Think Out Loud

The Hanford nuclear reservation in Southeastern Washington was the epicenter of plutonium enrichment during the WW II and through the cold war. For more than 20 years, an effort to safely dispose and store 56 million gallons of radioactive waste stored at the site has been in the works. The vitrification plant would turn some of that waste into glass logs. The opening of that waste processing facility -- which has now cost $30 billion  - was thrown into doubt earlier this month, but the Department of Energy is now allowing the project to move forward and the first glass logs are expected to roll out as soon as next week, ahead of the October 15 deadline. We get the latest from Anna King, correspondent for Northwest Public Broadcasting and the Northwest News Network, who’s been covering Hanford for the last 20 years

In September 2024, we packed up our vans and drove about four and a half hours from Portland to Richland, WA, to set up a mobile broadcast studio on the campus of Washington State University Tri-Cities. We broadcast a week of shows that included conversations about the WW II and Manhattan Project history that created the radioactive waste from war-time plutonium enrichment at Hanford. Our coverage from the region also included in-depth interviews with Indigenous leaders and a tour of the infamous B-reactor, along with conversations about the economy and culture of the region. We listen back today to two of these conversations. The first is with Carolyn Pearce, a PhD and chemist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory working on the science of the  vitrification, the glassification process that will be used to turn some of the 56 million gallons of radioactive waste  into radioactive glass logs for storage. In the second half of the show, we revisit our tour of one part of the the Hanford nuclear reservation. The 56 million gallons of waste are stored in 177 massive, underground tanks on 18 different “farms.”  Most of the tanks are single-shelled, but 28 of them are double-shelled, which helps prevent waste from getting into the ground. Karthik Subramanian, chief operating officer of Washington River Protection Solutions, the tank farm operations contractor,  was our guide. After the tour, we sat down with Brian Vance, who at that  time was the  Department of Energy’s top manager in charge of Hanford. He resigned in March of this year. Vance talked with us about tank integrity, the status of the vitrification plant and the overall clean up progress. The opening of that waste processing facility -- which has now cost $30 billion  - was thrown into doubt earlier this month, but the Department of Energy is now allowing the project to move forward and the first glass logs are expected to roll out as soon as this week, ahead of the October 15 deadline.  

Have you ever heard a color, or seen a piece of music? Maybe you’ve tasted a sunset, or felt a particular smell? If so, you might have synesthesia. It’s a phenomenon in which one or more sensory pathways blend in the brain to create a new experience. Researchers aren’t sure how many people have synesthesia, but estimates range from 1 in 200 to 1 in 20 people.   Elizabeth Schwartz is a freelance writer and music historian from Portland; Forest Mountain Lion is a musician from Eugene; and James Duckwell is a career and technical education teacher at Portland’s Roosevelt High School. They all join us to talk about their experiences with synesthesia, along with Mark Stewart, a professor of psychology at Willamette University who studies the phenomenon.  

After someone survives a disaster like a wildfire or hurricane, they often face daunting decisions while trying to rebuild. A growing number of scammers are targeting people seeking contractors, especially as events like flooding, hurricanes and wildfires happen more often.  Naveena Sadasivam is a senior staff writer for Grist. She’s covered disaster scams for the outlet and joins us with details of her reporting and how to avoid a scam.   Learn more about how to report fraud after a disaster in Oregon here.

White-nose syndrome is a fungal disease that grows on hibernating bats, causing them to wake up in the winter. The bats then burn up their fat stores while searching for food and die as a result. The disease was first detected in the northeastern U.S. in 2006 and has since spread to 40 U.S. states.   The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife recently announced that the fungus that causes the disease has been detected in bat excrement, or guano, from a bat roost at Lewis and Clark National Historic Park in Clatsop County. While no bats in the state have been observed with symptoms of white-nose syndrome yet, it’s the first documented case of the fungus in Oregon.   Emily Armstrong Buck is a wildlife health lab biologist at ODFW and the agency’s white-nose syndrome surveillance coordinator. She joins us to talk about the spread of the disease and what it could mean for Oregon bat populations.  

Orientation and mobility specialists help people who are blind or low-vision learn to safely navigate their environments. Portland State University is one of a handful of schools nationwide that train these specialists, and the only school in the Northwest. Research suggests that demand for orientation and mobility specialists will increase as more adults experience age-related vision impairments such as cataracts and macular degeneration.   Amy Parker is an associate professor at PSU and coordinator of the university’s Orientation & Mobility Program. Patricia Kepler is the accessibility analyst for the Portland Police Bureau. They join us to talk about the growing need for orientation and mobility services.  

Last month, President Trump announced that the federal government had obtained a 10% stake in Intel, Oregon’s largest private employer. Nvidia, one of Intel’s biggest competitors, announced last week that it would invest $5 billion in Intel. The company also got a $2 billion investment from SoftBank. Mike Wilkerson, director of Economic Research at ECOnorthwest, joins us to talk about what all this means for Intel and for Oregon.  

As recently reported in The Columbian, a housing hotline provided by Council for the Homeless in Clark County gets on average 130 to 180 calls a day. A small team with lived experiences that include homelessness and housing insecurity answer callers’ requests for help seven days a week. They share resources such as shelters with available space for the night or the  locations of warming or cooling centers activated during extreme weather events. Some callers may also be facing eviction or homelessness for the first time or are trying to escape situations of domestic violence.    According to supervisor Guy Hardy, the demand for the hotline’s services remains high amid the recent decline in federal housing assistance. President Trump’s budget request for the fiscal year starting on Oct. 1 slashes the Housing and Urban Development agency’s budget  by more than 40%. In addition to cuts to rental assistance, it seeks to replace money allocated for housing vouchers with state block grants and impose two-year limits for people in public housing.    Hardy and Sunny Wonder, chief operating officer at Council for the Homeless, join us to talk about the housing hotline and what its calls reveal about the housing and homelessness crisis in Clark County and the region.   

Portland City Councilor Mitch Green is introducing a proposal that would make it easier for sidewalk food vendors to operate in the city. The ordinance would remove city requirements that prevent vendors from operating outside similar businesses, such as restaurants, and without getting consent from adjacent property owners to operate on the sidewalk.   Green says easing the regulations could give small businesses a boost, but restaurant advocates say sidewalk vendors could hurt businesses that are still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. OPB’s Portland city government reporter Alex Zielinski joins us to talk about the proposed ordinance and more.  

Nine years ago, Union County voters overwhelmingly voted to pass Measure 31-89, which limited county commissioners to two terms, or eight years, in office. A whopping 68% of voters supported the change, which came from Union County Citizens for Good Government. Now, more than eight years after the measure took effect, Union County Commissioners will no longer be limited by term limits. In January, the county commissioners unanimously voted to have the measure brought to the courtroom, requesting the circuit court to examine the constitutionality of the measure. Earlier this month, County Clerk Lisa Feik shared that the court ruled in favor of the commissioners, ending term limits. Union County Commissioner Paul Anderes joins us to share why he and his fellow commissioners voted to bring this measure to the courts. We’ll also hear from Jim Mollerstrom, the former organizer for Union County Citizens for Good Government, to share why he was pushing for this initially and his thoughts on the change.