Long before the Hanford nuclear reservation, the land was home to Native American tribes. The Yakama Nation has strong ties to Laliik — or Rattlesnake Mountain — and Gable Mountain on the Hanford cleanup site. They are religious sites for the Tribes, and the whole area is ceded land for the Yakama Nation. The lands around Hanford were also used for village sites, gathering, fishing, hunting and social celebrations. But the Tribes were forced off their lands during World War II, and only in the past year have they been able to start to return to hunt and gather there. The Nation is trying to educate its youth and fully lean into being part of the formal efforts to clean up the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored on the site.
We sit down with Yakama Tribal Councilmembers Brian Saluskin and Deland Olney and with Laurene Contreras, a Yakama tribal member and Program Administrator of the Environmental Restoration Waste Management Program for the Yakama Nation. They join us on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities, where we are broadcasting from this week in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We are coming to you today and all this week from the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities in Richland, in partnership with Northwest Public Broadcasting. We’ve come to talk about the past, the present and the future of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. As journalist and author Steve Olson put it, Hanford was built to beat Germany to the bomb, then used to end the war with Japan, and then became an indispensable engine of the Cold War. In 1989, the overarching mission here shifted from making plutonium to managing and containing what is often called the most toxic site in the western hemisphere.
The numbers here are hard to wrap your head around: 56 million gallons of radioactive gunk in 177 underground leaky tanks. Some of that waste will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Over the course of this week, we’ll talk to scientists and farmers. We’ll take you on tours of the center of the cleanup effort, the historic B Reactor and the surrounding natural areas.
Long before the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, the land all around here belonged to Native American Tribes. We’re going to start today with three representatives from the Yakama Nation. That is one of the sovereign Indigenous Nations that was forced off of their ancestral lands by the federal government. Brian Saluskin and Deland “Shawaway” Olney are Tribal councilmen. Laurene Contreras is the program administrator of the Yakama Nation’s Environmental Restoration Waste Management Program. They all join us now. It’s great to have all three of you here to start us off.
Miller: Laurene, first. I’ve seen a quote from the late Yakama elder Russell Jim, that as far as the U.S. government was concerned when it was looking for a site to make plutonium, they saw this area as, “an isolated wasteland, and the people expendable.” What did federal officials say to Native people here when they took over this land?
Laurene Contreras: Well, from what I’ve been told from my elders and what Atwi Russell Jim has shared throughout the course of his history with Hanford, is that, yes, the lands here were expendable because of the population, the water was pristine and cold to be able to keep the ground and the ...
Miller: … the reactors from overheating.
Contreras: And for our Tribal people, this land and this area used to be one of the primary gathering places for ceremonies. They gathered to trade, there were campgrounds that some of our elders still identify with our families. And so they were able to come in and meet with other Tribes and gather, and it was because of the warm climate here, as well during the winter. It was one of the favorite places to be because it was considered a place where we had our first foods.
And the government didn’t look at this land in the same manner as our Tribal people, because for us, this is a place where our natural resources and our cultural and religious areas were sacred to us. So in my current time and period, to relay what our elders felt was probably disappointment. Again, first of all, being put on a reservation, and then this area being taken away from our people, it’s taken us over 80 years to be able to get back into some of these areas. So to reintroduce this area to our community and especially to our youth, because they say that our youth, there are future generations that are going to have to be here to continue to address the contamination here at Hanford. So it’s important that they know the history, but overall, it’s been a disappointment because of the treatment that our Tribal people faced, and community members.
But when Atwi came in to question the cleanup and the safety of the community, it wasn’t just about our Tribal people. It was anyone that lives within this general area. That was the main concern and nobody was questioning the Department of Energy and asking those important questions about, “What are you doing? How are you cleaning this up going forward?” And they did promise to take all the contamination off site in three days; there’s still no place to send it. So we’re stuck here with the most contaminated site in the nation and our Tribal people are still facing the promises and trusting that our leadership, that you will talk to today, are doing their best and putting their best effort forward, along with our program to make sure that cleanup is done to our standards. And our teaching or my teaching within my family is always to leave it better than you found it. That hasn’t happened here.
Miller: You brought up a lot that I wanna come back to, but I mentioned that Councilman Brian Saluskin is with us as well. We are overlooking the Columbia. We’re, I don’t know, 100 feet from it right now, on a gorgeous fall day, but just about three miles from the edge of the Hanford Reservation. What does this river mean to you?
Brian Saluskin: Well, to me personally, I grew up as a Tribal fisherman. I mean, that’s who we are as a Yakama people. But it’s also who my family was, since time immemorial. And basically, that’s how we made our living … not only for subsistence but also for our economy as a family, put clothes on my back. That’s why I went to school. I was a fish biologist for 18 years with the Yakama Nation. I recently got elected to Tribal Council. But just understanding the importance of the salmon, of our first foods, it’s something that gets brought into our longhouses, what people will say are like churches. But it’s just one of the things that we lift up, honor and give thanks to, not only for the coming of the new year, but also that sustained us in the past but in the future and for future generations as well.
I mean, this is something again that Russell Atwi Jim talked about. When something is sick or something goes missing from our waters, like a salmon, or something gets extirpated or driven to extinction, that’s something that’s not only missing physically, but it’s missing spiritually. It’s something that we cannot bring into our homes anymore, and we can’t give thanks for that resource, because it’s not readily available anymore. So it’s something that we honor, but it’s one of our resources that we’re gonna do everything we can to protect, because it’s a part of us and a part of who we are, as the Yakama Nation.
Miller: Shawaway, in addition to being a Tribal councilman, you’re also a religious leader for the Yakama Nation. The half-life of one of the isotopes of plutonium is 24,000 years. It means that there’s still going to be dangerously radioactive material at Hanford – I say most likely, that’s the plan, now – most likely it’ll still be here in something like 200,000 years. How do you think about time on that scale?
Deland “Shawaway” Olney: How are you (mish bam whaa)? Good day (shiix pachway), my name is (wanikshaash) Shawaway. Good day, everybody. That’s a good question. I think it’s just totally amazing. You can have something live that long and never change … And at the same time, it reminds me of our people that lived here for, I don’t know how long. But we don’t understand why they would destroy all these resources that were here, how pure they were at one point. And then now, we think about these things: this land, the water, all these foods and medicines, even the areas surrounding where Hanford is. And now they’re claiming you can come back and hunt, they’re trying to give us permission or something that we already had. And it makes me wonder, you know, how all the smart people in the world … that they could manipulate things in their favor. Why is it that no one brings the solution to the problem we have here?
And I always looked at the catalyst, what can swing this thing that’s there into a different area where it could start to heal itself? In nature, there’s a cycle to that … and this thing here that we’re dealing with, in our rivers and in our streams, in our waters and in our foods that we hold sacred to us, that we would like to be able to figure these things out, if we could. In my mind, I think that our people are still here. Even though the dominant society treated us a certain way, across the board of the United States, this land. And we’re still here, you see. Because it’s not just one area that we find sacred to us like Rattlesnake Ridge or Laliik. That was a holy place for someone to want to pray and … can’t tell anybody that they can’t go pray over there.
But you kicked everybody out because you’re thinking you’re gonna contaminate everybody that’s walking around in these areas, including these ungulates, the elk that are running around in these areas. I think that it’d be interesting to see 24,000 years from now, and I don’t think we’ll last that long, I think as a society or even as people that walk this earth. Not going by the Mayan calendar or anything like that, but all these beliefs that we look at, they’re all telling us we’re coming towards the end of something. Even when I used to research the huckleberries that your own Farmers Almanac told us that the 250 years of weather had changed.
So all these things, you’re going to see more changes going on. I see your icebergs are starting to disappear and that’s increasing your water in the air that we breathe. And I don’t know about the pressure and all that because I’m not a weatherman. But I think that something has to give, with time and pressure, but these things are inside a storage container. So it depends on how long your storage containers are going to keep these things in place.
Miller: Laurene Contreras, you said earlier that you’ve always been taught to leave the land, leave the world better than you found it. I hesitate to use the word impossible here, but from what I’ve read and what I’ve heard, that seems maybe physically impossible at Hanford, just based on the levels of toxicity, the levels of radioactive waste that we’re dealing with. So I’m curious what you see as the best case scenario? If it can’t be better than you found it, what are you hoping that it can be in the decades or centuries to come?
Contreras: I guess I hope that it continues to be treated as a priority. If you look at the other sites within the nation that have been cleaned up, and we’ve been able to visit a few of them, different levels of contamination, different contaminants. But my hope for Hanford is that they’re able to continue to make it a priority, because our Tribal people are not gonna go away. We’re always gonna be here, and our future generations are gonna still be relying on what resources are here. And it’s important for them to understand and to continue to learn about the history that was here. You know, you’re looking at 14 bands within the Yakama Nation that are represented, and our elders are leaving us. And they say when they go, they take all that history and knowledge with them. So it’s important for us to continue to reach out to our youth, to our community to make sure that this place is not forgotten.
They’ve been able to return this year to hunt and gather, which it has taken over 80 years for our Tribal people to be able to come back out to this area. So even though that’s a small, faint glint of hope for our Tribal people, the overall hope is that they always make this a priority. You have state, federal laws and regulations that we address, and they’re not required to meet certain standards that our Tribal people consider very important. So our staff and our elected officials continue to drive that message forward to the government about the resources, the culture, the land, the religious areas, and do the best they can to make sure that they’re going to continue working with us on the cleanup. And like you said, it’s gonna be thousands of years. So it’s gonna be beyond my time and my children and my grandchildren. But right now we are taking steps, which was part of Atwi Jim’s overall goal: to make sure that our Tribal people go out and gain that education that’s necessary so that we could be part of the solution.
Miller: You’ve all mentioned briefly, but I want to turn more fully to it – to this elk hunt that happened on Laliik, also known as Rattlesnake Mountain, in December for the first time in 70-something years. Councilman Saluskin, my understanding is that there was this hunt that happened, and contractors from the Department of Energy were there with geiger counters to make sure that the meat harvested from this elk wasn’t radioactive. What did this whole thing mean to you – both that the hunt could happen but that the meat had to be tested to see if it was radioactive?
Saluskin: We were happy to get back out there and again, utilize the land and practice our treaty rights of that area. You know, that area was ceded to the government, and it was part of our original territories of the Yakama Nation. And then we utilize that land, that area, often. And again, there were some pretty sacred sites that are on the Hanford Reservation. But yeah, just to get back out there and hunt again, I mean, those are the things that are necessary for our people, to have that understanding that what’s being harvested out there is safe for consumption, for our people.
Again, this is another food that’s brought into our longhouses. And longhouses can equate to churches, for those that don’t understand. It’s something that’s lifted up and honored in that way, as a first food. When you speak of first food, it’s something that was offered by the Creator to our people, and so we honor that, and we give thanks for that food. But we had to get out there and do what we’ve done since time immemorial, to harvest these animals for our people, was a great, great thing to do again. But also to have the understanding that it is safe for our harvest, for our churches, our longhouses and those type of things.
Miller: Laurene, when plutonium production ended and the containment – some called cleanup, we can talk as the week goes on about the problems with that word – but when production ended and dealing with the waste really took over, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington State Department of Ecology came together for this agreement. And the phrase that you see all the time now is the Tri-Party Agreement. Where are Indigenous Nations in that?
Contreras: That’s a good question. We did meet with the Department of Ecology, EPA and with Mr. Brian Vance. They came to our Tribal Council chambers and the discussion was had before our table about why it’s important for Tribes to be involved, not just hearing about these decisions, but to be at the table upfront and personal, to have these discussions and to have our intentions and our concerns addressed with each of these agencies. And so going forward, we’re still asking that – that we’re able to be part of the decision-making process and to be involved. You hear about government-to-government processes, and although they came in and met with our council at full table, that doesn’t mean that they’re fully allowing us to participate in the manner that we feel we should be.
So we’ve worked within our program, with our elected officials and with our legal council to continue to raise these concerns and to put forward what we feel needs to be done. We’re still asking that question and hopefully we’re gonna be able to come together. During the meeting, I told them, we’re all in this room and you have great minds, and if we have to get in a plane and go back east together, and address the situation there at that level … if that’s what it takes for us to be able to find solutions as to how we’re going to address cleanup and how decisions are being made.
I understand this past week here in Richland, they’ve made the decision to do away with the RL process. And from what I understand or what I’ve been told, the decision had to do with funding years ago and the way that they were being funded, so now they’re conforming back to one main office. So they won’t have, what is it, three different offices or the two different offices here at Hanford. Again, we’re hoping that now that they’re under one … I guess they’ll be directly under Mr. Vance … that we’ll be able to continue to improve our communications.
We reach out to them continuously. We do have monthly meetings within our program with all three agencies. And so it’s important for that communication to continue to move forward so that we’re obtaining the best information to share with our leadership, so that they’re able to make the best decisions on behalf of our membership going forward.
Miller: You mentioned Brian Vance. He is basically the Department of Energy’s Hanford “head honcho,” and we hope to talk with him on Wednesday of this week.
Shawaway, in June, the Yakama Nation, along with Columbia Riverkeeper, hosted the 4th Annual Hanford Journey at Hanford Reach. I’m curious what kinds of conversations you have with young Tribal members now, about Hanford and about all the issues we’ve been talking about today.
Shawaway: I think that these areas that our people occupied over there in Hanford, at the White Bluffs, and then the place you called Rattlesnake Mountain, and I’m sure there’s other areas in there that are significant to where some of these prayers and some of these foods, some of these stories come from. And they don’t share that with anybody or everybody, they want to pass those things along to remember, so 24,000 years from now those stories will still carry the people forward. And in my mind, when they had a tour of it, I think through fisheries or whatever, they always keep an eye on the resources that are going through there. It’s very important for us to remember these places that are out there.
Even now, they’re barely starting to open up these areas because you’re thinking it’s safe, then I congratulate them thinking that they’re starting to move forward a little bit. But I think we should also be in the discussion, like even with Kii’ahł, the man you knew as Russell Jim, that he’d done this work and he dedicated his life towards trying to figure out how to solve a problem that’s out here.
And if you want to get sensitive about it, to get their attention, maybe we need to be compensated at some point. That would grab everybody’s attention then, including our surrounding Tribes, because we’ve all been affected by this area. With that, this thing, it’s hard to solve a problem that … it’d only take time to fix, I think. But maybe they should make a giant place to put ice cubes in the river, to cool a river for our fish to come up, now, maybe. I don’t know. They should have a usefulness for that stuff that’s hanging out yet.
Miller: Shawaway, Brian Saluskin and Laurene Contreras, thanks very much.
All: Thank you.
Miller: Shawaway, also known as Deland Olney, is a member of the Yakama Tribal Council, so is Brian Saluskin. Laurene Contreras is the manager of the Environmental Restoration Waste Management Program for the Yakama Nation.
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