Interview with Sandra Paine
Dublin Core
Title
Interview with Sandra Paine
Subject
Hanford Site (Wash.)
Description
Sandra Paine talks about her time working in the Tank Farms as a Nuclear Chemical Operator. She reflects on the changes that have happened and the pleasant memories while working at the Hanford site.
Creator
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities
Publisher
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities.
Date
07/05/2017
Rights
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
video/mp4
Provenance
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 the US Department of Energy collection.
Oral History Item Type Metadata
Interviewer
Robert Franklin
Interviewee
Sandra Paine
Location
Washington State University Tri-Cities
Transcription
0:00:00 Tom Hungate: I’m ready.
Robert Franklin: Ready? Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Sandra Paine on July 5, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Sandra about her experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?
Sandra Paine: Sandra Lee Paine. P-A-I-N-E. Sandra, S-A-N-D-R-A, Lee, L-E-E.
Franklin: Great, thank you so much, Sandra. So tell me, how and why did you come to the area to work for the Hanford Site?
Paine: Well, I was born and raised here, and I went out to CBC. When I was—after my three boys got into school age, and I knew they were going to be growing up and I’m going to be bored staying home. So I happened to go out and take a test and they sent me to school. Because I went out there and took the nuclear chemical operator classes.
Franklin: Oh, really?
Paine: Yeah.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
0:01:11 Paine: And when I graduated from that, I turned in my resume, and I was hired right away.
Franklin: Wow, and what was it about nuclear chemical operating that made you want to join that field?
Paine: Well, my ex-husband worked out at Hanford. And he was a nuclear chemical operator at that time.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So you figured if he could do it, you could do it?
Paine: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: I’m sure it probably pays--
Paine: Oh, yeah.
Franklin: Were you supporting your three children on your own then?
Paine: No. No. Not then.
Franklin: Oh, okay. You were remarried.
Paine: I was married at the time.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And when you say you were born and raised here, where were you born?
Paine: I was born right here in Pasco on North 8th and Sylvester Street.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Paine: Second house in, big old square white house, two-story house. My mom ran kind of a boarding room upstairs; she rented out the rooms upstairs.
Franklin: Oh, really? How long did she do that for?
0:02:13 Paine: Oh, god, quite a few years, till I was married and gone. I was adopted into the family, so I was adopted when I was two years old.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Paine: To Virgil Lamb and Lara Lamb. They adopted me.
Franklin: Okay. And did your mother run the boarding house--do you know what years or--
Paine: Oh, from the time I was about--well, when I was adopted in, she was running a boarding house upstairs.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So you turned in your resume to Hanford, and which contractor did you end up working for?
Paine: CH2M Hill.
Franklin: CH2M Hill, okay. So you said you were hired right away. So where did you go to work, right off the bat?
Paine: PUREX.
Franklin: PUREX. What did you do at PUREX?
0:03:14 Paine: Well, I worked on the line and didn’t like that. So I got a chance to do surveillance in the building, going around checking all the fire extinguishers and checking out places that most people didn’t normally get to go. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Such as?
Paine: As the tunnels. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Oh, okay. You mean the tunnels that were recently in the news?
Paine: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
Paine: They were there then.
Franklin: Yeah, because they were built in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Paine: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Franklin: I’m wondering if you could describe what that was like to go in that abandoned tunnel, or that place.
Paine: Well, it really wasn’t abandoned then. There was stuff going on in there.
Franklin: Oh, so people were putting material in there?
Paine: Yeah.
Franklin: And what did it—were there lights in there, or how much room did you have to move around in those tunnels?
0:04:14 Paine: Well, you wore a headlight and carried a flashlight and stuff. There were lights in some areas.
Franklin: What kind of protective gear did you wear to go inside the tunnel?
Paine: Usually a pair of white coveralls and that’s it.
Franklin: And that was it?
Paine: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: Wow.
Paine: Back then, it wasn’t required to wear a mask or anything, till later.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And what year did you start at PUREX?
Paine: 1980.
David Chambers: 1990.
Paine: 1990, yeah, 1990.
Franklin: 1990, okay. Great. So that sounds really, really interesting to kind of get to go around--so you said you kind of--sounds like you did some mundane things like check fire extinguishers, but you also--what other types of places did you get to go that other folks who worked out there may not have gotten into?
0:05:22 Paine: Well, I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted to. It depended on what kind of clearance you had, where you could go.
Franklin: And what kind of clearance did you have?
Paine: Well, I don’t know, it was, whatever was needed for the job. I can’t remember what they call them.
Franklin: Sure, no, no, no, no problem.
Paine: You get COPD, you get problems remembering.
Franklin: Sure, no, I completely understand. How long did you do this kind of maintenance job out there?
Paine: Well, I preferred doing that than working on the line, so I did surveillance all the time.
Franklin: Okay. And then how many years did you do surveillance for?
Paine: Oh.
Chambers: Probably two or three, and then you went—you finally ended up at the Tank Farms.
0:06:21 Paine: Yeah, two or three and then went to Tank Farms.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Paine: Worked on the drill rigs.
Franklin: Worked on what?
Paine: Drill rigs, which we took 19-inch core samples out of all the waste tanks out there.
Franklin: Oh, wow. Can you describe how that was done?
0:06:37 Paine: Well, you had a big old truck that you backed up there that had a pipe going down, that just actually drilled down to the waste. But we sent a sampler down in there that it filled the sampler, and then we’d have to pull the sampler out and put it in a cask to be sent to the lab.
Franklin: Okay. And so that was to test the different composition of the tanks?
Paine: The type of waste that was in it, and that type of--yeah. How radioactive it was and how--because they put different layers of different waste in there.
Franklin; Yes, yes, they did, yeah. What made you decide to go do that work?
Paine: Well, I liked to be outside. I didn’t want to be closed up in a building. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Okay. Yeah, I mean, I guess you would get plenty of outside. The tanks are all outside. Did--sorry, excuse me. Did you enjoy the Tank Farms work?
Paine: Yeah, I liked working out there, yeah.
Franklin: Yeah? Were there any challenges? Were there any tanks that were more challenging than others?
0:07:55 Paine: Oh, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Bringing up higher radioactive waste that you had to really be careful. Put lead blankets and stuff around to keep--so HPTs kept us on our toes while it was coming up.
Franklin: Who did?
Paine: HPTs.
Franklin: What’s an HPT?
Paine: Hazardous--monitors. People that monitored the waste, you know. The radioactivity.
Chambers: That was a radiation monitor.
Paine: Yeah, radiation monitors.
Franklin: And what kind of protective gear did you wear when you were working out at the Tank Farms?
0:08:36 Paine: Well, depends on what type of job you were doing. Sometimes you were in one pair of whites, sometimes you were in two pairs of whites. Sometimes you were in plastic lead-lined clothing on.
Franklin: Mm. Did you feel that out at the Tank Farms that the protection was adequate for the job you were being asked to do?
Paine: Yeah. [UNKNOWN] It doesn’t matter if you’re even outside the Tank Farms then you’re going to get the radiation, you know? Whether you--just because you don’t get contaminated, the radiation still is--
Chambers: Let me make a comment for you here. Dave Flinger[?] is the one that come up with a really good one on this. Some of the people from the DOE were talking and they were asking about--she said, they said well, those areas are fenced off. And they said, well, yeah, you mean those magical chain link fences stop the fumes from coming through?
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Very true.
Paine: Magical chain link fence.
Franklin: Yeah. What other types of challenges did you find at the Tank Farms?
0:10:19 Paine: Well, I enjoyed my job, so I really took it one step at a time and figured--try to do the best that I could, whatever challenges, it was up to my ability.
Franklin: Sure. And how long did you work out at the Tank Farms for?
David Chambers: You were there probably—probably about 15 years.
Paine: 18 years.
Chambers: 18 years total, about.
Paine: 18 years, yeah.
Chambers: At Tank Farms for 15 of it.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Chambers: And she also--she didn’t tell you, she was responsible for driving the emergency evacuation bus, so she had to take that out every now and then and drive that so if we had an emergency, she’d fill it up and get it out of the Area.
Franklin: Was that when you worked at the Tank Farms, or at PUREX?
Paine: PUREX and I did have Tank Farms.
Franklin: Oh, okay. Was there ever a time when you had to drive the emergency evacuation bus for--
0:11:07 Paine: Oh. No. We had to keep certified on it, so we had to go out and drive it. So we got to go drive around the Hanford Area, you know, where--we had to put so many hours in to keep your license up.
Franklin: Sure, sure. But you never--there was never an emergency where you had to use the bus.
Paine: No, no, never.
Franklin: Well, that’s good. So, 18--so you retired--or you left the Tank Farms in 2008, then?
Paine: Yeah, 2008-2009, yeah.
Franklin: Wow, that’s quite a long time out there. Were there any major changes into the way that the work out there was approached when you started at the Tank Farms versus when you left?
0:12:02 Paine: Well, changes in amount of protection, clothing protection that you wore when they were beginning to get up on it a little bit. But I don’t know, I just enjoyed working out there, and didn’t really pay attention. [LAUGHTER]
Chambers: The pay was good.
Paine: Huh?
Chambers: The pay was really good.
Paine: Yeah, the pay was good. Not many women made 30 bucks an hour at that time. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: No, no, that’s very true. That’s very true. Was that one of the things that you enjoyed the most about working out there, was the compensation?
0:12:43 Paine: Well, no, I enjoyed the company and the people out there, you know, were really nice, and had a lot of good times, too. You know, that’s what—liking the people you work with and the thing you do helps you get up and go to the job every morning.
Franklin: Yeah, it really does. It really does. Did you work with the same people day to day, usually?
Paine: Pretty much.
Franklin: You had kind of a crew that you knew well and depended on?
Paine: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Franklin: I’m wondering if there were any ways that security or secrecy at Hanford affected your work?
0:13:22 Paine: Well, I just never talked about what I did out there. I didn’t want to make a mistake and say something that I shouldn’t, so I just kept my mouth shut. You know? You never know. Might say something that somebody might want to find out more from you. Put you on a--[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Like some pushy history interviewer?
Paine: No. [LAUGHTER] I don’t mind doing it to you now.
Franklin: Oh, thank you. That’s great. So I guess as just a final question, the same reflective question I asked Dennis, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the--well, you didn’t work during the Cold War, but I wonder, how about working at Hanford, dealing with the legacy of the Cold War?
Paine: Yeah, well, it’s a must, that must be done. And the future’s going to depend on it.
Franklin: How so?
0:14:25 Paine: Because we have to keep up with the world, what the world’s doing. They’re developing nuclear stuff and we need more power plants and electricity’s getting higher and higher. You know?
Franklin: I’m wondering, do you feel that we can manage the risks, the waste--
Paine: Yes.
Franklin: --responsibly and effectively?
Paine: I think we can, yes.
Franklin: Yeah?
Paine: Yeah. We need more places like Yucca Mountain. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Okay. Great. Yeah, because it’s not really doing too hot in the tanks, is it?
Paine: Mm-mm.
Franklin: Great. Well, Sandra, thank you so much for coming and talking with us today. It was really interesting to hear about your experiences.
Paine: Well, I hope some of my information helps.
Franklin: Yeah, no, it’s really great to hear about, you know, not only the work, but women doing this kind of work out in the workforce and being a real important part of--and showing that women are capable any job.
Paine: Well, thank you, we had quite a few women on my crew of my graduating class that went to work out there. We worked, a lot of times, together.
Franklin: Oh, that’s great.
Paine: So there were quite a few.
Chambers: Sandra’s got quite bad COPD, too. She started her performance evaluation on June the 10th. And they’ll send her over to a little room to get on a bicycle, too. But the bicycle, evidently, from what I understand is broken. Maybe it’s fixed now. So, she’s waiting for the call to go over there and do that, you know. And then of course, she’s been on hers for four years now, too, to try to get everything resolved.
Franklin: Wow. Well, I hope you get a quick resolution and just compensation.
Paine: Thank you.
Franklin: Okay, well. Thanks to both of you. I really appreciate it.
Robert Franklin: Ready? Okay. My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Sandra Paine on July 5, 2017. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Sandra about her experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for us?
Sandra Paine: Sandra Lee Paine. P-A-I-N-E. Sandra, S-A-N-D-R-A, Lee, L-E-E.
Franklin: Great, thank you so much, Sandra. So tell me, how and why did you come to the area to work for the Hanford Site?
Paine: Well, I was born and raised here, and I went out to CBC. When I was—after my three boys got into school age, and I knew they were going to be growing up and I’m going to be bored staying home. So I happened to go out and take a test and they sent me to school. Because I went out there and took the nuclear chemical operator classes.
Franklin: Oh, really?
Paine: Yeah.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
0:01:11 Paine: And when I graduated from that, I turned in my resume, and I was hired right away.
Franklin: Wow, and what was it about nuclear chemical operating that made you want to join that field?
Paine: Well, my ex-husband worked out at Hanford. And he was a nuclear chemical operator at that time.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So you figured if he could do it, you could do it?
Paine: Yeah. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: I’m sure it probably pays--
Paine: Oh, yeah.
Franklin: Were you supporting your three children on your own then?
Paine: No. No. Not then.
Franklin: Oh, okay. You were remarried.
Paine: I was married at the time.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And when you say you were born and raised here, where were you born?
Paine: I was born right here in Pasco on North 8th and Sylvester Street.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Paine: Second house in, big old square white house, two-story house. My mom ran kind of a boarding room upstairs; she rented out the rooms upstairs.
Franklin: Oh, really? How long did she do that for?
0:02:13 Paine: Oh, god, quite a few years, till I was married and gone. I was adopted into the family, so I was adopted when I was two years old.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Paine: To Virgil Lamb and Lara Lamb. They adopted me.
Franklin: Okay. And did your mother run the boarding house--do you know what years or--
Paine: Oh, from the time I was about--well, when I was adopted in, she was running a boarding house upstairs.
Franklin: Oh, okay. So you turned in your resume to Hanford, and which contractor did you end up working for?
Paine: CH2M Hill.
Franklin: CH2M Hill, okay. So you said you were hired right away. So where did you go to work, right off the bat?
Paine: PUREX.
Franklin: PUREX. What did you do at PUREX?
0:03:14 Paine: Well, I worked on the line and didn’t like that. So I got a chance to do surveillance in the building, going around checking all the fire extinguishers and checking out places that most people didn’t normally get to go. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Such as?
Paine: As the tunnels. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Oh, okay. You mean the tunnels that were recently in the news?
Paine: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
Paine: They were there then.
Franklin: Yeah, because they were built in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Paine: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Franklin: I’m wondering if you could describe what that was like to go in that abandoned tunnel, or that place.
Paine: Well, it really wasn’t abandoned then. There was stuff going on in there.
Franklin: Oh, so people were putting material in there?
Paine: Yeah.
Franklin: And what did it—were there lights in there, or how much room did you have to move around in those tunnels?
0:04:14 Paine: Well, you wore a headlight and carried a flashlight and stuff. There were lights in some areas.
Franklin: What kind of protective gear did you wear to go inside the tunnel?
Paine: Usually a pair of white coveralls and that’s it.
Franklin: And that was it?
Paine: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: Wow.
Paine: Back then, it wasn’t required to wear a mask or anything, till later.
Franklin: Oh, okay. And what year did you start at PUREX?
Paine: 1980.
David Chambers: 1990.
Paine: 1990, yeah, 1990.
Franklin: 1990, okay. Great. So that sounds really, really interesting to kind of get to go around--so you said you kind of--sounds like you did some mundane things like check fire extinguishers, but you also--what other types of places did you get to go that other folks who worked out there may not have gotten into?
0:05:22 Paine: Well, I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted to. It depended on what kind of clearance you had, where you could go.
Franklin: And what kind of clearance did you have?
Paine: Well, I don’t know, it was, whatever was needed for the job. I can’t remember what they call them.
Franklin: Sure, no, no, no, no problem.
Paine: You get COPD, you get problems remembering.
Franklin: Sure, no, I completely understand. How long did you do this kind of maintenance job out there?
Paine: Well, I preferred doing that than working on the line, so I did surveillance all the time.
Franklin: Okay. And then how many years did you do surveillance for?
Paine: Oh.
Chambers: Probably two or three, and then you went—you finally ended up at the Tank Farms.
0:06:21 Paine: Yeah, two or three and then went to Tank Farms.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Paine: Worked on the drill rigs.
Franklin: Worked on what?
Paine: Drill rigs, which we took 19-inch core samples out of all the waste tanks out there.
Franklin: Oh, wow. Can you describe how that was done?
0:06:37 Paine: Well, you had a big old truck that you backed up there that had a pipe going down, that just actually drilled down to the waste. But we sent a sampler down in there that it filled the sampler, and then we’d have to pull the sampler out and put it in a cask to be sent to the lab.
Franklin: Okay. And so that was to test the different composition of the tanks?
Paine: The type of waste that was in it, and that type of--yeah. How radioactive it was and how--because they put different layers of different waste in there.
Franklin; Yes, yes, they did, yeah. What made you decide to go do that work?
Paine: Well, I liked to be outside. I didn’t want to be closed up in a building. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Okay. Yeah, I mean, I guess you would get plenty of outside. The tanks are all outside. Did--sorry, excuse me. Did you enjoy the Tank Farms work?
Paine: Yeah, I liked working out there, yeah.
Franklin: Yeah? Were there any challenges? Were there any tanks that were more challenging than others?
0:07:55 Paine: Oh, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah. Bringing up higher radioactive waste that you had to really be careful. Put lead blankets and stuff around to keep--so HPTs kept us on our toes while it was coming up.
Franklin: Who did?
Paine: HPTs.
Franklin: What’s an HPT?
Paine: Hazardous--monitors. People that monitored the waste, you know. The radioactivity.
Chambers: That was a radiation monitor.
Paine: Yeah, radiation monitors.
Franklin: And what kind of protective gear did you wear when you were working out at the Tank Farms?
0:08:36 Paine: Well, depends on what type of job you were doing. Sometimes you were in one pair of whites, sometimes you were in two pairs of whites. Sometimes you were in plastic lead-lined clothing on.
Franklin: Mm. Did you feel that out at the Tank Farms that the protection was adequate for the job you were being asked to do?
Paine: Yeah. [UNKNOWN] It doesn’t matter if you’re even outside the Tank Farms then you’re going to get the radiation, you know? Whether you--just because you don’t get contaminated, the radiation still is--
Chambers: Let me make a comment for you here. Dave Flinger[?] is the one that come up with a really good one on this. Some of the people from the DOE were talking and they were asking about--she said, they said well, those areas are fenced off. And they said, well, yeah, you mean those magical chain link fences stop the fumes from coming through?
[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Very true.
Paine: Magical chain link fence.
Franklin: Yeah. What other types of challenges did you find at the Tank Farms?
0:10:19 Paine: Well, I enjoyed my job, so I really took it one step at a time and figured--try to do the best that I could, whatever challenges, it was up to my ability.
Franklin: Sure. And how long did you work out at the Tank Farms for?
David Chambers: You were there probably—probably about 15 years.
Paine: 18 years.
Chambers: 18 years total, about.
Paine: 18 years, yeah.
Chambers: At Tank Farms for 15 of it.
Franklin: Oh, okay.
Chambers: And she also--she didn’t tell you, she was responsible for driving the emergency evacuation bus, so she had to take that out every now and then and drive that so if we had an emergency, she’d fill it up and get it out of the Area.
Franklin: Was that when you worked at the Tank Farms, or at PUREX?
Paine: PUREX and I did have Tank Farms.
Franklin: Oh, okay. Was there ever a time when you had to drive the emergency evacuation bus for--
0:11:07 Paine: Oh. No. We had to keep certified on it, so we had to go out and drive it. So we got to go drive around the Hanford Area, you know, where--we had to put so many hours in to keep your license up.
Franklin: Sure, sure. But you never--there was never an emergency where you had to use the bus.
Paine: No, no, never.
Franklin: Well, that’s good. So, 18--so you retired--or you left the Tank Farms in 2008, then?
Paine: Yeah, 2008-2009, yeah.
Franklin: Wow, that’s quite a long time out there. Were there any major changes into the way that the work out there was approached when you started at the Tank Farms versus when you left?
0:12:02 Paine: Well, changes in amount of protection, clothing protection that you wore when they were beginning to get up on it a little bit. But I don’t know, I just enjoyed working out there, and didn’t really pay attention. [LAUGHTER]
Chambers: The pay was good.
Paine: Huh?
Chambers: The pay was really good.
Paine: Yeah, the pay was good. Not many women made 30 bucks an hour at that time. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: No, no, that’s very true. That’s very true. Was that one of the things that you enjoyed the most about working out there, was the compensation?
0:12:43 Paine: Well, no, I enjoyed the company and the people out there, you know, were really nice, and had a lot of good times, too. You know, that’s what—liking the people you work with and the thing you do helps you get up and go to the job every morning.
Franklin: Yeah, it really does. It really does. Did you work with the same people day to day, usually?
Paine: Pretty much.
Franklin: You had kind of a crew that you knew well and depended on?
Paine: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Franklin: I’m wondering if there were any ways that security or secrecy at Hanford affected your work?
0:13:22 Paine: Well, I just never talked about what I did out there. I didn’t want to make a mistake and say something that I shouldn’t, so I just kept my mouth shut. You know? You never know. Might say something that somebody might want to find out more from you. Put you on a--[LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Like some pushy history interviewer?
Paine: No. [LAUGHTER] I don’t mind doing it to you now.
Franklin: Oh, thank you. That’s great. So I guess as just a final question, the same reflective question I asked Dennis, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the--well, you didn’t work during the Cold War, but I wonder, how about working at Hanford, dealing with the legacy of the Cold War?
Paine: Yeah, well, it’s a must, that must be done. And the future’s going to depend on it.
Franklin: How so?
0:14:25 Paine: Because we have to keep up with the world, what the world’s doing. They’re developing nuclear stuff and we need more power plants and electricity’s getting higher and higher. You know?
Franklin: I’m wondering, do you feel that we can manage the risks, the waste--
Paine: Yes.
Franklin: --responsibly and effectively?
Paine: I think we can, yes.
Franklin: Yeah?
Paine: Yeah. We need more places like Yucca Mountain. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Okay. Great. Yeah, because it’s not really doing too hot in the tanks, is it?
Paine: Mm-mm.
Franklin: Great. Well, Sandra, thank you so much for coming and talking with us today. It was really interesting to hear about your experiences.
Paine: Well, I hope some of my information helps.
Franklin: Yeah, no, it’s really great to hear about, you know, not only the work, but women doing this kind of work out in the workforce and being a real important part of--and showing that women are capable any job.
Paine: Well, thank you, we had quite a few women on my crew of my graduating class that went to work out there. We worked, a lot of times, together.
Franklin: Oh, that’s great.
Paine: So there were quite a few.
Chambers: Sandra’s got quite bad COPD, too. She started her performance evaluation on June the 10th. And they’ll send her over to a little room to get on a bicycle, too. But the bicycle, evidently, from what I understand is broken. Maybe it’s fixed now. So, she’s waiting for the call to go over there and do that, you know. And then of course, she’s been on hers for four years now, too, to try to get everything resolved.
Franklin: Wow. Well, I hope you get a quick resolution and just compensation.
Paine: Thank you.
Franklin: Okay, well. Thanks to both of you. I really appreciate it.
Duration
00:16:19
Bit Rate/Frequency
9980 kbps
Hanford Sites
CH2M Hill
PUREX
Tank Farms
PUREX
Tank Farms
Years in Tri-Cities Area
Since birth
Years on Hanford Site
18
Files
Collection
Citation
Hanford Oral History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities, “Interview with Sandra Paine,” Hanford History Project, accessed September 28, 2024, http://hanfordhistory.com/items/show/4963.