by Michele S. Gerber, PhD

Hanford Site founding

Scouted December 1942

Acquired February 1943 (Richland, White Bluffs, and Hanford townships
dissolved - 1,500 people moved out)

Construction began March 1943

Built by Army Corps of Engineers (MED) and E. I. DuPont de Nemours and
Company

Original mission: Produce plutonium (Pu) for the world's first atomic
weapons

Did mission succeed ? Yes!

* Trinity bomb test
* Nagasaki bomb ("Fat Man")
* Victory in World War II

World War II Construction and Operations (1942-1945)

Hanford Site location was chosen based on engineering and safety
considerations

* Engineering: abundant water supply, electric power nearby, rail freight
capacity, and soil and subsurface ability to bear massive structures
was necessary
* Safety: a remote and isolated location, with a small nearby population,
was necessary because early Pu production processes were untried and
potentially hazardous

World War II construction was large and fast

In 30 months, 554 buildings were erected (in addition to those for living
requirements)

City of Richland (officially a part of the Hanford Site at that time) was
constructed to house 17,500 people

Cost only $230 million

Called Hanford Engineer Works (HEW)

Key Facilities built

B, D, and F Reactors (100 Areas) - went critical in September and December
1944, and in February 1945, respectively

B Reactor has been nominated to the National Register of Historical Places,
and a B Reactor Museum Association exists to preserve it

T, B, and U Plants - first two became operational in December 1944 and April
1945

* chemical separations facilities (200 Areas)
* included separations "canyons," concentration buildings, and one
Plutonium Isolation Facility (231-Z)

200-N Area

* storage of irradiated fuel elements before chemical processing
* storage of Pu product before shipment to Los Alamos, and empty "PR"
(product) cans returned from Los Alamos

300 Area - fuel fabrication operations

* 64 Single-shell tanks (SSTs) for the storage of high-level nuclear
wastes

Wartime Secrecy and Rumors

Secrecy was extremely important at HEW

* compartmentalized design (information given on a "need to know" basis)
* press censorship
* code names and code words
* no private diaries or engineering notes (except Col. Franklin T.
Matthias)
* no military or civilian awards, nor Congressional investigations,
during WWII
* veiled recruiting efforts

Secrecy bred rumors

* high-powered aircraft fuel plant
* chemical or germ warfare plant
* valuable mine field
* factory for 5th term re-election buttons for President Franklin D.
Roosevelt
* summer home for President and Mrs. Roosevelt

Wartime Production at HEW

Pu ("product") was needed very quickly, because the urgent objective was to
win the war

Early understandings of the wastes and byproducts generated by Pu production
were incomplete

Accelerated production schedules resulted in the generation of a large
amount of Iodine - 131 (I-131) gas

* 345,000 curies of I-131 were released to the atmosphere in 1945
* 76,000 curies of I-131 were released to the atmosphere in 1946

Environmental Monitoring

the science of environmental monitoring pioneered at HEW

* MED survey records are the most complete in the world from that era

New and unique instrumentation was developed to measure radioactive
substances in the air, Columbia River water and organisms, land vegetation
and animals, soils, on tools and clothing, and in man

Corrective measures in production processes were not always undertaken in
time to keep radioactive and chemical wastes from reaching the environment

Post War Production Lull (September 1945 - August 1947)

Coincided with national period of indecision and discussion over the future
and control of atomic energy

* United Nations Plan
* Atomic Energy Act of 1946
o created Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as of January 1, 1947
o HEW name changed to Hanford Works (HW)
* In the meantime, atomic weapons production stagnated throughout the
nation
o Number of site personnel fell by half between September 1945 and
December 1946 (10,000 to 5,000 employees)
o B-Reactor closed temporarily
o power levels were lowered in D and F Reactors

National leaders and private citizens became concerned about the small
number of operable atomic weapons

New AEC decided upon a large expansion of production at HW in 1947

1947 - 1949 Expansion

Largest peacetime construction project in American history up to that point

Cost $350 million (more than original Hanford Site construction)

Facilities built

H and DR Reactors - went critical October 1949 and October 1950,
respectively

Z-Plant (Plutonium Finishing Plant) - on line July 1949

C-Plant ("Hot Semi-Works") - 1949

42 additional high-level waste storage tanks built

Expansion of Richland population to 23,000

Construction worker enclave of "North Richland" established

* 5 miles north of Richland (included current location of 3000 Area)
* Trailer and barracks housing and facilities
* Peak population (1948) was about 12,000 workers plus about 13,000
family members

Overall Tri-Cities regional population expanded to about 65,000

This expansion was nearly complete when tensions of the Cold War brought
about a second large expansion

1950 - 1952 Hanford Expansion (First Korean War Expansion)

Caused by frightening international and national events:

* Explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb (September 1949)
* Victory of Mao Tse-tung's Communist Chinese forces over Nationalist
Army (1949)
o Chinese-Soviet mutual assistance pact (1949)
* Beginning of the Korean War (June 1950)
* Famous U.S. spy cases
o Alger Hiss
o Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
o Klaus Fuchs
o others

Defense budgets were increased repeatedly, as many of the plants in the
current U.S. weapons complex were begun or expanded

* Nevada Test Site (NTS)
o Pacific Proving Grounds expanded
* Reactor Testing Station (now Idaho National Engineering Laboratory -
INEL)
* Savannah River Plant (South Carolina)
* Rocky Flats Plant (Colorado)
* Pantex Plant (Texas)
* Fernald Feed Materials Plant (Ohio)
* Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant (Ohio)
* Sandia Laboratory (as separate from Los Alamos) (New Mexico)

Hanford facilities built

* Redox (reduction-oxidation) or S-Plant - opened January 1952
* C-Reactor - went critical November 1952
* 2 evaporators (242-T and 242-B) to concentrate high-level wastes
* 2 biology laboratories
* 18 additional SSTs
* 5 large, complex laboratory and shop facilities in the 300 Area
* U-Plant (TBP or Metal Recovery mission) - operational in July 1952
* extracted uranium (U) from high level wastes in SSTs
* processes greatly expanded high-level waste volumes, and chemically
complicated these wastes
* ferrocyanide salts were added to new U-Plant wastes to precipitate
cesium- 137 and make greater volumes of waste available for discharge
to the ground
* the ferrocyanide salts from this operation that now lie in 24 (known)
tanks provide one of the most complex Hanford Site waste clean-up
challenges

* UO-3-Plant (1952) to calcine uranyl nitrate hexahydrate (UNH) from U-Plant
and Redox (and later from Purex) into uranium oxide powder for use in other
weapons plants

1953 - 1955 Hanford Expansion (Second Korean War Expansion)

Caused by election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower

* "New Look" in armaments: decision to cut defense budget by decreasing
conventional forces and weapons, and expanding atomic weaponry

Explosion of first Soviet hydrogen bomb (August 1953)

Formation of Joint Army-Navy Ballistic Missile Committee to develop
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) (November 1955)

Passage of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954

* Facilitated many new commercial power applications and other peaceful
uses for atomic energy

Hanford facilities built

* KE and KW Reactors - went critical in January and April 1955
* Purex (plutonium-reduction extraction) or A-Plant - began full-scale
operations in January 1956
* Recuplex (234-5Z) - began operations in 1955
o reclaimed additional Pu from Z-Plant solid scraps and liquid
wastes
o operations ended with a criticality in April 1962
* 21 additional SSTs