The Hanford Litigation Office in Seattle was designated as the archive for all litigation discovery documents and records for all litigation against Hanford. For eight years in the 1990s, attorneys collected documentary evidence which resulted in a large discovery document collection consisting mainly of Department of Energy documents. A database describing each document was created and maintained by the Hanford Litigation Office.

By the mid-1990s, expert witnesses in the areas of air dispersion, nuclear physics, thyroid cancer and disorders drafted reports supporting the plaintiffs' theories of radiation exposure from the releases in the 1940s through the 1960s downwind from the Hanford site. From 1997 to 1998 experts were deposed. A series of motions in limine were filed by the defendant contractors running the Hanford site in 1998, requesting the judge to throw out the plaintiffs' expert witnesses. In a 900 page order, Federal District Judge Alan A. MacDonald threw out the testimony of every plaintiff expert. Following the ruling, attorneys for the plaintiffs prepared an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In 2002 a three-judge panel overturned the ruling, allowing the case to return to the lower court. Tom Foulds filed a recusal motion to have the judge removed after he became aware that the judge had a conflict of interest. By 2002, Judge MacDonald was removed from the case.

In 2003, the legal team prepared a bellwether trial and in 2005, it was proved radiation exposure caused thyroid cancer for two of the plaintiffs. This was the first case in history where a member of the general public (a downwinder) went to trial and won a radiation injury case. An undisclosed settlement was reached in 2015, and all legal cases were closed.

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation, one of the original Manhattan Project sites, is located on the Columbia River in Washington State just north of the Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick, and Pasco). During World War II and the Cold War (1947-1991) the nuclear site released plumes of radioactive iodine into the air and the Columbia River. It was mainly deposited in farming areas north and east of Richland, Washington. Residents in affected areas were not advised that radioactive material in the region was suspected to cause health problems among the general population.

Background of Radioactive Releases

At the beginning of Hanford operations, the potential threat of radioactive releases to the atmosphere was not understood nor appreciated. The production process started with the manufacture of aluminum jacket cylindrical fuel cells each packed with uranium U239 along with a small percentage of a uranium isotope U235. Bombardment of neutrons in the U239/235 mix by slow neutrons created a flux of high radiation energy and heat that would gradually transform the U-239 into Plutonium 239. The Pu239 was converted into a nitrate compound for further processing in one of four processing plants and finally into the plutonium finishing plant for conversion into the finished product of pure plutonium about the size of a hockey puck.

Radioactive byproducts contaminated both nearby water supplies and air. The reactors had all been constructed near the Columbia River for easy access to water to avoid overheating. After passing through the reactors, the water, which had become contaminated with highly radioactive nuclides, was discharged back into the river. Many other radioactive byproducts were created inside the fuel cells, including Iodine 131, a radioactive gas which is known to be injurious to the thyroid gland. The gaseous releases and particles, including these byproducts, were released into the atmosphere via 200 foot high stacks. The exhaust traveled up several feet into the airstream, beyond the boundaries of the Hanford site, before settling low enough to expose the workers. There was no concern initially about what damage may, or may not, have been caused by the plume traveling downwind (beyond the site). It was not until four years into operations that attempts were made to filter out the I-131 before releasing the gases into the atmosphere.

Each day the operators compiled a written report of all operational incidents, both on-site and off-site. These reports were usually given a designation of Hanford Works (HW) followed by a sequential number. There were thousands of reports created over forty years of operation (1943 – 1987). Between 1992 and 2002, a compilation of off-site reports was extracted from the full set of operational reports by historian, Michele Gerber, Ph.D. She discovered that the operators had done testing on animals, including testing of sheep grazing in nearby pastures contaminated by Hanford releases, to determine the maximum exposure before thyroid injury occurs. The operators discovered that damage occurred to the thyroid glands when exposure to I-131 exceeded releases of one curie per day from Hanford operations. The operators acknowledge in their written reports that there were numerous days during 1945, the 1950s, and early 1960s in which the releases exceeded the safe limit of one curie per day. Some days exceeded the safe limit by ten times, while many days exceeded the safe limit by hundreds of times. The days of excess contamination, known to be harmful to downwind residents, were not just rogue actions by individuals but were done with full knowledge of Hanford management at the highest levels.

Litigation Against Hanford

In 1986, a Freedom of Information Act case resulted in the release of approximately 40,000 Department of Energy documents revealing that there had been chemical releases and radioactive contamination releases from the Hanford Nuclear site.

In 1989, a legal case began as Tom H. Foulds became one of the original attorneys to represent plaintiffs suffering from illnesses related to radiation exposure. The cases were consolidated and handled among 19 attorneys, but a class action suit was never filed because too many different kinds of cancers and thyroid illnesses were represented.