Workers at the Hanford Site have nearly completed excavation at a former waste site near the Columbia River. June 17, 2025.
Office of Environmental Management
June 17, 2025
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Workers with Central Plateau Cleanup Company are nearing completion on a massive excavation project to dispose of oil-contaminated soil from a waste site near the former K East Reactor.
RICHLAND, Wash. — Workers at the Hanford Site have nearly completed excavation at a former waste site near the Columbia River. The multiyear remediation project spans an area roughly the size of six football fields and focuses on removing waste and reducing long term environmental risk.
Crews are working to remove oil-contaminated soil from the waste site in Hanford's K Area. The area once supported two plutonium-producing reactors, K East and K West, and included an underground bunker used to store fuel oil for reactor operations.
“This project highlights our commitment to protecting the Columbia River and reducing risk across the site," said Manuel Lopez, Hanford Field Office engineer for the Project and Facilities Division. "Removing this legacy waste allows us to move forward safely and efficiently on future cleanup work."
Crews used sloping and benching techniques, visible here in the stepped walls, to safely excavate and manage the massive volume of waste.
Excavators worked through 300,000 tons of contaminated soil and more than 20,000 tons of concrete as part of the Hanford Site's ongoing risk-reduction efforts.
The waste site remediation required workers to dig an area of about 560 feet long, 600 feet wide and up to 60 feet deep. In total, about 300,000 tons of contaminated soil and more than 20,000 tons of concrete were trucked to Hanford's Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, an engineered landfill for low-level radioactive and hazardous waste. Crews also preserved another 430,000 tons of clean soil, which will be reused as backfill material to help restore the area.
“The coordinated effort between team members to move a colossal amount of waste to the landfill for disposal is beyond impressive,” said Travis Creach, project manager for U.S. Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management contractor Central Plateau Cleanup Company.
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