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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
Douglas O' Reagan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Maynard Plahuta
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Douglas O’Reagan</span>: Okay. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Mayn</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ard Plahuta on Thursday, I guess it’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—sorry, what is the date today?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: 28</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX227234824">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Is it the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">28</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX227234824">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">? O</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">kay. April 28</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX227234824">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, 2016. This interview is being conducted on the campus of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Washington</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be speaking with Mr. Plahuta about his experiences working on the Hanford site and living in the Tri-Cities. To start us off, could you please pronounce and spell your name for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yes. It’s Maynard Plahuta. Maynard is M-A-Y-N-A-R-D, and Plahuta is P-L-A-H-U-T-A.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Thank you. Just to start off, could you tell us a little bit </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">about</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> your life before you came to the Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Okay. Well, I was born in a little old farming com</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">munity in Wisconsin—a little</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> dairy farming community. Big population of 200</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> people. Then </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I grew up there on the farm most of the time and went on to college. Went to</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> University of Wisconsin, first got my undergrad work, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">then </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">later </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I went back</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and got my master’s in business administration. In between those two times, I worked for General Motors, the AC spark plug plant in Oak</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Ridge</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—not Oak Ridge, I’m sorry—Oak Park</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, Wisconsin, which was the Titan</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> missile program for the Air Force, the guidance system—the gyro system. So then I went back to grad school and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">then </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">joined up with the Atomic Energy Commissi</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">on and was assigned out here at </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Richland.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What attracted you to the AEC?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, I think part of it was the interest in kind of science and industry and all of that sort of thing. The people from Argonne Lab at the Chicago Operations office came to interview at the campus there. I and another fellow were invited to then go back to Argonne for a further interview, and I was one of the two that was selected to join. At the time, I didn’t know where I would be located. They asked, well, if you had a preference. We aren’t going to pick particular places, but if you had a preference, list the three sites that the Atomic Energy Commission was at that I would enjoy. So I said, well, of course</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the first one was at the Argonne Lab, close by home there. And I don’t remember which I put second or third, but it was either Richland, Washington or Schenectady, New York. I ended up be</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ing in Schenectady for a </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">while</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> basically</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. But I was as</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">signed out here at Richland, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it was interesting because </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">he says, well, you know, this is not the western—this isn’t the Evergreen State. And I said, well, I learned that by looking up a little more information on Hanford out in the desert. So I came out here with the idea that probably these assignments would be for one year. Because we were on what they called the technical and administrative intern program. So, I was selected on that intern program, and said probably be there a year, an</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">d probably no longer, because we</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’ll probably assign you somewhere else. Well, I came, and I was here until ’71 and then I went back to Sche</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nectady for four years, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> came back and was here ever since.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What sort of jobs were you working on then?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, initially—my graduate work was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> labor relations and in personnel</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> management and that sort of thing. At that time, they didn’t call it human re</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">sources, they called it personnel</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> management. So I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">was, first year out here, probably in the personnel department for about a year. And then that’s when the whole diversification program started here in 1963 or ’64. And I was assigned to look at the unique </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">use permit and work for a fellow by the name of Paul Holstead who had the responsibility for all the lab op</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">erations as far as</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the Atomic Energy Commission was concerned. Th</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">at was very interesting. So that was all start of this</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> whole </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arrangement with Battelle </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">being selected to operate the Pacific Northwest Lab. Now, at that time it w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">asn’t called a national lab yet;</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it was just Pacific Northwest Lab. And they had that particular use permit, which is no longer in existence, but it was a real ideal situation. And then that led into what they called the Consolidated Lab where they could do private work as well as the government work and all</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that. So I administered that contract, then, for a few years, or until I went back to Schenec</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">tady. Then I was back in personne</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">l management in Schenectady, though—labor relations area, under Rickover’s program, and that was very interesting. Then I came back here again in ’65 and was in personnel for a while but then back at the laboratory for a while. And I worked on that fo</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">r—oh, gosh, quite a few years, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ecause I had a total of 35 years i</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n. But most of the time was with the laboratory, but then later on, I was asked to take over t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">he responsibilities for the DOE—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t that time was already DOE—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">and the site infrastructure. You know, the roads, the utilities, the sewer plants, the warehouse buildings, the railroads, the—all the utilities, just like running a whole city. It was not the operations of those i</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nfrastructure; it was more the capital </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">improvements and the projects that needed to be done. Either new roads or new utilities or whatever it might be. That was for—I don’t know—four, five, six years. That also included some of the relationship with the tribes in the cultural resource programs and that sort of activity. But then the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> other</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> manager asked</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> us, jeepers</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, you know, I would really like to set up something we never had here at Richland before. That was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> sort of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a governmental relations program. So he asked if I would be willing to do that. So the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> last—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">oh, probably about the last six years of my career, I was in what they call governmental-congressional relations, dealing—almost </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">daily basis with congressional staff. Primarily congressional staff, some within the state government as well, and the local government, particularly in those sorts of things. So I retired doing that job in ’98.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">O’R</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">eagan</span>: Great. Let’s back up. Could</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> you tell us about this diversification program?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, yeah. That was really interest</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ing, because what the idea was—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hat is when General Electric</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> decided not to continue with their contract. Up until that time, General Electric had one contract for whole site operations. So the idea was two-fold. GE was not particularly interested in continuing doing that particular work, and the community was going through—yes, they still are—the diversification and further economic development for the community. So, there was a big effort there to break up the whole big contract into—I think it was five or six different segments. It was all up for bid, and various people were bidding for it. The laboratory, though, was separated as one of those segments. That was the first one to be authorized, and Battelle came in then operations in July of ’65. But up until—during that whole year, I was kind of working on part of the bid package going out and working on that. But not extensively. But then after the bid was accepted from Battelle, and they put an operation in, it got into this matter of doing this. The diversification program itself was dependent much on what these bidders would propose to supplement the economy here in the Tri</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">-Cities. In fact, that’s how this</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> WSU campus—you may be aware—was part of one of the contractors’ business, that they’d build this facility. Up until that time, GE had a little building down where the bank is—the National Bank down there by the Federal Building—and that wasn’</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t built either yet—to service the program that they established, their educational program, which is very unique because there wasn’t really any nuclear engineering classes in universities—or very few. So they really brought tech people in and really gave </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">them a good background and education in nuclear operations and so on. Now, I said the Federal Building wasn’t built then. It was built then. It was in the process of being built when I came out here in ’63. So that diversification was </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the spin</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">off of a lot of new types of business here in the Tri-Cities. I mean, Exxon Nuclear, which now later is now part of AREVA out here at the site, the fuel fabri</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">cation. That started out a spinoff from</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> some of the activity there. There was just a great amount of enthusiasm at that time, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I think</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there was worries that the government will fold up and the city will kind of dry up and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">blow</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> away so to speak. So that was a very interesting period. There was some very interesting discussions, very interesting foresights of what might happen. A number of those didn’t survive. There were some things—isotope development was one at that time that was a little bit ahead of its time, I think. But there was—the airport was improved by that. What’s now the Red </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Lion in</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> town, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the Hanford House, it was called then</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, I think it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—no, Desert Inn. The Desert Inn at that time was a brand new building they put up at that time. So it was a different time, and rather unique type</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> of activity that was going on in this community at that time.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were these discussions going on in the newspapers, or just sort of hand-shake meetings?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, they were pretty well open discussions about what they wanted. And there was quite a bit of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">publicity</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> about the fact of what some of these contractors—potential contractors were offering. That was exciting for the people, because some of these were new developments. Like the whole campus here, an original building that was part of one of the contractors’ bids. And the hotels and the stockyards over in Wallula</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> over there, that was another one. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nd</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, gee, I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">can</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> remember all of them, but there were a number. I know the isotope development thing—the isotope separations, I could really say, was one that didn’t quite make it. But anyway, it was a period of time when people were looking forward into the future and what might come, and looking at different types of work, and not so dependen</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t just on the government here. Now, o</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">f course, we’re still quite dependent on the government here, and that’s been—what, 30 years—oh, more than that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">That</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was 1965, so that’s been a long, long time ago. But a lot has progressed, obviously, from that time. I remember coming here—I wasn’t married at the time. I met my wife here. But, gee, if people wanted to go shopping, they’d either go to Walla Walla or Yakima or something. You know, there was nothing here. The mall out there wasn’t developed. It was—very little here to—and about the restaurants, you’d go over to Prosser to the Red Barn or something if you wanted a good meal. You could always find a hamburger shop here or something like that, but it was quite different then. Of course, my wife grew up here. She was only five years old when her parents came from Schenectady, New York with GE. She can remember—gosh, when hardly anything was going on, and families would just get together </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">because</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> they were from—god, all over the country. So many of them didn’t have any family here, so they created their own families, so to speak. But, yeah, that diversification effort was a great effort. There was much success, much success. I think a lot of what was learned there has been helpful and useful for the community. And I do have to give a credit, though, to Battelle and some of the forward-thinking that they did on what their operations were, very successful. And this Consolidated Lab which most people even in this community don’t understand or recognize, but it was very unique. There was a fellow that was with GE, went</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> over</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> with Battelle, of course, when they took over, by the name of Wally Sale. He was their finance director. Tremendous guy. He and Sam Tomlinson and the DOE—or AEC—I call it DOE, but it was the AEC then—were both very, very instrumental in getting this unique idea established and working there, where it was a fair amount of discipline and very good audit-type processing and very excellent means of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">determining that everything was legitimate, so to speak. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">That the accounting was very precise. It was a unique situation.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So you were still working with the AEC while you were working on that?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay. So they were—even though they weren’t sort of a bidder, or in direct—</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Plahuta:</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> No, no.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: They were still involved—</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, they were the organization or the entity that was accepting these bids and proposals going out and diversify the area. That was—I should also mention, that was a lot to do </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">with</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> some </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">of the local community leaders here, though, too,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was pushing this idea with the government that, no, we got to depend on more than just the US government to keep this economy going. So there were guys </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">like Sam Volpentest and others—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">B</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ob Philips and other people—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">who were working closely with our two senators. They were actively involved. Magnusson and Jackson—Scoop Jackson and Maggie. Very, very </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">obvious. And they both held very high level positions in the government at that time. I mean, they were—there was some thought for a while about Scoop Jackson even running for President. So they both were elevated in the structure of the politicians in the DC area. So, there was a great support there from our local state senators, particularly.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Mm-hmm. Right. So, while we’re still in this early period—you said you’d done some research before you got here. Did it match your expectations?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, yeah. I didn’t really have a whole lot of expectations, really. I mean, I knew that eastern Washington was quite dry, but I didn’t know quite a lot about it. I can remember, I was interested in geography when I was in elementary school, even, and knowing the Plains and the desert area, generally, and the wheat-growing area here, and that sort. But not too much—very extensive. Yeah, I think I surprised the AEC people out of Argonne when I says,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> well,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> yeah, I realized it was dry and a desert. They said, well, jeepers, most people think </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Washington as</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> just</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> being green, you know, the Evergreen State, and don’t even think about it possibly being a desert out there. And when I woul</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">d talk to some of my friends back</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> in Wisconsin as I was going out, the common words were,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> oh,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> you’re gonna be out there in the mountains and you’re gonn</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">a be out there in the greenery</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and all the evergreens. I say, no, no, I’m gonna be out there where the wheat grows in eastern Washington. Really? So I think that’s a misconception a lot of people in the eastern US have of Washington—eastern Washington, you know. They’re correct on the western side, but not on the eastern side. Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What sort of housing did you live in when you got here?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, I roomed with a fellow by the name of Holland St. John. He was a teacher at Chief Joe Junior High here, and the tennis coach there. So I did that until I met my wife and got married, and we then lived in a B house—you know, the government B house, the famous [</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">UNKNOWN</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">], with</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the landlord on the other side—very friendly people, people originally from Tennessee, I believe they were. Just g</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">reat, great folks to be with. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> rented that until—because we got married in ’67—until I went back to Schenectady. And then when we came back, I bought a home here in </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">North Richland. Now, currently</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> live in a house that my wife basically gr</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ew up with. It was an H house. We r</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">emodeled the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">whole thing so it doesn’t look anything—all that was remained the same was the four outside walls and one wall inside. And we added on. Anyway, it was one of the government homes that I was originally renting an H house with this roommate. And then when we got married, I rented a B house</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. And the original H house was—Holland </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">St. John was one of the fellows, and the other guy was Sherman. We had the three of us, three single guys who were using that part where they—again, the landlord was on the other side. Wonderful people. That was kind of unique</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> because when I first came and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">went looking, I thought, this</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> A house, B house, that are for rent. I was like, oh, what’s an A</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">B or an H house, C house? But it didn’t take long to figure out, okay, tha</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t’s just the nomenclature that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> being used for these various types of homes.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">How did you meet your wife?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: It was actually through church. There was group in our church—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">it </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">was the Christ the King Catholic church, and it was a singles group. That’s how I met her. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">So we got married and we</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’ve had</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> four children. They’re all grown adults now, of course. And we have seven grandkids. Six of them are girls, and finally the one that came along is a boy—the last one. But my two daughters—two of my daughters live here in town with their family. And I got a son in Seattle and another one just south o</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">f Portland in Tualatin—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">suburb of Portland. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">They all—I’m very proud of—they all went on through college. One has got a PhD, the other two of them got a master’s degree. One—and probably the one that’s doing the best, financially, has got just a master’s degree. But the three girls and a boy, and my son has got his master’s out of Purdue in engineering. My one daughter, the youngest one, has got her degree out of Gonzaga in engineering. The other one’s got her PhD in gerontology and the other’s got her master’s in early childhood development. So they’re all doing well. So I’m quite proud of them—of course, as most paren</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ts are. You know how they are, p</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arents. They always think their kids are the greatest</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> in the world</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. So anyway, that’s kind of where I came from—Wisconsin, and all the way out to the west coast and had not been really in the northwest prior t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">o coming out here. I had been in</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> California and some of those areas, but not in the northwest. You know, it’s an enjoyable place to live. But as a lot of people, as you know, here, some of them came for just a short time and they remain here forever. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I married here. So that’s probably the same for me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Part of what we’re trying to document is sort of the social life around the area, too.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Oh, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were church activities sort of a large part of your social life at that point?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, quite a bit. And I was also involved, though—that was before I even met my wife, Yvonne. The little town I grew up in was quite a little interesting town as far as baseball. The area back there in these little towns would have their teams, and they’d play each other. So I was most familiar with baseball, and I had played baseball as a kid. So I helped one of the fellows who, just by coincidence, was also from Wisconsin, from the Milwaukie area. And he was coaching his kids in Little League baseball. So I helped out on that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Then later on, when my kids got going in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">youth </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">soccer program</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and that was when youth soccer</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> first</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> started, I was quite active in getting it into the high schools and so on, because that was not very popular, not really—like the case of much soccer in the area. So I’m</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> on</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the Hanford High School support team—what do you call it? The—hmm, I can’t think of the title now. But anywa</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">y the supporters have their </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">support </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">efforts</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> to keep them going. So the social life was pretty much tied in with the church, but not exclusively.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Then we—there’d be these events we’d have. We’d go over to the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">coast or d</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">o things together, as a group—h</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">iking. Not as much hiking, probably, as visiting various locations and sightseeing and that sort of thing. So that was kind of pretty much—but the housing was interesting, too, because you hear these stories of people going, and when they get home from work, the earlier days, before my time, going into t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">he wrong house because they</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> got the wrong place. But I can understand that. I mean, it was quite unique. My wife has some interesting stories about how she grew up and talking about what was family life. Their family was way back in New York. They went back once when she was about five or—no, I think seven, she said. And she had, at that time, four sisters—I mean four siblings, and another one with her mother on the way in </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">her pregnancy. And took all the—tied into the car and drove all the way back. Spent more time going and coming than they did back there. But it was a case where she—in the case that they got to know your neighbors well, it was friendly, it was safe, everybody—kids all played out. Where we’re living now, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">we’ve got just that little funny</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> park in front of our place over by the river there. Her father was an accomplished skater, so he decided when he had an opportunity to get the house along the river here, that’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the one</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> he wanted to take it. Not realizing that not too many winters where there’s ice on the snow. But he was the state champion in New York City on ice racing. So he’s got quite a bit of medals and stuff. So she talks about the farm—I mean, the families that would get together on holidays and whatever. It was just a different type of lifestyle. I didn’t experience that myself, but it’s interesting just hearing her talk about those things.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">O’Reagan</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">: Yeah, we’ll have to bring her in at some point. We’re</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> trying to get as many people</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> who sort of grew up here for that as well.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, she was only five years old and she came in ’47.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Okay. Yeah, we’d definitely like to interview</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> her at some point. Okay, so let’s see. You were working on the diversification stuff and then you went back to S</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">chenectackey—Ss-</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Schenectady.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Schenectady, yes. And then you came back in—I have it written down here.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: ’71.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: ’75.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: ’75, I mean. I left in ’71. April of ’71, back in ’75.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: And at that point you were working on</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—let’s see</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> here</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—the DOE</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> site </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">infrastructure stuff</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, or was that later</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Well, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hat was much later. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was on the laboratory stuff.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: It was shortly after. About</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the first year or so was more in the personnel and that area. But then when this whole dive</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">rsification effort came forward.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I think my master’s degree in business and all this kind of led into—and I did have quite a bit of educational experience in contract management and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">contract administration, too. I have that—I don’t know if that played a role or not, but it helped me, I know, in terms of—and it was a whole new type of contract relationship that this Consolidated Lab and the use permit and all that had. So it was unique and interesting just from that standpoint alone. So yeah, at that time up until ’71, it was there, and then came back, worked in the personnel area, in the Rickover program. That’s an interesting story, too, because Rickover was a unique individual, very unique. But his staff was made up of military men, contractor people, and DOE or AEC at that time. And there w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">as no distinction. I mean, you would</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> have a contractor person right along with you and so on. He considered it all just one. It was very unique</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> in terms of the contractor and working relationships. But yet, what was so familiar—you could have these working—I shouldn’t say one </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">by one, it would be even office</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">s or something. But yet, he was very instrumental in saying, I don’t want any social activities between you. So as much as going to the cafeteria at noon, there was a section where the AEC people sat, and another whole section where the contractor people sat. And the military guys could be with either one, but they would—the military people were associated with AEC office—the civilian people. So in that office, there was no distinction whether you were military or a civilian. But in the contactor side, of course they were all civilians.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Is that an anti-corruption effort, or--?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, yeah, and I guess avoiding any kind of potential conflict of interest and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">friendships, so that you got pretty soon with somebody, well, I’ll do you a favor, and vice versa. Very, very, very strong on that sort of thing. But yet, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">he himself seemed just one team. It was just like a football team—you’re the receiver and you’re the lineman. You</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’ve</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> got different jobs. It was unique, and there’s some interesting stories about Rickover, too, but I won’t get into those. But those are very interesting times.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you ever get to know any of the contractor people?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Oh, yeah. You would know them on the business side. Definitely. Oh, yeah. You’d work with them every day. Some more, because if it was in your area of responsibility, certainly, you’d be working with them. But, boy, not socially. There was no—I mean, that was a voodoo if you had any social-type activities with the contractors. That was not to his liking. That makes sense, I mean, it would just avoid any possible conflict of interest and that sort of thing. It was an interesting time. But it’s kind of like a lot of people say. I went into military,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I’m glad, but I’m glad I’m out</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. It’s kind of that sort of same analogy. But it was a great experience.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What was Rickover’s title?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Rickover? Admiral.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">O’</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Reagan</span>: Admiral, okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Admiral Rickover, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So what was his exact sort of authority within the—</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: He headed up the whole nuclear navy.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Oh, I see.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: He was really up there. And in fact, when—I think—which President was it? Maybe it was Kennedy—no, it wasn’t Kennedy</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">it</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was after</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. Anyway, when he was giving some kind of address </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">somewhere, he recognized—I know, I’m Rickover’s boss, but really we’re all—Rickover’s my boss. And that happened with Schlesinger, too, when he was appointed the head of the Atomic Energy Commission, when he was there. He says, oh, yeah. And he made the same kind of remark. I don’t know if it was those exact words. But Rickover was a very powerful individual in terms of his authority. He was kind of all b</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">y himself, because, again, the nuclear n</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">avy was unique, and so he was a brilliant man. There was no question about</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it. He would pick just the top-notch-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">quality technical people that he could to run his program. The safety was so important to him. The wellbeing of all the military people, and the people who were in the submarines and that sort of thing. So he was really great. But he had a unique way of operations, there was no question about that. He was a strong, strong individual.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So this period you were working in personnel is also, I understand, the period where you started having more women and minorities being hired on at the Hanford area.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: That</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> is true. There</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was a big emphasis—the period—and following my part of the end there, but in that timeframe of particularly on the college campuses and recruiting minorities and women, which is good. But there was extreme interest in finding qualified minorities and women. There was certainly emphasized that it was—and that’s great. I mean, I go back and think in my thesis for my master’s degree in business administration, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I made some statement then, makes</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> me sound almost like a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> anti-feminist now. But I was saying we really got to get more women into the technical side, but I wasn’t thinking far enough. We really think a lot—we don’t have many women technicians and stuff. So I was—at that time—thinking, oh, gosh,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> they could be technicians. And not even thinking ab</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">out being engineers, you know, g</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">tting their PhD in engineering. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ut at least, let’s—so I started out just—it wasn’t a matter of discrimination, where I said they should be technicians, because there were no—but I said, jeepers, let’s work on that. I had much of my emphasis—because my emphasis in my PhD was the shortage of technical people in the country. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">That was after Sputniks and some of those things going. We really needed development, work hard and see what we can do to get the people interested in getting into the math and sciences and that area. Some people kind of looked at me, you want women to be technicians or something? Yeah, but—you know. Now, I think, boy, I’d be discriminated—I mean, not discriminated, but considered, yeah, you’re very limited in </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">your scope. You should be</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> much broader than that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Yeah, that was a time when the Sputniks went off and these others, and we were quite behind and Kennedy wanted to get to the moon. And that, though, when I was in, was quite a bit later than that. Not quite a bit, but somewhat later, and the emphasis on trying to get minorities and women as much as we possibly could.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Mm-hmm. So it didn’t—how—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">did it shape your work on personnel at that point, I guess--?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, I don’t know if it shaped it so much, but back to my word of emphasis, to see if we really seek out qualified people. And not that they needed, necessarily, to have had extensive training, but look at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ir</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> overall education experience and how well they were doing in school. In other words, that they were capable of picking up some of the technical</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nd whether they had that already knowledge was not quite as important as looking at what’s their basic—I don’t know, I guess I could say basic intellect—but their ability to really take on some of these things. It was not hard to find that. I mean, that doesn’t—I don’t want to imply that the women or minorities didn’t have that. They certainly did. But I think a lot of them, maybe themselves, didn’t realize that they really could do that, that there was no reason why they couldn’t. </span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: I was speaking with a reactor operator in a previous interview who had a degree, I think, in</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> forestry or something non-sort-of-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nuclear, but was still able to become a reactor operator. Was that sort of common that you saw, too, people moving into new fields to get on the Hanford site?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: That was not unusual, no. And that was particularly true—and I noticed you ta</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">lk I was being on—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">with Rickover’s submarine program—we would hire then people who—and that happened out here awful lot—wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">o had gone through the nuclear n</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">avy and were nuclear operators. We had a number of those people that didn’t want to stay in the Navy, but we hired on his staff—on Rickover’s staff—in our local office there at Schenectady. Now, that was a small office. The office was not very big. It was relatively small. But we hired a number of those people, and they were good, because they—and many of them had not gone to college yet. They got out of the Navy, they went to college, and then came back. I mean, I remember recruiting two or three or four of those types. And we recruited basically around northeast area, because we were in Schenec</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">tady, in some of the schools around</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there. Plattsburg, up in northern—which is a civil engineering school up in norther New York, and a number of areas there where we would find students who—not a lot of them, but who had gone back after they got out of service and didn’t want to make it a career, and got their degrees. Some would be in the technical fields; some would not be, necessarily. But most that we hired had degrees in some form of engineering or science or whatever.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay. So you were working with the nuclear navy program after you got back from Schenectady—pronouncing it again.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: No, it was at Schenectady I did the nuclear program.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Oh, I see</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, I see</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">It’s at Schenectady. So I was here, then went to Schenectady for four years—not quite four years—three-and-three-quarters. And then back here again. And that’s when the diversification effort came about, when I came—no, no, no,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I’ll</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> take that back. That was back when I got back into some of the other Battelle work again, after I came back. The diversification was prior to going to Schenectady.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay. So then were you working for Battelle or were you still working for AEC?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: No, I always worked for the government, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">always. It was AEC, and then</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a short period of time, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">it w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">as—what did we call it, even? There</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was a two-year period between AEC and Department of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Energy</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Research</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and Development Administration, I think. Yeah, that was what it was called—Research and Development Administration. And then it became—Congress passed it and developed the Department of Energy. And when they developed the Department of Energy, it expanded a little bit and took in, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">like</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Bonneville</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Power out here was part of that, and a number of activities like that. More than just atomic energy, and that’s when it got a little more involved in</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> laboratories and other forms of—quite a bit. Whether it be climate—today it’s climate change, or climate sciences, as it’s called, and other types of activity. More than just the nuclear itself. But there’s a misconception</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> when </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I say nuclear itself, this, as you’ve probably learned and know, that there’s all kinds of work that dealt with biology and the uptake of radioisotopes and all of that sort of thing. And we had the animal farm out here with the smoking dogs and the miniature pigs—miniature swine, and all of that activity. And then when I was administering the Battelle program and the Pacific Lab, I was also involved in a lot of interagency work. So I was—in fact, one of my responsibilities there was working with all the other agencies in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">interagency agreements. And that meant </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">works like NASA and National Science—al</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">though they didn’t have a lot</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—the NRC, and EPA and others would have work done at the lab. And that would be not DOE work or AEC work, but it was their particular </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">responsibility. But they had the cap</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ability and knowledge out here to do that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. So there was a lot of that. In fact, I was involved in the whole setup of the LIGO</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> facility out here, working </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">with the National Science Foundation. And they had no knowledge of this—had to kind of guide them by hand as to what kind of arrangements they w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ould have between the two agencies</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> for them to use the Department of Energy land out here and their facility and all of that sort of thing. So from very early on, I spent somewhat—a fair amount of my time working with the National Science Foundation to getting the establishment of the LIGO facility out here. That was rather a long interesting experience, too, and all the unique th</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ings that went on doing that. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I just have this—even though I’m not a scientist or engineer by training, I have this kind of innate interest in science and engineering. That was what was so exciting about administering the lab contract, to see the whole variety of activity that goes on out there at the lab. And even, I think, the majority of the citizens of Richland and Tri-Cities do not understand, fully, the broad spectrum of knowledge and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">exposure to all elements of the nature of science and technology that’s available out here to the lab, and what all these experts they have in those all wide spectrum of activity. </span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: In your experience, how kid of secretive </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> any of this work? Was it all kind of out there? Was it kind of compartmentalized?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, there was a lot of secret-type st</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">uff, but there wasn’t as much of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that, I don’t think—now, I didn’t get involved too much in the production—in the plutonium production. Because the laboratory wasn’t so directly involved in that. That was the big load from the local office, was producing the plutonium, getting that back, and doing all of that sort of thing. The lab was supporting that, and doing that in the nuclear aspects of nuclear science, but there was a lot—an awful lot of work t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hat was not secret. Now, they</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> also were</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, though,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> heavily involved in many of the secret-type stuff. That relates primarily to their strong capability in detection—detecting things. I mean, you’re probably aware that the first moon rocks that came from the moon were here at the site, at the lab, to analyze those, to look at them, what was all made up of? The very first, first exposure to the moon rocks was right down here that Federal Building, anywhere in the United S</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ates that they were shown. That was quite a deal, too. So they have this tremendous capability. Th</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e labs were one of the first—this</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> lab—the first to detect that </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Saddam </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Hussein had used chemical warfare for the Kurds back there, and that was way back time. Tremendous, and some interesting stories of how they collected some of this stuff and how they got these samples. I don’t know if we want to get into it. It was really, really interesting activities in that sort of stuff. Some of the things—it’s not classified anym</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ore, but </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the people out at the lab or </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">some of these guys</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> would go over to Hong Kong, and they’d just brush against somebody </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">to get a hair off of somebody that </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">[UNKNOWN</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">] just get a sample. Or a little dust and dirt came off their shoe, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">they</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> might pick it up or something. Just the most minute quantities of things, and being ab</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">le to analyze and determine. This</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> laboratory out here was the first to decide how big the bombs are that China was dropping, to get the size of those through the air samples and all of that. There’s just this broad knowledge, or capability</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I should say, in detection activities out here. It’s just amazing. And they’ve kept that up in the same way with their r</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">adioisotope program—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the medical isotopes program. So much of that that many people don’t realize of all the spinoffs and benefits that have come from the knowledge that they gained. The first CD was developed out here at the lab. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Much of that. I’m really interested in reading, now, Steve Ashby’s reports bimonthly in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Tri-City Herald</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> about some of the activities going on at the lab. And I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">miss</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that. I used to get real knowledge about what they’re working on. Of course, it’</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">s been 18 or 20 years sinc</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I’</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ve done that, but that was always fascinating, some of this advanced science and some of this stuff that was really—and a lot of it was development and a lot of it wasn’t. But they’d run into some dead-ends. They’d later on pick it up again, somebody would discover something else, and they’d finally go forth with it.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: When did it become a national lab? Do you remember?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: God</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, I don’t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> remember the year that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. God, I should know that.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: I’m sure we can look it up.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, we can look it up.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Was that while you were working?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Oh, yeah, yeah. It was—god, why should—because that was a big event. And we were pushing quite well at the time to try to get that done. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Yeah. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Golly, that just escapes me. I’ve got to—now that you mention it, I’ve got to go back</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and check that out and see when</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it was.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What was involved in that?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, it was basically—I don’t want to call it a political decision, but it was basically, I think, recognizing the scope of activity that the labs were involved with. There wasn’t a great urge by the Washington, DC people or any to readily accept that title. I mean, it means a lot. So it was really a lot of background in what the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ir</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> involvement, and what type of work were they involved with, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">and what depth</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> were they involved with and what types—and really focusing a lot on the basic science and that sort. And that’s where I think this lab was a little late</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">r than others, because this lab, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">up until the later times, was more of a support lab on production activities and not quite so much in basic. Now there was some basic on the real basic physics and something to deal wit</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">h reactor operations. But they </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">evolved and grew into this more basic science in a broad spectrum. I think that was one of the criteria. Now, I wasn’t involved in that decision at all. But my understanding is one of the criteria of establishing is that they got a well-established basic science capability. It’s not just specialized in one area or something. That’s where I think this lab was one of the later ones to be</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> recognized as a national lab, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ecause they built that up. And one of the things, too, that there wasn’t much knowledge of, because the production was such a secret thing, that that did</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n’t get much publicity or get</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> papers written about it, and so on. So unfortunately the people that were working on that didn’t get the opportunity to have their findings and whatever presented to the whole world at national conferences and things like that. And that was also true, by the way, in Rickover’s program. Rickover was very cognizant—he was so afraid that the communists had this and that. So that was one of the real issue—there was basically almost the technical people at the capital laboratory</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, the Knolls Atomic Power Lab</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> in Schenectady</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, almost unionized because they really felt that they were being shortchan</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ged. They couldn’t give papers</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> at technical conferences and stuff because Rickover was always afraid that you might reveal something that w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">as highly secret about </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">how to run a reactor and all that kind of stuff. So I think some of that same sort of information or background was kind of holding this lab back</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> because they just didn’t get the publicity in the scientific world, that their discoveries and their knowledge and their ex</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">periments and so on were well-known</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. And I think that helped, because the people in DC who were more knowledgeable of that found that to be a quality that was great for being recognized as a national lab. But a national </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">lab, again, was the idea</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> with broad spectrum of research. So that’s my take of it. You may talk to somebody else and they probably have a whole different presentation in terms of why or how and what was all involved. But just being on sort of the sidelines when that happened, that seemed to me to be what was the key point in helping determine. But there was some political push, no question. I mean, Maggie again, and Scoop—I think that was when they were on, and some of those. Why are you shortchanging us out there in the northwest? And we don’t have—that was the other thing, there was no national lab in the northwest. There was Livermore down in California, Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Brookhaven. But why are you guys leaving us out in the north? And that was more form—not the science or technology, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> well, don’t treat us as second class citizens. Our lab </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">up there is as good as yours. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there was some of that out there</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> too.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did it impact your work, when it changed?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: No, I don’t think so. Well, I shouldn’t say that. One of the things </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that did happen in that regard—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">and I mentioned earlier about these interagency agreements a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nd the capabilities of the lab—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that stimulated more of that. Because I think being—once you’re recognized as a national lab, it just goes along with the credibility that might be associated with the work they’re doing. So I think that resulted in more of this interagency work with the various other g</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">overnment agencies. What it</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> also did—and that was probably the most key element—is bringing in the tie with universities and so on. That was really—and locally, here, that was one of the interests of the people with the lab. They would really have liked to get more—and by the fact being recognized national lab, allowed the universities, and particularly some of the ones heavily involved in the science and engineering, would tend to favor going to a national laboratory. And the research that they were doing in cooperation with the lab itself was more significant</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> more meaningful to them. So I think that was probably one of the biggest benefits of becoming a national lab.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Yet Battelle </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">as an organization bac</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">k in Columbus and others, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hey had a good reputation already of working closely with universities and so on. I mean, they were a research organization. And I think that also helped, too, because Battelle was operating this, and so the people who made these decisions realized that you have a topnotch research company—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">foundation</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hat that’s their whole world. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I think that also helped in getting it. And certainly the lab pushed for that. There was no question</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">bout it. They wanted to be recognized as a national lab. So there was a combination of these things, I think they all kind of helped and worked together and made it happen.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So when was it that your work with PNNL shifted over to the next role?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Oh, yeah. Well</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, let’s see. T</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hat was probably in more the early</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> ‘90s. Where—yeah—because—yeah—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">early ‘90s is when I start going in there. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">So most of my career was with P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">NL and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> some of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> labor relations. But early ‘90s, when I got into the infrastructure deal and doing all of that, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> then</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> later the last five years in the congressional and governmental relations activity, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Could you tell us about the infrastructure work?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, that was quite interesting. That was frustrating. And by frustrating I mean, there was always—well, let’s not fi</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">x it until it’s broke. Oh, gosh, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">we used to have some—because it was still working. And particularly that was more emphasis as the role of the site here of not producing plutonium anymore—well, then do we need to keep it? Let</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’s see if</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> can</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> limp along. Well, what it ended up, in my opinion, a lot of times, we paid a lot more by trying to fix things afterward. We didn’t really have a good preventative maintenance program. Finally got sort of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">a preventative maintenance, but—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">it </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">was tough. Because there was always </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">this thing—there was always a great need of doing this thing, and jeepers, we can’t use the dollars there; it’ll still work for a while. I didn’t have the responsibility for the day-to-day operations of it. That wasn’t mine. Mine was the upgrades and the ca</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">pital equipment and all that. Whether</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we need a new fire station or whatever it may be. And jeepers, the thing was just limping along on a thread, and something would break. But then we ended </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">up spending a whole lot more. That</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was somewhat frustrating. And the guys that I worked with on the contractor sid</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e had the same experience. But s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ome managers were a little more cognizant of the need to do that than others. And safety—the way we could get things done—[PHONE CHIMES]—was safety more. Because if we could show that there was safety-related issues that went along with it, it was easier to get it appropriated or funded, rather than say, well, it’ll still go along. And that’s the way we often would get something funded, was, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">could</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> show that we really don’t want to jeopardize the safety of the employees or the workers and that sort of thing. But it was not simple. It was pretty difficult. It was always kind of bucking the tide for funding.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Right. That reminds me—so, you were still working at PNNL when the—</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, I wasn’t at PNNL; it was DOE.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Right, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">yeah, okay. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ut back during the time when sort of the reactors were shutting down and the transition to sort of amelioration and cleanup got started. Is that correct?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, but that most of the time was with PNNL, still. But it was in ’89</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, is</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> when the real decision was made. So it was shortly after that that I got into</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the infrastructure and that’s where it became hard then. Because we weren’t operating with the mission anymore. Yet you knew darn well that cleanup is going to be here for a long, long time, and why not get these things going so you don’t spend t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">wice as much starting all over </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">new, with something when you could just really do some work at that time to keep this thing alive? This thing, being—whether it be a sewer plant or whether it be a steam plant or fire</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">station or electro distribution system or a railroad or whatever it might be. Because</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> at least I could see</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, it was cheaper because cleanup</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’s gonna last for a while and you need this infrastructure whether your mission is producing the plutonium or whether it’s cleanup. Soon we got </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">some</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> of the people </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">saying</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, yeah, you’re right. But the guys who were doing the cleanup then, too, saying, oh, god, we’ve got so much work to do, we can’t afford to do this. It’ll last another year or two. Let’s fix it next year or upgrade it next year. The evaporator out there is a good example. They finally did it. But there was things earlier they probably could have done to increase its capability and do a better job. And finally they say, yeah, I guess that’s right, we should do it now because we’ll need that thing for god knows how long yet.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What was it like living in this area around ’89 when the shift happened?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, it was a surprise, I think, to a lot of people. Kind of like, oh, gosh, here we go again. That’s when this whole activity—and I wasn’t involved in, but with the B Reactor Museum Association really got its birth when they were saying, we’re shutting down the reactors and going there. But the attitude was, or</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the feelings was that, jeepers, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">it was just doomsday basically. And not fully understanding the scope of work that needed to be done in the cleanup area. It was very little attention being paid to the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> depth of that need at the time.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I don’t think there was much knowledge—excuse me—or basically understanding of how important and significant that’s going to be. So it was a change in times, it certainly was.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Do you think a lot of—or were people sort of in your area worried about their jobs? Or was that, you</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> felt</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, sort of separate from the plutonium production?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, I–y</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">eah, I wasn’t too involved in that sort of aspect. But, yes, the community had a concern. And that kind of coincides with </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the big problem out there that’s now Energy Northwest, but the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">shutdown of those new </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">power reactors. So that kind of came together at the same time, and that was really a shock for the community. It was—you know, a lot of people would leave and say, jeepers, I got to go find something else before I don’t have a job at all.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Right. So in the last couple of years before retirement, you were working on the congressional relations?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, yeah, about five years.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">O’Re</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">agan</span>: Can you tell us about that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> work?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Plahuta: Yeah, about five years prior to</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> retirement. Five, six—something like that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I don’t remember exactly when.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> That was very interesting, too, and you got another scope of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> how things got done. I got to </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">a point where I was having daily discussions with particularly Patty Murray’s staff and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">prior to that, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Doc Hasting’s staff—staff members. Not that much with the senators or the congressmen themselves, but primarily their staff, and working with them. And somewhat with the state</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> offices, but not extensively. And then more with the local communities—the mayors—the Hanford communities group there. That was quite regularly—and the emphasis that we placed then, I’m not sure still exists, but really wanted to tie in closely to having the local government—the mayors and commissioners and so on—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">knowledgeable</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">what’s going on out here at the site. So there wouldn’t be these sudden surprises. That was the role that John</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Wagner at the time</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was interested in, and that’s when he asked me if I would be</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> willing to</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—it was a new </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">position he was establishing. He just wanted to maintain a close relationship with what’s going on at the site, and I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">don’t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> know if that’s—I shouldn’t say—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I don’t know if it’s the case now, but I don’t think it’s quite the same as what John had in mind and what I d</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">id for those five, six years. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> when I left, then, they kind of—when I retired, it kind of was sitting in just ebbs there—ups and downs—and it’s probably back more to that way. I really don’t know.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: But shortly after that, too, then, I got on the Hanford Advisory Board. So I had kind of a knowledge about what was going on at the site. So I was very active in the Hanford Advisory Board for quite a few years—for like 15 years or so. But I got so much involved in the B </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Reactor thing that I said, gee—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I didn’t feel like to just go to the meetings and not really contribute a whole lot. So I thought I’d just give up and retire at that point in time, and I found someone who I know real well who’s capable to take my place. I was representing the county most of the time—sort of an alternate representative for the City of Richland first,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> but then later for the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">county</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> most all the time. I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">wanted</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> to be sure that—and I did find someone who was very, very, well-involved and informative to take my spot there for the county </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">commission</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> now.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Okay. So before we move on, can you tell me—what was the Hanford Advisory Board?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Oh, that was established—gosh, I can’t remember exactly when, but it’s made up of about 30 different entities—representatives of those entities. It’s statewide and it includes some of the Oregon people, the tribes are on it, most of the government—city governments and county </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">governments</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> are represented. There’s total—like I say, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">about</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> 31. They’re a formal advisory group to the Atomic Energy—Atomic Energy? I’m really going back now—to the DOE to uncover and discuss various elements of ongoing work. And you probably see quite a bit in the paper</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the Hanford Advisory Board meets on a monthly basis—no, I shouldn’t say that—about every other </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">m</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">onth. But then they’ve got committees </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">underneath of it like </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the Tanks Waste Committee and the River Plateau </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Committee</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—there’s five different </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">committees</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. I chaired a couple of those </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">committees</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a couple times, and vice </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">chair</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and so on. And they provide some advice—written advice to the—and it’s—oh, I shouldn’t say it’s just DOE. There’s three </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">parties to this. It’s the State Ecology Department, the EPA, Environm</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ental Protection Agency, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> DOE. So the three agencies are involved in this. They provide—can be anything regarding to the Vit Plant out here now, the tank vapor things—so many different activities. They write formal advice and discussion. It represents all sides, basically. Those that are pro/con, what are the proper words, or whatever you want to say. But it’s a wide representation of the general—not local community necessarily, but the state concerns</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nd </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">there’s people from Seattle on that, from down in Salem, Oregon, and around the area. That’s been in existence—gosh, I don’t remember when—it was probably around ’90 or something like that, ’91. It’s been—maybe not that long—but it’s been quite active for quite some time.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: That reminds me—I meant to ask, when you were working on the site infrastructure, you mentioned some work with the tribes and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">cultural resources. Can you tell us</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> about that?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah. I personally didn’t get too directly involved. I had a person working</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> for me by the name of Charles Pasternak</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—he has since died</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. He was very, very knowledgeable. He was an archaeology-type thing, too, but he was a forensic expert-type thing, and was very, very closely working with the tribes. Well-respected by the tribes. He was </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">invited into some of those long</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">house ceremonies and that sort of thing. So he worked on that. He was the one that was the primary person for me. I got into a lot of the discussions and so on, but for the day-to-day activities, he was really tops. And would work with the SH</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">O</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> office—the State Historical office in Olympia on stuff—on these writings and stuff. So it was interesting. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">But I didn’t get daily involvement there. I had enough in my other hands to ta</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ke care of. But he was just ace</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> number one on </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">doing</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that. So I got familiar with the process and the operations and what the issues were and that sort of thing. But that was informative for me. He was sort of a mentor to me, to be honest, though, in that respect. Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Do you know sort of how—one of the things I’m also curious about is the development of cultural resources and local efforts to preserve culture, preserve memory. On the DOE side, I know, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">today that’s done through a contract with the Mission Support Alliance. Do you happen to know when that sort of contracting began, or was DOE sort of also contracting while also working on it?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: No, DOE was working primarily at the laboratory </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">out </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">here at Battelle. That’s where—and that’s partly how I got into it, I think, although I wasn’t administering to Battelle Lab at that time. But that all function was under the laboratory. It was after I left that Mission Support Alliance came into </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">existence</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> here. And then they took over a lot of that support type activity. But, no, the laboratory, and Jim Shatters was involved, Mona Wright was involved out there for the lab. Paul Harvey was—not Paul Harvey—Dave Harvey was involved in some of that out there, alo</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ng with the history. And Michel</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e Gerb</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">er on the historic—the Hanford h</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">istory type stuff. So that was all with Battelle. And then that moved it, I think, when Mission Support Alliance—and that was after, basically, after I left. So that was there. But, no, there was quite an interest—not as much as there is today—again, that’s a fault, I can say, of us who were in the department at that time. We really we</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">re</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n’t on board extensively on the history protection stuff. Although the contractor, Battelle out there, and others were doing that. But I don’t think DOE was following. And then that’s when I discovered that, gosh, we really have a responsibility here. And that’s w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hen I hired this Charles Pasterna</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">k who came over from GSA and had been doing that sort of thing</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> down</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> in Phoenix, Arizona. So I said, we really need—so I hired him. And as I say, he was—that was his livelihood so to speak. And that’s when I think we began then to pick up on that sort of thing. I had an extreme interest in doing it and I got to know Mona Wright real well at Battelle. Tom Marceau was involved in that out there. And Tom can gi</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ve you the whole history there with the laboratory at that time.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What sor</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t of day-to-day work—was it </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Charles Pasternak?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Pasternak, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What sort of work was he doing? Do you know?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">it</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was this whole cultural resources area. He was, as I say, an archaeology type and that was his training. So he di</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">d all of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the work </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">a lot </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">with SHPO up there when we got into some of these areas wher</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e they needed—we needed to know </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the 106 process, and all of that sort of thing. So Charles was our main person to follow that. But I had the interest, also, of John Wagner, the manager, even though I wasn’t playing that congressional role at that time. Because he, too, I think, recognized that we needed to do a little bit more there. And in fact—I don’t know if you’re familiar—but he’s </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">one of Cindy Kelly, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">who’s with the Atomic Heritage Foundation---he’s one of the board members there. He had really an extreme interest in preserving the history. As much as he tried, he couldn’t get headquarters people—they</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> always</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> told him, John, you</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> go back and tell them we’re no</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">in the museum business. And that’s what the people here woul</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">d be hearing all the time. But J</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ohn himself was really interested in doing all that. I sat in meetings with him at </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">headquarters</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> where </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">he’d really push hard. And they’d push back, that’s not our—it was their responsibility, but they’d just, yeah, okay, but we don’t want to spend a lot of time on that. So that was—but locally, I think we did well. I think we did very well at pushing that along and I got to give contract—credit to people like Tom and Mona and others out here o</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n the contractor sit</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e who even pushed us a little bit sometimes. Which was good. That’s necessary. </span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Could you sort of sketch out for us your idea of sort of the history of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">efforts to commemorate the site or</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the work that was done on Hanford? In terms of, up through the B Reactor Museum Association--?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah. Well, my interest was, again, as I learned more about it, was let’s preserve this history of this </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">site</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, because it’s very unique. It’s really unique. And I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">had to avoid sort of a conflict of interest of joining BRMA while I was an employee of the department. So I was interested, though, in knowing what they were doing and I was in agreement with them and was very supportive when I could be in some of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">their activities. But </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">shortly</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> after I retired, then—not immediately, but not too long after, I did join as a member of the B Reactor Museum. That was in—well, quite a while later, because it in 20</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">0</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">5, so it was quite a while later that I actually joined them. That was—the more I learned and found out about the uniqueness of the B Reactor and its history and its knowledge and its importance, I really, really got heavily involved. And that’s eventually, here, like a year a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">nd a half ag</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">o—I finally got off</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the Hanford Advisory Board because I was spending so much time—more time on that—and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">not feeling </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I was really contributi</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ng a whole lot. I mean, I’</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">d make my comments and so on at the general meetings, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">but</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> with regard to drafting formal </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">advice</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and all that, which I was quite active in earlier, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">then jeepers, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">get somebody else who has the time and so on</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and I’d devote more time to the B Reactor Museum Association. But, again, I’m, as well as my interest in science and technology, although not being trained in that area, I’m sort of a history buff. As a kid</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> on</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, I could list the order of the Presidents of the United States, I remember. Zing, zing, zing. I can’t do it any </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">longer. I’d have</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> to stop and think about it, get it mixed </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">u</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">p a little bit. But history was </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">another</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> area that I was kind of interested in. I like to read a lot of history books and that sort of thing. I think that was stimulated by my second year in college in a class I took from a history professor who was just interesting. And what I found so interesting about him is he said you can read the book, but let me give you</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> some stuff, some of the trivia-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">type stuff that he knew about some of the personalities and some of the things that he had learned through his research and understanding </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">about</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the true natures of some of these people and what unique features or attributes they had. That, I think, stimulated my interests even more. But it was in existence prior to that as well, but it just enhanced it a bit. Yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What sort of stuff has BRMA worked on in the time you’ve been with them?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Oh, gosh. We have done extensive amount of work on some of the modeling to bring up some of the models that we have out there that can describe and portray better the actual activities in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">instruments</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and the equipment in the area there itself. We did that. And of course our big effort was to make it a national park. That’s where most of our time, and that’s where I really got involved with and again working with the other two sites, Oak Ridge and Los Alamos with Cindy Kelly back in American—I mean the Atomic Heritage </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Foundation</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. We’d have monthly phone calls on proposing various kind of language that we’d like to see in the act and working with the Congress. My experience working with congressional staffers helped a little bit there, I think</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> but so did Cindy, who—and I first knew Cindy, basically when she was in DOE—worked for DOE in the headquarters in </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">cultural resource area and all of that area. So that’s how I got to </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">know</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Cindy. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">then </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">later on, we kind of met again, then, when we were working on the B Reactor. So the biggest contribution, I think</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was the effort from the very beginning. B Reactor was—not B Reactor, but the BRMA association—B Reactor Museum Association—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">was </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">established formally in ’91, but was actually in ’90 or so when it began to formally—and how that all happened was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> in existence here at the time—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">we called it the Tri-Cities or maybe they were Richland—I don’t know—Technical Society. And that was made up of all the various tech—whether it be electrical engineers, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">or</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> civil engineers, the chemical engineers, nuclear engineers, the health physicists and so on. They had this net group where there was things in common and commonality. When the announcement was made that they were going to get out of the production </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">business and was going to start cocooning the reactors, the guy says, god, we got to preserve B. The history that goes with it. And I wasn’t part of that, then. But they organized a committee then to discuss further. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> when they decided to establish this organization, the B Reactor Museum Association</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> with the sole purpose to preserve for future generations the history and preserve the facili</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ty itself for public access and—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">for preservation and public access. Well, our mission is basically accomplished by g</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">etting it into the National P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ark. That was really keen. And we still have interests; we want to go along and develop the park and do all of those additional types of things and perhaps even taking on efforts to preserve a bit of the history of T Plant as well. Because that is identified i</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n the park, and of course the pre-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Manhattan </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Project history there with the farms and that sort of thing. But that’s been the key emphasis all along, was to preserve and make it public access to B Reactor. So there was a lot of work and working with the Department of Energy and others to clean it up and get it in shape where you could have these tours. I think it was 2009 or something when they started the tours—the more public tours. But I was involved earlier in that. There was still tours, but the tours were maybe for special groups or activities or maybe a college chemistry class or physics class or something would be coming to see it. Or some of the elected officials or could be any special tours, I think. And then it got gradually working into recognizing that there would be—in fact, when I left in ’98, there was just a memorandum of agreement type between the BRMA organization and Westinghouse the contractor and DOE, what the roles and responsibilities would be. At that time, BRMA would be willing to provide docents—volunteer docents at the time, and do that sort of thing for these various tours. So I was sort of a tour coordinator then, to find out what audiences—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">there </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">would be a difference between some</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">one who was real </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">knowledgeable</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> about the reactor, and ot</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hers who knew nothing about it—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">want to know what the audience would be so we’d pick the right type of tour guide and a person who was more familiar with it, who were comfortable with those kind of tours. So there got to be a fair number of those. But then it formally established, then, when the DOE started </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">saying</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we will offer these public tours. In 2009 is when it really blossomed into much more greater things, when they announced the public tours and so on. These others were more tours where people would request and ask for them, we’d try to fit them in. And there were fair number—it got to be a fair number of those, and I </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">think</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that’s what convinced DOE that we need to do something, maybe more publicly. And more recogn</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ition of its responsibility in Historic Preservation A</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ct—you know, the Department’s responsibility there. So that’s what we did. But our efforts were then to, as I say, get the thing cleaned up, get it presented well, and have some of these displays and some of the models and some</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">one</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that work</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> close with Cindy Kelly at the Atomic Heritage Foundation who had this interest and this whole establishment she has, that foundation to preserve many of the history aspects of the Atomic Energy Commission and Department of Energy and its role in the Manhattan Project.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that was kind of where</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> our focus was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the preservation and public access and the models that help educate. And also, and we’re pushing more on that now, is educating students and so on. And we’re </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">holding </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">more and more tours for students, all the way down to the fourth grade, but particularly interested in high school and college students that want to learn more about that. That’s where we’re focusing more now, on interpretation and education and emphasis more on the T Plant. BRMA does the B Reactor Museum</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> doesn’t necessarily relate to the T Plant, but still, that all was part of the Manhattan Project. So our focus is more on the Manhattan Project itself and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> all of</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> its elements. Which, T Plant is included—the first separatio</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ns plant. Again, amazing plant and amazing work that’s been done there to get it initiated and started and working properly right off the bat, working. So that’s kind of the background there on my involvement. It’s been—the last three, four, five years has </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">been</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> heavily involved in primarily the effort on the Manhattan historic—the Manhattan Project Historical </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Park, to get it established, along with the other two sites. Some of the othe</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">rs in DOE, as well, the Dayton P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">roject had decided not to really join pushing on that, but they—and we had meetings ye</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">sterday again with some of the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks people to have things—a commonality—basic common understanding of the whole project and kind of presented the same way at all three sites. But then each site t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">aking on its own specific role, ours </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">being the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> specific—the development of the plutonium and B Reactor. Los Alamos, more like the weapons development and that sort of thing. Oak Ridge is supplying t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">he enriched uranium and those aspects. They all have</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a more defined role in the broader picture of the Manhattan </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Project</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. </span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Right. Did you ever get any sort of security—when you were making these models, I know there was a lot of sensitivity about export control and classification and all </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that, especially with models. Did</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> you ever get any sort of push back on that?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Not on the models. But what we did do, and that was a surprise, even to the local DOE, I guess they knew about it, but they should have—the reactor graphite that was left over, we claimed that. And thanks for thinking of Gene Woodruff, one of our members who’s a graphite</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> expert, and I mean Gene can go and say, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">oh, that was made a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t Union Carbide. Scratch this one—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that was made somewhere else. That guy. And I remember working with DOE in the laboratory—Gene was one of the top experts in the world. Again, we’ve got experts here—people don’t recognize—of the world. When there would be these </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">inte</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">rnational meetings or [UNKNOWN</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">] Gene Woodruff was a guy to go all over the w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">orld talking about the qualities</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and the purities of graphite and how it’s made and all of that sort of stuff. He’s just top</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">notch. So anyway, Gene and a guy out at the lab—gosh, I forget his name right now, right off the bat—worked with our people in DOE headquarters’ national security to get us the—or to give us the excess graphite was there with the restrictions that it should be used for souvenirs and</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we’re not to resell it. Of course, now there’s not quite the problem, but we didn’t want the Iranians or others to see how this graphite was made and all the purity and all that kind of stuff. Although I don’t understand, because you could still probably decide that if you had a souvenir made out of a piece of that graphite, anyway. But anyway that was—they just didn’t want a big block of this stuff given—sold or anything to someone. So we said, ah, well, we won’t—chop it up or use it in pieces or whatever. So we made that graphite model and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that was done going through the whole national security system that said it was okay for us to have that, rather than dump it out here at ERDF—out in the disposal facility. So we got all of the remaining what we call old reactor—that’s the B, D and F—that’s the same type of graphite that was in those original three reactors. We got that as well as some processing tubes and we’re in the process of determining how we make souvenirs for the tours that come through in the park. And reminder, we already have what we call—we have these boron balls, too, that are used in the process to help scram a reactor if you need to. We’ve got those, and we’ve got th</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e process tubes. So we also sell</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a little vial of these boron balls, and we collected the dust that we did when we made our graphite model and putting that into little vials. So it’s rather unique to this site. We’re looking at other ways to use some of these and what kind of doodads or gadgets can we make for souvenirs. Because</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we find that working with the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks people</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> is—oh, yeah, people</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there’s something unique about the site, they’d like to take a souvenir back. So that may be some of our support, maybe, to keep continuing and give us </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">our source of income there that—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">we’re not a great achiever of gathering a whole lot of money, but it does—and we work more on these models and stuff, working with Cindy Kelly and others on grants and that sort of thing to get our money to build these—make these various videos that we’ve made and these vignettes that goes along with when you’re visiting out there and that sort of thing. So that’s gonna b</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e kind of emphasizing with the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks people how we can best do this and how we can get that accomplished.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Can you tell me about coordinating with the other sites?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah. That’s—we’ve had several meetings with the other sites. There’s, again, another entity. I don’t know if you’</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">re familiar with the E</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">CA, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Energy Communities Al</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">liance? That was established by</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the former city manager here, Joe King, who established that. And that—I’ll just talk a minute what that is. That’s made up of the sites where DOE has locations: Savannah River, Oak Ridge, Brookhaven—you know, all nine sites or so, that would go forth in more of a lobbying effort to DOE headquarters on funding and what the needs and the issues and problems are there, as far as the local communities. And many of these were in common. I mean, there were particular areas might be unique to one site or the other, but the ot</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hers would all support that. But then</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> also there’s things in common that they really wanted to get DOE to recognize that they got to pay attention to. So that was established quite some time ago. The other communities, then, kind of had a basis on which to start on this national park. And particularly Oak Ridge and Los Alamos. So we would get—the three of us would often have—and Cindy Kelly with </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Atomic</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Heritage Foundation would </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">kind</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> of coordinate these—it was almost on a monthly basis—telephone conferences.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> We’d be talking where we are and how we’re going and what we need to do. And so that was very helpful and it was a </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">cooperative effort. It wasn’t a, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">well, we want that and you can’t have that. It was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a system</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that we all want to work together. And we met last July again down in Los Alamos for a meeting on those three sites plus one or two of the other Energy Community Alliance sat in on some of that. We’re meetin</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">g again in August in Denver. This time at</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Denver because that’s kind of a convenient among the three sites, and it’s also where the inter</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">im superintendent of the National P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ark’s located, so that she can be here. That’s Tracey Adkins and she was here in fact yesterday. One of our local what we call</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> our parks committee that’s not—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">made up basically the elected officials of the community here, the four mayors, the county commissioners of Benton, Grant and Franklin County, and then there’s, besides elected officials</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> there’s the Visit Tri-Cities, TRIDEC and BRMA is on that. We’re more of an advisory group than we are </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">to the mayors. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ut the committee is an administrative committee and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> where I and John Fox and BRMA and Visit Tri-Cities</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and others</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> sit on for </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">short-term</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. I guess I call that the working group who gets the work done and so on. And then we get with the mayors and so on. It’s kind of either up or down, you know, that sort of thing. But anyway, the working with the other communities has been a very cooperative effort, and we meet now on phone calls once in a while—not quite so frequently, though, not once the legislation has passed. But we meet like once a yea</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">r or so, just—and now with the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks, too. It was former</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ly just with DOE, but with the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks people actually present and with the interim superintendent of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. So it’s a good relationship and I think it hel</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ps in the overall park and the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks people are interested in working with the communities, too. They’r</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e very—I find working with the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks service very, very interesting and informative and they’re people who are very willing to listen and learn and likewise we try to exchange information and we learn what they’re process is and I think it’s been a very, very good relationship. And I want to give credit to Colleen French here at the local office has been extremely supportive of BRMA and all of the activities and go out of h</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">er way to have—like when we had</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the November 12</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX227234824">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> event out here raising the National Parks flag at the site and working with them. She’s been just tremendously helpful in getting that accomplished.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What’s my question here? Could you give me an idea, if you know, of the sort of size of BRMA over time?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: It’s small. That’s our real problem. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">t’s like most organizations, I find, you don’t find a lot of younger people joining. And that’s a—I think that’s kind of typical of our whole society now. Today, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">most of the mothers and fathers are both working, they’ve got the kids in school, they’re in soccer, they’re in baseball, they’re in football. Their time is very limited. And I find that in a number of organizations I’m in. So our group is very small. It’s—we only have about a total of about 70-some members. But our active members are probably 20 or something like that. And we have a fair number of people who are not in this community. They’re people who lived here or worked here before. One of the assistant general managers for DOE is still a member, living down the—not Los Alamos—but Los Alamos area and also a couple of them down in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">WIPP site down in New Mexico. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> find ourselves, I think—and we’re looking right now—what </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">should</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the mission of BRMA be? And we’ve kind of—a couple of us got together the other day on—had a bottl</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e of beer and sat in Hank Kosmata</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> backyard on his patio and just kind of brainstormed a bit. I think we’ll say, for the next three, four, five years, however long, until the park is fully established, we’ll be working extensively with them on assisting in the interpretation activities. We want to emphasize more the education and working with particularly the high school, college kids but also the younger ages. We want to do more emphasis on the T Plant, which is a very key element in this whole process of plutonium and getting the plutonium that was needed for the weapons program. So those—kind of those three are the main activities we want to focus in and decide whether we morph into some o</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ther organization. Because the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">arks are really interested in developing at each of these sites what they call Friends of the Park, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">that’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a common thing among all national parks. It’s sort of a group that </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">supports t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hat local park and assists the Parks D</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">epartment. And the Parks Department is not a wealthy department. They a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">re very limited funding to all</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> parks. They’ve got extreme backlog on the maintenance of all their activities. So they rely heavily on volunteer work, they rely heavily on these funding process of Friends of the Park, and they have a formal structure in developing it and authorizing and so on, because they, again, want to be sure that there’s precise accountability and all of that sort of thing on that if they’re gonna be associated with them. So we’re working this local community o</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">n</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> this parks committee and so on of hoping we can establish that soon. Now, there’s a lot of competition so to speak there, because we’ve got a lot of other things in the community</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we really want to support.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">W</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e want to support the REACH organization</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hey’re looking for funding. We’ve got the aquatic</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> center</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, you’ve got the performing arts center, you’ve got all of these things. But nevertheless, there’s some people that don’t have to be members of this community that are interested in the Project history of the Manhattan Project and all of that, that you can get various grants and forms and that sort of thing from others. That’s something that we will probably eventually just go out of existence, because we don’t have a lot—I mean, I’m kind of the young kid on the block, actually in our organization, and I’m nearly 78 years old. We got a guy that’s the youngest kid—he’s 65! We call him the little kid brother. We’re losing people. The last two years, we’ve lost the remaining people who were there at startup of the reactor. So the history is kind of disappearing with them in some respects. That’s why I was interested, particularly these interviews that you’re doing here with some of these old-timers and some of the guys that were here, so we get that recorded, and we know what’s there and it’s so important. Of course, as you know, working with you on some of our early recordings that we had with some of our original people that</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> are</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> very, very informative and useful in terms of researchers or anybody that wants to use that information. </span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So there’s also ways been a lot of interest among the public in the sort of more negative side of Hanford’s history. Has the down-winders and those sorts of groups influenced the telling of the history in your opinion?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Well, you know, we want to be accurate with our history. And we want to tell all sides of the history. That’s been sometimes a little bit of a problem internally, because, well, gosh, those guys, they just dump. But I say, that’s history. We’ve got to learn what the issues were and what the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">problems</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> were. And the same—we get some people when the Parks people decided to have a few of the Japanese people sit in on the scholars’ group. I’m not at all opposed to that. I think we got to tell history. History’s got to be told accurately. And it’s important—we may not agree with some of that stuff, and we may not agree with their opinions or thoughts, but it’s only precisely true that we need to reflect what that history and what those events were. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">So </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I personally am not opposed. But there’s the real strong advocates in nuc</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">lear and there’s the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> anti-nuclear. We’ve got to show that as existing. We’ve got to recognize that. But I don’t think it’s given us any problem—the answer to your question—I don’t think it’s been an issue that creates difficulties or that we found is interfering with whatever we want to do. We’ve got to recognize it, we address it, and we think we try to address it in a very educational basis, in a very precise basis, and not in an argumentative or conscientious-objector-type—well, that’s not the right word either. But we just don’t want to be contrary to them necessarily. Just understanding that they’ve got a different point of view.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Have you sort of followed that controversy in your time living in the Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, to some extent. I can see both sides. I think we need—particularly</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> I can see the need to reflect on what effect it had upon the Japanese. I really think that’s essential. Some of our people don’t agree with me. They say, well—they’ll say, yeah, that’s true, but, boy, if we hadn’t done what we needed to do maybe a lot more would be dead. That’s true, too, there probably would have. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">We’ll</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> never know for certain, but—we hear of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">people</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and know of people that </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">had probably saved their lives by the fact that they didn’t have to go and invade Japan. We’ve got some of our own members who kind of fit in that category. But I’ll never forget Terry Andre tells the story when she was at the CREHST museum when it still existed and an </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">elderly</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Japanese person came in one day and asked her: Are you an American? She said, yes, I’m an American. Oh, thank goodness. He put a big hug around her. She kind of says, well, what’s that? She says, I would not be alive today if you had invaded Japan, he said.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">Because I was trained in our—I think it was equivalent to the boy sco</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">uts—which we were to be suicide-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">type defenders. And we were supposed to be carrying these bombs, burying us in the sand, along when the Japanese invaded, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">blow</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> ourselves up and try to get as many American soldiers as we could—or Allied soldiers as we could. So that’s one side of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">tory. The others you hear, but people have really suffered when they dropped the bom</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">bs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> those stories need to be told, and that understanding has to be there so that there’s the pros and cons. And another interesting thing is, when we had the docent training </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">by the Parks people, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">hey were saying, try to not reflect your own opinions. Give them the facts—that yes.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> And they did some role playing talk about when </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">someone says, well, should we have dropped the bomb? And they were playing with all the different ways you might address that particular question. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">And try to </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">say, if they took one position kind of say, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">well, that’s tru</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e, but did you think about this or something.</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Let them decide themselves, but bring it more forth. And I thought that was excellent type comments that the Parks’ interpretation </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">people and their docents, particularly</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> did</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the training, bring forth those sorts of thoughts. I’m in agreement with that.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: You mentioned this sort of pro- and anti-nuclear folks. Has that sort of politics gotten involved in the interpretation of Hanford’s history, do you think?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: I don’t </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">think</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it’s got involved in the interpretation. Now, there’s people who will be critical of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">fact</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that either one side or the other hasn’t been displayed enough. And that’s an emphasis that I really respect the Parks to—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I think </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">they mentioned, they got issues in the North and South War—the Civil War. The things down in Andersonville, Gettysburg—these—and the Arizona, and they really understand how best to portray that. They’re the nation’s storytellers, and they really want to hone in on the fact that we aren’t going to try to change anybody’s mind; we don’t want to argue with them; we just w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ant to presents the fact more and let them decide. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ut maybe if they’ve got one position, just kind of let them know what some of the other people are thinking, too, and vice versa. So I don’t really see it as an issue or a problem. It’s something we’ve got to address and it’s something that got to be recognized, but we’ve got to do it thoughtfully and doing it with some knowledge of where we’re coming from and how we present that.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Mm-hmm. And you said that’s equally true for sort of the local health impact as well as the Nagasaki and Hiroshima?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: I think so. But again, that’s my opinion. I think there’s a lot of advantages and there’s a lot of disadvantages. I mean, I keep coming back to some counterpoints and that is the whole medical isotopes, and the medical </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">radiation</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> program and so on. I mean, there’s over 20 million </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">radioactive diagnostic procedures in the United States every year. And there’s a likewise amount throughout the rest of the world. There’s not as many therapeutic, but almost. That’s the positive side. Now, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">there’s the negative side—that, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">gee, if you get exposed to it, that’s not good either. So, like most issues, nothing is clearly right or wrong. There’s pros and cons and I think we got to stop and think about those, and each person make up their own mind</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> to</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> where they may fit in that spectrum.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How have the Tri-Cities changed in your time living here?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: [LAUGHTER] It’s been </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">significant</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">. I see the major growth in housing. Gosh, when I came here south of the Yakima River, there was nothing—none of that whole area. West Richland was small and didn’t go out. The shopping, as I said earlier—there was hardly anything here to do in that sense. The amenities of living in the community, the education of WSU here and various arts performing type groups—just—it’s almost like day and night in that sense. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I just—just amazing me, and I’ve been here a little over 50 years. It was kind of like a sleepy to</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">wn almost when you first come</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—when I first came, I should say. Pasco was the biggest, I think, town at that time. Of course, it’s got its history with the railroad and all of that sort of thing. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">The growth of the housing and you wonder, how could more people keep coming in? Where are they coming from, and where’s all this activity—what’s this base? It’s amazing. But I think the biggest thing I noticed is the shopping and the industry broadened quite a bit. I think most people don’t realize how many small businesses we really have in this community—various </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">outgrowths, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">spinoffs</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> of some of the lab work and some of the other activities. I think we had one golf course here at the time when I came over in Pasco. We’ve got a lot of that. The water sports. I mean, it’s—and the surrounding areas, the win</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">eries and all the vineyards. Yet the one </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">other thing I remember when I first </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">c</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ame and we </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">f</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">irst married, we used to go out and pick cherries or whatever where all houses are now. We still go out to some of the places to pick some peaches and stuff, but a lot of that stuff—and pears—you hardly see around. I can think back in those early days that we did all that. We go now in French’s out there where they have you-pick for peaches I think is one of the most popular places in town in the summertime when it’s peach time that they’re just so busy out there. But it’s changed. It’s just—but you know, a lot of the cities and so on—we’re getting people moving from the </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">rural areas into mor</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e the urban areas, and we’re no</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> different, I think, than some of the other major citi</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">es much bigger than we. But we</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">’re </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">staying—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">following kind of that same pattern.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Mm-hmm. Okay. So as we sort of wrap up here, there are probably—I don’t know—particular stories that leap to your mind from your time working at Hanford or living in the area, or any other sort of stuff I haven’t asked about that’s worth sharing?</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, I don’t know. I think </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">one</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> of the things that comes to mind is my involvement early with the kids in the community in the sports area and then of course, when my own son got into some of that with working with them. The other thing that kind of comes to mind, I said, I remember Christ the King Church, but like everything a growing—I’m in</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">volved in the building committee</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> and making that church bigger, tearing down the old government</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">-b</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">uilt building, all on volunteer-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">type work tearing down, basically. And things of that that you tend to think of not necessarily unique to me, but for a lot of the members of this community, </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">where you saw so much volunteer-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">type effort, community effort, where family didn’t have their own personal family right nearby. And I saw that. My wife can speak a lot more to that, but I saw that early in ’63 still existed, wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ere you saw this sort of social-</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">type gathering of—and I don’t think we see that quite the same anymore here in this community. If it is, it’s more like kind of an organized structure, or organized stuff. It’s not just like somebody drops by or you get a bunch of families together and oh, let’s have a Christmas party, or let’s have this, that or the other thing. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">That’s kind of what I witnessed early, and not to the extent—as I say</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> again</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—as my wife did in her family. But I saw that, and I see that kind of disappearing here. Some of the interesting things at work is like—I mentioned briefly earlier about the moonrocks coming back, the smoking swine—I was heavily involved in when they decided not to have the—I should say the smoking beagles and the swine. The swine is one of the closest animals that’s similar to a human. Their skin and all that. So there’s so much testing on radiation effects. A lot of these swine that was just evolutionary and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">helped</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the whole medical field. Wel</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">l</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">, we excessed those, I remember, in the process of excessing, where should we give it to? And</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> it ended up—</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I was q</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">uite heavily involved in that—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">e gave it to the University of Minnesota, because they had quite an extensive program on </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">heart development and heart surgery and stuff like that. They could utilize these swine and they had made a good proposal how they would care for them and continue in breeding them. Leo Bustad was the guy that developed those, like</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> full-grown was 150 pounds,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> was</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> close to a human being, and all those sorts of things. And I thin</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">k back about those sorts of things, about uniqueness, again, of science, of technology, developing these animals so that they—and there, again, you’ve got the other s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ide of those people that are</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">—oh, gosh, you </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">shouldn’t</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> be sacrificing animals. There’s validity to that. And then you look on the other hand—but look at all the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">benefits you get on</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that, and you can do it in a humane way, and all of that. So those things. Some of </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">the</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> stuff, I can’t describe now. I was not heavily involved in classified stuff, but there was some of the work out at Battelle that once it’s unclassified, it’s</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> just</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> unbelievable some of this stuff that you learn through that sort of thing. Those things often come to my mind, but </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">I still—taken</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> the oath that I’ll keep those to myself. That’s about all I can say about—but I wasn’t heavily involved in that. I didn’t have a super—I had a Q clearance. That’s another interesting story. When I was hired by DOE, they said, well—at that time you had to ha</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ve</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a Q clearance before you could ever come on work and it took about three months to get this Q clearance processed. So I was home back in Wisconsin for about a month, just waiting for the clearance, because I wasn’t going to drive all the way out here </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">f</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">or some reason to find out th</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">at, well</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we can’t take you. I m</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">ean, I had no reason to believe that, but I just</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> had to wait out the process. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> that was, again—and that was difficult in hiring early on when we were recruiting college kids and stuff. </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">That was when</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> we still needed that—that everybody needed—well, not everybody, but 95% probably of the DOE and AEC—it was AEC then. People needed a Q clearance before they could get on board. Well, people are anxious, they don’t want to wait around </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">three months. They’re looking for</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> a job. So that was one of the difficulties that comes to mind when I talk </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">about out</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> those sorts of things. But there’s a lot of fond memories and associations with people that you’ll always have. And some unique activities that occurred. And, again, I keep thinking </span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">about working with Wally Sale</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> at the Consolidate</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824">d</span><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"> Laboratory and how unique and different that was and how innovative his approach—and he’s the one that really is the creator of that concept. So anyway, it’s been—it was an enjoyable career.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: All right, well thanks so much for being here.</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX227234824"><span class="TextRun SCX227234824"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Plahuta</span>: Yeah, you bet. Thank you. And I appreciate--</span><span class="EOP SCX227234824"> </span></p>
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Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:41:53
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
B Reactor
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1982-2016
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1982-?
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Hastings, Doc
Wagner, John
Holstead, Paul
Tomlinson, Sam
Sale, Wally
Volpentest, Sam
Philips, Bob
Jackson, Scoop
St. John, Holland
Ashby, Steve
Murray, Patty
Pasternak, Charles
Wright, Mona
Harvey, Dave
Gerber, Michelle
Marceau, Tom
Kelly, Cindy
Woodruff, Gene
Adkins, Tracey
Fox, John
Kosmata, Hank
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Maynard Plahuta
Creator
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Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
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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4/28/2016
Rights
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Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2016-08-16: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Provenance
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The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Atomic Energy Commission
Atomic Heritage Foundation
B Reactor
B Reactor Museum Association (BRMA)
Battelle (Wash.)
Energy Communities Alliance (ECA)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
General Electric
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Mission Support Alliance
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Pasco (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005
-
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F1c8d5add285c766719f8e3d9016ca78c.mp4
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Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Douglas O' Reagan
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Stanley Goldsmith
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX228872584">
<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Douglas O’Reagan</span>: First of all, would you please pronounce and spell your name for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Stanley Goldsmith</span>: Stanley Goldsmith. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Okay, thank you. My name is Douglas O’Reagan. I’m conducting an oral history interview with Mr. Goldsmith here on March 21</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX228872584">st</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, 2016. The interview is being condu</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">c</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Mr. Goldsmith about his experiences working at Hanford. Okay. Could you tell us about your childhood up through—just briefly tell us about your life up through college and entering the Manhattan Project.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: At Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> here</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, or at Los Alamos?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Before that. Your life before the Manhattan Project. Where were you born?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Virginia. Norfolk, Virginia. In 19—March 25</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX228872584">th</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, 1924.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Can you tell us about your life before the Manhattan Project? Up through college?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well I—</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Why don’t I move closer, that might—</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: I was raised in Norfolk and went to Virginia Tech to take—to get a chemical engineering degree. I entered Virginia Tech in 1941, and I graduated in 1945.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: And then you entered the Army, is that right?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: After graduation, I was drafted into the Army, and assigned to the Manhattan District of Engineers. Eventually, after waiting in several different places for my clearance, I wound up at Los Alamos, where I worked from 1945 to ’47—1947.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you just find out about what the goal was once you arrived?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Yes. After I got to Los Alamos, we were told what the objective was, and all about the problems. This was different than the other nuclear sites were. This mission was kept secret.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What element of the project did you work on at Los Alamos?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: At Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: At Los Alamos.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: At Los—I worked on processing the uranium-235 for the first atomic bomb.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What did that involve?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: That involved converting uranium oxide that had been enriched with 235. That involved processing it from an oxide to a fluoride so it could be reduced to a metal. And then machined into the shapes they needed for the bombs.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were you figuring out your process as you went?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No. The process had been pretty well established. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">This was more like just individual laboratories processing individual amounts of u-235 to get it to the po</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">int where it could be reduced to</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> metal.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Who did you work with?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you work with anybody?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Yes.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Who else was in your lab?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: That was a long time ago. Let’s see. There was Al </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span class="SpellingError SCX228872584">Drumrose</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> and a Purcell—I don’t remember his first name. There were two other—well, maybe a few other more people. But I guess I just don’t recall the names.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So what brought you to Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What got me to Hanford? I left Los Alamos to get a graduate degree in chemical engineering. When I graduated, I got a job here at Hanford as a nuclear—as a reactor engineer.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How did you hear about the job?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, I knew about Hanford, and I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">sent out</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> letter</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> of inquiry about positions that may be open here and at other sites. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">And </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I got the position</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> here</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> in 1950. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: So you wanted specifically</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to work at Hanford </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">or other sites—what was—did you have specific goals of what you wanted to do?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I liked what</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Hanford had to offer. So there was no question about that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> They satisfied what I was looking for.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What were your first impressions of the area?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: W</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ell, it was shocking to say the least.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> It was like out in the wilderness. And when I arrived in 1950, General Electric operated the whole site, including the housing and all of the utilities and so forth. They assigned me a house that—I don’t remember what the rent was, but it was very inexpensive. And then in 1960—let’s see, it was about 1960—between ’61 and ’65—they divided the work at Hanford among several—among four or five contractors. One of them operated the laboratory, one of them operated the nuclear reactor,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> and one the separations plant.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I stayed with the laboratory. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Could you walk us through an average day when you first—say in 1950 or ’52—what sort of work were you doing?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What sort of work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Mm-hmm.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: The average day—you want me to start back </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">there</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">?</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">is that my worksite was located about 20 miles from Richland. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">You could take a bus operated by the plant, or you could drive. But you had to </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">go through an entrance gate—entrance—not a gate, but a station. And then we had to show our passes—badges. Then we went out to the site where we were working. In this case, at that time, I was working at F Reactor. As a reactor engineer, I rotated positions at the different reactors. So the work was—you asked me about the work—the work was, I thought, extremely interesting. And I felt very fortunate in that I felt like I was on the forefront of a new technology. By the time I got up here, there was a lot of emphasis on the peaceful use of nuclear power. I got involved in work for improving the nuclear fuels that was currently being used. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">This was because I was with Battelle then, and Battelle had a joint contract with the DoE where they could use part of their facilities—well, the major part of the facilities were for DoE work. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ut they also had a contract which</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> they called 1831, and that was for doing </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">private work for industrial corporations involved in nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> work. I spent a lot of time on that, trying to—my group was trying to improve</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the performance </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">of the fuel. Wanted to get higher powers. So that the fuel—we could produce fuel at a faster rate—I’m sorry, produce plutonium at a faster rate by increasing the power of the reactors. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I worked as a reactor engineer for about four years. Then I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">took the position of manager of nuclear fuels research and development. We worked on developing or designing nuclear fuels, analyzing the fuels tha</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">t had been used in the reactors</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to see what improvements could be made. Let’s see. We had a lot of interactions with the commercial fuel designers. As I mentioned, there w</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ere two contract billers</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. And this was done on the 1831, which allowed Battelle to use s</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ome facilities that were DoE’s—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ome facilities on the plant</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> in their private work. So I’m trying to think about the timing, now. The main—after working on DoE projects for about five years, I worked on a private project that was sponsored—that was funded by Exxon—they’re now called Exxon Nuclear. They were interested in getting into the nuclear business, because they had </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">a lot of claims on land that have</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> uranium. They wanted—they decided to utilize those claims. Get the uranium, then processing it for use as nuclear fuels. So at that time, I think there was only one Exxon employee involved in this. They took over part—a major part of that</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> as Exxon Nuclear—took over a major part of Battelle. We were moved out of the buildings that DoE built, and we were located in Uptown in Richland in the industrial—just completely isolated from the other nuclear work that was going on. We designed </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">a nuclear fuel for Exxon Nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> which evolved into their first commercial fuels. During that time, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">Exxon Nuclear began to have their own staff. But we stayed with them until about 19—early 1970s, we worked with them. And then their own employees could take over from then. After that, I worked on fuel cycles. On seeing if we could design different types of fuels with different types of materials, like thorium, on the fuel cycles. And we—let’s see. This was work for DoE. And we continued that work—my group continued working for DoE. They were working on the nuclear reactor regulation, on NRC. We had projects</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> with NRC. Our main project was DoE. And here</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> again</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, I was telling you</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">--[COUGH] Excuse me. I was still involved in nuclear fuel development. We did a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">work for NRC and also for DoE. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">This was on </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">helping them understand and ap</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">prove their review of new nuclear fuels in reactors—nuclear fuel design. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">So we were working on both sides of the street: with</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> regulatory side, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> DoE </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">development</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> side. And then in 1980—excuse me just one minute—I should have jotted these dates down</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. In late 1980s, I worked on a</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> DoE program on nuclear fuels—on nuclear fuel cycles, where we were looking at different way of utilizing the nuclear fuels</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> so that they would last longer</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> and that they would be safer. Then after that,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I was assigned to Battelle</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Columbus, because I had worked through this project. It turned out</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> quite successful. And Battelle</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Columbus had a contract with DoE to perform research on finding a nuclear repository—nuclear burial site. I was the Battelle manager of that program for about four years. We looked at the—examined the potential nuclear sites in New Mexico, Louisiana, Georgia, and here at Hanford. This program went on for about four or five years, and then </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">DoE selected the Nevada site at Los Alamos—not Los Alamos—at Las Vegas for the site to bury</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the spent nuclear fuels. T</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">hat program lasted for quite a while, but I left it in 19—after four years, because I didn’t want to move down to Texas, which was one of the sites that was being considered. So I moved back here to the Hanford. I worked on miscellaneous programs after I came back to Hanford. A lot of them had to do with the nuclear fuel cycle and the nuclear waste disposal—nuclear waste treatment and disposal. And I did that type of work for about four years, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> then I retired in 1987? 19—yes, in</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> 1987. And I left Battelle, and went to work for an environmental engineering company in Washington, DC, who was working on the same sort of thing. They were technical support contracted to DoE headquarters. So I was there until—let’s see. I was there until about 1994. And then I had to just—I still continued to work even though I was retired from Battelle. I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">had </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">actually moved back to Battelle and was hired by Battelle as a consultant so that I could retain my pension and the salary for the job. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">That went on until about 1992. And f</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">inally, I retired for good. [LAUGHTER] So, that’s a very brief and sketchy description of what I did here at Hanford. One thing that—a little sideline you might be interested in. You asked about what Hanford was like. When I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">first</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> came to work here, there were very few facilities that could be used at Hanford. I was not—I didn’t need anything special to do my work; I didn’t need a specially designed building structure. But I did do work on design and that work was done—the group was assigned to the Hanford High School. [LAUGHTER] Let’s see, where else? As I said, I had worked at most of the reactors that were operating at that t</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ime. Oh, there’s one thing that—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I want to back up a little bit until about 1975. I got in—my group got involved in plutonium recycle. This was a program that DoE sp</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">onsored, a fairly large program</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> in which we were tryin</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">g</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to recycle the plutonium that was not being used in bombs. Plutonium—to show that it could be used in nuclear power reactors. And we actually had a plutonium recycle test reactor built here onsite to test the fuels, the mixed oxide</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. We called it mixed oxide fuel because</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> it’s plutonium and uranium oxide. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">the reactor, which was the PRTR,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor, was designed specifically to try to test, get inform</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ation on mixed oxide fuels. Let’s see.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I moved around a lot. After about five years on that program, I moved on</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">, I think, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">to working for Exxon Nuclear,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> assist them in their program. Now, Exxon Nuclear was so sensitive about their work being exposed by DoE that they moved many of the facilities that they used at Battelle, they moved them to different sections. We had offices at the old—what was</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> it—the woman who had all of this</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> fabric stuff? It was in Richland, it’s right in downtown Richland. And we took the top floor of one of the buildings that had already been built. And of course, there, we only did calculations because they had no facilities for taking care of irradiated material. That was an interesting time, too, when we were off on our own, so to speak.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">O’Re</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">a</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">gan</span>: They did that because they were afraid of the Department of Energy taking their knowledge?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, they were c</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">oncerned there would be some lin</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">k—crossover—inadvertently, perhaps. The DoE could claim that some of the work done by Exxon Nuclear was done by DoE. And they didn’t want that to happen, so they completely isolated themselves.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did that hurt your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Did that work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did i</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">t impact your work, being isolated like that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: I’m sorry?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Being isolated, did</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that impact your work? Did it slow your work, or did it cause any problems?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No, it didn’t cause any problems. We were able to move our whole group out into the new facility in downtown Richland. So were other groups—nuclear physics group, and the other groups that went into the fuel cycle. But that was an interesting time, because we were really developing commercial nuclear fuels. The design that we had come up with was the first </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">nuclear fuels that Exxon Nuclear had marketed. They marketed to—I’ll think of that in a minute. But anyway, we got involved in—since I mentioned earlier that there were very few Exxon Nuclear employees involved in this program—that we actually got involved with the Exxon Nuclear people who went out to market their product. That was at the time when we ran into some very interesting commercial situations.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: What makes one nuclear fuel better than another nuclear fuel?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, they were made primarily from uranium, and they were oxides. They were made into compressed pellets. Now, some of these were different—some of these were specifically made for boiling-water reactors, and others were for pressurized-water reactors. There was a design difference in</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> two reactors. One of them—the power level was about the same, but the design of the fuel and the way it was structured was different. That made a difference in the fuel for the two types of reactors. After we got involved in working for Exxo</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">n Nuclear, when our contract with them</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> expired, we became very much involved in working only for DoE and NRC. I think I mentioned that to you. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">We—oh, we had contracts—my group had contacts with practically all the commercial nuclear fuel design people, and we provided them design support, and we did testing for them. So we were pretty much involved in the nuclear industry by then.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How secretive or how classified was your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: After—when I </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">moved to Hanford, the classification was almost—was very slim. It was very lax, because with the dropping of the atom bombs, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">n all of that came out, what</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the bomb was made of, and some ideas what the design of the bomb was. So by that time, it </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">had pretty well leaked out,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the security was relaxed on that, also. So that wasn’t—that was no longer a big problem. There </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">were</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> still some residual problem in security. In fact, the Russians, of course, wanted to get into the nuclear industry business. They wanted to know—well, this backed up into the weapons program—Cold War program. They wanted to know what powers we read o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ur plants at—how many </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">megawatts. And they actually took measurements of the Columbia River and calculated from that what powers we were obtaining. So that was when the Cold War was going on.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How did you hear about that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Hear about what?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: The Russians testing the waters.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Oh. I think we had—</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ur security people </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">kept an eye on what was going on with the Russians. And this is one of the things they found out.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Let’s see. What was life in the Tri-Cities like back in the 1950s and ‘60s outside of work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, it was pretty plain in a way—several. Because there weren’t many things to do. There was only one theater, and there may have been one or two grocery stores, and I think there was one real estate agent. That was the case with</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> most of</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the various businesses. There was maybe one, or two at the most. There was not much in the way of entertainment. I mentioned that we had one theater. People—the workers at the plant—developed their own entertainment—sources of entertainment. They formed all kinds of different clubs. One of the most popular club was the bridge club—competitive bridge. We played that in one of the commercial buildings that had an open space that we could use. Another was the Richland Little Theater.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> And then there was a Richland o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">pera—Light Opera, also. And there were—of course, golf was a big activity, because there were already several different golf courses. So that was taking off. There were other activities like that where you had to build them yourself. You may have gotten a little support from DoE, but you couldn’t depend on it. So we had to make our own source of entertainment and relaxation.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you play bridge? What was your entertainment?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Yeah, I got involved in playing bridge. This was duplicate bridge. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but that’s a form of bridge that is competitive. It’s still—it’s played in such a way that everybody—each couple gets to play against another couple, and they rotate during the evening, so that other couples play the same cards. The competitive part comes in as to who comes up with the best score at the end of the evening. [LAUGHTER] And that was quite controversial. Particularly when a man and woman were partners—they would—they had no shame, or no hesitant to getting into arguments at the bridge table. So that was a big deal. Even now there’s a lot of bridge clubs that are playing here—duplicate bridge is what it’s called. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Where did you live throughout your time at Hanford, or in this area?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What’s that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Where did you live? Did you move houses?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">Goldsmi</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">th</span>: Yes—well, yeah. At that time, they were building houses like mad. I lived in one of the government houses in Richland—old Richland. Then I moved into what they called a ranch house. Those were a government house that was one story, and it had three bedr</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ooms. There was some furnishing</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that came with these houses. The rental on it was very nominal. And as I recall, we were provided—many of these houses, or most of them were heated by coal. DoE actually—at that time, it was actually GE who ran</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> the town—provided free coal. They</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> would come around periodically and dump a load of coal for you to use in your houses.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Sounds dirty!</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Huh?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Sounds dirty! Seems like it would get you messy. All the—dumping the coal, is there a coal dust that would come up?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What’s that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: When you burned the coal, would it be dirty? Would it make a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">smoke,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I guess?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Not too bad. They must have used a hard coal that gave out less smoke. I don’t know that—it wasn’t like an industrial company where they had large facilities that generated a lot of steam, a lot of smoke. This was kind of dispersed. So we didn’t have an air p</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">roblem at that time. We had—now the other thing that they did to make life easier—we had our own transportation—public transportation system. You could ride on the buses that they had for free. So that was to make life easier for the employees.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Must have been a lot of buses?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: What?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Must have been a whole lot of buses.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, most of the buses were actually used to go out to the Area—to take the workers out to the Area, because there’s where you had a lot of people to be transported. The civilians, or the private people, had—many of them had their own cars. So didn’t use the bus.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Was it different when you were working on commercial energy compared to when you were working for the Department of Energy?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Yes, there were quite a lot of differences. We were able to produce fuel designs and produce developmental fuels in a much shorter time than DoE, because there was a lot of paperwork involved in going through the DoE process. In fact, one of the DoE people at headquarters who was in charge of reactor development said he was very upset because he couldn’t—he was in charge of the fast reactor, the FFTF. And they were struggling to try to get the thing going. He was very upset because he couldn’t understand how we we</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">re able to get fuel </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">for Exxon Nuclear, and they were still struggling. They’d been struggling for a long time. [LAUGHTER] So he wanted to know what we were doing. Well, what it was, we didn’t have to jump through all the loops that you did.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Was it finding the uranium, the procurement that was the problem? Or just</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> write</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> paperwork?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No, the problem that DoE had was that they had a bureaucracy that kind of controlled things. And that always slows things down. It took them </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">about </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">twice as long to develop the fue</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">l for the Fast Flux Reactor than</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> it did us for the commercial reactors.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Hmm. Let’s see. Have the Tri-Cities changed much in the time you’ve been living here?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Oh, yeah. It’s been amazing how it’s grown. The Tri-Cities now is like a normal city. The nuclear influence is much less, because we have so many oth</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">er businesses now involved for our</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> economic base. As I had mentioned earlier, there were usually one kind or maybe two types of business or entertainment or something like that. When the commercial people came in, they opened as many stores as they wanted, or that were needed. So that was one big thing. Another big thing was the housi</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ng development, the real estate. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">I remember up until 19—let’s see, about 1965, GE was in charge of everything, including bui</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">lding houses. [COUGH] Excuse me,</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> I’ve got a cold. When they opened up the lands, part of the land, surrounding territory was owned by the Department of the Interior—it was government owned. And then they made those available to the public for building houses and other t</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ypes of structures. The demand </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">f</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">r these things was great enough, so the building was really at a peak. Now, even now, you take a look at the housing—the amount of housing that’s going on, and take a look at the commercial businesses, like d</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">rive down George Washington Way, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">you see all these new </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">businesses or </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">restaurants</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> or that sort of thing. So it’s r</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">eally changed</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. Richland was all on </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">this side of the Columbia River. That was one of the boundaries for Richland. But then the Columbia River curved around, and there were—on the other side of the river, there was nothing but sagebrush. But some entrepreneurs had bought land there, and then when they started to build, they had lots o</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">f land to build on. That was no</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> problem. There’s a whole new part of Richland that’s on the other sid</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">e of the river that wasn’t there</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> until probably about 1965 or so. That’s when it started. So there’s been a growth of industry. The highways have been developed. There’s new industry that’s come in. So we’ve developed quite a good industrial base now, and it’s still growing.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Are there any—to ask an open-ended question, are there any moments or stories that come to mind that you think are worth telling about your time</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> working</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> at Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, I told you about how we had, early on, we had offices at the Hanford High School. That was—we made a lot of fun of that, when anyone called you </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">at the high school, we said</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> this is the Goldsmith class of ’41-’42. There was a lot of—amazing amount of work that was done on animals to use those as some of the basic studies for the effect of radiation on animals. Now we don’t have any of those studies going on. But let’s see. I’m trying to think of something that is unusual. A lot of it was—practically all of it was unusual.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: How about something mundane, but it’s sti</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ll kind of unusual? Or maybe</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> a day in the life later on in your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, I mentioned the general public had to develop their own recreational activities. We have—I don’t know—we have a lot of parks and fields. Like some of those baseball parks are very good. I didn’t appreciate how good they were until—I have some relatives who live in Maryland, and we visited them, and we went to </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">see </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">their children’s baseball game. But they had just an open field, nothing like we have. So that’s been—the recreational things have improved quite a bit. </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">Of course the boating is still a </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">big deal. I really—as I said, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">there was so much growth going on that it’s hard to pick ou</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">t any one area. Excuse me</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. The recreational areas have increased. You know, we’ve grown more; we’ve built at least two new golf courses, and these were very good golf courses. Then the other thing is some of the building of private homes around the golf courses. That has been—we live in a community there that probably has—what would you say, Joyce, about 800 people? Something of that sort. And it’s very nice. There’s two such communities. One of them is called Canyon Lakes, where we live, and the other is called Meadow Springs. That’s been developed—highly developed. We both have very nice golf courses.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: After you retired, didn’t you work with the people from Israel, the First Defenders?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Oh, yeah, that was an </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">interesting</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> little</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> program. That was after I retired, and I was re-hired. Battelle got a program from the State Department to help—to develop way</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s for the First Defenders on a</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> terrorist site could make a better determination of what happened. And they did this on a worldwide basis.</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Mainly, underdeveloped countries, but one country that they had and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> they</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> were anxious to get involved because they had firsthand information—they were anxious to get Israelis involved. Because they had a lot of first defenders. The program consisted of sending a team of people over to Israel and tell them what the program was about. An</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">d then Israel was to send about 20</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> people over here for a month. And then we were using the training—the HAMMER facility to do the training. I got involved because when the Israelis came over, they asked me, since I’m Jewish, they asked me if I would help trying to make them feel comfortable and so forth, take care of their dietary laws. And again, they were </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">very pleased. And it was fun, it was interesting to see how</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> they</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> had become sensitized to terrorism. For instance, they stayed at one of the hotels out there. It’s right outside of Columbia Center Mall. And early morning, a bus would pick them up and take them out to the HAMMER site. After about two or three days, the bus driver said—no, someone said are we going to take any different routes? And the bus driver thought they meant for sightseeing. But they didn’t want to establish a pattern for terrorists to see what their schedu</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">le was. So they finally got him</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to change the route out to Hanford itself. But that was interesting, because the view of the Israelis who had been submitted to so much terrorism and the view of the other </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">countries</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that we trained but who had not been submit</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ted were completely different. Like n</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ight and day. So that was interesting experience. They show you the difference between our view of being careful about terrorism. As I said, these people were housed—excuse me. These people were housed in one of the hotels close to the Columbia Center—close to the Columbia Center Mall. They would go into the mall, and they were appalled to see that people were allowed to go in and out of the mall carrying all kinds of backpacks and all kinds of packages where it’s not being inspected. Because in Israel, they inspected anyone</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> who was carrying a package</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> of any sort. And they would be examined. So that was an interesting insight on how the different countries treat terrorism.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: And the training was about how to respond to a nuclear accident, or a crisis?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Well, this program was called the First Defenders. And th</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">se people were doctors, they were scientists, they were firemen and so first. They were a mixture of who would come to the site where an attack had been made. That’s why they called them the First Defenders. They—let’s see, what was I going to say? They were very—the ones that were really involved in anti-terrorism were very conscientious and good about it. We had some interesting things that arose as part of this program. As I said, there were nations from all over the world</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> that were involved</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to a certain extent. And we had t</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">he Indians, from India, </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">coming over, spending a month. They were put up in the Hanford House—Red Lion Hanford House. They got a call one day from someone at the Hanford House wanting to know if we could talk to these people about how to keep the shower curtains inside of the showers, because they would keep them out and they would flood the whole area. So there were strange incidences like that. I’m sorry, Joyce?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: About when Bill Wiley was here and you worked at</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> Battelle in Quality Assurance. Did you share any of that?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: The quality--?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: Uh-huh.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: Bill Wiley</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> was a very</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">—I think he was very influential and left his mark on the site, because he wanted to develop this environmental m</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">olecular laboratory, the rows of b</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">uilding</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s out there, the new rows</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">. And that opened up a whole new set of doors for Battelle to grow. They went into more basic stuff. Up to that time, we mainly focused on working on </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">problems with nuclear reactors and nuclear fuels. But this was completely different from that. This was basic science that</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> these laboratories allowed us</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> to get involved </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">in. And it’s opened up a whole new area. I think Battelle, and Hanford in general, has benefited</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> from it, because they get a lot</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> of extra programs that they wouldn’t have before. </span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Were you invo</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">lved with these basic science pr</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">ograms?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No, I started in nuclear fuels and nuclear reactors most of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">the time I was here. But I didn’t </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">get into any of the basic science programs.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you want to say anything about this Oppenheimer letter, maybe introduce it for us?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: He was a very nice guy, and he was very considerate, and everybody liked him. He was very friendly—friendly in a reserved way. He didn’t go around smacking people on th</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">e back, but you knew he was warm and</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> he remembered names. After the peace was declared, I think it was that later date in 1945? No, not 1945. At any rate, after the war was over, and things settled down, he sent out a letter to some of the people who worked on it that thanked them for their effort. And he sent me one of those letters. And I’m very impressed with it, because he knew what I was doing. Because he could mention that in his letter. I’ve been very proud of </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">that letter. That’s what that i</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">s all about. It may not be much to many people, but to people who have been involved in the nuclear industry, I think it has some impact.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Did you ever meet any other Los Alamos or other Manhattan Project veterans who weren’t from the Hanford site when you worked at Hanford?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: When I went to Hanford did I ever--?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: Meet any other people who had been at Los Alamos?</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: No, there a</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">re not too many people here, just a few people here. I’m hoping—I’d like to know—I wanted to put something on Facebook about seeing how many people from Los Alamos who actually worked on the bomb still are around. Because I don’t think there are too many. I was—I got my degree when I was 21, so—and then I immediately went to work and have done that since then. But I’ve lost track of most of the people. I think they’re probably dead by now. [LAUGHTER] But if there’s something that comes up from that, I’d like to see.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">O’Reagan</span>: All right, well thank you so much.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Joyce</span>: Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX228872584"><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Goldsmith</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584">You’re</span><span class="TextRun SCX228872584"> welcome. Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX228872584"> </span></p>
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Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:08:27
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
F Reactor
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Boiling Water Reacto
Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF)
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1950-2016
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1950-1987
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Wiley, Bill
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
247 kbps
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Interview with Stanley Goldsmith
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Subject
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Richland (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Richland.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
3/21/2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2016-07-28: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Battelle (Wash.)
Boiling Water Reactor
F Reactor
Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF)
General Electric
HAMMER Site
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Plutonium Recycle Test Reactor (PRTR)
Richland (Wash.)
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https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F151938c82a3c7912af7b3e83b9747fbf.mp4
fc9eebb9af727b3febf2c6cc28d97d6e
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Robert Franklin</span>: My name is Robert Franklin. I’m conducting an oral history with Jerome Martin on June 1</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span class="NormalTextRun SCX244066500">st</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">, 2016. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University, Tri-Cities. I will be talking with Jerome Martin about his experiences working at the Hanford site and his involvement with the Herbert M. Pa</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">rker Foundation. And you</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">—just wanted to use your legal name to start out with, but you prefer to be called Jerry, right?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Jerome Martin</span>: Yes, I do.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Jerome’s a little too formal. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Right. Just for the technical purposes. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Sure. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">No more, we will not mention the name—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Again. [LAUGHTER] So for the record, you did an interview with the Parker Foundation sometime in 2010.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I believe it was earlier.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Or possibly earlier. And some of the Parker Foundation videos, as we know, were lost. And so this video is an attempt to recapture some of the information that would have been in that oral history, but also add some other information, and also to give you a chance to talk about your involvement with the Herbert M. Parker Foundation. So just as </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> introduction to whoever views this in the future. So why don’t we start in the beginning? How did you come to—you’re not from the Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Not originally.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: All right. How did you come to the Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, a little quick history, I got my bachelor’s degree at San Diego State College and then I was a radiation safety officer at San Diego State for about three years. Then I had an opportunity to go to the University of Colorado in Boulder, where, again, I was a radiation safety officer and on the faculty of the physics department. After several years there, an excellent opportunity came up for me here at Hanford with Battelle, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. So I moved here in 1976, and had a great opportunity to work with many other more senior people here at Hanford that had been here since the beginning. One of those, of course, was Herbert M. Parker. He was former director of the laboratories under General Electric, and then retired, but stayed on with Battelle as a director. I had a few opportunities to interact with him, and was quite impressed. I have heard stories about, he was a rather demanding taskmaster. And I could kind of imagining myself trying to work for him, but it would have been a challenge.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: What do you feel is important to be known about Herbert M. Parker for the historical record?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I’ve had an opportunity to review many of his publications. They were quite professional and very well researched, and in many cases the leading authority on several topics. So I was very impressed by his publications. I didn’t have a direct opportunity to work for him, so I don’t know about his management style or other things. But that was the thing that impressed me the most, was his publications.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: W</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">hat topics did Dr. Parker write on—or do his research?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: His early professional career was in medical physics. He was at Swedish Hospital in Seattle for many years. Then he was called upon, as part of the Manhattan Project, to set up the safety program at Oak Ridge. He did that for about a year or so. Then he was called upon to do the same thing here at Hanford. So he came here and established the entire environmental safety and health program for Hanford. Of course he had all the right background to be able to do that, and he was able to recruit a number of really talented people to help him with that. So I think Hanford ended up with what could be known as the best environmental safety and health program, among all the early AEC and then DoE laboratories. One of the things that impressed me most by that program was the record keeping. And I had an opportunity to work on that in later years. But the way the record keeping was designed and set up and maintained was </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">quite thorough. It was designed to be able to recreate whatever may have happened according to those records. It turned out to be very valuable in later years.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Who instituted that record-keeping? Was that Parker?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I don’t recall the name of the individual that set it up, although I know Ken Hyde was involved very early on. He may have been at the very origin of it. But I’m sure Parker certainly influenced the rigor with which that program was est</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ablished. In later years, John </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span class="SpellingError SCX244066500">J</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span class="SpellingError SCX244066500">ech</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> was manager of the record keeping program, and then my good friend, Matt Lyon, was the manager of that. I worked with Matt, then, on American National Standard Institute’s standard for record keeping. We incorporated into that standard virtually all of the fundamentals that Parker had established initially.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: The first name was John—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: The seco</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">nd manager of records was John </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span class="SpellingError SCX244066500">Jech</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">. J</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">-E-C-H.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Do you know if he’s still living?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: No, he’s not.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: And what about Lyon?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Matt Lyon passed away about ten years ago, as did Ken Hyde.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: What’s that?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Ken Hyde—I think </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">they</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> all three passed away about ten years ago.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah, give or take.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: So you mentioned that the record keeping was designed to recreate an incident as it happened. Do you know of any such—or can you speak to any such times when that record keeping system was crucial into a safety issue?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: The one that comes to mind is one of the more I guess infamous incidents here at Hanford. It occurred just around the time I arrived here in 1976. It was sometimes cal</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">led the McCluskey accident out at </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">the 231-Z Building. There was an explosion in a glovebox that resulted in very significant contamination of Mr. McCluskey by americium-241. And the response to that incident, and then all the </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">following treatment of Mr. McCluskey was very well documented. In fact, those </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">documents</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> then became the basis for a whole series of scientific papers that </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">described the entire incident and</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> all the aspects of it. So that was one major case where excellent record keeping was very valuable.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Excellent. And what—I’m just curious now—what happened to Mr. McCluskey?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: He survived for about ten years after the accident. He initially had very severe acid burns and trauma. But he was very carefully treated for that. The americium contamination that he had was gradually eliminated—not eliminated, but reduced substantially. He survived for another ten years after that incident even though he had heart trouble. I know several people that assisted in his ca</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">re, and it was quite remarkable</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> what they were able to do and what he was able to do.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow. Did he ever go back to work?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: No, he was 65 at the time of the accident.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: So he kind of went into medical retirement at that point. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Yeah, I can imagine. So you said you came in 1976.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: And what did you—what was your first job, when you came to Battelle?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, I worked in what was called the radiation protect</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ion department, later called</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> health physics department. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">My first assignment was called ALARA management. ALARA stands for maintain our radiation exposures as low as reasonably achievable. I would monitor the exposure records of Battelle workers, and watch for any that were the least bit unusually high, and then look for ways that we could reduce those exposures. And I monitored other things like average exposures and the use of dosimeters and things of that nature. The overall assignment was to generally reduce the workers’ radiation exposure. </span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: How successful do you feel that the department was in that effort?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I think we were very successful, and it went on for many years, even after I had that assignment. I remember one time, looking at a report that DoE put out annually on radiation exposures over all the major DoE facilities. Those average exposures, highest individual exposures, and things of that nature. Battelle and Hanford had among the lowest averages of all the other DoE facilities. So, I believe it was a very effective ALARA program here at Hanford.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Do you know if that report was ever made publically available?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Oh, yes.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah, those are published every year by DoE.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, great. I’ll have to find that. Sorry, just scribbling down some notes.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: At one point, Battelle had a contract with</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> DoE headquarters to actually do the production of that report each year.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: And I was involved in the production of it—oh, three or four years, as I recall.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> you mentioned that you had moved on out of that program or department, so what—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Right. Well, I started getting involved in management at kind of the bottom level. I was an associate section manager, and then I got an assignment as section manager for the radiation monitoring section. I was responsible for all the radiation monitors—or as they’re now called, radiation protection technologists—the radiation monitors for Battelle and two other of the contractors here at Hanford. It was </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">kind of ironic that I was located in what used to be the 300 Area library, and my office was on the second floor. And my office was the former office of Herbert M. Parker, when he was director of laboratories.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow!</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: It was an honor to have that space, and recall memories of Mr. Parker.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow, that’s great. And how long did you do that for?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I did that two or three years, and then another opportunity came along in 1979—no actually, it was ’79, but I guess I’d been on that management job </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">for about a year and a half. In</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> September of ’79, which was about three months after the Three Mile Island accident, we had an opportunity to make a proposal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to provide support for their staff in emergency planning work. At that time, NRC was making a big push on all the power plants, all the nuclear power plants across the country to enhance their </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">emergency planning programs. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> we began about a ten-year project with NRC to supplement their staff. The NRC established the requirement for annual emergency exercises at each of the nuclear power plants, where they had to work up a scenario, and then they would activate their emergency response staff to demonstrate that they would know how to handle that accident scenario. W</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">e served as observers. We had teams of observers with</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> NRC staff. We did a total of 800 of those exercises over a ten-year period.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: So we had a lot of staff out there, doing a lot of travel.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Yeah. So that would have been—so you said for power, would that have been for all of the power reactors in the United States?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yes. There were 103 plants at the time.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow. Did you do any in foreign countries?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I didn’t personally, but we did have some staff that went to a similar kind of program with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and visited foreign nuclear power plants. Some in France, that I recall.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow. So you said 103 power plants?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: In the US, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Actually, that was the number of reactors. There was a fewer number of plants, because many of them are two or more reactors at a site.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay so the 103 is the number of reactors?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I believe that’s correct. At that time.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: How did Chernobyl affect your field and your work?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: That’s an excellent question, because that was in this period. Of course, the Chernobyl accident happened in 1986, and I was working directly with NRC at that time. I was project manager on that NRC contract. When Chernobyl happened, there was an immediate reaction, and NRC had to study the Chernobyl accident as well as we could, and then determine what could be app</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">lied to US power reactors by</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> way of improvements and emergency planning. One of my managers, Bill Bair, was part of a US delegation led by DoE and NRC to actually visit the Chernobyl area shortly after the accident, interact with the R</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ussians, and do lessons learned</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> that was turned into a series of DoE and NRC documents that tried to extract as much useful information as we could from Chernobyl and apply it here in the US.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Right, because if I’m not mistaken, the design of the Chernobyl reactor—there were reactors of similar design in the United States.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Not exactly. The Chernobyl reactor had no containment vessel. There were a few reactors in the US that also did not have containment vessels, but they had other safeguards. The N Reactor was one of those. Unfortunately, I would call it an overreaction of the US government to a reactor with no containment. Severe restrictions were put on N Reactor, and some re-design was required that ultimately led to the end of N Reactor. It’s interesting to note that at that point in time, which was about 1986, 1987, N Reactor had generated more electricity from a nuclear </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">reactor than any other plant in the world. So it’s unfortunate it came to an early demise.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: And—sorry, my ignorance here on the technical aspects. You said some of them don’t have a containment vessel. What does a containment vessel look like and what role does it play, and why would there would be reactors with one and without one?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, N Reactor went back to the early—the late ‘50s, I believe when it was designed. It was designed similar to the other reactors here at Hanford that were intended for production of plutonium. But N Reactor was a dual purpose, in that it also generated 800 megawatts of electricity. But it had a similar kind of design to what you see out at B Plant, for example. So it didn’t have the same kind of containment vessel that other modern pressurized water reactors or other nuclear power plants have that is designed in such a way that if there is react</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">or core damage, any radioactivity released can be contained and not released.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Or released in a very controlled fashion.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I see. Kind of like a clam shell that kind of covers the—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, it’s basically—yeah, in many cases</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> spherical kind of containment.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay. Excellent. So after—obviously the demise of N Reactor, ’86, ’87, is kind of the end of operations—or I should say of product production—product and energy production on the Hanford site. So how did your job change after that? And what did</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> you continue to do after the shut</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">down?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I wasn’t directly affected by N Reactor shutting down. And the other production reactors had been shut down before that, so I wasn’t really directly involved in that. But I had yet another opportunity came up that turned out to be really a challenge for me. The Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas is the primary assembly and disassembly facility for nuclear weapons. At that time, it was managed by a company called Mason and Hanger. Mason and Hanger had that contract for many years, and DoE challenged them to rebid the contract. So Mason and Hanger reached out to Battelle for assistance in teaming on environmental health and safety. So my manager talked me into being involved, so I went down to Amarillo and visited the plant and worked with the team there on the proposal that had to be presented to DoE. And we won the contract. Of course in the fine print it said I then had to move there.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: A</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">h!</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: But it turned out great. By that time, m</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">y family was pretty well grown, k</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ids were through college. So we moved down to Amarillo, and I went to work at Pantex. We really enjoyed that. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Amarillo’s a very nice town, a lot of nice people. The work at Pantex was very challenging. I enjoyed that very much, too.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Great. So how long were you at the Pantex plant?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, I was manager of the radiation safety department down there for three years, which was my original contract obligation. During that time, we were very closely scrutinized by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board, which was an organization established by Congress to be a watchdog over DoE. Their method for watching DoE was to watch the contractors very closely. So they would scrutinize everything we did, and then challenge DoE if they found something. They pushed us in a way that was good, because one of the things they promoted was professional certification. I’m a certified health physicist, certified by the American Board of Health Physics. At the time at Pantex, I was the only one we had there. But the DNFSB pushed us to add more, so I got more of my staff certified. There was a similar program for technicians called the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists, and at the time, we had two of my staff that were registered with NRRPT. Again, they pushed us to promote more training. By the end of that three-year period, I think we had ten of our technologists registered and certified. So we really improved the credentials of our staff. We instituted some new programs, again, related to ALARA radiation reduction. Probably the most interesting or challenging day of my life occurred down there in 1994. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">We were working on disassembly of the W48 program. The W48 was a tactical weapon used i</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">n—that was deployed in Europe—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">t was never used. But it was a very small, cylindrical nuclear weapon designed to be shot out of a 155 millimeter howitzer, which is amazing just to think about. But the plutonium pit in this device was surrounded by high explosive. It turned out to be rather difficult to disassemble this particular design of nuclear weapon. It also turned out that the plutonium pit had a relatively high dose rate, compared to others. So the workers were getting some increased exposure to their hands in the process of working on this. So we were concerned about their extremity dose. So we worked up a method for doing a classified videotape of the disassembly operation, so that we could study each step in the process to find ways to improve worker safety. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Providing shielding, remote tools, things of that nature. The process on this was to take the plutonium pit and high explosives and put it in liquid nitrogen bath for a period of time. Then bring it</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> out and put it in a little tub</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">-like, and pour hot water on it. The HE would expand rapidly and crack off. And for the most part, it worked very well. Well, there was this one particular pit that we were working on when we were doing the </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">video</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">tape for this study. Apparently the HE wasn’t coming off the way it should,</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> and</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> so they had to repeat this process over and over. They brought it out of the liquid nitrogen, poured hot water on it, and the plutonium—the cladding, the beryllium cladding on the plutonium pit actually cracked, due to the severe temperature change. The workers who were working on this were trained very carefully that if that cladding on the pit ever cracks, get out of there fast, so you avoid a plutonium exposure. So that happened. One of the technicians heard an audible crack and saw it on the surface of that pit. And they all evacuated immediately. They got just outside the door of this special facility, and they called our radiation safety office, and fortunately my three best technicians were standing there by the phone. They said, pit had cracked. And so they got over there as fast as they possibly could. They recognized the danger of having an exposed plutonium pit, and how that can oxidize and cause severe contamination very quickly. They decided to put on respirators to protect themselves, but they didn’t bother with any of the other protective clothing because they wanted to save time. So they made an entry where the cracked pit was, still there with the water bath on it, and the video shooting this picture. They took samples right on the crack and on the water and all around it. They managed to take that plutonium pit and get it into a plastic bag and then they doubled bagged it and then they triple</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> bagged it and sealed it up. Then</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> they came out. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Of course, the samples revealed that there was indeed plutonium contamination coming out of that crack, but they had contained it very quickly. When we made a later ent</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ry to retrieve the video tape that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">still running, and we looked at the timestamp on it. From the time the crack appeared until they had it in the bag was seven minutes.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow!</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: That’s about as fast as you can possibly expect a response team to come in and secure a situation like that. And so, following that, of course we had the incident debriefing, and I had to chair that. But we very carefully went through and recorded every little thing that happened from the time they were working on the disassembly to the time they exited. Got that all documented, and then the videotape of course documented all of that. The scrutiny by Department of Energy, the Amarillo office, </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Albuquerque office, Headquarters, any number of others—we had a lot of attention that day. It was a long, hard day at the office, but very exciting. Following that, we had to debrief many other investigation committees and others. But we had that videotape to rely on, and that just was invaluable. That’s my—that was probably the most exciting day of my life, down there. [LAUGHTER] Got a follow-up to that. That W48 weapon was designed by Livermore. They came in at a later tim</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">e and did a post-mortem on </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">that cracked pit. And when they did, we discovered that the amount of plutonium contamination there that was available for distribution had it not been contained, would have totally just made that facility useless. I mean, extremely expensive clean-up, if it ever got done.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Franklin</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">: Not just the room, but the entire facility?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, mainly that room.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: That room.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: But it was a very big room, and a very valuable room, specially designed. But the quick response of our radiation safety technicians and getting that contained saved that room and millions of dollars in expense.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow. And so this was a weapon that was the size of a howitzer shell?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: 155 millimeters.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow. And what is the—I don’t know if you</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> know</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> this—but what’s the explosive power of that—is it—I guess it could be—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, it’s just like the atomic bombs used in H</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">iroshima and Nagasaki, about 20-</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">kiloton fission device. The plutonium pit is designed to implode and cause a super-critical reaction.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: But fired out of a howitzer, instead of—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Fired out of a howitzer, perhaps 20 miles or something. And then you can somehow coordinate the careful detonation of this--</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: --device. It boggled my mind.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Frank</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">lin</span>: I guess that’s best that that</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> was never ever—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: There’s quite a large number of different nuclear weapons. Many of them were </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">tactical weapons used in Europe—</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">or deployed in Europe during the Cold War. Many other more modern ones are part of Polaris missiles and other large bombs that can be deployed by B-52s or B-2s.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah. There’s quite a wide range of different models and designs. I didn’t know that at the time, but it’s fascinating. I remember one day standing in one of the disassembly rooms, and they had this nuclear weapon in a cradle standing there on the floor, and they had the top off of it. And I could just look down in the top of it. I couldn’t touch it, but I could look in there and just see the engineering in one of those things was just amazing. Just beyond belief.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I bet. I can only imagine.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah. But I’ve gone off on this nuclear weapons story and departed from Hanford.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: It’s okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Maybe I should come back.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I think that’s a very interesting story. I certainly—I’ve also, like I said, heard of plenty of bombs—ICBMs, missiles, but I’d never quite heard of a howitzer-type fired weapon. But also just the fact that your team and your field was able to prevent a really nasty incident is pretty amazing.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: It</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> speaks to your profession and your skill.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, like I mentioned, the professional credentials. Two of the three technicians</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> who responded</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> were certified by NNRPT. And they had the right kind of training, knew what to do, did it very well.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Great.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I had an opportunity a year later to nominate them for a special DoE award for unusual—not heroism, but effective response. And they won the award that year.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: That’s great. So how and when did you leave Pantex?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, the first time, was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> ’96—no, I’m sorry, in ’93—</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">and I had a special appointment back at DoE headquarters in Germantown. So I went back there for two years to work with </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">the branch of DoE that was like an inspector general—the internal inspection branch, if you will. Very similar in scope to what the DNFSB—Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board—was doing. Scrutinizing all the DoE operations at the national labs and other facilities, and trying to always make improvements.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: So I worked with the DoE headquarters staff on many different audits that we did at other DoE labs. At the tim</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">e, I specialized in dosimetry, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">oth internal and external dosimetry, and other operational health physics parts of the program.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow. So when did you come back to the Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, I had a couple other interesting assignments in there. After DoE headquarters</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> then I went back to Pantex for three more years. And then another opportunity came up on an old facility near Cincinnati that needed to be decommissioned—decontaminated and decommissioned. And I went to Oak Ridge first, worked with</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> Foster Wheeler Company on the design of what became the largest radon control building that had ever been done. I was the radiation safety officer for that project at Oak Ridge in the design effort. And then we moved to Cincinnati for a year and I worked at </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Fernald</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> facility in actually building this radon control facility. What we were trying to deal with were these large concrete silos that contained residual ore material from the Second World War</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> They have to go back to—when the Manhattan Project was trying to bring together the</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> necessary</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> uranium in addition to the plutonium that was produced here at Hanford, they were using a rich pitch blend ore that was coming from what was then called Belgian Congo in Africa. It was shipped from there up the Saint Lawrence River to a facility near Niagara Falls. And then it ended up being processed to extract as much uranium as possible. But there were these residuals. They ended up in these concrete silos near Niagara Falls, New York as well as this Fernald facility, just outside of Cincinnati. So we had three big concrete silos that—I don’t recall—they must have been 80 feet in diameter and 50 feet high. So they held a lot of uranium ore residuals. It contained a fair amount of radium, which gave off radon gas. This facility was located not too far from a residential area. So it became a greater concern for getting it cleaned up. We put together this radon control facility that had these huge charcoal beds and you could pipe—you could take the head gas off of this silo, pipe it into these charcoal beds where the radon would be absorbed, and then the clean air would circulate. So you could fairly rapidly reduce the concentration of radon inside the silo to much lower levels. In the process, the charcoal beds got loaded up by absorbing radon. There came a point where you had to heat up that charcoal to drive off the captured radon. We </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">devised a clever scheme with four different beds where we could kind of keep one of them recirculating on all times and have the other three working.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: So you say drive off the captured radon, where would it be driven off?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Over to the next charcoal bed, which </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">hadn’t yet been</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> completely saturated.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh! But then eventually you still have charcoal that—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: but it decays with a 3.8 day </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">half-life</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">, and that was built into the plan, too.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: O</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">h!</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: But if it was to escape,</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> right,</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> it </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">would get people very—it would contaminate or get people sick, or--?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, it was pretty carefully designed not to—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, but I’m saying that radon—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Oh, if it escaped from the silo.</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> If there was no control of it—</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">a certain amount of radon was escaping from the silo. For the most part, it’s a light gas, it just goes up and the wind blows it and disperses it. So it was very difficult to even measure anything offsite. But there was that concern there that we were dealing with.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: But if enough of it was released at once, then </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">there</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> might have been an issue?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Like if the whole roof of the silo was suddenly removed and it all came out, that could be a problem, yeah.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Interesting. I didn’t realize it had such a short half-life.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah. So I did that, what amounted to ten years of offsite assignments. About that time, my wife and I got tired of moving. So we came back to the Tri-Cities, and our kids are here. I came back to work at Battelle for another few years before I retired.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: When did you come back to Battelle?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I came back in 2001.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay. So then you worked for—it says you retired in 2006.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I retired about four years later. And the last major project I worked on was also very interesting. It was the project for customs and border protection. It was to install radiation portal monitors at seaports. This was shortly after 9/11, and there was a concern about dirty bomb material being imported by any means. We had one part of the project dealt with seaport, another part airports, and a third part postal facilities.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: So I worked on the seaports part, and I had the Port of Los Angeles was my assignment. Another one of us had Port of Long Beach, which is right next door, which are the largest seaports on the West Coast and have the largest number of shipping containers coming in. So we devised a method for monitoring those shipping containers as they were unloaded and making sure nothing was coming in that way.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Did—oh, sorry.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Very interesting project.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I don’t know if you can speak to this, but was anything caught by these monitors?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yes. But not dirty bomb material.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Turns out they were so sensitive, they would detect any kind of elevated background radioactivity. For example, kitty litter is a little bit elevated in background. Any kind of stone product, and there are various granite and other stone products imported from different places. Those had a high enough background activity that they would trigger our monitors. So we would run all these containers through a set of monitors, and any that triggered that amount would</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> then</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> be sent over to a secondary monitor, where they’d examine it more carefully, verify what was actually in the containers, sometimes inspect them.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: So recently our project staff got a tour of some of the facilities at HAMM</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">E</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">R. And I believe we saw one of those monitors</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">. Would that have been the same?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Mm-hm. Big yellow columns?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Yeah, that they run it through.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yep, that was the one.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: So you helped design—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: We helped design—oh, I didn’t r</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">eally get involved in design. That</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> was done by some real smart people out here at Battelle. But I was onsite trying to get them installed.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: And tested.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Wow. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">That’s </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">really—that’s fascinating.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah, it was. I had a chance to do a lot of fun things when I worked at Battelle.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Yeah, it sounds like</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> it</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">. Sounds like maybe I need to go get a job over there. Maybe they need a traveling historian. So, where—what have you been doing since you retired?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, for about five years, I worked for Dade Moeller, which is kind of a spinoff company from Battelle. And they had a major </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">contract with NIO</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">SH—National Institute for </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Occupational Safety and Health—as part of an employee compensation program for radiation workers. Initially, the way this was </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">set up was we got the actual radiation exposure records for former employees and examined their measured radiation exposure, and then did some other calculations that would tend to take into account anything else that they might have been exposed to but was somehow not measured on the dos</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">imeter and many other factors t</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">o kind of add up their maximum possible radiation dose. And then that was compared—this is where it got a little complex. There are many different types of cancer that can be caused by radiation at a high enough level. Some types of cancer can be caused by a radiation level lower than some others. So it depended on what type of cancer the individual had as to which—how we measured their maximum possible radiation exposure to the likelihood that that cancer was caused by radiation. We did a careful calculation using probability and determined that if their cancer was at least 50% probable that it was caused by radiation</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> then they were granted an award. Well, we did that for several years in a very careful, scientific way that was well-documented. Then it became political. A lot of former workers, then, applied for another category within this overall compensa</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">tion program that they called S</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">pecial Exposure Cohort. Which meant </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">that</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> it didn’t matter how much radiation exposure they had, if they had the right type of cancer, they could get the award. And it’s kind of dege</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ne</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">rated that way. But for many years, I think we did it right. I also had an opportunity to work on another part of that project where we did what we call the technical basis documents, where we reconstructed the history of how radiation exposure records were developed and maintained at each of these different sites. Every one varied a little bit. I did the one for the technical basis document for Pantex in Amarillo, because I was familiar with that. But I got to do several other interesting sites, one of which was Ames Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Going there and interviewing some of these old-timers and looking at their old records, I found that there was a chemistry professor at what was then Iowa State University</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">. He was called upon by the Manhattan Project in 1943 to help them improve their methods for extracting uranium metal. The old process that had been used by the Curies and other early scientists was really quite inefficient. But this professor developed a method used in a calcium catalyst that was very effective. He was able to purify uranium metal much quicker and in larger quantities. The story was that he would have to get on the train every Sunday afternoon and go to Chicago for the meeting with the Manhattan Project and report on the progress of his research and so on. One week after successfully isolating an ingot of uranium metal, he took it with him in his briefcase. Went into the meeting with Manhattan Project and clunked it on the desk, and passed it around. He said that this is a new method for producing substantial quantities of uranium metal. All the scientists around the table kind of poked at it and scratched it and so on and didn’t believe it was really uranium, but it was. And they finally decided that he had made a great breakthrough, so they sent him back to Iowa and said, make a lot more, fast. And he did. So he had the material they needed, then, for the Manhattan Project.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Wow.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Interesting story.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Yeah, that’s really fascinating. So how did you become involved with the Parker Foundation?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: About ten years ago—almost ten years ago—my friend Bill Bair and Ron Kathren and a couple others on the Parker Board invited me to participate. Matt Moeller was chairman of the board at that time—invited me to participa</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">te</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">, and I just joined in, and found it very rewarding. I really appreciate what the Parker Board does in the memory of Herb Parker and in the sense of scholarships and other educational programs. So it’s a pleasure to contribute to that.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Great, great. You moved in 1975 or ’76?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I moved here in ’76.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: ’76. And you mentioned children. Were your children born here, or did you move here with them?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: My oldest daughter was born in San Diego, and my younger daughter was born in Boulder, Colorad</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">o</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: So they were six and eight, I think, when we moved here.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: What were your impressions of Richland in the mid-70s when you moved? Did you live in Richland or did you--?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: We did. Yeah, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> lived just a fe</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">w blocks from WSU here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> </span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">In </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">North Richland. It was a very different community, but one that I came to know and respect. Because at that time, education was really paramount in the minds of parents and the school system. And my wife was a teacher. So we really took an interest in that. My kids got a really good education here in Richland. Went to Hanford High, and then did well in college. One of the main features of Richland at that time, I think, was a superior education program. Some of the other history of Richland with old government housing, and then we got a new house, and things like that are entirely different, but also very interesting.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> And is that what you kind of a</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">re meaning when you say it was a different community? I guess I’d like to unpack that a little bit more. How—in what ways was it different?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, a large part of Richland was originally government housing, and you only had to drive through town, you could see all the evidence of that. And then on the north side of Richland, they had opened up—beginning in 1965, I believe—development of newer private housing. We got here just in time to get in on a new house, and worked out fine for us.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Great. Was there—being next to a site that was primarily involved in product production, plutonium production—was there a different feeling about the Cold War in Richland per se than anywhere else you had lived in the United States at that time?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: There definitely was different feelings about the Cold War and living anywhere near a nuclear power plant. I remember when we were working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">many different reactor sites around the country. In many cases we would have public meetings to introduce the local folks to what we were trying to do to improve the emergency planning. There was a lot of concern about living anywhere near a nuclear power plant just a few years after TMI. I tried to explain to people how I live within 30 miles of nine nuclear power plants. But I understood radiation. I understood the risk, and I understood what could go wrong or how to deal with it. And it didn’t concern—didn’t bother me that much to live here. I found that to be generally true of a lot of people in Richland that were part—working at Hanford and were well-educated. They understood the risk and they could deal with it. Whereas many other people were just afraid. And I attribute that to what I call</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> now</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> about a 71-year deliberate misinformation program on the part of mass media t</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">o scare people about radiation.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I like that. I’m writing it down. How do you feel that the—do you feel that the ending of the Cold War changed your work at all? I guess the reason why I ask—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: It did.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: --these questions about the Cold War is because it was the impetus for much of the continued production of the material.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yeah. I was in Germany in 1988, just before the Berlin Wall came down. I was also there in Berlin in 1984, and we actually crossed through Checkpoint Charlie into East Berlin on a special tour.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Really?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: It was quite amazing. I was in Berlin for a meeting of the International Radiation Protection Association. I took my whole family; it was a tremendous adventure for them. But we were able to be part of a special US Army tour that went through Checkpoint Charlie. I think they did this once a week. And we had a little tour of East Berlin while it was still under the control of the USSR. We visited their Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">nd they had a little ceremonial</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> changing the guard there. And we visited the square in Berlin where Hitler had burned the books that one night in 1939. And then we visited a huge Russian war memorial, and there was a building there where the Germans had surrendered in 1945. There was quite a story about that. But I was really impressed with this huge Russian war memorial. There were five mass graves that each held 100,000 soldiers. It was done in kind of the Russian style, with statues and other honorary symbols to clearly show their respect for the lives of all those soldiers</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">. But that</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> was an impressive sight. But I was there again in 1988 just before the Berlin Wall came down, and you could kind of see the end of the Cold War coming. So it was a great opportunity that I had, working for Battelle, being able to travel like that, and do many exciting things.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Did you get to ever talk or meet with any of your counterparts on the Russian side?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yes.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: After the Cold War ended. And what was that like, to finally work with what had been considered the enemy?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: It was quite unusual. I was scheduled to go to Russia a week after 9/11. It almost got canceled, but I managed to go. I was giving—they were having a conference for young scientists and trying to introduce them to international concepts of radiation safety. So I gave my paper and four others that we did to that group. It was located at what was the Russian equivalent of Los Alamos, their design facility. There weren’t very many Americans had been in there up to that point. So I was watched very closely. [LAUGHTER] And not allowed to see much, actually. But it was a very interesting exchange. The papers I was presenting were prepared in both English and Russian. And then we also did what they called a poster presentation, where we had a big poster with diagrams and everything—again translated to Russian. So we were able to put these up at this conference for these young scientists. They, I think, got a lot out of it because it was in their language so it was easy for them to understand. Working with an interpreter was a new experience for me. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> would give</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> this oral presentation, so I’d say one sentence and the pause. The interpreter would repeat that. I’d say the next sentence, and—kind of an awkward way to do an oral presentation.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I can imagine.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: But their hospitality was very good. This was in 2001. So the Cold War had been over for quite a few years. But we were trying to establish better relations. I think it was quite effective in doing that. I had another opportunity to work with Russian scientists on an NRC program, again where NRC was trying to provide training to their equivalent Russian inspectors for nuclear power plants and explain to them some of the ways that they did inspections, things they looked for, how they documented findings and things like that. We had four Russian inspectors and their interpreter come over from Moscow. I was their host in Washington, DC, and we worked with them there with the NRC headquarters for a week, providing training. And then we brought them out to Idaho to the Idaho Nation</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">al Lab, north of Idaho Falls, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> wen</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">t to a large hot cell facility at</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> Idaho. A hot cell is where they have a heavily shielded enclosure with mechanical arms that do things on the inside. It was quite a sophisticated facility and somewhat unlike what the Russian counterparts were used to. But it was a good learning exercise for them. We kind of went through a demonstration of how we would do an inspection—a safety inspection. So, I had those kind of opportunities to interact with Russian scientists and found that very exciting. Very interesting.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Did you find that there was anything that you had learned from them at all? Or do you feel that the US was much more advanced in radiation protection and health physics?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, I kept my ears open when I was talking to them, but they didn’t reveal much.</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> So, we didn’t pick up much that way.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: We were trying to help them.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Right. Were you at Hanford during the Russian visit to Hanford when they toured the Plutonium Finishing Plant?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: No. That was after I retired</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> I think.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay, just curious.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I heard about it of course.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I’m sure. That must have been a pretty big deal from the standpoint of both countries. </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you would like to talk about?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I think there’s one thing I remember from when I did this interview the first time that I wanted to mention.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I’ve been talking about all the varied experiences I had, and excelle</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">nt opportunities over the years. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">ut I think one of the perhaps most impressive things that I was able to do was to be able to hire several good people into my organization. I won’t mention names, but there were several that I call superstars that are now leaders in the field. I was able to bring them in right out of college or from another job, and hire several really good people that certainly enhanced our program, and then gave them great opportunities to grow and expand. Like I say, they’re now leaders in the field. That was one of the most rewarding parts of my job.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: That’s great. Maybe you can give me their names off camera and we could contact them.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I think they’re already on your list.</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Oh, okay, good.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: But I’ll do that.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Well, good.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: We’ll do that.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: They should be. Tom, did you—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Tom</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> Hungate</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">: No, I’m fine</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Emma, did you have anything?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Emma</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> Rice</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">: No, I’</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">m fine</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Okay. Well, I think that’s it. Jerry, thank you so much.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, that was fun. Did we stay on target?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I believe we did.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I wandered a little. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: That’s okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: There’s some stories there that might be interesting.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: I think the stories help keep the oral histories—they have a human-centered focus and they’re interesting for people to watch.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I hope so.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: And I think there might be a couple things that merit some more research in there that personally, for me, I’d like to find out some more about.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Oh, okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Frankl</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">in</span>: Especially the howitzer thing</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Oh, yeah. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Hungate</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">: One thing I’d just like to ask—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Sure.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Hungate</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">: You’ve been involved in a lot of things over a broad range of time and experiences and I just kind of wonder</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> what you would feel is the one—</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">maybe</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> item or two that you’ve worked on that will leave the most lasting impact?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">M</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">artin</span>: The most lasting impact.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">Hungate</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">: Or that you wished had</span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"> been developed more that didn’t quite complete, you’d like to see more work done on it, it was either defunded or it was—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Well, I’m thinking of several different things now. I’ll just have to think it through. The work we did with NRC to improve emergency planning on nuclear power plants I think was very effective. And that’s still being maintained today. Work we did with DoE at Pantex on nuclear weapons. You mentioned the end of the Cold War, that’s when many of these tactical nuclear weapons in Europe were brought back and declared obsolete, and so we were doing a massive disassembly operation on those. I learned a lot about nuclear weapons and found it fascinating. We implemented some methods at Pantex that I think are still in use in the maintenance programs that they do now. But we were able to, I think, substantially improve on radiation safety at Pantex. Certainly to the point where we were finally blessed by DNFSB and DoE. I think the quality of that program has been maintained. There’s several other projects that I’ve worked on over the years, but I guess there’s no one thing that stands out that I would be concerned about that it was defunded or ended or somehow went downhill. I’m sure that’s happened, but I haven’t kept track of everything.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Being as nuclear power and nuclear weapons have different objectives, and you mentioned this retirement of a lot of nuclear weapons, do you feel that nuclear weapons still have a role to play in security—</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: I do.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: You do?</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Martin</span>: Yes. Because the Russians still have a lot of them, China has some, the French and English have a few. It’s what I call the mutual </span><span class="TextRun SCX244066500">deterrent, which is a term that’s been used. It just means that we don’t ever want to use one again, but if any one of those countries had some kind of an unbalanced advantage, it could be used. So if we have this mutual assured deterrence, it keeps that in balance. So it’s important to maintain that stockpile.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Interesting. Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Hungate</span>: Okay.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX244066500">
<p class="Paragraph SCX244066500"><span class="TextRun SCX244066500"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Franklin</span>: Great.</span><span class="EOP SCX244066500"> </span></p>
</div>
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Robert Franklin
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Jerome Martin
Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:02;33
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
248 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
N reactor
300 Area
B Plant
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1976-2016
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1976-2006
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Kathren, Ron
Bair, Bill
M. Parker, Herbert
Hyde, Ken
Lyon, Matt
Jech, John
Moeller, Matt
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Interview with Jerome Martin
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Jerome Martin conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-07-29:Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
6/1/2016
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Richland (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
300 Area
B Plant
Battelle (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
N Reactor
Parker, Herb 1910-1984
Richland (Wash.)
-
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F9868b23ec896cee8f1bd7b5406cbcb37.jpg
943e003304bc16627b626299707171f6
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F818a1b8ac4e1d8e8126ec135ee171497.mp4
01a5d6cb8e7cbb12aaaaf554dc00d91c
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
Ronald Kathren
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237597792">
<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span class="SpellingError SCX237597792">Kathren_Ronald</span></span></strong><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><br /></span></span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237597792">
<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Ron Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">My name is Ron Kathren.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237597792">
<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: All right. And my name is Robert Bau</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">man</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and we're conducting this oral history interview on the campus of Washington</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">State University. And today's date is July 30th of 2013.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">we’re going to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">start by</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Ron, just having you talk about when yo</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">u first arrived in Tri-Cities, when you came to Hanford, h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ow</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that came about.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span>Kathren</span></span></span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I came to the Tri-Cities the fir</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">st time to a scientific meeting,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I think it was 1963. There wasn't much here then, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">for some reason I rather fell in love with the place.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Subsequently, I acquired a wife who was a native Washingtonian. And I remember telling her how I liked this part</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of the state. She's from the other side of the mountains, so she was used to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the lush green forests and what-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">have</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you. But one thing led to another</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">do you want the long story</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Bob?</span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></span></span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Yeah, go for the long story.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One of the people from Battelle came down to visit. This was common in those days. I was working at what's now</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Lawrence Livermore National Lab. And he came down to visit me. We did these technical exchanges. And he</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">spent two days. He also had a good friend that he was visiting over at Stanford. And he actually stayed at my</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">home.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Well, I couldn't figure out why he was there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> And I finally asked him, Harold, what the devil are you doing here?</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And he really didn't want to say. And the reason was the Atomic Energy Commission in those days, the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">predecessor to the Department of Energy, had kind of an unwritten rule that one contractor or</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> one</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> lab was not</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">supposed to steal people </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">from another lab.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And Harold just finally open</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ed up and he said, well,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I'm here to hire you.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> And I was floored because I had wanted</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">to get up to Hanford. Part of the reason was the type of work they were doing here was really relevant to my</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">interests and what I had been doing at Livermore. And it seemed to be a more, shall I say, happy climate</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> morale</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wise.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> And so in 1967, in July of ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">67, we moved to Richland. My wife was very pregnant. And we now have three</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">generations of the Kathren family here in Richland.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And s</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o what sort of work were you doing at Livermore?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I was doing health physics. I was actually in charge of the cali</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">bration--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">radiological</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> calibration lab there. And we </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">used film badges in those days. And the film dosimetry group. So had other respons</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ibilities too, but those were my main responsibilities there. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And by the way I'll just mention this, one of the things tha</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t really intrigued me—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">we </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">had done an intra-comparison of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">film badges and calibrations for plutonium, wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ich was of interest. When I say</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">“</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e,” we had done it with Hanford, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Los Alamos, and Livermore. Because there was some question about how well we were measu</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ring the very low </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">energy pho</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">tons--that are actually x-rays--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that are associat</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ed with the decay of plutonium. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And as it turned out, Los Alamos and Livermore were right on target. Hanford, wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ich I would have expected to be </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the one to match, was quite a large percentage different from our results. And whe</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">n I got up here, that was one of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the things that I figured out. And that's a long story we won't go into.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So you</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> came in ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">67?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: Came in July of ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">67.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And who was the pri</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">mary contractor at that time? Was</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> that who you were working for?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">It was Battelle. There were actually three contractors. What they had done in 1965 wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s to diversify the site. It had </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">all been General Electric. And they wanted to make this into a more normal comm</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">unity, not so heavily dependent </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">on the site. And so they put out requests for proposals. And the bidders had to put </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">in some sort of normal activity </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">n addition to running the site. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Battelle won the contract for the resear</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ch labs. And their promise was--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and they </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">did it—to build $20 million of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">private research facilities. And they also had what was called a use permit, s</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o they could use the government </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">facilities for private r</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">esearch, paying a fee for this. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And the government</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> in turn</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> could use the Battelle facilities for government research, paying a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">fee also. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The other two contractors, as I recall, were Douglas United Nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> which was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> consortium of Douglas Aircraft </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the United Nuclear. And they ran the reactors. Their contribution was the con</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">struction of the Donald Douglas </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Laboratories which are no </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">longer extant</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. And among other things, they were work</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ing on the artificial heart and isotopic power sources. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And the third one</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I believe</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> was Isochem. They didn't last long. They were in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">200 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">reas, the waste areas. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">their idea was to take up the radi</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">oactive species in the waste areas</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> to remove them and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">use them for various beneficial </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">purposes. You can use, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">for example, oh, say, cobalt-60. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">You can take that out of the waste and concentrate it and then you</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> can</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> give high radi</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ation doses to certain kinds of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">flooring materials</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">they do this now</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that are injected with plastic into the wood </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and it strengthens them. And it </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">makes the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">m far more resistant to damage. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Isochem didn't last long. And they were replaced by Atlantic Richfield. And Atlantic Richfield brought a risk</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> capital </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">venture plan. And also a cattle feedlot facility. So I got here just about the time </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Isochem was getting ready to go </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and Atlantic Richfield was getting ready to come in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I'm going to comment quickly about Atlantic Richfield and their risk capital. I got the great idea that the area here</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">is perfect for growing walnuts. I had been living in Walnut </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Creek. I lived in an </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">old walnut orchard. I'm kind of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">interested in things like that. In fact, today in my dotage re</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">tirement I'm a master gardener. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But the first thing I had to</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> do was to convince the county </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ag</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">gent that this area wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s suitable for growing walnuts. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">An</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d I remember he was insistent that it just couldn't happen here. That th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e frosts were t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">oo early, and all kinds of other </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">things. And I was pointing out to him all the r</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">easons why this area was ideal. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And also from an economic standpoint, the walnut orchards in California we're bei</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ng cut down for subdivisions or </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the trees were being destroyed by a disease. I think it's called black ledge, or black</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">black</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">black</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ooh oh I can't </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">remember now. Walnut trees down in Californi</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a are grafted. And at the graft,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> it wo</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">uld develop this black line and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">they'd die. The upper part. The part where the nuts were produced. That w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ouldn't happen here because the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">winters are sufficiently cold to prevent that disease from occurring. I think it's a vira</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">l disease. In any event, when I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">convinced him, I drafted up a little proposal and I went to Atlantic Richfield's risk ca</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">pital thing and pointed out all the merits of this. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Walnut trees don't need a lot of care. You don't prune them heavily the way you </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">do grapes or apples. They could </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">be flood irrigated a couple times a year, so you didn't need extensive irrigation syste</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ms. Harvesting is really fairly </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">easy. One of the ways to do is just put a big net under the tree and come along w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ith a shaker and shake the tree </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and all the nu</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ts drop, and you gather them up. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And to be econ</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">omically sound, you had to have, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I figured</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> maybe 100 to 200</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> acres. Because they have to be </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">washed and dried afterwards. But</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> you didn’t need—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t was not labor intensive. And Atlantic Richfield,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I remember the guy telling me, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">well, that's a super idea you've got. And can even be done with college students pri</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">marily. But the problem is it's </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">not labor intensive enough. And we want to create jobs. So that's a long story, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ut that gives you some feeling. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I really,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> we did by the way, my father-in-law brought two walnut trees, volunteers,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> from our home in Walnut Creek. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Kept them in coffee cans for</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, I think,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> about two years. And we built our house here and I planted the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">m. Then they just did wonderfully. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So sorry to get off on a tangent here.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: That’s all right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So when you first arrived and started working at Battelle, what sorts of things were you working on initially?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I was hired in as the Manager of External Dosimetry. And external dosimetry ma</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">intained and calibrated all the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">portable radiation monitoring instruments used on the site. It was a site wid</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e function. And one of my chief </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">responsibilities was to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">update the pool of instruments. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I think they had some 1</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">600 instruments. Most of them were pretty old. I think ev</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ery one of them was home built. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">They didn't go commercial. And one of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> my ideas was to go commercial. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And I started to build the calibrati</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">on lab, which now Battelle has—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">people who took it </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">after me really did a fine job. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One of them was Jack Selby, who just passed away and who we mentioned earlier. His</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> group really built it into a—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">not that it wasn't under me of course, but a first class standards laboratory</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> for radiological calibrations. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And also we oversaw the contractor that did the dosimetry, the film badges for</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> the site, and responded to any </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">potential over-exposures from external radiation. That was basically what my initial job here was.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ow long did you do that sort of work?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I think three years I was in that job. And then Battelle had a reorganization</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s kind of messy, but I chose to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">stay with my boss. And he had a radiological group that included the dosimetry an</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d so on. But I stayed with them </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and it did many other assignments. A whole variety of things. I was kind </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of his go-to-it guy. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">He was once asked by another manager, how do you manage Ron? And he looked at the guy and said, you don't.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">He said, you just let him go and do his thing. And if he </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">gets too far down the road you don't want him on, you just</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">jerk him back.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But he was really one of the finest people I've ever known. And very good manager.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And who was this? What was his name?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">This was Harold Larson. And Harold was somewhat older than me. And well, we ju</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">st fit together. For many years </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">later, I was his staff assistant and got all these problems to solve. And it was gre</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">at fun. Is was a challenge. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you never</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> knew what was going to happen. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One of the things we did</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that fits in with the history scheme</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">there were what</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> were called service assessment </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">dollars. All the contractors</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> got assessed. A certain amount—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">percentage in their </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">contracts to pay for plant-wide </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">services. These included the centralized dosimetry records, and the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> calibrations group, et cetera. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">After this organization change, and I was Harold's staff assistant, we used to go</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> out and visit our clients, our </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">customers, every month or maybe every three weeks. Well</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> they're out in the 2</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">00 and 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">reas. And what we'd </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">usually do is we'd take a car and our lunch and go out and visit one in the morning and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">then one in the afternoon. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And in between, we'd go eat our lunch. And sometimes we'd g</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o to the old Hanford town site. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One day we were there</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and this shows you how Harold thinks</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—because </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">he was very quic</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">k. So here are a couple of guys in suits—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">coats and ties anyw</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ay—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wanderin</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">g around the old Hanford site, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hich</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> was not supposed to be open as </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">such. We had badges and our b</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">adges permitted us in that area. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ut up drives </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a security vehicle. And the guy </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">leaps o</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ut it comes up and looks at us. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And if you're going to be out there, you probably should be wearing some kind </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of coveralls or what-have-you. [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">He looks at us and he says, what are you guys doing here? And Harol</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d without missing a microsecond </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">responded, oh, we're out checking our environmental monitoring program. We also h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ad responsibility for the plant-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wide environmental monitoring program. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> that just was the end of that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But if it had been I to whom that question was posed,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I'd probably still be in jail. [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: So let’s--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">how long then did you work for Battelle?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I worked for Battelle for roughly five years. They had been closing do</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wn reactors, there was a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">unemployment, a lot of people job hunting. Not I. But I had another problem. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that problem was with one of my </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">children who needed specia</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">l medical care and dental care. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I like small towns. In fact, that was one of the real appeals to coming to Richland. But small towns have</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and in </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">those days it was really bad</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a lack of certain amenities that the big cities have</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. And at the time there were, I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">think, two pediatricians in town. One was incompetent and the other wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s an alcoholic. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And here was a child that really needed a lot of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and I didn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I could see us mak</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ing lots of trips to Children's </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Hospital in Seattle. It was very w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">orrying for my wife</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> by the way. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And also Battelle's medical plan at the time had a $25,000 lifetime limit, which the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">y probably would have extended, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">but we already had quite a bit into that. So, there was a position that came up in Por</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">tland working in industry and I jumped on that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">It was</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">couldn't wait to get back here. </span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And at what point did you come back</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> then</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> to Tri-Cities?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">We came back six years later.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">it </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">would have been what year</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, about, roughly</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">78.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: ‘78. And did you come back wor</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">king at Battelle?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I came back to Battelle.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And what sort of position</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> or job</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I was a staff scientist and Harold Larson's staff assistant.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And how long did you, at that point then, remain with Battelle?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Well, that's an interesting question. I say it's interesting because I got involved in</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I don't know how—but by </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">chance, something I'd always wanted to do. And that was to get involved wit</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">h the transuranium and uranium registries. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And I was doing that. And other program I had was the environmental dose overview</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> for the site. And Battelle had </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">another organization change. I used to joke that Battelle had an organization change, a major change</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, every other </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">year. And a minor change in every m</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">onth it didn't have an R in it. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So they had this change, and Harold lost the department in a consolidation an</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d so on. And the new department </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">manager was not really a very good manager. And I think he wanted to get rid of a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ll of a people he had inherited </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">from Harold. I being one of them. And I'm on his staff. So </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that wasn't going the greatest. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And working for the registries, that's a different contractor. That's the medical c</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ontractor, medical records. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">they, for obvious reasons, did not want the medical records removed from th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">eir building. You know, there are privacy </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">qu</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">estions. Even in those days there were serious privacy concerns. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And he basically ordered me to stop going over there and bring the things I needed bac</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">k. Couldn't do it. So I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wandered into the President of the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation an</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d basically said, you're paying </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Battelle so much a year for my time</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and I think I was half-time. This</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> might have been only 40%</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I said, how would </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you like me</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> full time for the same money? </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And how are you going to do that? I said, well, I'll just transfer over here. And I did. I worked out what they call a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">termination for transfer. So I kept my seniority and so on and went over there. And that was great. That was really</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">outstanding.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Do you want to explain what the uranium registry and transuranium registries are?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: Okay, how many hours do we have? [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: [LAUGHTER] Yeah. Quickly, I guess.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>:</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Back in the late '60s</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">well, let me start this way</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Plutonium is an</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> anthropogenic </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">element. It's manmade if I can </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">use the politically </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">in</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">correct terminology th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">at everybody still understands. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And so our experience with it has come from the Manhattan District</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, largely. It's a highly radiotoxic element, but </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">there's no animal data except for what was done in the Manhattan District. Bu</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t animals aren't humans and you </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">need human data. Hum</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">an information. And what's going to happen to these workers? </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So they created, in I think it was 1968, the National Plutonium Registry to study pl</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">utonium in people. And this was </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">not the usual epidemiologic type study. It was a post mortem</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> study where people in advance of death volunteered </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">to permit an autopsy. Or in so</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">me cases a whole body donation. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And those tissues would be analyzed then for plutonium. So that we could determine where it went in the body</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">where it deposited, how long it stayed there, if you got enough data, whether there w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ere any biological effects that </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you could attribute to it. In other words, we did what are called biokinetics, how</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> it moved through the body. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the dosimetry, et ceter</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a. Well,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> that was fascinating to me. And I had always wanted to work in that. Wel</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">l, in the fullness of time, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">plutonium registry expanded to other heavy elements including americium. And t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hen a separate parallel uranium registry was created. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">It's interesting to note that although humans have known about uranium for 200 yea</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rs, until the Kosovo War, there </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was interest, there were studies, but there wasn't the concern. Because urani</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">um, always radioactive, natural </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">uranium and depleted uranium are a greater hazard from their chemical toxicity </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">than from their radiotoxicity. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So there were these two parallel registries. And ultimately they combined i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nto one. And I guess, does that </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">answer?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Yeah, yeah, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">yeah</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. That'</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d be good for you to explain it--</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: --for people who</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> might want to watch this, yeah. So you've got involved in that. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">at some point you also starting </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">teaching at WSU Tri-Cities, is that right?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I taught my first class on this campus in 1970.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And how did that happen? How did you get involved teaching here?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">When I came up here, I had been teaching at a community college at night. I'</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d set up a program in radiation </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">technology and had taught in that c</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ommunity college in California. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> like to teach. In fact, I dare</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">say that my happiest hours have been spent in the class</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">room, providing I have a tall </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">enough lectern so I can duck down when they throw things. But in all seriousness, th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">at is really what I like to do. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So I came here and right off the bat</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> they had a radiation technology program at the local community college. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nd I taught in that for a year. And then this was--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the predecessor to WSU Tri-Cities, was the Joint Center for G</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">raduate Study. And I offered to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">teach a refresher course for individuals who are going to be sitting for the Hea</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">lth Physics Certification Exam. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">There's a board certification exam. And sure, why</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> not? That was my first course. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The old Joint Center at that time had three university sponsors</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Oregon State, W</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ashington State, and University </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of Washington. And that was done through the University of Washington.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And then later I was asked to be a member of the radiological sciences </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">faculty o</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">f the University of Washington. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Something I did part-time at night. A lot of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> us</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> did. There were more than 100 adj</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">uncts--UW </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">called them affiliates, but it's the same difference. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nd so I do that for many years. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But a lot of machinations and organization changes. And the perception of people wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o are affected is far different </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">than the perce</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ption of those who make changes [LAUGHTER] as you probably—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">all you have all found out</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I'm sure</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, in life. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Ultimately, the branch campus was created. By that time I had not only an affiliate</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> professorship at U of W</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, but I also had an adjunct appointment </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">in environmental sciences here. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And without going into too much detail, we converted the USTUR, the registry's con</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">tract, into a grant and brought it to WSU. This was in ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">92. The offici</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">al day was Valentine's Day of ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">92, whi</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ch was a Sunday. But we brought </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">over $3.76</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> million on a three year grant. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And the registries had been subject to a lot of criticism from activist groups. Statements like</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and I want to make a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">point here, so bear with me</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">these activist groups made all kinds of accusations </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">like body snatchers, et cetera. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">There's one person in particular, a newspaper reporter, and she was just gung ho.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> This was a time of real ferment </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a lot of anti-nuclear activity. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Anyway, we move</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> them over and I don't think we'd been over here for more th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">an two or three weeks. I had an </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">office in the other building and a secretary. And one day the phone rings</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> it's so</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">me guy from, I think it was the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Seattle P.I., but he w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">as from a newspaper in Seattle. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">This was not extraordinary for me. I have had a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">lot of dealings with the press. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But anyway, he said something about he wanted to know about the registries and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">about our body snatching. And I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">said, body snatching? I said, oh, the university wouldn't permit that. And he said,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> university? What university? I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">said, Washington State University. The registries are part of WSU. And his words were,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> oh, well, I guess there's no </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">story then. And he hung up. I never even got the guy's name.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So I point this out</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you can't always see it face value, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">things in the newspaper or what-have-you, and realize that </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you're getting the full story</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> because one minute we were body snatchers and the next minute, oh, there's no story.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So how long</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> then</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> were you connected with running the transuranium registry?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Retired in 1999.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And so during your time at Hanford, the transuranium registry and so forth, what were your list o</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">f some of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">most rewarding aspect of the work you were doing? And what was maybe some </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of the more challenging aspects </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of what you were doing?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Well, this may not be the answer you're seeking, but if you ask me what the mos</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t rewarding aspect of my career </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and I've often said I would not swap careers with anybody else. I just had </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a lot of frustrations, a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">difficulties</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">y’</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">re over here and they're far outweighed by the pleasure</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s. And my greatest was with the students and with teaching. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I look back, a lot of my former students wandering around, and I look back on t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hem and the successes that many </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">of them had. I presume you get the same kinds of feelings, Bob, when you see w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hat they do. And I'd think, who are my all-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">time best students? Well, there's one</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> that--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">m</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">aybe yes, maybe no--was the all-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">time best</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">how do you rate </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the best? But she was certainly one of the top three. And she's now the Chai</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rman of the Nuclear Engineering Program at Oregon State. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Another one is one of the Assistant Directors, or whatever, at Battelle.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> And he's done incredibly well. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The third one was a lady that I had known. And when we were in Portland I had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ssociation with Reed College. I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">don't know if you've ever heard of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">okay. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">In any event, she was a big, tall gal. And I'm not very tall</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> as you know. And she</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> must have weighed at least 220 </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">pounds. Very large, very large woman. And I remembered telling her one day, Ellen, you are arguably my best</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">student. But unarguably my most obnoxious.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">She was from New Jersey and you can figure</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I love</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">her. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I might</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> breakup when I tell you this,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [EMOTIONAL]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> but I really did love</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> her. And I'd see her at scientific meetings and she'd run up to me and put h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">er arms around me and it's just great. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">She came here and got a job on-site. She's a good teacher. She's a great teache</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">r. I remember she's teaching at </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the community college somewhere in the East, in New Jersey. And that dried</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> up and she got a job out here. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And here she was an absolutely brilliant lady. She wasn't all that difficult. You just had to understand her.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> But she </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was just wonderful in her technical knowledge and in her drive to get things done. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And just wonderful. But she had </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">one thing that was a problem. She got stuck in training because she was a wo</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">man. And that's what you did in </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">those days with women and minorities. It's like, they were stuck. Showcased. Sh</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e wanted to get out and get her hands dirty. No way. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So she started looking for another job and she finally found one at University of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Arizona. And it was great. She </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was the radiation safety officer, she also had a faculty appointment, and she and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I were actually very close. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">we had worked</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">we were planning to give a one week, special, short course. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> we worked out the outline. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">we were going to do this the next summer at the Health Physics meet</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ing. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">In early December I got a phone call from somebody I didn't know, who was her</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> department head, who said that </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">she died. She had valley fever, compromised immune system, 41 years old. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And when she knew she was dying, s</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">he </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">told him, when she died to please call h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">er mother and me. Dad was dead. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">That's the kind of thing that</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and in other ways</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> you touch lives. And hopefully you </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">touch them in a beneficial way. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Did a lot other things in my career that I had great fun with in the teaching, the registries. That was t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">errific. I think </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">those were the most</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> productive years of my career. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Earlier on</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, I</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> was involved with radiological measurements, calibrations, an</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d so on. And trying to make our measurements better dose-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wise. But I did a whole bunch of things. Even the years I spe</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nt in industry at the utility—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and boy</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> did they have a different philosophy</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">you learn a lot. And I just feel as if</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I've made a contribution. I've </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">certainly been satisfied.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One thing I want to ask you about is your involvement with the Glenn Seaborg pa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">pers project. How did that come </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">about? How did you get involved in it and that sort of thing?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I grew up in Los Angeles. And I remember taking high school chemistry and lea</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rning about the heavy elements. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And I was just fascinated by these. So in the back of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> my mind that was always there. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Many, many years later I became the President of the Health Physics Society. One</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> of my colleagues, good friends </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">at the University of Utah, actually said something about, we ought to invite Glenn Seaborg to talk about plu</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">tonium. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">He was</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> a plutonium chemist, this guy. [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Well, I also had another good friend who had worked with Glenn at the Met Lab. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> he said, well, I can just call </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Glenn. That impressed me quite a bit because Glenn Seaborg, of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> course, a Nobel Prize winner, f</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">or</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">mer </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Chancellor at University of California, and worked with [INAU</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">DIBLE]. Just a towering figure. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Well doggone if I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">didn't talk to Glenn and invite</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> him down and he agreed. So I had seen he had written</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—he was a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">diarist</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and he'd written these diaries for the World War II that were published</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> as internal documents from the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Lawrence Berkeley Lab. And I thought, jeez these are terrific. This would make a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">great book. And edit it, and so on, and identify people. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">B</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ut anyway, he came down to the Health P</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hysics meeting. I had one night free an</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d I set up a reception for him. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Just a private reception. And by the way, the guest book from that reception I thi</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nk I've donated to the archives here. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Glenn was just the most humble person. He was great. And I asked him about d</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">oing that book. He said, what a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">wonderful idea. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Why don't you do it? [LAUGHTER] So we did. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I enlist</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ed the aid of a real historian; </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that was Jerry Gough. Jerry enlisted the aid o</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">f one of his graduate students; </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that was Gary Benefiel. And we edited and annotated with over 700 biograp</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hical sketches. Identified just about </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">everybody in the Section C-1, I think it was, the one that did the plutonium work.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Glenn gave it the title. I said, what do you think we ought to call this? Well, The </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Plu</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">tonium Story, of course. But he </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was great and we had </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a lot of interfaces after that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I also wanted to</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">another thing he wrote that I was planning on doing something </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">similar with, but unfortunately</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Glenn</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">died before that could be done. Does that answer that?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Yeah, yeah it does.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">If you</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">one quick thing about Seaborg. He came to the meeting, thi</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s annual meeting of the Health and Physics Society. I had</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">n't met him yet. And he's standing in one of the lecture rooms. And h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e's up on the dais and I'm with </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">this friend of mine who had worked with him. And we walk in and Glenn looks up</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and my friend says, hi, Glenn! </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And Glenn looks at him, hi, by first name</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, you know</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. And it was just</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">he's just one of the guys. I've never met anybody</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—I’ve met, in </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">my day</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I've known three Nobel Prize </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">winners. They're all different. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One quick story about another one. I was at a meeting in San Francisco and I</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> was doing some work on carbon. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And I asked this individual, we were chatting on something about carbon. She's says, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">oh, I got a big file on it. Why </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">don't you give me your card and I'll send you a p</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">aper on that. Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I gave the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">individual my card. And about ten </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">days after the meeting</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, I got a package in the mail. All—I guess t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">he entire file on radiocarbon h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ad been put in there, including </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a paper that I myself had written.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> It was apparently unlike Glenn. It was just, well, I'</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ll just send him everything and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">get him off my back. Glenn would have sat down and well, let's see. What is </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">it you want and how can we best </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">accommodate you?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">en was it that you first met Glenn</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">? When was it?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Oh gosh, I was Society President </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I think ‘89 or ‘</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">90, somewhere around there.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And so you were very actively involved in the Health Physics Society. How long ha</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ve you been involved in Health </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Physics Society?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Since 1960. I'm a life member, so they can't get rid of me yet.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> then I wondered if you could talk a little bit about the Parker Foundation? Ex</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">plain what that is and how that </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">came about.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Herb Parker was an interesting person. He was a medical physicist init</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ially. And he was from England, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Manchester. Happens my grandmother was for Manchester, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> that's neither here nor there. And Herb, in the 1930</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s, developed along with a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> physician—r</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">adiologist named Ralston P</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">atterson, a technique for doing </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">radium dosimetry. Radium was the only radioactive material. And it was widely used particularly for ute</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rine and cervical cancers. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And doing the dosimetry you have to calculate the doses based on the shapes. If</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> they're a needle or some other </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">geometry, calculations can be very difficult. But it's important to know the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">doses obviously, because you're </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">destroying a cancer</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> hopefully. And the Patterson-Parke</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">r techniques evolved from that. Herb came here in the 1930</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s. He w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ent to Seattle in the late 1930</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s to work</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> on what were then called super voltage x-rays, v</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ery high energy x-rays. And of course, now we have a lot of high </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">energy stuff which is useful at treating cancer—c</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ertain cancers. More useful than and radium. And he went to work f</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">or the Manhattan District first at Oak </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">R</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">idge</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and was basically hand-picked to come</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> here because of his abilities. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Herb was an interesting person. He did not suffer fools gladly. In fact, he did not suffe</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">r fools at all. [LAUGHTER] He did a lot of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">things. He was the first</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">there was actually a unit. Well, in the old days, all we had was a unit based on air</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ionization called the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span class="SpellingError SCX237597792">rankine</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. And that worked for x and gamma rays, but it didn't work for other things, particularly,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">neutrons and beta rays.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And Herb really came up with the concept of absorbed energy. Not ionization </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">air. And he created a unit that </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">enjoyed a short lifespan. It had quantity. Quantity was energy absorbed in matter.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> The unit was, he called it the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rep, for </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span class="SpellingError SCX237597792">rankine</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> equivalent physical. And it also got the name of the Parker. If</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> you look at an old McGraw-Hill </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">dictionary of science and technology, you'll see the Parker in there. And that later </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">evolved into a more useful kind of thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> It didn't change the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">basic concept, but he did that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And he set up the program here. Which was remarkable</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> because we had no real e</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">xperience with plutonium. Zero. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So to shorten that up, Herb was actually the head of the Hanford Laboratori</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">es. Under General Electric, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Hanford Laboratories were a research group and they were world famous.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> When Battelle came in, Hanford </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Laboratory ceased to exist. Herb was retained as a consultant to Battelle. And ulti</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">mately, he passed away. I think in ‘83 or thereabouts. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Bill Bair, who you're going to interview I'm sure, had worked closely with Herb. Bill </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">is a radiation biologist and he </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was manager of the biology department. Or maybe the Life Sciences Center at the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">time. But anyway, he got </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Battelle and the Parker family to kick some dollars</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and start a Parker Foundation, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">he idea being to give a lecture, public lecture, once a year. And it has sin</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ce now evolved. It's a separate </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nonprofit, but tied to WSU. We turned over all our assets </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">WSU</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> because Battelle </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">had lost interest in supporting </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">them. Which is understandable, I'm not faulting Battelle for this. They were very</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> generous when they started it. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And we promote education, give a couple scholarships out of the endowment, and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">still try to have that lecture. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">That lecture was to honor some scientist</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o promote public understanding. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And we also are interested in history. And so, this should interest you most as an h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">istorian, the Parker Foundation </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">will be supporting the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> RASC c</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ollection, or maybe not dollar-wise in any large </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">amount, but that's one of their things. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And you should come to one of our meetings, Bob.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So is there any topic we haven't touched on yet in terms of either your Battelle transuranium registry, anythin</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">g </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">along those lines, that you would like to discuss? Or that you think would be important to discuss at this point?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I'</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ll just—yeah, I’</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d like to</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> comment on a couple of things. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One of the reasons I wanted to come to</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Battelle—or, it wasn’t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Battelle then, I wanted to come to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Hanford was, in doing research for my thesis I kept runnin</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">g across these </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">reports. They're very practical, down to earth, and just </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the kind of thing I like to do. [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But Hanford wasn't really well known. In fact, one of my </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">profs</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> said, you know, you'r</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e going to go out and get a job </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">on</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e day. He said, you ought to go</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> to Los Alamos or some other place</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, I don’t even remember</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. Never m</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">entioned Hanford. Which was not </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">extraordinary</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> because I</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> had hardly heard of it myself. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">When I went to work for Livermore, we had a lot of plutonium there. And Hanf</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ord of course was the plutonium </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">production place. And you naturally pick up things. And they ran this wonderf</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ul life sciences symposium. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">that's when we came up. And that's </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">when I had my first experience. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And the guys from Hanford were just the kind of people that</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">down to earth, very nice that you could</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> talk to. And I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">actually applied for a job, it was like 1966, and I didn't know the ins and outs, but th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e guy I talked to had just been </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">demoted.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER] So, tha</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t didn't work out too well. But then a year or so later, tha</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t's when Harold Larson came up. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But I really</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the work that was done here was so different in a sense. The way it wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s done, it was more practically oriented. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Another thing that it intrigued me about this place was, they no</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> only did things differe</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ntly, but in a lot of ways they were playing catch-</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">up. In fact, maybe you should turn this off, but I'll say it anywa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">y. After I'd been up here for a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">while I found that a lot of the workers were suffering from a terrible disease</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> known as the Hanford syndrome, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">which was c</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">haracterized by three symptoms. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The first one was there will always be a government to take care of us.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The second one was if i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t hadn't been discovered here at</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Hanford, it wasn't worth discovering. And that applied to</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">all levels of things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And the t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hird one was all change is </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">bad. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And I'm going to give you an example. It's kind of a fun example. I got a call one</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> day when I had been here a few </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">years and was managing the external dose group. And we bought all these po</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rtable instruments from a young </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">engineer who had been asked to obtain what were calle</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d, cart poppies. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">These were not portable inst</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ruments, so I didn't have any—t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hey were portab</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">le in a sense. They were a huge </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">instrument in a cart. And the poppy referred to the fact that they would make po</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">pping noises when they measured </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">alpha particles. And this was I th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ink about 1968, or thereabouts. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And he called me up and he asked, do you have the most current plans for </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the cart poppies? Because we're </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">going to order some and the vendor wants the plans, obviously. And I said, oh, yeah. He said, oh good. Th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e latest </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ones I can find are like 1956 or thereabou</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ts. Maybe was earlier than that,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I don't</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> remember the exact year. And I </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">said, well you've </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">got them. And he was astounded. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The arguments were just unbelievable, but basically it was, they worked. We won't c</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">hange them. He finally ended </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">up ordering 30 of them for $30,000 plus a copy. $1 million. I could have purcha</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">sed for him, on the open market </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">commercially, a transistorized unit that di</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d everything the cart poppy did,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> better, and did a heck of a lot more als</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">for about $300 a copy. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But the mentality of a lot of the old timers was such that that was the way it was.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So was that one of the challenges that you found then?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">That was a big challenge for me</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ecause here I was tasked with upgrading the instrument pool</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. And how do you </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">get people to change? We've always done it this way. Little things, this instrumen</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t's been proven. But we did it. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">We did it. And that led to</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">after I left that job and others took it over, they built</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> on that. And now everything is </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">commerci</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">al. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Not that commercial is better than what you do yourself, particularly if you hav</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e a special need, but saved the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">government a lot of money. Save</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d the taxpayers a lot of money. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And so that mindset has been pretty much gone. But it was really, really stro</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ng here. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And I remember just one thing that I had in mind. I wanted to change the neutron </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">monitoring instruments. Neutron </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">monitors in those days were big heavy things. And what we used at Hanford</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> was a device that required two </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">sepa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">rate measurements you carried—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t had a handle with a big thing of poly</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ethylene and another instrument </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">package. And you had to take two measurements. It wasn't very go</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">od and it wasn't very accurate. The Swe</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">d</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s had developed an instrument we call a REM meter because i</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t actually measured the REM, or biological dose—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">dose rate. And the Navy was using them. And that's what </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I wanted to replace these with. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I got more static from my own staff. The guys won't use them, this, that and other thing. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">This was proven, we did </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">it here</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and it's wo</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nderful and so on and so forth. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But we put them in and now they only need one measurement. And granted, it was</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> big and heavy, but people loved </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">them</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> because you turn it on and you got a measurement. You didn't have </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">to interpret anything. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">So there was a lot of resistance to change. And over </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the years I've thought of that. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">One has to be very careful. You can't come in, as some people have, well, this is</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> the way we did where I used to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">work. Well, that doesn't wash. You </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">have to really demonstrate it. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Actually, I think what I did was I bought two of these Navy type instruments. Sent</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> them o</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ut to the 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">reas. Try </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">these guys and see if they work. And the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">y</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> loved them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">That's a great example</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, yeah</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. One of things obviously that happened was that the si</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">te at some point shifted from a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">focus on production to focus on clean up. Did that impact you in any ways</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">your work at all, or not?</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Not really because I was working at the registries and on other projects that didn't involve cleanup. Al</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">though, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Mount St. Helens</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">do you have a few minutes?</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Okay.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The Mount St. Helens</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> eruption was something else. It happened on a Sunday. Actually when it happened, I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">in the bathroom, I think. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">It was in the morning. And I got up late Sunday morning. I think I w</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">as brushing my teeth </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">actually</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> when I heard this tremendous bang. And I thought, jeez, my wife mus</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">t have dropped something in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">kitchen. So I yelled out to her and she</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> said, oh, it was a sonic boom. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">We</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> had</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> neighborhood event, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">nd everybody was—a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> pot</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">luck. And a couple hours later we were walkin</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">g to the neighborhood event, it </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">was getting dark.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> There was stuff falling out</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">if you want some ash, I can giv</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e you some ash. But it's very, very interesting. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And this will show you my relationship to Harold Larson too. We learned what h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">appened. Well some Battelle </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">scientist talked to a newspaper, I think the Washington Post it may have been, but </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">he talked to a newspaper in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">East. And he said that Mount St. Helens had released more radioactivity than th</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Just natural radioa</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ctivity, which was not correct. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Incidentally that morning, there's a </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">lot of dust and so on, and fall</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">out. A lot of interes</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ting things about that that you </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">never hear. The fallout, the lighter piece</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s carried further, but the fall</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">out at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Yakima airport was very thick and </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">heavy. They had to clear the runway</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">s—or, runway I guess</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">. And one of the ideas proposed was t</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">o use electromagnet because the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">fallout contained so much iron that you could act</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ually pick it up with a magnet. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">There were a lot of other things. There was also a guy who the following day got</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> on the horn, he was driving to </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">work, and he had picked up some ash. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And when he got out to the 100 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">reas wh</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ere he worked, I guess he stuck </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">on a counter and came up with the idea that was loaded with radium. Just loaded</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> with radium. He didn't measure </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the radium directly, h</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e measured the daughter products and back calculated. And that doesn't give you the right</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">answer.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> He called on</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> on</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e of</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> the radio stations to tell all of </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">people coming to work to roll up the windows in their cars.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> I mean this is the kind of--e</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ven</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">scientists screw up.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">In any event, that and the statement of that other scientist about more radioactivity led to a lot of concern. And the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">President the United States was coming to Portland, I think, to give a campaign speech. And that was Jimmy</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Carter</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> by the way. Harold Larson came into my office and said, I want you call DOE right away. Air Force One has</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">some questions.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Now that's pretty big because I'm just a little town guy. I mean, really. And I told them that there</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">were errors made in the calculation. And that there was not a huge amount of radioactivity.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">We had actually pulled some of our environmental monitoring samples and they just showed the normal amount.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">And the soil was exactly the same as the soil around here. The concentration of radium as was in the Mount Saint</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">Helens eruption. So these people panicked. But anyway, I got to get my oar in. And there's my claim to fame that's</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">never been documented except on this tape, if you keep it in.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: [LAUTHER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">All right, well, that's probably a good place to end.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">, I'm sorry. You get me wound up.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">No, that's a great story.</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">There's a lot more that. Let me just quick</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ly give you another piece of it. </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">The guy that had made this pronouncement of all this radioactivity compounded the thing by saying that it was all</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">due to radon. From the decay of radium, radon gas that had built up and created a lot of pressure and caused the</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">explosion. That's just an impossible or very extremely unlikely scenario.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">We had given him our monitoring data and other things. And he wrote </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">a paper for </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">S</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">cience</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> with about 40 authors</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">and did not include any of us using all of our data. Scientists are sometimes not the most ethical and honorable</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">people in the world either, much as I love them. But you know, think of lawyers. Occasionally the barrel has a</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">good apple in it.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">But anyway, we had to do something. And you'r</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">e going to interview Joe </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span class="SpellingError SCX237597792">Soldat</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Joe and I and Dale Denham—</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">think you're going to interview Dale also and one other person. Anyway, </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">we wrote a little note for </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">S</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">cience</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">calculating out the doses, which defused what they had done. So you wouldn't misinterpret what they had done.</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> Get me off on ethics in</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">science sometime</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"> and it's just—</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237597792">
<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Bauman</span>: [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX237597792"> </span></p>
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<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX237597792">
<p class="Paragraph SCX237597792"><span class="TextRun SCX237597792"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Kathren</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">All rig</span><span class="TextRun SCX237597792">ht. I've taken all of your time.</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.)
01:04:50
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
250kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
100 Area
200 Area
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1963-2013
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1965-1999
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Selby, Jack
Larson, Harold
Seaborg, Glenn
Gough, Jerry
Benefiel, Gary
Parker, Herb
Bair, Bill
Soldat, Joe
Denham, Dale
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 Ronald Kathren
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Ronald Kathren conducted as part of the Hanford Oral History Project. The Hanford Oral History Project was sponsored by the Mission Support Alliance and the United States Department of Energy.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-06-9: 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
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Richland(Wash.)
Battelle(Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
100 Area
200 Area
Atlantic Richfield Co.
Battelle (Wash.)
General Electric
Richland (Wash.)
-
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ec69668cfd105a3844bc1dfc036df261
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/omeka-hhp%2Foriginal%2F66986ea49c777b4977889b8a654cf444.mp4
6007493e41305ba6e1266b686800d020
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Post-1943 Oral Histories
Subject
The topic of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Description
An account of the resource
Oral histories with residents about the Hanford area during and following the Second World War
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this collection should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for these items.
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Laura Arata
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Dale Denham
Transcription
Any written text transcribed from a sound
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><strong><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Northwest Public Television | </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Denham_Dale</span></span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></strong></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Laura Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I feel ready.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I think Dale feels ready.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Dale </span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Yeah. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Are you going to ask me some questions to begin with, or just--</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I sure am.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">We're</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> here, huh?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">If we could just start by having you say your name, and then spell your last name</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> for us, please</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. Dale Denham. D-E-N-H-A-M. I always let people know it's like the denim jeans. Can't forget me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Thank you. My name's Laura Arata. It's December 12, 2013. We're conducting this interview on the campus of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Washington State University</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Tri-Cities. So if we could just start, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you came to Hanford, why you came to Hanford, and what you knew about it at the time.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, maybe it's better if I tell you when I first came in 1947.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: Please do.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
</div>
<div class="OutlineElement Ltr SCX251492516">
<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> But as a young person, came with my family because</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">my dad was invited to come up here and start a radio station. And Dad was in the radio business since the '20s.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And his buddy says, boy, this is just a golden opportunity, and dad said, oh no. The war's over and this place is</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">going to fold.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Obviously, he was a bit wrong, but he had been through the Depression and all those kind of things. So we came.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">My sister and I would come up on the train and spend weeks, because they had a couple daughters. And they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">moved in in '47 and stayed here 'til '57.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So the station today is KONA, but at that time it was KWIE. And it began in that period, and so we made lots of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">trips. But they lived in Kennewick, so I really didn't spend much time in Richland. They brought us out to see the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">barricade out here on Stevens, and the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> bypass to even get to the 300 A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">rea. And at the time, their studios were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">being built, and so they were doing things in the Hanford House, whic</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">h is today the Richland</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Red Lion.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I had some introduction to the Tri-C</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ity community. But I came as a graduate student, 1961, as part of a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">fellowship from the Atomic Energy Commission, which was in Health Physics</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd it turns out I was in the first class</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of graduates of master's degree from the University of Wash</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ington. There were like ten of them, ten</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> of us. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">came and spent the summer here in '61. I got married that summer also. And we became acquainted with the site</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">by</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">much like they did most of the engineers, they moved us around on site, kind of give us a familiarity with all</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the different aspects of health physics, which was radiation protection, basically, for the people and the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">environment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so that was my introduction to the place. But while I was here, the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity to get a master's, because they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't have a master's program at UW at the time, because we were the first class. And while we were here during</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the summer, a program opened up to get a master's by going back for the second year.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I went on back to University of Washington and was able to get my master's. Matter of fact, I was studying</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">rheumatoid </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">arthritic</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> patients looking for ways to use the reactor there at the university to evaluate the gold in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these patients, because gold was not a cure for the disease, but it could slow it down and at least make people so</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they could</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">so I worked with two individuals. I collected all their urine, because we were looking for activation</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">techniques.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And it took me most of the year because the opportunities were great to look to the future, but we didn't have all</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the technology yet. I was doing a lot of my work using a single channel analyzer and looking at different photo</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">peaks, energy, gamma ray energies coming off of these radionuclides, because we're all full of sodium, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">sodium has a very high ener</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">gy activation product, sodium-</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">24. And so that was a real issue. And I had to try</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">different ways is to subtract that material, or that impact that we would see on the scans.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But that was the beginning. And so I completed the degree. And then my wife had been born in Long Beach,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">California. Her grandmother was still down there. And so got the opportunity to go to Lawrence Livermore</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Laboratory</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">it was called Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at the time</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in Livermore, California. So went down</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">there and spent seven years</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">no, five years</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and then came back up here. She developed some real allergy</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">issues. And the kids were still young, small, a couple years old.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So it was a good opportunity to come back. We knew what the area was like. We had spent the summer here,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">which is a tough time. And of course we remembered</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I remembered from my childhood all the dust storms and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the running out to grab the laundry to bring it in because it was getting dusty.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I just thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine. And my parents, </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Dad was from Baker City, Oregon</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, and mother was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from Boise, Idaho. So it made sense, in one </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">sense, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> they might select to come here. But Mom didn't get along</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">too well in the heat, and so this was not a favorite place. So that was probably part of the equation, too, that they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">chose not to even go any further, even though their friends were very successful here and sold out, and bought</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the station in Hood River and then retired, which is what they all did.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that was my introduction and coming to Hanford. And I served in a variety of departments</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I mean, by name,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">but they all were basically radiation protection, health physics, mostly applied. In other words, I was dealing with</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">how to take air samples, where to take air samples, how to take river samples, how to measure them, what to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">measure them for. I got into the environmental arena, which was really my long-term interest.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I was involved in the late '60s in the water monitoring portion of the Hanford program, where I looked at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the water in the schools, took water from the public schools, water from the wells, drinking water. We sampled</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">water from the river directly. We monitored the river by passing it through detectors. And this was a period when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">most of the reactors were operating, so there was plenty of activity, and a real challenge to trace that. Where did it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">go? How wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">s it going to impact the public?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I worked primarily in the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> until I retired from Battelle in '95. Oh, by the way, that's who I came to work</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">for, was Battelle. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd I spent all my career up to that point with Battelle after I'd come back from Livermore. And I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">took the certification exam in health physics and became a certified health physicist, a diplomat of the American</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Board of Health Physics. I served on the board for that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">certifying other individuals coming along.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I taught some of the classes here. We started here when this was the graduate school, the graduate center, long</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">before Washington State University became a part of the community. And so I had a lot of involvement in that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">arena. I just really enjoyed the field because it was broad enough that we could be concerned about x-rays and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">radiation that you would get externally from contamination, or get it on your body, in your body, so internal</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">evaluation.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I was primarily interested in keeping the environment clean, which was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd I have to mention Herb Parker</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because he </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was really the father of the radiation protection, radiation safety here at the site. And Herb called me</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">up one day</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">this was in the early '70s</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and said, I've got an opportunity for you. I think that you would make an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">excellent candidate to make this move.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I said, well, I wasn't interested in moving. Well, he says, I think you should come over to my office and let's</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">chat. Well, he had a job in an environmental organization called Radiation Management Corporation. He was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">consultant to them, and they were in Philadelphia. And I'd always lived all my life on the west coast, so I wasn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">very enthused.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I went, I listened. He sent me back for an interview. I went in December, just about this time, a horrible time to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">go back there. It was crummy weather. It was wet, dark, I couldn't see anything. But it was a little company, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they were about to grow with the nuclear industry to supply environmental monitoring support for the nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">power reactors up and down the east coast.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I turned them down. But two years later I got another call and says, gosh, we really need you, and here's an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity. You better come. So by '74 I did take advantage, moved back there. And then I think it was Jimmy</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Carter that desired not to reprocess any fuel, and so the nuclear industry, the nuclear power industry dropped off</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, at least began its diminished increased places, increased sites, increased utilities going with nuclear.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> So that led to the need—w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">e had too many people, grew fast, but then</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd matter of fact, my original boss here,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Bob </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Junkins</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">by name, hired me in '67, and I worked with him for almost two years before I moved to the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">environmental. I was in the criticality safety, nuclear safety business in that time. And my whole role was to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">develop a criticality safety manual that we could use to audit and evaluate the users of nuclear material here on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the site—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Battelle's portion of the site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that led me</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">then, with that environmental interest, I moved into the environmental monitoring portion in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">late '60s. And that's what set me up for that. I went to Philadelphia, but I had to go find something else. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">unfortunately, in that time period, I also got divorced back there in Philadelphia. And my children moved back to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the west coast, to Bainb</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ridge</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Island.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So it was now, where do I go?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Fortunately</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> there </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ere lots of jobs. I didn't have any problem finding a job. But I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">chose to go back to Livermore because I was familiar with the territory and the people. And so I went back there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But it was only a couple of years, because I met a gal that I had dated in high school. And she ran into my sister,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and my sister gave me an address. I wrote to her, and she called me up and says, what are you doing for</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Christmas? I said, I'm taking the train to go see my kids. Well, why don't you stop here and see me on the way in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Salem? And we both went to Willamette University. That was where our degrees were from. And I'm still married</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to her today, 35 years. And we've had a great time here at Hanford.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">When I did retire, I moved</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, I helped</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because she was Vice President of United Way. And so I took on the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">role of the listener as the United Way representative volunteer at the Reemployment Opportunity Center. This was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">1995, when we had some 5,000 layoffs. I was part of that, only I wasn't a layoff. I took a voluntary retirement,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">early retirement.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And through that I discovered that there were other positions available on the site, and Bechtel Hanford had come</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in as the environmental restoration contractor. And golly, I was involved in all that sort of stuff. So it was a perfect</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity to send a note</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I knew the head of the department from my health physics background and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">membership</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and was offered that opportunity to go to work for them. So I spend another eight years with them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then to finish my career, so to speak, I retired from them in '06, and then I got a call from Battelle, said, we're</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">doing all these calculating the radiation risks of former atomic energy workers, and we really need some help.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Could you do this for us? And that was nice because I did it at home. I would come to meetings with Battelle. And</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">one of my close friends, the two of us kind of worked together, which was great, because we were working at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">home. I had to buy a new computer and all that because I needed access to much more sophisticated equipment</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">than I had, because I was just a little email and that sort of thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">My exciting things that happened here, my work </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the nuclear—criticality safety—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that was one of my first papers,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">major papers, because while I was at Livermore I studied the transuranics, which meant the materials that were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">heavier than uranium, uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> curium</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> and so on up the chain.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I got very familiar because I was working with a group of chemists in California as their radiation safety</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">person, where they were trying to come up with these heavier elements. And so I got to know most of that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">material. And when I got up here and the criticality safety, because that was a concern too. We knew that some of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these materials could go critical with the right conditions.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that gave me an opportunity to use that background that I had in knowing these materials, and then to put</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">together, really, a summary. I evaluated the fire safety aspect, the e</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">xplosion aspects, the radiation—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nternal as well</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">as external—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">aspects. So that was one of my real highlights. And that came right at a time when I took the exam to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">become certified in health physics.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The next the set of the exciting things were the working with the environmental, where I got involved with nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">power reactors and in helping develop criteria for their environmental monitoring programs. You see, we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from Atomic Energy Commission, AEC, to ERDA, Energy Research and Development Administration. That was in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">'74. And then we became the Department of Energy, and that was about '77, '78.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I went through that period, so I was working for all three agencies, so to speak, just because one followed the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">other. I think my document that we finally issued on how to use environmental monitoring</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that is, what</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">techniques and so on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were recommended by what was called ERDA at that time, but became the DOE position</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">for all the sites.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And the way we handled that was, we we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nt out as teams and visited Oak R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge and Savannah River and Chicago.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And we even went to some of the power reactors, or the early</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not so much power, but the early development</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">reactors, Idaho, testing, and checking out how they were doing things so that we could then look at a composite</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and gather the folks. We held a couple of workshops where we brought in folks from all these other sites and said,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you know, here's what we see that ought to be the basic criteria. So that was a great opportunity to explore and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">see other sites.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So I visited many of the DOE sites, Los Alamos and Livermore, as all part of that, too. So I had a wonderful time</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and experience in a whole variety of things, handling these transuranic materials that not a whole lot was known.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And you came to know these things by working with them, working on developing shielding, because these</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">materials also—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not only external radiation but also neutron radiation, which you get primarily from accelerators, or</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from particular radionuclides that do give off neutrons as they fission. And so those were areas to explore and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">develop.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But what a great place to have to have worked, to have had my time, and I really don't want to leave the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">community. We've enjoyed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and my wife, I thought, who really was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">after she finished school at Willamette, she</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">stayed there in Salem and went to work. And she's always been in the social services side of things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And she came here, and she headed up Girl Scouts, she headed up Red Cross, and then got involved with United</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Way. So we ended our careers here, so to speak, but a great place that we have enjoyed. And of course it's far</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">different today than when I came 60 years ago to visit, because the agriculture and all those other things that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">have occurred as part of the site.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">All right. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">That was a wonderful overview. I'd like to back up for just a minute to when your father first came here to start this</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">radio station. I know you said he lived in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Kennewick, but--</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">No, he didn't. It was my father's best buddy. Yeah. They both </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were in Portland radio stations.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Dad, and his name</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was Clarence McCrea</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">dy, but we called him Mac. And he chose to come, and brought us along to come and see.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But Dad refused to come and be a part of the team.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Dean Mitchell's the name I can think of right now. He was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and Dean Mitchell, I t</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hink, is still in the community,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">think he's still </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">alive. And I believe he goes to Kennewick United Methodist Church over there. I hope to see him</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because I'm going to be speaking at that church here in a couple weeks, actually about three weeks, in January.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I know I linked up with him because I had a lot of pictures from all this development of the radio station that my</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">family</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not my own personal family, but our very close family friends. And we only celebrated Easter and Fourth</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of July with his family. So you can see, we would come up here and be up here, and in a good time of the year,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">spring. Summer was hot, but these were occasions. Yeah, so my family never did move up here. But they came to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">visit when I finally settled here in '67.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Visited. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Okay</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. So do you recall any impressions of the community at that time from your visits, what it was like to be here?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, the things I remember</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and even as a graduate student, the rest of the guys</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">there were four of us came</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">together</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">no, three of us. Three of us who had all gone to Willamette together</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">went to UW for our first year, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">then all came here, and then went back to UW to complete that program</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they all lived in Kennewick, but I lived</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">here in Richland. I couldn't pass up the nickel each way bus. And I lived in on Gribble Street, which is now where</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Kadlec</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> has taken over those what were two-story apartments and one-story </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">fourplexes</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that's where I lived that summer in '61. And the bus came right down our street, hopped on for a nickel, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">whether I went out to our areas or the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, because we spent one day a week during that time in the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> in classes in the library, because that was an opportunity for us to learn more about the site, and about the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">profession and the field. So we had people tell us about instrumentation, told us about environment, told us about</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the various things that were related to radiation instrument development, and different kinds of survey</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">instruments, and so on.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that was a nice part, because coming back a few years later</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, I left here in '62, finished my degree, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't come back 'til '67, so I was gone for five years. The bus system was still here, but the rates were different,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and I wasn't using the bus then. And I went to work for Battelle, and my office was in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Federal Building</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. So I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">able to walk to work. And I'm a busser, a walker, and I've been that all my life. I did that in Portland. So it was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">logical step for me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The fact that I could get around</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I was not much of a commercial</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I didn't buy a lot of stuff. And so to this day</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">we're not much consumers. And so it was great. There were a few places. I bowled, you know, I played tennis,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">golfed some,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> took advantage of the things that were available right here. I had a cousin</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">couple of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">cousins still in Baker City, Oregon, so we'd go down for weekends to go down and see them.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And he was a dentist, so he took care of my dental needs early on. But once I settled here with my wife and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">family, it was no longer making those kind of trips for that purpose. We still had the friendship and relationship.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I enjoyed just the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, I guess I wouldn't say I enjoyed the heat, but yet I liked lots of sunshine, and the people.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Enjoyed working with the people. And that was a tough part of retiring. And of course, I took care of part of that by</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">volunteering over at the Reemployment Opportunities Center, which was over in Kennewick. And at that point we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">had moved out to the Village at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Canyon Lakes. It was brand new,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> building that community and retirement.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I thought, well, we'll get in on the ground floor. We'll be there and get acquainted, and so on. But then the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">opportunity with Bechtel, but clear out at the north end of the site. A</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd after two years of that long </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">commute, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">moved back to Richland. But the opportunities here for my interests, and the opportunities on the job, because I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't just stay right here, because I was working for Battelle, and we did a lot of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I suppose you would call it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">contract research because that was Battelle's primary activity. But yet it really took me to visit other sites and to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">see how we could improve what we were doing right here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I thin</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">k that that opportunity—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I didn't have to go somewhere else. Yes, I did interview for jobs along the line,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">along the way during the time. I </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">interviewed at Los Alamos. I interviewed at Rocky Flats and so on. But this was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">home, so to speak. And so it was a g</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ood place to stay. It wasn't—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">30,000 or so population.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And the population of Richland, today I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think it's doubled in all this time. But the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">boundary where Yakima came in to the Columbia there was kind of the southern end of Richland. There was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Richland Y and so on. But I lived essentially all my time within that confines. And of course now there's many</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">homes and developments south, and yet still part of the incorporated portion of Richland. So yes, this was a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">delightful place, and it still is for me.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">We've heard lots of fun stories about card games and checkers games and </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">different kinds of things going </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these buses. Do you have any fun stories?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, yes. I tell you, what I used the bus for was sleeping. Being a newlywed and having all these classes and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">riding the bus every day, I would often take a nap on the way home. And often I'd end up at the end of the bus.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Rather than getting off at my stop, I would discover, oh, I missed the stop, so I got a little walk in.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> yeah, there were card games on the buses. I was not a bridge player</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, and that was one of the—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I played at pinnacle and hearts. And we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">played on the job. My goodness, we kept our scores on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the blackboard in the office. Yeah, w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">e played hearts. And there</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were other games, I'm sure, but that's what I remember the most. And I remember, also, we were conscious of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">our walking hour, keeping track of our weight and all. So we would walk over</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">after lunch we'd walk over and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">check our weight at the medical, go weigh on the scales.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I was never a smoker, but one of the guys in the group, even the leader, was a heavy smoker. But one of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">guys who was roughly my age</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and matter of fact, he went back to grad school, and that opened the door for me</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to step in and take his job in the environmental in the late '60s. So that was ideal. And that was another thing. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were paying attention to those things that now the society is beginning to look at. So we looked for those kinds of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I think the working environment was great. In my later years here, before I left Battelle, it was altogether different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because now the opportunities within Battelle were more in the research ar</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ena. And that wasn't my forte, i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">t was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not my capabilities, not my interest, in going out and trying to obtain contracts and so on. So I found it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and that's</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">when the opportunity to retire early, I just took advantage of it. My wife had a good job, and so she became my</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">sugar mama to take care of me, take care of us. And we had no children living here. Our children were all grown</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">by then. And so our needs were different.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I missed the people. But yet I was interacting every day, because I was there usually half a day. But some</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">days I'd be there all day. And I kept the hot water hot so I could make cocoa, or soups, or whatever people who</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were coming to find jobs and to look. We did mock interviews and all that sort of thing. So it was a continuation of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that people interaction that I really enjoyed.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And of course, when one does retire, a number of my friends have said the same thing. And yet today I don't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">know how I have time to work, because I'm plenty involved in the community. And so that's part of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">my wife and I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">joined the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Gideons</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, and so that's been one of our maj</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">or activities in our retirement,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> that we've served as</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">presidents of the local camps on a geographic basis, and also area directors. And we have a state convention</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">coming up this next spring, so we're heavily involved in that. So we have enjoyed that aspect of life here.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And we have a daughter in Olympia, and we have a son</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, a daughter and family in Olympia and same in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Portland. Otherwise the kids are south of Eugene and Cottage Grove, and then a son and family in Albuquerque.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Neither of the sons</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">b</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">oth have PhDs—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and neither are involved in the nuclear business. Both of them engineers.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">One basically what I would call a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, one's a civi</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">l engineer with water interests.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> And</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> other is involved in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">materials engineering, works for Ball Aerospace, so has a lot of involvement in things that I might have had an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involvement in, but not from the nuclear standpoint.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham:</span> Yeah, the things I remember</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—l</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ike I say, we had activities with other </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">families</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> right here. We were involved in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">church. We got involved in the church. I'</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">m in a different church today, b</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ut that's where we raised our kids. So it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was a good community environment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">In terms of what else did I do, well, I think I mentioned I had the children, and we did things with them. We</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">camped. And I wasn't a fisherman or a hunter, so those things weren't part of my interests here in the community.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I remember we would do the sledding and so on when the conditions were right, the snow and Carmichael</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Hill, because we lived not far from there, we'd walk over there, and swimming pool.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Back in the very early days</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and let me go back to that for just a moment. Because when we came, McNary Dam</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">wasn't here. So we had to take a ferry to cross from or Oregon to Washington, or we had to take the Bridge of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Gods back</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> 40 miles out of Portland, and then take that route. And we'd usually come over </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Satus</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Pass and come</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">into Kennewick that way. Today you can take Highway 12 and 14 in all the way to Vancouver on the Oregon side--I mean, on the Washington side, excuse me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that was interesting because this was a free-flowing river. There weren't any dams in that area. And so riding</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that ferry in a fairly narrow portion of the river was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and these are one- or two-car type ferries. I mean, this wasn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a big ferry like you see out of Puget Sound. And it was difficult to reach the shore. Sometimes you'd get close and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you'd have to back up and try again.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then I watched all the highways come in over the Horse Heavens. Because it used to be you could stay on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the Oregon side and come around through Walla Walla that way. So it was a whole different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and it took longer.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The roads weren't as nice. And so I watched the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">several times they've rebuilt the highway over the Horse</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Heavens.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Because we have family in Portland, we go down there every month or two with grandkids. They're about to finish</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, the last one is in his senior year in high school, and the other's in college. And all the rest of our grandkids,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">except the ones in Albuquerque, are all over 21. So our involvement with them is a lot different than when they</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were younger.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So yeah, it was a different place just because of the getting around. And we didn't have a public transit. We didn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">have</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">n those early days right here. But we had the Hanford buses. And you can see the one down there by the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">Crehs</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">t</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Museum. And that's what I rode much of the time, up until when I chose my work with Battelle. By then,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">going out on the site, it was about $50 a month to ride the bus then. It was more expensive.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then I did go through some periods of spending time out on the site, where I'd spend a couple weeks for</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">some activity, work-related, and I would end up being able to take a government car. And I worked in the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Federal Building</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, so it was convenient. We had a motor pool there.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that’s some of the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">background. I don't know if there's other things that you were hoping to talk about, or remind me of.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I think I just have couple more questions. One thing I wonder if you could talk about, obviously much of your</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">career at Hanford spans the Cold War period.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: Mm-hm.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> So of course security was a very important concern. Can you talk a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">little bit about how that impacted your career?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, it certainly did. And I was fortunate in the sense that I had the Atomic Energy Commission fellowship. In</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">order to get that and apply it at the University of Washington, I had to get security clearance. So I was cleared,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and that happened when I went to Livermore.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Right after I finished grad school, I arrived at Livermore. And because I had a clearance, I was assigned those</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">facilities to be radiation safety person. I know that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> you know the name Ron Kathren</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, or have come across Ron</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> Kathren. And Ron Kathren</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> became my officemate there. He didn't have the clearance. So I got to be in places</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">work things that he wasn't able to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">w</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ell, he was eventually,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I mean, he got the clearance also.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And of course, late in my career</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">like when I went to Philadelphia, I didn't need a clearance back there. And when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I came back, yes, I had to get my clearance re-instituted in Livermore, because Livermore is still very much</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved with weaponry, or at least the development of materials. And so yes, clearance. But fortunately, I didn't</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">have an issue, and because I had had it really at the beginning when I went to grad school, that didn't impact me.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And some of my site visits at Oak</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I had to have special clearance to get into some of the places. One of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things I didn't mention, and I should, I got involved in the decommissioning. And of course, that was the activity</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">with Bechtel Hanford. But the other thing I got involved in was what we call development of an emergency</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">assessment resource manual. We called it HEARM, and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> they called—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">because I was working with some gals, too, that was my</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">harem. But it was Hanford Emergency Assessment Resource Manual.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, our sponsor at DOE headquarters began to see the utility of that at some of the other DOE sites. So we went</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to Livermore, we wen</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">t to Los Alamos, we went to Oak R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge, we went to Savannah River. We developed those</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">same manuals for these other sites. And basically what it was </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span class="SpellingError SCX251492516">was</span></span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> an identification of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a safety assessment.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And DOE was forcing all to look at the safety of their business. And if something went wrong, how bad could it be?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that's what this manual was, was to identify the facilities and the materials. It was structured originally about</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">radiation, but it became clear that there were also hazardous chemicals and other materials that needed to be of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">concern. And if they had an explosion, if they had a venting, they had a situation, where would that stuff go?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So we developed this. We looked at site boundaries. How far to the site boundary, in what directions, look at wind</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">speeds, all of that. So we combined all of that into a manual so that we could use that here at Hanford, call</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Unified Dose Assessment Center, UDAC.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that provided a tool so when an emergency occurred, we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> knew we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> had an indication of how bad it could be. We could</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">flip to the page that was Building XYZ, and we could say, ah, this really is not likely to be any kind of an issue. Or</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">just the opposite, that it was an ABC, it was the top priority, the most hazardous materials on the site handled in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that building. And what were the projected, from the safety assessments, for the actual use of those facilities?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so that was an exciting kind of thing, because we got into sites where they had more security need than what</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I had to do for those. And so yes, we got into those. Matter of fact, some of the materials that we developed were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">basically classified information on how much material is in this building, where is this building relative to the site,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and so on. So those kind of things we had to tone down, we had to talk about and find ways. And they became,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">essentially, not top secret, but at least they were less.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so we provided not only these manuals for right here, but also DOE headquarters got the same copies. So</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">whenever something was going wrong, they're evaluating what's happening out here, or from Livermore, or from</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Sandy, or Savannah River, or one of the other sites.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So yes,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> that was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the emergency management aspect. And Battelle, that was one of the things that I moved from that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">development into working with the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Battelle had a contract for the 60 nuclear power plants to do emergency</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">exercises. And I even got involved with my wife with the Red Cross, because Red Cross would get involved in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">emergency exercises, especially for the supply system here. And I remember Mesa School was the first one.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I got a couple of my health physics buddies, and we </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">would go and be the consultants. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ecause the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">farmers would come in and say, well, what should I do? My cows are out there on this potentially contaminated</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ground. What do I need to do? This was just</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">these were what-if type exercises. So that was an aspect I guess I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">just had passed over and forgotten all about. So even had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">n involvement with my wife </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">indirectly because of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So with these nuclear sites, I got involved as an evaluator to go out either for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">or DOE, and evaluate these exercises. So I was involved not in developing those exercises, but evaluating and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">being there on site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And also, as </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a result, I got to go to the Kennedy Space Center and involved in a couple of spacecraft launches</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that had nuclear materials. And so that was exciting, paid to go. And also got involved in many cancellations. You</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">know, weather didn't turn out right, we'd get thunderstorms or a rain, and you'd have to wait it out for a few more</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">days. Those sort of things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Galileo, I think, was the one major one that we were sending heat sources, radioactive sources into space, so if</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they were to have</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> aborted</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">not for reentry, but on the launch, that's why we were there, to take air samples,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you know, we were teams spread out. So there's another aspect I'd forgotten about.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Very cool. You had this</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> multiplicity of great jobs, it sounds like, throughout the course of your career here. Is there anything</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that stands out as being the most challenging or the most rewarding?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, I think the challenge came later in the career when</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">as I mentioned, that Battelle was going off in a research</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">wing, and that wasn't where my expertise and my capabiliti</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">es were. And so a challenge to—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">f I'm not going to stick</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">around, what am I going to do? B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ecause nuclear power was obviously diminishing with time, especially when you</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">get up in the 90s, and so on.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that became one of the challenges, if I were to retire, what would I do? I </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was young enough, late '50s</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">, I didn't need to retire that early. And the other side, the side as I shared, I think sort of the three or four</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">major things that I was involved in that I very much enjoyed, one</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and I haven't shared this directly</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved with Joe Soledad.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I don't know whether you've interviewed Joe, but I know Joe's been interviewed. I just don't know who were</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved. But Joe was developing all the criteria to evaluate all these radionuclides that had been released here in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Hanford, had been released at other sites, or could be</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">weren't necessarily all released, but I mean, if they got</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">into the environment and got into people, what kind of doses could those--Well, I was involved with Joe as my mentor. I developed the numbers that went in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—i</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">n other words, I looked at the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">decay schemes of each of those radionuclides and then built the numbers that would go into the equations. I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">didn't develop the equations for how much got into the human body, but I developed if you had radioiodine, or you</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">had strontium, or you had cesium, or you had plutonium, what could that mean inside the body?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so that was a great opportunity that I had developi</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ng those, because those became—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd still used today—a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ll</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that environmental pathway stuff that Joe had developed is still in use today, used by the EPA, the Nuclear</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Regulatory Commission.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Yeah, they've added more materials and modified things a bit. But the modifications are more related to, now,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">more knowledge about some of those decay schemes and so on, but that impact. So that was one of the exciting</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">The criticality safety manual. I get the manual done, and I got to move on to something else, because once you've</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">developed the manual, unless you're using it</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">yes, I was. I was out evaluating criticality safety. I was auditing,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">basically. Oh, t</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hat was, yeah, I could do it, but it was more fun to go out and get involved in the environmental</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">monitoring, choosing which sample, where to sample, what to analyze those samples for, and then write the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">report to show what this means impact-wise for the site.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Going from there, then, into developing what should an environmental monitoring program look like, either for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nuclear power plant or a place like Hanford. That wa</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">s that exciting and thrilling, a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">nd I felt I made a contribution.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And then to jump over into, now you understand that stuff, and now relate that to emergency preparedness and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">evaluating emergency preparedness. Did you take into account?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I will have to say, because I was involved in a course, and I've forgotten what the course was called, but it was at</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the Nevada test site. And we were there--and I think it was only Hanford person there at the time. That's when I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">was involved in emergency preparedness.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And this was a course to really walk us through scenarios and situations, and see the mistakes we could make.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">We could walk over a wire on the ground that we shouldn't have because it was live, or could've been live, and not</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">recognizing that. You're taking </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">an action for what you see in front of you, but then missing out on something that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you shouldn't have done as part of that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And that became part of our evaluation, when we looked at mistakes they would make, not take an air sample, or</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">take it where it shouldn't have been. You should have taken it over here instead of over there, you know, those</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">kind of things. So was able to use all that background and material that I had had as part of my career.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I feel like, yes, had I started over today, I think I would've probably gone the environmental, but more from an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">atmospheric and understanding weather. That was an interest as a kid. I've watched</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">this is before television</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and I would pay attention to the thermometer and what was going on. Is it going to snow tomorrow, or that kind of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">thing.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But otherwise, no, it was great. And the courses and the opportunities afforded by this diverse kind of a field, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">when I came, and when I was a health physicist, I didn't k</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">now what a health physicist was, but</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I think I have a pretty</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">good idea today.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So obviously, a lot of my students n</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ow were born after the Cold War.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: Right.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: They</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> don't really understand that time period.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Is there anything you'd like for future generations who may be watching this video to know about what it was like</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to work during that time period and contribute to that effort?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, obviously, one of the things, being here in Hanford, was because we had all these reactors operating, which</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">meant that there was always contamination going into the river, contamination going into the ground.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Reprocessing was occurring</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> but was stopped at a time period. So then we had to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and of course, today we still</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hear about whether it's from the west side or else around the country. Even our own family ask questions. What</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">about the leaking tanks? What does that mean? And from my perspective, I have an idea what that means.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I think I look at it in a lot different mindset, because I know that yes, it's of concern, and it should be. But on</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the other hand, it's not going to kill me. It's not going to give me a dose that I won't want to stay here, I won't want</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">to live here. And because, like I said, in the older days, when all the reactors were operating and so on, we had a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">lot more radioactivity to deal with.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But Joe's equation</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Joe Soledad</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">those pathway formulas and equations and so on that we used, we proved</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">with that that hey, yes, there is material out there. It's of low consequence to you and me as residents of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">community. And I think that that was probably a kind of thing that we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the scientists, let's say, the science side</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">were not very successful in communicating that to the public.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I don't think we are today. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ecause I can remember one of my daughter's friends, when they had the different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">kinds of sweeteners, and they would say no, we're going to cut those off. And so when her dad worked in the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">grocery business, he could bring that stuff home, and no, I don't think we want to use that. Again, uninformed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">about those kind of things</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">. And I think that's the aspect—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that we get a bug, a thought of what an impact could be,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">and yet we don't know the whole story. And I know I tried, but on the other hand, that wasn't my role particularly.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I was aware.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I think that, looking today, we look at so many more things today in terms of hurtful environmental impact</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">kinds of things. I'm thinking just the environmental movement, if you will, because our daughter-in-law is very</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">much involved there, and her daughter is now in college and looking in that same arena. The other daughter-in</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">-</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">law</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">down in New </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Mexico, that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> was one of her areas of interest. And she studied bugs and insects and that sort</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of thing. Today she's not using that, because she's really into health and doing private yoga and exercise training.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But the Cold War meant that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">well, that's where it was nice when I got to go the other sites, because that allowed</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">me to kind of see, and to put all this together as </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">an </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">understanding</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> the whole package, and not just what's happening</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">in Han</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ford or what's happening at Oak R</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">idge or whatever, to be able to realize that probably some choices</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">mean, </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">making the choice here</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> of </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Hanford, I think, was a wonderful choice. Choosing this remote location</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">it's not so</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">remote today, but I think it was an excellent</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">from all the material, all the information we knew at the time.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And yet places like Savannah River, where you've got all kinds of groundwater and all kinds of those kind of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">issues, maybe that wasn't such a good place, where the ability of stuff to move would be greater than a place like</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">this. And I think what we saw, and what I remember just f</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">rom the public, my own families—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">our own families would</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ask questions, which was very reasonable.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I think the understanding</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—and </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">we've been watching</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I'm digressing for a second, but we've been</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">watching the P</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">residential wives series on television, so we're going back over the history and seeing some of the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">things that were going on as this whole business developed in our lifetime, things that we didn't realize, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">some was top secret, not shared. And of course, I was perfectly happy to work in a closed environment, where</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you didn't share everything you did.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">For someone tod</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ay, I think that the question</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> aspect of business, and for the future, is always question what</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">you're doing, how can it impact the environment, how can it impact people, how can it impact you yourself?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Cellphones, all kinds of things that we use and are in use daily, but do we really know what the long-term impacts</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">of these devices are? I think for the moment we feel quite certain t</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">hat we're not creating monster issues that become-- </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">But I like the environmental movement, because I kind of put my life together around that, an interest in seeing</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">that we're doing the right things to keep us safe, and yet not say, you can't do that.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And of course, the environmental impact statement business. I was involved partly in that too, in helping develop</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">those. I guess my last one that I was involved in was in Tennessee, for the Tennessee Valley Authority, because</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">they were going wide with lots of nuclear. And that was in the '90s, as I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> recall, when I went down there and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to tell us about? Any other stories that stand out?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, of course, we did have accidents. We had things that</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">yeah, I got involved in a cleanup in the 3</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">00 Area</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">,</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">where an underground pipe had broken. And this was americium, was a principal nuclide that had gotten into the</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ground. And </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">we ended up digging that all up. B</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ut just chasing it, deciding where to sample, and digging up and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">then discovering, oh, the pipe is all corroded. So yes, everything that went down that drain.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so those kinds of things, I really enjoyed those, because you were evaluating a condition that was really an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">unknown. And I think that's part of what the environmental restoration contract</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the Bechtel work that I was</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">involved in, we were doing some of that, too, because we were making measurements and then determining, did</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">those measurements give us what we need to know so that we can take the appropriate steps for remediation?</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And so I think that aspect, so to speak, of research piece might have been</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">if I were to start again, I might be</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">more interested in research. But at the time, I was more interested in what we need to know so that we can take</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">the right steps to move forward.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I think that those are my observations. I was an enthusiastic worker. I just loved the opportunity and the people to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">work with. And we did a lot of group things. You know, I can remember bac</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">k in the old days, Ron Kathren</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> and I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">would have an equation on the blackboard we were trying to solve, and then leave it up there for a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">while with</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">getting more information to make things fit. You took the information you had.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">And I was successful, probably published about, I don't know, 50 different papers in Health Physics Journal. And I</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">also was involved in the Society for Radiological Protection in the British Isles. I gave two different presentations</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">over there in the '80s and '90s, which is always nice to go and experience others. I had even looked at that as a</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">possible exchange.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: And as a result of those visits, I got invited to go to the Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and work on an</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">environmental plan with folks from all over the world. And we had interpreters, because we had Russians, and we</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">had Canadians, and we had French and Germans. And so</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> on—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">all that was nice. And they paid my way, and I got to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">spend</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">--</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">matter of fact, I made two trips in the same year on that activity. I had a third one, but the Department of</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Energy wouldn't allow me to go on the third one.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">So that adds to your enjoyment, your understanding and working with people who have come from different</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">places, and yet have similar issues and proble</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">ms, and how are you addressing—</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">especially when we're trying to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">write a manual, an international manual that would be used wherever, in developing countries as well as</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">advanced countries and so on, to protect people in the environment.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Is there anything else at all?</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Not that's coming to me at this point. </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">[LAUGHTER] </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">I'm just delighted to have had this opportunity to share with you, even though</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">it's </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">very</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> uncoordinated.</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> [LAUGHTER]</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> I certainly rambled.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">No, that was wonderful. You gave us some great detail</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">s. That’s always</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> exciting for us to hear about. And I want to</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">thank you so much for sharing with us. We really appreciate you taking time out.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">Well, Laura, it was a pleasure sharing with you and getting to know you. I wish you well in your</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">—</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Arata</span>: Thank you.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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<p class="Paragraph SCX251492516"><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Denham</span>: --</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">future work and</span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516"> </span><span class="TextRun SCX251492516">finishing your PhD. I never got there.</span><span class="EOP SCX251492516"> </span></p>
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Location
The location of the interview
Washington State University - Tri-Cities
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:06:42
Bit Rate/Frequency
Rate at which bits are transferred (i.e. 96 kbit/s would be FM quality audio)
5261 kbps
Hanford Sites
Any sites on the Hanford site mentioned in the interview
300 area.
Bechtel Hanford
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Date range for the interview subject's experience in and around the Hanford site
1947-2013
Years on Hanford Site
Years on the Hanford Site, if any.
1961-1995
Names Mentioned
Any named mentioned (with any significance) from the local community.
Parker, Herb
Kathren, Ron
Soldat, Joe
Carter, Jimmy
Junkins, Bob
McCreedy, Clarence
Mitchell, Dean
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 Dale Denham
Description
An account of the resource
An interview with Dale Denham 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
12/12/2013
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
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video/mp4
Date Modified
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2016-05-24: Metadata v1 created – [J.G]
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Nuclear weapons plants--Waste disposal--Environmental aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site.
Nuclear instruments & methods
Richland (Wash.)
Kennewick (Wash.)
300 Area
Battelle (Wash.)
Bechtel Hanford
Kennewick (Wash.)
Livermore
Los Alamos
Oakridge
Richland (Wash.)
Savannah River