Atomic Frontier Days by John M. Findlay Bruce W. Hevly

Author:John M. Findlay, Bruce W. Hevly [John M. Findlay, Bruce W. Hevly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, Pacific Northwest (OR; WA), Modern, 20th Century, Political Science, Public Policy, Environmental Policy
ISBN: 9780295996974
Google: S1D_sgEACAAJ
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2015-07-20T15:57:33+00:00

In historical perspective, the actual impact of segmentation and diversification on the local economy is best judged on two scales — the near term and the long term. In the short run, the program helped to cushion the blow of AEC cutbacks by generating new jobs and reducing the number of layoffs. With eight out of nine reactors shut down, Hanford was in some ways but a shell of its former self, and the plant's mission had changed dramatically. Yet employment figures did not drop drastically. At the end of 1963, prior to the shutdown of reactors and beginnings of segmentation, GE had employed 8,277 people. In May 1967, comparable contractor employment on AEC-related work, combined with employment generated by diversification efforts, stood at 8,140. This was a relatively small decrease, considering that three reactors and one processing plant had closed. By 1968, the Richland Operations Office reported, 660 new jobs had been created as a result of the commitments made by new contractors. By 1969 there were 942 “diversification employees,” and in 1971 and 1972 there were about 1,100 jobs attributable to the diversification effort. A 1976 accounting of Hanford employment summarized the changes since 1964, the year cutbacks had first been announced. Total employment at Hanford, including diversification activities, stood at 9,030; the estimated number of employees in related or “diversified” jobs (those not working at Hanford for the Energy Research and Development Administration [ERDA] or under ERDA contracts) amounted to 784, or 8.7 percent of the total employment.122 Clearly, employment figures were higher than they would have been without the programs of diversification and segmentation.

But the figures masked underlying weaknesses. Although the number of jobs in Benton and Franklin counties increased 17.2 percent between 1964 and 1973, the statewide figure for the same period was 26.1 percent. The Tri-Cities area was not keeping up with the rest of Washington. Furthermore, of the 1,220 new jobs created between 1970 and 1973, 1,075 were in construction, and many of those were temporary. The construction itself represented one kind of progress — early work on additional power-generating reactors for the Washington Public Power Supply System—but it remained unclear exactly how much long-term prosperity the WPPSS project would bring to the Tri-Cities. Moreover, economic conditions in the state in the early 1970s were bleak. Unemployment increased from 9.8 percent in early 1971 to 10.5 percent in early 1972, and the local caseload for the state Department of Social and Health Services climbed. Enrollment in Richland schools fell by 144 students between early 1971 and spring 1972, and the community voted down two school levies in 1972, forcing the district to trim its annual budget. With the closure of KE, the total number of operating employees fell by almost 1,000 between January 1971 and January 1972. Once again, new construction picked up some of the slack but did not offer the long-term stability once associated with Hanford production reactors. G. J. Keto, an AEC official in Washington, D.C., returned discouraged from a

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