Nonprofit Briefs

Presentation on atomic Washington

Steve Olson will talk about “Atomic Washington: Our Nuclear Past, Present and Future” at 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Harstine Island Community Club as part of the Inquiring Minds/Humanities Washington program.

This is the 14th year the Harstine Island Community Club and Inquiring Minds/Humanities Washington have presented the programs, which are staged at 1:30 p.m. on the last Sunday in January, February and March at the Community Club, 3371 E. Harstine Island Road North. Donations will be accepted to support Inquiring Minds.

An Eastern Washington native who lives in Seattle, Olson is a writer whose most recent book is “The Apocalypse Factory: Plutonium and the Making of the Atomic Age.” Since 1979, he has been a consultant writer for the National Academy of Sciences, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and other national scientific organizations.

As Olson will point out, at the center of every nuclear weapon in the United States is a small pit of radioactive material manufactured at a top-secret facility in Eastern Washington, a facility that remains the most radiologically contaminated site in the Western hemisphere.

Washington today has two operating nuclear reactors, one of which provides about 10% of our electricity, he states. Radioactive substances are used in Washington to cure diseases, build airplanes, detect pollutants and power smoke detectors. Naval Base Kitsap has the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the country.

The series concludes with Eric Wagner talking about “After the Blast: Mount St. Helens 40 Years Later” at 1:30 p.m. March 26. The Seattle resident is a writer and biologist who earned a doctorate degree in biology from the University of Washington, where he studied penguins. He is the author of three books, including “After the Blast: The Ecological Recovery of Mount St. Helens.”

Mount St. Helens erupted May 18, 1980, killing 57 people and causing hundreds of square miles of destruction.

Scientists who visited the site soon after the eruption were stunned to find plants sprouting up through the ash and animals skittering around downed trees. Wagner will talk about the surprising ways plants and animals survived the eruption, the complex roles people have played, and the continued fascination with the mountain.