The Hanford Nuclear Site in the state of Washington played an important part in America’s war effort during World War II. The nuclear production complex was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, and introduced the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor. The site produced the plutonium for the Fat Man, the nuclear weapon detonated over Nagasaki, and was crucial for the nation’s increasing nuclear arsenal during the Cold War.
While most of the reactors and plutonium processors have been decommissioned, the legacy of the site lives on. Because of the part it played during the Second World War, the site itself and working in the facility is still considered patriotic.
The site, however, holds another legacy as well. The site’s safety procedures and waste disposal practices were inadequate and there have been significant amounts of radioactive materials released into the air and into the Columbia River, resulting in the nation’s largest cleanup effort that was initiated 30 years ago, and might take another 30 years to finish. Some official documents from the site even indicate, that radioactive materials were released on purpose, in order to see the effects, it would have on the environment and the people.
Native people have felt the impact of this environmental catastrophe the most. Russell Jim, a citizen of the Yakama Nation and the project director for Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program for the Yakama Nation, has been calling for a cleanup and extensive research for the damages for decades. The radioactive materials are most likely the reason for the large number of cancer, thyroid problems and anencephaly, a rare and fatal birth defect, of the Yakama people.
The Yakama, Umatilla and Nez Perce used the Hanford area as wintering grounds, and the Wanapum Tribe lived there year-round, until forced out in the 1940s. Nonetheless, the area was selected for a nuclear site development because of the rural location, the nearby dams that provided hydroelectric power, and the Columbia River that supplied plenty of clean water for cooling the reactors.
Russell Jim explains in an interview with the Atomic Heritage Foundation, that the Yakama people used the Columbia River as their primary source of food and the area provided for all their dietary and medicinal needs.
When the Hanford Site was established, their access to the land and river was restricted. The Yakama Reservation is located only 20 miles from the Hanford Site, and the people are worried how the radioactive waste has affected the Chinook salmon and other fish, that the tribe uses. The Yakama Nation does not hold the funds needed for the research, and the U.S. seems uninterested in funding it. Nonetheless, a study conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency found, that the indigenous people of the area have one chance in fifty of getting cancer from the chemicals if they continue to eat the fish. As Jim points out, if this would have happened in New York, “it would have been cleaned up yesterday”.
The Yakama Tribe have had their livelihood and land imperiled by the Manhattan Project. The federal trust responsibility dictates that the U.S. government should project the tribal property, its lands and resources, and the nation’s access to fish and game.
Access to the Hanford Site, however, is restricted, the land has been contaminated, and the health of many people has suffered.
Russell Jim calls for true concerted effort to involve the Yakama Nation on a government-to-government basis on the cleanup, and, in so doing, for the federal government to recognize Yakama sovereignty and its trust obligation to the Yakama nation. “What does the land mean to us?” Russell Jim asks. “All of this is tied together to our sovereignty, our government, our culture, our religion – all tied to the foods and medicines, our language, our way of life.”