What is Hanford Cleanup?
The 586-square-mile Hanford Site is located along the Columbia River in southeastern Washington State. As a plutonium production complex with nine nuclear reactors and associated processing facilities, Hanford played a pivotal role in the nation’s defense for more than 40 years, beginning in the 1940s with the Manhattan Project. Today, under the direction of the U.S. Department of Energy, Hanford is engaged in the world’s largest environmental cleanup project, with a number of overlapping technical, political, regulatory, financial and cultural issues. Physical challenges at the Hanford Site include more than 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste in 177 underground storage tanks, 2,300 tons (2,100 metric tons) of spent nuclear fuel, 9 tons (8 metric tons) of plutonium in various forms, about 25 million cubic feet (750,000 cubic meters) of buried or stored solid waste, groundwater contaminated above drinking water standards and spread out over about 80 square
