SEASON 01: EPISODE 09 (PART 2 OF 2):

America's Chernobyl

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America’s Chernobyl (Part 2)

Hanford is the most-polluted place in America. On our last episode, you heard about the nuclear plant's largely-forgotten history--how it poisoned the people living downwind. On our season finale: a nuclear safety auditor tries to get it shut down, the downwinders struggle for justice, and we take you into the plant itself. The story of Hanford reveals that expertise is always a political battle, and never as straightforward as simply collecting facts--whether it’s executives putting profit over a safety auditor’s well-documented warnings, a community-based research pitted against government-backed studies, or turning a world-changing nuclear reactor into a scientific lecture.

GUESTS

  • Casey Ruud is a former safety auditor and whistleblower at the Hanford plant.
  • Patricia Hoover is a Downwinder and one of the founding members of the North West Radiation Health Alliance. She lives in Eugene, Oregon.
  • Karen Dorn Steele is an investigative journalist who has been covering Hanford for 35 years.
  • Tom Bailie is a farmer who lives in Mesa, Washington and a Hanford Downwinder.
  • Rudi Nussbaum was a physics professor, Holocaust survivor, and founding member of the North West Radiation Health Alliance. He died in 2011.

PROGRAMMING NOTE

Sadly, this is the last episode of our season! We'll be back in Spring 2021, but we'll be launching a new show in the meantime. You'll find the first few episodes in this feed, so stay subscribed. The best way to stay abreast of our plans for our new season is to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. You'll hear about it there first. Plus, while you're waiting, you might want to check out some of the other stuff that our team makes. Like Crackdown, a podcast about the drug war, covered by drug users as war correspondents.

Key References

CREDITS

This episode was produced Gordon Katic and Polly Leger. With editing support from Acey Rowe. Nicole Yakashiro was our research assistant, and Aurora Tejeida was our fact-checker.

Our theme song and original music is by our composer, Mike Barber. Dakota Koop is our graphic designer. Our production manager is David Tobiasz, and executive producers are Gordon Katic and Sam Fenn.

We’d like to thank historian Sarah Fox author of "Downwind: A People's History of the Nuclear West," as well as Kate Brown, author of “Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters.” Check those out, and also check out Michael D’Antonio’s “Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal.” These books were indispensable to us, and we highly recommend them.

If you want to learn more about the Downwinder lawsuits against Hanford, we recommend: The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight For Atomic Justice. That’s from Trisha T. Pritikin, with a forward from Karen Dorn Steele

Thanks to the many others we talked to along the way-- including historians Linda M. Richards and Robert Franklin. As well as, Trisha Pritikin, Tom Carpenter, John Fox, and Maynard Plahuta. Thanks also to Karen Richards who helped record our interview with Patricia Hoover.

This episode was funded in part by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. It’s part of a larger project on the politics of historical commemoration. Professor Eagle Glassheim at the University of British Columbia is the academic lead on that project.

Cited is produced out of the Centre of Ethics at the University of Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples. Cited is also produced out of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia -- that’s on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.