What is Hanford?
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a 586-square mile site, about half the size of Rhode Island, on the Columbia River in southeastern Washington. It is owned by the federal government and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE). Hanford is a former nuclear weapons facility that produced plutonium for atomic bombs. It is the most contaminated nuclear site in the Western Hemisphere. Its radioactive and toxic wastes pose serious health and environmental threats to the Northwest. In 1987, Hanford’s plutonium-production mission ended. Hanford is now the world’s largest environmental cleanup project.
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is in south-eastern Washington. It was created in 1943 by the United States government as part of the “Manhattan Project” – our nation’s effort to build the first atomic bomb. The 586-square-mile site played an important role in our nation’s defense throughout the Cold War. However, more than 40 years of plutonium production left a legacy of contamination. Today USDOE owns and operates Hanford. It is undergoing the world’s largest environmental cleanup. This involves both chemically toxic and radioactive materials. Sixty percent of the nation’s high-level radioactive wastes are stored at Hanford in old deteriorating tanks. More than 1,700 individual waste sites and 500 contaminated facilities are spread across the site. Hanford has over 180 square miles of contaminated groundwater. If not cleaned up, these wastes are a threat to the Columbia River, which forms the north and east border of the site, and is the lifeblood of the interior Pacific Northwest.
