One Hanford

For more than 40 years, reactors located at Hanford produced plutonium for America’s defense program. The process of making plutonium was extremely “inefficient” in that a massive amount of liquid and solid waste is generated, while only a small amount of plutonium is produced. Additionally, all the facilities and structures that were associated with Hanford’s defense mission must also be deactivated, decommissioned, decontaminated, and demolished. That environmental cleanup project is the work that about 13,000 Hanford workers are involved in today.