Oregon Public Broadcasting

Tuesday U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a total of $6 billion in federal stimulus money for environmental cleanup across the nation.

Washington will receive the largest share of any state. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation will get nearly $2 billion. Richland correspondent Anna King reports.

There are few surprises in Chu’s announcement. Federal managers at Hanford say they will use the stimulus money to clean up the polluted site more quickly.

Managers want to shrink the site’s cleanup footprint from nearly 600 square miles, to just 75 square miles by 2015.

There’s a lot to do. Managers plan to demolish unused nuclear facilities and support buildings. They will also clean up contaminated groundwater and retrieve radioactive waste from burial trenches.

Besides cleanup, some of that stimulus money will speed up the design and construction of pipelines to transfer radioactive liquid waste across the site.

The 83 million gallons of dangerous radioactive goo is now stored in aging underground tanks and needs to get safely to a treatment plant that’s miles away in some cases.

The money will also pay for laboratory upgrades, and for the design of a warehouse to hold the treated highly radioactive waste.

Idaho will also get about $468 million for radioactive cleanup as well. The Idaho National Lab plans to use the money to speed up the demolition of nuclear facilities near Idaho Falls.

Idaho will also use the money to ship its radioactive waste off site for disposal.