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Hanford Site Disposal Facility for Waste Incidental to Reprocessing
The Hanford Site, occupying 586 square miles along the Columbia River near Richland, Washington, is a former plutonium production complex. The cleanup of the site involves more than 53 million gallons of radioactive and chemically hazardous waste in 177 underground storage tanks, and about 25 million cubic feet (750,000 cubic meters) of buried or stored solid waste, as well as spent nuclear fuel, and plutonium in various forms. Toward that end, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of River Protection (ORP) 
, has the mission to retrieve and treat Hanford’s tank waste and close its tank farms to protect the Columbia River.
), DOE has asked the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to provide technical advice and consultation on some of its analyses, including
performance assessments
for the site. In response, the NRC staff is currently reviewing DOE's performance assessments related to the site, in accordance with an Interagency Agreement between the NRC and DOE.
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Thursday, March 29, 2012
