[birds chirping] [rock tapping] [tapping continues] [weedcloth ripping] [punching through weedcloth] [tearing weedcloth] - You need help with that?

- Yeah.

- [Planting Crew Worker] Back into Mother Earth.

- [Planting Crew Worker #2] Okay, that'll do.

- [Gretchen] If you look out here and you see some of these pin flags, these colored pin flags sticking up, that's where we planted plants last year, native plants.

[weedcloth ripping] So we're not in a contaminated zone.

We wouldn't work in contaminated areas.

We wouldn't risk that exposure.

[crickets chirping] The main part of Hanford, humans will never be able to use that again.

I mean never.

I mean in a billion years maybe, but not even in a billion years.

It'll be contaminated.

[crickets chirping] [sound of a gathered crowd] [running feet hit the field] [loud cheering] [marching band plays Richland High School fight song] [crowd chanting on the beat] [crowd cheering] [whistle blowing] - [Announcer] Kostorowsk with the fair catch for the Bomb [indistinct chattering] [cheerleaders chanting] Richland will begin first down 10 yards ago... from its own 38-yard line.

Noah Rodriguez with the stop for the Grizzlies Gain of six yards on the pla is good for another Bombers... First down!

[resonant wind harp hum] [cheerleaders chanting] [whistle blowing] [cheerleaders chanting] [distant traffic] - [Don] I've worked in the 308 building, which is the 300 area.

I've been in most of the buildings there.

313, 333, 325, 327... 324 building I've been in.

I've worked out in the 100 Areas, 100N.

I've been to 200 East Area, 200 West Area, PUREX facility, REDOX, Tank Farms, 234-5, PFP.... Been in FFTF.

So I've been to most places in...on site.

- [Irene] How long have you worked at Hanford?

- This is my 44th year.

We produced plutonium because the government was paying people to do that.

It was good work, it was good money.

Some people may say, "Well, you sold your souls."

I don't know if, I wouldn't say that, but someone from the outside could draw that conclusion quite easily: "You knew what was going on, but yet you did it anyway."

Well...yes and no.

But the disposal practice we had in the forties and fifties and sixties, those were... those were all... those were all legal.

There was nothing wrong with it.

There wasn't a law, there wasn't an EPA, there wasn't a Washington Department of Ecology.

And the narrative on the mushroom cloud, that's a narrative from the outside.

It's an easy thing to look at: Mushroom cloud.

It's ver recognizable across the world.

And people have their biases, and they'll bring it in an say, "You need to change that."

No, we don't.

We don't need to change it.

We need to explain to the outside communities.

We don't look at this as use it to kill people.

This is what we accomplished.

[dreamy music] - [Narrator] The story of Richland is an unusual one.

The town grew almost overnight to a city in the 25,000 class.

Richland and the Hanford plant were slated to be shut dow after the end of World War II.

The shift to permanency came when world conditions emphasized that atomic energy was the key to national security.

Richland the housing project became Richland the home town.

The plant was expanded.

So was the city.

Hanford and Richland were here to stay.

[dreamy music swells] - [Female Announcer] Thank you for your patience, everyone.

Again, welcome to our Atomic Frontier Day 2019 parade.

We're excited to have everyone out here today.

Again, we are commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Manhattan Project.

- Oorah, oorah, oorah, oorah!

- [Male co-Announcer] This entry is a scale replica of an A model alphabet house.

Alphabet houses are central to the identity of many Richlanders.

And this fine example was hand-built by city carpenters in honor and celebration of the greatest generation that served this community.

[marching band drum cadence] All right, next up is the Richland High School Marching Band Bombers.

City of Richland is proud of its history and traditions, and Richland High School Marching Band is part of that pride.

The Bomber band would like to say hi to everyone and join the parade with fun music and the RHS Fight Song.

Sing along, we all know the words.

[marching band playing the RHS Fight Song] [”Phat Certain Party” by the Charleston All Stars] - [Sheila] We've been out here many, many, many times in the last 30 years, 40 years, with different musical groups and different festivals and so it feels good.

Feels like old home.

Old home, old music time.

And then of course, the river is just too beautiful.

And isn't the day beautiful, too?

Wow!

- [R.L.]

Do you have any questions [laughs]?

- Well, you can see we're no glowing in the dark yet, so... - [Irene] Oh, no, no.

- Well, it's not quite dark.

But yeah [laughs].

- No, we don't glow in the dark.

- Yeah.

We don't eat fish out of the river.

- [Irene] You don't eat fish out of the river?

- No [laughs].

- [Irene] A lot of people do, though.

- I know, they do.

- She's just kidding.

- Well, I don't know where your fish comes from, but mine doesn't come from the river.

I don't like fish anyway.

- She doesn't.

- [Irene] So you don't eat fish out of the river?

- But I fished for years and years before I moved here to Richland, and he's never really wanted me to fish here.

But it's a wonderful place t live, it really is, really is.

- [Irene] People swim in the river.

- Hm?

- People swim in the river.

- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

- I know, I know.

- People do about everything in the river.

- We swim in our swimming pool [laughs].

[traffic humming] - [Irene] Will you read a poem from Kathleen Flenniken's book?

- [Mike] Yeah, I'd love to.

It's gonna take me right back to when I was 12 years old.

"The Mosquito Truck.

'Come in now, come in,' my father commanded, hearing its slow progress up Cottonwood Drive," where I grew up.

"Even if this were one of those fine evenings that seemed to last into tomorrow, one of those fine evenings every kid on the street was out on a banana-seat bike, or dribbling a basketball, or still wet in a swimsuit and running in the yard.

And the aluminum sashes tight in their frames announced we were slamming our windows to the entire neighborhood, which made it worse somehow to be publicly stuck inside while the rumbling approached like an army of liberators, then the truck itself with its glorious spray billowing sweet smelling chemical clouds into pea soup fog.

All of the kids but us rode out and ran along behind, those flashy sting rays with their tasseled handlebars, little towheads and big brothers who whooped and hollered, breathing deep and willing themselves not to cough, who pulled wheelies and pinwheels as if they were rodeo stars in a parade.

Which this was.

The driver as benevolent as if he were dispensing ice cream, waved and grinned into his side view mirror.

'Hello, hello!'

What summer entertainment.

'Damned kids,' my father would say, shaking his head and probably right."

That's my childhood right there.

This Jeep with this little cannon thing pointing out the back, and it was chugging out this light blue smoke that was so thick you couldn't see across the street.

And it smelled so wonderful and delicious.

And that we would ride our bikes through that for as long as we could stand it.

And our parents would say, "Get out of the street!

It's too dangerous."

But that was of no heed to us, 'cause it was the mosquito man.

And we would always run through the mosquito man fog with our T-shirt on, because we knew that that sweet mosquito man smell would stay in your shirt.

[laughs] And we'd wad our shirts up into a ball.

And at night long after the mosquito man had left our neighborhood and then the fog had dissipated, you would take your T-shirt, and you'd put it up to your nose in bed at night and inhale that sweet smell.

And that's how we went to sleep every night.

What a great place to grow up.

We had football games in the street, and we'd play wiffle ball i the street because it was safe.

[jet skis drone] [gentle river waves lapping] - [Teresa] If you read anything about Pehrson or read his plan, you know he had a plan for the whole town.

So parks, schools, it was all part of how he...

It was a sociologica experiment in a way that worked.

These are, we call them alphabet houses.

This is a B, which is two-bedroom, one-story duplex.

And when the government sold these in 1958, the rights went to the longest, the tenant who had been there the longest.

So here's a B house that's been turned into a single-family, and we'll see more of those.

Here's a nice F house.

- [Nancy] There is a small group trying to form an alphabet house preservation organization on Facebook and would like to... - [Teresa] People do like...

They're very marketable.

- People who have the house are very passionate about them.

- [Irene] Was it all white families?

- [Teresa] Oh, yes.

When I graduated from Richland High, of 440 people, there were two African American students, and I don't think that was on purpose like Kennewick.

Kennewick was a closed city.

And it wasn't on purpose.

I think it was just the nature of things.

And as we grew up and out and went to college, we realized that we didn't have any African American friends, but we just didn't think about it at the time.

But yes, you're right.

It was a very...sheltered life.

And not that that was any different from the fifties in anywhere in the United States, but yeah, it was really fun.

And we didn't know anything.

Our dads worked in “the area.” “What does your dad do?” “Oh, he works in the area.” And that was it, and that covered everything.

And then every week or so, there would be a governmen metal box placed on your porch so your father could do a urine sample and they could check.

And interesting, my dad passed away in '07, and my mom, who's a hundred, still living, but after he passed away, she pursued the money from reparation type money, because he had been exposed to so much radiation.

And he died of a cancer related.

Anyway, she pursued all that.

The records in DC from DOE, they knew exactly where he had been, what buildings, for how long, how much radiation.

It's crazy!

That was pre-computer!

- [Irene] How did you feel about learning about it?

- You know, I just felt like I'm glad to know, but at the time, it provided us a good living.

We had a secure life, and we were happy with it.

So it worked for us... and for all my friends and their parents, too.

[afternoon birdsong] - [Vanis] This one lives in New Jersey.

This one's in California.

This is in Everett.

That one's in Puyallup.

That one's in Spanaway.

And that one and that one is right here [laughs].

That's the wife and me.

They say they had a happy childhood and that we gave 'em what we could.

You know, we couldn't give 'em everything, but we gave 'em what we could.

My dad said that he grew up hard enough, and he did not want his kids out in the fields picking cotton and all this type of stuff.

[”Ive Been Everywhere” by Johnny Cash playing] I went to work for Hanford in '66.

I worked as a janitor for two and a half years and then I got transferred to decon.

We cleaned all of the glassware for the plutonium.

- [Irene] What do you feel about the atomic bomb?

- You know...

It did a lot of devastation.

But from my understanding, if we had not dropped the bomb when we did, we'd all be speaking Japanese or something now.

And I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I'm not saying it's a bad thing either, because it preserved th United States as we know it now.

[bus engine idling] [metal flagpole clanking] - [Bert] 44 feet front to back that's how deep this reactor is.

And this process tube, not literally, but in effect, it's connected right to this unit that you see behind me.

How many of you have counted how many process tubes are up there now?

[laughing] There's 2,004.

2,004 of these.

Kind of mind-blowing, isn't it, when you think how they went about doing this stuff.

For every ton of this material that we ran through there, we got about seven ounces of plutonium.

That's our challenge at Hanford today.

We have 56 million gallons of highly radioactive caustic wastes in 177 underground tanks.

That is our cleanup mission today.

- Does that help explain it?

- [Visitor] How much plutonium's in a bomb?

- The bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki contained 14 pounds.

- Is that it?

- That's it, 14 pounds.

The plutonium finishing plant.

That's where as of 1949 we then took that semi-liquid slurry and we finished it right here at Hanford into the plutonium metal oxide buttons.

It looks like a hockey puck, but we finished 'em here.

We then canned 'em in what looked like cat food cans more or less, and then sealed, soldered them closed, and then put 'em on shelves in the plutonium vaults and storage areas until it was ready to be machined into a bomb.

And then, we would send it wherever it was gonna go for the rest of the process.

- [Visitor] And does it have a half life?

- It has a half life of 24,000 years.

14 pounds in a bomb, and we have somewhere around 70 metric tons in storage.

- [Visitor] Oh my.

- [Visitor 2] Oh my god.

- [Male Visitor] What do you want me to turn on?

- [Female Visitor] Just look this way.

[phone camera shutter click] [traffic humming] - [Irene] How long have you lived here?

- [Bill #1] How long have you lived here?

- Bill?

- [Bill #2] What?

- How long have you lived here?

- How long have I lived here?

[indistinct overlapping talking] - '49.

- Since 1949.

Sat on a destroyer off Okinawa and shot at the Japanese if you can believe that.

- [Irene] Did you move here to work at Hanford?

- Pardon?

- [Irene] Did you move here for Hanford?

- [Bill #2] Yeah, I came here for Hanford in '49.

- [Gene] Ten.

- [Ron] Fifteen.

For two.

- [Bill #1] Sure, I'll just keep begging here... - [Ron] All right, I'll let ya- - [Bill #1] Twenty-three.

- [Bill #2] Would you like to hear a battle song?

- [Bill #1] No.

[Gene laughing] - [Ron] And I've never forgiven him for one thing.

We won't go into that.

- [Bill #2] I'll sing it anyway.

♪ Cruising down through Leyte just a little after dark ♪ ♪ Oh, the moon was shining bright ♪ ♪ It was a Filipino night ♪ ♪ We met them at the entrance of the Surigao Strait ♪ ♪ And that is where the Jap fleet met its fate ♪ ♪ Oh, we were scared but we knew darn well ♪ ♪ We had a job to do ♪ ♪ For all you Yanks back in the States ♪ ♪ Here's how we won for you ♪ ♪ Believe me ♪ ♪ The Hutchins went cruising to launch her torpedoes ♪ ♪ Way down in Leyte Gulf ♪ ♪ We hit two cruisers and a Jap tin can ♪ ♪ All you could hear was wham, wham, wham!

♪ ♪ And then we sprayed them with hot lead ♪ ♪ And really let 'em have it ♪ ♪ With our five-inch battery ♪ That's basically the end of the war right there.

Our high school were known as the Bombers.

And the Japanese afterwards wanted us to dump it, calling ourselves the Bombers.

And our principal here in this high school said, "Hey, we didn't start the war, we just finished it!"

[laughing] - [Ron] I'm sure that'll make the film.

[laughing] - [Server] Would you like any more coffee?

- [Bill #1] I sure would.

- [Irene] Is there any Hanford songs?

- [Gene] Actually, Linda Allen wrote a song called "Termination Winds", which is a really nice song.

No, I won't sing it for you [chuckles] - [Helki] Do you remember the lyrics?

- Yeah, most of it.

♪ We came here in '29 and settled near White Bluffs ♪ ♪ Dug a farm in sage brush ♪ ♪ Those years were mighty rough ♪ ♪ But Uncle Sam bought all our lands ♪ ♪ That it would help the war to end ♪ ♪ Soon our farms were blown away by termination winds ♪ ♪ The desert wind can blow here ♪ ♪ Until it's almost lost your mind ♪ ♪ Sand will fill your mouth and nose ♪ ♪ And eyes 'til you're half blind ♪ ♪ Some folks dig in deeper an just pray the storm will end ♪ ♪ Others pack their bags an leave these termination winds ♪ That's half of it [laughs].

My own reaction was the Robert Service poem about "Spell of the Yukon", which has a line, "You come to get rich, damned good reason.

You feel like an exile at first.

You hate it like hell for a season, but then you're worse than the worst.

It grips you like some kinds of sinning, twists you from foe to a friend.

It seems it's been since the beginning; It seems it'll be till the end."

- [Ron] I didn't know you were into Robert Service.

- There's a lot you don't know about me, Ron.

I know a lot more than health physics [laughs].

- [Ron] I know about your seven convictions, but that's neither- - [Irene] What do you like about that poem?

- Oh, the picture of how you come to an area hating it or not expecting to like it, and in a relatively short time, it's home and you love it.

[dreamy music] [chimes fluttering] [choral vocalizing] - [Dori] "Green Run.

Hanford Washington, December 2, 1949.” “ Green, a verdant dream, grass avenues framed by trees.

Green, untested, young.

Run, as in long limbs racing.

Green as in raw, uncured uranium slugs aged 16 days instead of 90.

Run, meaning batch, an 8,000 curie brew or Green, lush with buds or radioiodine 131 dead night, stack-a-belching when the weather turns to snow Run as in production, fallout over thousands of square miles Green as in sickly, taken up by the thyroid Run as in hide, as in keep the lid on this disaster Run as in spill, as out of a cauldron.

Green, meaning easily deceived, meaning run" I like that one.

"The Coyote" is really good though, too [laughs].

- [Irene] Why did you pick that one?

'Cause it's just like the story of here and the complicated history where people...

I mean, no one knew what Hanford was.

And people who worked out there didn't even know what it was.

"Proud of the cloud, that's what they always say... We were just taught to be prideful of the area.

We did this amazing thing.

An amazing, terrible thing, but people drop the terrible.

[balls and pins clattering] [ethereal music] [choral vocalizing] [electromagnetic static and choral vocalizing] ♪ If you could just see the colors ♪ ♪ If you could just hear it ♪ ♪ not on the television or i a movie but the actual thing ♪ ♪ They started a countdown... ♪ ♪ I think you would agree with me ♪ ♪ Whoever is listening to this ♪ ♪ Whoever is listening to this ♪ ♪ It was completely daylight ♪ ♪ at midnight... ♪ ♪ Beautiful purples and lavenders... ♪ ♪ Whoever is listening...♪ ♪ It was completely daylight ♪ ♪ at midnight... ♪ ♪ Whoever is listening to this ♪ ♪ It was completely daylight ♪ ♪ at midnight ♪ ♪ Brighter than the brightest day ♪ ♪ you ever saw.

♪ [night traffic humming softly] [cricket chirping] [bird cawing] [meadowlark call] - [Tom] As an archeologist, we had responsibilities for the entire site.

Any place they moved dirt any place they turned shovels, we needed to be there.

Every once in a while, I get a call in my office.

"Hey, Tom, we found something out here.

"We want you to come out and take a look."

- [Irene] What kind of stuff?

Bone mostly.

This land stayed the way i was since the creator made it.

If we understand the people here, for about 13,000 years.

And within the last hundred years, all these improvements came.

Well, couple hundred years.

We started in the 1840s, 1850s with people coming through.

Cattle ranching began then.

It hasn't been under modern rule for a very short time.

Other than that, it's been the way it's been for ages.

- [Irene] Now, it's so damaged.

- Yeah, and that's the problem, the kind of things they laid out here.

Put contaminants in the ground that aren't going to go away.

Not for for thousands of years.

The whole process of the cleanup is not that they're really removing everything.

They're consolidating everything from the river, moving it up behind Gable Butte, Gable Mountain, and putting it up on the Central Plateau.

When the tribes say we want it clean, they mean we want it natural.

We want it back to the way the creator put it.

And the best that can be done here is to reduce the contamination to a point where it's not lethal and that you can have exposure to it.

When they get done “cleaning up” these areas, if it's cleaned up to residential, then you can have residents.

But you can never on th Hanford Site dig below 15 feet, because they excavate to 1 feet and they clean to 15 feet, and they don't take anything below that.

You can live on top of that.

You'll be okay.

Don't garden, don't grow flowers, that kind of thing, but you'll be okay.

My thought is just leave it the hell alone.

Clean it up to as good as we're gonna clean it up and just leave it.

Make this one huge natural preserve.

[birds chirping] [ethereal windharp drone] [sprinkler ticking] - [John] Yeah, and then after this, we just put 'em in separate bags.

We would label 'em and then store 'em.

They're archived right now, but eventually, they're getting used and they're being brought over to the Hanford site.

[ethereal music] [machine whirring grows louder] [production floor machinery clattering] [machinery sound gives way to bird song] [peaceful birdsong] [banjo playing “Termination Winds” by Linda Allen] ♪ We came here in '29 and settled near White Bluffs ♪ ♪ Dug a farm from sagebrush ♪ ♪ Lord, those years were tough ♪ ♪ But Uncle Sam bought ou lands to help the war to end ♪ ♪ Soon our farms were blown away by termination winds ♪ ♪ The desert wind can blow here ♪ ♪ 'Til you've almost lost your mind ♪ ♪ Sand will fill your mouth and nose ♪ ♪ And eyes 'til you're half blind ♪ ♪ Some folks dig in deeper and pray the storm will end ♪ ♪ Others pack their bags an leave these termination winds ♪ ♪ Termination winds ♪ ♪ I went to work at Hanford in 1943 ♪ ♪ What we labored hard to build remained a mystery ♪ ♪ The land was torn up pretty bad ♪ ♪ Dust storms would begin ♪ ♪ Folks stood all day to draw their pay and leave ♪ ♪ Termination winds ♪ ♪ The desert wind can blow here ♪ ♪ 'Til you've almost lost your mind ♪ ♪ Sand will fill your mouth and nose ♪ ♪ And eyes 'til you're half blind ♪ ♪ Some folks dig in deeper and pray the storm will end ♪ ♪ Others pack their bags an leave these termination winds ♪ ♪ Termination winds ♪ ♪ Things are changing fast these days ♪ ♪ The old plant's shut down ♪ ♪ Some folks have been worried about the water underground ♪ ♪ I've spent 60 years here ♪ ♪ Be hard to start again ♪ ♪ Guess I'll stay and see wha comes with termination winds ♪ ♪ The desert wind can blow here ♪ ♪ ‘Til you've almost lost your mind ♪ ♪ Sand will fill your mouth and nose ♪ ♪ And eyes 'til you're half blind ♪ [music recedes and blends into humming traffic] [wind rustling leaves] - [Jim] So I ended up 36 years teaching at Richland High School, immersed in the Bomber tradition.

Yeah, Richland High School's mascot: mushroom cloud coming out of an R. Two or three of us got together and said we probably need to change that.

That's not an appropriate symbol.

And of course, it met fierce reaction.

One of the frustrations for me was, is that people... [ballpoint pen clicking] People not understanding that I was never, when I was against the mushroom cloud, I was never against what they had done.

My dad had worked out there.

My dad was a patriot.

And so they could never separat the symbol as being appropriate, as opposed to what the symbol had done.

And it wasn't criticizing wha the symbol had done necessarily so much as that it wa inappropriate symbol for kids.

- [Irene] So your colleagues didn't talk to you for years?

- Several who were adamant cloud supporters I would say, several of them... felt that I'd betrayed the school and the community and I didn't like Hanford.

I was anti-Richland High School, anti-Richland, anti-Hanford, anti-American because of the stance that I had taken.

I thought when all the stuf with the...renaming the schools because of different, you know, changing symbols for teams and all that, I thought surely that will impact this community.

But it ain't happening, you know?

And the bottom line is, and I kept telling people, if Richland never changes the symbol, nobody's died.

Nobody died.

It's not like, I mean it's...

I think it's wrong, but is it worth destroying a community?

Is it worth...

I mean, we tried, and it was pretty obvious what the community wanted.

Anybody who knows history knows that, let's just take one example.

Robert E. Lee.

Every place Lee went, whether it was Union or Confederates, they absolutely worshiped the ground he walked on, because he was a man of integrity.

To see that destroyed... bothers me, it bothers me.

To look back and say, “oh, slavery was so bad,” and “I would never have had slaves.” Let me tell you, if you were white and you had any kind of money at that time, you would've had slaves.

So don't tell me that you were better than.

You would've been exactly the same.

And so I hate that hypocrisy.

Was slavery wrong?

Yeah.

Was it invented by us?

No.

It's back in biblical times.

Slavery's been there.

Have there been problems because of--yes, there has been racism, okay.

But you don't... And maybe this is part of what you're talking about.

Maybe you don't tear the whole house down just because you have a leak up here.

And the leak in this case might be the mushroom cloud, but we're not gonna tear the house down.

And I think that goes for our country.

That's not, has nothing to d with what we're talking about, but you know what I'm saying?

[traffic humming] - [John F. Kennedy] Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is an extraordinary place to visit as a citizen and as president of the United States, because along this river, men have played a significant role in the last 20 years, which has changed the entire history of the world.

And therefore, to come all the way from Washington and see this river and see these reactors and recognize their significance in the closing days of the Second World War and also the role that the men and women who work here have played in the years since the Second World War in maintaining the strength of the United States, I am here today and express my appreciation to you.

There's an old saying that a rising tide lifts all the boats.

And as the Northwest United States rises, so does the entire country.

[indistinct] [applauding] - [Commissioner] Mr. President, I think it is indeed fitting that the breaking of ground for this particular power facility should be initiated through the use of the atom.

We have a wand here, a pointer for your use, which in this particular case has on its tip a piece of uranium from the first reactor placed at Hanford many, many years ago.

If you will take this wand, Mr. President, and approach the counter, we will hope to initiate the action of the crane on your left.

Yes, sir, at this time.

- Thank you, a pleasure to do this.

[geiger counter crackling] [geiger counter blends with applause and cheers] [wind harp drone] - [Ann] "Somewhere in that sea of crisp white shirts, I'm sitting on my father's shoulders as you dedicate our new reactor and praise us for shaping history.

The helicopter that set you down was our proudest moment.

It waits camera right, ready to whisk you away.

[ethereal music] A half century later I click play again and again for proof you approve-- but the nuclear age is complicated.

Are you amazed that eight reactors mark the bend in our river?

Are you troubled that you need a ninth?

I can't forget.

We'll lose you in a few weeks, that sometime between then and now, our presidents will forget us.

But today the wind is at your back like a blessing.

Our long-dead senators applaud as you touch a uranium-tipped baton to a circuit and activate a shovel atomically.

This is the future.

Dad holds me up to see it coming."

And we were there, too, that day.

My family was there, too, and it was hot and windy, and of course, it was dusty, but it was just this huge thrill.

And didn't notice when she wrote this poem, but, so far, the fact that no other presidents know where we are or what happens here is still true.

So this is just, this is a real Richland poem, I think.

Yeah.

[flags flapping in wind] - [M.C.]

Our heavenly father, we thank you once again for this opportunity to gather, especially as we haven't been able to in recent years.

And so we're so grateful on this 50th anniversary that we're able to come again to Sunset Memorial Gardens and to pay tribute to the fallen and to give our respects and to remember.

[wind blowing] [sprinklers ticking] - [Trisha] My brother died in 1947, and that was my only sibling.

He died here, and it was part of a spike of baby and neonatal deaths in the Hanford area that hasn't really been investigated.

So I went to the other cemetery in Richland, didn't really find any historic stuff, and then I came here.

I walked through the whole cemetery until I got to this section.

And then, I was blown away by the fact that everywhere I looked there were baby graves just in rows and rows.

So I started to let people know about it, because I have never seen anything like this.

[distant bird song] It's hard to live with because there's no closure.

The government hasn't said, "We're sorry you guys got exposed."

The litigation went on for 24 years and only a few of the peopl got meager, meager settlements.

And a settlement doesn't give you closure.

It just says here's some money.

You can't sue us.

Sign this certificate that says you won't sue us for any other cancer you get in the future, goodbye.

And so there's no closure, there's no apology, and that's very hard to live with.

Very hard to live with.

So I'm just trying in my own way to make it a little better by acknowledging what happened and trying to get people to understand it's okay to talk about what happened.

This is part of our heritage here.

[river waves lapping] [kids shrieking in the distance] - [Presenter] I have degree in chemistry and biology, and I have worked on th Hanford Site for over 13 years.

I also have two children that live in Richland.

I live in Richland with my family, and I enjoy working out here.

And today, I'm going to give you a little brief overview about the N Reactor, talk about a couple of issues I think that you might be interested in.

Some of those issues are, number one, is the N Reactor safe?

Number two, Chernobyl, why it cant happen here.

And number three, why is N Reactor important to you economically for the state?

The controversial issue, I think, concerning N Reactor, and many of you probably have asked this yourself, was the defense plutonium production.

N Reactor does produce plutonium, and this is a very politica and emotional issue right now.

I don't feel qualified to speak at length on this, but I do want to say this about that.

And that is I believe in our national defense program, and I can't tell how much plutonium is enough, and I don't think you can either.

I want to feel safe, I want my loved ones to feel safe, and I don't want to depend on another country for nuclear technology.

And I also want to point out that my girls go to school in Richland, which is 40 miles away.

And if I felt the N Reactor was unsafe, I wouldn't be here.

And I don't think half of these people would be here either.

[recording of a coyote shrieking played through speakers] [animal sounds meld with th sound of an educational video] - [Narrator] Hanford scientists and other workers toiled around the clock to create what would become the most powerful force on Earth.

They had no idea how or when their new technology would be used, but they wouldn't have to wait long.

Just over three weeks afte initial testing in New Mexico, the first bomb was dropped on Japan, followed by a second that used the plutonium produced at Hanford.

The secret was finally revealed.

The men and women of Hanford had hastened the end of World War II and would forever change the world.

[triumphant music] But as one war ended, another was about to break out: the Cold War.

The nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union, threatened the security of the world.

- [Ron] I did two of the tour where we had groups of children that were here from Hiroshima.

Those children were grandchildren of that horrible incident and things.

And they're looking for something that it's just not here to be found.

It's closure, some type of closure: Why... What compelled us to do this with them or to them so to speak?

It's very tough to do that tour with those, and they're very appreciative.

At the end of the tour, they're very appreciative.

We probably end up hugging each other and everything.

They're appreciative that we talked about it, but you can kind of sense that they didn't get the answer they wanted, you know?

The idea that maybe we learned something that we would never do again.

Well, this is mankind and our protection of our borders extends in all countries in pretty wide paths.

So yeah, it's a tough... That's the touchy part of the subject that comes up.

We're the only nation on Earth so far that's ever unleashed an atomic weapon on other humans.

[freeway traffic humming] - [Becky] Welcome to Manhattan Project National Historical Park's Lights for Peace event , marking 76 years since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan by the United States in the waning days of World War II.

This evening event is designed to allow for private contemplation and reflection on this somber moment in history and what it means to you personally.

This evening, I have the privilege to introduce Yukiyo Kawano a visual artist from Hiroshima based in Portland, Oregon and third-generation atomic bomb survivor.

- [Yuki] I was born and raised in Hiroshima, a third-generation survivor of the US atomic bomb.

A third-generation survivor means it was my grandfather who was half a mile away from the detonation center on August 6, 1945.

It was my daily routine growing up to check with my mother and see how she was feeling each morning.

It means I lost her by cancer in 2013, 67 years after the US atomic bomb.

As a granddaughter of Japanese soldier who was deployed to China in 1937, the year of Nanjing Massacre, grandfather told me when I was 10 that he won't share his survivor story of the US atomic bomb because he said there is no point to tell, that I can never understand him.

Japanese violent history forever silenced him.

[freeway traffic] - [Jim] There is a special need for reconciliation between the cities of Richland and Nagasaki, because it was we residents of Richland who produced the plutonium for the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

I say that not in judgment of any persons, but simply as a statement of historical fact.

Reconciliation requires that we take care of the hurts on both sides of the war.

Reconciliation compels us to remember those Americans who died at Pearl Harbor, at Bataan, Corregidor, the Philippines, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and every place in which that tragic war was fought.

[bell rings] Now, we invite all of you to come forward and ring the bell of peace.

- [Mary] For refugees everywhere.

[bell rings] - [Bell-Ringer] In honor of my father Alexander, US Army Eighth Air Corps, and my Uncle Emilio, US Army Eighth Air Corps.

[bell rings] - [Yuki] First, I wanna just say that I was thinking about ringing the Nagasaki bell for Wanapum and Yakama and Umatilla whose land was used by the Hanford project, the Manhattan Project.

But then I thought, hm, it's not quite ready for the reconciliation, 'cause it hasn't been acknowledged in that level that need... start the process.

So I just wanna mention that.

And also [laughs], I see that I'm the only color person in this room, and that makes me...

I just wanna say that it's quite uncomfortable to speak using this podium and talk to you all.

So I just wanna point that out.

[distant dog barking] - [Rex] Well, I'll go ahead and get started so we can catch this light.

This land here is... the Wanapum had all this land.

We didn't sign no treaty.

We didn't give up ou aboriginal right to this land.

The United States Army came in.

Because my grandpa then was the leader, they talked to him, told him “We have to take this land, condemn it, so that we can build this... what we're gonna do.” He told them, "Well, what am I gonna do?

Where am I gonna go?"

Says, "Well, we can pay you.

We'll give you money.

Then, you do what you want."

“No,” he says.

"Can't take no money.

It don't belong to me.

Belongs to these kids, grandkids.

I've got no say on it.

Can't sell it."

So Colonel Matthias says, "Well, we're not going to use it that long.

So you guys come back when we are done.

You guys come back.

You guys go back home."

That's how we understood our interpreters.

We were greatly affected.

Took all our resources along with the land.

Took our foods, took our medicines, took our game, took our livelihood.

Took it all.

We got a lot of grandkids, got a lot of kids.

They need a place.

So we wanna go home now.

It's time for us to go home.

Yeah, you're alright.

Right here.

Sit down.

He get a chair for you, Tanu.

Right there.

Tanu, bring him a chair!

This guy here, he's a big, big boy.

Yeah, same thing.

Yeah, there he is, okay.

Yeah, go ahead.

Keenan, just tell 'em whatever you think, how this land is important to us.

- [Keenan] This land here is, You know, it's important to our religion here, because we... we were put here to protect the land, to show it the love that it gives for us, for the animals, the medicines, and the roots.

- [Lela] I agree with my nephew, that that's what's really helped is just that understanding and knowing that this is who we are, and this is how we live, and this is how my parents raised me to be.

- [Katrina] My name is Katrina Buck.

My Indian name is Pixayíí.

I feel pretty great about the land.

I mean, it's home.

- [Rex] I talked to some people.

They wanted to talk to me about Hanford, what did I feel about it.

- [Irene] About the bomb?

- About them dropping that on those people, killing 'em.

They lost just like these grandkids.

They lost whole families, they lost homes, cancer, and all kinds of diseases today.

Now, they didn't ask for that, but they got it.

I don't know why.

Maybe that's the great maker wanted it that way.

[distant cheer practice] - [Jasmine] It's kind of hard to take a lot of pride in the school whose sloga was, "Nuke 'em 'til they glow."

It's fun to have a mascot that's unique, but it's not fun when you read about how your mascot was in the top 10 most offensive schools in the US in a paper published a couple years ago [laughs].

- [Daniel] It's a weapon.

It's a weapon of mass destruction.

I wouldn't like a mascot to be a gun.

- [Grant] I agree.

I have a lot more problem with that phrase than I do with the mascot.

- Yeah, and it's like you're romanticizing nuking people.

- [Grant] Yeah.

- [Augustin] The atom is, in my opinion, such better way of representing our legacy, because you can use a nuclear atom for good, and we do today.

We have a power plant that uses uranium to make energy.

- [William] I don't think there's anything inherently good about a mushroom cloud.

I don't know, I don't see any benefit.

- And it's everywhere, too.

This school's very proud of what it represents.

We've got Bombers right there, and then on all of our light posts, we've got the mushroom cloud.

- [William] How would you get rid of that?

What would you do?

Would you have to tear down the entire school?

How do you change that?

- The thing is if people had the willingness to change it, it would, it would.

It's not too hard to take down some murals, put them in a museum.

- [Elahee] For someone who's tied to the culture, that is a very emotional point of view for them.

For someone who doesn't understand that, it's not.

So it starts with who's ready to make that change, who's ready to fight for what they believe in, and who's ready to tell an adult they're wrong.

- [Grant] For the record, I' playing devil's advocate here.

Was dropping atomic bombs a wrong decision?

Say you're Harry Truman in 1945, was it a wrong decision?

- [Paris] It's kind of a impossible question to answer, because we're so far remove from the time when it happened and from the circumstances.

- [Elahee] There was a hundred thousand people who died, compared to Pearl Harbor which was 2,000 people.

I think if you come from a different country and you come here and you see that kind of stuff, you're like, wow.

Like really?

Is that actually what America is like?

And then, age that back to how if a Japanese immigrant comes over here, how they feel.

- Kyo, what do you think?

- Oh, yeah, Kyo.

- [Kyoko] I don't think... My mom's not really involved in the community, but when we do talk about stuff like, hey, our mascot's the atomic bomb, she does talk about like how her family has lived during the time that the atomic bomb was dropped and how offensive it is that literally the product of what happened is a literal school mascot.

- [Grant] If a group of students advocated for it to change, there would be an equal group of students who advocated for it to not change, and then nothing would happen [laughs].

- [Paris] I feel like, definitely, that's a thing that's like an aspect of all of Richland is that we have like a lot of different opinions.

Really, communication is th main problem in our community.

There's a lot of conversations that need to be had, and they're mostly being had by the people who don't have the power.

- Personally, as someone who has two parents who are, again, immigrants and wh I've been born in this country with American and Indian influences.

I'm really proud to be an American.

I'm proud that I can sit here, and I can talk about topics like school mascots and how we feel about it.

I think it's really great to be an American.

And some days, I'm just really proud, you know?

There's some days where I'm like why did I have to be born here?

But then, there's some [laughs] times when I really think, wow, I'm one lucky person.

[river waves lapping gently] [ethereal wind harp music] [fireworks popping] [radio static] [static hum] [meadowlark song blending with ethereal music] [clippers snipping stems] [resonant wind harp hum] [crackle of radio static] [wind rustling tree leaves] - [Carolyn] Oh, I think we had the most wonderful childhood.

I'm tearing, I'm sorry.

My father's first job was as a metal handler.

And what he did was he worked in, they called it the cannery, but it wasn't green beans and peas that was going in a can.

What they were doing was making the fuel rods, shaving them to make them fit in the tubes that they went in.

And the men that worked there talked to me after my father had passed, and I didn't really understand what that was about.

But they all worked in there and they didn't wear any protective equipment from what they said.

And the air was filled with what they were shaving off.

Sometimes, they would come to where these laborer typ people like my dad were working, and they would say, "Who's interested in making more money?"

And they would ask them, and my dad would always volunteer.

And they would go into hot spots when they were cleaning the reactor.

And so it was a run in, run out kind of situation.

And one guy said the first time he did it... May I cuss [laughing]?

He said it scared the shit out of him, so he never did it again but that my dad never said no because it was more money for our family.

One year a survey came out in the health information that asked do you eat local fish, do you eat local vegetables, do you drink local milk, those kinds of questions.

And we fished all the time.

We ate local fish, we ate local fowl.

My dad was a duck hunter.

My dad also hunted deer, elk.

So.

And we grew vegetables in our backyard, I guess, in all that soil [laughs].

He was getting dizzy, but h didn't say anything to anyone.

And he got myelodysplastic syndrome.

It was his radiation exposure that had caused this, and...

He died when he was 59.

And about a month before he died, we were talking and he said, "I think I trusted the wrong people."

And that was very, very hard for him to say.

He never spoke ill about his job.

and...

I mean how—It's so hard to speak ill about something that kept food in our bellies, kept a roof over our heads, kept clothes on us.

It allowed me to go to college [sniffles].

Well, we'll see if I can do this.

So this one is "To Carolyn's Father."

That would be my dad [cry-laughs].

"Thomas Jerry Deen, 1929 to 1988.

On the morning I got plucked out of third grade by Principal Wellman because I'd written on command an impassioned letter for the life of our nuclear plants that the government threatened to shut down.

And I put on my rabbit-trimmed green plaid coat because it was cold and I'd be on the televised news overseeing delivery of several hundred pounds of mail on an airplane bound for Washington DC addressed to President Nixon who obviously didn't care about your job at the same time inside your marrow blood cells began to err one moment efficient the next a few gone wrong stunned by exposure to radiation as you milled uranium into slugs or swabbed down train cars or reported to B reactor for a quick run-in-run-out and by that morning Mr. Deen the poisoning of your blood had already begun" [distant traffic, light wind, birds] [metal flag pole clang] ♪ Plutonium is the fruit of the tree ♪ ♪ And we have eaten of the fruit ♪ ♪ And we have eaten of the fruit ♪ ♪ And we have eaten of the fruit ♪ ♪ And we have eaten of the fruit ♪ ♪ Eaten, eaten ♪ ♪ It has cast us out of paradise ♪ ♪ By poisoning the Earth ♪ ♪ And by making it possible ♪ ♪ For us to destroy each other ♪ ♪ Destroy each other ♪ ♪ Destroy each other ♪ ♪ Destroy, destroy, destroy ♪ ♪ I am become Death ♪ ♪ I am become Death ♪ ♪ I am become Death ♪ ♪ The Destroyer of Worlds ♪ ♪ Oooh ♪ ♪ Aaah ♪ ♪ Someone is singing in the reactor ♪ ♪ Someone is singing in the reactor ♪ ♪ and the songs have become flowers ♪ ♪ The reactor is full of flowers ♪ [choral vocalizing] [footsteps through dry brush] [sound of threading screws] [tent poles snap] [pole rustling into fabric] [wooden frame creaking] [fly buzzing] [eerie droning] [choral vocalization, wind, wood creaking] [choral sound intensifies] [birds chirping] [ethereal music blending with birds] [birds chirping]