: When you—you said you had to go around the site a lot—how would you get around once you got—so you took the bus in, but how would you get from one area to the other?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Engineering department had cars—government cars.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And so then you’d just—could only travel in—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And we just traveled in government cars out to the various facilities.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. When did the bus service stop?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Good question. Let’s see.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Late ‘60s?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Hmm. Probably in that era.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Because when we built the new house, and it was in 1966, and you still rode the bus then.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: That’s right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: So I think it was in the late ‘60s.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I would say in the late ‘60s, it was.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Or early ‘70s.</p>
<p>Franklin: And so then—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And there was much frustration.</p>
<p>Franklin: To much frustration?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: On a lot of people’s part. Including mine.</p>
<p>Franklin: Really? Why was that?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I loved that bus ride. I mean, I loved going out there for—it was changed to, I don’t know, 50 cents or something. It was higher price, anyway. The nickel was just to pay insurance and liabilities. But—so I had to drive my car out or get into a carpool, or whatever.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: But then for a while, they stopped the service in town picking everybody up, and then you could go to the bus lot and catch a bus. For a while, for a few years.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah, they stopped the rounds through town.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. That’s such an interesting structure of life, to have everybody in one town that all catches the bus, and—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: [LAUGHTER] And work at the same—</p>
<p>Franklin: You know when the buses are coming and everyone kind of depends on it, and—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s just such an interesting—seems almost kind of foreign to a lot of people today. And so you said that was kind of a chagrin that the bus—is that because you liked just not having to drive, or not—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I liked not having to drive. I knew that I had to be outside there at 6:00 or whatever it was every morning. And it was there. It was—</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: You could read, you could do work—you could do all sorts of things.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: When I was manager out there for a while, I could do a lot of work on the bus.</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I had my own philosophy. I did not like to take any work home. I had my briefcase and I would do a lot of stuff on the bus. That was 45 minutes of uninterrupted time, and I could get a lot of my work done.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, I bet. Yeah. Interesting. What would you either—both of you, sorry—what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War? And I’ll start with you, George.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, I think you’re doing part of it. [LAUGHTER] Let them know what’s going on. And you know, the kids never really knew what—really, what we were doing, I don’t think, in detail. Yeah, they knew in general. As I look back at the government—not too impressed.</p>
<p>Franklin: Really? Why is that?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: The stuff that goes on out there now—when we were—I was working, I felt I was doing a job. Things were going out—in the shops, things were going out the door. We were making things. Things were happening. I was proud of our work. Now I begin to wonder how long—you know, the Tank Farms have been undergoing their thing for years, and it’s going to be another amount of years before they do anything. It’s—not enough things are happening.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Interesting. Marjorie, what about you? What would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford and living in Richland during the Cold War?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, it was just such a different sort of life, you know. You were kind of protected, I guess. You know, everybody, like, knew everybody, and you all worked at the same place, and your kids went to the schools in town. You went to the doctors that are in town. It was just a different sort of a—</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, like your daughter had said maybe a little protected, sheltered.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Sheltered life, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s so interesting to me because—George, the thing you said about feeling like you’d done something—I’ve heard that from other interviewees who had worked in that transition period, who had worked when Hanford was producing and felt a real sense of accomplishment. And then kind of felt like it was mired down during cleanup and that the mission’s unclear, the work doesn’t progress. And Marjorie, it’s always been amazing to me to hear that, that it does seem like a really safe and peaceful place, but when you look at it kind of on—there’s a flipside to that, though. It’s amazing that there’s this safe, peaceful place next to nine nuclear reactors.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie: And you know—</p>
<p>Franklin: And you know, like a major target in the Cold War.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Well, I guess that’s true. I don’t know. You just--</p>
<p>Franklin: But I think those two can exist side-by-side. That it could be, you know, a place of production but also of danger and a place of safety but also—you know, and of security. I just—it’s—there’s a lot of contradictions in Hanford that I think are really interesting that get brought out in these interviews. So thank you. Is there anything that I haven’t asked either of you about that you would like to talk about?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No. I’m sure I’ll think of some when I get home.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s very common. That happens all the time. I get emails a lot from people like--</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: --I wish I had said this.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Oh, let’s see. I think when I was a shop engineer out there in the shops, best years of my life out there. Again, I felt proud that we were doing something, things were going out the door. I was responsible for a lot of critical measurements and things of—the jumpers, the tanks, and everything that we did in the shop. And then troubleshooting. There was some failures out there and I would go out to troubleshoot to see how we could fix things. Contaminated vessels and things like that. But those were good years. Best years I had out there. Management was good, but there are a lot more responsibilities. But those worked out, too.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. Great.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And I think the schools were—you know—were good.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: The kids had a good education, had good teachers.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, I’ve heard that a lot that people—there were a lot of well-educated people that worked at Hanford and at first Battelle—Hanford Labs, and then Battelle and Pacific Northwest National Labs. So that there was a high focus on education and—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Another thing is, probably more so than now, but the school sports. Didn’t have too much else to do, so there was a lot of basketball games and football games and soccer games and all that sort of things that people went to. And they really supported the high school sports.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. You think that’s more then than now.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: I think more then than now. There was less to do.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, it was a little more of an isolated community.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Right. And of course this year they went to the—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Well, this year’s different. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: --the tournaments. But when our daughter and son were in high school, they were always going to tournaments. And I always had to take kids and chaperone, you know?</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for coming.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Ah, it was our pleasure.</p>
<p>Franklin: I see that you’ve brought some things. Would we be able to scan those and keep them with part of your—with your interview?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: You can have those. That’s my work history.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, great, we’ll scan this and put this with your interview, too.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: And she’s got some pictures there, too.</p>
<p>Franklin: Are these family pictures, or--?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: No, these are pictures of—</p>
<p>George Kraemer: No, they’re--</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Out at Hanford. This is one when I worked out at the Area. This was a million man hours without an accident, you know?</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow, okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: And they had a fashion show. And this is me right here in radiation outfit, you know, that we modeled the—we modeled the outfits they wore in the contaminated labs and all that.</p>
<p>Franklin: And which one are you? Are you the one in the white cowl?</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah, I’m the one right—with the—</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: All covered up.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, kind of a little hard to tell. That’s great. That’s a great picture. Ah, yup, General Electric Photo Division.</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, would we be able to scan these and put them with your interview?</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: That would be wonderful. Okay. Great. Well, thank you again, thank you both so much. ITts been a really excellent interview.</p>
<p>George Kraemer: Good!</p>
<p>Marjorie Kraemer: Thank you.</p>
<p>Franklin: You did good.</p>
<p><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/cnCDk351BVY">View interview on Youtube.</a></p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:57:59
Bit Rate/Frequency
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317 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
100 Area
200 Area
300 Area
700 Area
703 Building
B Plant
N Reactor
T Plant
Tank Farm
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
~1955-today
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
~1955-1991
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Kennedy
Sharon Tate
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with George and Marjorie Kraemer
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with George and Marjorie Kraemer conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
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12-09-2016
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2017-15-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
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The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="http://hanfordhistory.com/collections/show/25">George and Marjorie Kraemer, Oral History Metadata</a>
100 Area
1955
200 Area
300 Area
700 Area
703 Building
Award
Awards
B Plant
Battelle
Cold War
General Electric
Hanford
Kennedy
Kennewick
Mountain
Mountains
N Reactor
PUREX
Quonset hut
Quonset huts
Stores
T Plant
Tank Farm
Tank Farms
Theater
War
Westinghouse
-
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
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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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
<p>Robert Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Robert Ferguson on December 21<sup>st</sup>, 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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great, thanks. So tell me how and why you came to the area to work at the Hanford Site.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And what was the job that you applied for?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Well, I came under a program called the—[LAUGHTER]—bear with me.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s okay.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Can you cut, can we cut, or you’ll cut?</p>
<p>Franklin: We can edit.</p>
<p>Ferguson: We’ll edit?</p>
<p>Franklin: After the fact, yes.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Okay.</p>
<p>Emma Rice: Tech grad something?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: C Reactor?</p>
<p>Ferguson: C Reactor.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, and where is that located in relation to B, D and F?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And was that based off of the same design as the B Reactor?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Of water?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Of water, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. And how long did you work as a reactor operator?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Physicist.</p>
<p>Franklin: Reactor physicist, sorry.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow. Where were the classes held for the management program?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay, Quonset huts.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Quonset huts, yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: World War II—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: And were you in the Army because of the Korean War?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. Can you describe the B Reactor as a place to work?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Well, it was—actually, a fascinating facility. I don’t know, perhaps, if you’ve been there.</p>
<p>Franklin: I’ve been able to take the public tours.</p>
<p>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 <em>t</em> 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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. And so—that’s also, like, kind of real-world application of all of that physics that you had learned, right?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 100<em>n</em> 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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, yeah, yeah. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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--</p>
<p>Ferguson: Is low. 239 is the weapons grade.</p>
<p>Franklin: 239 is the weapons-grade.</p>
<p>Ferguson: And 240 is the low grade.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, so that you wouldn’t build up too much 240. So—</p>
<p>Ferguson: And that required a frequent charge and discharge of the reactors.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, so in some way, then, the energy reactors by nature are just not really meant for weapons.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Because you also want—when you’re producing energy, you want a reliable output of energy—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right, fixed, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: You don’t want to be starting and stopping and have that kind of fluctuation in the grid.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s really—I think that’s a good basic point to have established for anyone who’s doing research on that.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: The water and the electronics and everything.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. So how long did you work as a reactor physicist—nuclear physicist and shift operator?</p>
<p>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 27<sup>th</sup>, 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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right, yeah.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Because they had been there longer than you?</p>
<p>Ferguson: They were one of the original occupants. And so then we rented from them. So we were here during that transition.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you describe that transition? What you remember, or your thoughts on it?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. And how come you left Richland in ’61?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: I’ve heard about that.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. And up until that time, you had not worked with commercial reactors; you’d only worked on production.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Yeah, there were no—no, that’s correct.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Oh, yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: And was that also part of the cultural shift?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: But that experimental work is held up by the regulations—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Of the regulations, right.</p>
<p>Franklin: Do you think the public has an inadequate understanding of nuclear technology in general, and nuclear power specifically?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Ferguson: And it still is a threat with the proliferation. And it’s a huge threat.</p>
<p>Franklin: And to have a peaceful arm of that, though, I think to some people maybe they confuse both heads of that same—</p>
<p>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, <em>The China Syndrome</em>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting, I don’t think I ever thought of it quite like that before. But it’s very true.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, even in a way then oil is also from the sun, because it’s decomposed carbon matter—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Originally—</p>
<p>Franklin: Originally.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sadly no.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: And what do you feel like you got accomplished from ’73 to ’78 on the FFTF Project Office?</p>
<p>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]</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, right, it did. I wonder if you could talk about that. What happened to the FFTF?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: How come the program didn’t come back under Reagan?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, right. How did you become involved with the WPPSS project?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Well, I was recruited out of Washington.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you’re just back and forth from here to Washington and then back.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: And how long did you work at WPPSS for?</p>
<p>Ferguson: Three years, ’80 to ’83.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. And what did you do after that?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: So you’re still not retired.</p>
<p>Ferguson: No. I’m still consulting.</p>
<p>Franklin: Still consulting. But still on—</p>
<p>Ferguson: And I’ve written two books on the nuclear waste issue, so—</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay, great. Well, which two books are those?</p>
<p>Ferguson: <em>Nuclear Waste in Your Backyard: Who’s to Blame and What to Do About It</em>. And the first one was called—I can’t remember the name of it. Something about Obama and Reid wasting money. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah. Tell me about your involvement with the Tri-Cities Nuclear Industrial Council, TRICNIC, which later became TRIDEC.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: I wonder if you could talk about working with Sam Volpentest.</p>
<p>Ferguson: There’s been a whole book written about that. [LAUGHTER] Did you read it? The godfather?</p>
<p>Franklin: I have, yeah, <em>The Community Godfather</em> by C. Mark Smith.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Much of my life is in there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right, I was at Argonne then.</p>
<p>Franklin: But if there were any other notable events or incidents that happened at Hanford while you worked there.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Oh. Other than the leak? 106-T leak?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes.</p>
<p>Ferguson: 10,000 people, can you imagine that?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes, yeah, that’s—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Supporting nuclear power? Where else in the country could you do that?</p>
<p>Franklin: Not too many places.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Well, I’m trying to think, what--?</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s okay if you don’t.</p>
<p>Ferguson: I really—I can’t.</p>
<p>Franklin: It’s one of my stock questions.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Franklin: You know, in case something pops up.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: So, I guess—let me look over this.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Probably told you more than you want to know!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Still waiting. Still no—</p>
<p>Franklin: Perhaps—as you said, perhaps for a plant that is not the best approach—</p>
<p>Ferguson: Right.</p>
<p>Franklin: --to the problem. Well—</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: So at least we’re away from that solution.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Franklin: They sure can.</p>
<p>[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, Bob, thank you so much for coming in and interviewing with us today.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Okay, Robert.</p>
<p>Franklin: I really appreciated it.</p>
<p>Ferguson: I hope I didn’t cover too much for you.</p>
<p>Franklin: You did a great job; we touched on a lot of really great things. So thank you.</p>
<p>Ferguson: Okay.</p>
<p>Franklin: All right.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:14:41
Bit Rate/Frequency
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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
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Title
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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
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
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12-21-2016
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2017-01-12: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
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The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
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
-
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cdadd3e83c0c3187276f5e7e8afc64cf
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1583c61c6744d42545aae8cd7b5f497a.mov
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Dublin Core
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Title
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Post-1943 Oral Histories
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Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
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Interviewer
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
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<p><strong>Northwest Public Television | Bush_Bob</strong></p>
<p>Robert Bauman: I’m going to have you start just by saying your name, first.</p>
<p>Robert Bush: Okay, my name is Bob Bush.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: You said your parents were here during the war. When did they come out?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. And what part of Idaho?</p>
<p>Bush: Twin Falls, Idaho. Where I graduated from high school.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. What were your first impressions upon arriving in the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you said you had a trailer. Where was--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: And how long did you live there then?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: [LAUGHTER] And was this in Richland then, the apartment?</p>
<p>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]</p>
<p>Bauman: So you did work at various places then?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: What timeframe would that have been you were out?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Was your wife working at the Hanford Site as well?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. Obviously, Hanford, a site where security was prominent--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Great. Did you have special security clearance to work at Hanford at the time?</p>
<p>Bush: Which?</p>
<p>Bauman: Any special security clearance?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: You mentioned riding a bus out to work.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: You mentioned different contractors you worked for over the years--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. Do you remember any special community events, parades, any of those sorts of things during the '50s and '60s?</p>
<p>Bush: Community events?</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: So did all employees have those, either the pencil or--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: I want to change gears just a little bit. President Kennedy visited the site in 1963.</p>
<p>Bush: Yep, 1963.</p>
<p>Bauman: I was wondering--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Do you remember any other special events with dignitaries like that? Or other--</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: I wonder, what was the most challenging part of your job working at the Hanford site?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bush: Oh, what?</p>
<p>Bauman: Coal fires?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, Bob, I'd like to thank you very much for coming and talking to us today. I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Bush: It's been my pleasure.</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:02:19
Bit Rate/Frequency
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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
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mov
Dublin Core
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Title
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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
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date
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07-17-2013
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
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video/mov
Date Modified
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2017-13-11: Metadata v1 created – [A.H.]
Provenance
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The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
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
-
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F583865462e4fa6396d8d362c783d5ae2.mp4
1a5d0b226d8d91e261ba39aaba60fd79
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
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
George Boice
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p>Tom Hungate: Okay.</p>
<p>Robert Franklin: You ready, Tom?</p>
<p>Hungate: Mm-hm.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with George Boice on July 15<sup>th</sup>, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Mr. Boice about his experiences living in Richland. So why don’t we start at the beginning, that’s the best place. When and where were you born?</p>
<p>George Boice: I was born in Ellensburg. A third generation native of the state of Washington. My father and my grandmother were born in Cle Elum.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: We came through this—the tribe came through this territory and crossed the White Bluffs ferry in 1885. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And went up to the Kittitas County area. And then we came back later. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: What year were you born?</p>
<p>Boice: ’37.</p>
<p>Franklin: ’37. Did your family work at all at the coal mine in Roslyn?</p>
<p>Boice: Yes. [LAUGHTER] Short answers. My grandmother’s brother, Uncle Tony, was a mine rescue worker up there at Roslyn.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: You go up to Roslyn, that is interesting. Ever been there?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes, I have.</p>
<p>Boice: 27 cemeteries. Just neater than all get out. [LAUGHTER] The different ethnic groups up there. They talk about one Fourth of July, the Italians were going to raise the Italian flag in the main street there. Some of the local citizens took a dim view of it. And some wagons were turned on their side and the Winchesters came out, and the sweet little old lady got out there and got everybody calmed down before the shooting started. [LAUGHTER] But the flag didn’t go up. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. So what brought your family down to the Hanford area?</p>
<p>Boice: My—[LAUGHTER] When they started Hanford—Dad was a firefighter in Ellensburg, had been for a few years. And when they set up Hanford, the first thing they did for a fire department was pick up the retired fire chief out of Yakima. Well, he goes around to the local fire departments and starts hydrating citizens. [LAUGHTER] So, Dad came down here in ’43 as the ninth man hired at the Hanford Fire Department. Always claimed that half of them had been canned before he got there. [LAUGHTER] So he went to work in ’43—June of ’43 at Hanford. We were still there at Ellensburg, and we didn’t come down here ‘til summer of ’44.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And they were still moving prefabs in, and unloading them with rapid shape.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did your father commute at this time, or did he live on—</p>
<p>Boice: Uh-unh. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Where did he—do you know much about his living quarters or where he lived?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, there were barracks.</p>
<p>Franklin: So he lived in the barracks?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yes.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Did he come back to visit at all?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Wasn’t but—hell, by the time you get up to the Hanford area, it’s just over the ridge. [LAUGHTER] So he’d come in every couple of weeks.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. How many siblings do you have?</p>
<p>Boice: One of each—one brother, one sister.</p>
<p>Franklin: Older, younger?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah. My brother was born in Kadlec in September of ’45. My sister was—well, they bracket the war. She was born about a month before it started—or right after it started. She was born in December of ’41.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And he was born September of ’45.</p>
<p>Franklin: So can you talk a little more about your father’s job at Hanford? What did he—did he talk much about what he did, or—</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER] Oh, yeah! You know. The place is building up, it’s trying to erupt. You’ve got construction going all directions. Trailer house fires. He talked about them [EMOTIONAL]—how quick people died in them damn trailer houses. They’d go up in a matter of seconds. And there were acres of them. But yeah, it was—And the amount of nothing to do. I mean, you had time to work and then there was really no recreational facilities. He worked at a grocery store for a while in his off hours stocking milk. He said it was not unusual to work a whole shift with a forklift or a handcart walking out of the stack and filling the same slot behind the counter there. We came over twice to visit him at Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Before you moved—</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: --in ’44. Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: You drive across the Vantage Bridge, and somebody had gone through with a grader and graded out a dirt-slash-gravel road. And we drove around and down, and across the Hanford ferry into Hanford. Because you could get into Hanford; it wasn’t restricted—the town. Everything else was. So getting in and out of Hanford was no trick. Getting out of the surrounding area was. So my mom and I and my grandfather went down there.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. And where did you stay? Did you just go for the day?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, we didn’t—when I was there, we didn’t stay. We just went for the day and went home.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: But Mom talks about going down and staying overnight. [LAUGHTER] She says she was not warned. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Warned about what?</p>
<p>Boice: To keep everything you wanted nailed down.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh.</p>
<p>Boice: She got up in the morning and somebody stole her girdle. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. So when your family moved in summer of ’44, where did you move to?</p>
<p>Boice: 17-1.</p>
<p>Franklin: 17-1?</p>
<p>Boice: That was the lot number and the house number. It is now 1033 Sanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah.</p>
<p>Boice: It’s on the southwest corner of Sanford and Putnam.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup. I live right by there.</p>
<p>Boice: We went in there and it was—they had—you can’t describe to people how they had come in there and just dozed the farmland over, staked out streets and planted houses. And hauled them in on trucks and set them down. We were fortunate—I didn’t realize how fortunate it was—in the fact that we had only come about 100 miles or so—we came in a truck. We had our stuff. Mom had her piano. And I can’t tell you how many times women would come up and bang on the door, can I play your piano?</p>
<p>Franklin: Really?</p>
<p>Boice: Strangers off the street. Just because it was there, and it was—so we had all kind of musical stuff. Everybody could play better than Mom could. But we had the piano.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And she had her houseplants. It was different. But there was no trees in Richland. There wasn’t three blades of grass! [LAUGHTER] You’d come in, you got a garden hose and a plastic nozzle. You hosed down your lot and it immediately became a slick, slimy mud pile. Great for kids to play in! Man, we could slide in that mud across there—it was really cool! And then when it dried up, why, it reticulated like a picture puzzle. So we’re picking chunks up and stacking them up and building houses. And Mom gets up and she’s just madder than a wet hen, so we had to put the lawn back together. [LAUGHTER] But the hose nozzles were so interesting, because when you had a plastic nozzle, but you couldn’t get anything else. There was a hardware store here, eventually, but they didn’t handle stuff like that. This was a war going on. And the ingenuity that went into lawn sprinklers would just boggle your mind! The cutest one I remember was some guy took a chunk of surgical tubing—he got a bent pipe for an uppensticker. And he stretched his hunk of surgical tubing over the end of it, turned the water on, and it was not efficiently watering his area, but he could flail water all over a half an acre! [LAUGHTER] That was one of the cuter ones. There was also no shade and no air conditioning.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: Coming down in a moving truck, Dad brought his carpenter tools, he brought his bench, and he set to work building an air conditioner. Now, this was the dog-gonedest thing you ever saw. He got some burlap sacks and set out there with scrap lumber in the backyard on his workbench just creating shavings out of boards. Fill these burlap sacks with wood shavings for the pads for his air conditioner. He got a motor out of I-don’t-know-what. It was an appliance motor out of something. And he whittled out this propeller out of a two-by-four. And he cranked this thing up and it sounded like a B-29. [LAUGHTER] But it would blow sort of cool air, which raised the wrath of the neighbors. Number one was the racket he was making. Number two was we had air conditioning. So immediately, guys come out of the woodwork in all directions. Guy next door was a sheet metal worker. He came home with parts to make a much better, more efficient fan that was quieter. [LAUGHTER] So they set to work building him one. [LAUGHTER] We made air conditioners—you come up with a motor, and they would come up with an air conditioner. And we would deliver them on the back of my little red wagon. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Where would you put that? Like, would that just go in the window?</p>
<p>Boice: We put it in a window.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay. And how would you attach it to the house?</p>
<p>Boice: Ingeniously! Most often, they would just build a rack underneath, a shelf on top, and set it up on top there. A houses, you wanted to put your air conditioner—at least about everybody did—set it at the top of the stairs where it would blow out the upstairs and cool your downstairs. They were reasonably efficient. The one thing about all the homemade air conditioners—very few of them, if any, had a recirculating system. So you had to use fresh water. This had two sides to it. You didn’t crud up your water system with alkali by reusing your water. But you did have to go out there and keep moving your hose where it drained out to water your lawn.</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER] Wow. What kind of house did your family move into?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, originally we had a three-bedroom prefab. Prefabs come in three sizes and five colors. And a bunch of very ingenious kids on Halloween 1944 went out and stole the damn street signs. The buses coming back off of swing shift had no earthly idea where they were going. They wandered around town, because all the houses looked alike! [LAUGHTER] Then after a while—oh, let’s see, we moved in in August, and about the following spring—because we started out school at Sacajawea and then at Christmas vacation they changed us to Marcus Whitman. But up there on Longfitt, thereabouts, I was coming home from school and here sits the roof of a prefab right out in the middle of the street. Apparently, this guy was sleeping and a windstorm come along and picked up his whole roof and set it out in the middle of the street. Thereafter they had a crew of carpenters going around fastening the rooves of the prefabs down a little tighter.</p>
<p>Franklin: Because at that time, right, they had flat rooves.</p>
<p>Boice: Flat rooves.</p>
<p>Franklin: Correct? That kind of overhung a bit, something that the wind could really easily—</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: --grab ahold and pop off. Do you remember when they got the gabled rooves that they all have now?</p>
<p>Boice: No, I don’t, because I was—I think after we left, but I wouldn’t bet heavy money on it. We moved off the prefab in ’45.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And into an A house on Swift. I don’t recall when they put the gabled rooves on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. So what did your mom do? Did she work at Hanford at all?</p>
<p>Boice: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: No?</p>
<p>Boice: She was a stay-at-home mom.</p>
<p>Franklin: Stay-at-home mom?</p>
<p>Boice: It was such an interesting place. The buses ran every 30 minutes. No charge, just go out and get on the bus. One of my main jobs was—because there was no mail delivery, everybody in Richland got their mail general delivery. So I’d take the bus, go downtown, get off at the post office, check the mail, go down to the grocery store—and there was only one—that was a brief period, but then there was only one grocery store at that time. And that’s where that ski rental shop is—kayak rental shop on the corner of Lee and GW?</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Boice: That was the grocery store. The one and only. Shortly thereafter, Safeway opened up on the corner of—southwest corner of Lee and Jadwin. So things picked up. And then there was—they come up with the community center grocery store—whatever you want to call them. There was one at Thayer and Williams, which was the Groceteria. Garmo’s was out there on Stevens and Jadwin—no, Symons and something-or-other. The south end of town was—oh, nuts. He was the one that survived—Campbell’s. Campbell’s grocery store. He specialized in fresh fruit and stuff, and of the whole pile of them, he was the one that really come out of it in good shape. But the fourth one is now the school office, up there by Marcus Whitman. That was a grocery store.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: But you go down, you do your post office work, and then you go and get your groceries, and if you’re lucky you get ten cents. Next bus home. You know where the Knights of Columbus Hall is out on the bypass?</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Boice: That used to be—originally that was the Richland post office.</p>
<p>Franklin: Mm-hmm.</p>
<p>Boice: It’s up there at Knight and GW, I think. There wasn’t a whole bunch of shopping centers. The Richland Theater was in existence. The drug store next door to it was there. After a while, the big brown building, which was everything, at that time, when it opened up it was CC Anderson’s. Then there was the dime store, and, oh, we were hot and heavy then. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you tell me a little more about your dad’s job? What would a typical day or a typical week look like for someone who worked on the fire department?</p>
<p>Boice: On the fire department, there is no such thing as typical. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: It was wild. In the beginning, they opened up—they were on shifts. Like everything was on day shifts, swing shift, graveyard. In our neighborhood, after my brother was born, we moved down to Swift and McPherson. Dad had come into town by that time. If you go behind the Richland Theater, you look real close, there’s two B houses back there. One of them’s a real B house and the other one ain’t. You look at the B houses over here, and the other one that ain’t is over here. And you look real close at the driveways. That was the original fire station that the City of Richland had going. That was the fire station when Hanford came in. Then they built a fire station on Jadwin in conjunction with the housing building and a couple other things, right across from the 700 Area, which is what they wanted, was coverage on that 700 Area. So that was the downtown fire station. And when they opened that up, why, then Dad came up out of Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: He wasn’t too long there, and they opened one up Williams off of Thayer, in behind the Groceteria and a little service station up there with a small satellite fire station. Two trucks and one crew. Dad was there for years and years and years.</p>
<p>Franklin: How long did your dad work for Hanford or the government here?</p>
<p>Boice: Like I say, he came in in ’43 and retired in the early ‘70s.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Rode her right on through.</p>
<p>Franklin: So what did he do when the community transitioned in ’58?</p>
<p>Boice: They bought him!</p>
<p>Franklin: The City of Richland did?</p>
<p>Boice: Yup, the City of Richland bought the outstanding time and he rolled right over.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So can you talk a little bit more about growing up here? You said you went to Marcus Whitman and then to—and then what other schools did you go to?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, like I say, there was no shade.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: And very few radio stations. With a good shot you could get in Yakima, Spokane, and Walla Walla, and that was about it. So we sat around in the shade, and my mother read us stories. [LAUGHTER] One of them was a book we picked up in Walla Walla about Sacajawea. She read us the entire story of Sacajawea and the Shoshones and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, et cetera, et cetera. And in ’44, they opened up Sacajawea School. Now, as everybody does, they did their darnedest to convert us kids to saying Sah-CAH-jah-wee-ah. It didn’t take. [LAUGHTER] Because there was already Sacajawea State Park and everybody was using the term Sacajawea. But Sah-CAH-jah-wee-ah—they tried. They gave it their level best. It didn’t take. But the time that they were doing this, Miss Jesson was a teacher there was giving us the thumbnail sketch about Sacajawea. She did a pretty good job—well, you know, she told you what she knew. And she made mention of the fact that she was married to a trapper, but they didn’t know what his name or anything about him. I says, his name was Toussaint Charbonneau. He got her off a wolf man of the minute carriage for a white buffalo robe. My status went up. [LAUGHTER] And the teachers wanted to know where in the cat hair I learned that. Well, Mom read us the book. But I’ve always liked Sacajawea School. Just kind of a kinship. We went—in ’45, they opened up Marcus Whitman. We went there ’45 was all, because when they broke for the summer, we were over by—we moved. By the next fall we were over in the area where I could go to Sacajawea again. But we were going to Marcus Whitman when Roosevelt was shot—died. So that was the event of the time. You watched the transition of one President to another. The flag ceremony—the whole thing—it was interesting for a kid.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet. What do you remember about during the war years that kind of focus on secrecy and security? How did that affect your life and your family’s life?</p>
<p>Boice: You didn’t talk to nobody about nothing! [LAUGHTER] I mean, that was just the words. You didn’t talk about—if somebody asks you what your dad does, you talk about something else. It was so interesting here in the last year, I think—time goes quicker now. A whole bunch of us from that neighborhood on Swift went to a funeral—this boy’s mother—well, yeah—Bill’s mother’s 100<sup>th</sup> birthday, after the funeral they had a sit-down dinner. I happened to sit down at the table with the whole kids of the old neighborhood. And we’re talking about all this stuff, and the secrecy, and the ones you watch out for—this girl over here. Yeah. She didn’t share the secrets with the neighbors when they were talking about who’s got butter on sale. They didn’t tell her anymore. She fried her food in butter. So no one would tell her where the butter sales were when it was available. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Was there any mention of the work going on at Hanford at school that you can remember?</p>
<p>Boice: The one thing of what was going on, and it wasn’t the work at Hanford, because nobody talked about that. But when the Japs were sending over the firebombs—</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, the balloon bombs.</p>
<p>Boice: Yes. We were told to write no letters, tell nobody, because they didn’t want it to get out how blinking effective they were.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. The fear of these bombs from the sky—</p>
<p>Boice: They were hitting, and they were working.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: You guys are in the right position to find out. But there was a rumor going around that a balloon-loaded Jap had landed out there in the area and they caught him and bundled him up and carted him off before they did any business. Okay, la-di-da-di-da. There’s rumors about one thing and another. And four or five years ago, CNN or one of these, they were talking about the weather balloons. They showed the colored pictures taken out here at Hanford of the balloons landing in the BPA lines and burning up. [LAUGHTER] End of speech, end of story. [LAUGHTER] But I was surprised to find out that something had happened. There was no soldiers attached or anything else, but there was an incident.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, we’ve—there are a couple confirmed reports of—we actually did an oral history with a gentleman whose father had been a patrolman and had seen one of the balloons land and had to chase it down and didn’t realize right away that it was—had explosives attached to it. The others—there’s a couple reports of them touching down onsite. And there was a family that was killed in Idaho where they were picnicking and a balloon came down.</p>
<p>Boice: Idaho or Oregon?</p>
<p>Franklin: I think it was—oh, that’s right, maybe it was Oregon.</p>
<p>Boice: K Falls.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes.</p>
<p>Boice: You go to the museum in Klamath Falls had the—or when I went through it—I was working down there twenty years ago or so—they had a big display of the family that was picnicking and the kids went to prod on it, and it went off and killed a girl.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. Were there—when you were—so we’re still in the World War II era and we’ll definitely get to the Cold War in a bit—but were there any kind of—what do you remember about like emergency procedures in school? Was there anything special, kind of drills or something during World War II?</p>
<p>Boice: You mean the duck-and-cover?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that kind of stuff. Was there any duck-and-cover during World War II?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Of course—my kindergarten days—now, man. Lived across the street from the college there at Ellensburg, and firebombs were to be worried about. But I was covered. I had a bucket full of sand and a shovel, and it was there on the front porch. When the firebomb came through there, I was going to put my sand on it. So we were prepared. God help us if it landed any place else. [LAUGHTER] But the beginning of the war when I was a kid in Ellensburg was so funny, because we were living right across the street from the college and everything was just the standard college. And the war started, and immediately, there’s all these people running around here that can’t count. Hup, two, three, four. Hup, two, three, four. I wasn’t even in kindergarten, and I knew about my ones! [LAUGHTER] And there was—you go across the street and around the corner, and there was this one half basement room where I could stand there and watch the guys play shirts-and-skins basketball. And the next time I looked, here’s a skeleton of a single engine aircraft, and a guy instructing people on how to make dead stick landing. Now, of all the damned things for a four-year-old kid to remember, dead stick landings was what he was talking about. And they had this thing skeletonized where they could show the internal workings of all the aeronautics.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: But in Richland—oh, yes. Duck-and-cover fire drills. But they never talked about nuclear, because it was yet to be discovered. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Right, right. So Ellensburg then quickly became inundated with—the state college there became a training area?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah. Just that fast.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. In your notes here, I also see you mentioned about the heavy military presence and the olive drab everywhere and the cops in Army uniforms.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER] It absolutely was. Richland was strictly OD. I think they only had one bucket of paint. But all the vehicles were olive drab. The buses were, on today’s standards, I’ll call them a three-quarter size school bus painted olive drab. The vehicles were anything they could scrounge up, because I remember two GIs in a ’37 Chev coupe, and I know today some farmer had taken the trunk out and made a pickup box out of it. But they scrounged this thing up someplace, painted it OD, and here’s the MPs running around in a ’37 Chev pickup. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: [LAUGHTER] A homemade pickup?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah. It was years later that I found out—Dad didn’t say anything about it, and he certainly knew—that it was simple, because the war was going on. Everything was prioritized. But they had unlimited supply of uniforms. So they put the cops in soldiers’ uniforms; the firemen were in Navy uniforms. The firemen stood out and were very easily recognizable, but you couldn’t tell the soldiers and the cops apart, because they all had the same stuff on. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. A couple oral histories we’ve done with people that were children in Richland, a couple of them mentioned their fathers had taken them onsite somewhat clandestinely. Did your father ever take you onsite into a secured area?</p>
<p>Boice: No.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you ever get access to any of that some way?</p>
<p>Boice: No, I did not go to any secured area.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: I was raised running in and out of fire stations. To this day, when I go through the door of a fire station, my hands go into my pockets. You’re allowed to touch nothing. Because you leave fingerprints. [LAUGHTER] It’s just a genuine reflex.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah! So you said that you went to Sacajawea, then to Marcus Whitman then back to Sacajawea. Then where did you go to high school?</p>
<p>Boice: We went through all of the—I’ll call it the school construction. They couldn’t build schools fast enough in Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: I bet.</p>
<p>Boice: We had double shifts. Now they have these temporary quarters—whatever you call them. But we had hutments. Sacajawea had six hutments out there. They built the hutments, and then they went to double shifts. So you went to school at 8:00, and at noon they marched out, teacher and all, and our class marched in, and we went home at 4:30 or 5:00, something like that. So we went through all of that, and then in ’49, they opened Carmichael. A brand new junior high school, man, this is cool! And I was in the seventh grade in Carmichael and I are still the proud possessor of ASB cord 001, 1949, Carmichael Junior High School. The first one they ever gave out. [LAUGHTER] And that was neat, to have a real hard-built school. It was—oh, we had class. After three months, we moved to Kennewick. The Kennewick school system—</p>
<p>Franklin: Your family did, or--?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah!</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Dad stayed in Richland, but they were selling off. And if you didn’t have priority, the houses went to the guy that was there first. And in that A house, we were in second, so we were not in line to buy the house.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: So, Dad got a piece of property in Kennewick and we moved to Kennewick. And what a school system mess.</p>
<p>Franklin: Why?</p>
<p>Boice: They were behind. They couldn’t get money quick enough. They couldn’t build stuff fast enough. They had the red brick building—forget what it was called. It had been a high school at one time, and they pressed it back into service. It was so overcrowded you couldn’t believe it. But they finally built the high school that’s there now. It opened in ’52, I believe. ’51—yeah, class of ’52 was the first one to graduate—’52 or ’53. Graduated from Erwin S. Black Senior High School. And it was Erwin S. Black Senior High School one year. Because he was the school superintendent, and they built the school—they named the school in his honor because he had gone to bat and made trips back and forth to Washington, DC to cash some money to use for the school system. Then they got in a shooting match with the <em>Tri-City Herald</em>. [LAUGHTER] And Erwin S. Black and the schoolboard got run out of town, and they chiseled his name off the front of the school. But for one year it was E.S. Black.</p>
<p>Franklin: And then it just became Kennewick High School.</p>
<p>Boice: It became Kennewick High School.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you talk a little bit more about this disagreement between Erwin S. Black and the schoolboard and the <em>Tri-City Herald</em>?</p>
<p>Boice: It was several things. One of them, there was a book—and I can’t recall—Magruder? McGregor? Somebody. It was a history book, and it mentioned communism. And that was brought up and made a big deal. This was back in the McCarthy era.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right.</p>
<p>Boice: That was brought out. And there was a lot of talk—Black was a certified building inspector, and he inspected the construction of the high school. It was said by a lot of people that it wasn’t up to standards; that the concrete wasn’t what it should have been. And I don’t know what the specs were. I wasn’t into concrete work at that time. I have been later. But I know when we were hanging the benches in the ag shop, where you would put a concrete anchor in the wall ordinarily and it would hold, they didn’t there. And they had to through-bolt through the wall to get to things to hang. So there was—and transfer of equipment and stuff—this was swapped for that, and that was swapped for this—and I don’t remember that, and the only guy I know that did know has died. [LAUGHTER] But one of the kids that graduated from Erwin S. Black, one of the few that was in that class, worked with him off and on and was aware of what went on.</p>
<p>Franklin: When you said that there was a book that mentioned communism, did it mention it in a favorable light, or did it just make a mention to communism?</p>
<p>Boice: More or less, it just made a mention.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: I was on the—oh, we had the open house at the school, and I was one of the tour guides. Yeah, I showed them the book and what it had to say. And I don’t recall anything drastic.</p>
<p>Franklin: So then did you graduate from Kennewick High School?</p>
<p>Boice: No. [LAUGHTER] The military had a hell of a sale. Anybody that enlisted by the first of February got the Korean GI Bill of Rights. And those that enlisted afterwards didn’t. So I drug up in January and joined the Air Force.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh. Without graduating.</p>
<p>Boice: Without graduating.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay. Interesting.</p>
<p>Boice: So I served my illustrious military career in a photo lab in Mountain Home, Idaho. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: And how long were you in the Air Force?</p>
<p>Boice: Two years.</p>
<p>Franklin: Two years, and then you were discharged?</p>
<p>Boice: Yes, yup, yup.</p>
<p>Franklin: When you were in school, you mentioned being in school during this McCarthy era, one of the real hot points of the Cold War. Can you talk a little bit about the civil defense procedures and kind of the general feeling of that time as it related to—because I imagine with Hanford so close, and now knowing what was being produced there, that would have been a likely target. It’s a major part of the nuclear weapons stockpile. So can you talk a little bit about that time and just the general feeling?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, you knew what was going to happen—or what they said was gonna happen. It was the duck-and-cover thing. And we had drills. A lot of what they said what was gonna happen—now they talk about getting into water to modulate it. Then, it was one of the things that they didn’t want you to do. Because we had the irrigation ditch that was running right alongside of the schools. But then they didn’t want you to get into it. So, it’s changed. They had the civil defense procedures—Radiant Cleaners, they’re in Kennewick. They had panel delivery cleaner trucks. They were rigged for emergency ambulances. They had fold-down bunks in them; they could handle four people. [LAUGHTER] It was taken serious.</p>
<p>Franklin: Did you feel any particular sense of worry, or did it not seem to really affect you, your daily life or your psychological—</p>
<p>Boice: It never bothered me ‘til years afterwards. When they talked about the Green Run, where they turned a bunch of that stuff loose, just to see what it would do to the citizens and count the drift on it. The people that had—the down-winders, and the people that had the thyroid problems. My sister was one of the first rounds that went to court over that.</p>
<p>Franklin: Really?</p>
<p>Boice: Because she was—we moved into Richland. She had her third birthday in the prefab, when they were still practicing how to build this stuff. And then we moved in on a farm where the alfalfa grew, the cow ate it, gave them milk, and everything was recycled and nothing went over the fence. And so it bothered me, then, that they used us as guinea pigs. But the other hand, they really didn’t know what in the cat hair that they were doing in a lot of cases. The nuclear waste? You’ve heard about the radioactive rabbit turds.</p>
<p>Franklin: I have.</p>
<p>Boice: You have?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes, I have, but why don’t you mention that?</p>
<p>Boice: I was working with Vitro out here—’72, I think it was. The radioactivity, of course, is settled on the sagebrush. And the rabbits went around eating the leaves, just leaving fat, dumb and happy, and concentrating everything into the rabbit turds. And they were contemplating taking the top six inches of about two or three sections and burying it. Only they couldn’t decide where they had to build the hole. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: When you—you mentioned just a minute ago that you were on a farm, and you had the cows that would have eaten the tainted alfalfa—was your milk ever tested? Or did anyone ever come and--</p>
<p>Boice: Nah. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: test your—Were you ever tested for—or your family, anybody in your family, ever tested for radiation? Because I know that they, at one point, had those Whole Body Counters that they would test—some children in Pasco were tested through those machines?</p>
<p>Boice: You ever been through a Whole Body Counter?</p>
<p>Franklin: I have not been through a Whole Body Counter.</p>
<p>Boice: Depending on where you’re at, there may or may not be a—they’re kind of a joke. Now, when I was working here at Vitro, we went through the Whole Body thing, and they were serious. I mean, before we got cleared out, we went through the chamber, and we were counted. I went to work in South Carolina. They—as far as I was concerned—were very sloppy with their radiation handling and their checking and their radiation monitoring. We had a hand-and-foot monitoring station where we was going in and out of. You stick your hands in and they check it, and your feet were there at the same time. Well, this one time, I come up pretty hot, so I found an RM. I says, that machine gave me a bad reading. Oh, he says, that machine’s no good anyway. Come around to this other one over here and we’ll check you out. Well, if the blinking thing’s no good, why in the cat hair are we using it?! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So, just a second ago, you mentioned you were working for Vitro?</p>
<p>Boice: Uh-huh.</p>
<p>Franklin: What is or was Vitro?</p>
<p>Boice: What was Vitro? Okay. Vitro Engineering—and I don’t know how many times the name changed hands. But these guys were the ones that laid out the City of Richland—laid out the Hanford Projects. These were the strictly insiders. There was pictures on a wall of my grade school buddy’s dad, who I remember being a surveyor in Richland there. And these guys—this has gone on forever, and they were a pretty dug-in organization. To the point that they were not really aware that there was a world outside the fence. They’d heard about it, but they weren’t too sure it existed. [LAUGHTER] But I ended up at Vitro, and we did the Tank Farms that they’re having problems with, the hot tanks? We were in on the modification of that farm. We surveyed in there quite a bit. Whenever they show the pictures on TV, they always show you the evaporation facility. They show you that same picture. Warren Wolfe and I—I say Warren and I—it’s a little—our crew brought that up out of the ground, and we modified the tank farm, and we laid out the construction on that building from the ground right through the top.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And I was very fortunate, because all my surveying experience to that point was with the railroads and pipelines and longline work. Construction surveying was new to me. And I got throwed in with an old boy that was good at it. [LAUGHTER] And I learned a bunch working with him. And rolled right over, later on, into Hanford, too. We got in on the end of that—[LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Hanford II?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, as--T-O-O. And which building was this that you and Warren Wolfe and your crew built?</p>
<p>Boice: All I remember is the evaporation facility.</p>
<p>Franklin: What was your specific job at Vitro? Were you a surveyor?</p>
<p>Boice: I was a surveyor. I was an instrument man. You get in the hot zones—we got inside the Canyon Building on several different occasions. And you got suited up, and I was instructed very specifically and emphatically to touch nothing, because anything that got crapped up, they kept. And we couldn’t get the instruments crapped up. But that stuff was so hot that the paper—the Rite-in-the-Rain books have got a specific paper there that has pitch in it or something—it attracts radioactivity like a sponge. And when they kept the notes, then one of us would stay inside and the other guy would get out in the clean zone, and we’d have to transcribe all the notes, because that book was so hot that they wouldn’t let it out of the area. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: There was some weird stuff going on.</p>
<p>Franklin: Any other—</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, but there’s some I ain’t gonna talk about. [LAUGHTER] Okay. We came so close to having a nuclear disaster, it wasn’t even funny. We were good. We were awful good. And we were fast. And we were set up out there on an offset, and Rosie the labor foreman come over. Somebody said you needed a shot here for a hole for a penetration into the tank. Man, we whipped that out and figured the pull and what it was gonna take. Swung over there, put a distance and an angle, drove the stake in the ground. I figured that Warren checked it, and away we went. We come back in a week or so, or a few days later, we were back in that same farm. And Rosie comes over there and he says, would you guys check that again? Because these guys was digging a hole there and they’re supposed to hit a tank. And we checked it. And I lied, and Warren swore to it. [LAUGHTER] We forgot we was on a ten-foot offset. So they’re digging clear to one side of this tank, and just good solid dirt. Had we been just half as screwed-up as we were, they would have gone right down the edge of that tank with a core drill. And we’d have had ooey-gooeys all over the place. They talked to us. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Kind of a happy accident, right?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, we were—I’ll never forget Warren’s work. He’d come back with the boss and he says, name me one guy in this world ever got through this life being perfect. He says, always pissed me off, he’s a damned carpenter. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So you went to—you joined the Air Force, you went to Idaho for two years. When you came back—or what did you do after that? Did you come back to Richland after?</p>
<p>Boice: We were living in Kennewick.</p>
<p>Franklin: Living in Kennewick.</p>
<p>Boice: And I was working at the Washington Hardware Store. And this kid—we were working on cars in my buddy’s garage. And this guy comes through and he’s surveying for the Corps. And he talked that they were setting up a photogrammetry section. Well, heck, that’s what I was doing in the service. So, I beat feet over to Walla Walla to sign up to lay out photo mosaics. And they say, we haven’t got enough work for fulltime at that job. Are you a draftsman? No, I are not a draftsman. He says, would you take a job surveying? You bet. I became a surveyor. [LAUGHTER] And we worked from the mouth of the Deschutes River to Lewiston, Idaho. The first thing was the mouth of the Deschutes to McNary Dam—we mapped from the water level to the top of the bluffs by hand.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: And then we went through, starting in ’58, and we inventoried the railroad. Now, when you inventory a railroad, we inventoried a railroad. Everything they possessed was put down. First, you go through and you measure and put stations—mark station markings on the rails. 80 miles of them. Then you go back and you reference everything the railroad’s got. Ties, spikes, tie plates, rails, joints, joint bars—if the fence moves, how far did it move, from what to what? If the rail changes, if there’s an isolation joint in there, you put that in. When you come to a switch, you measure everything that’s in the switch facility. You go—everything that that railroad has got. You become very, very familiar with railroads. [LAUGHTER] And then we went ahead, and we built railroads clear up to Lewistown. We handled a railroad layout real heavy. When they—are you familiar with the Marmes men?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yes.</p>
<p>Boice: Luck of the draw, I was on that. Because we were the—call it the resident survey crew in that area.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh.</p>
<p>Boice: And we were babysitting construction. Make sure they got sticks out ahead of them, make sure that things are checked out behind them. They’re putting in a detour, why, check that out. They’re building a bridge, make sure it’s set up right, and check it out when they get done. So, first they call up and they say, there’s a guy down here at the mouth of the Palouse River thinks he hit something, and he wants an elevation on this cave, see where the water’s gonna come when they raise the water behind Lower Monumental, I believe.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I think that sounds right.</p>
<p>Boice: Is that the dam? So we went down there and run him in an elevation, painted it on the cave face. Happily on our way. Well, they hit pay dirt. [LAUGHTER] They dug up bones. So we were called back. They wanted—because the drillers were in there then doing sub-cell drilling of what’s down there. So we got to come in there and locate their holes so they know where what is. That was interesting. The whole thing. Now that the world has got into this Ice Age floods and stuff, I wish so heavily that I knew then what I know now. Because the layers that they went through were very definitely visible. This thing had been covered in various floods. But it was so interesting, the stuff that they found. Because it became an international incident. One of the coolest cats in the whole joint was Pono the Greek. And Pono run the sluice box. He had been all over the world. When the girls dug everything out, then they took the dirt to Pono, and he washed it down. Pono found thread of somebody’s sewing. Then they found the needle. And that to me was so cool. They had this needle that looked for all the world like a darning needle. How in the blazes they cut that eye in there! This was a really heads-up organization. [LAUGHTER] Interesting. Very interesting.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, that was a very significant archaeological find.</p>
<p>Boice: I’ve got to go back some day and talk to that doctor. At an anniversary of something, we’re down here at Columbia Park, and he was talking and I showed up there with the historical society doing something-or-other. And I talked to him for about five minutes. He mentioned the fact that he wanted to see the guy that painted that elevation. I said, well, you’re looking at him. [LAUGHTER] It was—I got to go talk to him. Because one of the things in their report—they talked that the ditch was dug with a Cat. Now, I ain’t saying they’re wrong, because I didn’t see any digging when I was there. But just—as you’re going up and looking at a hole, and in those days we had looked at a bunch of holes—we were inspectors. They were going behind the soils guys. And it just to me had all the appearance of somebody that dug a ditch with a dragline. And I always figured it was a dragline in there, and somebody said it was a Cat. I don’t totally agree with him. But the bones were so interesting. They said that the one thing about the site was there had been somebody living on it forever. Just, the further down you went, the more primitive they became, ‘til you got past the layer of the Mazama ash, when Crater Lake blew its top. And they went past Mazama ash and suddenly things looked pretty sophisticated. That’s where the needle came from and a few other things. It was neat. I’d have liked to spend more time with them.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah. I’m sure you heard about the dam failing and the site flooding after they—because they created the protective dam around the shelter, and that failed and let water in.</p>
<p>Boice: It didn’t fail! The SOB was never built to hold! When they brought us down there to check these drill holes out, the drillers—we had other stuff to do that morning, and we didn’t get down there until 10:00. The driller had a half-a-dozen holes in. I’m talking to this old driller, and he says, they ain’t never gonna keep water out of that thing, because there’s a layer of palm wood down there and it’s gonna leak like a sieve. But they did it anyway. And we’re down there checking on settlement pins and a whole bunch of other stuff when the water’s coming up. But we’re all on the radio, and it’s like a big one-party line—you can hear what’s going on no matter where. And they’re putting in pumps, and the more pumps they put in, the more water they sprayed out, but noting changed. [LAUGHTER] So it’s a lovely fishing pond. But interesting: it was shortly thereafter that I quit the corps and went to Alaska. Within a year-and-a-half, two years, I’m up there doing the same thing, only instead of spotting holes in the ground, we’re spotting oil wells. And sitting in a warm-up shack, talking to a driller, and he made mention of the fact that they had spudded oil wells. Now, when they spud an oil well, they get in there with an oversized auger, like you’re setting telephone poles. And they go down there through the mud and the blood and the crud ‘til they get to solid rock. And then they bring in the drills. And he says, we have yet to spud a well here that we didn’t get palm wood. And that has always sat with me. Now, when they’re talking about global warming—if there has been palm trees growing at the mouth of the Palouse River, and palm trees growing at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, it’s been a lot warmer than people are willing to talk about. [LAUGHTER] Just boggles my mind that there is palm wood in Alaska as well as Marmes Rockshelter.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow, that’s really interesting. So you were—Marmes, then Alaska. When did you come to work for Vitro at Hanford?</p>
<p>Boice: That was a pretty short season. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: At Hanford, or in Alaska?</p>
<p>Boice: At Vitro. Oh, at Alaska I worked for various contractors. But Vitro—we didn’t philosophically match. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Ah.</p>
<p>Boice: Their minds were all inside the fence. And I’m too antagonistic. [LAUGHTER] If we had a problem—thou shalt not speak bad of Vitro. And we’re laying out penetrations on top of a tank. And they’re all done. Radius and angle—which radius is—and they had them at different stages there, and other people had been doing them. And this tank had been there for quite a—not quite a while, but every once in a while someone would come in and set some more holes, set some more holes. Well, they didn’t continue their circle around—nobody closed the circle. So by the time we get there ‘til the end, we have to figure out by adding up each and every hole all the way around the circle at every different radius to get the dimensions to where we’re at. Where if the guy had closed out his circle, you could have backed him out and been out of there in about a tenth the time. So I happened to make the statement, I said, Vitro drafting strikes again. And I was a marked man. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: How long in total, then, did you work out on the Hanford site?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, in ’56-’57, or ’57-’58, they were doing a lot of military work out there. And we did the roads up Rattlesnake—was in on that. The road up Saddle Mountain. A lot of RADAR sites. You’re aware of the Nike sites on—</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup.</p>
<p>Boice: --the north side of the river over there?</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup.</p>
<p>Boice: Been there, done that. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: So—that wasn’t for Vitro, was that when you were with—</p>
<p>Boice: That was the Corps.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And we also did a lot of work up at Moses Lake.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: All the runway extensions up there, we were in on. They throwed us in the clink. They did not like our very presence.</p>
<p>Franklin: Why?</p>
<p>Boice: Apparently Moses Lake had two different structures. There was the Strategic Air Command structure up there, and there was the Military Air Transport Service. I didn’t know the difference. Les was—we were doing some mapping work. And the three of us were just gonna run some levels out to the next site we were gonna work at. And we took off the BM—benchmark—at the control tower. And we get about two turns out across the flight line there. And a bunch of guys come out, like a changing of the guard or something. Two or three of them stopped to talk to Kirby and George. The other five come out along, and they walked, just formed a circle around me, and they wanted to know if I wanted to go with them. They had submachine guns and a whole bunch of other stuff, and I said, heck, there’s nothing I’d rather do! [LAUGHTER] So they called up Walla Walla and they verified our existence. Then we had to go through security and get badges to—and we’d been working on that thing off-and-on for months. But we just hadn’t stepped in the right zone.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, wow.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: They were just kind of waiting for you, then, to—</p>
<p>Boice: Just different—different bunch of stuff.</p>
<p>Franklin: Right. When you were in school in Kennewick, so after the—or even just after the word was out about the Hanford site, after August 6<sup>th</sup>, 1945, when you were in school, did they teach anything about Hanford history? Was it—</p>
<p>Boice: Go back to August 6<sup>th</sup>.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: What a day. [EMOTIONAL] What a wonderful day! I’d been down at the Village Theater—now the Richland Theater. I don’t even remember what was playing. But we came out, [EMOTIONAL] and the bells were ringing. The church down there, they were ringing their bells. And everybody was whooping it up—the war was over! And I’ll never forget, some gal in there alongside the street, she had half a dozen kids with garbage can lids and a parade going, and they’re banging and clanging. And the festivities that the war was over. And then we went back and they came out with the thing and Truman said, It’s the Atomic Bomb, and that’s what we’ve been building. And Mom went over and talked to the lady next door. She mentioned the U-235. And the gal says, they didn’t talk about that, did they? And she’d been keeping files, and her husband had been working on it. And neither of them would ever admit that they knew what the other one was doing. It was that tight. And the security in Richland. The FBI knew everybody in town, because it was not uncommon—it was a regular thing that they would come around and they would talk to you, and ask about him. And then they’d go talk to him and ask about you. It was just—it was what was going on. We didn’t know why. Well, after that—yeah, after it came out what was going on out there, then we knew what was there. But until Truman come out and said, here’s what was going on, we didn’t know.</p>
<p>Franklin: What about V-J Day? Was that a separate kind of a big celebration?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Was that as big as the news of the bomb drop? Or was the bomb drop more of a pivotal moment here in the—</p>
<p>Boice: Well, the V-J Day, the end of the war, was the big day. That’s the celebration that I’ll never forget.</p>
<p>Franklin: Can you talk about it?</p>
<p>Boice: June—you heard about Harry Truman, didn’t you? When he come out to Hanford?</p>
<p>Franklin: No.</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER] The head of security was a guy by the name of McHale. And Dad worked pretty close with him with the fire department because everything was safety and security and if you had a problem, see McHale. Now, the guy had taken—he was pretty much high up in intelligence—but he had assumed the position of a first sergeant. And Sarge McHale was the guy. No matter what happened, Sarge McHale. Harry Truman did a fantastic job, and made his reputation just going from plant to plant—the Truman Investigating Committee, cutting down waste. And I guess he did a heck of a job. But he come out to Hanford and demanded to be let in.</p>
<p>Franklin: Sorry, was this when he was Vice President or President?</p>
<p>Boice: He was a senator!</p>
<p>Franklin: Senator—Senator Harry Truman. Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: And he comes there and demands to be let in. And of course, the guard says, McHale! And McHale comes over there and meets him head-on. He says, I’m Senator Truman, and I demand to be let in. McHale says, I don’t give a damn if you’re President of the United States; you ain’t coming in here. And he didn’t. Well, years later, and I believe it was when they were dedicating the Elks Club in Pasco, Truman was back up in this area. And he was President. And he come out to Hanford and he looked up McHale. And he said, uh-huh, you son of a bitch, you didn’t think I’d make ‘er, did ya? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow. That’s a great story. [LAUGHTER] But thank you. So after the war was over, was what went on at Hanford taught in school? Was there mention of the work at Hanford that built the bomb? Was that part of the curriculum here in town?</p>
<p>Boice: The local lore.</p>
<p>Franklin: The local lore, but nothing in the school at all?</p>
<p>Boice: Not that I recall.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Everything was—there was a terrific amount of pride. The Atomic City, the atomic this, the atomic that. The first barber shop quartet come to town, when GE left—no, DuPont left, GE come in, four guys come in from Schenectady, New York with a barber shop quartet. First ones I ever saw. And they were the Atomic City Four. And the next one were the Nuclear Notes. [LAUGHTER] But there was an atomic pride, all over the area. Then there was the people that thought we should be ashamed of it. That we had built this device that killed a whole bunch of people.</p>
<p>Franklin: Now, were these people in the community? Or people outside?</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: And this was right at the time—</p>
<p>Boice: Oh, no, no, no. This is--</p>
<p>Franklin: Later?</p>
<p>Boice: Last week? [LAUGHTER] Last few years ago, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: I got my—I’m still behind Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Okay.</p>
<p>Boice: Screwed up and all. Back to Vitro for a little bit. Like I say, they were—the organization that literally purchased and built the city of Richland—now, at that time I was flying, and I was flying out of the Richland airport. And there was an old geezer out there called Norm. Norm flew the bench. He was always on the bench out in front of the airport, there. And if somebody just going up to burn up some hours or play, why, Norm was willing to go along. I saw Norm and I hauled him around and then I went back to work for Vitro. And Pritchard brought this guy through—it was Norm! Norm had been the head of real estate when the entire city of Richland and the whole Hanford Project was bought. He was in charge of it. And he retired and trained his successor, who died. And he trained the next guy, who died. So they had Norm on a retainer. Just to ride dirt on real estate. Quite an interesting character!</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, I bet. I think I’d kind of like to return about something we were just talking about a minute ago, where you were talking about people that—especially in the later years that have been critical of Hanford. I’d like to get more of your feelings on that. On how you feel about that, or kind of what part of their argument or their viewpoint that you don’t agree with.</p>
<p>Boice: They were talking about—well, first there was the Richland High School and their bomb insignia. It was felt that they were making a big deal or prideful about this terrible event. And I always go back to a group from Japan that came over and were very critical of Richland for the same thing. And the gentleman who was interviewing them or was talking to them, when they got done, informed them in no uncertain terms, that we were invited very unceremoniously into that war, and we’re sorry if you didn’t like the way we ended it. [LAUGHTER] You get to researching, I’d like to bring up, why didn’t they drop the bomb on Tokyo? Because there was nothing left on Tokyo to injure. If you read about Curt LeMay and the Strategic Air Command and the bombing of Japan, he had eliminated that thing down to—the B-29 was supposed to be a high altitude bomber. And it wasn’t as great at it as it was advertised to be. But they had eliminated the defenses. And they made the B-29 into a low-level trucking company, and they were just hauling stuff over and unloading it. And the firebombing of Tokyo—the movies they showed us in the Air Force was something to behold. I mean, they—it was so much worse than what happened at Nagasaki or Hiroshima, either one. He was told to save two or three targets—clean targets. And when they come over there with the bombs, then they used these clean targets and saw what they could do. Of the four devices—the four nuclear devices, we used—was it four or three in World War II?</p>
<p>Franklin: Are you referring to—</p>
<p>Boice: All but one of them came from Hanford.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: The first one at Los Alamos was plutonium. And then Hiroshima was Oak Ridge.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yup.</p>
<p>Boice: And then Nagasaki was plutonium.</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: But there’s those that—and there were at the time, there was a big discussion on, should we demonstrate to them what this thing could do? And the big argument was, what if it doesn’t do? What if you drop it and it don’t do nothing? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. Can you speak to—or do you remember anything about the Civil Rights era in the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p>Boice: [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: There were reports of—you know, it’s known that Kennewick was kind of a sun-down town, and that many minorities were forced to live in East Pasco. And that during the war—</p>
<p>[NEW CLIP]</p>
<p>Franklin: There had been a sizable African American population at Hanford, but that after the war many of them left. So I was wondering if you could speak to the Civil Rights action you might have seen or you might have observed or anything in the Tri-Cities?</p>
<p>Boice: Well, I was up in Lewiston when their civil rights march come through. But it was well-advertised. People knew what was gonna happen. And I was at the hardware store, and there’s a black cement finisher I’d worked with building houses in Pasco. I says, Leroy! You gonna come march on Kennewick? He said, [AFFECTED DIALECT] shee-it. I wantsta live in Kennewick just about as bad as you wantsta live in East Pasco. [LAUGHTER] They had a march on Kennewick—a bunch of people that—I am told, because I was living in Lewiston, and I was in Lewiston at the time. But there’s a group out of Seattle and a group out of Portland come up to Pasco, and they marched across the bridge. They marched down Avenue C, up Washington Street, down Kennewick Avenue. And Kennewick yawned. Nobody particularly cared. They got to the Methodist church, and the groups come out and says, you look hot. Come on in and have some lemonade. They sat down at the church, had lemonade and went home. And that was the civil rights march in Kennewick. But there is—when I was there growing up, there were no blacks in Kennewick. There were blacks in Pasco, and there were no blacks in Richland. With the exception—the guy that run the shoeshine parlor at Ganzel’s barbershop lived in the basement, and they tell me that there was two black porters at the Hanford House. And that was the total black population of Richland.</p>
<p>Franklin: Wow.</p>
<p>Boice: But they were not welcome in Kennewick. It wasn’t that big a deal when I was walking down Kennewick Avenue when a couple of black guys—they were bums, hobos—come walking down Main Street, you might as well say. And a cop pulled up and says, the railroad tracks are two blocks down that way. They go east and west. Either one will get you out of town. And they went to the railroad track. I always figured that the blacks wanted to move to Kennewick because they couldn’t stand to live next to the blacks in Pasco. [LAUGHTER] And if you want to get right down to it, well, all that hooping and hollering they do right now, you go down to Fayette, Mississippi, which is 98.645% black, and all the blacks in Mississippi can live in Fayette and nobody cares. Go down to Van Horn, Texas, which is all Mexicans, and they can all live in Van Horn, Texas, and nobody cares. But you let half a dozen white guys go up in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and they just have yourself a storm. Why, these are a bunch of white separatists! If everybody else can live together, why can’t the whites?</p>
<p>Franklin: Interesting. Some might say they were kind of starting a separatist movement up there, I think—claiming their own territory, and—</p>
<p>Boice: So what?</p>
<p>Franklin: Well, living together communally is often different from claiming that you don’t—aren’t subject to the law, the jurisdiction of the United States.</p>
<p>Boice: Nobody said that they weren’t subject to the law.</p>
<p>Franklin: Well--</p>
<p>Boice: They kept trying to integrate Prudhoe, but he kept getting cold and going home.</p>
<p>Franklin: Oh, in Alaska?</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah!</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: They had a heck of a time keeping Prudhoe integrated. Because them black people do not like cold weather! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: I don’t think a lot of people like cold weather.</p>
<p>Boice: It was a big joke when we went down south there, to work at Savannah River. Because—hell, we’d come out of here and it was Thanksgiving. It was cold. We got down there, of course, if you’re traveling you’re gonna get nightshift. We left having the cold weather here at night down there. And I says, that’s okay, you’ll get yours come summertime when it heats up. But surprisingly—and I was really surprised that they didn’t take the hot weather any better than we did. I mean, it was miserably hot, but they were just as big a problem as a rest of us.</p>
<p>Franklin: I imagine it’s quite a bit more humid down there, though, with the—when it gets hot, you know. Because the heat with the humidity is—</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, it is.</p>
<p>Franklin: --much worse than the dry heat.</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, yeah.</p>
<p>Franklin: Is there anything that we haven’t talked about that you’d like to mention? Or any question I haven’t asked you that you think I should—</p>
<p>Boice: I don’t know what it would be. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Yeah, we’ve really gone—really jumped all over the place. It’s been great. Anyone else have any questions?</p>
<p>Hungate: No, the only question—you said you’d done some work with the railroad. What railroad?</p>
<p>Boice: Name one. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Hungate: All railroads? Union Pacific, all the different--?</p>
<p>Boice: Yes. Right now they’re talking about the oil trains, and their problems with them tipping over? I wonder how long it’s gonna take them to get to the problem. In the beginning, railroads were 39-foot rails bolted together. Measured mile after mile after mile of it. Then in about, oh, the middle ‘60s—’67, thereabouts, ’66—when they were putting in the SP&S, that’s now the BN—the Burlington Northern on the Washington side. They went with quarter-mile steel. And the first question that we had as surveyors—because you’re constantly working with the expansion and contraction of steel—was how are they going to control that in long rails? Because if you’re working on railroads very long, first thing you realize is do not sit on the joints in a hot day. You get your butt pinched! [LAUGHTER] When those tracks expand. So we brought this up and the first thing they told us was, well, they’ve got special steel and it’s only going to expand sideways. Well, that story lasted about as long as it took when they started putting it together. Because when they started—they’d set up a factory down here, if you’ll call it that. Brought in 39-foot un-punched rail, and just rolled her off, welded her together and ground down the joints and put her in quarter-mile sections. They were very particular when they put it in at the temperature that they laid that down on, where before—you know what a creeper is? Okay, it’s a kind of a hairpin device that you put over the rail so that it will slide less. But in the old days, the 39-foot rail very seldom saw any creepers. When they put that quarter-mile steel together, you saw a lot of creepers. Now they have gone to ribbon rail. They welded the quarter-mile steel together. You drive down to Portland, and you look at that rail, and you’re gonna go a long ways before you see a joint. There at Quinton and Washman’s dip—which don’t mean a thing to you guys—[LAUGHTER] about a mile post from 120-whatever, they have got a creeper on each—alongside of each and every tie. I mean, they were using creepers like they were going out of style. To me, the expansion’s the thing that they got to worry about, but then they should have figured this out because they’re running it. But it’s a factor. You got to factor it in when you’re doing a pipeline, when you’re doing a railroad. When we were doing the pipeline, Maurice Smith of British Petroleum, who was the head pipeline engineer, I had lunch with him. [LAUGHTER] It ain’t like we sit down at a specified lunch—he dropped in at the chow hall I was eating and sat down at our table. So we got to talking about it. And that was the question I brought up, was how are you going to handle the expansion in the steel? And he says—he admitted it was a heck of a problem. And that you got to run as many Ss as you can so that it’ll take up and accordion itself. And when you’ve got a long straight stretch, it’s gonna give you problems. [LAUGHTER] Because it’s gonna go someplace. And that’s the thing that—after they started the quarter-mile steel, a couple of years later, we had a hot summer. The article in the Tri-City Herald called it the long, hot summer, where we had over 90 days of over 90-degree weather. But they were cutting chunks out of that railroad to keep her on the road bed. And at that time, when the SP&S was having these problems, the UP was laughing at them. They said, we tried this stuff in Wyoming. It didn’t work. And they’re using 39-foot stuff, and it was just whistling down the road. But now I see that they’re using the ribbon rail like everybody else. I can’t see how it’s gonna work, but the they’re doing it. [LAUGHTER] It ain’t my role! [LAUGHTER] The other one was the Camas Prairie. And that starts out, oh, about ten miles above Ice Harbor Dam, thereabouts, breaks loose, and goes clear up past Lewiston, up into Grangeville, Idaho. That’s a crazy little river.</p>
<p>Franklin: That’s the one that they filmed that Charles Bronson movie.</p>
<p>Boice: Breakheart Pass?</p>
<p>Franklin: Breakheart Pass, yeah.</p>
<p>Boice: Yeah, that was done up there. You get into railroad history—this area is knee-deep in it. Vollard was the great character in that. He started out with a little portage railroad around Idaho Falls and that area. And then he got the Walla Walla line—I call it the WWWWW&WWW line—Walla Walla, Waitsburg, Washtucna and Washington Wail Woad—which was a money maker. But he ended up getting a lineup from Portland out here. And then when they started building the Northern Pacific, they were building from both ends, and he was hauling Northern Pacific rail over his tracks and taking it out in railroad stock. By the time they got connected over in Montana, he owned a sizable chunk of the railroad. [LAUGHTER] And it was—you get into that railroad history, and it’s just takeover checkers. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: Great. Well, thank you so much, George.</p>
<p>Boice: Okay! [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Franklin: It was a pleasure talking to you. And, yeah, thanks for coming in today.</p>
<p>Boice: All righty. Write if you find work! [LAUGHTER]</p>
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:46:59
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
700 Area
Vitro Engineering
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1944-
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1972-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with George Boice
Description
An account of the resource
George Boice moved to Richland, Washington in 1944 as a child. He began working on the Hanford Site in 1972.
An interview conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
07/15/2016
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
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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.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Ellensburg (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
700 Area
Cat
Cold War
Construction
Dam
DuPont
FBI
Hanford
Kennewick
Los Alamos
Mountain
Park
River
Savannah River
School
Street
Tank Farm
Tank Farms
Theater
Trailer
War
-
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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">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span class="SpellingError SCX32632438">Pasch_Myles</span></span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></strong></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bauman</span>: Okay. All right. My name's Robert Bauman. And I'm conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Myles Pasch, today June 11</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX32632438">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, 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.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Myles Pasch</span>: Welcome.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: 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?</span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">the job act</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ually didn't materialize, but I </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">start working with the electrical distribution as a lineman's helper, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> of the experience in the Army. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I was a communications system in the Army, and so I started out in the line distr</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ibution as a ground man for the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">line gang, and about six months later why the Corps of Engineers turned the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">telephone system over to DuPont and</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> with the telephone experience I had, they</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I mean if you put me in th</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">e telephone system and I worked </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">in there then until I</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">until my retirement. And various jobs from cable splicer helper, to cable sp</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">licer, to lineman </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and supervisor of the installation and maintenance</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> crews, and then supervisor's office. Finally end up in </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">engineering section by the time I retired.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So you worked in a lot of different places, but mostly on electrical and phone.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Just about all of it on phones. Phones, phones, and phone lines.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And what sort of</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> job did your mother have when you arrived?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: She was in the T Plant, 221-T P</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lant </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">cleaning instruments and that </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">from the separations group when </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">they</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">vessels that they had to use for transferring mater</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ials and so forth and she was clean</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">up on that.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Oh, okay. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nd when had she begun work here?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">She began work there when they went into production. She worked at Hanford </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">during construction in the mess </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">hall, and then she transfer</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">red</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> to DuPont and started working soon as</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">right after they </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">went into production instead of </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">construction. My dad also worked there. Both in construction and in</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and he went </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">into patrol, the Hanford patrol, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">when they went into production.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And do you know how your parents ended up coming here for work?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">other than I</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">know they were living in northern Wisconsin. There wasn't much going on there, and so I know that they tried to</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">find something in the war industry to</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">work on, so they applied for and came out here to Hanford.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And did both of your parents continue working at Hanford after the war also?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: Yes. Fact is,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> I think my dad retired in '52. My mother retired when DuP</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ont phased out and they went to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">General Electric. She phased out with DuPont, but Dad stayed in until 1951</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> actually, when he retired.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So you said you initially worked for the Army Corps of Engineers and then DuPont?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">No. I worked for DuPont when I hired on in July of '45, but the Corps of Engi</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">neers was running the telephone </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">systems at that time rather than DuPont, and they turned the telephone systems ov</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">er to DuPont in January of '46, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and at that time I transferred right over to the telephone section and worked there until retirement.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Okay. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So what might a typical work day have bee</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">n for you back in the late 1940s early 1950s? What sorts of things </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">might you have done in a typical workday? Where might you</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> have gone on the Hanford site?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well, we had to go wherever they needed telephone service</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> and it was installation</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> of the wiring, telephones, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">maintenance of them. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> so wherever</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> they needed telephones, we went. I worked in</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> the outer </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">areas all th</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">e time, very little in the 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">rea. Most of my work was in the two Eas</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">t-West, and the 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">reas, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">wherever they needed a telephone repaired or put in, why</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> there's where we worked.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">How large of a crew or group did you work with usually, would be out there doing telephone repairs?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Usu</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ally there was about eight or ten</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> men on the telephone installation and repai</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">r group, and there was anywhere </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">from</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> one to four cable splicer crew</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">s going splicing cable. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Especially when they really </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">start opening up in the late '40s early '50s, and they start increasing the size and that of the telephone systems.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So I imagine over the 37 years</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">is that how long?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Yes, 37.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Imagine over the course of those 37 years the telephone systems changed quite a bit.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Yes, we started out with</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">when the Corps of Engineers had it, they </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">started out with common battery </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">switchboards with operators on them in each area, and each area had a 100 or</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> 200 line switchboard, whatever </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">they n</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">eeded. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nd when they turned it over to DuPont</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> though</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> they'd already had </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">installed </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> automatic switching </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">station. So right after they turned it over to DuPont, why it switched over to autom</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">atic switching stations and the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">operators were taken off the project. And then it wasn't many years later they ha</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">d to increase the size of that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">They went from a </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span class="SpellingError SCX32632438">Strowger</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> switching system to a North Elect</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ric all relay switching system. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And just in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">well not what, in the early '80s or late '70s</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> why</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> they switched over t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">o a computer-controlled </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">switching system, which is what they are still using out there now is a computer-con</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">trolled. But they went from say </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">100 lines in each area to several thousand lines and now</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, and the increase in people and buildings </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">that were put in during that time. During that period of time. When I first star</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ted there, there was only three </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">reactors and the East-West A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">rea each had a separations building, but the only one</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> that was actually in use was the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">2</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">21-T P</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lant.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: So</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> were some of those buildings more challenging to work with install or fix phone lines?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Yeah</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> some of them we had to get special permits, special clothing</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> monitor buttons</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, and pencils, and badges to go </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">into them. Probably only allowed 30 minutes in some spots. They were restricte</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">d to how long you could work in </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">there and so forth, because of the radiation.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Mm-hmm. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So did you have a radiation monitor or some sort when you did that?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">We had a radiation monitor. Our badge was a radiation monitor. Whenever we </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">went into an area, why, we got a </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">couple of pencils that you put in your pocket that rated different types of radiation</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">. Some buildings they had to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">have even another different pencil in your pocket in order to work there. Bec</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ause there was different types, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">different radiations.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX32632438">
<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And, so</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> you mentioned you worked in T-P</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lant? In there as well?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Oh</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> yes</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> I worked</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">fact is that was </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">one of our most challenging ones. We wen</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">t there to work, and you had to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">drive dressed in doubl</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">e protective coveralls and </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">boots, and gloves, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> hoods, mask, and then when you went out,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> you had to strip all that and you couldn't drag your tools out with you. Th</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ey stayed, either stayed or got </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">thrown away. So in that one you were very limited on how long you coul</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">d work in the canyon. That was in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">canyon itself.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Yeah. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Now for the site itself, when you first started working at Hanford site</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> given high sec</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">urity and secrecy, did you have </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">to get a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> special security clearance, or--?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I had a Q clearance all while I worked there. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> had a Q clearance, which allowed you</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> in</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">to everything except top secret </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">buildings. The only thing about Hanford there is a need to know basis. You never </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">learned anything about anything </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">else that was going on except if you were doing it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">When you first started, were you</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">how did you get to Hanford? Were you able to dr</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ive your own vehicle or did you </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">have to take the bus?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">We took a bus out. You could drive your own vehicle off the area, park it outsi</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">de the fence and that, but most </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">people rode the bus out. They had bus transportation to all areas.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And did that continue for most of the time that you worked at Hanfor</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">d, or did that start to change</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">That continued. Most of the time I worked at Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> except the last few years and I was man</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ager or supervisor </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">of the business of</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">fice. I was working in the 700 Area in the Federal B</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">uilding. Was </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">then based in there. So at that </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">time I </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">no longer had to ride buses out. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ut then the las</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">t three four years I worked, I was back out in the areas </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">again, but of course I was driving company car out for instructing peopl</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">e on the new telephone systems. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">They'd set up meetings and I'd go out and instruct them on how it worked and what they could</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">what they could </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">use of the communication systems. There was a lot of stuff they weren't allow</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ed to use by DOE because it was </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">expensive and unnecessary. So some of the things that they could have had and u</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">sed, why, they weren't available </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">to the plant operations. Some of the top management had them, but a lot of the s</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ystems was not available to the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">regular</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">m</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ost of the divisions</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Now because of the security at Hanford, and secrecy, were there any sort of special phone</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">concerns about</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">communication, using telephones. Was there any special security or anything like that, related to telephones?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: They </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">always stressed security. That, talk and sink your ship, and so fort</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">h and that, to keep people from </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">talking, and of course they had monitoring systems that they</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">the FBI had one set u</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">p in one of the buildings there </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">where they could access any phone in the plant if they had the nee</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">d to monitor to see if anything </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">was going on that shou</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ldn't be going on. And they then</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> recorded them on little old</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> spools of wax. Little drums of </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">wax recordings that they used to use way back when.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Really? [LAUGHTER] Wow, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">hat's interesting. Did that impact your work at all, the conn</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ections at all, or how you did the telephone lines at all?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">It just gave us more work. I mean we had to</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and that was top secret, we were n</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ot allowed to discuss that with </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">anyone that this was set up was there</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> available to the government.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: I’m going</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> to shift a little bit now and tal</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">k a little bit about the area, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">he Tri-Cities area</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">. When you first arrived where did </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">you live? And what were your first impre</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ssions of Richland or the area </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">here?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lived in a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">with my folks. They'd rented a three bedroom prefab,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> because they wanted us to come </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and live with them while I was there. So we lived in that prefab for the first six mo</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nths, then we moved into one of the B </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">hou</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ses down the south end of town. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And it was pretty desolate, lot of wind, no trees.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> And I thought every time the wind blew</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, why, they'd lose about half their—half their employees would terminate—</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">termination winds they used to call them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> And of course the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">none of </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">the cities were any too large at that time, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nd they just grown a lot since. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ut Richland was all government owned, all the homes and </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">everything was government owned </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">until about '53 they sold the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">about '52 or '53 they started selling the houses</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> to the resident who was in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">house. An</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">d I moved out just before that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">We'd moved out and went to Kennewick, so we didn't buy one of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">one of the plant houses.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Now had you</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">did you know anything about the area before you came here? Had</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> your parents told you anything </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">really about--</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Not a thing. Just come for the job.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">S</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">o what was the community like i</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">n t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">hose early years in the late ‘40s early ‘50</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">s?</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> Because</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> I would assume mo</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">st people had </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">come from all over the United States to work. What was that like?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: They come all </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">from all over from the United States and they</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">everythin</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">g in town was government owned. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So they had a big recreation building. They had two theaters and they had the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> recreation building where they </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">would contract some major musicians to come in and play, oh</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> probably once a mo</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nth they'd come in and play for a dance there for the people. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">About the only other</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">well, we had the bowling alley and one tavern in town.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER] Yeah,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">he bowling alley and the tavern </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and two theaters. So a lot of the recreation were just people parading up and</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> down the streets on a </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Sunday when they weren't working.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">So there were theaters to go to. Were there any parades or those sorts of events </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">going on in the summer </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">at all?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Every year they had parades that the government sponsored. Either parades or art in the park and such as that,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> that</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> they got started. So there was quite a bit going on, and like I say, every so often they'd get a big band,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">one of the big bands in </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">play for the dances. And eac</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">h department would manage to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">make a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">couple of parties every year to keep their people happy.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">You mentioned the termination winds and often a lot of people came and went</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">. What made you stay </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and your family stay there?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Oh, I guess I liked the job.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> It was just what I had always had been doing was tele</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">phone work. So I liked the job, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">pay wasn't too bad. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nd we had all—a </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lot of free time. I mean on the weeke</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nds and that, and it wasn't too </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">far to go out to find recreation in the areas. Fishing or boating or just sightseeing. So we enjoyed</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">nd we </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">enjoyed the climate and that here compared to in some other areas we lived in.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Not quite as cold as Wisconsin</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, I guess</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Yes. That's--</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I wonder if there were any major events or things that happened while you were wo</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">rking at Hanford that stand out </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">in your memory. I know President Kennedy was here in 1963</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> right, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">to sort of open the N R</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">eactor. I wonder if you </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">remember anything about that or are there any other events that really stand out?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">That was one time that they even let school out so that school kids could go out there</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">. And our son was in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">band, so he was out there playing, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and the whole family was out</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> at the N</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> R</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">eactor when President Kennedy </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">was there. Were able to</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> spend the afternoon out there. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Fact is, th</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ey even got a chance then to take them</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> by the building I was based in at th</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">e time, which is out the old BY </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">telephone building. Got to take the family by there, and so we had a family picnic </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">there at the BY b</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">uilding on the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">way home from the outing.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">That's probably the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> first time family members had a chance to be out--</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">That's the first time they were allowed out there at all. I mean</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> if</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> you didn't have a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> badge you didn't go out there, </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">unless you got special badge to go out into the area. But they had the chec</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">kpoints at 300 are and out at--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">on the highway coming in f</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">rom the Yakima area</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">the highway where that </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">highway 24's junctions with it. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">They had a gate out there, and one out by the</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">before you </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">got to 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">rea and you had to have a badge to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">go through there.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Okay. And w</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ere you able to drive your cars out for that event?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">You could, but they were inspected. Trunks inside and outside as you went through, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">but you could drive </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">your car out. But most people did use the bus.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I wonder if</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">what would you like future generations to know about Hanford? What it was l</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ike to work there. What it </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">was like living in the Tri-Cities, especially in the 1940s and 195</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">0s and those years in early </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Cold War years.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well, I don't know.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> That's </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">other than the fact, that it was one of the main things that stopped</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">World War very soon. I mean they saved</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">people worry about them having killed a </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lot of people, but they saved a </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">lot lives. And if you look at it in the long run, well, they saved one amount of l</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ives with the production at the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Hanford plant.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">It seems </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">like</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> your work experience in 37 years was generally very good. You liked your job</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> is that right?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: Most of the time i</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">t was good, yes. It was</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">there was </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ups and dow</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ns, but it was as a rule it was </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">pretty good. It was a good job and it was a sure job. I mean as long as you d</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">id your work and kept your nose </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">clean, why</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> you had a job for as long as you wanted to stay. I could've stayed on be</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">yond retirement age if I wanted to,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> but I was ready to go traveling. </span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And how about the Tri-Cities as a place t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">o live? You mentioned you moved to Kennewick in the early 1950</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">s?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">We moved to Kennewick in 19</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">52, and lived there until 2011. I moved back into Richland, about four or five blocks </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">away from where we first started out in Richland.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> So I liked it in Kennewick, but it'</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">s crowded. We found a real nice </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">location out in Richland that we liked and I built a home there, and we</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I moved out there. </span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well that's really interesting about your work and seeing the different changes right, with the telephone sys</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">tem </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and changes at Hanford. So you started wit</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">h DuPont. What other contractor</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">s did you work for over the years?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well, DuPont, and General Electric, and ARCO, and Westinghouse, and main one</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Rockwell. Fact is, I've spent a lot of time—</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Rockwell was one of the last ones that I just transferred over to </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Westinghouse as Rockwell phased </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">out just about t</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">he time they were phasing out </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">combining a lot of the companies. Rockwell went out and </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I've worked with</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">or with Westinghouse for just a short time, then just to carry over until they got it</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">got all their </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">programs going again right. There's a lot of change every five years a</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">t least, why, they were changing </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">contractors, and was always a big change.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Was there a contract you worked for that you really enjoyed working for maybe more than some of the others?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Oh, no. They were all pretty good. I mean they were</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">had a job to do, and I was working in the same </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">telephone department all the time. We just transferred under different managem</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ent, and seems like all of those </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">contractors were nice to work for. I mean</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, they were all—</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">seemed just one as good as the other.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Okay. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Is there anything that I haven't asked you about? Or any memories that you have </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">of either working at Hanford or </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">living in the Tri-Cities that you think</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> i</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">s important to share that I haven't asked you abo</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ut yet, or haven't talked about </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">yet?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Not off hand. I can't think of anything.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Okay. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well, I really appreciate you coming and sharing your memories and your experien</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ces working at the Hanford site </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and being a part, especially of those early years at Hanford. I really appreciate it, and thanks very much.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Other than being a little nervous</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, why,</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> I enjoyed it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Man two</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">T</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">he only thing I can think of—well you--</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Woman one</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Last week my daughter came here when we came for the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">chancellor </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">thing. And she's 15, and they had studied</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">it somewhat in school, but she had some really strange thoughts, and not really </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">posi</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">tive thoughts about things that </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">had happened here. And I was won</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">dering if maybe you, since</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> you lived through it, if you could make that</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">—the </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">reality of life at that time more real to them?</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">I don't know, it just</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">there was a lot of restrictions and that, that you had to conside</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">r, going through that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">And the security involved with it was very strict, but I can see where it was very nece</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ssary. Any of that restrictions </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">and the production that they </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">made, like I say, saved a lot of lives </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">overall</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">, if you'd have continued </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">with the war as it was going. Why, it brought a stop to it in a hurry. And I think we shou</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">ld be thankful that it did that </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">rather than carry on for invasion of Japan and whatever would have happened after that.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">Well </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">again, thank you very much. I really</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> appreciate you being willing to be the first p</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">erson to be interviewed as part of this.</span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"> You get all the little nuances of everything so I really appreciate Mr. Pasch. Thank you very much.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Pasch</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX32632438">You're welcome.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX32632438"><span class="TextRun SCX32632438"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Man one</span>: Okay. Stop the tape.</span><span class="EOP SCX32632438"> </span></p>
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Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
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
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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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.)
-
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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>
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<p><strong><span>Northwest Public Television | </span><span>Soldat_Joe</span></strong></p>
<p><span><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bauman</span>: Okay, all right. </span><span>W</span><span>ell, w</span><span>e'll go ahead and get started.</span><span> All right.</span><span> What I'm going to have you do first is say your name. And then spell it for me.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joe Soldat</span>: Okay.</span><span> Joseph Soldat, S-O-L-D-A-T.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Thank you, and my name is Robert Bauman. And we're conducting an oral history interview. Today's date is </span><span>August 6</span><span>th</span><span> of 2013. And the interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University</span><span>,</span><span> Tri-Cities. </span><span>And so I'm talking today with Joe Soldat about his experiences working at the Hanford site. </span><span>So I wonder</span><span>--</span><span>let's start by maybe you tell me how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, how you heard </span><span>about the place.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>When I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in chemical engineering, I worked for a while at </span><span>the Denver General Hospital, which was associated with the university. And they lost their research grant. So I </span><span>heard from somebody that there was a place called Hanford. </span><span>So I wrote a letter to the employment department at GE. And I got a thing back, of course, that says, we got your </span><span>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 </span><span>unseen, on the train. </span><span>And I got off to train. I looked at all the sagebrush</span><span>,</span><span> like everybody, and said, oh, I'll give it a year or two. That was </span><span>1948. And I stayed on the project for 47 years.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: Ah. </span><span>And so</span><span> you</span><span> arrived in this place of sage brush and desert.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>What sort of housing did you find?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, when I came they put me in a barracks in North Richland,</span><span> the </span><span>old military barracks</span><span>--</span><span>small rooms for two people </span><span>with a closet and a dresser. And </span><span>showers were down the hall. Maid</span><span> came in once a week to change the linens </span><span>and towels. </span><span>And I was paying $0.20 a day for rent. Eventually, I got to move to Richland</span><span>--</span><span>the dorm M4. And on the corner </span><span>right now is a bank where M2 used to be. And </span><span>M2 became a motel for a while—s</span><span>ome guy bought it. </span><span>And then it fin</span><span>ally became a bank. But my wife-to-</span><span>be lived in the women's dormitories with W numbers. And so we </span><span>finally met, and ended up getting married in '52.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So did you live in the dorms for about four years from about '48 to '52</span><span> then</span><span>?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah, before I got married, yeah. And we managed to get a house. Because I was in radiation protection, we had </span><span>some small priority on getting housing. And we picked out a p</span><span>re-cut on the south side, three-</span><span>bedroom. So we lived </span><span>there till '63.</span><span> And moved in a </span><span>ranch house where I live now on Torbett, in a remodeled ranch house with an extra bedroom.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>About how large were the dorms that you lived in?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>The dormitories? Well, I'd say maybe as big as from here to that wall square.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>About how many people lived in the dormitories as a whole?</span></p>
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<div><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: On the</span><span> whole, I don't know. They had</span><span>--</span><span>since I was on weekly salary, I had one kind of dormitory. Those that were </span><span>hired on monthly salary had a little fancier ones. And the women had their own real good ones with a fence </span><span>around it.</span></div>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><br />Bauman</span>: </span><span>So what was Richland like in the late '40s and early '50s in the community?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, when I finally moved into town</span><span>, </span><span>the town, essentially, was closed. If you didn't work there, you could</span><span>n’t</span><span> live </span><span>there. You could come in. There was no fence around it. </span><span>But if you retired, you had to go somewhere else to live. There was no retirement housing. And the city, when I got </span><span>my house, supplied oil, or coal, free for the housing. So the rent was fairly reasonable at that time.</span><span> And they ha</span><span>d the fe</span><span>deral government until, I think</span><span> it was '58, when they sold houses to us, and got their own </span><span>governme</span><span>nt. One of my friends, Bob McKee</span><span>, was on the church council. And he became, eventually, mayor of </span><span>Richland. </span><span>His funeral is coming up Thursday. He died away back in the spring. But they delayed the funeral for relatives, I </span><span>guess. </span><span>But, anyway, I got a reasonable price for my house, I thought. It was like about $9,000 plus, because I had put up </span><span>a fence, and a little thing for storage of garbage cans and stuff. They thought it was the enhanced above the </span><span>original value. So I got a little better value. </span><span>We had the option of taking a buy back offer. If you wanted to sell the house back to the government in x number </span><span>of years, they would give you a 15% discount on your house. But I didn't opt for that. </span><span>I figured by then, I was going to stay.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> They had a cafeteria in a building next</span><span> to the 703 Building, that old Q</span><span>uonset</span><span>hut-shaped building, that later became commercial facilities. But we could go in there for breakfast and get meals </span><span>that were partly for military style, like powdered scrambled eggs and stuff like that.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>And w</span><span>hat about entertainment at the time you were living in the dorms? Were there things to do entertainment-wise?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: O</span><span>h, o</span><span>kay</span><span>. T</span><span>he people that lived in the dormitories could join the dorm club. We did all kinds of thing</span><span>s. We</span><span> had parties, dances, </span><span>skiing, bike riding, hiking—</span><span>everything before all these individual groups were established. So they covered the </span><span>whole share. I </span><span>learned to ski a little bit at Spout </span><span>Springs, made it down the beginner's hill.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>And you said you met your wife during that time?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yes.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Was she working also at the Hanford Site</span><span>, then</span><span>?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>She was a secretary. And she worked for a </span><span>while. We got married in June, a</span><span>nd in December, she had to quit </span><span>because she was pregnant. They would not allow</span><span>,</span><span> at that time</span><span>,</span><span> pregnant women to work after fourth or fifth month. </span><span>And then she never did go back to work. But she got involved in things like volunteering at the Red Cross, and </span><span>Republican Women's Club, and all the things kept her busy.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Did you meet as part of some social activity? Or was it on the job</span><span>,</span><span> at work that you met?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>She did all this being a housewife, all those things.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>But how did the two of you meet?</span><span> Was it at a--</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>I'm trying hard to remember.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: O</span><span>h, o</span><span>kay</span><span>.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>I think I was introduced by a mutual friend, a guy that I used to bowl together. That's the other </span>thing we had for <span>entertainment in Richland, was bowling. And I liked doing that. </span><span>But one of the guys I bowled with, we went to the restaurant</span><span>. Next to the Richland Players</span><span> Theater used to be a </span><span>drug store, a</span><span>nd they had a little cafeteria in there. </span><span>We went in there, a</span><span>nd we met these two women. And he knew one of them. The other one was going to become </span><span>my wife.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Let's move now to the work you did at Hanford. What was your first job?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>My first job while I was waiting for my clearance was in wh</span><span>at was the bioassay lab in 700 A</span><span>rea doing statistical </span><span>analysis of the resu</span><span>lts of the analysis of employee</span><span>s</span><span>’</span><span> urine for radioactive contamination. I wasn't allowed to know </span><span>everything I was analyzing. But I did a statistical analysis. </span><span>I had </span><span>a</span><span> orange card, which allowed me in, because I didn't have my clearance. Theoretically, I was supposed to </span><span>be escorted in and out. But there was such a mob of people going in and out they never bothered to ask me who</span><span>my escort was.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So where was this at?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: 700 Area, 703 B</span><span>uilding</span><span>—</span><span>the old one. And the b</span><span>ioassay lab was inside the 716 B</span><span>uilding, I think it was.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>And so how long did you do that?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>I did that</span><span>--</span><span>well, I came in August, '48. And it was five months before I got my clearance. Then I went out to T Plant </span><span>as a radiation monitor in training.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>And how long did you work there?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Oh, gosh, I worked there for a couple of years. And then I got transferred to environmental monitoring. Out there </span><span>in 2-East Area, environmental monitorin</span><span>g people were housed in an old Q</span><span>uonset hut next to the coal pile. </span><span>You had to go in and sweep your desk off with a broom every morning to get the coal dust off of it.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> And I stayed </span><span>there for a </span><span>while. I did some projects, calibrating some instruments, and other things.</span><span> And then we moved to 329 Building in 300 </span><span>Area. I think it was in the early '50s. And I stayed in environmental </span><span>monitoring work ever since</span><span>,</span><span> through the rest of my career</span><span>,</span><span> writing impact statements, deriving equations for </span><span>calculating dose to the public from releases at Hanford in food, and water, and air, and stuff like that. </span><span>And my models are still being used some places. I was</span><span>--</span><span>we didn't have a lot of data. But I learned from the turtle </span><span>you don't make progress unless you </span><span>stick your neck out. That’s how they do. S</span><span>ometimes throw darts at the chemistry </span><span>chart on the wall. And say, well, this one should behave like that one, and put together what we could know. </span><span>And my coworker Dave Baker was a computer guy. I'm not very good at computers. But he computerized a lot of </span><span>my equations and stuff. Between us, we agreed and what kind of factors to use. </span><span>There was some literature from the fallout studi</span><span>es. There was a fellow named </span><span>Yoka</span><span> Ng</span><span>, </span><span>N-G</span><span>,</span><span> in </span><span>California who had to put together a lot of data for the fallout branch on concentrations of various chemical </span><span>elements in soil and plants, which made it very easy for me to predict the update of the radionuclides.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So</span><span>,</span><span> what kind of findings did you have at some of your research about things that happened at Hanford in terms of </span><span>the air, and water, and so forth?</span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span>Soldat</span></span><span>: </span><span>Well, depends on what you want. It</span><span> all started in '58 when Jack Healy</span><span> gave a paper at the International </span><span>Atomic Energy Symposium. And he talked about what we were measuring in the environment, and the kind of </span><span>findings that we had. </span><span>And we eventually created a maximum individual person who ate big amounts of food, and drank milk from cows, </span><span>and fish from the river, and all that. And then we calculated the dose he would get from concentrations in these </span><span>things. And things were </span>generally below the limits that they had at those times. <span>Originally, in the early years the limits for the public were the same as workers. It took them a while to figure out </span><span>that there are, perhaps, more sensitive people in the public because workers were all health screened and </span><span>everything. So they lowered all the</span><span> public limits by a factor of ten</span><span> to be safer. </span><span>And we also had to put controls on releases to the atmosphere. The manager of the radiation protection </span><span>de</span><span>partment—it call was called health instruments at first—</span><span>set limits for the reprocessing plants, and how much </span><span>iodine they could release, and other things. And they worked hard during those years in the '50s and '60s putting </span><span>in new cleanup equipment on the stacks</span><span>—</span><span>sand fi</span><span>lters. And then eventually PUREX</span><span> had fiberglass filters to remove </span><span>the particles and stuff. </span><span>So I've installed sampling equipment on all of the stacks</span><span>, and the separation there is, s</span><span>om</span><span>e of them before and </span><span>after the cleanup so they could see what the efficiency was. And I kept track</span><span>,</span><span> by goin</span><span>g to the operating gallery</span><span>,</span><span> what </span><span>kind of metal they were processing, how old it was, how much it had decayed, so</span><span> we could relate things to what </span><span>we were</span><span> finding at the stacks. </span><span>That data is still around. And when they did the dose reconstruction under Bruce Na</span><span>pier, they used a lot of my old </span><span>data about the stack releases. Fortunately, Bruce had an office next to me.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> So we communicated.</span></p>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So you worked there for how many years at Hanford?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>47.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>47, you must have seen a lot of changes in technology, instrumentation, those sorts of things?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>And administration.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> Yeah. GE, at one time, I think it must have been in the '50s, </span><span>decided that they would have no </span><span>job descripti</span><span>on titled assistant, or under-</span><span>secretary, or whatever like that. There w</span><span>ould be no committees doing any </span><span>administration. Every job had to have a written, definitive description specifying the d</span><span>uties, and the authorities, and </span><span>the obligations. And it worked we</span><span>ll for a long time. </span><span>And then before that, when I wanted to get a paper cleared, I had to go through</span><span> about half a dozen signatures, </span><span>including public relations, of course. But then later on, I</span><span>--</span><span>essentially with </span><span>my boss and one guy from public </span><span>relations</span><span>--</span><span>they all had to clear my public paper</span><span>s. And it worked out well then. Then Battelle</span><span> took over, reorganized things a little bit. And a funny thing hap</span><span>pened. I had a secret clearance </span><span>with GE. When </span><span>Battelle </span><span>took over, they decided that they didn't want to hav</span><span>e too many secret clearances to </span><span>manage. So they lowered my clearance and several other people</span><span>’s. </span><span>I want to the library to get a report I had written in 1949, classified secret. They gave</span><span> it to me on microfiche. I read </span><span>it, and I asked for a full printed copy. The remark I got eventually was, you can't</span><span> it. You're not cleared for it. </span><span>What are you going to do, brainwash me?</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> So </span><span>Battelle </span><span>had to raise my clearance back to what it was before.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Because you had written secret reports?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>I talked about iodine releases to the environment, a</span><span>nd measurements inside the 200 A</span><span>reas.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>I understand you were involved in a comprehensive food model?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>What was that?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, about the late '60s, Westinghouse had a project to try and calculate dose</span><span>s to the US public from a large </span><span>nuclear economy, especially reactors, and ignoring the waste part. And they </span><span>needed to know what would be in </span><span>food, and </span><span>water, and air, and everything. </span><span>And a fellow by the name of Bill Templeton who was an aquatic biologist worked with me at first. And then, f</span><span>inally, he said, okay</span><span>, </span>Joe. You're doing all right. So he turned me loose. But I <span>had a fellow, Dennis Harr, who came to Hanford from Alaska. </span><span>He was a fores</span><span>t hydrologist. They assigned hi</span><span>m to me to help look up the fa</span><span>ctors I needed. He came here to </span><span>WSU</span><span>--</span><span>or to Pullman, really</span><span>—</span><span>and looked up all of thinking about how much </span><span>a cow eats, how much water they </span><span>drink, and how many acres of this and that is growing. So he was very helpful lo</span><span>oking all that stuff up for me. </span><span>I just sat down and wrote an equation. I h</span><span>ad heard that in the Windscale</span><span> acciden</span><span>t that the iodine they released </span><span>stuck about 25% to plants. So I used that factor.</span><span> And I added that stuff from </span><span>Yoka</span><span> Ng with the soil to plant </span><span>ratios. So I modeled the uptake from soil, and combine all that in a big long equ</span><span>ation with about 21 parameters. </span><span>And I gave a paper on that</span><span> at an ANS meeting in the '70s. </span><span>And I also developed a diagram</span><span>—a </span><span>pathway </span><span>diagram I call it</span><span>--</span><span>with all of the line</span><span>s from all of the sources going </span><span>across and interacting. And then at the end, they combined for the dose at the end. </span><span>And that got published, too, in my '70 paper. </span><span>And I did put all that stuff together with some other things for </span><span>Reg</span><span> G</span><span>uide 1</span><span>.109. It included my calculated </span><span>dose factors for people of four ages</span><span>--</span><span>four years, 11 years, 17 or 16, and adu</span><span>lt, because the organ sizes are </span><span>differe</span><span>nt. So the doses are different. That was in there, my food model was in there, a</span><span>nd then I developed a model </span><span>for exposure to sediment in the </span><span>Columbia River. Dick Perkins had measured three or four radionuclides in the se</span><span>diment in the Columbia River as </span><span>best you could, because it's awful rocky on the bottom. And analysis of that to</span><span>ld me what the relationship was </span><span>between the water and the sediment, assuming it had been running for many year</span><span>s, and had time to come to equilibrium. </span><span>So I developed the equation for that, whic</span><span>h included the radioactive half-</span><span>life of the</span><span> elements. And that was used in </span><span>several instances in impact statements about</span><span>--</span><span>I think it was '59, t</span><span>hey had something called a Calve</span><span>rt Cliffs </span><span>Decision, in which they were trying to build a reactor. And the government wa</span><span>s forced to do an environmental </span><span>impact statement on every existing</span><span> reactor and every new reactor. </span><span>First rule was 100 pages</span><span>’ length. But it still grew,</span><span> because people were copy</span><span>ing what other people had done. Well, this flew, so we'll put it in. </span><span>Then they add unique things to their site. And it kept growing and growing. But the</span><span>re were 50 reactors that had to </span><span>have impact statements. And they split it up three ways between</span><span> Argonne</span><span> Nat</span><span>ional Laboratory, Oak Ridge, and Hanford. </span><span>And I got involved in the Hanford one. First time I used my sediment model was </span><span>for plants on the shore of Lake </span><span>Michigan, and exposure to people standing on the shoreline</span><span>--</span><span>first time I used it off-site. And we calculated the </span><span>dose someone might receive from the sediment contaminated from the water which came from the reactor outlet</span><span> that was dilut</span><span>ed before it got to where the fishermen was. So that was added to the impact statement, along with </span><span>the fish, and</span><span> all</span><span> the other stuff that we normally did.</span></p>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Hanford, of course, when you first arrived was all about prod</span><span>uction. But at some point that </span><span>shifted to cleanup. Did </span><span>that shift impact your work in anyway?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, yes and no.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> It changed exactly what I was doing. But I was still doing environmental stuff. </span><span>For cleanup</span><span>—</span><span>well, before that we were doing impact statements for new things at Hanford, like a front end for</span><span> PUREX to do</span><span> 100</span><span> N</span><span> fuel, and all kinds of stuff. Afterwards, I was doing impact statements and studies for</span><span>proposed cleanup. There was a big, fat three-volume document</span><span>--</span><span>I think it was SWASH</span><span> 1400, it started out. It</span><span> ended up being ERDA</span><span> 1400. </span><span>And in there, they studied every possible waste source, contamination source, potential for accidents and </span><span>exposure. And I did a lot of </span><span>those calculations. So one thing they wanted, which is very current today, they wanted </span><span>to know, what would happen if a tank leaked? </span><span>They said, what would happen if 1,000 gallons of tank leaked all at once</span><span>? So I got a guy, Andy </span><span>Reisenhau</span><span>er</span><span>, in</span><span> the</span><span> water department we called them. He was doing ground water studies. </span><span>And he figured it out. With this modeling, he showed how small the contaminated area would be, and how,</span><span> essentially</span><span> harmless and well-confined to the immediate vicinity it was. And I get all upset now a days about the </span><span>clamor about everybody that don't understand what's going on, even the governor. </span><span>[LAUGHTER] </span><span>At least he tried.</span></p>
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<div><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So when you started working for GE, what other contractors</span><span>--</span><span>you worked for Battelle?</span><span> Is that right?</span></div>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><br />Soldat</span>: Yeah. Battelle </span><span>just took over everything we were doing. Almost all people came directly to </span><span>Battelle.</span><span> There were a</span><span> few that stayed in the 200 A</span><span>reas the reprocessing areas. B</span><span>ut some of them later came to Battelle. </span><span>So a few </span><span>stayed out there, worked for the various contractors they had. </span><span>But it was nice, because having been altogether in GE, I could still communicate with those people when I needed </span><span>information and data on releases, and access, and things. I could talk to them directly. I didn't have to go up and </span><span>down the channels.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>You mentioned earlier that you had written a secret report. And you had to go back and look at it, they </span><span>initially </span><span>told you </span><span>you couldn't. As a site that, obviously, emphasized security and secrecy, I wonder if you could talk about how the </span><span>emphasis on secrecy and security impacted your work in any</span><span>way.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, I told you what happened to me</span><span> when I was working in the 700 A</span><span>rea. And I </span><span>got here in</span><span> '48. In '53,</span><span> they renewed the Q</span><span> clearances. I got called in the FBI for interview. </span><span>They said, when you were in college</span><span>—</span><span>that's like in '46 or '47</span><span>--</span><span>you attended a meeting of, I think it was, SDS, </span><span>which was supposed to be a Communist-related organization. They had a meeting in the park. </span><span>They were complaining about their treatment. And it was a big hullabaloo. And I decided I'd go down and see what </span><span>was going on. </span><span>Apparently, they had spies watching all these people. So they started asking me questions about that. And I </span><span>explained it away to their satisfactio</span><span>n. They said, do you ever read </span><span>T</span><span>he Communist Manifesto</span><span>? I said, no, but </span><span>maybe I should someday.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>When you first started working there, did you take the bus out to the site?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Pardon?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>When you first started working there, how did you get to the site and back? Did you take the bus out? Did you </span><span>drive a car?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>There was no background checks when I first came, because I had that work card. It took them five months to do </span><span>all the investigations of relatives and friends to find out if I was reliable. And I</span><span> finally got my Q clearance. </span><span>But they may have reviewed things other than that one I know about since. But the FBI was doing it at that time. </span><span>Later on, they farmed it out to a different government agency. And I don't think the checks were quite as thorough </span><span>at that time. </span><span>But you couldn't drive through the project like you can today. When you want to go to the west side, you can drive </span><span>down towards Vantage through the project. It's all right. But it used to be all sealed off. You had to go around by </span><span>Robinson's barn to get where you're going.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>And when you went through security at the gate, did you have to show a badge?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, after I got my clearance, they checked everybody's badge go</span><span>ing through. At one time in 300 A</span><span>rea, they had </span><span>a badge rack. You would put your badge in the rack to go home. They didn't want you taking it off site. </span><span>Well, one thing, you might get exposed from TV.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> The old TV sets had a relatively high energy coming out at the </span><span>bottom. Some kid sat there with his feet under the TV set, he might get a little bit of exposure. </span><span>And so one day, I wore some radiation dosimeters, those pencil dosimeters on myself while I was watching TV at </span><span>a distance. And then I put some by the TV set to compare the readings. And there was a small difference.</span><span> [LAUGHTER] Yeah, a</span><span>t first, </span><span>I thought security was a little lax because of the way they w</span><span>ere letting you go through 700 A</span><span>rea</span><span>,</span><span> first few months. </span><span>But it got pretty tight afterwards.</span></p>
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<div><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Were there any events or incidents, anything that happened</span><span>—accidents of any kind, </span><span>that happened when you </span><span>were working at Hanford, or strange occurrences? Anything sort of stand out in your mind?</span></div>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><br />Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, there was a few, of course. They had limit</span><span>s they set on the releases for i</span><span>odine-131. They had an experiment </span><span>in whi</span><span>ch they wanted to have short coole</span><span>d fuel, which would have more iodine in it, to released short-lived inert </span><span>gases like Xenon and Krypton to the atmosphere so the Air Force could fly around with a plane and measure it. </span><span>As I figure out, the idea was they could fly around Russia and see what kind of production they might be having </span><span>from what they could detect in the air over a facility. Well, when they had</span><span>—</span><span>it's called a green run, when they had </span><span>that, the iodine came out. A</span><span>nd there was a little bit of to-</span><span>do about that in later years, and people being exposed. </span><span>And even before the iodine releases were controlled, there was quite a few releases. But in later years, I used my</span><span> rules of thumb I learned, and</span><span> my models to predict what doses probably were in the early years before they had </span><span>reconstruction done. And I came probably within a factor of two of what they spent millions of dollars to calculate.</span><span> [LAUGHTER] </span><span>But that was one thing. And then they had some fuel that was mislab</span><span>eled, and it was short cooled, t</span><span>hat released </span><span>iodine in t</span><span>he 200 A</span><span>reas. </span><span>And we went out and studied the vegetation on the project, and all around. Well, it turns out the iodine was held in </span><span>the tanks for a while. And the vegetation that we measured didn't have any until they transferred the solution to </span><span>another tank. </span><span>Then the iodine escaped. And then we could find it on the vegeta</span><span>tion—we found it in the Pasco a</span><span>rea, and West </span><span>Richland. And the meteorological group predicted it would</span><span>--</span><span>according to the weather, it should</span><span> be</span><span> high in north of </span><span>Pasco. Well, it wasn't high there. </span><span>It was higher in Benton City than it was in Richland. An</span><span>d there was a Benton City farm tha</span><span>t had milk. And we sampled </span><span>that milk every day for a long time, and plotted the curve as it decayed. </span><span>And I backtracked it for a couple of days that we had missed. And I calculated the radiation dose a kid might have </span><span>drinking that milk. And the standard model was one liter of milk a day. </span><span>And I calculated all that. And we couldn't get the kids to come in to get a thyroid check for a</span><span>while. The mother was </span><span>reluctant. Finally, he came in months later. And at that point, I predicted the thyroid burden ought to be 70 </span><span>picocuries. And it turned out, he was measured 72 picocuries.</span><span> Then s</span><span>omething really interesting happened with that. Some anti-</span><span>nuclears</span><span> said that I had reported on thi</span><span>s thing, a</span><span>nd the </span><span>dose was less than a fraction of the limits. So it's all right to die by a fraction at a time. </span><span>Somebody else picked that up, and said I had pin pointed the death of a small child drinking that milk. So some</span><span> guy from Oak Ri</span><span>dge, his name was Piper, investigated all this stuff, and tried to put everything straight, and </span><span>straighten out all these misconceptions. But you can see what happens to the press.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So what time period was that?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>That was in '63. It's all publ</span><span>ished in </span><span>Health Physics Journal</span><span>, and all that stuff. They had an iodine symposium in</span><span> 1963—</span><span>a biology symposium. People all over the world came here. </span><span>And we met in the old community house, this little anteroom off to the side, with swamp coolers. And it was 116 in </span><span>Pasco.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span><span> It was a mess. </span><span>But we published a whole book of the papers. And I have a couple in here, at least by abstract anyway. I learned a</span><span>lot about the different factors, again, and improved my knowledge of what was going on.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>So when there were releases of iodine, you were involved in calculating the--</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Measurements?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah, another thin</span><span>g I did was I stood out by a met</span><span> tower wearing a respirator device that </span>measured my <span>breathing rate by volume. And they released iodine</span><span>--</span><span>I think it was 135 or 132, a real short </span><span>half life</span><span>--</span><span>that</span><span> another </span><span>guy</span><span> and I</span><span> could stand there and inhale. And then we went and got our thyroids counted, and watched the decay, and </span><span>integrated the whole thing. </span><span>And my </span><span>total dose was probably about ten</span><span> mil</span><span>lirem</span><span>, compared to the limit, which was 1,500 a year at that time. Herb </span><span>Parker got real mad, because we hadn't chec</span><span>ked with him to see if it was okay</span><span>. He said we should have our thyroids </span><span>examined before we did it.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
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<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: So you were used as test subjects?</span></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span>Solda</span></span><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">t</span>: The other release was from RE</span><span>DOX</span><span>--</span><span>ruthenium</span><span>--</span><span>there was two </span><span>rutheniums</span><span>:</span><span> 106, and 103. And the scrubber in the </span><span>plant that was supposed to remove these from their exhaust failed. And it released about 40 curie of ruthenium </span><span>out the stack. </span><span>It was detectable on Wahluke Slope, and all the way up just southeast of Spokane. It missed all of real good </span><span>farms, and everything, fortunately. So we went up collecting a lot of samples from that. </span><span>Then there was a contamination on Hanford itself on the roofs of some of the buildings and the ground. So that </span><span>was all cleaned up. I spent some time monitoring transportation workers who were going around picking up</span><span> particles around the 200 A</span><span>reas. </span><span>The other thing that happened is they found radioactive rabbits and coyotes</span><span>--</span><span>BC trenches, in 2 </span><span>East</span><span> Area</span><span>. They </span><span>disposed of waste which had cesium. And, of course, it's a salt relative to sod</span><span>ium in the</span><span> nuclei</span><span>c</span><span> chart. </span><span>And the rabbits got in there were eating the waste with the cesium, and digging down. And the coyotes were </span><span>eating the rabbits. And so we were finding this contaminated environment, and traced it down to that. </span><span>It didn't travel more than a mile or two. Rabbits have a very short range. They don't travel more than a couple </span><span>miles. And so that had to all get cleaned up, and cove</span><span>red over, put to rest. There</span><span> was a few things like that.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Did any of these incidents or releases</span><span>--</span><span>were there ever any that you looked at, studied, calculated, and found</span><span> that</span><span> it </span><span>was a risk to employees, or to the public at all?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>No, most of them were</span><span>--</span><span>the release of the strontium, the </span><span>highest concentration found at Wahluke Slope </span><span>across the river was</span><span>--</span><span>if a guy stood there and breathed the whole time the cloud time went by, he might have got </span><span>80 milligram to the lungs. And, of course, at that time, we were getting 100 milligram a year from radiation. And </span><span>the limit to the public was 1,500. So, really, it wasn't that significant.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>I wanted to ask you about a little bit different part of it. President Kenned</span><span>y visited in 1963 to open the N </span><span>Reactor.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah, I want to see--</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Were you there? Were you part of it?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>I was standing far back in the</span><span> crowd</span><span>. And I could barely see the President. They opened up to the site to the </span><span>public to go there. And I rode with a friend. And he and his son went with me. We watched that thing.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Do you rememb</span><span>er anything else about that day?</span><span> Or just being really far away?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, I remember when the helicopter landed with the President inside it</span><span>,</span><span> kicked up an awful lot of dust. I was glad </span><span>that maybe it wasn't all that contaminated for people to breathe.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Do you remember any other time when any dignitaries came to the site?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Yeah, I just noticed something I looked at this week. Nixon visited Battelle facilities, the main research building. </span><span>And Ronald Re</span><span>a</span><span>gan was here one time.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>I wondered what you would consider the greatest challenges you had during your years working Hanford, and the </span><span>greatest rewards?</span></div>
<div>
<div>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><br />Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, I don't know. The least of my challenges was working with administration, because usually they managed to </span><span>turn me loose when they found out what I was doing. I think that the challenge was finding data in the open </span><span>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 </span><span>sit down, and read it, and take notes</span><span>—</span><span>not like today. </span><span>So I found things, eventually, from researche</span><span>rs in Russia who had studied </span><span>uptake</span><span> and radionuclides in </span><span>fish,</span><span> and studies at Oak R</span><span>idge on fallout in cattle, and all these things. But finding data was a little hard, not because it </span><span>was classified. But </span><span>it was in the open literature, a</span><span>nd you had to think about where it might be located. That was </span><span>one of my most challenging things. </span><span>The other challenge was to learning how to use Word Perfect. </span><span>[LAUGHTER] </span><span>My secretary forced me to learn it. She helped </span><span>teach me because she couldn't read my handwriting. That was a challenge for a while. I still have trouble with </span><span>computers. </span><span>But I think the biggest reward was all of the recognition I got from management, and Health Physics Society, and </span><span>other grou</span><span>ps. I got a file about that thick that I labeled K</span><span>u</span><span>dos. And when they have the r</span><span>ecouplex incident in 234</span><span>-</span><span>5</span><span>that had a solution that wasn't handled right. And it had a</span><span> nuclear</span><span> re</span><span>action, in an outfit called recouplex. </span><span>We worked a week or so overtime in evening, and around the clock some of us, working on the effects of that, and </span><span>the dose to the people. And I had measurements of the stack ga</span><span>ses. And I predicted from the st</span><span>ack gases how </span><span>many fissions had occurred in that pot. And then the other guys, the real nuclear experts, came and did theirs. </span><span>And we agreed within a factor of two again. </span><span>But, yeah, it never really did much off-site again</span><span>. It dissipated before it got </span><span>anywheres</span><span>. We plotted the path, a</span><span>nd by the time it reached the boundary of the site over towards Pas</span><span>co it was essentially nothing. B</span><span>ecause when</span><span>you have a nuclear reaction like that, </span><span>you generate a lot of short-lived</span><span> radionuclide</span><span>s with seconds, and minutes, and </span><span>days. And so it really wasn't that effective off-site.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>What was the time period of that incident?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>I want to say April '62, I guess.</span><span> [LAUGHTER]</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Being involved in environmental monitoring, and monitoring the effects of releases and that sort of thing, did you </span><span>at any point</span><span>—</span><span>it seems like at some point, nuclear power became</span><span>--</span><span>like, certa</span><span>in groups opposed that, right?</span><span> You had</span><span>groups that</span><span> became</span><span> opposed </span><span>to </span><span>nuclear power</span><span>, and the use of--</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Obtained what?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Opposed to nuclear power--</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Oh, oh.</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Anti-nuclear stuff. D</span><span>id you feel that at all at work</span><span>, I mean or stuff you were involved in</span><span>?</span></p>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Soldat</span>: </span><span>Well, yeah</span><span>--</span><span>well, there are people off-</span><span>site who</span><span>--</span><span>that story I told you about that small child. And then there was </span><span>another guy, he worked at the University of Pittsburgh. I'm trying to remember his name. </span><span>He predicted all the dire re</span><span>sults of fallout from strontium-90. He gave a talk at strontium-</span><span>90 symposium in biology</span><span>put on here one time. </span><span>And he came to me a</span><span>nd says, I need to get my slides remade. </span><span>What he was doing was correlating</span><span> the concentration of strontium-</span><span>90 in milk and leukemia in children. Well, this </span><span>curve went to pot. And he decided he needed to summarize, average it, over two years. And eventually that went </span><span>to pot. It didn't work. </span><span>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 </span><span>them for a four-ye</span><span>ar average. So I went to Bill Bair who</span><span> was the manager of the symposium. </span><span>And he said, sure, we'll do it for him. And </span>they did. And he used them. Of course, a lot of people in the audience <span>knew better than to believe what he was saying.</span></p>
</div>
</div>
<div>
<p><span><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span>Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet that you would like to talk about? That I haven't asked you </span><span>about?<br /></span><br />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.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you're involved in the Herbert Parker Foundation? Is that right? Are you part of that?</p>
<p>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]</p>
<p>Bauman: Overall, how would you assess your 47 years working at Hanford as a place to work?</p>
<p>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]</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Soldat: I hope it's been useful.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yes. Thank you.</p>
<p>Soldat: Yeah, just carrying this around helped me remember.</p>
<p><span> </span></p>
</div>
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:53:44
Bit Rate/Frequency
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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
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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
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date Modified
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2016-06-30: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Subject
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Richland (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
Date
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8/6/2013
Rights
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
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video/mp4
Provenance
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The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
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.)
-
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4bdb6633307697446efeebe6eacc1f29
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F5860e0871ce50146e5899a1a69426bcd.mp4
36f3b018f208cb3c25f93d9c8058180e
Dublin Core
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Title
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Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
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Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
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Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Bauman, Robert
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Stratton, Monte
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p><strong>Northwest Public Television | Stratton_Monte</strong></p>
<p>Camera man: Okay. I say we record.</p>
<p>Robert Bauman: Yep. All right. All right, let's go ahead and get started. Get some of the official stuff out of the way first. My name's Robert Bauman, and I'm conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Monte Stratton. And today's date is July 16 of 2013. Our interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Stratton about his experiences working at the Hanford site. So first of all, thank you for coming in and letting us talk to you today.</p>
<p>Monte Stratton: Well, first off, you can call me Monte. I like to go by my--</p>
<p>Bauman: Will do.</p>
<p>Stratton: --nickname.</p>
<p>Bauman: All right. Well, Monte, I wonder if you could start by just telling us how and why you came to the Hanford site and when you came here.</p>
<p>Stratton: Well, going back to the early days of my working career, I was at an ammunition plant in Kings Mills, Ohio. This would have been in 1943. And at that time, the war was in its heyday and actually beginning to wind down to some extent. And I had been given a deferment up to that point, because I was at an ammunition plant. But they needed some personnel here at the Hanford site which was being built, and I was interviewed by the person who eventually became the plant manager to start with. That would have been Walt Simon. They were looking for people that had backgrounds similar to mine. I was an amateur radio operator and had some electronic experience. I'm an electrical engineer by profession, and they needed someone with that background for the instrument field. So as I said, I was interviewed and accepted the offer. I came to the Hanford site in February of 1944, and that's when I got started here at Hanford.</p>
<p>Bauman: And what was your very first impressions of the place when you arrived?</p>
<p>Stratton: A long ways from home. [LAUGHTER] I don't recall any particular impressions. I know that I arrived in the wee hours of the morning, came in by train into Pasco. And were met by plant personnel who escorted me over to Richland, and I was given a room in the—trying to recall what—the hotel that was originally in Richland. And I spent a week there and then I was given a room in the last men's dormitory that was built. This was K8. But my first impressions of this place were so different from the East Coast, where I'd grown up. So it took me a while to get used to it. But I soon learned to survive.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so you stayed—you were living in a dorm, a men's dorm at the time then. Could you describe that, like--</p>
<p>Stratton: For--</p>
<p>Bauman: --the size of it, or anything along those lines?</p>
<p>Stratton: There were eight men's dorms here in Richland. And there was a two-story building. I don't think any of them are still around, but they used some of them for facilities afterwards. I was on the second floor, and it was--I don't remember too much about any particulars of the dormitory. At this point, I might mention something about the dust storms that were prevalent in those days. They were called termination winds, and I recall one day I was laying across my bed. This was probably a Sunday afternoon, just resting, left the window open, and one of those termination wind dust storms came up. And when I woke up, I was covered with dust. [LAUGHTER] That was one experience that I had in the early days. Another experience that I had while I was there in the dormitory, and this relates to security—in those days security was very prevalent. There were a lot of security agents assigned here as everybody knows. And one afternoon once again I was laying across my bed and I got this strong knock at the door. When I opened the door the person walked right past me and came over to a radio receiver that I had on the table. And this receiver had a send/receive switch on the front. And he says, we have to put a seal on that. This happened to be the receiver that I'd brought out with me. Being an amateur radio operator, I brought my receiver along. We were taken off the air, of course, during the wartime, but I had my receiver just to listen to whatever was of interest. Well, I had a hard time explaining to this security person that this switch on the front of this receiver did not do any transmitting. That's what he wanted to make sure, that there was no transmitting involved. So I opened it up and let him look in and explained as best I could. Actually, the switch only controlled some external device if you wanted to hook it. But I managed to get past that one.</p>
<p>Bauman: And how long did you live in the dorms then?</p>
<p>Stratton: About one year. As I recall, I was in the dormitory for approximately one year. During that period, I met the person that I ended up marrying. And when I married this person, I moved from the dorm into a house that had been assigned us.</p>
<p>Bauman: And where was the house?</p>
<p>Stratton: The house was a duplex, a B-type house located on Judson Avenue in Richland. And we ended up having two children and we moved out of that B house to where we're presently living, which is an H-type house, [INAUDIBLE].</p>
<p>Bauman: And how did you and your wife meet? Was she working there as well?</p>
<p>Stratton: Oh, now you've asked a nice question. [LAUGHTER] It just so happens that I had a crew of people maintaining doing repair work on some of the instrumentation which I was assigned to. We had a shop in Richland, and one of my personnel was this girl that I became acquainted with affectionately and ended up marrying her. She was one of my, actually one of my workers.</p>
<p>Bauman: And where had she come from to work Hanford?</p>
<p>Stratton: She had come from Denver Ordnance Plant in Denver under similar circumstances that I came. At that time—this is a matter of interest—ammunition plants in different parts of the country had stockpiled their ammunition to the point where they were slowing down. A lot of the plants were either closing or slowing their operations. And the girl that I married had been working at one of the ammunition plants, and she was transferred here to the Hanford plant under very similar circumstances that I was.</p>
<p>Bauman: So, let's talk about the work you did then at Hanford when you first arrived. Could you describe the sort of work activities you were involved in?</p>
<p>Stratton: Well, when I first got here, I was assigned to a shop activity in the 300 Area. It was an instrument shop. And they were maintaining instruments that were being used throughout the project. And after that latter part of 1944, I was transferred to a new shop that had just been built in the 700 Area, an instrument shop. And that's where we were maintaining instruments that were being used throughout the project.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. And how long did you end up working at Hanford, and what other sorts of jobs did you have?</p>
<p>Stratton: Oh, I worked at Hanford here until I retired in 1982. I worked in all the different areas, starting at the 300 Area, then to the 700 Area. I was sent out to F Area at the startup of that reactor. And then came back to the 700 Area and was there for several years, and finally was sent out to the B Reactor. The B Reactor started up and operated for a short period of time. Then it was shut down—I don't recall for how long—a year or so maybe. And I was sent out to the B Reactor about that time--or was at B reactor about the time that it started up on its second run of operation.</p>
<p>Bauman: And about when would that have been?</p>
<p>Stratton: I'm guessing, and I was looking at my notes the other day, trying to figure out exactly when that would have been, but I'm guessing around 1949. I could be wrong on that date, but that's approximately.</p>
<p>Bauman: And what was your jobs at B Reactor when you were there?</p>
<p>Stratton: To start with I was actually a mechanic doing maintenance activity. But after being there for a while, I was elevated to a supervisor again. And I worked in B Reactor and several of the other reactors over the years. I went to the K Reactors when they were just being built and followed those from ground up, spent about roughly ten years, either as a supervisor or in maintenance engineering at the K Reactors.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you worked at several different areas then on the site.</p>
<p>Stratton: I did. I sure did. After the K Reactor started slowing down and—I'm trying to recall the date. I think it was 1972 when my work in the K Reactors had gotten to the point where I was no longer needed there. And so I came to the 200 Areas and spent another ten years there in field engineering.</p>
<p>Bauman: So could you maybe explain a little more, what would field engineering entail? Like, what sort of things might you typically do on a work day when you were working in the 200 Areas?</p>
<p>Stratton: Well, for instance in the K Areas, it would be going out and checking on the operation of the equipment, seeing that it's functioning properly and making repairs if they were minor, or otherwise I'd call a mechanic to come and do the repair work. In the 200 Areas, I was doing both field engineering and field inspection for new instrumentations that were being put in place.</p>
<p>Bauman: I want to go back a little bit to you said you first started working in Hanford in 1944. Right?</p>
<p>Stratton: Correct.</p>
<p>Bauman: Did you know what you were working on? Did you know it was--</p>
<p>Stratton: I've been asked that question many times.</p>
<p>Bauman: A lot of times?</p>
<p>Stratton: When did you find out that the—what they were doing here at Hanford? I might say this. My background being an electrical engineer and ham radio as a hobby, I had enough electronic experience in my background to begin to figure out from the instruments that we were using pretty much what was being done here at Hanford. So it took a while before I got all the details, but I started figuring out in the early days what was really happening here.</p>
<p>Bauman: And do you remember when you first heard the news that the war had ended, anything along those lines?</p>
<p>Stratton: I might relate one interesting experience. When they first made an announcement of what was being done here at Hanford, it was just a limited amount of information that was released to the news media. It so happened that my wife and I—this was in 1945—my wife and I were on a vacation trip, and we were at Mount Rainier. And when the news came out, of course, being the closed-mouth person I am, I didn't even say, boo, that I had worked at Hanford. However, my supervisor back in Richland was so afraid that I was going to start talking and say things that I shouldn't about the work that was, that he frantically got hold of me there at the—I think we were at Paradise Inn at the time. He was all concerned that I'd start talking. And I let him know right off the bat that I know not to keep—to keep my mouth shut and not talk—[LAUGHTER] other than what's official or released.</p>
<p>Bauman: So he called you while you were on vacation to make sure you--</p>
<p>Stratton: He called me to make sure that I didn't blab my mouth, something I shouldn't say.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you sort of mentioned a couple of times the security at Hanford, obviously. I wonder, and you lived in the dorms initially and then lived in a house in Richland. So in terms of security, getting onsite to work every day. Did you drive your car? Did you take a bus? How did that work?</p>
<p>Stratton: As I recall, I was using the transportation that was provided, bus transportation. Speaking of security, reminded me of another instance. I might back up a bit here. The people that I had working with me in the 700 Area were available to maintain instruments out on the Hanford Project. We had certain instruments that we would go out and take a look at. So one day I sent one of my personnel out to look at this equipment out in one of the remote areas. And she had a run-in, so to speak with the guards at the gate. She had been doing this job quite a bit, got to know quite a few of the guards at the gate, and she would kid them going through. And this particular day there was a guard at the gate that apparently she had not become acquainted with. And she made—when he asked her something about the equipment that she had—some of the equipment would be taken out for maintenance purposes. He asked her what she was carrying, and she made some remark about it being explosive or something along that nature, which—that was the wrong thing for her to say. And she had quite a hard time explaining herself out of that one. Another instance of security that I can recall—we had some instruments that were manufactured and when they arrived, the meter on the front of the instrument read millirankines. That was a no-no from an information standpoint. We did not want people that were not familiar with what was going on—that was the very early days—what we were actually measuring. And we had to take every one of those instruments out of the case and blank out the word, paint over the word millirankines to keep people who were not privy to the information to be able to read it, know what we were measuring. That gives you an idea of how strict security was in those days.</p>
<p>Bauman: And did you have to have a special security clearance to do the job that you had?</p>
<p>Stratton: I was issued what was called a Q clearance at the time. I think it was the popular security clearance for most people that would have access to classified information.</p>
<p>Bauman: Sure. I want to go back a little bit, again, to that first period during the war when you were living in the dorm. What sorts of entertainment was available on site for all the workers who were living in the dorms? Were there things to do for entertainment?</p>
<p>Stratton: [LAUGHTER] I don't recall too much that I got involved in as far as entertainment is concerned. I was never much of a entertainment type person. I didn't do carousing around like some people did. I don't recall too much in the way of entertainment. I might say took some hikes. Four of us actually climbed up the side of Rattlesnake Mountain. That would've been in the early part of 1944. And on another occasion I got out and hiked up to the top of Badger. But I don't recall too much in the way of entertainment that I got involved in in those days.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you said that you moved to Richland. You and your wife got married and moved to Richland. What was Richland like at the time as a community in the 1940s and the 1950s?</p>
<p>Stratton: Well, in the early 1940s, it was a closed town, of course. And you had to have a reason to be here. I don't remember too much about the details. It just wasn't a lot of interest from my standpoint in the early days.</p>
<p>Bauman: Can you think of any events or significant happenings, things that happened at Hanford while you were working there. I know President Kennedy came in 1963 to visit the N Reactor. I wonder if you were there at that time or any other events that stand out in your mind?</p>
<p>Stratton: I remember going and seeing Kennedy when he came. I was off at a distance. I was working out in the 100 Areas at the time. And I remember going and seeing him at a distance. I'm trying to think of any other events of particular interest. I can't think of anything to mention right at the moment, Bob.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. Were there ever any emergencies, fires or anything along those lines that happened while you were working that stand out at all?</p>
<p>Stratton: Gee, I can't think of anything of particular interest at the time, Bob.</p>
<p>Bauman: You worked, so you worked at Hanford basically from 1944 to 1982, right?</p>
<p>Stratton: Right.</p>
<p>Bauman: That's almost 40 years. My math.</p>
<p>Stratton: Almost 40.</p>
<p>Bauman: Long time. You must have seen a fair amount of change take place on the site, in the technology that was used or maybe some of the procedures or policies. I wondered if you could--</p>
<p>Stratton: Probably the biggest change would be in policies—that I can think of. Of course, equipment was updated tremendously over that period of time. And what we started with in the early days was antique by the time I retired. But I think maybe policies were some of the biggest situations that I can relate to.</p>
<p>Bauman: Are there any particular policies or practice that stand out that changed?</p>
<p>Stratton: Nothing that I can relate to right at the moment. I can't think of anything in particular, but—</p>
<p>Bauman: Hanford obviously at some point, it was for years about production and at some point shifted to clean up. Had that started to happen when you were working there?</p>
<p>Stratton: Not really. No. There wasn't a whole lot of that activity. Clean up pretty much started after I retired.</p>
<p>Bauman: I wonder if there's—what you would like future generations, people who never worked at the Hanford site to understand, to know about working at Hanford during World War II and the Cold War era?</p>
<p>Stratton: Well, the thing that some of the people wonder about—we were producing plutonium. Was that a good thing? Well, you have to look at it from the standpoint that the war effort was brought to an end primarily because of the work that we started here with the production of plutonium. It undoubtedly brought the war to an end. That's what the way we have to—the way I would like to look at it.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you said you worked there almost 40 years. There were a lot of people who didn't. The termination winds sent a lot of people packing.</p>
<p>Stratton: Those were—that’s true.</p>
<p>Bauman: You know, what was it that kept you here for almost 40 years?</p>
<p>Stratton: Probably getting married. [LAUGHTER] That would be probably the main reason that we decided to stay and raise a family here. I was working in a field that was of interest to me. Like I mentioned, I was a ham radio operator from way back. And I was in the instrument field and the work that I was doing was of real interest for me. And so I had no particular desire to move away from here. So I think that is one of the things that kept me here. Of course, we started our family and from then on this was home.</p>
<p>Bauman: So overall, how would you describe Hanford as a place to work?</p>
<p>Stratton: Well, for me it worked out to be a very good place. Young people that came along after I'd been here for a few years, like tech grads coming in for a short stay and they wanted to know, do you think this is a good place to try to continue working here? And I would always encourage them to go ahead and apply for employment here at the Hanford Project. Because I think if it was in their field of interest or field of training, that would be a good place for them to work.</p>
<p>Bauman: Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you think would be important to talk about or any special memories or specific memories that you think would be important to talk about?</p>
<p>Stratton: I think you've covered it very nicely. Well, I can't think of anything in particular to add to what we've covered so far.</p>
<p>Bauman: Well, great. I want to thank you, Monte, for coming.</p>
<p>Stratton: Oh, you're sure welcome.</p>
<p>Bauman: I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>Stratton: Only too happy to do what I could to--I don't know whether this will help the cause very much.</p>
<p>Bauman: It's terrific. Yeah. Thank you very much.</p>
<p>Stratton: Oh, you're sure welcome.</p>
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:32:27
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
215 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 area
700 area
F area
B reactor
K area
200 area
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1944-2013
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1944-1982
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 Monte Stratton
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Monte Stratton conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2013-7-16
Rights
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-7-1: Metadata v1 created – [RG]
200 Area
300 Area
700 Area
B Reactor
F Area
K Reactor
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963
N Reactor
Richland (Wash.)
Secrecy
-
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1dcfd89b533e26e399b9d34554899883
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F6660f59b710ac080c60889fce79ca005.mp4
7c1924e452a95fb176cdede01fe84200
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
Curt Donahue
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<p><strong>Northwest Public Television | Donahue_Curt</strong></p>
<p>Camera man: Rolling here. I'll set this while you do your--</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. We'll go ahead and get started. I'm going to start by just having you say your name and then spell it.</p>
<p>Donahue: Oh, okay. It's Curt Donahue. It's C-U-R-T D-O-N-A-H-U-E.</p>
<p>Bauman: Thank you. And my name's Robert Bauman. Today is August 7<sup>th</sup> of 2013. And we're conducting oral history interview with Mr. Donahue on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. And we'll be talking about Mr. Donahue's experiences working in the Hanford site. So I'd like to start maybe with having you talk about how you came to Hanford, what brought you here, when you came, and that sort of thing.</p>
<p>Donahue: Okay. In 1944, my father was out of work, and we lived in White Salmon, Washington. And the superintendent of schools was receiving a job here in Richland as the principal at one of the schools and asked my dad if he was interested in having a custodian job here. And he was. He wanted any job. So we moved here in September of 1944 and lived in one of the original houses. I was nine years old, and I tell people now I used to roam the streets of Richland before they were streets. It was a very unique period to grow up and a unique town to grow up in. There were so many things that we were able to do that kids just can't do today. So when I graduated from high school, I went to work in the 700 Area to begin with. And, after a few months, transferred out to the 300 Area and ended up working really all over. I was in regional monitoring and then radiation monitoring.</p>
<p>Bauman: So let's talk a little bit first about your years growing up here. You mentioned that there were sort of things that kids could do here that—</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah, we—</p>
<p>Bauman: Do you have any stories or memories about that?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah, one of the things that I remember most, and that was to be able to sleep outside. Just take a blanket and a piece of canvas and roll up in the backyard and sleep outside. The only hazards were the mosquitoes, and sometimes I'd wake up with an eye shut and a fat lip. And then there was a stream from an irrigation flue that ran along Wellsian Way. And my wife doesn't believe me, but there used to be a lake there. And there was a wooded area right where the flue emptied. And it was kind of a pool there and a sandy beach. And several of my friends and I would go camp overnight there, three blocks from home. But we were off in another world, and we really enjoyed having that freedom.</p>
<p>Bauman: So this is near Wellsian Way? Is that sort of near where Fred Meyer is now?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. Where Fred Meyer is right now is actually the spot that had the sandy beach. And we would bring potatoes from home and bury them in the sand, build a campfire over them, and then have a potato snack before we went to sleep. [LAUGHTER] It was a lot of fun.</p>
<p>Bauman: And you said you moved into one of the early homes. Where was that, what complex?</p>
<p>Donahue: That was on Fitch, right on the corner of Fitch and Douglass. And the people that lived in the other end, the Browns, actually had the first option to buy, but they chose not to, so my parents bought the house and remodeled it and lived there for a good many years. 38 years, I think.</p>
<p>Bauman: So what schools did you go to then?</p>
<p>Donahue: I went to Lewis and Clark. In fact, that's where my dad was a custodian in those early years. And then I also went to school at Bethlehem Lutheran in Kennewick a couple of years. And my freshman year of high school, I spent at Concordia Academy in Portland, and then came to Columbia High School in Richland for the last three years. In fact, we're having our 60th anniversary this year.</p>
<p>Bauman: So '53?</p>
<p>Donahue: '53, yeah.</p>
<p>Bauman: How big was the class, do you remember?</p>
<p>Donahue: I think the class was 159. I know I graduated 59th out of that group. I was kind of in the middle.</p>
<p>Bauman: Other memories of Richland at the time? Were there community events, any sort of special events that you remember?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. Atomic Frontier Days, of course, was our big event every year. And the church that I went to, the youth group usually put together some kind of a float. Sometimes it was maybe dressing up in something patriotic and riding on the back of a flatbed truck. But it was fun, and the people enjoyed it. And also, there was a group called the Mini Singers, and I was a member of that group and put on concerts every year until I outgrew it and was no longer considered a Mini Singer. When your voice changes from soprano to tenor, you are no longer invited. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: My sense of Richland at the time, especially in 1944, there's still wartime--'45, that there were people coming from all over the United States to work here. Is that your experience growing up?</p>
<p>Donahue: Oh, yes. Yeah. Every other classmate was from a different state, and it made for interesting living. They all had stories. Some of them were worth retelling, [LAUGHTER] and some of them were not.</p>
<p>Bauman: Let's talk about your work, then. You said you started basically right after you graduated high school, working at Hanford, 1953.</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. Actually, in August of that year, I got hired on. I worked in the reproduction shop in the 700 Area. My first job was a back tender on an ozalid machine. And that merely meant that when the ozalid prints came off that machine, they'd come out in a continuous sheet, so you'd have to trim each one, fold it up, and package it according to the orders. So you had to be rather speedy to keep up with the machine. And I managed to work my way through several different promotions in there and got to run a good number of the machines—Photostat machine, offset printer, things that we don't use anymore, really, because of the new reproduction facilities.</p>
<p>Bauman: So what sorts of things were you printing up there?</p>
<p>Donahue: It was configurations of equipment that was being built out at the project, buildings, and a lot of floor plans and that sort of thing. You really didn't have time to look at what it was, other than here’s the edge of it, cut it, and fold it up and keep moving.</p>
<p>Bauman: I want to go back quickly to before you started working there. Growing up here, how much did you know about Hanford and what was going on there?</p>
<p>Donahue: We knew nothing until they dropped the bomb. And then the Villager newspaper had that massive headline, and the word got out what was going on here. And there was a parade leaving town. There were, I guess, a goodly number of people who wanted no part of it or were afraid of it, essentially.</p>
<p>Bauman: So your recollection is a lot of people left at some point after that.</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah.</p>
<p>Bauman: But by the time you went to work in '53, obviously, you knew what was--</p>
<p>Donahue: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we did.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you said you started the 700 Area, and then at some point, you moved to the 300 Area?</p>
<p>Donahue: 300 Area, and a group that was called regional monitoring. And the function there was to gather samples of vegetation, water, soil, and air samples and bring them back to the lab. So all we did was drive around the country, collecting samples and bring them back.</p>
<p>Bauman: So you would get samples from various parts of the area?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. One route might be picking up water samples in all of the 100 Areas. Another route would be vegetation samples along the highway from 300 Areas to Two West. Soil samples in most anywhere. And then we'd do, with a Geiger counter, monitor about a 100 square foot area plot, here and there. And if we found large radioactive particles, we’d scoop them up in an ice cream cup and bring them back to the lab for their analysis.</p>
<p>Bauman: So at that point, it’d go to someone else who would do the analysis? Or were you involved in that analysis?</p>
<p>Donahue: I'm sorry. I didn't hear.</p>
<p>Bauman: After you brought it back to the lab, that would go to someone else?</p>
<p>Donahue: It would go to the lab. Yeah. We were not really part of the lab, other than we were the collectors. So we didn't know what the results were.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so if you detected something that seemed to suggest that there was something present, you would scoop it up and--</p>
<p>Donahue: No. On one trip—it was a cross country trip through the sagebrush. And on my way to Rattlesnake Mountain, and an eagle, a golden eagle, jumped up alongside of me and got about five feet off the ground and right back down, and running, and it turned in front of me, and I hit it. And it was injured, so I killed it and brought it into the lab, and they did an autopsy on it and gave it back to me, frozen. And so I had it mounted. It was a 59 inch wingspan. Beautiful bird. It was a shame to have hit it, but I didn't know why it wasn't getting off the ground until they gave it back to me. It had a whole rabbit in its stomach. It was a little too heavy [LAUGHTER] to lift off the ground, I guess.</p>
<p>Bauman: Too much weight. [LAUGHTER] So about how many people were, in terms of number of people, were involved in going out and giving this monitor?</p>
<p>Donahue: As I remember, about 15, I think.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so how long did you do that?</p>
<p>Donahue: Oh, almost two years, I think. And then I went into radiation monitoring.</p>
<p>Bauman: Okay. And so with the radiation monitoring, what did that involve?</p>
<p>Donahue: Dress up and tail a pipe fitter. Make sure it's okay where he's at, what he's doing, that he doesn't get over exposed. And just keep monitoring that process. And that was primarily what I did in the Hot Semi-Works in the 200 East Area. And then the last months that I worked there, I was going school at CBC and wanted to be on a rotating shift. And so then I monitored for the mobile x-ray crew. And we might end up anywhere in the area to x-ray something that they were interested in.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so your job was to make sure that people didn't too much exposure?</p>
<p>Donahue: To set up a barrier, and we'd find out what it is we're going to x-ray. And the technician would say, well, I'm going to have to use this much amperes and so on. And so I'd get an idea of, really, how far away do we need to keep people? And we'd set up that kind of a barrier and then do the job and get out of there, go do another one somewhere. It was interesting.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. And were there dosimeters or something that you would check out? Was that part of it, as well, or--?</p>
<p>Donahue: I had a—I don't remember the name of the instrument now. That's a long time ago. It read rads, rather than millirads as a gauge. And so that's the tool that was used to monitor that operator and myself. And also would walk the perimeter to make sure that we had the level as low as we needed to.</p>
<p>Bauman: So this was in sort of mid to late 1950s?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. I left in November of 1957. I got caught in an ROF and, having just got into radiation monitoring, I was in the lower 10%, and that's about—I think I was the last one in that group to be laid off.</p>
<p>Bauman: And what did you do, then, after that?</p>
<p>Donahue: I went into fraternal life insurance for a short time over in Olympia and applied at Boeing. And because of the time I spent monitoring for mobile x-ray, I got on as an x-ray technician in the Boe-Mark tank shop. And then worked my way from there through engineering. And then my last assignment before I retired was the engineer operations manager for Commercial Avionics Systems.</p>
<p>Bauman: And that was all at Boeing and--</p>
<p>Donahue: Spent 36 years there.</p>
<p>Bauman: So during your time in radiation monitoring, was there ever an incident where someone did—was exposed to too much or anything along those lines and sort of incidences?</p>
<p>Donahue: We had a problem—excuse me. At the Hot Semi-Works, there was a rupture in one of the lines going to tank farm. And so they brought in a big drag line to dig that up and connect to it and get a loop around the other side of where the break was. And I was monitoring that, and—it was a TP instrument that I was trying to think of earlier—and had it on a probe, a 30 foot probe. And I was halfway down in the hole, monitoring every scoop that the drag line brought up. And he finally brought up one that meter went off scale, and I come scrambling up out of the hole to get to where I could get a reading to determine what exposure I had and what the people up around it had, because there was 15, 20 people watching this excavation. And when I come running up out of the hole, they went running away. I was in the office, I think, for two weeks after that. Just kept me out of any more exposure for that length of time.</p>
<p>Bauman: Right. And was that sort of the practice if someone had been exposed, they had to stay--</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. Depending on what level of exposure you got, I knew guys who had to sit for a couple of days was all. And some had even longer than I did. Those things happened in that kind of business. And you deal with it the best way we know how.</p>
<p>Bauman: Yeah. Obviously, secrecy, security were very much a part of Hanford. Did that impact you at all?</p>
<p>Donahue: Well, security was, I think, very good, and you were checked everywhere you went. And by the time I was working out there, there wasn't so much secrecy anymore. Processes were, and it didn't seem like any one person knew the whole process. And the kind of work that I did, I was not interested in the process. I was interested in keeping somebody safe and myself safe. So processes weren't high on my priority list.</p>
<p>Bauman: Did you have to have special clearance to--</p>
<p>Donahue: Oh, yeah. I had a secret clearance.</p>
<p>Bauman: In terms of getting on the site, did you drive your own car? Did you take buses?</p>
<p>Donahue: No, drove cars and Jeeps and Dodge Power Wagon. I had the distinction of getting a Dodge Power Wagon stuck twice. Once because of a coworker told me, oh, you can get through there, and got about 15 feet into this wash that soaked to the running boards. It took two of those large Mack wreckers to lift that thing out of there. And then the other time was down by Horn Rapids. In the wintertime, the ground had frozen and then had thawed, so there was about an inch of thawed mud on top of the ice, and you could not get any traction at all. And it had to drag it out of there. [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: What you would say were sort of the biggest challenges in working at Hanford for yourself, and what were some of the best rewards about your job there?</p>
<p>Donahue: I think the challenge was—particularly the jobs that I had on the project—were one of being alert to whatever radiation aspects, whatever exposure you were getting. Make sure you were alert to it so that you knew how to deal with it, how to handle it. And, of course, out on the project, when you're running around with a Geiger counter out in the sagebrush, you're pretty alert for rattlesnakes, too. And some of us had those experiences. But I guess I never considered what challenges we were facing. I have a very healthy respect for radiation, radioactive material. I was never afraid of it. And I think that the guys I worked with had the same attitude.</p>
<p>Bauman: And so the most rewarding part of working there, then?</p>
<p>Donahue: I think that when you took a guy into a cell in Semi-Works or a PUREX facility, and you brought him out, and you could tell them that, hey, you didn't get anything significant today. And the thanks that they showed and displayed, thanks for watching my back, so to speak. That was the most rewarding. That, and just the people you worked with. I can't recall anyone I worked with that I had really dislike for. Everybody was fun to be around.</p>
<p>Bauman: A lot of the students that I teach now were born after the Cold War ended. Obviously—you were working at Hanford in the 1950s, which was, really, in many ways, the height of the Cold War. I wonder if you have any thoughts about that in part for people who were born post-Cold War, things that you think would be important for them to understand about that period and working at Hanford during that time?</p>
<p>Donahue: I don't think people who were born really do understand. We grew up having the fear—in fact, the day that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, we lived in White Salmon, and we went to church in Hood River, Oregon. And that toll bridge that we crossed, the toll taker told us that we had just been attacked. So on the way back from church, as a six-year-old, I'm looking downstream, afraid they're coming up the river. And that's kind of what we lived under for the next several years. And, of course, when those wars with Germany and Japan were ended, and it wasn't very long and we were into the Cold War. And lived again with, get under your desk, and this is what you do, and we practice it. And then the whole time working out here, well, until Gorbachev became the Premier of Russia, we lived under that threat. And so that was just the way you grew up, and I don't think people who have lived since then or even were real young in those latter years can really comprehend what that was like. And would I live that way again if I needed to? Yes. It was a time when everybody pitched in and did their part.</p>
<p>Bauman: I wonder if there are any other incidents or events or humorous things that happened during your time working at Hanford that sort of stand out to you?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. The night after we found out the Russians had launched Sputnik, the x-ray technician and I, at the time that we were told it would be passing over, we stopped and got out where we were away from light, and we saw it going across the sky. And I just remember the eerie feeling to be able to look up there and see something that people had put up there. And it was working. And what did that mean? Where are we going to go from here? And of course, we've gone a long ways from there. And fortunately, we caught up and passed everybody. That was probably the thing that I would say stuck out most as a happening.</p>
<p>Bauman: Sure. And then how would you overall sort of assess Hanford as a place to work during your years there?</p>
<p>Donahue: I'm sorry. Say again?</p>
<p>Bauman: How would you assess Hanford as a place to work? How was it as a place to work?</p>
<p>Donahue: Oh, I was happy there. If I hadn't gotten laid off, I'd have retired there, I'm sure. I think it was a good place to work. I had fair management, and I thought I was paid a fair salary for what I was doing. I was very happy there. And I was disappointed to get caught in that kind of a situation, but I understood that it was seniority, and so you just roll with the punches and deal with it.</p>
<p>Bauman: Is there anything that I haven't asked you about or that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet that you'd like to?</p>
<p>Donahue: Hm. I have to tell one story. We were about 11 years old, I guess. The superintendent of schools at that time was Mr. Fergen, and his youngest son was the same age as me, and they lived in the house next door to the first house we lived in, one of the original homes, just east of the laundry dry cleaners. And Truman and I would wander, like I said, the streets before they were streets. And he was just wild about animals and plants and that sort of thing. And that's what he ended up doing in life, too. He studied biology. And one day, we were wandering around, and here was an irrigation ditch that had pretty well run dry. There was a dead muskrat. And he got so excited, and he picked that muskrat up, and he cradled it like it was a little baby, took it all the way home, and I thought, Truman, you're nuts. You have no idea what that thing's been—the next day at Lewis and Clark, he had it on a cart with the principal and going around to each classroom and giving all kinds of details about how the muskrat lived, and showing them their teeth. And I just—blew me away. I thought when he got home with that thing, his parents were going to tell him to throw it in the garbage can. [LAUGHTER] Here he showed the whole school!</p>
<p>Bauman: Good story.</p>
<p>Donahue: Ah, there's lots of other stories. My first job was selling newspapers in the cafeteria. And the cafeteria is the old buildings right across from the Federal Building. And I'd sell a Spokesman Review, and there were a number of men who would, when they finished reading their paper, as they went out to get on a bus or on one of the stretch cars, would give me the paper back, resell it. So it was kind of fun.</p>
<p>Bauman: This was a cafeteria for Hanford workers?</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. There were some big shots in there that would, because they had these stretch '42 Chevys, I think they were, that they'd piece together, and they had about four doors, five doors on each side. And some of these guys rode those, so you knew they were pretty much up there. And I believe that one of my customers was Enrico Fermi, because he was here incognito, and when I see pictures of him, I guess one of the guys that gave me my paper back. You don't forget those guys.</p>
<p>Bauman: So what year would this have been around when you--</p>
<p>Donahue: Well, that would have been in '44, early '45.</p>
<p>Bauman: Shortly after you got here.</p>
<p>Donahue: Yeah. And then about mid '45, I got a paper route of the whole south end. Then I was in the big money. Right? [LAUGHTER]</p>
<p>Bauman: So what paper was that?</p>
<p>Donahue: Spokesman Review. Yeah. I earned enough to buy a brand new Columbia bike, and I used that for the next several years, delivering papers. That was a proud moment.</p>
<p>Bauman: [LAUGHTER] Sure. Well, I want to thank you for coming in today—</p>
<p>Donahue: Certainly.</p>
<p>Bauman: --and sharing your experiences and memories. I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Donahue: I'm glad to be here, and it's fun to reminisce, too. So it's been fun for me.</p>
<p>Bauman: Good, great.</p>
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri Cities
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
700 Area
100 Area
300 Area
200 Area
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:34:00
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
207kbps
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1944-1957
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1953-1957
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 Curt Donahue
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Curt Donahue 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
2013-8-7
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.
2016-04-22: 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
300 Area
700 Area
Boeing
Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Richland (Wash.)
Secrecy
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F157eb8cc8ada403d8f472d5c48788511.jpg
9d72ff516906fcb85e78925a8663e892
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F0472090f713e05ebf58314e205876e9a.mp4
218d716c6219eb2bb404d57fdee92c83
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
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX194300000">
<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Bush_Bob</span></span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></strong></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bauman</span>: I’m going to have you start just by saying your name, first.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Bush</span>: Okay, my name is Bob Bush.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: My name is Robert Bauman,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> and we're conducting this interview with Robert, or Bob, Bush on July 17 of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">2013. And we're having this interview on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. And we'll be talking</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">with Bob about his experiences working at the Hanford site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And so I'd like to start just by having you talk about how and when you arrived at Hanford. What brought you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">here?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">O</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">kay</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. During World War II, I was overseas. My parents were in the area, both of them working. My brother was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">also </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">here in Pasco High School. When I came home from the service to Southern Idaho, Korean War</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">broke out. Wages were frozen, and so I was looking to better myself. And I applied by mail. I was interviewed by</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">telephone. And I came up here in 1951</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> to the accounting department, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">General Electric Company.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">They were the sole contractor.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And for 15 years, in construction and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> engineering accounting, which wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s separate from plant operations at that time.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And from there, my accounting career followed it</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s path through several successive</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> contractors. From GE to ITT,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Atlantic Richfield, to Rockwell, and finally with Westinghouse. When I retired, I was with Westinghouse for one</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">month.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">You said your parents were here duri</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ng the war. When did they come out?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">It was '43. 1943 and '44, my mother worked for the orig</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">inal</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> postmaster of Richland, Ed </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Pedd</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">icord</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And my</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">dad was a carpenter. Built some of the first government houses called the Letter Homes. They were here about</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">two years, I think. And then they went back to Idaho, I believe.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. And what part of Idaho?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Twin Falls, Idaho. Where I graduated from high school.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. What were your first impressions upon arriving in the Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">That's kind of interesting, Bob. Because I came up ahead of my wife and two</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">year-and-a-half old</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> three-and-a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">half-year-old sons. About two weeks ahead of them. And so I fou</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nd a Liberty trailers to rent—t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">he housing was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nonexistent. And I found a Liberty trailer, which means it had no running water, no bathroom. It was like a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">camping trailer, basically.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I sent for them. A brother-in-law who had graduated from high school went directly into the Korean War. He drove</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">them up as far as Huntington. I went on a bus to Huntington and met them, came back. And as we came onto the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Umatilla side, and I said, that's Washington. Well, there was no green and everybody was disappointed.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">But t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat's the first impression. I mean, there wasn't a bridge over the river in Umatilla. It was a ferry. So you drove</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">around the horn at </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Wallula</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Things were just really different.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> said you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> had a trailer. Where was--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">In Pasco on a front yard of an old pioneer home, where Lewis Street crosses 10th. That was the end on Lewis</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Street at 10th. And from there west was called Indiana. And there was about t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hree homes on there. And it just quit</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And roughly across from the present day Pasco School Administration Building, which was a Sears building.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Across the street there was where this home was. I mean, things have just</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—in the whole area—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">have changed so</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">much.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And how long did you live there then?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Until I was called for housing in Richland, which was six months. That was in June, no air conditioning. And finally</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">got into an apartment building, a one-bedroom before with two little boys that slept in the same crib. It was still,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">basically, wartime conditions. Weren't any appliances for sale and you had to stand in line to get a </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">refrigerator.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> It</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">was a different world. But we were young, so we could take it.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> was this in Richland then, the apartment?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">No, that was in Pasco. After that trailer, that was only about two weeks. And then we want into </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">his apartment, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">one-bedroom. Then we moved next do</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">or to a two-bedroom in a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> five-</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">plex</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. And then in December, six months</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">later, I got the first</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I got a housing call from the housing office in Richland, which sat where the present day</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">police station </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">sits. And the lady offered me—s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">he said, you could have it Saturd</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ay. It was a prefab. It had already been worn</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">and pulled out. And I kind of hesitated. I said, I've already got something in Pasco. Well, she said, I could let you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">have a brand new apartment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> That apartment was brand new. It was s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">o clean. My wife, who was very fastidious, she</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">didn't even have to clean cupboards.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And the apartments hav</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e now been torn down by Kadlec</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> for that newest building. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nd in fact, this morning I just </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">went by and took a picture of Goethals</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Street, which is vacated. And it was quite a pleasant</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> move to come out </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of a trailer into—a non-</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">air-conditioned cinder block building apartment into a nic</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e, brand new apartment with air </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">conditioning, full basement, and close to work.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And at that time, my office was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> downtown in the so-called 700 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea, which is basicall</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">y where the F</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ederal B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding is</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">where the Bank of America is was th</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e police station. And that's Knight</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Street, I believe. From there </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">north to Swift, and from Jadwin west to Stevens where the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Tastee</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Fr</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">eeze was, that was the 700 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">confines. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Probably about 22 buildings in there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The original thing prior to computers, everything was manual bookkeeping or ac</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">counting with ledgers. And they </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">came out with a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">McBee</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Keysort</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> cards, and it</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> was called electronic data processing. It was sp</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">aghetti wire with </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">holes in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">boards, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> type of thing. That building had to be a special airlock b</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding. And that's the Spencer </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Kenne</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">y Building beside the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Gesa</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Building. That building is built especially to house equipment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And they just went from there. And I moved around my office. And after 15 years, I went into what they call</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">operations. I was onsite services, which—did</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> that for 17 years. And that was probably the better part</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">second better job that I had, I guess. The transp</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ortation and everything, on</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">site support services. The whole</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">point</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">That job took me all over the plant. I established inventories. I took some of the fi</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rst inventories of construction </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">workers' supplies and tools and shop equipment, rolling stock. My name was </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">M</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ud. They thought so much of me </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they gave me a desk in the corner of a big lunchroom.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So you did work at various places then?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yes. Well, yes. My very first location was in North Richland, then called North R</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ichland Camp, where the bus lot </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the maintenance shops. I'm trying to establish a point</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> up there—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat's over there today?</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">There's a big sand dune on your left going by the automotive shops, past the bus lot, where the bus lot was.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Opposite that sand dune on the other side of Stevens was a bunch of one-story </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">temporar</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">y buildings. That was </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">North Richland Camp. And that's where my first accounting job was there for two or three years.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> I had been there—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I came there in June. And in January of </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">'52, had 22 people along </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in my department </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">that I </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">worked in. I was a junior clerk at that time. Took me four years to get onto the m</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">anagement roles, but I did. But </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">anyhow, in that room they came in there six months later. After I'd only been he</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">re six months, AEC, predecessor </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">to the OA.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> The AEC has taken over more </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">management, more responsibility. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> we're going to be laying off a </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">lot of people. I had only been here six months.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And so others grabbed straws and went different places. I always said either I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> too ignorant or lucky, I don't </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">know what. But I just sat still and it panned out for the better. I didn't get laid off.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> I moved from there. But I went </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">downtown to the 703 B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding, which stood where the Federal B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding is now.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">There's a building to the rear that the city owns called 703. That was the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> fourth wing. 703 was the frame </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">construction, the three floors. And the later years, they added a fourth wing out </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of block building. Made it more </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">permanent. That's why it's still standing today.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Now, that was my second location. And then I got on the management role </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in '55, which meant I went </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">exempt and no more pay for overtime. And we</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nt out to White Bluffs site—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">tow</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> site, and that's where the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">minor construction was located. Minor construction, it's the construction people that are spe</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">cially trained in SWP, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">radiological construction work</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> as opposed to run-of-the-mill construction.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And they're the ones that had never had any accounting at all for any equipment, supplies, materials or otherwise.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And that's where I had the lunchroom office experience.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">It so happened that they established</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I brought an inventory procedure and establis</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hed that first inventory during </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">a strike. We had to cut government-owned tool boxes. But still, the workers though</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">t they were private. And we had </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">to cut locks in order to take inventory.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And then</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> we feared for our lives when they came back. Pretty rough day sometimes.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">What timeframe would that have been you were out?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">That was 1955 to '56. A couple of years there, and then another person took over from there and I w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ent into </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">budgeting at that point, from accounting to budgeting. And I did that for</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">until 19</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">63. And then I moved out to the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">so-called bus lot, which it was. 105 buses and all that. And I was out there for 17 ple</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">asant years, budgeting, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">billing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rate—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Because we were the supplier of all plant services. So we had billing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> rates to the reactors, and the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">separations, and the fuel prep, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">whoever. The AEC, everything. We billed t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hem, just as </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">if we were like plumbing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> jobs.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And that I enjoyed. That was probably my most productive period. And from similar</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> work to that, I moved over—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Let’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> see, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">was around when the Federal B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding was built, but I didn't get into it. That was built </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in '69. I didn't get down there </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">until 1980. Went down there a couple of years. And then they moved us out t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">o Hanford Square where Battelle </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Boulevard intersection is.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And I was there</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I retired from that location in 1977. My wife and I retired the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">same week. I've been retired 26 </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">years now at the end of this month.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Was your wife working at the Hanford Site as well?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">She worked after the kids were grown, like most stay-at-home moms do. She s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">tayed until the daughter was of </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">age, and then she went to work for a credit union, which was the government</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> credit union, which was merged </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">later on with </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Gesa</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> But that was an interesting job. They worked two hours a </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">day, three days a week. Because </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">it was all hand done, no mechanization.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And then she got a job offer from the department in the central stores and pu</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rchasing department. She worked </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">there eight years. In 1986, the income tax law changed a lot of things for all of us, e</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ffective in 1987. It meant that </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">partial vesting was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">IRS has to rule on all things like that. And that meant t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat if you had 10 years to vest </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">pensions, once you pass the 50% point, whatever the vesting period is, then you we</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">re partially vested. And so she </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">had 8 years out of 10. So she got 80%. But she had only worked eight y</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ears, so it wasn't a very large </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">accumulation.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Because I got my full. Of course, I'd been here 37 years I think it was, however that works out. 36.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I want to go back and ask you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—when </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">you were talking earlier about that period in '55, '</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">56 when you were working out at </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">White Bluffs</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> town site</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. You ment</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ioned radiological construction?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Oh, that—t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hose construction workers worked under what they called SWP, Special Work Permit, which meant radiological.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">They ha</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">d to wear</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the clothing was ca</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">lled SWP clothing then. Today, they call it </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">something else. But they worked </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">under those conditions, so therefore they were subject to different rules.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Whereas, construction wo</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rkers on brand new construction weren’t then—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they didn't have any of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> that to contend with. But once </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">a plant went operational, it became radiologically SWP. This is not an anti-union thin</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">g. It's just a demonstration of </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">how things were in those days.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">They had some old buses that</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the original buses in town were called Green Hor</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nets. And they were small. They </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">had chrome bars that went right across the middle of your back. And for 35 miles, that was not very comfortable.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">When they got the newer buses that you see today, like Greyhound has for instance, they relegated those to the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">construction workers at White Bluff</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. Well, since GE guys worked</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> up</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> at White Bluff</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">, we had to ride those, too.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So all the office workers in the warehouse</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">GE employees rode one bus. The elec</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">tricians rode another bus. Pipe </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">fitters rode another bus, even though there were only two or three of them. It was really a segmented-type thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">As close to anything radiological that I came to when I conducting one of those physical inventor</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ies—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e would be </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">out</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">all of the construction materials were stored outdoors on the ground. I </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">mean, like stainless steel. 308 </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">stainless steel was pretty high-priced stuff. But the sheets were stored outside</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> on pallets. Well, o</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ne sheet is worth </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">thousands and thousands of dollars.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So we had to lay down on the ground and count the sheets to do the inventory. T</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">his one day—t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">h</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e only time I came close to any </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">contamination, we went back and boarded the buses that evening from White Blu</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ffs. And we saw the guys on the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">dock there chipping with a chisel and hammer. That meant they were chipping out</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> flakes of contamination. So we </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">asked what was going </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">on. They said, well, we're next </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">door to F and H A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">reas.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And F A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea had coughed out something they said. And so I said, well, my crew was outside today on the ground.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And if the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">y</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> coughed out because all the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">some construction workers could drive their cars. That's the only people.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Plant operations people all had to ride buses. No parking lots.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So anyhow, those cars were all impounded. Had tape around them. They co</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uldn't go home. And some of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">guys, they had to take off their shoes, leave them, and be issued safety shoes in lieu of it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And I said, well, we were on the ground, too. So they proceeded to take us all off the bus and surveyed us with</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> a </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">wand. And they only found a few flakes on our back. And so we were allowed to go</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> home. But that's as close as I </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ever came to getting contaminated. It's still scary.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yeah. Obviously, Hanford, a site where security was prominent--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Very tight security, yeah. I was telling the young lady here that across the road</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">way on Stevens, as you near the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea, there was a real wide barricade, probably eight lane</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> that you had t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">o go through. And everybody had </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">to stop, including buses. And the guard would get on the bus, walk down the aisle, and check every badge.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And at that time, AEC had their own security airplanes. That was the purpose of t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">he Richland Airport was for AEC </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">security in th</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e begi</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nning. They had a couple Piper C</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ub-</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">type airplanes.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Somebody had run the barricade. The plane goes out, lands in front of them, stop</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s them, and that's how they got </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">apprehended.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Another i</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ncident of security, yeah, that's the subject? </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Many y</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ears later now, after 1963, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I'm in the transportation assignment. Airspace was off limits to all airplanes ove</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">r Hanford because they had army </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">artillery guarding it in the Cold War and all that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And a private plane had violated the space. And the AEC planes had forced it do</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">wn. And once they're down, they </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">can't ever take off. So after a week or so, they sent a lowboy trailer out there, l</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">oaded the small airplane on it, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">proceeded to come down what's the highway and now Stevens. And down where S</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">teven</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s today, 240 and all that </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">intersection is, there wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s only two lanes on the road then, not six. But at that junct</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ure there, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">there was a blinking </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">light. And they had to turn right to go to the Richland Airport.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And this guy, the truck driver pulling this low-boy, he had never pulled an airplane </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">before. And he didn't allow for </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">that pull. Well, that blinking light clipped off a wing. And then he got time off. It was not </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">really his fault, that pilot in </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the beginning. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">But there's a lot of—I guess full of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> interesting stories like that on security.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Great. Did you have special security clearance to work at Hanford at the time?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Which?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Any special security clearance?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Oh, yeah. I had Q clearance, which there's one higher than that</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> that's top secret. But</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Q clearance meant you </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">could go into any and all areas. And because the nature of my job, I had that my whole time I was out there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Once you have it, they would tend not to take it away from you because it's quite ex</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">pensive investigation to get it </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in the first place. I might mention something interesting in that regard.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">When I first came to work in 1951,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> why,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> the PSQ is Personnel Security Questionnaire. And it's about 25 pages long.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And you had to memorize it</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> because every five years, you had to update it. Well any</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">how, I filled that out, and you </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">give references.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And I have, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in the Twin Falls area, a farmer that had been a neighbor farmer in Nebraska, where I was born</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> to my</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">parents. I gave him as a reference because he had known me all my life. And that would be higher points.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">About a year or two later</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I guess probably a year later I had gone back down to Twin Falls to visit the in-laws</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> I went and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> saw this farmer, family friend. The first thing he said to me, Bobby, what in the world did you do?</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> The FBI had</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">really did very, very tight security. It's probably tighter than it was when I was in the Air Corps.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">You mentioned riding a bus out to work.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yeah, everybody rode it, except those few construction workers in that minor construction area. They were</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">permitted their cars. I don't know why, but no one else drove cars on the plant. Everybody rode on the bus.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The bus fa</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">re</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of course, it was subsidized. It was a plant operation, like anything else is. To make the liability</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">insurance legal, they charged a nickel each way on the bus, which later on got changed to a dollar or something.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">legal.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">From those old green buses, they came up with some</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I forget what they're called. More like Greyhound buses.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And then in 1963, the year I went out to the transportation, they bought a fleet of </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span class="SpellingError SCX194300000">Flxibles</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. And that's F-L-X.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">not buses. They had storage underneath. And so we had quite a suggestion system on the plant. And you would</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">get monetary award or mention. And somebody said, well, instead of running mail carrier cars delivering mail to all</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the stops on the whole plant, load the mail onto the now available storage bins on these buses. And that was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">pretty good suggestion award, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">monetarily</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> to somebody.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And they did that. Took it out to a central mail station out there, and then dispatched it.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">You mentioned different contractor</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s you worked for over the years--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Uh-huh.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The story behind that for the record is that General Elec</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">well, DuPont built the plant. That's who my dad worked</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">for. And GE came in '46, I believe. And they were here until the group I was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> phased out in groups. I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the last group to go out. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">[COUGH] </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Excuse me, in 196</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">'66.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">When the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">GE phased out, they had a dollar a year contract. Like Henry Kaiser and rest of them did during the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">war, for the good of the country. But they trained an awful lot of people in the infancy field of nuclear engineering.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">General Electric trained all those people here and then they opened up the turnkey operations in San Jose and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Japan. But anyhow, AEC was still AEC at that point. And then, their wise decision</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">instead of one contractor, they</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">would have nine. And so there were</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the reactors was one. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Separation plant was another. Fuel </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">preparation</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">at 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea was another. The laboratories, which is today basically Battelle. Site services. The company doctors</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">formed a foundation called Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, which is the MDs that gave the annual</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">exams.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And the computer end</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">, it was now getting into the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> infancy of t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> computer sciences corp</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">, we had the first</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">contracts on that. So all together, there were nine contractors. And the portion that I was with went to ITT. They</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">bid, came in and bid</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. I helped conduct tours of the facility for the bidders. Because I knew all about it and knew the ins</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">and outs on some of the monetary parts that their accounting people would have questions on. We'd walk through</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">shops and all that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Well, anyhow, ITT got the site support</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">site services. And we had that for five years. And austerity set in in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">'70s. Well, '70. They said, we got to get site services' budget down to less than $10 million. And it probably was 13</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">or 14, I don't remember now.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So my boss and another analyst, like myself, sequestered</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">talk about sequester. We sequestered ourselves in</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the then new Federal B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding for about a week. Almost 20 hours a day, whittling and whittling and working on a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">budget. And there was only one conclusion. We had to cut everything in half.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Went through all that sweat. Went up with our pres</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ident, Tom Leddy, went upstairs to an</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> AEC finance</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">office, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">presented</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> our whole case. And the man turns around and says, well, it doesn't make any difference, Tom.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Your contract's not renewed anyhow.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And so now, Atlantic Richfield, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">an existing contractor for 200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">reas, somehow the separations plant contractor that</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">is an oil company owned,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> can all of a sudden manage a site service. And so they did absorb us. But politics</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">were still around in those days. And there were three of us analysts. One had got transferred by ITT up to the new</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">line</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">newly est</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ablished Distant Early Warning L</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ine from Russia up to Alaska. So that left two of us. And we waited</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">around. We waited around and never got an offer. And they said, no, we can do it all without you. We don't need</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">you. How come it took so many people anyhow?</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">On a Friday afternoon, the man that I did budgets for saw me in a restroom. He said, you got an offer yet? </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I said, no, n</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">o. I'm</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">went downtown, and a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">bout 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">went over Atlantic Richfield</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> under those.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">AUDIO CUTS OUT] </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And so I'm</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> not mad, not knocking—knocking them</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">, that's just the way things were.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And then Rockwell came to town. Wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">en they laid off everybody on</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">-2,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> I'm trying to think of other</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">community, something might be of interest for the history project. Back into the '50s.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Those</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> same green buses, they had, oh, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">four or five of them that ran in town like a modified transit system. I don't</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">think they had that many riders, but it did. And also, the plant buses ran what they called shuttle routes. And those</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">buses went into Richland on probably six routes and drove around the neighborhoods and picked up workers on</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the three shifts. And that's why up in the ranch house district, there was the bypass you'll see between homes.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The pathways that go clear through lots. Blocks were so long that they had to provide a quicker route to the bus</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">stops.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Now, those rides were free because they were shuttle buses. When you got out to the bus lot, you paid your</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nickel, or a pass, whatever it was.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I wanted to ask you about accounting in </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">terms of equipment practices. W</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ere there a lot of changes during the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">time you worked at the Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> site? Computer technology come in and change things?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Oh, yeah. For sure. In the beginning, as I mentioned earlier, all accounting was open ledgers and hand posted.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Adding machine tapes at the end of the day trying to balance them all out. And we had that until</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">let's see. 1970s—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">think it was 1977, we got our very first taste of it. Every other desk in a group of about 20 people in cost</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">accounting that I was in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">There was cost accounting, gener</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">al accounting, and so on, p</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">roperty management. But anyhow, we had about 20</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">people. Every other desk had a monitor. Well, they referred to them as a computer. But they were just the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">monitor. And down at the end of our building was one printer. And everything was on floppy disk. Every program</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">was on a floppy disk. Nothing was built-in because it was just the infancy. The big computers were down in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Federal B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uilding. And a sub-basement below the basement was specially built for that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">But back to our office. Across the hall from us, we had two small computers that are</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">to me, they're about the size</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of portable sewing machines. And I can't even remember the names of them </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">because they don't exist today b</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ut</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they were the computer locally. So we wanted to run our work order system, we would phone down to the guy</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">down at the other end of the building, insert the floppy disk from work system and wait.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Well, I've got somebody'</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s inventory. You have to wait. Because t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">here's only one place to load up down there. So finally,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">have to say, now print it. And they got one printer for the whole building. And so it's pretty interesting.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Whereas</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> today, I've got a laptop that I</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> can virtually do everything with. But we graduated from hand posted</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">information, but it's just so much printing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">It's even hard to remember after 26 years how antiquated that is compared to today. But prior to that, it wasn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">even the PCs. They called everything a PC. Or, was PC compatible. Because prior to that, the only electronic data</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">processing nickname was spaghetti wire. I'm not very conversant in it, but it was some kind of a board that had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">actually calculate them.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the community of Richland. What was that like in the 1950s? I know it</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">was a government--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">In the town? I g</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uess I didn't cover that area. Everything—a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ll houses were owned by government. We rented them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">My wife and I and family, we came after the days of free everything. When the coal was free</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">all the furnaces</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">were coal fed. Some people would convert them later on to oil. But anyhow, they were coal burning. However you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">got the coal,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> whether it was government days</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> or you bought the coal from the courtyard, which is down at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">end of what's </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">now Wellsian</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Way. There was a coal yard where that lumber yard is. And that's why those</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">railroad tracks that are abandoned and rundown, that's where the coal cars came in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I can add something a little bit later about coal cars and the plant. But anyhow, we rented from the government.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">For example, that brand new apartment that I mentioned moving onto first was a two-bedroom, full basement.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Steam heated because</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I'll digress a little bit.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">All the downtown 700 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea, including the Catholic church, central</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> church, the hospital, all 700 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea, including</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">those new apartments, and all downtown shopping area were steam heated by a steam plant, which was located</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">where the back door of the post office is today in that small parking lot. And that one plant furnished steam for</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">everything.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Well, back to this new apartment. The steam pipe</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> ran through this full basement. And our kids played</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">there</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">wasn't any yards. There was just apartments. And they would play in the basement because they were quite</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">small. But they can remember today the pop, pop, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">pop in those steam pipes.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And the rent for that two-bedroom apartment was higher than any other house in town. It was $77 a month. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the reason it was $77 instead of $70 was because it included $7 for electricity. Nobody had electricity meters yet.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Even in that new place. So when they did put in electricity meters in all homes later, which had to be</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—during that time, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the year we</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">were there, which is December '51 to December of '52, sometime in that period of time they put the meters in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">They took off $7 off the rent because now we're going to pay</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—and </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">their theory is it was $5 for a one-bedroom place,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">whatever it was. $7 for a two-bedroom and $10 for a three-bedroom for electricity in those days. And nobody had</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">electric heat, of course.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And then, later on they put in water meters. And again, they had to come into your home, invade your home, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">put in something. So it was strictly government prior to</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—well, another—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">and when I lived in the rental, if something went wrong</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">with the plumbing, they would send out a plumber, but you paid for it, though.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">But later on when I went to the tall two-story, three-bedroom duplex houses, or called </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> houses, that was our first</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">house after that apartment. And as I remember, I think the rent was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they had rent districts with low, medium, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">high in the more desirable parts of town.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And we were on Haupt Street across from uptown district where Hunt Street is and Jefferson Park. And I think our</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rent for that was like $47 because it was not a brand new apartment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And later on, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> on the housing list. And you applied and months or years later, you'd rotate up to</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">move into a nicer place or a different location. But in the meantime, up came an F house, which is a two-story</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">single family, kind of a Cape Cod-looking type of house. And that came up on the housing list. However, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">caveat was that you had to cash out the present owner who had made some improvements. He had converted</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the coal to oil, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hey put in a clotheslin</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e, which nobody had clotheslines, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nd something else.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So cashed him out for</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I believe it was $750. And if I do that, I could have it, so I did. We lived in that place for 19</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">years. Our daughter grew up there and got married out of that home. And that's the only home she ever knew.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And we were there until 1977 when the real estate market in Richland was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">this is community wide. The housing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">prices were mo</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ving 18% a year, about 1.5</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">% a month.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And I thought well, I don't need to be setting</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> still. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> mean, if I cash out here, and went on</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. So we </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">sold that home. I listed it. Earl,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> my</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">father, was very ill. We were going to Spokane. I listed it. A man came by, looked it out. What were you asking? I</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">said, oh, about 17. He shook his head. And I said, too high? He says, no, 27,000. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Just to show you how bad</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">things were. And so it sold right away. What are you going </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">to do now? And I said, well. Would</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> you want to try a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">mobile home? I know a jewel.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And in those days, real estate men did not sell mobile homes. But this couple had bought their first house from</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">him, or something. And i</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">t was somebody retiring out of postal</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">, wanted to go back to Montana. Never</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">smoked in it, never had any pets in it, n</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">o kids. It was the Cadillac of mobile h</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">omes. We were there two years, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ut</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">that was l</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ong enough. Then we moved into the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> house that I'm still in. I'm widowed now for five years. The house</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">we're in now, we've lived in that longer than</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> in</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> any other place. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">But the community</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> just</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> has changed so drastically.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">South Richland. People say today they live in South Richland. We lived in South Richland, which was south of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">downtown shopping district to the Yakima Bridge. That was South Richland.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">What is now South Ri</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">chland out there was Kennewick</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Highlands.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> So it depends on who you're talking to today.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yeah. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Do you remember any special community events, parades, any of those sorts of things during the '50s and '60s?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Community event</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yep. Back in GE days, they had Atomic Frontier D</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ays. And they were a big thing. Had beauty queens in it, rode in</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the float, and all that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Down at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—[COUGH] excuse me. For Atomic F</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rontie</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">r D</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ays down at the lower end of Lee Boulevard, which is still the same</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">shape today. They set up booths all on there. And it was a really big event. Before we had the hydro races even.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">People look back fondly on that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Talking about community, again, my mother, I said, worked for the post office, wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ich—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">t stood on the corner of Knight</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Street, where it touches George Washington Way. There's some kind of a lawyer office building there</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">today. And the old post office is the Knights of Columbus building on the bypass highway.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">But she</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> would have to take the mail and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> go</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> over to where the Red</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Lion Motel is today, at</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> the Desert Inn, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">frame building, winged out basically</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> the same</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. And that was referred to as the transient quarters. And that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">for upper management that were going through and it wasn't </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">really </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">a public motel, per se. But she would have mail for</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">that</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Desert Inn.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Talking about badges, something humorous on that. We didn't wear things around our neck in the beginning</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">every building you went into, you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> just</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> pulled it out, flashed it to the guard. It usually was a lady security employee.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">There were guards in the building, but the person on the desk was a security clerk. But you'd just automatically</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—you’d open it </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">like that and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> flag and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> put it back in your pocket.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Every buildin</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">g you went into. Downtown, 700 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea, that first building I've referred to. One day I went into a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">restaurant and I just did that automatically</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> because it's just so automatic. Then they graduated to having the thing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">around your neck. And then also, if you worked in the outer areas, you had to wear a radiation badge in addition</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">to your secu</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rity badge. There was two types and o</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ne 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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of them was a pencil </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">shaped. And that's what they called it. And the other one was a flat badge, which was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">carried in something around your neck.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And in all the areas I worked, and the places I described laying on the ground t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat happened and all that, my</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">RAMs,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> they call it, never accumulated in my w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">orking life to be a danger</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. I had some, of course. Everybody</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">does in the background. But I never accumulated to a danger point.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">There were people, some smart aleck people that would take their badge and hold it over a source at work so</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they could get some time off. Because if you got</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">what was the phrase?</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Anyhow, if they got contaminated, they put them on a beefsteak diet. And they stayed home. And they come every</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">day and took a urine sample and all that s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">tuff. But they had a life of riley. So that was nice</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. But the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">guys got canned that did that. But they would purposely expose their pencil so they could stay home.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So did all employees ha</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ve those, either the pencil or--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Only those that worked in reactor and separations areas, yeah. I mentioned these departments.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Actually, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">he first department is Fuel Preparations Department, FPD. The</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> present—the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">most of the buildings have now been</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">torn down that you don't even see them there. But the north half roughly was fuels preparation department</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">headed for the reactors. They took uranium and encapsulated it in cans, like can of peas in just so many words.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And the south half of that 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea was a laboratory area, the predecessor of Battelle. So the fuel was prepared</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">there. And it was machined and canned and sent as nickname slugs to the reactors. Then, the reactors loaded</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">into all those little tubes. And then from the reactors, they come </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">out the backside into those</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> cooling pods and all that. And t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ransported in</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">casks to the 200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">reas, which are</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> separated area, separations. And the rea</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ctor area on the face</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> side was not</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">that dangerous.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The 200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">reas only work on</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> what they </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">called the canyons, PUREX and RE</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">DOX, and those kind of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">buildings. But t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hose cells were very, very hot. But you had to be </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">measured no matter where you were.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">One of our site services was a decontamination laundry</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> called the laundry. And all clothing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I mentioned to you</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">before SWP.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Well, SWP, radiologic exposure employees wore whites. Carpenters and truck drivers and all that that didn't work</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">around reactors wore blues. And so they were sorted. And we had different billing rates for that laundry because</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the blues only had to </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">be laundered and dried. Whereas</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> the others had to be laundered, dried, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">decontaminated, checked in separate washing machines. And then workers wore</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">n the beginning, wore World</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">War II-style gas masks for our air supply before they invented a moon-type suit.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> But they wore gas masks.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And the mask would come back to this mask station, which was part of the laundry. And they took the mask</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s, and t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hey'd take away the cartridge. They'd put th</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e mask in dishwasher machines, i</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">n racks. That's how they would</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">wash them. And then they would get them a new filter and package them up. Sanitize them and package them up</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">l</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ike medical supplies would be in</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I can't think of any other unusual operation out there like that.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I want to c</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hange gears just</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> a little bit. President Kennedy visited the site in 1963.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Yep, 1963.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I was wondering--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">When they did that, they let all the schools out. And for the first time, non-workers were allowed to go in cars out</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">there. It was a grand traffic jam, but it was quite a deal. And he landed his Air</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> Force plane up at Moses Lake—at Larsen airbase at Ephrata, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">whichever you want to call it. And then helicoptered. And of course, like it is</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">today, there were three or four helicopters. And you don't know which one he's on and all that bit.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And here, e</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">veryone is gathered out the N Reactor a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea, which is a dual-purpose reactor. They captured the heat from the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">reactor, put it through a pipe throu</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">gh a fence to the predecessor</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> to Energy Northwest, which was </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">called Whoops.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> This was a big deal, a dual-purpose react</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">or. And N stood for new reactor, really. </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Anyhow, he comes in and they got a low-boy trailer. They fixed up down in the shops where I worked</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">my office</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">was. And then built a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> podium just precisely for the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">resident with him emblem and the whole bit. So I was privy to</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">get to see some things like that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> But anyhow, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat was the stage. And it was a long low-boy, so it accommodated all the senato</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rs and all the local—Sam Volpentest, the guy credited with HAMMER</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">those type of people. Glenn Lee</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> from the Tri-City Herald, you name it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">So the helicopter comes in, blows dust over everybody. But anyhow, my wife and kids and all schools were</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">brought out there. And I don't know how many thousand people were out there in the desert. And you could see</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">President Kennedy. He got up on the stage. You get close enough, you could get pictures.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Then, that same year in </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">November, he got assassinated. So t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat was a busy year.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Do you remember any other special events with dignitaries like that? Or other--</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Well, I could go way back to World War II. I wasn't here, but I have a family connection</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> on it</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. All over United States,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they had</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> war bond drives for various reasons to help. Build a ship, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">uild an airplane. The one that happened here is not</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the only one. But they took so much money out of all the paycheck of Hanford workers, which included my dad as</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">a carpenter. And the money they collected bought the B-17 Bomber, which was named Day's Pay.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And that bomber</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they had a bomber out here, a B-17, so that people could see it, but it wasn't the same one. On</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the Richland High School wall there's a mural. And that's a rendition by a famous artist of Day's Pay in formation.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And so I can say that my parents contributed to that. And that's the story behind that one bomber. Every worker</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">out there,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> construction or operations, they donated a day's pay.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I wonder</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> what was the most challenging part of your job working at the Hanford site?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">As an accounting person, my most challengin</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">g part was learning government-e</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">se.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> How to deal. And in that vein,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">certain corporations.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Later on, when I mentioned that I went down to the federal building for my</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">finally got located in that building,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> there was</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">another fellow and I were old timers in accounting. And that year, they had five college grads, accounting grads</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">come in. They hired five at one time. And they ran them by Marv and </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> for exposure.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">This is how things are done. This is how the contacts are. And our basic job was to squire these young fellows</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">around and introduce them to certain counterparts and now DOE. Now, this is how you make appointments with</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">them. This is what you do. This is what you never do. And likewise, with senior management. And it paid off</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">because of those five, all four of them b</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ecame managers or supervisors, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nd one of them became my manager</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">within two years.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Today, that same man is the comptroller at Savannah River Plant.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And so I like to feel that I contributed to them</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">being</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">partially to them being successful. And so that's a reward. But probably the most difficult thing coming from</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">a private</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I worked for Colorado Mill and Elevator, which means I worked at a flour mill district office as a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">bookkeeper. And that's a small town deal in Twin Falls.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">To come to work for the government where some of your family despises you because you work for the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">government, but you had to fight that as well as learn how the government operates.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Y</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ou mentioned earlier, y</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ou were talking about coal being used for heat in Richland. You also said you wanted to talk about coal fires</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">going up</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> at the site.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Oh, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hat?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Coal fires?</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Oh, yeah. Interestingly, the midway power station, substation at midway, is one of the reasons they built Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">where they did because the Grand Coulee Dam had just been completed and an electricity producer</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">a major</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">producer. And they put the midway substation down there. That basically was built to furnish huge amounts of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">power to Hanford, for the reactors, everything.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Which in total</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">because I processed vouchers, I know it was 32 </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">megs</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. Which today doesn't sound like much, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the whole plant bill was 32 </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">megs</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> when everything was operating. But if the power were interrupted, they had</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> to have</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">backup. So e</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">very area had a huge diesel-powered</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">like water pumps, where t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hey could pump the water from the river</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">instead of by electrically. They had to be able to pump it because it was critical. Because all the water for the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">whole plant was taken in at intake water plants near the rea</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ctors along the river. The 200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rea water is piped to</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">them in a huge line as raw water until it gets to their place.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The backup is these coal-fired steam plants</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> is what I was trying to say. It got about 30-some cars of coal a day</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rolled through Richland past the cemetery. In the beginning, the railroad </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">came down from the north, from V</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">antage</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">area down along the Columbia River. There's a railroad bridge across the</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> river, </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Beverly I think it is. And it came</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">down to below the 100</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">B</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> R</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">eactor area. That's where the line ended. And t</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">hen a plant had its own railway</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">incidentally. It had a 285 mile-long rail line, high line and low line.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Then, they built</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in 1950, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">year before I came</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">, they built the line that we see today that comes from</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Columbia Center into Richland, by the cemetery. And it ends at the old bus lot area, where that railroad car</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Columbia Center into Richland, by the cemetery. And it ends at the old bus lot area, where that railroad car</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rebuilding outfit is now, there is a roundhouse that it's rectangular in shape. But some 30 cars of coal a day came</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">in here to supply </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">because those plants were—</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">they actually operated the steam plants. They didn't start</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">them up from cold. They just ran constantly.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I wonder if you could provide sort of an overall assessment of how Hanford was as a place to work. What was it</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">like as a place to work?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">It was a great place for me. I came out of an area that was the agriculturally-oriented. And the Korean War</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">started. Wages were frozen, y</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ou weren't going to go anywhere. I came up here and I got a new start, like</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">pioneers did. I visualized that's what fa</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">rming pioneers did the same thing</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">. And it opened up a whole field for me, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the water here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">I'm a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">sked by a nephew in Hermiston </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">constantly, how do you drink the water? And I said, well, it comes out of</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">the river. How can it co</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">me out of the river and that </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">plume</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> out there?</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">There's so many false stories around here. But working at Hanford, I think, by and large, almost all employees</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">would tell you the same thing. It was a great place to work.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">The pay was decent. Maybe you didn't get rich, but it was decent. It's in a nice area to live in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">When we came back in the '50s, or in the '40s, and before that even of course, shopping was pretty much</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">nonexistent. They went to Yakima, or Spokane, o</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">r Walla Walla. That I didn’t—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">e didn't experience that too much by 1951</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">because by that time, the U</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ptown shopping district was built. And there was a men's store. And there was four</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">women's stores. Because GE was the prime contractor, there was an appliance dealer that handled GE-Hotpoint</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">appliances. We got employee discounts when we worked for GE.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">We also got 10% gasoline discount when we worked for Atlantic Richfield Hanford. But we just grew with the times.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">And it's just such an entirely different area now than it was. Just the world is different, too.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Is there anything that I haven't asked you about? Is there anything you would like to talk about that we haven't</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">talked about yet?</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Now really, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">ork-wise at Hanford, I think I</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">’ve</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> pretty well-covered it. I'll repeat myself. My first 15 years was construction</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">engineering accounting, which is an entirely different field than operations accounting. Operations accounting</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">concerns itself with the </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">reactor</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">s and separations and the site services that support them. But I learned a lot by</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">working at Hanford.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">My family, three adult children live here, are retired here. My oldest son went on Medicare this year.</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> And that kind</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">of puts you in your place quickly. But it's been</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> good enough place that they stayed in the area. And of the six</span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">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.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">Well, Bob, I'd like to thank you very much for coming and talking to us today. I really appreciate it.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX194300000"><span class="TextRun SCX194300000"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bush</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX194300000">It's been my pleasure.</span><span class="EOP SCX194300000"> </span></p>
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Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
1:02:19
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
3068 kbps
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.
1951-1977
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Volpentest, Sam
Kaiser, Henry
Leddy, Tom
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
General Electric
Atlantic Richfield
Rockwell
Westinghouse
703 Building
F Area
H Area
300 Area
200 Area
700 Area
WPPSS
HAMMER
N Reactor
100-B Reactor
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 Pasco, Washington in 1951 and later moved to Richland, Washington. Bob worked on the Hanford Site from 1951-1987.
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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
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video/mp4
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Grand Coulee Dam (Wash.)
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-05-17: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
7/7/2013
100-B Reactor
200 Area
300 Area
700 Area
703 Building
DuPont
F Area
General Electric
H Area
Henry Kaiser
Kennedy, John Fitzgerald, 1917-1963
N Reactor
Richland (Wash.)
Washington Public Power Supply System