Kim Stringfellow

01/27/2026

In awareness of National Downwinders Day, I am sharing my 2002 Safe As Mother's Milk: The Hanford Project.
I have been personally interested in these dark American histories for over 25 years. In 2002, I produced Safe As Mother’s Milk: The Hanford Project, which investigates plutonium production at Washington State’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation. For more than forty years, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation released radioactive contamination into the surrounding environment while producing plutonium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War era. The public was not informed or warned of how these highly classified activities posed a danger to public health or the environment. Although most radioactive releases were due to production mishaps, some were planned and intentional.
Safe As Mother’s Milk: The Hanford Project examines these important events through the research and presentation of declassified historical photographs, media and other documents available from various U.S. federal government online public archives including the Hanford Declassified Document Retrieval System and Human Radiation Experiments Information Management System (HREX). Since 2014, both websites are no longer accessible for online public viewing.

The poem is by an unknown author sourced from the Washington State Department of Health archives.

Visit the Hanford Project website at https://hanfordproject.com/
Further reading: my 2021 Mojave Project Dispatch on the Nevada Test Site, Downwind Upshot-Knothole. https://mojaveproject.org/dispa.../downwind-upshot-knothole/

01/27/2026

Every January 27 marks National Downwinders Day of Remembrance to recognize and honor those individuals and communities harmed by America's nuclear program in the Intermountain West: downwind families, uranium miners, military personnel, and those directly affected by the Nevada Test Site.
From 1951 to 1962, over 100 atmospheric nuclear tests occurred at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). It is estimated that 12 billion curies of radiation were released during atmospheric testing conducted at the NTS between 1951 and 1963. In comparison, the Chernobyl disaster released an estimated 81 million curies of radiation when the No. 4 reactor melted down in 1986. Atmospheric testing occurring between 1951 to 1958 at the NTS likely contributed to 186,500 crude deaths and 63,500 cancer deaths in the twenty-year window after testing began. Underground testing would continue uninterrupted with 921 underground atomic weaponry tests that were regularly detonated as late as 1992. Public awareness and the abrupt end of the Cold War gradually forced the Department of Energy to abandon the program entirely in 1996 under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Other communities suffering catastrophic multi-generational cancers and related diseases, from above-ground testing, include rural and Indigenous communities near New Mexico’s Trinity Test Site, where the first nuclear device was detonated. Diné uranium miners extracted approximately 30 million tons of uranium ore on or near the Navajo Nation from 1944 to 1989. “Uranium mining and milling activities no longer occur on the Navajo Nation, but the legacy of these activities remains, including the presence of abandoned uranium mines, former mill sites, and homes built with mine and mill waste. Elevated uranium and other elements are associated with mine and mill sites, although the same elements also occur naturally at elevated levels in rock, soil, surface water, and groundwater across the Navajo Nation and the broader Four Corners region. Health effects from exposure to these elements can include lung cancer and impaired kidney function.” Source: https://www.epa.gov/.../ten-year-plan-to-address-impacts... Water on the Navajo Nation currently has an average of 90 micrograms per liter of uranium, with some areas reaching upwards of 700 micrograms per liter [Wikipedia].

The poem is by an unknown author sourced from the Washington State Department of Health archives.

Visit the Hanford Project website at https://hanfordproject.com/

12/05/2025

Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) Executive Director Kelly Herbinson was among the biologists overseeing the translocation of more than 50 critically endangered desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) at the controversial 3,445-acre Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS), located just north of Interstate 15 on the California-Nevada border during the mid-2010s. ISEGS will shut down operations in early 2026—thirteen years before its planned decommissioning.
T
en years later, Herbinson reflects on her time at ISEGS in this new Mojave Project audio track, sharing that her employers, BrightSource Energy, spent as much as $1 million per tortoise during the multi-year translocation process. Herbison states, “All that work, all that money, all that destruction, for what?” She is proud of her work at ISEGS, but now believes that funds could have been better spent protecting the species and its habitat elsewhere: “If someone gave me, now as executive director of MDLT—$50 million, I could pretty much protect the whole desert. I could keep it a completely interconnected, thriving ecosystem. That’s what I grapple with.”

Listen on Soundcloud:

Voice: Kelly Herbinson, Executive Director, Mojave Desert Land Trust (MDLT) This is an audio track from The Mojave Project—an experimental transmedia documentary led by Kim Stringfellow exploring the

11/23/2025

This new Mojave Project dispatch series traces the expansion and ecological consequences of utility-scale solar development across the Mojave Desert. The first installment surveys California’s solar frontier; the next will turn to Nevada, where new projects are transforming—and, in many places, erasing—fragile desert ecosystems. Later in the series, I will examine how distributed generation—community-based, locally managed solar power and related initiatives—could offer a more resilient and environmentally responsible alternative to the vast, investor-owned installations now transforming the region.

Included is an audio interview with Kelly Herbinson, Executive Director of the Mojave Desert Land Trust. Herbinson was one of the biologists who oversaw the translocation of more than 50 critically endangered desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) at the controversial 3,445-acre Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) located just north of Interstate 15 on the California-Nevada border. ISEGS will shut down operations early next year—thirteen years before its planned decommissioning.

This dispatch explores the expansion and ecological consequences of utility-scale solar development across California's Mojave Desert.

03/08/2025

Find my photograph!

Desert Dialogues, Center for Art + Environment Lab at the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno. On exhibit from March 22, 2025 - December 27, 2027.

Desert Dialogues marks the inaugural exhibition in the Museum’s Art + Environment Education Lab, inviting visitors, educators, and learners of all ages to embark on a visual exploration of the diverse motivations that draw people to the desert. Featuring works from the Museum’s Carol Franc Buck ...

11/24/2024

Archived audio is available for our three Alabama Gates 2024 panel discussions from 11/16 to 11/17, 2024. The second track with John Walton and Dr. Sophia Borgias is incomplete—about 50 minutes have been shared. In the coming weeks, we will post the entire version on Soundcloud.
Track 1: Payahüünadü Tribal representatives Noah Williams, Water Program Coordinator for the Big Pine Paiute Tribe; Kyndall Noah, Communications Specialist, OVIWC; with Dr. Sophia Borgias, Assistant Professor at Boise State University as panel moderator on Saturday, Nov 16, 2024. We were disappointed that Kathy Bancroft, the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, couldn't join us because she was ill. Still, she listened to Metabolic's 89.9 live broadcast from home.
Track 2: Our keynote panel on Saturday, Nov 16, 2024, with Professor Emeritus John Walton, author of Western Times and Water Wars (UC Press, 1993) and Dr. Sophia Borgias, moderated by Jon Klusmire.
Track 3: Our final panel discussion on Sunday, Nov 17, 2024, with Owens Valley environmental leaders, including Lynn Boulton, Chair, Sierra Club Range of Light Group; Nancy Masters and Mary Roper, Board Members, Owens Valley Commission; Wendy Schneider, Executive Director, Friends of the Inyo; and Michael Prather, Audubon wildlife advocate for Patsiata (Owens Lake).
All three panels were presented at Statham Hall in Lone Pine, CA. Recordings made by Metabolic Studio's Audrey Clementine Turner.

In cooperation with the Alabama Gates Centennial Celebration, FAULT LINE RADIO broadcasted three panel discussions live on 89.9fm and online at www.metabolicstudio.org/765 from Statham Hall in Lone Pi