It was very interesting and really added some background to the size and scope of the cleanup project. Below is list of some of the highlights of the tour.
- Visiting Reactor B... This was the first reactor built at Hanford and the first production reactor built. This wartime reactor made the material for the bombs dropped on Japan during WWII. You get to see the front of the reactor and walk thru the control room. Reactor B was recently declared a historic landmark.
- Hanford had a coal-fire power station on it that is in the process of being torn down... This seems funny at first, but, the 6 reactors being built were for plutonium production, not electrical generation. That came later.
- Some of the cleanup seemed excessive until they explained the tumbleweeds and other "condensers." Some animals and plants condense radiation in their body as they eat. Condensing low radiation soils into high radiation flesh or waste. This is turned into a huge problem and has caused a real need for cleaning up even the least contaminated soils. Tumbleweeds, for example, send a long root into the ground and easily soak up radiation. They then dry-up, and blow for mails. Every year they find tons of really "hot" tumbleweeds stuck to fences miles from the nearest radiation source. Birds build nests out of "hot" mud causing contamination of even brand-new buildings, and deer become irradiated from eating the grass.
- Reactor Burial Grounds... When a sub's reactor is spent after 25 years, they actually cut that section of the sub or boat out like a piece of a sandwich, seal the ends and line them up for burial. There's about 25 sub and boat pieces lined up for burial. It's oddly cool.
- The first 4-line highway in Washington was built in Hanford...Got to drive on it. It was built for the 40,000 people who worked at Hanford in the late 40's.
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