Agreement To Clean Hanford Soil Reached

Federal and state agencies have agreed on a plan to clean up contaminated soil at former reactor sites on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, officials said Wednesday.

The pact between the U.S. Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Ecology covers 37 waste sites along the Columbia River at the B, D and H reactors, the agencies said in a joint statement. The B reactor was the world’s first large-scale nuclear reactor.

Contamination occurred when liquid wastes from the nowdeactivated plutonium production reactors was disposed of in cribs and trenches, officials said. The sites represent a collective area of about 1.5 square miles on the 560-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington.

Full-scale cleanup at the sites is expected to begin next summer, said Linda McClain, the Department of Energy’s assistant manager for environmental restoration.

The three agencies are signatories to the Tri-Party Agreement, which established a long-term environmental cleanup plan at Hanford. , DataTimes