Hanford Engineer Works: Summary of Key Points

Hanford Engineer Works: Origins and Purpose

Hanford Engineer Works was established in south-central Washington between 1942 and 1945.
The name reflects its role in the federal weapons program and the area's intended function.
Hanford was designed for manufacturing, not research, unlike labs at the University of Chicago and Los Alamos.
From 1943-1971, it operated as a factory producing a specific commodity.
Today, it is known as the Hanford Site and lacks a clear production mission since 1971.

Hanford Site: Evolution

Now considered a site of concerns due to immense radioactive and chemical wastes.
The term "site" is a euphemism to avoid explicitly stating the problem.
In the 1940s/50s, it was seen as a problem solver.
It was created during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project.
After a slowdown post-WWII, it geared up for the Cold War, expanding significantly.
From the late 1940s to mid-1960s, Hanford manufactured plutonium to meet national security demands.
After 1964, plutonium production was reduced, and alternative missions were proposed (electricity generation, research, waste repository).
By the 1990s, the primary mission was waste cleanup and management from WWII and the Cold War.

The Manhattan Project and Hanford's Inception (1942-1945)

Initially, Hanford existed as a secret among army officers, DuPont executives, and university physicists.
The Pacific Northwest was chosen due to its suitability for the atomic-weapons program.
The project emerged from the need to build an atomic bomb, driven by shifts in the Anglo-American nuclear weapons program.
In 1941, the Roosevelt administration committed to a crash program due to fears of German nuclear weapons development.
Scientists believed uranium-235 could undergo nuclear fission, releasing neutrons and energy, potentially causing a chain reaction explosion.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers, led by General Leslie Groves, was given responsibility for the construction program.
Groves pursued multiple methods simultaneously, including uranium-235 and plutonium-239 production.
In September 1942, land was acquired in Tennessee for the Oak Ridge facility (uranium-235 isolation).
Uranium-235 is less than 1% of naturally occurring uranium (most is uranium-238); Oak Ridge focused on isotope separation based on mass differences.
In November, Groves purchased a boys’ boarding school at Los Alamos, New Mexico, for bomb design and assembly.
On December 2, 1942, scientists led by Enrico Fermi achieved the first controlled chain reaction at the University of Chicago, affirming plutonium's promise.
Fermi's experiment demonstrated how an atomic reactor could produce fissionable material.
Production reactors needed to make fuel for bombs would each be $500 \, \text{million}$ . times as powerful as the Chicago pile.
Due to the dangers of radiation, isolation from major population centers was required.
Oak Ridge was deemed unsuitable due to its proximity to Knoxville, Tennessee (population ~125,000).
DuPont sought a spacious, isolated location for plutonium production, and Groves wanted to avoid overtaxing Oak Ridge’s resources.
In mid-December 1942, DuPont executives and Lt. Col. Franklin T. Matthias established site selection criteria.
Matthias recorded that the site should be an uninhabited rectangle measuring 20x28 miles (560 square miles).
No towns with a population exceeding 1,000 should be within an additional 1,300 square miles.
The plant needed a river with a flow of not less than $25,000$ gallons per minute of relatively pure and low-temperature water.
The plant also needed at least $100,000$ kilowatts of electricity.
Ideally, the site would feature solid, level ground, a mild climate, and local gravel sources.
Safety and secrecy were primary criteria in site selection.
Meteorological and geological concerns were not prioritized due to time constraints and limited expertise; meteorology became an operational concern.
Matthias, Church, and Hall were dispatched to find a site, initially investigating the Grand Coulee area due to water and hydroelectricity availability.
On December 22, 1942, they flew over north-central Oregon and south-central Washington, finding the area near White Bluffs, Hanford, and Richland promising.
Matthias recommended acquiring Hanford, and by January 16, 1943, the army had started proceedings.
By war’s end, the Hanford Engineer Works occupied 670 square miles (429,000 acres) in Benton, Franklin, and Grant counties.

Land Acquisition and Local Impact

In February 1943, the government announced the acquisition of land for Hanford, leading to local unhappiness.
The army occupation disrupted lives, evicting residents with short notice.
One-third of the land belonged to government agencies, while the rest was privately owned.
The army condemned about 3,000 tracts of land held by roughly 2,000 individuals, often giving occupants only 30 days to leave.
The army and DuPont emphasized the aridity and infertility of the land to justify low property appraisals.
Private owners felt they had made the land productive and deserved better compensation and more time to depart.
Many went to court and won higher prices for their land.
The plutonium-producing facility was established, though its purpose was unknown to locals until August 6, 1945.
The military retained absolute control over Hanford, separating locals from their homes and lands.
Residents who worked on the project stayed in Richland and paid rent to DuPont.
The government exhumed 177 burials from the White Bluffs cemetery and reinterred them in Prosser.
The Wanapum tribe was promised reverence for Indian graves.
Only a handful of Native Americans retained access, fishing for salmon at Priest Rapids under army supervision.
Visitors described the site as dusty and desolate.
The Manhattan Engineer District prioritized constructing reactors and separation plants.
The villages of White Bluffs and Hanford were evacuated, and Hanford Camp (a construction town) was erected where the town of Hanford had been.
Richland was remade into a residential and administrative center located 20 miles south of the industrial core.
Most of Richland's former residents had until November 15, 1943, to vacate.

Key Organizations: Army Corps of Engineers and DuPont

The Army Corps of Engineers, through its Manhattan Engineer District, oversaw development.
General Groves was in charge, with Matthias supervising work at Hanford.
Matthias served as taskmaster and intermediary among various stakeholders.
He managed local interests, federal expenditures ( $390 \, \text{million}$ at the time, over $6 \, \text{billion}$ in 2010 dollars), and labor relations.
The Manhattan Project was essentially an immense industrial complex, rivaling the U.S. automobile industry in size and cost.
The government contracted with the University of Chicago (Metallurgical Laboratory) and the University of California (Los Alamos).
DuPont, a major chemical and explosives producer, was contracted for construction and operation due to its skilled manpower.
DuPont drew on skilled machinists from firearms companies and recognized the value of tradecraft.
E. E. Swensson from Remington Arms organized machinists for fabricating fuel elements.
DuPont had a tradition of building its own factories and was already deeply involved in the war effort.
Groves convinced DuPont to take on the job by appealing to patriotism and predicting the weapon would save lives.
DuPont limited its profit to one dollar over costs and insisted on corporate pay scales.
DuPont secured reimbursement for all losses and legal liabilities.
DuPont's choice was often questioned, with criticisms of over-cautiousness and slowness.
Scientists proposed taking over reactor design, but DuPont distrusted them.
DuPont's industrial experience, engineering orientation, and meticulous approach were beneficial.
Hanford received high marks for DuPont’s safety programs compared to university-run sites.
DuPont’s experience with explosives led to safe work environments and generous spacing around munitions plants.

Wartime Urgency and Challenges

The Manhattan Project's urgency drove construction and start-up at an unprecedented pace.
Designs were routinely changed by Met Lab scientists, requiring rework.
Building crews slowed work when tasks were out of order, and safeguards were sometimes omitted to save time.
Matthias prioritized early production over long-term safety, such as delaying water-treatment equipment on the first reactor.
Recruiting and retaining trained workers was difficult due to competition from other employers and the armed services, the unappealing location, and primitive living conditions.
Employee turnover was high, with a monthly rate of 10 percent early in the project.
Labor was concentrated on building barracks to retain workers.
Hanford had ~50-70 percent of the labor force needed through spring 1944.
Peak employment reached ~45,000 in June 1944, yet the labor turnover rate was 21 percent.
Groves conducted exit interviews to address worker dissatisfaction.
Workers felt they were not making a substantial contribution to the war effort due to secrecy.
Pipefitters were furloughed from the army and hired as civilians at Hanford to address shortages.
People of color (African Americans and Mexican Americans) were recruited, comprising over 16 percent of the construction labor force.
African Americans were segregated in their own quarters, defying fair employment guidelines.
Matthias reluctantly recruited Mexican Americans and housed them off-site due to segregation concerns.
The army’s survey revealed prejudice against sharing facilities with African Americans.
Women comprised ~13 percent of the workforce, working in mess halls, as clerks, secretaries, nurses, and teachers.
Less-skilled female workers were vital but grudgingly employed.
The site had as many as 14,000 women in mid-July 1944.
The workforce included “strange characters” due to limited recruiting choices.
Over half of Hanford’s male employees were over the draft age, and most young men were unfit for military service.
Hanford required longer hours, with a six-day workweek and ten-hour days.
Workers were often kept uninformed about workplace hazards.
A “complete evacuation” drill was planned but refused by Groves and Matthias for fear of alarming workers and disrupting the project.
The army prioritized secrecy and efficiency over worker safety.
Unions were seen as a threat to efficiency and secrecy.
The army and DuPont had little patience for rules and disputes that slowed the project.
The urgency of the Manhattan Project and the contractor’s limited profit were used to justify management decisions.
Hanford created unprecedented jobs, and extreme secrecy hindered union activities.
Organized labor deferred to management during wartime.
James W. Parker, a seventeen-year-old from Idaho, worked at Hanford while waiting for induction into the army.
Hanford’s restrooms were segregated by race.
Parker assembled prefabricated homes and eventually worked inside the B reactor building.
The B reactor was a large concrete building with a pile of graphite blocks pierced by aluminum pipes.
Parker noted the immense scale, with workers crawling around like ants, and the cleaning of tubes with sanitary napkins.
The reactor's work allowed Hanford's mission to be completed.

Site Layout and Activities

Hanford employees were distributed across several districts, marked by numbers and devoted to a particular production area.
Supervisors and administrators worked in Richland (700 Area), located at the southern tip, distant from reactors.
Fuel fabrication facilities (300 Area) were north of Richland, along the Columbia River.
Uranium ore was refined and shaped into slugs, then covered in aluminum jackets.
Uranium elements were moved to reactors in the 100 Area.
Three reactors (B, D, F) were built during the war.
Uranium slugs were inserted into tubes in the reactor cores, where they were bombarded with neutrons.
The chain reaction converted uranium-238 into plutonium-239.
Uranium-235 atoms underwent fission and released neutrons, sustaining the chain reaction and uranium-238 atoms absorbed neutrons, resulting in plutonium-239.
Fermi's earlier work on neutron moderators was incorporated.
Graphite blocks containing uranium created a matrix, and control rods regulated the reaction.
Safety rods stopped the reaction in case it became too intense.
Process tubes ran from the front, so new fuel elements could be loaded in front, with used fuel being shoved out the back as a result.
End caps and plumbing pigtails carried cooling water through the pipe.
The graphite-moderated pile went from concept to working reality.
Plutonium manufacture created heat and waste products.
Columbia River water was pumped through the reactors for cooling.
Cooling water became radioactive and tinged with chemical effluents.
Most radioactivity decayed before release back into the Columbia, but some contaminants remained.
Irradiated slugs cooled in water tanks before further processing.
Workers transported fuel elements to the 200 Area, where reprocessing plants stripped away by-products and purified the plutonium.
DuPont used bismuth phosphate batch processing to separate plutonium.
Reprocessing generated the greatest amount of hazardous pollution, especially before new technologies were developed.
The 100 Area polluted the Columbia River, while the 200 Area sent waste into the ground and atmosphere.
Plutonium was concentrated, packaged, and shipped to Los Alamos.

Operational Transition and Impacts

In late 1944 and early 1945, construction ended, and operations began.
The Hanford Engineer Works was completed quickly (reactors and reprocessing plants).
Work began on the B reactor on June 7, 1943, and it was completed on September 15, 1944.
Workers laid off construction employees and evacuated the construction camp by February 23, 1945.
Groves maintained pressure to ensure workers stayed focused, even with the anticipated surrender of Nazi Germany.
Hanford continued delivering plutonium, driven by the goal to build and deploy atomic bombs before the war ended.
Los Alamos depended on Hanford for plutonium-239.
Reactor-produced plutonium had a contaminant that would cause a premature detonation if used in a gun-type bomb.
The implosion ignition method had to be researched, and a pre-deployment test in the first seven months of 1945.
Groves pressured Matthias, who in turn pushed DuPont to accelerate delivery.
The first units of fissionable material were yielded on February 2, 1945.
Shipments became frequent, every five days.
By May 1945, shipments went by truck, and by July, by airplane.
DuPont delivered its hundredth batch of plutonium on July 4, 1945.
The material was necessary for the plutonium bomb tested on July 16, 1945, and used on Nagasaki on August 9, killing up to 70,000 people.
On August 6, President Truman released a statement about the Manhattan Project.
People in the Pacific Northwest learned what had been happening at Hanford.
The army had muzzled the media for over two years to maintain secrecy.
Matthias had lobbied editors to withhold unapproved stories, promising special treatment later.
On August 6, 1945, the army held press conferences and managed tours of Richland.
Matthias spoke to communities about Hanford.
The site took its first step toward becoming less isolated.
The army wished to maintain security and secrecy, as plutonium production continued after the war.
The army tried to prevent spies from conveying information to foreign powers and prevent public alarm about plant operations.
The amount of waste generated was classified to prevent enemies from estimating the nation's atomic bomb supply.
Employees flooded the medical department with health risk questions.
DuPont reported no injuries from special hazards.
Health physicists and physicians monitored radiation exposure.

Environmental and Health Concerns

Both the army and DuPont expressed concerns about environmental dangers.
Small quantities of plutonium production generated a great deal of waste; for one ton of uranium, 8,000 gallons of hot material had to be handled.
Waste was poured into tanks and trenches, and pollution entered waterways and the atmosphere.
Reactors were located along the Columbia River to dilute radioactivity, but the greatest threat came from gases released to the atmosphere.
Scientists studied weather patterns to ensure waste products would disperse, but their initial study was rushed and ill-informed.
Winds could not be relied upon to disperse emissions.
The local wind conditions modeled operating rules for the processing facilities.
Plant operators timed emissions to coincide with favorable winds and avoided releases during rainy weather.
However, the pressure to deliver plutonium became overwhelming.
Irradiated fuel rods were not cooled as long as they should have been, increasing radiation releases.
Releases occurred when winds were not favorable.
People working at Hanford and residing in the Tri-Cities absorbed doses of radiation.
The army suspected public health risks but prioritized accelerated manufacture.
Necessary corrections could occur afterward.
Scientists initially worried about radioactive xenon gas.
Radioactive iodine (I-131) presented more of a health threat, with connection between contamination of milk did not made until the 1950s.
The army and DuPont monitored iodine releases but could not control them effectively.
Scientists did not understand the dangers of radioactive iodine fully, with it accumulating on vegetation ingested by animals and humans.
Gaseous emissions peaked in 1945; of the 739,000 curies of radiation from iodine-131 released between 1944 and 1972, 75% were emitted in 1945.
The curie is roughly the amount of radioactivity released by 1 gram of radium, or 37 billion atoms dissolving per second.
The measurement is in comparison with the roentgen, the rad, and the rem, measures of dosage taken up by living things exposed to radioactive substances.
The relaxed pace of production in 1946 and the installation of filters reduced emissions.
Hanford discharged radioactive waste into the Columbia River, mainly via exposure to the piles’ neutron flux.
The water received radioactive isotopes.
Wastewater was cooled in holding tanks before being pumped back into the river.
The Columbia diluted the material, and the voyage to the ocean allowed radioactive wastes to decay.
People absorbed doses of radiation through drinking, swimming in, or eating fish/waterfowl exposed to Hanford waste.
Releases began in 1944-45 but peaked between 1950 and 1970.

Post-War Transition

By 1945, the plutonium plant at Hanford had a considerable influence over the surrounding people and environs.
The mid-Columbia region and the Pacific Northwest had entered into a new relationship with the federal government.
At the end of World War II, Lt. Gen. Frederick Clarke replaced Matthias.
In 1947, the army was replaced by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).
Clarke recalled having enough material for one nuclear bomb initially, then enough for several bombs by 1947.
Hanford did not close down but reduced production and pollution compared to 1944-45.
The workweek was reduced from 48 to 40 hours, and one reactor was shut down.
By January 1946, atmospheric releases of radiation had substantially diminished.
Employee numbers decreased, with Richland's population falling from 15,400 in March 1945 to ~13,000 in 1946.
Manhattan Project sites existed in limbo between the end of World War II and the Cold War.
Hanford and Richland stagnated as they waited for decisions about their future: continued atomic-weapons program, plutonium-239 vs. uranium-235 use, Hanford's future production role, and government ownership of Richland.