Day honors Cold War Hanford workers

Harold Copeland took an engineering job at the Hanford nuclear reservation in 1947, swayed by a recruiter's pitch that he would be paid a good wage and could live in a house with his wife in the government-owned town of Richland.

He took the job and the house rented for $38 a month, which also included power, water, grass seed and handymen to change the light bulbs.

But it was supporting the Cold War that really made the work worthwhile, he said Friday during the first National Day of Remembrance celebration in Richland. The day was created by a Senate resolution to honor Hanford and other Cold War nuclear weapons workers.

About 50 people attended the Richland ceremony, meeting old friends and swapping stories.

Bob Whiteside remembered taking a job in 1948 in the Hanford 300 Area, where uranium fuel for nuclear reactors was fabricated.

"No one told us what uranium was," he said.

On shift breaks, workers would light a piece of uranium, which burned "slow and steady," he said. Then they'd pass it around to light their cigarettes.

Was it a dangerous job?

No, he said.

But then, he took the job after serving as a fighter and bomber pilot in World War II.

His wife, whom he met at Hanford, in 1974 became the fifth female hired as a Hanford patrol officer during the Cold War.

Donna Whiteside was turned down for a position in Sunnyside because the chief then didn't think a woman could do the job and that the other patrol officers' wives wouldn't like it, she said.

She enjoyed the Hanford work, doing traffic control and checking people in and out, she said.

Gregory Hobson of Benton City came to the Richland ceremony in memory of his father, Kenneth Hobson, who worked at Hanford from 1951-86.

When he would ask his dad where he worked, he'd hear "in the area." Then he'd ask what he did, and he'd hear "worked in the area."

Hanford was built in World War II to produce the plutonium for the world's first nuclear explosion in the New Mexico desert and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, helping end the war. The secrecy from that era continued as Hanford produced plutonium during the Cold War.

Hobson does remember getting one hint of what his father did, though. When the boy was 8 or 9, his father told him he "wore a space suit at work."

Hobson knows now that his father had a high security clearance and worked in areas with the risk of radiation exposure. He retired as an operator in central Hanford.

While Bob Whiteside may have considered the job safe, not everyone fared as well there during the Cold War doing work that sometimes exposed them to radiation and hazardous chemicals.

"Many suffered illness and hardships for their participation," said state Rep. Larry Haler, R-Richland. "As citizens of the United States, we must never forget your sacrifice."

Messages of thanks also were sent for the ceremony by Energy Secretary Steven Chu; Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash.; and Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. State Rep. Brad Klippert, R-Kennewick, attended.

"Not a day goes by that we don't marvel at what you did," Dave Brockman, manager of the Department of Energy Richland Operations Office, told Cold War Hanford workers.

Now Hanford workers are decommissioning the nuclear reservation and cleaning up environmental contamination, which includes tearing down structures with innovative engineering and solid construction.

"It was a very difficult job in harsh conditions," Brockman told former workers.

But Friday, the memories exchanged among workers were mostly happy ones.

"They took care of their people," said Greg Greger of Richland, who worked at Hanford for 34 years starting in 1951. He began as a radiation monitor. He didn't know exactly what radiation was when was hired, but he learned, he said.

"I'd do it again," said Bob Whiteside, who worked his way up at Hanford over a 40-year career. He was on the crew that started up N Reactor and was the shift supervisor during its final shutdown.

"I liked it," he said. "I liked the crews I had. I trained them well. I had the best damn crews."

-- Annette Cary: 582-1533; acary@tricityherald. com; more Hanford news at hanfordnews.com