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The Hanford Site is 586 square miles of desert landscape in southeastern Washington State. It was developed as a nuclear reservation in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project to supply plutonium for the nuclear weapons used in the bombings of Japan that ended World War II. The towns of White Bluff and Hanford, including surrounding farmlands were purchased and evacuated to make room for the site, and eight reactors were built along the Hanford Reach and Columbia River. After World War II, production was increased in 1947 during the arms race of the “Cold War,” production of plutonium continued until 1987 following the Chernobyl disaster in the Soviet Union. The plant started transmitting electricity to the Bonneville Power Administration in 1966 and did so until 1986. In Hanford's 20 year operation, it produced 63 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, and supplied the Northwest with electricity during the low-water years of 1974 to 1977.

Protests arose over the years by health departments of Oregon and Washington, as well as the U.S. Public Health Service who reported that 440 billion gallons of contaminated fluid went into the soil and Columbia River during the Cold War years. In 1989, the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Washington State Department of Ecology entered into a legally binding accord, the Tri-Party Agreement (TPA) with the requirement to clean up the site. Work is now being done to block nuclear waste from reaching the Columbia River . During clean-up, toxic, radioactive waste from 177 aging underground tanks will be removed and the central plateau of the site will be converted into a long-term waste treatment site.