Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years, Oral History of John W. Healy, Conducted November 28, 1994

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HUMAN RADIATION STUDIES: REMEMBERING THE EARLY Oral History of United States Department of Energy Office of Human Radiation Experiments

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HUMAN RADIATION STUDIES: REMEMBERING THE EARLY Oral History of United States Department of Energy Office of Human Radiation Experiments

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her Openness Initiative. As part of this initiative, the Department of Energy Iundertook an effort to identify and catalog historical documents on radiation experiments that had used human subjects. The Office of Human Radiation Experiments coordinated the Department’s search for records about these experiments. An enormous volume of historical records has been located. Many of these records were disorganized; often poorly cataloged, if at all; and scattered across the country in holding areas, archives, and records centers. The Department has produced a roadmap to the large universe of pertinent information: Human Radiation Experiments: The Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and the Recorh (DOEEH-0445, February 1995). The collected documents are also accessible through the Internet World Wide Web under http ://www. ohre. doe. gov . The passage of time, the state of existing records, and the fact that some decisionmaking processes were never documented in written form, caused the Department to consider other means to supplement the documentary record. In September 1994, the Office of Human Radiation Experiments, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, began an oral history project to fulfill this goal. The project involved interviewing researchers and others with firsthand knowledge of either the human radiation experimentation that occurred during the Cold War or the institutional context in which such experimentation took place. The purpose of this project was to enrich the documentary record, provide missing information, and allow the researchers an opportunity to provide their perspective. Thirty-two audiotaped interviews were conducted from September 1994 through January 1995. Interviewees were permitted to review the transcripts of their oral histories. Their comments were incorporated into the final version of the transcript if those comments supplemented, clarified, or corrected the contents of the interThe Department of Energy is grateful to the scientists and researchers who agreed to participate in this project, many of whom were pioneers in the development of

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Early Career with Du Pont (1942 to 1944) ..............................1 Arrival at Hanford (1944) ...........................................2 Early Environmental Monitoring Efforts (1946) ......................... 4 Developing Precise Calibration Standards ..............................5 Operation Green Run ..............................................6 Unknown Health Hazards From Fallout ................................8 Monitoring Livestock Exposure ......................................9 Monitoring Salmon in the Columbia River ............................. 10 More About the Green Run ......................................... 11 Unexpected Change in the Weather Pattern ............................ 12 U.S. Air Force Involvement in the Green Run .......................... 13 Other Accidental Releases ......................................... 14

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The opinions expressed by the interviewee are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Department neither endorses nor disagrees with such views. Moreover, the Department of Energy makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the information provided by the interviewee.

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Interview with John W. Healy Setting: November 28, 1994; Los Alamos, NM Interviewers: Marisa Caputo (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) and Darrell Fisher (Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory) ORAL HISTORY OF JOHN W. HEALY Conducted on November 28, 1994 in Los Alamos, New Mexico by Dr. Darrell Fisher, a health physicist from Battelle, Pacipc Northwest Laboratory, and Marisa Caputo, Oral History Team Leader and Special Assistantfrom the O f f e of Human Radiation Experiments (OHRE),US.Department of Energy (DOE). John W. Healy was selectedfor the oral history project because of his participation in the Green Run, the 1949 intentional radioiodine release at Hanford, Washington. The oral history covers Mr. Healy’s early career at the Du Pont Company, environmental monitoring at Hanford, the Green Run, and the Hanford accidental ruthenium release in the 1950s. Mr. John Healy, more commonly known as Jack, was born in Corry, Pennsylvania on May 9,1920. He graduated as a Chemical Engineer from Pennsylvania State College (now Pennsylvania State University) in May 1942. Mr. Healy first went to work spinning and testing new fibers for the Pioneering Research Group, Rayon Division, Du Pont Company in Buffalo, New York. In the fall of 1944, Mr. Healy began a job in radiation protection at Hanford, Washington. Within several weeks of his arrival a t Hanford, Mr. Healy found himself in the Special Studies Group, responsible for creating new means of radiation measurement and environmental monitoring. Mr. Healy remained a t Hanford when General Electric acquired the managing and operating contract in 1946. Later positions held by Mr. Healy include the following two: 1960 to 1968-Technological Hazards Consultant, General Electric, New York 1968 to 1 9 8 M t a f f Member, radiation hazards work, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico. Early Career with Du Pont (1942 to 1944) Today is November 28, 1994. My name is Marisa Caputo. I’m with the Office of Human Radiation Experiments at the Department of Energy. With me is Dr. Darrell Fisher, from Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories and Dr. [George] Voelz,’ from Los Alamos National Laboratory, and we’re interviewing Jack Healy. We’re hoping to discuss Mr. Healy’s work at Hanford and, specifically, the Green Run, and any other intentional releases he might have knowledge about. Could you give us a brief synopsis of your background and how you ended up at Hanford? I graduated from Pennsylvania State College-now University-on, I believe, May 9, 1942 as a Chemical Engineer. This odd date was because the graduation was accelerated about a month so that graduates could join the new wartime effort. I went to work for the Du Pont Company in the Pioneering Research Group of their Rayon Division in Buf- ’ For the transcript of the interview with Dr. Voelz see DOE/EH-0454, Human Radiation Studies: Remembering the Early Years: Oral History ofDr. George Voelr, M.D. ( M a y 1995)

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Interview with John W. Healy Setting: November 28, 1994; Los Alamos, NM Interviewers: Marisa Caputo (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) and Darrell Fisher (Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory) falo, New York. I was involved in spinning and testing new fibers with a two-cell hot-air spinning outfit. One fiber that I made extensive tests on was a substitute for kapok, a natural fiber used in life vests and other applications where buoyancy was important, but had been unavailable for some time because of the war. This product was called “bubble yarn” because it was a rayon monofilament spun in the normal manner except that a burst of air was inserted into the middle of the filament just before it entered the bath that would solidify the yam. The bubbles could be made fairly large or small and could be spaced as desired. While they were successful, another substitute for kapok was found. I was told that by the end of the war, Do Pont had over a million dollars’ worth of the material in storage. About October of 1943, I was asked to go Wilmington2 and interview for a new job. At Wilmington, the head of the technical program4 believe his name was Dr. Thigpen-announced that the company was producing a material for a new atomic bomb and described the process to me. He also indicated that there were new hazards involved with ionizing radiation and radioactive materials. My job, if I accepted, would be in a group devoted to protecting people from these new hazards. I would initially go to a pilot plant near Knoxville, [Tennessee], at a town called Oak Ridge, for training, and within some months would move to Hanford in Washington State in time for operations. I was also cautioned that this information was secret and that I should tell no one-not even my wife. I went home in a bit of a daze because of my interest in science fiction. This seemed to be the ultimate in science fiction. I talked the moves over with my wife and finally agreed to take on the task. On February 1 of 1944, I went to Oak Ridge. There were eventually 12 of us for training, under the leadership of Herbert Parker. The training consisted of morning lectures, mostly on the physics of radiation and radiation dosimetry, conducted by Dr. Karl Z. Morgan, a cosmic ray physicist. In the afternoons, we spread out through the plant and performed actual radiation protection work. My wife was due to have a baby in June-about the time we were slated to go to Hanford. I requested a delay of a few months so that the baby would be better able to make the trip. Herb Parker did not like the delay, but he finally agreed. Arrival at Hanford (1944) HEALY: I finally went to Hanford in September or October of 1944. My original job was in environmental monitoring; we called it “site survey.” When I arrived, I found they had discovered that the graphite used as a neutron moderato? in the reactors was storing energy, causing it to swell. It was * Wilmington, Delaware, Du Pont headquarters a substance that slows or thermalizes neutrons to enable the fission process. In modem reactors. water is used as the neutron moderator.

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Interview with John W. Healy Setting: November 28, 1994; Los Alamos. NM Interviewers: Marisa Caputo (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) and Darrell Fisher (Battelle. Pacific Northwest Laboratory) unknown how this energy could be released, or how fast. If a mechanism causing it to be released rapidly was present, then there was the possibility of a major explosion. As a result, Herb Parker told the management that [in case of an accident], he would have a car in the vicinity of the reactors at all times. Since the site survey crew consisted of two people-myself and Phil Lindvig-we divided the time for the next few weeks, and I spent the remaining time writing emergency plans while A few weeks after my arrival, I was asked to meet with Phil Church, a meteorologist from the University of Washington, who had spent the last few years releasing smoke in the vicinity of the separation [plants] and measuring the amount of dilution in the atmosphere. This research served as the basis for a method to control dissolving times to periods when the atmosphere could best receive the gases. Dr. Church wanted me to spend time making measurements to check on these methods. I told him that I agreed with the importance of his proposal, but we only had two people [to perform the research, our] available instruments were not adequate enough to make quantitative measurements of the cloud, and, finally, our primary job was to protect people. It turned out that at Hanford, Dr. Church was a powerful person, and the next day I found I had a new job in a group called Special Studies. It consisted of two people: my new boss, Jane Hall, who later became Associate Director at Los Alamos, and myself. Leona Marshall, from the Technical Division, also worked closely with Jane. They were wonderful people and very helpful to a chemical engineer, who found himself [without a] physics background. Is that enough ba~kground?~ CAPUTO: Yes, that’s great. This is interesting. We would like you to continue. My first job for Jane Hall, believe it or not, was to look for mesons’ in the B reactor. This seems strange nowadays, but there was not that much known of fission at that time. It had only been a few months since they started the B reactor. It was supposed to run at 100 or 200 megawatts, [but] it reached one megawatt and just petered out because of fission product [poisons]. We really didn’t know what went on completely in the fission process. I think Jane felt that this was a good opportunity to at least look for mesons. I carried about four tons of lead to the third floor of the B reactor and set up a shielded coincidence counter.6 I then took the leisurely little trip, at 35 miles an hour,’to B reactor every week to retrieve the charts and analyze them. We never did find anything, and finally the Mr. Healy chose to rewrite his introductory statement, “to make it flow better and to make some items somewhat clearer.” It retains its original flavor. a fundamental particle of matter a radiation detector that matches two simultaneous emissions from a single radioactive decay All Government cars had been fitted with speed governors to save gas.

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Interview with John W. Healy Setting: November 28. 1994; Los Alamos. NM Interviewers: Man'sa Caputo (DOE Office of Human Radiation Experiments) and Darrell Fisher (Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratory) experiment was shut down. The only good part of it was that somebody else had to carry that four tons of lead down. Du Pont was set up so that the Technical Division analyzed all samples in their Chemistry Department. If you had any samples to be analyzed, you would submit them to Technical, and they would do the analyses. The only problem was: they were swamped, and radioactive decay waits for no man! No schedule! We were taking samples from the reactor water-cooling basins to determine the quantities and types of radioactive materials being released to the river. The main [radioisotopes] were manganese-56, with a half-life of 15 minutes; sodium-24, with a 14.8delay of one month in getting a sample analyzed was rather serious. It became one of my jobs to set up a crude analytic technique. I had a lab in the 700 Area where the Site Survey Group would bring samples from the reactor. There, they would be evaporated on a watch glass and measured in a beta counter.' Early Environmental Monitoring Efforts (1946) HEALY: At this time, the method for identifying radionuclides was to run a decay curve. That is, a number of measurements were made at different times, from which the half-lives of the radionuclides could be estimated. From a table of known half-lives, the radioisotope could then be identified. This got to be quite a tedious chore, since there was only one person working on a gadget to do the evaporation directly on the watch glass." The gadget consisted of a rod, balanced on a fulcrum, with a basket that held a watch glass on one end and an adjustable weight on the other end. I put the watch glass in a holder and adjusted the weight so that when the watch glass was full, it would tilt down on to a hot plate. When the water evaporated, the watch glass would then lift off [the hot plate]. I used a siphon to drip water on to the watch glass; overnight, it would evaporate a liter of water. I finally adjusted the siphon by grinding a valve in the delivery end so that the watch glass, when dry, would lift up and hit the valve to open it. Water would [then] flow out, and the watch glass would drop back to the hot plate. I had about 20 of these [arranged] around the room. It was really quite spectacular to see them bobbing up and down as you turned the lights off." That [project] led to …