Transcripts For CSPAN2 Steve Olson The Apocalypse Factory 20240711

Poet and educator in seattle and the author of free poetry collections including 2012 room. Also the New Washington poet laureate 21222014 and currently serving on the board of jack straw a local studio. Here today talking about the apocalypse factory. Please join me to welcome steve olson. Thanks. As you know kathleen published a book of poems in 2012 and all of those are about hanford. And then she will we eat paul from her new book of poems entitled post romantic coming out in october from the university of washington press. So to make sure my slides will work i will project her words onto a screen. Banks. And to say before i read the poem how im pleased to be a part of this evening and its wonderful to celebrate the publication of this book not just because i have poems in it but they are not told us much as i think they should be and then to get the story out i have learned all kinds of things from it and out there for people to read. This is the poem and its called stories that wont and well. It begins in our laboratory over distant continents 50000 men journeyed to the American West to construct cathedrals for nobel physicist and a privilege to understand or the microscopic tolerance and codewords and then cant see or smell or taste and then goes undetected downstream or downwind while the soviet matches bomb before mom well we build lives and more reactors and pledge of allegiance and the naugahyde couch in the family room our story developed incrementally until one afternoon daylight in town square and we force ourselves to read it. The ugly stinking bitter truth. And then i moved. So now to begin to tell the story i will hand it over to yo you. That is an incredible poem that tells the whole story was that would have been available to publish in this book. That is the short version right there so i will back up and fill in some of the details. Where is hanford . As you can see on this map it is in South Central Washington State where the river flows to the east and the wrong direction and then to the north before ultimately curves around to the south to the tricities and then west to the river gorge to the pacific ocean. Why is hanford there . Chose on the first day of winter in the year 1942 the kernel for the was carmi on dash army corps of engineers was sent from washington dc to look for a place to build a facility that could create the material needed to build and atomic bomb. He was flying around to various sites he just picked out a site in oregon and then to come over the top and the pod plane stretching from richland you can see my cursor up there. And a huge Nuclear Reactors it needed electricity with a new set of highvoltage lines down to the river. To hall equipments and chemicals to the site the main branch of the old railroad ran to the north of the mountain. And the spare line made its way along the river. So the rail line was already there. Everyone would have to leave and in 1942 each of the small farming towns had about 200 or 250 People Living in them there were 1500 people so they figure that was a relatively small number that would have to leave their house. And then with any Major Population Centers because if anything went wrong with Nuclear Reactors and doesnt want too many people to be killed looking just to the northeast to see the small town on the horizon thats a town that i grew up in the 19 sixties and early seventies you can almost see my house from the photograph in this area at 915 home street of how things are laid out and then taking this photograph and then to see tiny specks of white on the other side of the river. So this was directly behind me thats how close they were. On the cover of my book 15 miles behind the twin smokestacks that are raising from the powerplants of the reactor and then that ridge in the distance and taking that previous photograph. And had 4000 people it was a wonderful town to grow up in. As an isolated selfcontained paradise and to enjoy our own triumphs. Had a census town was in the middle of nowhere. By the time i was in middle school and then to get something more exciting coming to seattle. And then it wanted to be closer to the center of the action. In the example of the encouragement but the only problem with the plan is that your children move far away from you and dont come home for a long time. We moved back to seattle from the east coast i started to travel in Eastern Washington and realized in retrospect it wasnt as isolated as it seemed in the sixties and seventies. And with those therefore stations because of the large dome that stood on top and that station was there to protect the town of hanford just 50 miles away on the other ridgeline. With the sixties and seventies we didnt know much about hanford at that point. Was a big science geek in the sputnik age in the sixties interested in science. And plutonium but in the 19 sixties behind a tall barbed wire are heavily armed fences but when you are an employee you had to sign the agreement to your entire family is what you did there. This motto silence means that security is a Common Future it was on water towers and completely ignorant about what it is that person may be doing and the circumstance or the secrecy that surrounds hanford is still safe and is still a close site because of what is going on there today. And youre free to learn everything you want but that is what has stuck to it. And so few people know about its history. So as i said looking for a place to build a facility that would manufacture the substance that was discovered in 1941 about ten months before pearl harbor by these two scientists. The one on the right in the dark suit who at the time was a 29 yearold chemist and working with the graduate student and in this laboratory they isolated a new element named plutonium in fact in the laboratory the very first which they stored in the cigar box and with critical measurements if plutonium could work with atomic bombs. Even though they tried to be careful during that experiment they had to be before this event that was still present and the countertops and on the floors. So if you had a neutron you have on stabilization of the twostep process and if this is the case over the course of a couple of days this isotope is also unstable and over a couple of days it goes to element 94 so plutonium 239 is extremely stable and essentially remains ch why it io the old atomic bomb. So at a critical juncture before the discovery scientist new one way to make an atomic bomb using a rare isotope but extracting enough of that isotope at the very beginning of world war ii a difficult process from the Manhattan Project. And then the bomb dropped on hiroshima. Because i didnt have enough uranium to do so. But the discovery of plutonium and then they gave two ways. They had shown plutonium was an even better substance than uranium 235. Then german scientist had two ways to make a bomb as well. If plutonium had not been discovered at exactly the right time and in the United States and germany to produce a bomb but then they realize the germans were using for 20 am that started the whole objective to produce a bomb to counter the development. Because he needed a lot of neutrons and theres only one way so in 1941 Nuclear Reactors do not exist. That the for that they would fled italy in 1938 and then those new clearer attitudes with tony and they gave it much more money to do his research and then to pick a site for hanford and the group of scientist that we have been seeing in the middle of the painting and then under the stand of a football field and this is countless times so this experiment emphasizes it and has that Chain Reaction as possible. And its true. And that is equally important that reactor with the Nuclear Reactor just from the 11 saybrook foundation producing for joining them in the reactor this is a photograph from world war ii and between the two water towers in case like a reactor. And with the technologies that were developed here. And so to this event the Nuclear Reactor has been observed on observed by a engineers in our part of the new National Park and ive been to all three sites in the park and in oak ridge tennessee and by far it is the most impressive thing to see and all the Manhattan Projects. When you walk into the room and felt the reactor and see and then the uranium fuel cells that this will occur to find plutonium i could not leave it it took my heart a way that it can still exist in exactly the same way it has changed very little since 1944 and worldfamous scientist and engineers and started making plutonium in 1944. And once the pandemic is over we would try to see. This is the first of nine reactors eventually built along the left bank of the Columbia River and then another six during the cold war access the trigger for the Nuclear Weapon of the arsenal. And the reference that was made at the time if it is ever used in the Nuclear Weapons and that would be the end of civilization that would be armageddon. But plutonium and Nuclear Reactors only the first step in a twostep process you need to chemically extract from the two elements and that was done in those concrete buildings because they were as large as ocean liners. To see the gigantic buildings and in 1984 a magazine story. To take the irradiated fuel component out of the Nuclear Reactor and put it and one end of the building and at the other and with the very First Nuclear explosion with the 75th anniversary was a few weeks ago with and immense and with an immense amount to separate the plutonium from uranium then it is extremely radioactive after being used in the Processing Plant. With the First World War to what the camelot on chemical and radiological waste. So what they did is they pumped the waste into gigantic tanks built and then covered up with sand and dirt the slide shows 12 of what eventually became 177 underground tanks used to store high level waste from the Processing Plant. The department of energy has made Good Progress to clean up some parts of hanford but they are just starting to do with them process the waste stored in the tanks more than 35 years now is astonishing to think that the chemicals of world war ii to generate those balls are still sitting in the tanks. We are 75 years into it. And with the bombing of hiroshima anniversary and then the bombing of nagasaki. I spent the weekend walking through the city and to reconstruct with that Nuclear Weapon did to the city that the nagasaki medical hospital standing in his office and was half mile from where the bomb exploded with a heavy concrete wall and to cut down to which he was exposed suffering from terrible radiation sickness i had his diary translated from japanese and talk to his daughter and granddaughter. And spent the rest of his life with living the effects of the bomb of the survivors. And part of it was totally destroyed with the death toll between 40,070,000 people. And by todays standards it was a very small Nuclear Weapon. In todays arsenal average is ten or 20 times as large as it was dropped on nagasaki. Single Hydrogen Bomb dropped on seattle were destroyed much of the city. Women to have more plutonium than they would ever need and that it was ultimately stopped and cleaning up that contamination from plutonium production there was no longer a need to make any plutonium. Thats what i want to bring kathleen back into this conversation not only grown up in richmond so i have a question for you and just 60 miles away growing up in richmond, the daughter of a scientist. What was that like . Even with relatives that worked at the facility. And you said you probably knew before they were making plutonium honestly i do not remember when i figure that out i am guessing it wasnt until high school. I know that sounds shocking but it was a hallmark of the dont talk about it if you dont have a reason culture. We just did not talk about the area. In fact we were proud of ourselves it was a mark of culture, and nobody talks about work and those ideas and people that were in cages at the time that were smoking cigarettes. [laughter] thats what i heard at the time. And plutonium in that part of it but i eventually figured it out. As a child you can pick things up and soak up the idea that this is for the country and for our safety. There is an undercurrent of patriotism that runs through the hanford community. We were a culture multiple generations and a lot are very educated and would all be living next door to each other. There were some things about us that we miss and love ones dad is no more important than anybody elses. Because there was nothing else to do there was a lot about it that i liked. Do you know what your dad did at hanford . Did you tell me he worked in the office . He didnt know for sure. Thats on your to be. We went to Washington State university and Environmental Engineering and how did that come about . Was growing, which by that time, it was just starting to transition away from production to cleanup to dealing with these and. No, the only job in three after graduating Civil Engineering that i could find. The job market then, even for engineers is really poor i took a job at Rockwell Stanford and i worked in the 200 area. We talked about driving past the separation plan in 1984, i was there, one of those trailers hereby working my first year as an engineer there. I didnt know that. You would have been in the same place. What was that like, it was designed by scientists and engineers but the operators and the people who built it made important contributions to the plan and that so much had to be invented from scratch and building those reactors. They were convinced that they were the people who sort of knew the plan fast have to get to operate and it was written down, they spent decades working on that plan and new it from the inside out and knew all of its tricks. There must have been generation issues involved coming in and the all of a sudden asking those questions. Definitely. I didnt work in manufacturing, i worked in monitoring. Redoing Environmental Monitoring as the groundwater and we measured the movement so we were an Environmental Group and i did have to do a lot around that you talk about in the book, it was an attempt to figure out where the water is coming in or going out and theres a difference between the two numbers and i was trying to figure it out but i would be calling and they were not very receptive. It is not working against me, the culture of each to know, why did i need to note that . They were suspicious from the beginning. Then theres the idea theres this girl on the phone and its 1985 or whatever and they didnt have a lot of authority of the times. I look back on it and i think there were problems around that but i was respectful of the way they kept everything running. Whatever you say about what they did, politics aside, it was quite a marvel. One of the things i love in your book was the way you talk about the difference between the scientists and engineers and there is some friction there. I thought you captured that very well my love it if you tell a story number of aluminum they needed. Thats right, the aluminum. Starting out the reactor, everything worked fine. His number 1944 and they got the reactor they wanted and all of a sudden the reactors moved out and nobody could figure out what was going on. Many of the engineers were there in the room as well as smelling of good whiskey at the time and all of a sudden, there was disaster for the reactor whose power and nobody knows whats going on. All the scientists get to work and say well, theres got to be something in the reactor soaking up neutrons as we start up neutrons, splitting, creating something and soaking up neutrons like a sponge. It turned out to be seen on, at that time, nobody knew that. They look at the reactor and thought, this entire thing could fail. We built all of these reactors and we didnt anticipate this problem. It could very well be all the money we spent on this was wasted and we are never going to generate it and at the end of world war ii, there were only be one. We just wasted all this money. General of that product almost had a heart attack when he heard about the reactors but then you have feeling in these margins of safety as juniors always do. They are taught that in school. He designed it for these 25 just in case something goes wrong and you need it and in this case, they had done that. Instead of building the reactor with only 1500 of the aluminum, which is what the scientist had gone for the engineers said we are going to build that, who will some of that info scientists complained and they said just to get this done. We are in a race with germans right now, if we dont do this, we are going to lose it. They said sorry, the ones in charge of it, were going to put 2000 and. The only way they were able to overcome this poisoning problem was by loading up the extra 500 tubes they put in as a safety margin just in case the science that something messed up. It ran around for decades after that about how they can eventually build in these extra reactors. Im sure the story is told when you see the reactor. Preserved by a group of engineers who work on the reactors over the years and realized the significance of this structure is a technological achievement for the 20th century. There is controversy over whether the product should be a historical part because it lends celebration to something that ultimately resulted in these Nuclear Weapons that killed hundreds of thousands of people in japan. The reactor offers that opportunity, i think, to learn about this episode of Human History and become aware of the capabilities of the Nuclear Weapons people here in seattle dont realize. I look at the window and halfway between me and the olympics is the naval base, west coast base for our Nuclear Submarine and they have a stockpile, largest stockpile in the u. S. , just 20 miles northwest of seattle. We worry about Climate Change but the fact is, we can destroy human civilization in an afternoon if they are used. There getting some questions here, we were supposed to encourage you to ask some questions and the questions tab so we are going to look at those. The first one is interesting, i think we can look at this. Do you think, this is a question from james. Many risks with exposing people downwind if the managers were not protected by the secrecy in the plan . Reconstructing the cold war mentality about the decisions made, not going to pull my slides back but both the reactor and Processing Plant separation plant right next to them, and both of these processes from the reactor and suffering from the fuel cells, you generate compounds, cant keep them in the plans. They would just put them up and hope the wind was blowing hard, they would be too concentrated downwind. I look part of the materials to try to find evidence the managers during the 50s and 60s knew they were releasing what, at that time, what have been termed dangerous activity. Ive had trouble finding any kind of evidence. In other words, they had certain standards beyond which they didnt want to go releasing radioactivity and the standards may be stricter today than they were sent. But i personally believe the operators thought they were not releasing radioactivity to cause widespread health problems. We were there during the science of operation, what do you think . I would maybe rephrase a little bit, i dont think necessarily a man although, i think it is very possible that upper management would hide behind secrecy. I think that is possible. In some ways, im more interested in the people, the regular joes that are down working in the plant. I agree with you, in some ways, i think people were very knowledgeable about environments. People didnt know environmental monitors and thank you and they would put all their figures to my favorite character, parker and he definitely knew all of this and he did not let it be known. He even lied to congress i think he was a materialistic person, thought he was protecting the ignorant masses. They didnt understand, signs they didnt understand. As always been that element. You dont understand, its too sophisticated for you. We, the scientists will take care of you and that was part of the culture of the times and very heavy part of the community at the time. So it is a mix. Lets keep talking about this because theres another question about this related to this issue and i just in your answer to this talk about the pride growing up near the area and it made me think of the different reaction by people who lived in places like nevada, they were not proud to live there. Separate the fall out physically growing up with this government, have you looked into the stories on the other side of the machine, so to speak, i do tell a variety of stories in my book, a great book by the name of patricia that, a couple of months ago and she presents the evidence and history of the people affected by some of these releases, very compelling fashion but that is an interesting question because though i havent really been down to nevada for the other sites, the Nuclear Facilities from the cold war, he would think theres a different attitude there in some of these and other towns affected. I am not an expert on these communities, ive read a little bit about how they tried to build, so thats but i think it is different, they always wanted these things. They tried to get up. It runs a little counter to what you would expect theres a strange community side, a lot of tribalism, us versus the rest of the world and so much of that is identity and they are feeling for economic safety, taking what nobody else wants. I cant explain it but i think it does run counter to what you would expect and some of these other communities that were definitely victims of what was going on around them. I have never felt that sense of victimhood and the people who work there except when it gets personal somebody becomes ill, then you see a, in terms of the general, it doesnt run that w way. Right. Talk about some of those illnesses including illnesses among family members, people and i know in the tricities and people i know as well. I going to answer a question, which relates to this one although its a bit of the story in the Manhattan Project, apologies if this has already been covered but can you talk about the nonzero possibility, understood at the time that Nuclear Weapons would instigate a Chain Reaction in the atmosphere and destroy the planet . Its very interesting, this was a concern of the very first test of a Nuclear Weapon in new mexico. He used plutonium. This has been written about and studies, scientists cap related to risk was very low. Lay they couldnt prove the risk was zero and therefore, were scientists justified in testing a weapon that had a nonzero possibility of destroying the planet even if the risk was very low . At the time they started to make fun of it. He started taking extra time of the test approached on to relish or not the Nuclear Weapon being tested set the atmosphere on fire and if it would just destroy mexico or the entire planet. That made them irritated because they thought everyone was keyed up already. The scientists treated as a joke but people have looked back at that episode and a cost, were we justified in taking those risks . The reason i bring that particular issue up because in the 50s and 60s when we were living there, there is a lot of sentiment among the scientists that we are in a serious situation and these risks need to be looked at and there is still that mentality that occurs, people who volunteer for projects in which they work at a high dose of radiation which they will only get the high dose for sure. Of time if they are increasing the risk of health benefits. You remember that mentality in the 50s and 60s . I remember when there were people like me who would go to jumpers, people would be hired to go to into highly radioactive environment, perform a specific task for sure. Of time and then he were done. You can make all kinds of money. I didnt know anybody in the tristate area was a jump. You are teaching me all kinds of things. I do know my friend carolyn, her dad was a major character in my book, he didnt make a lot of money, three kids and a wife and i know he sometimes would do under the table jobs, where he would run in and run out, which was really scary and he was paid under the table so no there were people who did that kind of work was never written up, it was never official so people do things for money. People didnt always follow the rules back then. The only have seven minutes and we are getting all kinds of interesting questions will probably not give enough attention that they deserve. Can i ask a quick question . I would like to know why hanford story of all the stories, oak ridge, why hanford . Also, why not the bomb drop it kind of pushed aside . It is odd and i think it has to do with the secrecy, even during the cold war. People for the National Laboratory formed and they didnt know about hanford, some of it was just timing that was first but it is serious. This is the beginning of my book, make the case of the most important place in the history of the nuclear age. Nuclear reactors that occurred there, the production of this new element on a large scale, the development of the material that now serves Nuclear Weapons and rapid expansion during the cold war, there were all kinds of things that happened that have not gotten the attention they deserve. Theres been any written about the Manhattan Project and one thing that excited me about writing this book was that i be able to talk about things that hadnt been written about in popular books before. People have considered these things there wasnt enough popular ones written about we dare address some of the hard issues . There is one question, a comment that came up and i think it would be great mentioned it at least. The anniversary of the bombing, this will be virtual this thursday with the video about 35 years of this colony element available on youtube. Asking us to encourage everyone to watch and remember to run out of Washington State, a critical and essential element of atomic bombs. I think myself about the anniversary on sunday. And also the material cut off, eliminate Nuclear Weapons by monitoring eventually eliminating the materials used to build the weapons. I just want to say i love the way you write your books, usually all of the history characters and i think that is so effective in this book. I learned a great deal about was the growth and i didnt know the story of the provision in there, it was so moving because it is told through his eyes he lost his son in the is a harrowing story so i think one of the real sections of the book, even though it is a huge story, told anna human scale and you do a beautiful job. As you know, these characters these cells are so interesting. They are human stories, even these scientists facing immense laundry square results all of a sudden make it apparent please atomic weapons can be built. How do you respond . Do you contribute . You walk away . They were scientists that made the decision to not participate in the Manhattan Project. It is also the case that scientists, including leslie were at the forefront of groups urging the u. S. Government not to drop the bomb on cities in japan but to have a demonstration project or make it apparent to the japanese that we have mastered this weapon, there arguments in some cases, they were not even listened to all the time. When you look at those arguments today in retrospect and say if only people would have paid more attention, even if the bombs had been used, perhaps a second one would have been dropped or they would have used it in a different way, it could have been a big influence on the way the cold were influenced and is developed so it is not just the story of scientific achievement, it is also a story of people rattling some of these demons that arise as you make these discoveries. Thats exactly right. You dont stop at the end of the war, you asked an old timer to tell the story on august 9, 1945 and we all know that its beginning to tell the story, it starts the. There were only those three reactors during world war ii and another six built subsequently to that. I think a lot of people in Washington State to realize its one operating hour later just south of those reactors used to make those plutonium. Theres a lot that remains relatively unknown. This has been quite. Thanks very much for doing this with me. I saw someone starting to appear that but they seem to have faded back into the background. [laughter] thank you both so much for this talk. Very fascinating. My father works at a nuclear site in western new york. His work probably 30 years so thought this would be very interesting. Thank you all for washing. If your adjusted and wanting more, follow our channel, click the follow button in the top right button. Purchase a copy of this book to the by this book button will take you to the website. Thank you again so much. Really fascinating medical everybody has a great night. Youre watching tv on cspan2. Every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and others. Cspan2. Created by americas Television Cable Television Company is a Public Service brought to you by your television provider. Book tv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Saturday 1 00 p. M. 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