HANFORD, Wash. (AP) — A new estimate from the U.S. Department of Energy raises remaining environmental cleanup costs at the former nuclear weapons production site in Washington state by $82 billion.
The 2018 financial report brings the total cleanup costs to $242 billion at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The new estimate reflects the costs of retrieving waste from tanks and closing or disposing of tanks, which still hold about 56 million gallons of radioactive waste.
The 580-square-mile site became contaminated following the production of about two-thirds of the country’s plutonium for nuclear weapons programs.