Abstract
At Hanford, the United States produced the plutonium that fueled the Trinity test (the first atomic explosion in history), the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, and thousands of warheads during the Cold War. The production of plutonium resulted in release of billions of gallons of radioactive and chemical waste which contaminated over a thousand sites at Hanford. The United States Department of Energy's (USDOE's) cleanup of Hanford is the largest single environmental restoration challenge facing the United States and is the model for the restoration of contaminated sites throughout the USDOE's Nuclear Weapons Complex. This article details Hanford's contamination, the legal framework governing the cleanup, and the critical issues that must be addressed for the Hanford cleanup to succeed.
How to Cite
Hess, G. F., (1996) “Hanford: Cleaning Up the Most Contaminated Place in the United States”, Arizona Law Review 38(1), 165–233.
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