Oregon Public Broadcasting

Officials at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation are hoping to solve a mystery Saturday. They recently found two containers in a burial ground at the site in Southeast Washington.

They don’t know what’s inside but they suspect it’s dangerous. Richland correspondent Anna King reports.

At Hanford, lots of dangerous stuff was buried in about 300 long underground trenches.

Some of that material is radioactive.

Now, government contractors are digging up the trenches and disposing the waste more safely.

The contractors recently found two relatively small canisters and no record of what’s inside. They suspect that Phosgene – a chemical war agent – might be in one canister. And hydrogen chloride might be in the other.

Todd Nelson is spokesman for the cleanup contractor Washington Closure Hanford.

Todd Nelson: "Given the fact that we are dealing with some unknown things in burial grounds where there aren’t many records, we just have to assume the worst possible case and plan for that.

Nelson says the clean up crew will take the canisters to the middle of the vast Hanford site and open them up in a hazmat trailer.