A Peek Inside A Once Top Secret Spot In Atomic Age History

People tend to remember that the atomic bomb was developed at Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., but they often forget about a third nuclear production complex — the Hanford Site in Richland, Wash. It's where they built the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor.

The "B Reactor" is a windowless, cinder block hulk out in the middle of nowhere. You might mistake it for an abandoned cement plant. But inside, it's a lovingly preserved time capsule of the Atomic Age. If you're lucky, your guide will be one of the people who worked here when the place was still new.

"Here we were, worried about Germany and Japan, and then we worried about the Cold War situation with Russia," Vinther says. "The idea was, 'Well, we'll just put the waste into tanks, and we'll handle it later, when we have time.' "

Later is now. Hanford no longer makes plutonium. The reactors that followed B have been shuttered and sealed up, and now the sprawling, 586-square-mile Hanford site has become synonymous with a giant remediation effort.

Government contractors are billions of dollars into the process, with no end in sight. In fact, when it comes to cost and sheer technical complexity, the reactor is actually less impressive than the modern-day cleanup — and they offer tours of that, too.
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