The Waste Treatment Plant (Vit Plant) is the cornerstone of cleanup at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Hanford site. It will provide a solution to Hanford's radioactive chemical waste from nearly 50 years of nuclear weapons production. The largest DOE construction project, the Vit Plant, once completed, will use a process known as vitrification to treat and stabilize the waste by blending it with molten glass and placing it in stainless steel canisters.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of River Protection along with Waste Treatment Plant employees celebrated a project milestone in November 2005, by “topping out” the Low-Activity Waste Facility’s structural steel skeleton. Between groundbreaking and ribbon-cutting ceremonies lies another ceremony in the construction of a new building - topping out. The long-honored tradition of topping out a building means installing the uppermost piece of structural steel where the building has reached its pinnacle height. In this case the height of the building is 68-feet. The milestone also marked the project’s ability to start installing LAW exterior siding and roofing.

A huge stack assembly, consisting of a steel framework surrounding four emissions stacks, was placed in position atop Hanford's Low-Activity Waste Vitrification Facility in October. The 130-foot high assembly, weighing about 125 tons, was done with two mobile cranes. The Low-Activity Waste Vitrification Facility is part of the Hanford's Waste Treatment Plant. When operational, the facility will treat and immoblize a large portion of Hanford's underground, liquid low-activity waste.