Whistle­blow­ers at the Han­ford Nuclear Site in east­ern Wash­ing­ton play an essen­tial role in bring­ing account­abil­i­ty to one of the most expen­sive and dan­ger­ous envi­ron­men­tal cleanups in his­to­ry. With­out these brave indi­vid­u­als, Han­ford cleanup would look very dif­fer­ent. Thanks to Han­ford whistle­blow­ers, the envi­ron­ment and peo­ple who call the Pacif­ic North­west home have a safer, clean­er future.

Blow­ing the whis­tle on Han­ford is no easy task and often requires expert assis­tance. Join Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son, Tom Mueller (Author, Cri­sis of Con­science) and Tom Car­pen­ter (Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Han­ford Chal­lenge) on June 4th at 07:30pm PST for a livestream event by Town Hall Seat­tle. Their dis­cus­sion will focus on the impor­tance of whistle­blow­ing at Han­ford and the work being done to pro­tect these brave indi­vid­u­als who bring account­abil­i­ty to one of the most com­plex cleanup projects in the Unit­ed States. 

About the Speakers:

Tom Mueller is a free­lance fic­tion and non-fic­tion writer. His writ­ing has appeared in The New York­er, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, The New York Times Mag­a­zine, and The Atlantic. He is the author of the New York Times–bestseller Extra Vir­gin­i­ty: The Sub­lime and Scan­dalous World of Olive Oil. His most recent book, Cri­sis of Con­science: Whistle­blow­ing in an Age of Fraud, was pub­lished in Octo­ber, 2019 by Pen­guin Ran­dom House and includes a chap­ter focused on whistle­blow­ing at Hanford.

Bob Fer­gu­son is Wash­ing­ton State’s 18th Attor­ney Gen­er­al. As the state’s chief legal offi­cer, Fer­gu­son is com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing the peo­ple of Wash­ing­ton against pow­er­ful inter­ests that don’t play by the rules. He is a fourth-gen­er­a­tion Wash­ing­ton­ian. As Attor­ney Gen­er­al, Fer­gu­son has filed mul­ti­ple legal actions against the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy regard­ing the Han­ford Nuclear Reser­va­tion, first for delay­ing cleanup of nuclear waste at the Han­ford Nuclear Reser­va­tion, and then for putting hun­dreds of Han­ford work­ers at risk of expo­sure to harm­ful tox­ic waste. Both law­suits led to suc­cess­ful outcomes. 

Tom Car­pen­ter is the founder and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Han­ford Chal­lenge, a non­prof­it watch­dog and advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion based in Seat­tle, WA. He brings four decades of expe­ri­ence in orga­niz­ing, lit­i­gat­ing, and pol­i­cy over­sight in the nuclear field, much of it devot­ed to Han­ford. As an attor­ney, Car­pen­ter has rep­re­sent­ed numer­ous whistle­blow­ers at var­i­ous nuclear sites around the nation. He has authored numer­ous reports and arti­cles on the effects of nuclear pro­duc­tion on the envi­ron­ment and work­force health and safe­ty, and estab­lished envi­ron­men­tal sam­pling pro­grams at Han­ford, Los Alam­os, and Russ­ian nuclear sites.