HIGHLIGHT: WASHINGTON

Richland: Cleaning up a massive nuclear weapons complex usually costs hundreds of billions of dollars and takes decades. But one project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is progressing at a much lower price. The federal government is moving forward with the “cocooning” of eight of the nine decommissioned plutonium production reactors that will place them in a state of long- term storage to allow radiation inside to dissipate over a period of decades, until they can be dismantled and buried. The ninth reactor at Hanford was turned into a museum as part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park.

AP Six of the reactors on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation have been cocooned for long- term storage, and two more are headed in that direction.