Lynn Schenkman

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the state of Washington are planning to retrieve and identify waste from the Hanford, Wash., site, the world’s largest environmental cleanup project. The site's budget for fiscal year 2002 was approximately $1.87 billion. Hanford was a plutonium production site and has been involved with the nation’s nuclear defense, beginning in the 1940s with the Manhattan Project. The DOE hopes the removal and management of the mixed waste will expedite the cleanup process.