Opposing signs hung together along the Richland Tower Inn's meeting room walls to sum up the debate.

"Hanford workers support Hanford jobs."

"Stop FFTF."

About 200 people showed up Thursday at a Department of Energy hearing to support or slam the idea of creating plutonium 238 for the United States' space program in Hanford's dormant Fast Flux Test Facility.

"The community, facility and staff stand ready to produce plutonium 238," said Joyce DeFelice, an aide of U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.

Greg DeBruler, technical analyst for Bingen-based Columbia River United organization, said: "This mission is a pork-barrel scheme to perpetuate a little bit of a production mission for a little bit of time."

In general, each side's words about the other were harsh, although the tones stayed civil.

West Richland City Councilman Ken Dobbin, a nuclear engineer, slammed statements by regional environmental groups claiming resurrecting the reactor creates a high likelihood of a nuclear accident.

"Every technical statement they've made is false. Where is their fast reactor expertise?"

Harold Heacock, representing the Tri-City Industrial Development Council, also criticized opponents' charges that reviving the FFTF poses an environmental threat. "These are not the views of the local community and reflect a knee-jerk reaction to any new program at Hanford and in particular to any consideration of restarting the (FFTF) ... These allegations are not technically supportable or are deliberate misuses of available safety analyses," Heacock said.

Meanwhile, Gerald Pollet, director of Heart of America Northwest and an FFTF opponent, said he heard similar criticism when he and his allies opposed a Hanford waste repository in the 1980s and later warned about tank wastes reaching the aquifer - arguments they eventually won.

Pollet said his side's technical criticisms of the FFTF have been verified by nuclear experts.

Most of the 200 people at Thursday's hearing supported a plutonium 238 mission.

Supporters cited the FFTF's good engineering track record, its ability to marry up with the nearby Fuel Materials Examination Facility that is a potential space battery assembly site, and the FFTF's potential to produce medical isotopes. And the chemical extraction of the plutonium 238 from the reactor targets could create 50 to 100 jobs.

Opponents contended reviving the FFTF would generate new nuclear waste on a site that is already coping with being the most contaminated in the nation. They argued the risk of a nuclear-related accident is too high.

Opponents also criticized DOE for not holding plutonium 238 hearings elsewhere in the Northwest, such as at Portland and Seattle.

"It's difficult (to make decisions) when such a large group of stakeholders are denied participation," said Doug Huston, a nuclear safety technical specialist for the Oregon Office of Energy.

In past FFTF-related meetings, Portland and Seattle crowds are usually stacked against the FFTF, and Tri-City crowds usually are stacked for the reactor.

The purpose of Thursday's hearing was to provide feedback to DOE in preparation of conducting an environmental impact study on creating plutonium 238 in reactors at Hanford, Idaho Falls or Oak Ridge.

The draft study report is expected to be done by late spring 1999. The final study report is due in fall 1999 with a formal decision due by January 2000.

The United States needs plutonium 238 as a power source for special batteries to be used in deep outer space probes.

The nation does not have a plutonium 238 source, and buys the substance from Russia. Russia's shaky political and economic climate has the United States pondering if it should set up its own plutonium 238 source.

Hanford's FFTF is one potential source. Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson is expected to decide by the end of 1998 whether to study reviving the reactor as a backup or interim source of tritium for nuclear weapons.

FFTF supporters generally stress a proposed FFTF medical isotope mission. But it needs another mission - tritium or plutonium 238 production - to be economically feasible.

Much of the opposition to reviving the FFTF revolves around tritium being used to boost the explosive power of atomic bombs.

The FFTF's multiple missions aspect produces some other wrin kles, including whether FFTF can handle any combination of plutonium 238, tritium and medical isotopes mission, said Al Farabee, DOE's FFTF program manager.

Not enough room exists in the reactor for a maximum plutonium 238 mission of producing 5 kilograms a year and a maximum tritium mission of producing 1.5 kilograms a year. One or both missions would have to be trimmed down some to balance the two.

The medical isotopes mission would take up such a small space in the FFTF that it would not seriously affect the other two, Farabee said.