A gigantic nuclear waste treatment plant in eastern Washington state that has been under construction for 18years is largely completed and soon will be ready to start processing radioactive wastes left over from theconstruction of the nation's nuclear arsenal, the Department of Energy said yesterday.The so-called vitrification plant is a key component in cleaning up the legacy of wastes left at the HanfordNuclear Reservation from decades of making plutonium for nuclear weapons.The $17 billion plant is designed to treat the bulk of the 56 million gallons of the most toxic radioactive wastestored in 177 underground tanks. Hanford produced about two-thirds of the nation's plutonium from World War IIthrough the Cold War.
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