Farming in Hanford’s Shadow

Horticultural Exchange Building in pre-WWII town of Hanford, W

HANFORD HISTORY PROJECT

Article written by John Allison

Agriculture in Eastern Washington Before World War II

The Pacific Northwest Gold Rush brought cattle ranching to the Columbia Basin and the Yakima and Walla Walla Valleys in the 1860s and the 1870s. In the early 1900s, settlers paid around $40 per acre for irrigated farmland from The Northern Pacific railway corporation, which financed irrigation projects to make the land more productive and better suited for farming.[1] Farmers grew wheat, barley, potatoes, sugar beets, and many other vegetable and fruit crops. Wheat was the most successful crop because it thrived in the dry desert climate. As Michael D’Antonio puts it, wheat “held the fortunes of every family in Franklin County.”[2] By the time General Leslie Groves and the army sited the future Hanford Engineer Works in 1943, the farmland around the towns of Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland was home to about 2,000 people.[3] To outsiders, the arid and empty space may have appeared barren and miserable, but to the long-time residents and farmers, some dating back generations, life in Franklin and Benton Counties was lively, pleasant and comfortable. It was home.

Disruption, Displacement, and farm life downwind

In March 1943, the federal government informed Hanford area farmers that they had 30 to 90 days to vacate their farms. The Kennewick Courier-Reporter read, “RICHLAND, WHITE BLUFFS AND HANFORD AREA TO BE TAKEN BY HUGE WAR INDUSTRY… MASS MEETING CALLED AT RICHLAND TO EXPLAIN THE WAR PROJECT TO RESIDENTS.”[4]

Paul Bruggeman, a German immigrant, was one of those farmers. In 1937, he and his wife purchased a 227 acre (91.86 ha) cattle ranch in White Bluffs, Washington. With a pre-equipped irrigation system, Bruggeman and his wife turned the ranch into one of the most successful fruit producing farms in the region.[5] Six years later, the federal government offered Bruggeman and his family what it considered fair market value for their land, which Bruggeman contested in court as unfair. In the end, Paul Bruggeman, his wife Marry, and their two young children Ludwig and Paula were forced off their farm and relocated to Yakima, Washington. Before the start of harvest season, Benton-county farmers had to sell their livestock and board up their homes.[6] The once-loved orchards and crops, left neglected, withered and died when farmers and their families, like the Bruggemans, were forced to leave.

Meanwhile, in most farm communities around the Hanford Engineer Works, war-time concerns for the nation’s food supply meant robust demand for locally-grown crops. Although Congress passed the Columbia Basin Project Act in 1943, the federal government first supplied irrigation to the area through the Pasco Pumping Plant in 1948, [7] directly in the path of toxic air and waterborne radionuclides venting from Hanford. Simultaneously, between 1943 and 1987, millions of gallons of toxic waste were poured intentionally or leaked into the ground around the Hanford site, according to the Department of Energy. [8] Radioactive material cyclically wove its way through the food chain from the air and the river. Farmers worked and lived in the path of the contaminated gases, sands and other particulates that blew through the region. They irrigated with water from the Columbia River, which traveled through aquifers and into the irrigation systems and wells. The Atomic Energy Commission regularly requested samples of the farmers’ soil, water, milk and vegetables for testing and reassured them that it was safe.[9]

The Death Mile, Moonmen, and Little Demons: Hanford’s frightening legacy

On a two-mile (3.21 km) stretch of road near Eltopia, Washington, many residents developed blood disorders and various blood and thyroid cancers. At least one family member in every household suffered from cancer.[10] This stretch of road became known among locals as “The Death Mile.”

Tom Bailie, a retired farmer born in 1947, grew up along the Death Mile. He remembers his babysitter giving birth to a stillborn baby in May 1950, who he believes was the first fatality of the Green Run experiment.[11] He also described seeing “moon people” with “soldiers walking behind them in a line” sweeping the ground when he was a toddler.[12] Bailie and his family moved to Mesa, Washington in 1951. His father and four of his fathers’ siblings all died of cancer, as did both his paternal grandparents. Bailie was born with a sunken chest, underwent leg surgery and had treatment for undescended testicles. As a child, he suffered from skin sores and a mysterious paralysis. As an adult, he endured sterility.[13] In 1969, he bought his own farm, which grew to 800 acres (323.75 ha) at its peak, in Mesa, Washington, about 55 miles (88.51 km) from the Hanford site. Tom Bailie recalls that he grew many crops including wheat, sugar beets, sweet corn and potatoes.[14]

In the winter of 1961, lambs on farms a few miles downwind from Hanford were born with fatal birth defects. Some had deformed legs while others were born without legs. Some were born with multiple sets of sex organs, others without any. Some newborn lambs were born eyeless or mouthless, and others had fused bones. Many of the ewes also died while giving birth, as their wool fell off their bodies in clumps. Though Hanford operators never took responsibility, farmer Nels Allison stated “those sons of bitches at Hanford killed my sheep and they almost made me lose my farm.” [15] This horrific night, known as the “Night of the little demons,” caused severe emotional and financial hardship for Allison and other farmers and their families.

Farmers and their families like the Bruggemans, Tom Bailie and Nels Allison, felt a rooted connection to their farmland.[16] Despite being forced off their farms, some residents initially felt a patriotic sense of duty and sacrifice during the Manhattan Project. While the frequent surveillance of farms by Hanford scientists seemed peculiar to some, many downwinder-farmers felt that the attention was from a care-giving and trustworthy government.[17] However, in the 1980s, after discovering their environment had been poisoned by radioactive material, many farmers felt betrayed. Farmer Tom Bailie says wryly, “We are down at the bottom of the food chain here on these farms. Academically, our skill levels are not as high as the average American, but we feel we are worth more than they think we are.” Many farmers in Franklin and Benton Counties feel that they, as Tom Bailie voiced, “gave their lives, and as citizens… are every bit as good as everyone who worked at Hanford.”[18]

Footnotes
[1] United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Yakima Field Office, “The Story of the Yakima Project,” accessed 1/3/2024. https://www.usbr.gov/pn/project/brochures/fullyak.pdf
[2] Michael D’Antonio, Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the Lethal Toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal (New York: Crown Publishing, 1993), 9.
[3] The Hanford History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities, “Bruggeman Cookhouse,” Hanford History Project, accessed August 25, 2023, http://www.hanfordhistory.com/items/show/4608.
[4] Michele Stenehjem Gerber, On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Site (University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, Nebraska, 1997), 17.
[5] Bruggeman Cookhouse”
[6] D’Antonio, 3.
[7] Wm. Joe Simonds, “The Columbia Basin Project,” (Denver, CO: Bureau of Reclamation History Program, 1998), 44. https://www.usbr.gov/pn/grandcoulee/pubs/cbhistory.pdf
[8] United States Department of Energy, “Hanford Cleanup Overview,” The Hanford Site. Accessed 1/3/2024. https://www.hanford.gov/page.cfm/AboutHanfordCleanup
[9] Trisha Pritikin, The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice, (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2020), 147.
[10] Pritikin, 151, 200-201.
[11] Tom Bailie, interview by John Allison and Ann Le Bar, Mesa, WA, August 10, 2023.
[12] Bailie, interview.
[13] Pritikin, 170-173; D’Antonio, 8.
[14] Bailie, interview.
[15] Pritikin, 147-148.
[16] D’Antonio, 13.
[17] Pritikin, 162.
[18] Pritikin, 175.

Bibliography

• Bailie, Tom. Interview by John Allison and Ann Le Bar. Mesa, WA, August 10, 2023. 
• D’Antonio, Michael. Atomic Harvest: Hanford and the lethal toll of America’s Nuclear Arsenal. New York: Crown Publishing Group, 1993.  
•  Gerber, Michele Stenehjem. On the Home Front: The Cold War Legacy of the Hanford Site. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.  
• Pritikin, Trisha T. The Hanford Plaintiffs: Voices from the Fight for Atomic Justice. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2020. 
•  The Hanford History Project at Washington State University Tri-Cities. “Bruggeman Cookhouse.” Hanford History Project, accessed August 25, 2023, http://www.hanfordhistory.com/items/show/4608.