The human toll of the Manhattan Project reached beyond the Japanese people killed in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Production and testing of the world’s first atomic weapons released enormous quantities of radioactive byproducts into the environment. Individuals living near the Manhattan Project sites at Hanford, Washington; Los Alamos, New Mexico; and Oak Ridge, Tennessee were unknowingly subjected to these radioactive environmental toxins. These people would eventually identify themselves as the “Downwinders.”
In the rush to build the bombs, plant operators expelled radioactive byproducts from uranium enrichment at Oak Ridge and plutonium production at Hanford into the local atmosphere and waterways. The July 1945 Trinity test in the New Mexico desert south of Los Alamos deposited fallout on Native American communities, farmers, and livestock over hundreds of miles. Years, sometimes decades later, Manhattan Project Downwinders mysteriously developed cancers, thyroid disease, infertility and sterility. Women experienced stillbirths and children with congenital health defects.
Some people living downwind were more at risk than others. Infants and children who drank fresh milk from local cows ingested radioactive iodine, as did families who grew and ate their own vegetables. Farmers and agricultural laborers downwind from Hanford inhaled various radioactive isotopes dusted on vegetation. Tribal peoples consumed irradiated fish as well as game. Pregnant women who consumed locally-produced food exposed their unborn babies.
Due to the secrecy surrounding the Manhattan project, officials did not warn local residents about radioactive pollution and dismissed the concerns that some individuals expressed. Only in the 1980s were journalists, concerned citizens, and Downwinder activists able to obtain US Department of Energy documentation confirming the harm that had occurred.
Click on the articles below to learn more about Downwinders ▼
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
During World War II, the Marshall Islands were seen as a strategic location for Japan to base attacks elsewhere in the Pacific. The US gained control of the Islands in 1944. Between 1946 and 1958, the US conducted 67 nuclear tests on, in, and above the atolls and islands, contaminating the environment with radioactive fallout and displacing Indigenous Marshallese Islanders. Bikini Atoll, now a World Heritage Site, is still not environmentally safe for permanent residence.
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
By the time General Leslie Groves and the US Army sited the future Hanford Engineer Works in 1943, the farmland around the towns of Hanford, White Bluffs, and Richland was home to about 2,000 people. To outsiders, the arid and empty space may have appeared barren and miserable, but to the long-time residents and farmers, some dating back generations, life in Franklin and Benton Counties was lively, pleasant and comfortable. It was home.
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
In 1964 Maria Nicasio arrived in Prosser, Washington hoping to start a new life with her parents and siblings. She got a job as a farm worker in the asparagus crops. Maria worked near the Yakima River. She also drank from and bathed in it and ate the raw asparagus and other crops they were harvesting. She did not know it at the time but living and working as agricultural laborers near the plutonium production facility at Hanford would have severe health consequences.
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
Trisha Pritikin is a lawyer, writer, mother, downwinder, and most of all, an ardent activist. She served on the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee (HHES), run by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR). She has demanded accountability from federal agencies addressing civilian downwinder issues, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), The National Academy of Science (NAS), and the National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH).
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
On July 16, 1945, a loud, blinding explosion surprised New Mexicans around the Tularosa Basin. Trinity, the world’s first nuclear test, was top secret. Manhattan Project leaders did not inform people living nearby or downwind about the test or potential exposure to fallout.
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
On December 2, 1949, the Atomic Energy Commission and the United States Air Force conducted the “Green Run” experiment at the Hanford Nuclear production complex outside Richland, WA. It was the largest single release of radioactive iodine-131 in Hanford’s history, covering vegetation as far north as Kettle Falls, WA and as far south as Klamath Falls, OR.
Locations:Manhattan Project National Historical Park
Karen Dorn Steele is an environmental journalist known for breaking the story of nuclear experiments causing potential public health damage at the Hanford Nuclear Site.
National Park Service, Manhattan Project National Historical Park
c/o NPS Intermountain Regional Office
One Denver Federal Center, Building 50
Denver,
CO
80225-0287
Phone:
Hanford: 509.376.1647
Los Alamos: 505.661.6277
Oak Ridge: 865.482.1942
