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Heart of America Northwest's History

Heart of America Northwest has spent over twenty years working for the timely cleanup of nuclear waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. Heart of America was started by Gerry Pollet, its Executive Director, over 22 years ago.

In 1986, Gerry authored and successfully directed the campaign for a Washington State Ballot Referendum that blocked Hanford from becoming the United States’ first High-Level Nuclear Waste Dump.

Heart of America Northwest’s comprehensive approach to advocacy includes: grassroots organizing, legal advocacy, public education, lobbying and unmatched policy expertise. We maintain a healthy balance between an adversarial and a partnering role with government agencies and work closely with other concerned stakeholders as we work to cleanup the dangerous radioactive contamination at Hanford.

Heart of America Northwest believes in the "Clean-Up First" principle: requiring the existing wastes to be brought into compliance and cleaned up before allowing the Energy Department to dump more waste at Hanford.

Heart of America Northwest at Work:

• Heart of America Northwest leads efforts to unite Northwest environmental and public interest groups on Hanford Cleanup strategies;
   
• Heart of America Northwest is the key organization educating and turning out members of the  public to meetings and involving the public in key cleanup (and waste dump) decisions;
   
• Our award winning Citizens’ Guides are sent to our members (and are available online) multiple times each year with news and serve as guides for commenting on major proposals;
   
• Our research on radioactive and chemical contamination at Hanford, health threats, funding and contracts for cleanup has provided the basis for major investigative reports and stories in national and regional news media, including the NY Times, Washington Post (front page on May 18, 2009), every major Northwest newspaper, NPR, CNN, and ABC;
   
• Our legal and organizing work led to the end of USDOE’s dumping of untreated liquid wastes directly into the soil, including discharges right alongside the Columbia River, and stopped the trucking of highly radioactive Plutonium wastes to Hanford.
   
• In May 2010, we were honored to received the 4th Annual Service Award from the University of Washington School of Public Health for our annual work with Masters of Public Health students studying Hanford.

As a citizens' group, we exist and can only continue to do this important work through public support.  Please join and contribute, sign up to be on our email list, and/or volunteer! We train volunteers to be effective in helping call fellow members to ask them to join us at public hearings, and volunteers assist in many other ways from research to legal work to giving presentations.