Hanford History by Period

• Native American Settlements
• Pioneer Settlement of Hanford Area
• WWII and Manhattan Project
• Cold War
• Cleanup

Historical Introduction

In the early 1940s at the height of World War II, the United States was in the race to build the first atomic bomb. With the pressure of the war and fear that Hitler's Germany would develop the bomb first, the United States was looking for isolated areas to work on the Manhattan Project. Hanford was one of three sites selected, along with Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico. The current Hanford site appeared ideal for plutonium production. It was remote with a tremendous source of water and power - the Columbia River. In 1943, the government began its highly classified mission at Hanford.

Approximately 1300 people in the communities of Hanford, White Bluffs and Richland were given notice to vacate their land. The Hanford site is also part of 6.4 million acres that Native Americans ceded to the United States in the Treaty of 1855. In that treaty, the tribes reserved the rights to fish, hunt, and gather traditional foods and medicines throughout the ceded lands.

Once the land was acquired by the federal government, more than 50,000 workers arrived to construct the nuclear weapons facilities at what was then called Hanford Engineer Works. Within 18 months of breaking ground, three nuclear reactors were in operation, including "B Reactor" the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor. The reactors were necessary to produce plutonium-239, which remains radioactive for 24,100 years.

Secrecy was paramount.

Most Hanford workers did not know they were making plutonium for atomic weapons. Plutonium from Hanford was used in the world's first atomic bomb, which was detonated as a test at the Trinity site in New Mexico in July 1945. Their mission did not become clear until the United States bombed Japan in 1945. Plutonium for "Fat Man", the atomic bomb that devastated Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, came from Hanford. Hanford workers took pride in their work and the role it played in ending World War II. On August 14, 1945, a Richland newspaper headline read: "PEACE! OUR BOMB CLINCHED IT!" (Seattle P-I, 8/8/05, p.A5)

Although the war ended, the Soviet Union had begun developing an atomic bomb and international tensions ran high. Secrecy and security remained tight as Hanford expanded throughout the Cold War decades. At its peak in the 1960s, nine reactors were operating at Hanford to produce plutonium and Tritium for the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal.

Because of the urgency of Hanford's mission, proper disposition of the nuclear waste created was a much lesser concern. Wastes were dumped in the soil, in unlined trenches, and in the river. Large volumes of high-level radioactive waste were placed in underground, single-shell storage tanks. They assumed contamination dumped in the soil would not reach the groundwater. They also assumed the storage tanks would hold the toxic, radioactive brew until a better solution was found. Both assumptions have been proven wrong. Of the 177 massive underground storage tanks, 67 are known to have leaked a total of approximately one million gallons into the soil.

The culture of secrecy that surrounded Hanford throughout WWII did not end with the Cold War. The federal government did not reveal a number of significant health-related events until forced to do so in February 1986, when citizens exercised their rights through the Freedom of Information Act. The public was then allowed to review Hanford documents from the 1940s and 1950s for the first time. What they discovered was highly disturbing. These documents revealed tremendous contamination of the environment, as well as exposure of the public to radioactive materials.

By 1957, eight plutonium reactors were dumping a daily average of 50,000 curies of radioactive material into the Columbia River. Perhaps the most dramatic of these events was the "Green Run" in December 1949, when 8,000 curies of iodine-131 were released from "green" reprocessing fuel with only a short cooling period. This intentional release was a test to develop radiation detection capabilities that could be applied to facilities in the Soviet Union. Although the plume covered an area 40 by 200 miles, no warnings were given and no followup was conducted on area residents. By comparison, only about 15 curies of iodine-131 were released at the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.

The more they discovered, the more the people of Washington and Oregon became concerned about past and present contamination at Hanford. They demanded action. In May 1989, three agencies - the Washington State Department of Ecology, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Department of Energy - entered into the landmark Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, known as the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA). This agreement established legally enforceable schedules and tasks to guide Hanford cleanup for the next 30 years.

On this Day at Hanford

Enter this section to explore important events that happened on particular days and in particular months throughout they year.

Hanford Artifacts

Take a look at some interesting Hanford Artifacts from throughout its years of operation.