Hanford pulls down big stimulus dollars | Oregon Environmental News - - OregonLive.com - 0 views
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It was ground zero for nuclear bomb production, then it became the nation's biggest atomic waste headache. Now the old Hanford nuclear reservation boasts a new distinction: It is the single biggest recipient of federal stimulus contracts. The plan is to pump an additional $2 billion into the enormous effort to decontaminate the remote campus a few miles from the Oregon border, where abandoned reactors rise like weeds amid miles of sagebrush, and toxic plumes of waste roil underground. The money equals Hanford's annual cleanup budget and accounts for more than a quarter of the total stimulus spending in Washington. It's the reason the state ranks third in the number of stimulus-related jobs, despite being 13th in population.
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It was ground zero for nuclear bomb production, then it became the nation's biggest atomic waste headache. Now the old Hanford nuclear reservation boasts a new distinction: It is the single biggest recipient of federal stimulus contracts. The plan is to pump an additional $2 billion into the enormous effort to decontaminate the remote campus a few miles from the Oregon border, where abandoned reactors rise like weeds amid miles of sagebrush, and toxic plumes of waste roil underground. The money equals Hanford's annual cleanup budget and accounts for more than a quarter of the total stimulus spending in Washington. It's the reason the state ranks third in the number of stimulus-related jobs, despite being 13th in population.