Key overall themes for this unit include:

1. In what unprecedented ways have humans and nature interacted at Hanford?
2. What are the historical origins of the nuclear waste problems at Hanford? How does public response to nuclear technology fit into the emergence of environmentalism?
3. What are the ethical dimensions of nuclear technology?
4. What special ethical concerns arise with the intersection of politics and nuclear technology?
5. What should be done with Hanford's (and the country's) high-level nuclear waste?

MATERIAL STUDENTS SHOULD KNOW/THINK ABOUT FROM READINGS:

• How have people and land interacted over time at Hanford?
• What happened at Hanford beginning in the 1940's?
• What are the issues involved historically and today (including wastes)?
• What is radiation? How is it measured? How are wastes classified? What are the health effects of exposure?

• What is the history of ideas about matter in the West, leading up to the understanding that enabled nuclear power?  What is its relevance for environmental ethics?
• What is your judgment of the rightness / wrongness of the actions at Hanford?
• What questions about ethics could you ask about the waste at Hanford?
• What questions about history could you ask about the waste at Hanford?

1. Gerber, Michele S. On the Home front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Nuclear Site.  Lincoln: U. Nebraska Press, 1992.  Ch. 1, "Beginnings: The Land and the Place," pp. 11-30.
2. Torvik, Solveig. From here to eternity.  Seattle Times ,1998 (Apr. 19-24). I suggest you read at least the introduction to this series; the bar on the right takes you to other installments.<photo>
3. Primer on Radioactive Waste

• DOE, Prehistory and history of the Hanford site (Extensive information - pick what's interesting to you.)
• Hanford to ship radioactive waste off site for the first time. June 17
• Study examines women nuclear workers' deaths. June 30
• New lawsuit filed over radiation releases. July 12
• DOE fined for missing critical Hanford deadline  June 14
• Hanford cleanup firm given early release  July 1
• Experts disagree on how to execute Hanford cleanup  Apr. 26
• Bottomless containers could be source of tritium contamination Sept 29
• 'Nuisance' radiation breach at Hanford  Oct 9
• Energy Department settles charge of waste-handling violations at Hanford Oct. 17
• Untamed Hanford reach is jumping with salmon. Oct. 19
• Hanford cleanup spending wasteful Nov. 2
• Wasted time on Hanford cleanup Nov. 3

MATERIAL STUDENTS SHOULD KNOW/THINK ABOUT FROM READINGS:

• What motivated and justified the quest for atomic fission?
• What was known and believed about radiation at the time? By whom?
• What are some of the different perspectives on the Manhattan Project of those at Hanford?

READING:

1. Sanger, S. L. Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of WWII Hanford. Portland: Continuing Education Press.  Ch. 2, "The Site," pp. 16-27; Ch.5, "Operations," pp. 146-157.

For resources on the ethical dimensions of nuclear arms and conflict, visit The Nuclear Files site.

From the Leo Szilard webpages, Atomic Bomb Decision: Documents on the decision to use atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Japanese website on Nuclear Arms and Human Race, including a "cyber-exhibit" and an extensive web discussion among  citzens of several nations.

For a timeline, biographies, and other resources on atomic weapones, visit Atomic Archive site

Image of the Henry Moore sculpture sited above the location of the first sustained nuclear reaction, on the University of Chicago campus.

MATERIAL STUDENTS SHOULD KNOW/THINK ABOUT FROM READINGS:

• What conditions in post-WWII U.S. set the stage for environmental concern?

• How did nuclear power advocates attempt to promote it after WWII?
• How did radioactive fallout become the first international env. issue?
• What distinguishes environmentalism from the earlier conservationism?

1.  Hays, Samuel P. "From Conservation to Environment: Environmental Politics in the U.S. Since World War II." In  Char Miller and Hal Rothman (Eds.), Out of the Woods: Essays in Environmental History.  Pittsburg: Univ. of Pittsburg Press, 1997, pp. 101-126.

•  See Atoms for Peace (picture book), on reserve (call# 539.7 L32a)
• Update on US action on Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty

MATERIAL STUDENTS SHOULD KNOW/THINK ABOUT FROM READINGS:

• What issues and events galvanized recent concern at Hanford?
• How did the natural features of the site interact with human actions to produce problems?

• What citizen efforts were mounted in response to Hanford?
• How do efforts at Hanford relate to national movements?
• Whose responsibility should it be to deal with the problems there?
• What responsibilities are entailed in cleaning up Hanford?  What principles should define them?

1. Whiteley, John M. "The Hanford Nuclear Reservation: The Old Realities and the New." In Dalton, Russell, Paula Garb, Nicholas P. Lovrich, John C. Pierce and John M. Whiteley, Critical Masses: Citizens, Nuclear Weapons Production, and Environmental Destruction in the United States and Russia. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000, pp. 29-57.

Visit Downwinders - "Downwinders is a research and educational foundation established in 1978 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Downwinders takes its name from the residents living in the prevailing wind pattern surrounding the Nevada Test Site, and who have been constantly exposed to radioactive fallout from America's nuclear testing activities conducted there."

Visit the Dept. of Energy Hanford website
Background on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

MATERIAL STUDENTS SHOULD KNOW/THINK ABOUT FROM READINGS:

• What underlying values are at stake in the debate over nuclear power?

Debate format:  Each team will open with a brief summary statement of their main points provided by one speaker (5 minutes each side).  Next, each team may respond to the points of the other, and pose questions of each other (other speakers) (10-15 minutes total); the remainder of the time will be devoted to fielding audience questions, and class discussion.

BACKGROUND READINGS ON RESERVE
PRO:

• Morris, Robert. The Environmental Case for Nuclear Power: Economic, Medical and Political Considerations. St. Paul: Paragon House, 2000.
• Jagger, John. The Nuclear Lion: What Every Citizen Should Know about Nuclear Power and Nuclear War.  New York: Plenum Press, 1991.
• McCracken, Samuel. The War Against the Atom. New York: Basic Books, 1982.
• See also: Nuclear Energy Institute

• Union of Concerned Scientists & Michelle Adato. Safety Second: The NRC and America's Nuclear Power Plants. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Gyorgy, Anna. No Nukes: Everyone's Guide to Nuclear Power.  Boston: South End Press, 1979.
• Nader, Ralph. The menace of atomic energy, Rev. ed. New York: Norton, 1979.

• How do the principles of informed consent and compensation apply to present and future generations in the nuclear waste issue?
• How do technologies change relationships of power in society?

• What ethical frameworks and principles should inform policy decisions about nuclear waste?
• How can you apply the ideas presented by Winner to other technologies?

1. Shrader-Frechette, Kristin. "Ethical Dilemmas and Radioactive Waste: A Survey of the Issues."  Environmental Ethics 13 (Win. 1991): 327-43.

• Poisoned Workers, Poisoned Places. USA Today (Sept 5-8, 2000).
• Hanford exposure admitted, Seattle Times,Jan. 29, 2000.
• Government drops bomb about Hanford's dangers, Feb. 3, 2000.
• Bill may aid sick Hanford workers June 12, 2000.
• Payments to sick nuclear workers in jeopardy, Sept. 20, 2000.
• Bill aids sick US nuclear workers Oct. 12, 2000.

MATERIAL STUDENTS SHOULD KNOW/THINK ABOUT FROM READINGS:

• What factors are most important in determining the public acceptability of nuclear waste storage?
• What are considerations do the authors bring to bear on technological, judicial and  legislative means of solving the nuclear waste dilemma?

• What social / ethical factors constrain technological and legislative solutions to nuclear waste storage, and how do they do so?
• What should be done with our nuclear waste?

1. Rosa, Eugene, Riley E. Dunlap and Michael E. Kraft. "Prospects for Public Acceptance of a High-level Nuclear Waste Repository in the United States: Summary and Implications. In Riley E. Dunlap,  Michael E. Kraft and Eugene Rosa, Eds., Public Reactions to Nuclear Waste: Citizen's Views of Repository Siting. Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 1993, (pp. 293-324).