The Hanford Nuclear Reservation was established in the early 1940s as one part of the Manhattan Project, the code name for the U.S. Army's top secret program to create the atomic bomb. Hanford's role was plutonium production (the other main site -- in Oak Ridge, Tennessee -- was in charge of uranium enrichment). The 560-square-mile Hanford site has been off limits since it was annexed by the army in the spring of 1943. Anyone entering the compound must have security clear-ance and a badge. Hanford's defense mission ended a decade ago, and the site is now being environmentally remediated. The industrial processes employed during plutonium production created many millions of gallons of chemical and radiological waste. Hanford is presently the world's largest public works project. These photographs document some of what remains on the site. -- Brian J. Freer

1) former riverland yards area quonset hut, probably u.s. army administration support. 15 february 1999

2) 224-b process panel, f station, 18 february 1999. this station has not been significantly altered since its construction in 1943-4.

3) valve station, t-plant, 20 april 1999.

4) 100-b, looking north towards the wahluke slope, 17 february 1999.

5) operator's work station on main process control panel, t-plant, 20 april 1999. original site structure. first operational structure for the chemical separation of plutonium. built '43-'44.

6) weigh station in main process control room, 224-b, 21 April 1999.

7) splining device @ reactor face, b reactor 26 may 1999. original site structure. first functioning production reactor. to become public museum. built in '43-'44.

8) cask car @ 200 north area, 17 february 1999. hanford contained an entire functioning rail system while operational.

9) pipe gallery, redox, 17 february 1999. redox was the second generation chemical separation technology. built in the early '50s.

10) commemorative oblisk @ former central administration area for army's aaa site defense battalions. 15 july 1999.

11) plutonium finishing plant 231-z, 16 september 1999. original site structure, built in '43-'44.

IF YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT HANFORD, CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING SOURCES:

David, Mike, Ecology of Fear, Henry Holt and Company, 1998

Goldberg, Stanley, General Groves and the Atomic West: The Making and Meaning of Hanford, Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest in association with the University of Washington Press, 1998

Groves, Leslie R., Now it Can be Told: The story of the Manhattan Project, Da Capo Press, Inc., 1983

Hacker, Barton C., "Radiation Safety, the AEC, and Nuclear Weapons Testing: Writing the History of a Controversial Program," The Public Historian 14:31-53, 1992

Elements of Controversy: The Atomic Energy Commission and Radiation Safety in Nuclear Weapons Testing 1947-1974, University of California Press, 1994

Hanford Reach website: www.Hanford.gov/reach/index.html

McPhee, John, The Control of Nature, Noonday Press, 1998

Rhodes, Richard, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Simon and Schuster, 1986

Sanger, S.L., Working on the Bomb: An Oral History of World War II Hanford, Portland State University Continuing Education Press, 1995

Schwartz, Stephen I. (ed), Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, Brookings Institution Press, 1998

U.S. Department of Energy, Linking Legacies: Connecting the Cold War Nuclear Weapons Production Processes to Their Environmental Consequences, 1997

Final Hanford Comprehensive Land-Use Plan Environmental Impact Statement, 1999

(Free copies of these documents can be obtained by calling the U.S. D.O.E. at 800.736.3282)

These photographs are part of a collection originally displayed at the Esther Claypool gallery in November. To see the complete series, contact the gallery.