Re: Hanford and the HTDS

[RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 6/24/02 4:12:28 AM Mountain Daylight Time, jim.dukelow@PNL.GOV writes:



> The HTDS study population represents a sampling of people born between
>
> 1940 and 1946 to mothers who lived in seven counties in Washington
>
> State: Benton, Franklin, Adams, Walla Walla, Okanogan, Ferry, and
>
> Stevens.


Hanford is located in Benton County (mostly) and the Columbia River forms a boundary .  That strech of the Columbia is in fact called the Hanford Reach.  Parts of Walla Walla and Yakima Counties are located in pretty much the same general air basin as Hanford, though there is a low mountain range  (Gable Mountain) that is east of where the emissions were (between Yakima County and the emissions. Toppenish is the headquarters of the Yakima Indian Nation, and is on the other side of Toppneish ridge from the Hanford air basin.


Okanagan and Ferry Counties are pretty far north of Hanford and not really in the same air basin, but milk from cows that grazed in the Columbia Valley was distributed in those counties as well as other, more distant ones.


Plenty of people live there (and lived there during WWII).  At one time, the site employed, I believe, more than 30,000 people.  Today, the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland) are the third largest population centers in Washington (after Seattle and Tacoma)  Hanford is essentially Richland.


The Columbia River Valley in southern Washington is a very productive agricultural area (e.g., apples, cherries, grapes, the Ste. Michelle winery).  It's dry, but hardly as dry as Albuquerque, where I live.


The results of the study are not at all surprising.  However, you should also know that goiter (thyroid hypertrophy) was common in eastern Washington before WWII because of a relative lack of iodine in the diet -- iodized salt became ubiquitously available only after WWII -- and had nothing whatever to do with Hanford.

Ruth Weiner, Ph. D.

ruthweiner@aol.com