The
Hanford Site is a mostly decommissioned
nuclear production complex operated by the United States federal government on the
Columbia River in the U.S. state of
Washington. The site has been known by many names, including:
Hanford Project,
Hanford Works,
Hanford Engineer Works or
HEW and
Hanford Nuclear Reservation or
HNR. Established in 1943 as part of the
Manhattan Project in the town of
Hanford in south-central Washington, the site was home to the
B Reactor, the first full-scale
plutonium production
reactor in the world. Plutonium manufactured at the site was used in the first
nuclear bomb, tested at the
Trinity site, and in
Fat Man, the bomb
detonated over
Nagasaki, Japan.