Hanford Engineer Works
The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) was a nuclear production complex in Benton County, Washington, established by the United States federal government in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II.
The director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves Jr., engaged DuPont as the prime contractor for the design, construction and operation of the HEW.
[4] Stone & Webster had been engaged to carry out the construction of the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but Groves considered the task of designing, building, and operating the Manhattan Project's facilities to be beyond the resources of a single firm.
[5] Groves was attracted to DuPont, a firm he had worked with in the past, because it designed and built its own plants,[6] suggesting it had the expertise to act as prime contractor for the plutonium production complex.
"[9] On 4 November, DuPont chemists and engineers – including Stine, Elmer Bolton, Roger Williams, Thomas H. Chilton and Crawford Greenewalt – visited the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago.
[10][8] Mindful of having been denounced as a merchant of death after World War I, DuPont initially refused payment, but for legal reasons a cost-plus contract was agreed upon, with the fee of one dollar.
[11] At Carpenter's request, OSRD Director Vannevar Bush had Roosevelt initial a letter noting that the government assumed all responsibility for all hazards involved in the project.
[14] A major accident might result in loss of life and severe health effects, and Groves was concerned that even a minor one could disrupt vital war production – particularly of aluminum – or require evacuation of the Manhattan Project's isotope separation plants.
The needs of war industries had created power shortages in many parts of the country, and using the Tennessee Valley Authority was ruled out because the Clinton Engineer Works was expected to absorb its excess generating capacity.
Between 18 and 31 December 1942 (just twelve days after the Metallurgical Laboratory team led by Enrico Fermi started up Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor) a survey party consisting of Lieutenant Colonel Franklin T. Matthias and DuPont engineers A. E. S. Hall and Gilbert P. Church inspected several alternative sites.
They visited in winter when many fields looked fallow and farmers were absent for the season, often working in the shipyards in Seattle, or serving in the military, but did not consider their land to be abandoned.
Harvest dates ranged from April through September, depending on the type of crop,[45][46] but when the residents came to be seen as a security hazard, an order was issued on 5 July expelling them with two days' notice.
[51] On 15 June, it sent letters to Carpenter and Julius H. Amberg, Stimson's special assistant, seeking an explanation for the choice of the location, the estimated cost of the project, and the need for the acquisition of so much land.
[52] Despite Stimson's attempts to keep all knowledge of its purpose from Truman, the latter wrote to a Spokane judge in July about the site: "I know something about that tremendous real estate deal, and I have been informed that it is for the construction of a plant to make a terrific explosion for a secret weapon that will be a wonder.
Under the usual procedure in Washington state, they visited the tracts under adjudication,[56] and the sight of workers with DuPont identification badges generated rumors that the project had no military value and the government was using eminent domain for the benefit of private enterprise.
[58] Littell became convinced that the root of the problem was faulty appraisals, and on 13 October 1944, he appeared at the court in Yakima and asked Schwellenbach to put all condemnation trials on hold until the Justice Department could carry out reappraisals of more than 700 tracts still awaiting settlement.
The Yakima rejected offers of an annual cash payment, and Matthias provided a truck and a driver to take them to Priest Rapids each day during the fishing season but they were not permitted to camp there overnight.
The subcontractor ran afoul of wartime regulations requiring the company to hire local drivers, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, who cited safety issues.
He negotiated a settlement with the union in April 1944, but the Office of Defense Transportation and the Interstate Commerce Commission were another matter, and Prefabricated Engineering was forced to hire a more expensive local firm.
[82] The population of Richland increased spectacularly once operating personnel began arriving in January 1944, reaching a peak of 17,000 in the middle of the year when construction and startup overlapped.
[75] The Manhattan District and DuPont set about recruiting a construction workforce with the help of the United States Employment Service and the War Manpower Commission.
Those hired as welders had to present work records and job references dating back fifteen years and then pass a test that eliminated 80 percent of applicants.
She arranged for late-night, women-only buses, had asphalt sidewalks laid to save shoes being damaged by gravel, and persuaded a women's clothing chain to set up shop in Pasco.
In the Metal Fabrication and Testing (500) Area they were heated to 1,700 °F (930 °C) in a furnace with an inert argon gas atmosphere, and extruded through a die by means of a hydraulic press to form rods 1+1⁄2 inches (3.8 cm) in diameter and about 12 feet (3.7 m) long.
The aluminum can was heated and chemically cleaned, and placed in a protective steel sleeve, and then in a press, with a small quantity of molten aluminum-silicon alloy added.
[121][126][127] Construction work on the reactors could not commence until the TNX Department at DuPont in Wilmington released the plans, which did not occur until 4 October 1943, but the engineers were aware that they were to be water cooled and run at 250 MW.
The buckets were weighed, placed into lead-lined water-cooled casks and transported to the lag storage (200-N) area on a special railroad car operated by remote control.
[155] On 19 July 1944, Charles A. Thomas informed Williams and Greenewalt that Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory, had given up all hope of getting the Thin Man gun-type nuclear weapon to work.
Groves and Conant were not convinced that the figures they had were reliable enough to take such a drastic step as canceling Reactor F, and they suggested that Williams and Greenewalt discuss the issue with Fermi when they got back to Hanford.
[160][161][162] By 28 March, all three reactors were operating at full power, 250 megawatts, for the first time,[163] and by April, trains containing kilogram-quantity shipments of plutonium were headed to Los Alamos every five days.
