The Hanford Site Richland, WA

1. The Hanford Site Richland, WA

2. The Manhatten Project • Top secret government project to develop nuclear weapons (the atomic bomb) during WWII • Germany & Japan were also trying to develop the first atomic bomb • Albert Einstein urged President Roosevelt to get the U.S. involved and get their hands on uranium before other countries did. • Roosevelt listened and the most talented and renowned scientists in the world were recruited to collaborate on this very serious task.

3. The Hanford Site • To fuel the atomic bomb, the scientists wanted to use either enriched uranium or plutonium. • The X-10 Graphite Reactor was built in Oak Ridge, TN to enrich uranium, and the Hanford Site in Richland, WA would be built to make plutonium from uranium. • They needed a large site that could be kept top secret and where the climate was mild to ensure many days of outdoor construction. They also were planning to cool the reactor with water, so it needed to be close to a large river (the Columbia River!) • People who lived on the Hanford site were mostly farmers and were forced to leave their homes for a small amount $$, no explanation and 30 days to move.

4. The Hanford Site • The Hanford Site soon was booming with over 51,000 construction workers and their families. Most had NO CLUE that they were working to build a nuclear reactor which would ultimately fuel the world’s first atomic bomb. Fewer than 1% of the workers knew the details of this government project. • Construction began in October of 1943 and the B Reactor was completed in September of 1944! • It consists of a 28- by 36-foot, 1,200-ton pile of graphite blocks, and is penetrated horizontally by 2,004 aluminum tubes. More than 300 tons of uranium slugs the size of rolls of quarters and sealed in aluminum cans went into the tubes. • The Columbia River supplied 70,000 gallons of cool water per minute through the B Reactor! • D and F reactors were built 6 miles apart on the south bank of the Columbia River in WWII as well. Six more reactors were built after the war.

5. The Manhatten Project • Enrico Fermi worked with his team at the University of Chicago to create the first self-sustaining chain reaction. • The large team of scientists worked at Los Alamos in New Mexico to develop the atomic bomb. • Meanwhile . . .

6. The Hanford Site • The B reactor at the Hanford Site produced plutonium for the Trinity device (the atomic bomb trial run in New Mexico) as well as “Little Boy”, the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan in Nagasaki. • Code words were used since everything was top secret. Plutonium was “product”, Uranium was “base metal”, and Fermi was “Mr. Farmer”. Orders from Washington were kept in a safe. • Significant figure application: The fuel rods could only vary in diameter by 0.003 of an inch! • The B reactor also made Tritium for the first hydrogen bomb!

7. Hanford Today • All buildings around Hanford’s reactors have been demolished. Many had to fight so that Hanford’s B reactor would not be torn down. • The site is controversial to some (moral issues) but the engineering was so complex and it was built in so little time that it has been recognized as a “National Historic Landmark”, the highest designation in the U.S. • The Hanford Site is on the most polluted site in North America. It is safe for people to visit because there’s no airborne radiation, but 440 billion gallons of contaminated liquid were intentionally dumped into the parched soil, leaving an 80-square-mile plume of contaminated ground water. In addition, 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste are stored in 177 underground tanks, some of which leak.

14. Asbestos markings!

15. Nuclear radiation screening machine.

23. Anyone can tour the Hanford Site June-August, but when registration opens online in March, the slots fill up in seconds! The tour is about 4 hours long, and includes a 30 minute tour bus ride to and from the Hanford Site.