Photo Credit: Dan Serres
August 2025
By: Dan Serres, Advocacy Director
Hanford Journey: Remembrance and Carrying Peace Forward
This summer, hundreds of people connected in a time of deep reflection, merging efforts to unwind the harms of nuclear weapons. Conversations touched on Hanford’s past and future while sharing meals, boat tours of Hanford’s White Bluffs, and a panel discussion offering connections and bridging generations of work to address and reduce the suffering caused by nuclear weapons. Just as importantly, the events came with a call to action: protecting the Columbia River and coming to grips with the impacts of nuclear weapons production, use, and testing.
At Columbia Riverkeeper, we extend immense gratitude to the leaders and volunteers from Yakama Nation, including its Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program, volunteers who cooked traditional foods for honored guests, and Tribal Council members who spent days preparing and welcoming Fumi Tosu of Dandelion House and Norimitsu Tosu, a survivor of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Hanford was the source of plutonium for the weapon that killed over 80,000 people in Nagasaki. Remembering this event and the bombing of Hiroshima, on August 1, Yakama Nation members prepared a traditional meal and welcomed a group of people engaged in a “Fierce Nonviolence” pilgrimage to call for an end to the suffering brought by nuclear weapons. Participants learned how Yakama Nation members were removed from the Hanford area as a result of the incredibly toxic project of creating plutonium for nuclear weapons, and how Yakama Nation has continued to offer in-depth scientific research, guidance, cultural study, and immense knowledge and perspective to improve the cleanup at Hanford, a benefit to the whole region.
On the day before the event, I had a startling experience. A thunderstorm descended on Laliik, and I watched lightning strike twice over the Hanford Site, an astounding sight and reminder of the power of the landscape formed by floods thousands of years ago. Something about the landscape resonated powerfully with the message of peace that would be delivered the next day.
During the Hanford Journey event, panel speakers included Norimitsu Tosu, an 83-year-old atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima, and Fumi Tosu, the founder of Dandelion House Catholic Worker community in Portland, OR. He is a second-generation hibakusha (atomic weapon survivor) and long-time nonviolent activist. Norimitsu shared his experience and memory of the events he survived as a child in Hiroshima, surviving the nuclear bomb and its aftermath. Panel members welcoming Norimitsu and Fumi spoke of the ongoing work to address Hanford and its importance to Yakama Nation, including Phil Rigdon, superintendent of Yakama Nation’s Department of Natural Resources; Brian Saluskin, Yakama Nation Tribal Council Member and fish passage biologist; and Noah Contreras and Leilani Redheart, the next generation of Hanford advocates. The event included a look at Yakama Nation’s wildlife and fisheries facilities, as well as boat tours to the White Bluffs. The meal included eel, many different foods gathered for careful preparation, and salmon who spawn year after year above Hanford, below Priest Rapids dam.
Speaking for myself, as Advocacy Director for Columbia Riverkeeper, the shared conversation, gift-giving, and tears of appreciation will resonate with me for the rest of my life and guide my thoughts as I work to educate people about the importance of Hanford cleanup for the health of the Columbia River.
Remembering Hiroshima and Hanford’s Impact on Yakama Nation: Columbia Riverkeeper Board President Emily Washines Speaks for Justice
In 1000 years, in 3025, what will Hanford look like? Who will be there to drink the water, to skip rocks from shore, to gather the foods, and to nourish future generations? Emily Washines, Columbia Riverkeeper’s Board President and a member of the Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakama Nation, posed these questions against the backdrop of a beautiful rainbow that appeared during the 80th Anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The miraculous peace and beauty of the evening event, held every year by Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility and co-sponsored by Columbia Riverkeeper and many others, underscored the somber remembrance of hundreds of thousands of lives taken by nuclear weapons use and testing.
Emily Washines offered a perspective that called on every person to remember that Tribes were removed from Hanford so that the U.S. government could make plutonium there, and Tribes continue to be present-day leaders in studying Hanford, building scientific and cultural knowledge there, and guiding cleanup work. Yakama Nation’s sacred wintering ground, full of life, elk, salmon, clean water, and foods and medicines of all kinds, was poisoned in a rush to drop bombs of immense lethal power on people in Japan, but also by a decades-long surge of plutonium production for Cold War-era weapons.
A crowd of over 100 participants listened as she spoke, touched by the appearance of a rainbow perfectly framing the event and the Willamette River as the event began. Emily was preceded by speakers who linked the experiences of hibakusha, bomb survivors, atomic veterans, and the suffering of those who endured nuclear weapons tests on the Marshall Islands and beyond. We are deeply grateful for Emily and the leadership of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility in bringing us together to remember the victims of nuclear weapons violence and to call for the abolishment of nuclear weapons.
To learn more about the experiences of Japanese people who suffered from nuclear weapons, the Japanese American Museum of Oregon has an ongoing exhibit until mid-September, Sadako and Paper Cranes, located in Northwest Portland.
To learn more about this year’s remembrance event, check out Oregon PSR’s website.
324 – What is it good for? A Whole Lot of Radioactivity, Ugh.
Less than 1000 feet from the Columbia River sits one of Hanford’s steepest challenges, the highly radioactive 324 Building. Used for a variety of processes and experiments, the building was the location of one of Hanford’s most radioactive leaks in 1986, releasing over 1 million curies of radioactive cesium into the ground beneath the building. In 2023, cleanup took a sharp turn when workers discovered high levels of contamination – with the potential to deliver a lethal dose of radioactivity within hours of exposure – outside of the area previously known to contain extreme levels of contamination, over 8,900 R/hr. To their credit, the cleanup team backed away and decided to develop a new, revised plan.
After many months of study and consideration, Energy offered an amendment to the cleanup plan for the area, and agencies asked the public to comment on whether plans would provide a reasonable path forward to protect the Columbia River. However, Energy’s proposal did not include one important option: treating the highly radioactive contamination as high-level waste, which the law requires. Years into the process of evaluating the 324 Building, Energy avoids a central issue—the material released was high-level waste.
In response to the request for comments, Columbia Riverkeeper members and supporters gathered a petition with over 800 signatures calling for cleanup of the site to handle the material appropriately, according to the provisions of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that disallow shallow disposal of high-level waste at Hanford’s onsite landfill. Our allies at Heart of America Northwest, Hanford Challenge, and Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility submitted excellent comments as well, calling on Energy to prioritize worker safety while carefully weighing options for removing the building to access the pollution beneath it. We request that the highly radioactive material be treated as high-level waste because it is high-level waste.
Riverkeeper’s technical comments focused on the need to protect groundwater and minimize the spread of dust.
We are very grateful for the help of our summer law clerk Sam Montagno, whose research delved into the air and safety aspects of cleaning up the 324 Building, as well as implications for groundwater if the cleanup fails to control moisture moving through the waste site. We are proud to stand with partner groups and volunteers who added so much effort to spotlighting the importance of getting the 324 Building cleanup right. In addition, Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration and Waste Management Program (ERWM) submitted detailed comments that highlight how Tribes at Hanford are impacted by high-level waste and called for safe and legally compliant disposal of all of the materials within and beneath the 324 Building.
You can read our detailed comments and petition here.
Going forward, we will watch closely to see how EPA and Energy incorporate the concerns raised by workers, Tribes, and members of the public regarding the removal, treatment, and disposal of profoundly radioactive soil beneath the 324 Building. Research conducted by legal staff and interns for Columbia Riverkeeper and Heart of America Northwest, as well as information gathered by Hanford Challenge (check out their amazing “Say What?” comment guide to the 324 Building here, which gives more information in a readable format) and Oregon Department of Energy, points to a situation that poses intense concerns for worker safety, fire risks, radioactive dust, and the potential for pollution to be released into the environment as the climate quickly changes.
Thank you to our 800 members who signed our comment petition, and thank you to the dozens of people who spent hours attending the public meeting for this issue. It is rare for Energy to receive such strong feedback on an issue at Hanford. By asking questions and offering support for the agencies and people who are tackling one of Hanford’s toughest challenges, very close to Richland, we build a case for protecting the Columbia River, workers, and nearby folks from the contamination generated by a major radioactive leak in 1986.
Making the News, Demanding Transparency
Columbia Riverkeeper’s Hanford Program Director Simone Anter was featured in Columbia Insight in a story by Andrew Engelson that highlighted a lawsuit Columbia Riverkeeper filed against the U.S. Department Energy (DOE) seeking to compel the agency to release documents related to a proposed plan that would lease 8,000 acres of the Hanford Nuclear Site to produce renewable energy. Columbia Riverkeeper sought to understand why, and how, so much land was being conveyed for energy use without adequate transparency in the vetting process.
Simone Anter, senior attorney and Hanford Program Director at Columbia Riverkeeper, told Columbia Insight, “We’re generally very supportive of the need to increase green energy production. But it’s essential that this transition is socially just and environmentally sound, particularly in this area, which has been rife with cleanup challenges.” The article reported that in 2023, soon after DOE sent out a request for qualifications for the contract, Columbia Riverkeeper submitted comments and reached out to DOE for more information about the project. “Their responses to us did nothing to quell our concerns and did little to answer our questions,” added Anter.
Andrew Engelson’s reporting also touched on the future cleanup of the highly radioactive 618-11 Burial Ground, which cannot currently be addressed because of the presence of the nearby Columbia Generating Station, the Northwest’s only operating nuclear power plant. In this case, the operating nuclear plant stands in the path of cleanup, and the burial ground is causing high levels of tritium in the groundwater near the Columbia Generating Station at Hanford.
Let’s HAB It Out: The Hanford Advisory Board Discusses 324 and More
In mid-August, the Hanford Advisory Board (HAB) convened to discuss the 324 Building and to receive updates from Energy, EPA, and Ecology regarding some of the ongoing challenges at Hanford. The meeting was held in Kennewick on a hot, smoky, windy day, and participants treated one another with patience as the discussion focused on how to ensure that the Board was offering high-level advice regarding the cleanup of the 324 Building. The outcome of the meeting was a consensus statement advising Energy to conduct cleanup in a manner that ensured that highly radioactive materials do not escape into the environment, and are handled in accordance with the law.
During the process of developing advice, representatives from Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (ERWM) program reiterated the Tribe’s long-expressed concern that high-level waste not be buried at Hanford’s onsite landfill. This issue was echoed by hundreds of commenters and multiple organizations during the comment period this summer.
The HAB meeting had other threads of discussion, as well, involving concerns emerging from Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board reports, which have recently underscored significant challenges for cleanup, including difficulties maintaining fire prevention systems, concerns regarding ammonia leaks, and hydrogen accumulation in tank farm areas where waste is being moved and treated. Hanford cleanup continues to present immense challenges, which should remind Congress of the importance of providing adequate funding for the effort to protect the region from the legacy of nuclear waste.
Finally, in gratitude for all of the people who volunteered to make this summer a powerful one of activism, study, and remembrance, and those who work to address Hanford’s problems, I came across this poem by Hafiz, the great Sufi Master, from The Gift:
There Could Be Holy Fallout
We are often in battle.
So often defending every side of the fort,
It may seem, all alone.
Sit down, my dear.
Take a few deep breaths.
Think about a loyal friend.
Where is your music,
Your pet, a brush?
Surely one who has lasted as long as you
Knows some avenue or place inside
That can give a sweet respite.
If you cannot slay your panic,
Then say within
As convincingly as you can,
“It is all God’s will!”
Now pick up your life again,
Let whatever is out there
Come charging in,
Laugh and spit into the air,
There could be holy fallout.
Throw those ladders like tiny match sticks
With “just” phantoms upon them
Who might be trying to scale your heart.
Your love has an eloquent tone.
The sky and I want to hear it!
If you still feel helpless
Give our battle cry again,
Hafiz
Has shouted it a myriad times,
“It is all,
It is all the Beloved’s will!”
What is that luminous rain I see
All around you in the future
Sweeping in from the east plain?
It looks like, O it looks like
Holy fallout
Filling your mouth and palms
With Joy!