Oregon Public Broadcasting

The Hanford Reach National Monument is home to one of the most pristine and last-remaining protected areas of shrub steppe habitat in the West. This week crews are nearing the end of a $10 million cleanup project there funded with federal stimulus money.

Cleaning up debris on the Hanford Reach's Arid Lands Ecology Reserve or ALE hasn't been easy.

The 120-square-mile area is dotted with sagebrush and bunchgrass and home to many scarce plants, animals and birds. The area is also highly important to Native Americans.

Kurt Kehler with the Hanford contractor CH2MHill says the work has to be done carefully, sometimes even with helicopters.

Kurt Kehler: "It's a very sensitive area as you can imagine, so we've got to be very careful culturally as well as biologically."

Some of the structures that are being removed include an observatory and communication towers. Kehler says there are still some buildings that need to be taken out, but work is about 95 percent done.