Escaping S-102: Waste, Illness, and the Politics of Not Knowing

This paper explores the lived experience of radioactive and chemical poisoning following the S-102 accident at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. It seeks to understand how sickness is made intelligible (or not) in the context of nuclear toxicity, and how layers of certainty and uncertainty structure medical decisions, legal action, procedure, and daily life in the nuclear complex. Discussions about nuclear risk and illness often hinge on the issue of causality, on whether-and at what dosage-radioactivity causes harm. I argue, however, that centering these discussions on truth versus falsehood sidesteps critical examination of the politics that created the terms of the debate. Rather, improving nuclear safety and accountability means analyzing how the boundaries of valid (and by default, invalid) nuclear illnesses are identified and made legally actionable. It also means integrating qualitative measures of health and safety with the quantitative measures of risk currently informing management practice at Hanford.