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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
A name given to the resource
Interview with Maynard Plahuta
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Subject
The topic of the resource
Richland (Wash.)
Pasco (Wash.)
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
4/28/2016
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Those interested in reproducing part or all of this oral history should contact the Hanford History Project at ourhanfordhistory@tricity.wsu.edu, who can provide specific rights information for this item.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
video/mp4
Date Modified
Date on which the resource was changed.
2016-08-16: Metadata v1 created – [J.G.]
Provenance
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of the resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation. The statement may include a description of any changes successive custodians made to the resource.
The Hanford Oral History Project operates under a sub-contract from Mission Support Alliance (MSA), who are the primary contractors for the US Department of Energy's curatorial services relating to the Hanford site. This oral history project became a part of the Hanford History Project in 2015, and continues to add to this US Department of Energy collection.
Atomic Energy Commission
Atomic Heritage Foundation
B Reactor
B Reactor Museum Association (BRMA)
Battelle (Wash.)
Energy Communities Alliance (ECA)
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
General Electric
Hanford (Wash.)
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Mission Support Alliance
Nuclear weapons plants--Health aspects--Washington (State)--Hanford Site Region
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Pasco (Wash.)
Richland (Wash.)
Volpentest, Sam, 1904-2005