Oral Histories

Tom Foulds is an attorney who represented plaintiffs, or Downwinders, in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation Litigation. In this interview, Foulds recalls how he became involved in the litigation and describes how it unfolded over nearly 25 years. He discusses how Hanford area residents were exposed to radiation and the health impacts caused by such exposure. Foulds provides his perspective on the conclusion of the litigation.

Richard Eymann is a founding partner and lead litigator for the Eymann Allison Hunter Jones Law Firm. He has been a plaintiffs’ attorney for nearly 35 years. In this interview, Eymann discusses his work with the Hanford Downwinder litigation, beginning in the 1980s. In total, Eymann represented 707 downwinders, over the course of 23 years of litigation. He explains how populations were exposed to radiation, and the health complications that occurred as a result to this exposure, primarily thyroid cancer. He describes the litigation, including the bellwether trials and the role of the Price-Anderson Act. Eymann explains the challenges the plaintiffs’ counsel faced in the litigation, and why he believes the compensation award was far too low.

Bob Cook is a nuclear engineer. In this interview, Cook discusses his long career with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and his work as a consultant for the Yakama Nation. He describes the problems he identified with the Basalt Waste Isolation Project. He also shares his opinions on the ethics of governmental decision making and risk assessments related to the health of Hanford-area residents.

John Price is an environmental manager who has been working on radioactive waste cleanup projects for more than 35 years. Currently, he is the Tri-Party Agreement Section Manager for the Washington Department of Ecology Nuclear Waste Program. In this interview, he discusses the Tri- Party Agreement and the role it plays in ensuring the cleanup of Hanford site. He also talks about the political and the technical problems the Department of Ecology, the US Department of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency face when trying to clean up the area.

Keith Klein has worked for the Atomic Energy Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy since graduating from college. In this interview, he recounts the timeline of his tenure with the AEC and DOE. He held positions on their Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor program, nuclear waste disposal, and with Tritium production. Klein was active in the efforts to clean up the Rocky Flats plant site after the FBI raid in 1989 and coordinated the opening of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico. He oversaw the DOE’s cleanup effort at Hanford, and was fundamental in establishing DOE’s Office of River Protection. Klein speaks to the current debate and myths surrounding nuclear waste cleanup, the challenges that remain and the progress that has been made, and his vision for the future.

Dennis Faulk served as the project manager for the Environmental Protection Agency at the Hanford Site. He began working for the EPA in 1991. In this interview, Faulk explains the early years of Superfund cleanups in the 1990s, forming the Hanford Advisory Board, and the EPA’s relationship with the Department of Energy at Hanford.

Robert Franklin is the assistant director of the Hanford History Project. In this role, he is the archivist and oral historian for the Department of Energy’s Hanford Collection and Washington State University’s collections on Hanford. He attended Washington State University in Pullman and earned his Master’s degree in history. In graduate school, he took a graduate-level seminar on the Hanford oral history project, which sparked his interest in Hanford and the impacts of the Manhattan Project on the rural, agricultural communities in Washington. In this interview, Franklin discusses the general history of Hanford, displacement of Hanford area residents during the Manhattan Project, and current efforts to preserve the site. He also describes some of the pre-Manhattan Project properties that can be visited today, including the White Bluffs Bank.

David Holcomb is a nuclear engineer who specializes in instrumentation and controls for the molten salt reactors at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In this interview, Holcomb discusses his background as a scientist, and recalls his interaction with great minds that worked at Oak Ridge. He explains the differences between molten salt reactors and traditional light-water reactors, and advocates for increased usage of the molten salt reactors in the future. Holcomb closes by promoting nuclear energy on a worldwide scale, discussing the positive benefits it can bring to impoverished nations.

Siegfried Hecker is an American scientist who served as the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 to 1997. He is currently Professor (Research) of Management Science and Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His acceptance of the directorship of Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1986 was preceded by the Reykjavik Summit and unprecedented discussions of disarmament. In this interview, he discusses the obstacles to and immense gains from working with Russian nuclear scientists at the end of the Cold War. Specifically, he describes his involvement in the joint-verification experiments carried out in Nevada and at the Russian nuclear facility in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan.

Siegfried Hecker is an American scientist who served as the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 to 1997. He is currently Professor (Research) of Management Science and Engineering and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. In this interview, he discusses President Ronald Reagan’s negotiations with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík, Iceland and the burgeoning scientific and nuclear collaboration that resulted from the 1986 summit. Hecker also recounts the story of how he came to be Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and why he did not think he was qualified for the job.