Career
Brown’s most recent book is, a history of the world’s first two American and Soviet “plutonium cities”, (Richland, Washington and Ozersk, Russia), published by Oxford University Press in 2013. These were the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium for use in cold war atomic bombs. Brown is currently working on a book called Being There, which explores the history of blighted communities which have been “silenced or destroyed”.
Brown has received many research grants and written many articles
Richland, Washington was the first city established to support plutonium production at the nearby Hanford nuclear site, to power the American nuclear weapons arsenals. Ozersk, Russia supported plutonium production to power the Soviet nuclear arsenals at the Mayak nuclear plant.
These were the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium for use in cold war atomic bombs. According to Brown, the plants at Hanford and Mayak, over a period of four decades, “both released more than 200 million curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment -- twice the amount expelled in the Chernobyl disaster in each instance”.
Brown says that most of this radioactive contamination over the years at Hanford and Mayak were part of normal operations, but unforeseen accidents did occur and plant management kept this secret, as the pollution continued unabated.
Even today, as pollution threats to health and the environment persist, the government keeps knowledge about the associated risks from the public.