Interview with Christina Robison
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0:00:00 Robert Franklin: My name is Robert Franklin. I am conducting an oral history interview with Christina Robison on January 11, 2018. I need to fix that there. The interview is being conducted on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. I’ll be talking with Christina about her experiences working at the Hanford Site. And for the record, can you state and spell your full name for me?
Christina Robison: Yes. Christina Robison. It’s C-H-R-I-S-T-I-N-A. R-O-B-I-S-O-N.
Franklin: Okay, thank you. So, tell me how you came to the Hanford. Tell me how you came to the area, and then how you began work at Hanford.
Robison: Sure. Well, we came from--well, I grew up in California. But we had moved—my mother had remarried and we moved to Huntsville, Alabama, where my stepfather worked for Rockwell International on the space shuttle.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
0:01:00 Robison: Yeah, he was a supervisor on the space shuttle there. His name’s Racy Storm. He’s since passed away. But Rockwell asked him if he’d be interested in transferring. And it’s kind of funny, because they gave him three different states to choose from, and my mother picked Washington to come to, because it had four seasons, was her reasoning behind going. So, I was only 15 at the time. He took the position with Hanford and we moved here to the Yakima area. He started working, you know, right away when we moved here. And then followed by that was my stepbrother, also worked. He worked at the REDOX labs, 222-S labs. And then my sister got a job as a nuclear process operator at the PUREX facility.
Franklin: Oh, wow.
Robison: And following that, probably a year, year-and-a-half after she started working, I graduated from high school and then got my job out at Hanford. So it was kind of a family affair.
Franklin: So what did your father do—or, your stepfather, sorry—do out at Hanford?
0:02:08 Robison: He was an engineer. I couldn’t tell you for sure exactly what kind of engineer, but he was an engineer at Dash-5, at PFP. I know he could—they’d call him in the middle of the night, from what my mother tells me, and he could recite procedures from memory. He would tell them what page to look on, and which section it was. Yeah, he was a pretty smart man. Yeah, so he kind of started, I think, a lot of the family’s careers out at Hanford. And that’s how mine started.
Franklin: Do you know what he did on the space shuttle? Like, I’m just wondering how that experience translated to plutonium processing.
0:02:48 Robison: Well, I don’t know--I probably couldn’t tell you a lot about what he did at the space shuttle. I actually had an opportunity to go look at the space shuttle and actually board the space shuttle, but I was 14, and wasn’t interested. So I missed that opportunity of a lifetime. So, yeah, that was disappointing when I looked back on it. And he told me I would regret it, and I did, and do. [LAUGHTER]
Franklin: Well, you know, hindsight is 20/20. There’s a lot of--when I interview--
Robison: Yeah--
Franklin: Oh, sorry--
Robison: No, well, when you’re young, you just--you don’t realize the significance of something. And I didn’t, and so I didn’t go.
Franklin: Yeah, it’s just a fact of life. So, it was kind of a family--it became a family affair then, that kind of work. And tell me how you got hired on at Hanford.
0:03:39 Robison: Well, I had originally applied for a custodial position. When they actually called me to come to work, the gentleman on the phone--I don’t recall his name--asked if I would be interested in being a D&D worker, and that stands for decontamination and decommissioning. I recall my sister telling me that was a horrible job and not to accept it. But I asked him why, because I had applied for custodial; I had not applied for D&D. And he had told me that they needed their quota of women. And so I accepted. Wanted the job. So I accepted.
Franklin: What led you to accept the job when your sister had warned you about it? And I guess--let me back that up a second. Why did she say it was--do you recall why she said it was such a terrible job?
0:04:32 Robison: Well, D&D—this was in 1983, and D&D then was one of the lowest paid positions on the Hanford Site. It was a relatively new, for lack of better term, new craft. And you had to do some really dangerous work. And a lot of hard work. You know, we, D&D, did a lot of other crafts’ work in radiation zones. So, it was, from her experiences being a nuclear process operator, being one of the crafts out there, you know, the knowledge that she had of D&D, it was just not—it wasn’t one of the top ranking jobs, you know, on the Site. I chose to take it because I wanted my foot in the door. I wanted to work. I was extremely independent person; I still am. I wanted to have a job and move out of Mom and Dad’s house. So I accepted it. And I thought I could move on to different positions once I was out there.
Franklin: Right. Had you thought about going to college at all, or did you--were you kind of focused straight on working?
0:05:52 Robison: I was focused only on working. I had always—I’d worked since I could, since I was 11, baby-sitting, and had no interest in going to school. I was extremely glad I’d graduated high school and was out. I just wanted to be in the workforce and start making my own money and paying my own way.
Franklin: Cool. So tell me about entering this world, this D&D world, as part of a quota. Like, I guess, I’d like to know about the kind of social aspect of being a woman in a male sphere, but also if you could talk about the kind of work that was happening.
0:05:31 Robison: Okay. Sure. Well, D&D is like what it says, it’s decontamination and decommissioning. So as far as what it was like, you know, I was a 19-year-old, young girl, fresh out of high school, the only thing I’d ever done was waitress. So it was a bit of a shock, going to work at Hanford. I really didn’t have a clue about what was involved and what to expect. It was truly a man’s world. I was surrounded by men, and being young you’re a little bit interested in that, but it was a bit of a culture shock as well. So, I had quite a bit of adjusting to do. And as far as the work, you know, again, the only thing I’d ever done was waitress and go to high school, and within six months, I was climbing scaffoldings and running jackhammers. So it was quite the change. But I really enjoyed the work. In D&D, then, and I believe even probably it’s true today, because they still have the D&D craft out there, you were successful every day. Every day brought a new challenge and once you’ve finished decommissioning or cleaning something up, you got to move on and do another project and do something different. So it was really enjoyable.
Franklin: Wow. What kinds of buildings did you work on, and areas?
0:08:04 Robison: Well, I’ve been in probably every building on Site, except for N Reactor, K, PUREX and a bunch of the facilities in the 300 Area. D&D has touched a lot of the areas out there. So, we could decommission a change facility, a change room, meaning we’d go in and cut it, essentially demolish it. We did asbestos abatement in all of the reactors. We did fuel storage removal--fuel storage—the fuel rods from the reactors, cleaned out all of those from all the basins in all the reactors. We tore down buildings. I don’t know, you name it, we probably did it. Jackhammered, took up railroad ties. It was a lot of fun. I mean, I enjoyed it.
Franklin: So was your job similar to the remediation today, where it was just to take the building down to slab?
Robison: Yes. Yeah. It was probably a lot like what it is today. Only more sophisticated, because technology’s so far—so much more advanced than it was in the ‘80s. But--
Franklin: What was the monitoring environment like when you started with D&D? I assume there was a radiation protection--
Robison: For personnel, monitoring?
Franklin: Yeah. Well, like the radiation monitoring. And what’s changed from then till today?
Robison: Well, I couldn’t tell you a lot about what’s changed; I don’t really do radiation work anymore, so I don’t go into any kind of zones. But we had dosimetry then. We had air monitoring. You know, it would be set up on us or that would surround us to monitor the air. So I don’t know that the monitoring has changed significantly from when it was in the ‘80s. I think it’s pretty much the same, but I really haven’t been involved in that.
Franklin: Sure. You mentioned that it was kind of a culture shock, and it was a real—it was a man’s world, or like a boys’ club.
Robison: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: I kind of want you to expand on that a little bit, if you could. How did people initially treat you, and did that change over time as they got to know you, or, like, what kinds of attitudes--the spectrum of attitudes that you encountered?
Robison: Well, I think that they were—it was probably wide-ranging. You know, again, I was young, so--a lot of the people that I worked with were young. I don’t know then that I could tell a lot of difference on how I was treated. You know, reflecting back for the age I am now and my life experiences, I know that there were times that I was treated less than a human. But at the time I didn’t realize that. That was just kind of the way it was.
Franklin: Sure. Are there any notable memories or moments or people that stand out from that time?
Robison: Well, moments—when you asked me about, you know, the way things were back then in terms of how women were treated, one of the memories that I have, and a lot of women that I worked with could attest to this, was the dress-out procedures when you’re coming out of a radiation zone. Then, some of the companies, men didn’t have to wear modesty clothing. And being a D&D worker, that was one of my jobs, was to undress as individuals were coming out of the radiation areas. So, it didn’t faze them at all to walk around in their underwear. You know, as a young girl, that was a bit—I didn’t quite know what to expect from that. So you just do your job and keep moving forward. Today, it’s different. I mean, I know they have modesty clothing.
Franklin: Sure.
Robison: So that doesn’t happen.
Franklin: Did you—forgive me if this is too personal, but did you also have to walk around in your underwear?
Robison: No, I wore modesty clothing.
Franklin: Okay.
0:12:27 Robison: So, yeah. I had a T-shirt and shorts. The problem was that if they became contaminated while you were in the zone, and it did occur on occasions, you didn’t get to keep those. So that was part of the reason a lot of people didn’t wear modesty clothing, because if it got crapped up, is what they called it, they’d lose it. That was just money out of their pockets. So a lot of people weren’t willing to do that. But, no, I would wear shorts and a T-shirt.
Franklin: Sure.
Robison: Yeah.
Franklin: When you started, were there separate facilities for men and women? Like, restroom facilities and--
Robison: Yes. Mm-hmm, yes, there were. Uh-huh.
Franklin: So, you mentioned a couple times when we were talking earlier about the 183-H--
Robison: 183-H, yeah.
Franklin: --project. I’m wondering if you could talk about that, because you had that—we’ll put that picture online, but that picture of you in the gunk, I guess, is the best way to--
Robison: Yeah.
Franklin: I’m wondering if you could talk about a project in your work on that and what you accomplished.
0:13:24 Robison: Well, so, the 183 solar basins, I believe there were four of them in total. And two of them were filled up—well, the basins were constructed a lot like a pool would be where you have a shallow end and a deep end. The muck that was in these could range anywhere from a foot in the shallow end all the way to six or seven feet deep in the deep end, at the back part of the solar basin. And all of this muck came from the 300 Areas, places that would generate chemical wastes and wouldn’t have any place to put them. They were in a liquid form. So the material, evidently, was trucked out to the 183-H solar basins and placed there for, essentially, the liquids to volatilize off, to vaporize. Well, that happened over a number of years, of which I wasn’t there.
But when we did go and D&D went to clean these solar basins out, what was left of course was the muck. The stuff was just really strange, because if you--it’d be a hard surface, and then when you stepped through it, it would just liquify. It was very different. And then we didn’t—because of the depth of some of this muck, they couldn’t really put a piece of equipment in there to clean it out. It was such a large basin that if you put a backhoe or something in there to try to lift this muck out, it would’ve just swallowed up the equipment. So they put people in there, me included. And we wore protective chest waders and plastics over the top of us, and mind you, this was in 100-degree heat. So it was very hot. And we used buckets, five-gallon buckets, and we literally bent over and picked up a bucketful and filled up drums. I would expect we probably filled up about 5,000 drums at that time.
Franklin: Of 55-gallon?
Robison: Of 55-gallon drums, uh-huh.
Franklin: Wow.
Robison: Yeah, it was a long project. It was one of the places that I was stationed at for any length of time. But, yeah, it was quite the project. But I have a lot of good memories from there. It was a good crew that I worked with and good managers. Again, the technology wasn’t available then like it was today. I’m sure they would’ve done it differently today and taken more precautions for their workers. But at the time, it was all manual labor. It was all very physical.
Franklin: Well, at the time, too, Hanford was still producing, right?
Robison: Yes.
Franklin: Its primary job in there--because I assume this would’ve been sometime in the mid-’80s, late ‘80s?
Robison: Yeah, I want to say I was probably—I think I was probably out there about ‘86, ‘87, yeah.
Franklin: Okay, so still in production.
Robison: We were still in production, yeah, at the time.
Franklin: And so cleanup not--I mean, obviously, a priority, because they have D&D, but certainly not the major priority it is today, right?
0:16:51 Robison: Right. No--yeah, it’s definitely more of a priority today. I mean, Hanford’s in environmental cleanup status. But I would like to say that even though we were in production and--because I kind of feel like Hanford gets a bad rap sometimes when they really try to do a lot of good, too. But DOE was actually in environmental restoration back in the ‘80s when I worked there, because that’s essentially what D&D was. It was decontaminating and decommissioning. So they had already begun doing cleanup activities in the ‘80s. At least when I started. And they, obviously had probably started even before I arrived. Production was their focus at the time, but they did think about the environment. They had started the steps towards cleanup. And, keep in mind in the ‘80s when I hired on, a lot of the regulations didn’t exist. There were none of the regulations that governed Department of Transportation and Shipping. And none of those regulations were there. But DOE was taking—had the stance to start doing some environmental cleanup. And they knew they needed to do something. And I was happy to participate.
Franklin: Awesome.
Robison: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: Where else did you work doing D&D?
Robison: Again, all over the Site. You know, I worked in 200 East area and 200 West area. I was stationed at Dash-5 for a while, the PFP building that they’re currently trying to bring down to slab. Let’s see. At semiworks, although I couldn’t tell you a whole lot about that facility. I didn’t work out of that building very long, but it was alpha contamination there. Where else was I at?
Franklin: Were you at REDOX?
0:18:50 Robison: I was, when I first hired on that’s where I was stationed. My very first--that’s where I learned to climb a scaffold, and that’s where I first learned to use a jackhammer, and that’s where I first learned how to take up railroad ties and railings.
Franklin: Wow.
Robison: Yeah, did quite a bit there. There was nobody in the facility at the time. I mean, other than us. It wasn’t being utilized. But, yeah, so REDOX--I had been there, worked, again, at PFP. D&D, we didn’t stay in one place for any really long length of time, because new projects would come up and so we’d have to go work out of this shed, or—a little bit like construction work, I suppose, where those guys have to go to motel to motel. I just went from building to building.
Franklin: Yeah, like, the opposite of construction, really.
Robison: Right, except we got to tear it down, yeah.
Franklin: Yeah, yeah, okay. That makes a lot of sense. How long did you do D&D for?
Robison: I was probably D&D for about seven years.
Franklin: So through the ‘80s?
0:20:00 Robison: I wanna say--yes, all the way through the ‘80s until about 1990. And then I worked in the powerhouses that no longer exist.
Franklin: For the reactors, right? The reactor power?
Robison: The steam power--the coal-fired powerhouses. Those powerhouses used to supply steam to the production facilities, like PFP or PUREX.
Franklin: They’d use those old steam lines that still—did they use the old steam lines that are still all in the 200 Area?
Robison: Yes, those are still operational.
Franklin: Wow.
Robison: I was called a power operator. So, I did do some work in the main powerhouse where they actually fed coal into boilers and created the steam that supplied energy.
Franklin: They were still using coal in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s?
Robison: Yup, yup.
Franklin: Wow.
Robison: Yup, they were.
Franklin: That’s always struck me as--I don’t know if it’s--it’s not irony, but the fact that the energy and the steam to supply nuclear--this high-science nuclear processing was coming from coal, you know. This very basic energy source plays a role in creating a very technical scientific energy.
Robison: Yeah. Well, you know, I guess in hindsight, you look back on it and it is kind of—again, technology’s just so far advanced today than what it was then, but, yeah, it’s--
Franklin: What was it like working with coal? I mean, did you get regular shipments?
Robison: Yup!
Franklin: And did you have to wear special protective gear and--
0:21:41 Robison: No, didn’t really have--unless you were right up in it. They’d provide you with paper masks if you didn’t want to breathe in the coal dust. But, yes, the coal was brought in by rail and poured into hoppers. It went up a conveyor belt and fed the hoppers, and those hoppers in turn fed the boilers that were down below. Again, I didn’t operate those that much. I ran the filter plant which supplied the drinking water for the Hanford Site. But, of course, you know, you’re around it all the time, so you pick it up. Pick up different things here and there.
Franklin: And which powerhouse and filter plant did you work at?
Robison: Both. I worked at both of them.
Franklin: Which reactor area?
0:22:21 Robison: Well, so, 200 West area would’ve fed PFP, REDOX, T Plant, U Plant--any of those that required heat or--and then East Area, of course, fed the Tank Farms and PUREX and all the other facilities that were in operation at the time.
Franklin: The water--the purification, that came from the river, right? So would that use one of the river pumphouses?
Robison: Yes.
Franklin: Okay.
Robison: The water—in fact, it’s still being used today.
Franklin: That’s the one by B Reactor, right?
0:22:54 Robison: Yes, mm-hmm, yup. That pumps raw water from the Columbia River. DOE has a water right to be able to do that. It pumps the raw water up to the 200 West Area now--because East Area’s filter plant is closed up. But the West Area still produces the drinking water, and sanitary water, in probably close to the same fashion as I did back in the early ‘90s.
Franklin: Oh, wow. That’s really interesting. I’m wondering if you could talk about--when Hanford got the order to shut down, you were working there, right?
Robison: I--
Franklin: With the switch from production, when they got the order to stop production? Were you--
Robison: Yeah, I don’t--I don’t remember the date they did that. I actually couldn’t talk very well to that. I don’t recall it, so--of when it actually happened, I don’t remember.
Franklin: I was just--I was going to ask, because I’m wondering if you remember kind of the general mood of the community or of your coworkers, how people dealt with that switch. Was it a big deal, or did the work continue on?
0:24:09 Robison: Well, what I recall, which isn’t very much--I left the Hanford Site in 1993 and went to work for Department of Ecology, so I don’t recall a lot. But I know the Tri-Cities—and I was living in Yakima. The Tri-Cities went through booms and busts quite frequently. A lot of it dealt, or was a result of whatever happened to be going on at Hanford. So when there’s big layoffs, Tri-Cities would plummet, housing would plummet. And then when it was up and running, things were really good. So, as far as when they actually made the shutdown, I want to say that that happened a little bit later, after I had left the Site.
Franklin: Okay.
Robison: Yeah, sorry, I couldn’t really talk too much to that.
Franklin: That’s okay. So what kind of work did you do for the other DOE, ecology?
Robison: For Department of Ecology?
Franklin: Yeah.
0:25:07 Robison: Well, when I originally left in ‘93, I hired on as a hazardous waste inspector. And then I moved to underground storage tanks. I did that for about 16 years.
Franklin: So were you still working—and was that Hanford Site, Hanford underground storage, or was that different?
Robison: No, I actually went to work for the Yakima office.
Franklin: Oh, oaky.
0:25:26 Robison: So, the Yakima office, or central region of Washington, actually does regulate, even today, does regulate underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site. But the nuclear waste office that’s here in Richland regulates everything else at Hanford. So, when I left, I left the Hanford Site, essentially. I hadn’t been here for about 16 years.
Franklin: Okay. But your work was still connected to the Hanford Site?
Robison: Yeah, in a roundabout way it was, because the Department of Ecology regulates them. So my interaction with the Richland office wasn’t that frequent. Being from the Yakima office, we regulated different things, and Hanford wasn’t among them.
Franklin: Okay.
Robison: But I always had stayed in contact with Hanford. I’d been out here long enough and knew quite a few people. And then in 2009, I just decided to come back. So I’ve been back to Hanford since then.
Franklin: Why did you decide to come back to work for MSA?
0:26:36 Robison: Well, because the amount of things that you can learn working at the Hanford Site are infinite. It’s a continual learning cycle every day you come to work. So it’s challenging, and I just knew that I would enjoy playing that role again, and being part of Hanford. Especially today because they’re doing cleanup and the restoration work. I wanted to be part of that history.
Franklin: Yeah, because you had kind of started doing that.
Robison: I started it when they were in production and had a really good time while I was out here.
Franklin: So you’re currently environmental compliance officer, right?
Robison: I am, mm-hmm.
Franklin: The eco—yeah. And so, part of your job is ensuring regulations are met, right? Or being followed on the Site.
0:27:28 Robison: Yeah, it’s a little bit like consulting work, only MSA’s comprised--well, we take care of the infrastructure of the Hanford Site. So we make sure everybody else keeps running, essentially. We take care of the roads and the grounds and the water and power and all of that. So, my job is to help those organizations that supply, or that provide that support for infrastructure that make sure that they comply with all the regulations. So I deal with all kinds of stuff, whether it’s water or solid waste. I deal with hazardous waste; we deal with air requirements. Just about everything that’s environmental, my job is to make sure that they follow those rules and regulations.
Franklin: Okay. So, I would imagine that includes working with a lot of tradespeople.
Robison: Yeah, from time to time, I do, mm-hmm.
Franklin: I’m wondering, in terms of regulations, how have things changed from when you started doing D&D work, kind of this ground-level, to where you are now?
Robison: Oh, immensely.
Franklin: How has work on the Hanford Site changed?
0:28:36 Robison: Immensely, because none of them really existed when I started in ‘83. You could kind of do whatever you wanted. They’ve come a long way, and I have to tell you, from the time I left in 1993 till I came back to work at Hanford in 2009, the change at the Hanford Site has just been—it’s been huge. It’s been significant. They’ve accomplished a lot. And they did so following all the rules and regulations. So there’s a lot out there now. Good example of that would be, in 1983, people were still dumping their waste oil that they’d removed from their cars down storm drains that fed straight to the Yakima River to the Columbia River. And today they don’t do that anymore. And that’s a result of regulation and saying not to do that and education, yeah. So it’s changed significantly.
Franklin: So, wait, out on Site, people were dumping--?
Robison: Well, yeah, well--they used to use waste oil for dust suppression. Of course, that’s not done anymore.
Franklin: Right, to spray it down and then of course you’ve got waste oil all in the--which is going to get into the water.
0:29:49 Robison: Yes. And in groundwater. But we’ve learned so much from the ‘80s to today that--and it’s always evolving. Regulations are always changing as you learn new things, you know, more studies. I mean, you’re a historian, so if you were to study the history of regulations, every year they learn something new through technology or something, and so regulations change. That’s part of my job, is keeping up with those changes and helping the organizations out there implement those.
Franklin: Right. Because the status quo today is only today’s status quo; it’s not the environment that you would’ve worked at in the ‘80s.
Robison: Yeah, it was very different in the ‘80s.
Franklin: So you mentioned that the D&D work initially there, it was great because you always felt like you were accomplishing something. Do you feel the same way today with your current work?
0:30:49 Robison: I do. Probably it’s--you know, I don’t get to see daily changes like I did in D&D. But I do, because I’m playing a small role in the overall picture of the Hanford cleanup. And that matters to me, it means a lot to me.
Franklin: Great. Let’s see here, da, da, da. Okay. I’ve gone through all the fun--I have some stock questions. I’m just wondering if I had missed anything.
Robison: Okay.
Franklin: But we’ve really covered a lot of really great stuff.
Robison: Well, I probably didn’t make much sense, and--
Franklin: No.
Robison: I was trying to make sense. But you know, you get a picture in your mind, and getting it out of your mouth is--
Franklin: No, you’re doing great. And I do understand that, though. So you always lived in Yakima when you worked at Hanford. You’ve always lived outside of the Richland area, outside of Tri-Cities?
Robison: I lived in Tri-Cities for a few years.
Franklin: Okay.
0:31:41 Robison: Just prior to taking my job with the state. So that would’ve been in 1993. So I lived here from--I think I moved to the Richland area, I want to say, around ‘91. So I lived here for about two years. But, yeah, primarily in the Yakima area.
Franklin: What sort of housing did you live in in Richland? Did you live in an Alphabet house or anything like that, or did you live in a newer--
Robison: I did. I actually bought a prefab when I lived here. It was a small three-bedroom. I just—I loved it. I was a single mom, and it was perfect for my son and I. Yeah. Yeah, I loved it.
Franklin: I lived in a two-bedroom when I first got here, a two-bedroom prefab.
Robison: Did you?
Franklin: It was small. [LAUGHTER]
Robison: Yeah, they’re notably--well, it’s less than 1,000 square feet. What is a prefab, like 900 square feet or something?
Franklin: A three-bedroom, yeah.
0:32:43 Robison: I remember, I was doing--I had a boyfriend at the time, and we were--I wanted to do some remodeling because they had put--they had completely covered the entire house in brown paneling. So it was very dark, which, you know, for a small house, makes it even smaller. So I wanted to pull--we pulled--I wanted to pull all the paneling off and paint, or just paint the paneling. My boyfriend convinced me, let’s pull the paneling off. And it was sea blue plywood underneath of it. It was no insulation, no drywall. It was just plywood that had been painted a sea blue. It was horrible. So we quickly put up drywall and painted.
Franklin: Wow. Yeah, those weren’t--I know if you know much about the history of those, but they weren’t meant to be any kind of permanent housing. Those were from the Great Depression, just relief houses.
Robison: Yeah. Was that true for all of them? For the A? Because I remember an A house--I lived in an A house--it was a two-story--
0:33:43 Franklin: No, those were built to be permanent houses. Those were built with like Douglas fir and they were constructed by an architect out of Spokane who--and DuPont demanded that they provide quality housing. But they couldn’t build the Alphabets fast enough, so the Army Corps kind of forced DuPont into bringing in all these prefabricated units. They didn’t want them, but they gave the prefabs to more blue collar-type folks. And the Alphabets were more for managers or white collar.
Robison: Wow!
Franklin: So there’s definite quality—because I live in an A now. There’s a definite quality difference.
Robison: Wow, no, I had no idea. Because the quality of the house I was in was not good.
Franklin: Yeah, they’re basically plywood.
Robison: And that’s about all it was, was plywood that had been painted sea blue. It was—yeah, it was, oh my gosh, I got to get drywall up pretty quickly, because—yeah. But I still--I’d love to, when I was living there, I would’ve loved to known who’d owned it before me and when it was actually built. I never researched it.
Franklin: What was the address?
Robison: 803 Winslow.
Franklin: Oh, okay. I used to live almost right next to there.
Robison: Is that right?
Franklin: It was 804 Stanton which is just like two blocks.
Robison: Yeah, I think I--
Franklin: Two blocks down. Yeah, I know that neighborhood very well.
0:35:04 Robison: I’ve driven by there—when I worked for the state, I would have to come to the Tri-Cities, because I was underground storage tanks. So I regulated a lot of the gas stations—well, I regulated all of them for all of central Washington, including Benton County. And so I would go by my old house and I couldn’t hardly even recognize it. I had big, huge maple trees and they’re gone. Somebody took them all out and---yeah, but I would’ve loved to have known who lived there.
Franklin: Oh, interesting.
Robison: --back when they were in production. I had no idea about the quality of construction was so different, though.
Franklin: Yeah, they were really meant--they were Depression era; they were meant for families in the Tennessee Valley—or, they were built by that Tennessee Valley Authority to just get people in houses and in relief communities. Yeah, it’s a very interesting socialist beginning of these--you know, yeah. They’re really meant for people who were in hard times.
Robison: Wow, that’s interesting.
Franklin: The fact that there’s so many of them--because you know that that neighborhood, it’s all--you know.
Robison: It’s all prefab.
Franklin: One-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, two-bedroom, two-bedroom. And then you go in the Alphabets and it’s like A house, A house, A house, F house, A house, B house.
Robison: Yeah. That’s true, yeah. Wow, interesting.
Franklin: Yeah, I could tell you tons about them. I know too much. I’m wondering if you could describe the ways in which security or secrecy at Hanford impacted your work.
0:36:35 Robison: Well, as far as secrecy, you know, we weren’t allowed to talk about anything. Security was really tight. Yeah, even in ‘83. It was really tight. Any sign of incident when you were inside the 200 East or 200 West Area, it was a total lock down. And they didn’t care if you were just getting off work. Gates were locked, and everybody stayed inside the gates. You were not allowed to leave. That was same true for—not leaving all the facilities, because they weren’t all high security facilities—but places like PFP were. And so you were searched going in and you were searched coming back out. That was just a daily occurrence; that’s just kind of the way that they were—they were pretty secure. All the badges checked every day. You weren’t allowed onsite without one. Everybody had to have a clearance. If you didn’t, you had a worker’s clearance, a W badge, and you weren’t allowed to do a whole lot. You could come to work and do some things, provided they weren’t inside any kind of secured areas.
Franklin: Did you ever, like, forget your badge? Just like accidentally left it--?
Robison: Oh, yeah. You had to bring Spudnuts if you forgot your badge.
Franklin: Really?
0:37:51 Robison: Yeah, you had to bring doughnuts, yes. You’d be issued a temporary badge, but you’d be restricted as to what you could do for that day.
Franklin: And everybody knew you and your crew--
Robison: Oh, you got harassed, yeah. You got harassed because, you know, when you couldn’t go into zones or do the job that you were supposed to do--and this wasn’t just true for D&D, it was for all the crafts, for everybody--you know, it impacted everybody else. They had to work that much harder because they were a man down, because that person forgot their badge. So, oh, yeah, you were harassed, yeah.
Franklin: That’s funny.
Robison: Yeah, I remember having to bring Spudnuts, yeah.
Franklin: A Richland institution.
Robison: Yes, mm-hmm.
Franklin: Oh, I just had something on the tip of my brain and now I can’t--
Robison: About--
Franklin: Oh! Could you drive onto Site at that point, when you started work, or did you get bussed in?
Robison: Yes. Well, you could do both.
Franklin: Okay.
0:38:42 Robison: You could do both. I actually--I forgot, I probably should’ve mentioned, I did live in the Tri-Cities after I first hired on. I lived here for a couple of years. I lived in the Brass Lamp Apartments. What street was that on? Was that Van Giesen? I can’t remember. Anyhow, that’s how I was able to pick up Spudnuts out of--because I lived in Richland, so I would go pick those up. But, yeah, you could drive your car or take the bus, and I did both. Hated the bus.
Franklin: Why?
Robison: Hated, hated, hated the bus.
Franklin: Really?
0:39:18 Robison: Oh, yeah. I didn’t ever--I tried hard not to ever have to. When I had to work shift schedule, the A, B, C, D, shift schedule, I took the bus a few times. Because it took forever. It’s slow. I hated the bus.
Franklin: There wasn’t any like fun camaraderie on the bus--
Robison: No.
Franklin: --with the people?
Robison: No, no.
Franklin: Oh. Must’ve been for a different--because I’ve--some of the older folks I’ve interviewed that you could only take the bus out there, they had special tables where they would play cards on the bus, and they had these very kind of fond memories.
Robison: Oh, is that right?
Franklin: Yeah, these very fond memories of the bus.
Robison: No, they didn’t have any of that when I--
Franklin: Picking them up outside their house and dropping them off.
Robison: Yeah, no, not when I took the bus. It was boring, everybody slept, it was--no, I hated it. So I drove myself a lot. Just--yeah.
Franklin: Interesting. What about--I’m wondering if you remember, you know, how the community or you dealt with major international events, such as, I guess the first one I’d like to ask about is Chernobyl. Because you would’ve been working onsite at that time.
Robison: Yeah, that was, when, I want to say ‘86?
Franklin: Yeah.
Robison: Is that when that happened?
Franklin: Yep.
0:40:36 Robison: You know, there was concern, even on the parts of all the staff, on the Hanford Site. It was a long ways away. I think the talk, which was probably among just the general populus, was is the cloud going to come over to the United States? And then, is Hanford going to blow up? I mean, yeah, that was pretty scary. I remember receiving security briefings from our supervisors and managers about, you’re still not to talk to anybody about things. And then some reassurances that, we’re fine, we’re not going to blow up over here. And of course we didn’t. But, yeah, I do actually remember Chernobyl. That was a scary time.
Franklin: I bet. And then just a couple years later, the Berlin Wall fell and the Cold War pretty much ended.
Robison: Ended.
Franklin: Kind of in a—you know, not so much a bang, but kind of a whimper or a fizzle. And I’m wondering if you could talk about how that may have affected you or the community, you know, to have this decades-long conflict, and the whole reason, really, for all this activity at Hanford is now kind of gone.
0:41:55 Robison: Yeah, and the Berlin--you know, I’m probably not one of the better--yeah, probably not very familiar with that. I mean, I don’t recall the mood of the people. It wasn’t something I stayed focused on.
Franklin: How did you feel?
Robison: You can probably scratch that part right out of the interview. Pbbt.
Franklin: Sure. Well, how did you feel about it, though, because I imagine that--you were aware, right? How did you--or, what did you see that Hanford would do after that?
Robison: You know, I didn’t—I don’t know that I gave it a huge amount of thought, but--because, again, even in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s, environmental wasn’t real concept then. So I don’t know that I’d be very good at telling you what my frame of mind was at the time. I was in my 20s. Yeah, probably, you could scratch that part from the interview.
Franklin: No, it’s--
Robison: Aaaahh, cut! No.
Franklin: We all experience things differently and often when--
Robison: I honestly--I mean, I remember watching the Berlin Wall fall and all that on TV, but I don’t--I really don’t remember what my mood was or what my thought processes were then, so--
Franklin: It’s fine. You know, it’s one of those events that maybe grows more—or we think about how significant it was later, you know? Or people that didn’t experience it and lived through it maybe attribute more to it than people that--where that was just life for a while.
Robison: Yes, yeah.
Franklin: Don’t worry about it. What was I going to ask? Shoot, I had another question.
Robison: I know when you were out on the Site, you were talking about wanting to know more about Affirmative Action.
Franklin: Yes, that was actually my next—yeah. I’m wondering if you could tell me about that. Just, how--yeah. How it played out for you and for others, and how it changed the workforce.
0:43:53 Robison: Well, for me, I didn’t realize it at the time that that’s why I was being hired, was that it was part of Affirmative Action. You know, being 19, I just—it didn’t cross my mind. All I cared about was getting a job, but I actually attribute my entire career to this day to that affirmative action, to that one phone call, because I wouldn’t be sitting here today after 30-plus years doing environmental work, had it not been for that affirmative action. So, my whole career is based on it and I’m appreciative of it. I know that there’s some controversy that surrounds Affirmative Action and whether it really did any good, or does it play any role anymore. And I guess I’m living proof that it does, or that it did. Did it work for everybody? Probably not. But it did for me. And so I’m glad that it was around.
Franklin: How did the workforce change that you noticed from when you started to--did it really open up a lot of positions for women, did you find yourself over time working with more and more women and minorities?
0:44:58 Robison: You know, truthfully, I did not. And there’s still, in my opinion, there’s still a considerable amount of men on the Hanford Site, as compared to women. That could just be, there’s people that worked out there for 40 years and a lot of people that have worked out there for 30 and 40 years. So, could just be that that new workforce just hasn’t been able to inch their way in. I mean, I do think that Affirmative Action has certainly helped, because I think that there’s women in their careers today that, like myself, that wouldn’t be there without it. There’s other minorities that are in their careers today that wouldn’t be here without it. So, do I think that there’s some room to grow still? Absolutely. But I think it’s coming along. I certainly saw a lot more changes off the Hanford Site when I worked for Department of Ecology than I do on the Site. Life outside of Hanford’s a very, very different place. It’s much more sophisticated and--what’s a good word? It’s more--it’s a more diverse world off the Hanford Site.
Franklin: How is Hanford less sophisticated than the outside?
0:46:37 Robison: I think that Hanford--that they could--and maybe it’s because I’m not involved in some of the more newer technologies like what they have at Tank Farms, so I’m certainly not an expert at speaking at it. But in my own little world of environmental and where I’m located, I think that there’s easier and better ways to do things, but process and procedure’s so ingrained on the Hanford Site that everybody’s afraid to deviate. And I think that that’s not a good thing. I think finding new ways and new alternatives should be a goal.
Franklin: Right.
Robison: But, you know, they’re getting there. They’re coming around. I mean, they have recycling programs today that they didn’t use to have in the ‘80s. They’re getting caught up. But it is more diverse offsite than it is working on the Site.
Franklin: I’ve noticed that, too. It’s--
Robison: Yeah. Just don’t use that in the interview. I want to keep my job.
Franklin: Well, no, I think--
Robison: I don’t want DOE to get upset with me.
Franklin: Oh, I don’t think—I mean, that’s of levels so far beyond. Maybe that’s something that they still need to hear. I think it does matter, too, by profession. I’m a subcontractor in the cultural resources department, and that department is majority-women. And I find, in the work I’m in, in archives, male archivists are a minority. Largely because librarianship and archives has commonly been a woman’s profession.
Robison: Yeah, yup.
Franklin: Which is—and I think maybe a lot of these trades, crafts, D&D, you know, have been--there’s that disparity--I mean, it’s hard to over--
Robison: To overcome that, yeah--
Franklin: Decades, years--I mean, decades of--
0:48:40 Robison: And you’re absolutely right. I mean, a lot of the crafts out there has traditionally been men’s jobs and women just don’t enter those fields. Excuse me. They’re more into the professional, you know, environmental-type work that I do. And there are several women that work out there. It’d be good if they could recruit or try a little bit harder to have more diversity. I don’t just mean women, I mean the minorities as well. But again, I think that’s coming. I mean, I could see that coming even before I retire from the Hanford Site, just because the workforce out there is a much older workforce. They’ve been there for thirty-plus years. All the contractors know that a big retirement’s coming for a lot of different people out there. That’s when I think that the diversity and the changes will start to occur. And maybe some changes in procedures and processes that will help make a big difference.
Franklin: Yeah, that really struck me when I meet a lot of folks out there, there are so many people, oh, I started here in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, late ‘70s, you know?
Robison: They’ve been there for a long time.
Franklin: And they’ve endured all these contractor changes. And it seems maybe it’s a result of having so many contractors that they just keep the people that know how to do the job, because the new contractor needs that expertise and so--
Robison: Oh, yeah, I mean--well, you know, DOE just recently sent out a request for proposals and new acquisitions. So even my company, Mission Support, is having to rebid.
Franklin: Oh, I know, we’re a subcontractor of MSA.
Robison: Yes.
Franklin: And this is funded by MSA.
Robison: Yeah. So whoever gets the contracts, it would be crazy for them to just bring in a whole new workforce. You couldn’t do it.
Franklin: No.
0:50:36 Robison: I mean, Hanford is truly a unique operation in what they deal with daily. You do have skilled people, you do have to have knowledgeable people about what they’re doing, or things would be really, really bad out there, could be really bad. So it would be good, and I think that they’ve got a plan in place where they start training some--bringing on some newer people so that the ones that are still there could get them trained up on how they do their jobs. It is a unique set of skills that’s required to work out there. You have your basics and then you have to kind of learn the way Hanford does things. And that’s not, you know, trying to diss them or something. It’s truly because it’s unique. They have to handle things a certain way.
Franklin: Right, there’s unique challenges, there’s unique regulations.
Robison: It’s chilly in here.
Franklin: It is, I’m sorry. There’s a lot of--
Robison: He’s freezing, too.
Franklin: We turned the heat--they keep this room unheated when it’s not in use. We turned the heat on earlier in the day, but, I’m sorry, it takes a little--
Robison: Oh, it’s all right. It’s just why I’m kind of like grinning because it’s a little chilly.
Franklin: No, I know. I have my coat on, too. Because it’s cold! So, yeah, because there’s a lot of institutional knowledge that may leave soon.
Robison: Yes, they’re already starting to leave.
Franklin: Yeah, I’ve noticed that.
0:52:00 Robison: Yeah, that’s a true statement. And Hanford needs that knowledge. What you’re doing, I think, is just, it’s phenomenal. I think it’s really great that you’re going to capture, obviously not all of the history, but some of it.
Franklin: Going to try.
Robison: So that you know, kind of, where we came from and where we’re going. I mean, I just think that’s great. And they need that at Hanford as well, because things like with what just happened at the PUREX tunnels. If some of those individuals had been gone, we wouldn’t have known what was in there. Hanford’s really good at documenting everything, but I just think having the people there--you got to capture that knowledge somehow.
Franklin: Hanford’s also done so many things that aren’t documented. A lot of burials, for example, were not well-documented. Which is why they find things every now and then, right? You know. You’ve probably found stuff--
Robison: Yeah.
Franklin: --that wasn’t supposed--I’ve always found that to be interesting, too. Hanford’s really good at documentation on some things, and then--
0:53:09 Robison: And then others maybe not so much. Well, I think that was probably more in the ‘40s and ‘50s when things were quite, you know, really secretive. One of the things I like to give Hanford credit for, for knowing—for accomplishing what they did in such a short amount of time—in less than two years built an entire nuclear reservation. That’s pretty impressive. And not having any knowledge on how to deal with the waste and the cleanup. You know, to me, they’ve done phenomenal at addressing the issues that were done back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and figuring out how to deal with them today. I think they’ve, so far, they’ve done a--they’re trying to do a good job. I realize it’s slow, but it is a big task.
Franklin: Well, and also the processing waste wasn’t a priority for Hanford for a long time.
Robison: Correct.
Franklin: It was production. They had quotas and so many of those folks came from regular industries, from chemical industries, where they’d processed the waste in the way they knew how. They pumped it in tanks, they stored it.
Robison: Yeah. Or dumped it on the ground. Yup, yup.
Franklin: In the ‘40s, that’s what you--
0:54:26 Robison: That was an acceptable--well, they didn’t know what environmental harm, you know, would come of that. I mean, and again, that’s a good example. In the ‘80s, environmental rules, regulations, didn’t really exist that much, where today, they do. At least now they’re addressing them.
Franklin: Right. I guess it’s funny, as a child of the ‘80s, it’s amazing to see how far we’ve come in just my lifetime. I mean, in terms of like you said, in ‘83 when you started, you just couldn’t do that kind of work now. You wouldn’t suit up and go into the solar basin--
Robison: Right, and--
Franklin: And use five-gallon--
0:55:07 Robison: And use buckets to muck muck into drums. No, they’d find something more sophisticated to--and keep the workers out of harm’s way. But, you know, again, the technology just didn’t exist like it does today. So they have, in my opinion, they have come a long ways. I mean, Hanford has. And when I left in ‘93, all the reactors were still in process of being shut down and cleaned up. When I came back in 2009, almost all of them had been cocooned. So in that 16 years, that was an enormous amount of work. So I thought that was really impressive. 300 Areas is completely changed. For cleaning up literally a radioactive site, I think they’re doing pretty good.
Franklin: Have you been out to B Reactor since it’s become a national park?
Robison: Yeah, briefly. Yeah, a couple times. I actually was stationed out at B Reactor, so, like I said, we did fuel storage--
Franklin: Oh, during D&D?
0:56:11 Robison: Yes, during D&D. And we did asbestos abatement in all of the reactors. So I’d been in B Reactor a number of times. In fact, I could show you where my changeroom was at in there.
Franklin: Oh, wow. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on B Reactor being a museum.
Robison: Oh, I think that’s awesome. I think it’s one of the coolest things that DOE said that they wanted to do. I just think that having--preserving that history to show the contributions that those people made and that all the scientists, and even the government, made to the war efforts, I just think is phenomenal. I think it’s really cool.
Franklin: Cool.
Robison: Yeah.
Franklin: So my last question is a big open-ended question. And so, what would you like future generations to know about working at Hanford during the Cold War?
0:57:11 Robison: The amount of commitment and patriotism--and that seems like kind of a corny word to young people today, but--I just think that the people that worked here during the Cold War and even today are really just out there to do the right thing, and to give their small contribution, to make this country better. I’d like for them to know and learn or come to appreciate the level of effort that was put into what they accomplished out here in such a short amount of time. To me, it’s awe-inspiring.
Franklin: Well, great. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
Robison: No. I can’t really think of anything.
Franklin: Okay.
Robison: It was easier to talk to you out at my office than right here.
Franklin: Sorry! Well, I hope it was still enjoyable.
Robison: Yeah, no, it was. It was. I’m thrilled to get to be a part of this. I really am.
Franklin: Yeah, the imposed environment of the studio can sometimes change things. But for continuity reasons and things, we like to have a--
Robison: Mm-hmm.
Franklin: Also the sound is--we have good sound.
Robison: Do you?
Franklin: Soundproofing. And lights. Well, thank you, so much, for coming--
Robison: Thank you for having me.
Franklin: --and talking about everything. And you know, and thank you for doing what you do in continuing to do environmental work. It’s a good mission.
Robison: Oh, you’re welcome. I really do thoroughly enjoy it. Again, I feel like I get to play a small role in a really huge picture, but it’s my role; it’s my contribution. I love history and happy to do it.
Franklin: Well, now you’ve helped our collections two ways. By first helping with the lamps and now by doing an oral history with us.
Robison: Yeah.
Franklin: So your imprint there.
Robison: And you can count on my continued support. I’ll keep looking for stuff for you.
Franklin: Good. Please do.
Tom Hungate: Okay.
Franklin: Awesome.
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