FILE: Cleanup at the Hanford Site, with its 56 million gallons of radioactive waste, will continue under the Biden administration, with the Department of Energy taking the lead as watchdogs keep track.
ANNA KING/NW NEWS NETWORK
Seattle poet Kathleen Flenniken grew up in Richland and worked as a civil engineer at Hanford in the 1980s. She served as Washington State Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2014. In her first year as poet laureate, she published a collection called Plume, which deals directly with how her Hanford area upbringing influenced her. The book explores the history of the site, the death of her best friend’s father from a radiation illness, and her childhood in “Atomic City.” Flenniken sits down with us from the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities.
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