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00000179-65ef-d8e2-a9ff-f5ef8d430000The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeast Washington was home to Native Americans and later to settlers. It turned into an top-secret military workhorse during World War II and the Cold War. Now, it’s one of the most pressing and complex environmental cleanup challenges humanity is facing in the world.This remote area in southeast Washington is where the federal government made plutonium for bombs during WWII and the Cold War. It’s now home to some of the most toxic contamination on earth, a witch’s brew of chemicals, radioactive waste and defunct structures. In central Hanford, leaking underground tanks full of radioactive sludge await a permanent solution. Meanwhile, a massive $12 billion waste treatment plant, designed to bind up that tank waste into more stable glass logs, has a troubled history.00000179-65ef-d8e2-a9ff-f5ef8d440000Anna King is public radio's correspondent in Richland, Washington, covering the seemingly endless complexities of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Website Offers Searchable Oral History Archive About Hanford Site

Atomic Heritage Foundation
Veronica Taylor, an elder of the Nez Perce tribe, grew up along the Columbia River at Hanford.

When the federal government decided to make plutonium in southeast Washington, early farmers and whole villages of Native Americans were kicked out. Now, a new collection of oral histories tells some of these stories of the Hanford site.

Veronica Mae Taylor was an elder of the Nez Perce tribe. She died in 2013. In 2003 she sat down for a videotaped interview.

Taylor grew up along the Columbia River around Hanford. She said despite being forced off the river, and the pollution that followed, the Hanford area will always be home to sacred gravesites, plants and animals for tribal people.

“And we'll always have our feeling for this area,” Taylor said. “It'll never go away. This land will never go away in our hearts. Ever.”

The online archive also tells the stories of engineers, women settlers and even Army generals at Hanford. You can find them at manhattanprojectvoices.org.

Anna King calls Richland, Washington home and loves unearthing great stories about people in the Northwest. She reports for the Northwest News Network from a studio at Washington State University, Tri-Cities. She covers the Mid-Columbia region, from nuclear reactors to Mexican rodeos.