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The Richland Operations Office oversees the cleanup of the Department of Energy's Hanford facility.
Embracing the priorities of our regulators, stakeholders, and area-Tribal Nations – and understanding the absolute necessity to make real, visible progress sooner rather than later – Richland has reorganized its work and set its sights on getting key pieces of the Hanford cleanup completed over the next ten years.
As directed by Congress, the Office of River Protection was established in 1998 to manage the Department of Energy's largest, most complex environmental cleanup project: Hanford tank waste retrieval, treatment, and disposal. Sixty percent by volume of the nation's high-level radioactive waste is stored at Hanford in aging deteriorating tanks. If not cleaned up, this waste is a threat to the Columbia River and the Pacific Northwest. Creation of the Office was the next step in the evolution of tank waste cleanup.
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