Joshua McGuffie will tell the stories of scientists from the medical section of the Manhattan Project and share their research on the biological effects of radiation at the Hanford Fish Lab and in the Marshall Islands. In June 1945, a team of medical doctors and fisheries biologists gathered at UC Berkeley to discuss the research program for a new and unique laboratory. The lab stood on the southern shore of the Columbia River, close to the F Pile at the Hanford Nuclear Site. The Fish Lab, as it came to be called, was designed to study the effects of the reactor’s radioactive effluent on the valuable salmon and steelhead trout populations that spawned in the Columbia and its tributaries. 

Joshua’s talk will describe how the aquatic biology and radiology programs at Hanford developed in the 1940s in the context of the larger Medical Section. Joshua tracks how Dick Foster came to Hanford from the original Medical Section establishment in the Pacific Northwest, the Applied Fisheries Laboratory at the University of Washington. The story follows Foster’s research at Hanford and his trip with the UW biologists to Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. There, they studied the biological effects of the two atomic tests conducted during Operation Crossroads in 1946. Hanford’s story often makes the site seem like a uniquely atomic place. The Fish Lab’s story shows how intimately Hanford fit into America’s larger atomic geography.

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Joshua McGuffie is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at UCLA. His research focuses on the intersections between biology, medicine, race, and the environment during the US atomic project. Joshua earned an MA at Oregon State University, where he studied ecologists working at Hanford’s Arid Lands Ecology Reserve. Along with his academic career, Joshua serves as a parish pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He and his family live in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, north of Los Angeles, and love taking to the trails on the weekend.

The Nuclear Waste Scholar Series is funded through a Public Participation Grant from the Washington State Department of Ecology. The content was reviewed for grant consistency, but is not necessarily endorsed by the agency.