Touring the B Reactor

The B Reactor at Hanford in southeastern Washington was part of the Manhattan Project, and today it is a National Historic Landmark.  FREE tours are offered by the National Park Service, and I went on one -- it was well organized, the docents were fabulous, and if you're ever in Richland, WA, I highly recommend it (http://manhattanprojectbreactor.hanford.gov/).

After a brief video and talk at the B Reactor Museum in Richland, we boarded a bus for the 35-mile drive to the site out in the middle of nowhere.

The docent gave us lots of fun facts and history along the way, about the construction of the reactor in 1943, and the production of plutonium which was used in the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki.

This is the reactor--it's BIG.

After another presentation inside, we were allowed to roam about the facility on our own for an hour.  We were assured that it was probably safe and that a fellow named Nate came in every morning to sweep the area of snakes and scorpions.

Tens of thousands of workers were housed in temporary camps here during the war, and afterwards the town of Richland was planned and built from scratch to house the workers at the plant.

Cool old equipment was in every room.

Life at the site could be fraught with potential hazards.

I had a little time to sketch -- I tried to do the outside, but it was a bit hot and I didn't last long out there.

I was much more comfortable inside, where I sketched this view off the reactor room:

Finally I decided to have a go at the reactor itself but before I could get to the core section with all the thousands of rods, they announced that the bus was loading and I had to stop as I didn't fancy being left behind.

On the ride back we got more fun information on the post-war use of the reactor, along with some natural history of the area.  It was a terrific tour and one that I would go on again.