Bornfamous

The Hanford Declassified Project is the work of artist/writer/photographer Juli Kearns [a hilarious videoblogger, btw], whose father was a scientist at the Hanford nuclear facility during the 50s and 60s. When the government declassified thousands of Hanford photos and documents from the war years forward, Kearns decided to remix some of the photos and add her own thoughts. It’s a fascinating read, and should be a book, IMO.

That the plutonium dropped on Nagasaki was made at Hanford in southeastern Washington State, or that Hanford is said by some to be the most toxic site in the western hemisphere, and one of the most polluted sites in the world, is still, I don’t believe, known by many. One hears a lot about Los Alamos but not so much about Hanford, though leaking tanks have contaminated the groundwater and created a plume that will eventually reach the Columbia River if not contained.

I grew up in Richland, a town that was built by the Manhattan Project to house workers at Hanford and which remains so proud of its heritage that the mascot of the Richland high school is a bomb, the students are known as The Bombers and the emblem of the school is a mushroom cloud.