Hanford Area 300 Buildings: Stay or Go?

Tri-City Herald - By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer

"DOE is in the early stages of evaluating whether retaining some 300 Area buildings could be an option, she said. The agency is determining whether keeping the buildings would be safe and whether cleanup momentum in the 300 Area can be maintained, she said. In the past, DOE has said all buildings must come down as part of cleanup because of contamination beneath the site and the contamination in or near utility piping. Now DOE has told the city of Richland that it's studying retaining the 331 Building, a three-story reinforced concrete structure built in the 1970s with 115,127 square feet of space. It includes laboratories on the first and third floors with a mechanical service floor on the second. A three-story office wing on the west end of the building has 60 offices and a two-story office addition was added in 1996."

At the recent Hanford Advisory Meeting, the representaive from the City of Richland stated that the city supported the rehabilitation of some of these buildings.