May 9, 2017 Updated Tue., May 9, 2017 at 8:23 p.m. This interior view of the PUREX Plant - shows the "canyon" in past years when irradiated fuel was chemically processed for recovery of plutonium ...

A new federal report says that a massive building at the Hanford Nuclear Site is worse off than managers thought. The so-called PUREX — Plutonium Uranium Extraction — plant isn't clean.

The huge PUREX processing plant at Hanford is at risk of releasing radioactive contamination into the environment the longer it remains standing, according to a new Department of Energy report.

The PUREX plant was the workhorse of Hanford’s processing plants. It went into operation in 1956 and separated plutonium from fuel rods from 1956 to 1972, and again from 1983 until 1988.

It was used for the disposal of large pieces of highly radioactive material contaminated from use at the PUREX plant. The massive plant was central to Hanford’s mission of producing plutonium ...

1965-Aerial view of the Purex solvent extraction plant at the Department of Energy's Hanford Site, where plutonium is recovered from irradiated uranium as a product for the nation's defense program.

The second Hanford PUREX plant tunnel storing highly radioactive waste has been stabilized to prevent a collapse. Work to fill the tunnel with concrete-like grout began in early October and was ...

The tunnel cave-in happened outside of Hanford's Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant - PUREX for short. The plant was built from 1953 to 1955 and opened "hot" in January 1956. The plant’s main ...

The closed PUREX plant was part of the nation's nuclear weapons ... The federal government created Hanford at the height of World War II as part of a hush-hush project to build the atomic bomb.

The 60-year-old tunnel, constructed of wood and concrete, is next to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant, according to the Hanford Joint Information Center. PUREX is longer than three football ...

For decades during the Cold War arms race, nuclear waste was dumped at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation’s sprawling 200 East and 200 West areas. The PUREX plant, a massive concrete bunker the ...