June 1, 2000

"NUCLEAR LEGACY" BOOK BRINGS UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE TO GROWING UP IN ATOMIC CITIES

It's not your typical coming of age book.

To see more about this book visit the new releases on Battelle Press's online bookstore.

It's a story-told from two distinct perspectives-of what it's like to grow up in a community inextricably tied to nuclear energy. In one, nuclear energy has been a vital part of a community in eastern Washington. One of the local high school's mushroom cloud mascot and "Bomber" nickname don't raise eyebrows among residents.

In the other community, Ukrainian children grow up against the backdrop of the world's worst nuclear disaster in Chornobyl. Chilling details of the hurried evacuation of a city and annual visits to the hospital to be checked for the effects of radiation poisoning are part of these teen-agers' collective memories.

Battelle Press has just published "Nuclear Legacy: Students of Two Atomic Cities." The book is a collaborative effort between students at Hanford Middle School in Richland, Washington, and teen-age students from Slavutych in the Ukraine.

Slavutych is the city that was built to house displaced citizens of the town of Pripyat who were evacuated after the nuclear accident at Chornobyl in 1986. Hanford is the site of the nuclear complex that was built in the early 1940s by the United States to produce plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Hanford is also home to Washington State's only operating nuclear power reactor, WNP-2. Hanford is located next to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, managed by Battelle for the Department of Energy since 1965.

Hanford Middle School teacher Maureen McQuerry's visit to Slavutych with two students in 1997 inspired the idea for the book. She worked with Battelle and Bechtel Hanford Inc. for funding assistance. Since then, her Ukrainian counterpart, Tetyana Gavrish, and two students visited Richland as part of the collaboration. Students used videoconferencing in combination with Internet and e-mail communications to exchange information.

The 328-page, hardcover book is written in both English and Ukrainian and includes photos taken by the student authors as well as historical archive photos. It is based on research, interviews and personal testimonials and is split into three sections: History, The Communities Today, and The Future. It gives an informative and thought-provoking account, through the eyes of 40 children, of what it's like to grow up in a nuclear-focused community.

In recognition of her work on the book, Hanford teacher McQuerry was named one of 20 national recipients of the Christa McAuliffe Fellowship award in May.

The book is available through Battelle Press (1-800-451-3542) via its web site at www.battelle.org/bookstore or via Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com. The book's ISBN is 1-57477-087-X and it has a list price of $22.50.

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