Part 1 of 4 Parts
     The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south central Washington state is considered to be one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the world. It sits on the ancestral lands of the Yakama Nation and other Indigenous peoples in Washington. In this area, precious wildlife, vision quest sites and burial grounds sit side by side with signs reading “warning hazardous area” and towering nuclear reactors, some of which date back to the second World War.
     Trina Sherwood is a cultural specialist for the Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration/Waste Management (ER/WM) program. She points to Gable Mountain in the Hanford area where young Indian men would fast and pray. There is Locke Island which was once the site of an Indigenous village. Native peoples collected white paint from the towering White Bluffs. There are also outcroppings of tules which were used to weave mats for ceremonies, as well as yarrow root which was used to treats burns.
     The Hanford Reservation was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan project. Over the next four decades, about two-thirds of the plutonium used in U.S. nuclear weapons was produced at Hanford, including the plutonium used in the bomb that demolished Nagasaki, Japan at the end of World War II. 
     During the operational lifetime of weapons development at Hanford, billions of gallons of liquid waste were dumped in underground storage tanks or just poured straight into trenches dug in the ground. The nine nuclear reactors at Hanford were shut down in 1987. Following that, about fifty-six million gallons of radioactive waste were left behind in one hundred and seventy-seven big underground storage tanks. Currently, at least two of these tanks are leaking radioactive materials into the soil.
     In the decades since the end of weapons development, the Yakama Nation has been one of four local Indigenous communities dedicated to the cleanup of this historic landscape. With respect to the Yakama Nation, there has been continuous oversight, advocacy and outreach with hope that one day the site will be restored to its natural state which could open the doors to a long-awaited unencumbered homecoming. (Editor’s note: Back in the 80s, I personally contracted with the Yakama Nation to write a Request for Proposals for a nuclear consultant to monitor the U.S. cleanup of the Hanford site.)
     Today, the work of the Yakama Nation has accelerated. There are few Yakama elders still alive who remember the Hanford area before its corruption. Unfortunately, there are likely to be decades to go before the cleanup is completed. Yakama elders are racing to pass the history of the Hanford site to the next generation, in the hope that they can one day take over.
      Laurene Contreras is the administrator for ER/WM, the program responsible for the Yakama Nation’s Hanford work. “Our elders are leaving that have that historical knowledge; people that actually lived there during that time and can tell you stories about the area. That’s why it’s so important for us to make sure that we’re carrying that message forward.”
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