A twenty-foot-long portion of a tunnel containing highly radioactive train cars and other equipment has collapsed at the Hanford Nuclear Site. A state of emergency was declared by Department of Energy Hanford officials on May 9, 2017. The collapsed tunnel, referred to as “Tunnel #1,” was built in 1956 and contains train cars filled with… Read More »
Hanford
Manhattan Project Park: Petition for Downwinders!
Please sign my Change.org petition! Recently, the US gov approved funding for a “Manhattan Project National Historical Park.” We urge them to include prominent exhibits about the Downwinders. “Downwinders” are innocent people who lived near bomb-building plants, test-sites or dumping grounds, and were thereby poisoned by radiation. Many have died, but many are still alive and suffering from… Read More »
Al Jazeera America and Drinking in Richland
Al Jazeera America recently ran my article about the forgotten victims of the Manhattan Project. The experience was extraordinary…and I’m losing track of all the ironies. Congress voted in December 2014 to create a National Historical Park in my home town of Richland, Washington. Richland is the site of the plutonium-producing Hanford B-Reactor, one of the… Read More »
Hanford Downwinders: Latino Farmworkers
Thank you so much to Ricardo Garcia, who has graciously contributed this guest post. Ricardo is a farmworker advocate and activist for the Yakima Valley in southeastern Washington, and Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Radio KDNA, “the voice of the farmworker.” Hanford Downwinders: Latino Farmworkers by Ricardo García The agricultural industry expanded greatly during… Read More »
ANOTHER HANFORD HEALTH WORRY
I’m heading to Sacramento, CA, for the annual conference of the Hypoparathyroidism Association . “HypoPara,” as the condition is also known, is an uncommon disease, listed in the database of the National Organization of Rare Diseases (NORD ). Hypoparathyroidism can be inherited or, more commonly, can arise as a post-operative complication of thyroidectomy. That’s… Read More »
Saying Goodbye to the CREHST Museum
I visited the CREHST (Columbia River Exhibition of History, Science and Technology) Museum in Richland, WA just before its closure at end of January. I was distressed to learn that the new museum, the Hanford Reach Interpretive Center, which will open in July 2014, will include only the early Manhattan Project period in its displays.… Read More »
I Love My Hometown—Radiation and All. I Wish it Loved Me.
This month, in my hometown of Richland, Washington, people are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Manhattan Project–the secret venture that brought us the atomic bomb. The month-long commemoration activities have been planned for years. The event opened with “For Your Eyes Only” — A James Bond-Themed Cold War Party” and includes weekend “Bus Tours… Read More »
Hanford Downwinder Litigation III: Deposition Time
My deposition as a Bellwether Plaintiff for the Hanford Downwinders Litigation took place August 23, on an uncomfortably hot day in Seattle. Mine was the fifth in a series of depositions of “test case plaintiffs,” all of us chosen randomly through lottery. At this point
Hanford Bellweather Plaintiff II
Who are the “Hanford Downwinders”? The most accurate definition of “Hanford Downwinder” includes anyone who lived within the vast multi-state region downwind or downriver of the federal Hanford facility, located in south central Washington State, during the decades in which Hanford produced plutonium for nuclear weapons. Airborne radioactive
Hanford Litigation Plaintiff: I
May 1, 2013 This is the first in a series of posts about the Hanford litigation. I am a plaintiff in that litigation. In fact, I have been a plaintiff now for over twenty years in one of the slowest moving legal actions on record. I have just been chosen